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George Atkinson -(69) Entrepreneur who helped to popularize home viewing of Hollywood films by opening Video Station, the first video rental store in 1979, who started his business by buying 50 movies recently made available on video, including “The French Connection,” “The Sound of Music,” and “Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid’ and advertising their availability for rental in a 1-in. ad in the LA Times, died of emphysema in Los Angeles, California on March 3, 2005.
Ross Benson - (56) Award-winning British journalist with the Daily Mail, who enjoyed an acclaimed Fleet Street career and spent many years as a columnist for the Daily Express, died of a heart attack in London, England on Mar. 8, 2005.
Joanne Brough (77) Executive producer of such landmark TV prime-time soap operas as “Dallas” and “Falcon Crest,” who later created similar programs in Singapore and Indonesia, including the first English language TV drama produced in Asia, and who was one of the first women to become a network development executive, who also helped develop such series as “Kojak,” “Hawaii Five-O,” “All in the Family,” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” died of esophageal cancer in Joplin, Missouri on Feb. 24, 2005.
Nicole DeHuff - (31) Up-and-coming actress who memorably took a volleyball in the face from Ben Stiller in the hit movie “Meet the Parents,” and who also appeared on “CSI: Miami,” “Without a Trace,” and “The Practice,” died of pneumonia in Los Angeles, California on February 16, 2005.
Shirley Fleming - (75) Writer, editor, and critic in the world of classical music for almost 50 years, who was an editor for publications like “Musical America,” “High Fidelity,” “Hi-Fi Music at Home” and the “American Record Guide,” and “who was a music critic for the New York Post, died of complications from a stroke in Augusta, Georgia on March 10, 2005.
Richard Lupino - (75) Actor and cousin of Ida Lupino who appeared on Broadway and television, including The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The 20th Century Fox Hour, and The New Phil Silvers Show and in several films, including “Rhapsody” (1954), “Midnight Lace” (1960), and “Avengers of the Reef” (1973), died of non-Hodgkins lymphoma in New York City on February 9, 2005.
Brigitte Mira - (94) German actress who gained fame late in life through her participation in films by director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who was in her 60’s when he cast her in the movie "Ali: Fear Eats the Soul," then was later cast in the films by Fassbinder including "Fox and His Friends", "Berlin Alexanderplatz" and "Lili Marleen,” died of undisclosed causes in Berlin on March 8, 2005.
William Dillard Powell - (58) Convicted murderer who, in 1991, killed a convenience store employee named Mary Gladden while attempting to rob her for drug money while high on cocaine, who claimed the killing wasn’t premeditated but rather he got panicked when she fought back so he hit her over the head with a tire iron, who had been in the news recently as his case was appealed on the basis that it did not fit the qualifications for the death penalty in 40 other states, but whose appeals ultimately failed, was administered a lethal injection and died in Raleigh, North Carolina on March 11, 2005 .
Nell Caroline Roberts - (106) Adventure-seeker and one of Tennessee’s older residents who later in her life and following her retirement as an administrator of the local YMCA, took several sailing trips that took her across the globe, who never married so that she could enjoy the adventures life had to offer but always enjoyed the company of men, including Thomas Wolfe, baseball journalist Red Smith, and Frederick Franklin, a primary dancer with the Ballet Russe, and who passed her time in her final years playing bridge and eventually becoming one of the higher ranking players, died in Morristown, Tennessee on March 6, 2005.
Bart A. Ross (57) Electrician and cancer survivor who had spent the final years of his life in an escalating spiral of anger in trying to blame doctors and lawyers for what he deemed to be ineffective care during his treatment for cancer, who is believed to have killed a federal judge’s mother and husband (Michael Lefkow, 64, and Donna Humphrey, 89) in retribution for having his case thrown out of federal court and who was linked to the killings by a DNA match to a cigarette butt found at the scene of the murders, killed himself after a routine traffic stop in Allis, Wisconsin on March 9, 2005.
Rudy - (49) The oldest lowland gorilla in captivity, who was captured in Africa as a baby and who spent 17 years in his final home at the Erie, Pennsylvania zoo after residing at zoos in St. Louis, Los Angeles and Cleveland, who was very old for a gorilla-some can begin having health problems as early as their 20’s or 30’s, who enjoyed drinking nutritional supplements and watching National Geographic specials, died of natural causes at the zoo on March 8.
Jeanette Schmid -(80) Professional whistler who was better known by the stage name Baroness Lips von Lipstrill, who was born a man but underwent a sex change in 1964, who discovered her place as a professional whistler while visiting Tehran and performing for the Shah of Iran-she had been told her outfit was too skimpy for a dancer so she returned with a new outfit and whistled a polka instead, who performed with Frank Sinatra, Marlene Dietrich, and Edith Piaf, died of influenza in a Vienna apartment on March 2005.
George Scott - (75) Founding member of the gospel group the Blind Boys of Alabama, a Grammy award-winning group that he founded with band leader Clarence Fountain and Jimmy Carter, whom he met at the Alabama Institute for Negro Blind in 1936 and the band was formed three years later, whose group enjoyed new-found fame later in their careers when they won the Grammy for best traditional soul gospel album for "There Will Be a Light,” and which won a forth Grammy in February, died of diabetes and heart disease in Durham, North Carolina on March 9, 2005.
Donald Ray Wallace - (47) Convicted murderer who shot a family of four (Pat & Theresa Gilligan, and their two children, Greg and Lisa ) execution style in 1980 during a robbery of their home, who in his nearly 25 years on death row read 4,000 books in Greek, Latin, Arabic and Hebrew and who studied any religion he could, was executed by lethal injection in a Michigan City, Indiana prison on March 10, 2005.
C. Rollyn Dalquist - (72) Journalist whose documentary on prison inmates called “The Road To Nowhere,” won an Emmy in 1967, who was working full-time at KMGH-TV, a Denver television station, as a photographer and later ran the station’s documentary division, died of heart failure in Denver on March 7.
Alice Thomas Ellis - (72) Award-winning British author of such wry novels about domestic life as “The Sin Eater” and “The Clothes in the Wardrobe,” who drew on her personal tragedy, including the deaths of two of her seven children, and on her strong Roman Catholic faith for her work, writing 21 novels and a traditionalist column in the Catholic Herald, which she used to attack bishops she felt were watering down the faith, died of lung cancer in London Mar. 8, 2005.
Vance Gerry- (75) Veteran Disney artist who contributed preliminary ideas to many of the studio’s features, including “101 Dalmatians,” “The Jungle Book,” “Beauty & the Beast,” “Tarzan,” and “Fantasia/2000” and was regarded as one of the most creative and talented story artists in the animation industry, died of cancer in Pasadena, California on March 5, 2005.
Alan Hunter - (82) British writer who created Chief Inspector George Gently, the stolid, pipe-smoking star of nearly 50 detective novels, including “Gently Instrumental,” “Gently Where the Birds Are,” and “Gently Floating," died in Norfolk, England on February 26, 2005.
John Laub -(57) NYC-based landscape painter who painted scenic views in places like Fire Island, Woodstock, and Martha’s Vineyard, who became an AIDS activist after learning he had HIV in 1989 and was a supervisor of the AIDS hot line of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, died of leukemia in New York City on March 3, 2005.
William Murray - (78) Mystery novel author whose books explored the world of horse racing, including “Tip on a Dead Crab,”’ Dead Heat,” “When the Fat Man Sings,” “The King of the Nightcap,” “The Getaway Blues,” and “A Fine Italian Hand,” whose novel “Sweet Ride” was made into a film and another, “Malibu,” was made into a television miniseries, died of a heart attack in New York City on March 9, 2005.
Sara Stein - (69) Gardener who advocated the use of native plants in gardening, who was frustrated with the toll traditional suburban landscaping had taken on her neighborhood and undertook the project of turning her lawn into a more traditional ecosystem, representing areas of swamp, rock barren, prairie and other native environments which eventually attracted birds, small mammals and other native wildlife, whose book, "Noah's Garden: Restoring the Ecology of Our Own Backyards" detailed her efforts and encouraged others to do the same and who traveled to promote those efforts, died of lung cancer in Vinalhaven, Maine on February 25, 2005.
Dr. Victor Kassel - (84) Specialist in the field of geriatrics who lobbied for medicare reform and who, during the 1960’s, was a delegate to the White House Conference on Aging, who was critical of the treatments available for women who made up the majority of his practice, and who had a platform with his radio show in the 1970’s and a paper he wrote which tongue-in-cheek suggested that since women live longer than men, elderly women should be allowed to have multiple husbands for companionship, died in Salt Lake City, Utah on March 9, 2005.
Dennis Machida - (58) Executive director of the California Tahoe Conservancy, who had been the director since the organization’s creation in 1984-an organization created to protect land acquisition and preservation in the Tahoe area, who had, up to his death, had spearheaded the acquisition of 7,400 acres of land that was in need of protection, and the funding of around 600 environmental projects for the area, died of a heart attack while giving a speech at a conference in Montana on March 4, 2005.
Richard P. Godwin- Reagan administration official who was brought in to the Department of Defense as the first undersecretary of procurement, who also worked more than two decades at the engineering and construction company, Bechtel Corporation, where he became present of Bechtel Group Inc, one of the corporations key operating companies, died of complications from progressive supranuclear palsy on March 3, 2005.
Bildad Kaggia - (82) Outspoken hero of Kenyan independence, a friend and later a rival of the country’s founding president, Jomo Kenyatta, who was among seven pro-independence activists whose arrests by British colonial authorities in 1952 set off the violent Mau Mau uprising, died in Nairobi, Kenya on March 7, 2005.
Aslan Maskhadov - (53) Former president of the Chechen Republic and military leader who had been the military leader of rebel forces who took part in the defeat of Russian forces-a battle that lasted between 1994 and 1996, after which he was named the country’s leader, who unfortunately was unable to keep the country from falling into unrest and anarchy, who went into hiding in 1999 in order to avoid the violence of returning Russian forces and who was eventually blamed to be responsible for the hostage situation at a Russian school in which over 350 hostages were murdered, and who had survived two previous assassination attempts, was killed by Russian security services near Grozny (the exact details of his death are unclear) sometime before March 8, 2005.
Alvin E. Toffel - (69) Campaign manager for Congressman Paul ''Pete'' McCloskey's 1972 anti-war run for the Republican presidential nomination, who served as a White House consultant during the first term of Richard Nixon but who became frustrated with some of Nixon’s policies regarding the war, when he left to work with a nominee who would oppose the Nixon nomination for president, and who was the former president of the Norman Simon Museum in Pasendena, California, died of a stroke while vacationing in Las Vegas, Nevada on March 6, 2005.
George Anderson Hopper - (49) Convicted Texas hit man who authorities said was paid more than $1,500 in the 1980s to murder nurse Rozanne Gailiunas, who posed as a flower deliveryman to get into the victim’s house before killing her, was executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas; also killed by lethal injection was
William Smith (49) Ohio man convicted of fatally raping and stabbing a woman in 1987 who claimed a brain abnormality may have affected his behavior; both were executed on March 8, 2005.
Michael Lefkow - (64); Donna Humphrey - (89) Husband and mother of Chicago federal judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow, who were slain execution-style in the family basement by Bart A. Ross, an unemployed electrician who blamed Judge Lefkow, among others, for the defeat of his multiple lawsuits against surgeons who disfigured him, on February 28, 2005.
Glenn Davis - (80) Winner of the 1946 Heisman Trophy who helped to lead Army to three national championships, who was nicknamed “Mr. Outside” and voted male athlete of the year by the Associated Press, and who also played briefly with the LA Rams, died of prostate cancer in La Quinta, California on March 9, 2005.
Chris LeDoux - (56) Former world champion bareback rider who parlayed songs about the rodeo life into a successful country music career, who was one of Garth Brooks’ greatest influences and teamed with Brooks for the Grammy-nominated, top 10 hit “Whatcha Gonna Do with a Cowboy?” and who released 36 albums with career sales of more than 5 million albums, died of liver cancer in Cheyenne, Wyoming on March 9, 2005.
William Gregory Craig - (90) Chancellor of several college systems, including the California Community College system from 1977 to 1980 and of the Vermont State Colleges from 1973 to 1976, who was one of the first five people to be employed by the Peace Corp and directed the training for the program in the early 1960’s, in 1966 became a deputy at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, who went on to be involved with many colleges including Stanford University as the dean of students and associate professor of education, Kansas State University and Washington State University where he served as dean of students, died in San Diego, California on March 7, 2005.
