Maura Murphy (77) British woman born into a poverty-stricken Irish family who left school with no qualifications, contracted an ill-advised marriage, and moved to the slums of Birmingham where she raised nine children. Murphy's life changed after she discovered she had lung cancer, when she walked out on her husband of 50 years and embarked on her extraordinary autobiography Don't Wake Me at Doyles (2004), which became a surprise best-seller. Murphy died the day before the Daily Mirror published an interview with her under the headline "Maura's Life Literally Begins at 72," on October 5, 2005.

Richard Stone Reeves (85) one of the world's greatest painters of horses whose career began in the late '40s. Reeves painted more than 1,000 thoroughbreds including Affirmed, Secretariat, and Seattle Slew. His list of patrons included Paul Mellon, Allaire duPont, and Harry Guggenheim. Reeves's work, mostly in private hands, is part of the permanent collection of the National Museum of Racing & Hall of Fame in Sartoga Springs, New York. He died in Greenport, New York on October 7, 2005.

Henry Y. Hwang (77) businessman who emigrated from Shanghai and founded he Far East National Bank in Los Angeles, the first federally chartered Chinese-American bank, which became one of the biggest Asian-American banks in the region with assets of more than $500 million when it was sold. Hwang was the father of M. Butterfly playwright David Henry Hwang. He died of colon cancer in San Marino, California on October 8, 2005.

Richard W. Malone (48) stock market adviser to AM radio listeners in the Washington, DC area and a senior vice president at Ferris, Baker Watts Inc., who led a team of 18 financial advisers who invested $1.25 billion in equity, balanced, and fixed-income accounts as head of the Malone Financial Group. Malone was the radio stock market guru on The Wise Investor Show. He died after he slipped and fell at his home in Falls Church, Virginia on October 2, 2005.

Ron Olitsky (64) president of Underground Service Alert of Southern California, which helps construction workers and others to avoid hitting water pipes, electrical lines, and cables when they dig into the ground. Olitsky died of a brain aneurysm in Fullerton, California on October 3, 2005.

William J. Ruane (79) leading Wall Street investment manager and philanthropist, whose firm's Sequoia Fund, a mutual fund that has outperformed the Standard & Poor's 500 index since its inception in 1970, is so successful that it has been closed to new business since '82. Ruane died of lung cancer in New York City on October 4, 2005.

John van Hengel (83) credited as the founder of food banking with the start of Phoenix-based St. Mary's Food Bank in 1967. Van Hengel was successful in gleaning food from the food industry and distributing it to agencies for people in need. He started Second Harvest, which grew into one of the nation's largest and most respected nonprofit organizations. He worked for many years as a consultant to cities starting food banks. He suffered several strokes and died of Parkinson's disease, in Phoenix, Arizona on October 5, 2005.

Dr. Michael Ward (80) physician and mountaineer who unearthed maps and aerial photographs crucial to the first successful ascent of Mt. Everest in 1953. Ward accompanied Sir Edmund Hillary as the expedition's doctor. He was controversial among some mountaineers for giving science as much credit for the feat as the men who reached the top of the world, because doctors had figured out how to cope with the physiological effects of high altitude that had doomed earlier climbing attempts. He died in Lurgashall, England on October 7, 2005.

Clayton Wilson (86) oboist and founding member of the Santa Barbara Symphony. Wilson was also a longtime professor of music at the University of California/Santa Barbara. He died of a stroke in Goleta Valley, California on October 2, 2005.

Ronnie Barker (76) for more than 20 years one of the leading figures of British TV comedy. Barker was much loved and admired for his appearances on the long-running series The Two Ronnies with Ronnie Corbett, as prison inmate Fletcher; in the series Porridge; and as Arkwright, the bumbling, stuttering, sex-obsessed shopkeeper in Open All Hours. Barker died of heart disease in England on October 3, 2005.

Emilinha Borba (82) singer considered the queen of Brazil's golden age of radio. Borba got her big break in 1938 when her mother appealed to Brazilian singing star Carmen Miranda, who arranged an audition with a casino owner. Borba died of a heart attack in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on October 3, 2005.

Ray Bumatai (52) Hawaiian entertainer, a comedian, actor, and recording artist who made appearances on several TV shows produced in Hawaii, including Magnum PI, Jake & the Fat Man, and Hawaii 5-O. Bumatai also did voice work in Walt Disney's Lilo & Stitch and recorded and released an album of original music entitled All the Things I Said. He died of brain cancer in Honolulu, Hawaii on October 6, 2005.

Hamilton Camp (70) half of the folk-music duo Gibson & Camp whose 1961 album, Live at the Gate of Horn, became one of the era's must-have records. Camp became known for his 12-string guitar stylings and adventurous harmonies that influenced the folk music scene. He later found steady work as a character actor and was the voice of several Smurfs on the long-running animated Saturday morning TV series. He appeared in more than 100 films and made-for-TV movies and on dozens of TV shows, including WKRP in Cincinnati, M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and most recently Desperate Housewives. He died after a fall outside his Hancock Park, California home on October 2, 2005.

Devery Freeman (92) writer who helped to establish the Screen Writers Guild, reorganized it into the Writers Guild of America in 1954, and negotiated with studios for the guild's right to determine film writing credits. Freeman worked on such early TV shows as Playhouse 90 and wrote and produced several series, including The Loretta Young Show. In later years, he wrote a novel about military school, Father Sky, that was turned into the film Taps (1981) starring Timothy Hutton, George C. Scott, Sean Penn, and Tom Cruise. Freeman died in Los Angeles, California on October 7, 2005.

Louis Alan Garfinkle (77) screenwriter who earned an Oscar nomination for The Deer Hunter (1978) and was among the four people who devised the original story for the film. Garfinkle cocreated Collaborator, an interactive scriptwriting program that was one of the first computer software programs for scriptwriters. He died of Parkinson's disease in Studio City, California on October 3, 2005.

Vakhtang Jordania (62) prominent Soviet conductor whose postdefection career in the US never quite matched his early renown. Jordania was chosen by conductor Yevgeny Mravinsky to be his assistant at the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra for three years, and followed that up with other prestigious assignments as guest conductor with nearly all major orchestras in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe. He toured as a guest artist from England to South Korea before taking appointments as music director of the Chattanooga Symphony & Opera (1985-92) and the Spokane Symphony (1991-93). Jordania died in Broadway, Virginia on October 4, 2005.

Jim Kennedy (65) former producer and writer for TV stations KCBS and KCET in Los Angeles, where he started the news program Life & Times. Kennedy died of liver cancer brought on by hepatitis C, in Palo Alto, California on October 5, 2005.

Harold Leventhal (86) folk music promoter who worked with Woody Guthrie and introduced Bob Dylan in his first major concert hall show. Leventhal won a Grammy in 1989 as a producer of the album Folkways: A Vision Shared—A Tribute to Woody Guthrie & Leadbelly, and produced several movies about the folk music world, including Alice's Restaurant (1969) and a 1976 biopic of Guthrie called Bound for Glory (which also won an Oscar for music and cinematography). He died in New York City on October 4, 2005.

Sara Levi-Tanai (94) choreographer and founding director of Inbal Dance Theater, whose pioneering mix of Yemenite Jewish traditions and contemporary dance long made it Israel's premier dance company. Levi-Tanai died in Ramat Gan, Israel on October 3, 2005.

Monica Lozada-Rivadineira (26) New York woman whose 4-year old daughter made news when she was found wandering the streets barefoot and alone in September. Lozada-Rivadineira's boyfriend stands accused of strangling her and dumping her body in a pile of trash before abandoning her daughter in the middle of the night. The mother's body was discovered in a Pennsylvania landfill on October 6, 2005.

George J. Mason (74) founder of the California Courier, the first English language Armenian newspaper in the state. Mason was also senior managing director of the Los Angeles office of Bear, Stearns & Co. He died of cancer in Las Vegas, Nevada on October 5, 2005.

Tracey Miller (51) radio personality who cohosted pioneering morning radio shows featuring all-female teams, including two shows in Los Angeles that were, at the time, the only morning-drive radio shows in a major market featuring women in the lead roles. Miller spent 11 years covering consumer news and reviewing movies at KFI-AM (640) and worked as a news reporter in Albuquerque and Seattle. She died of brain cancer in Los Angles, California on October 7, 2005.

Charles Rocket (56) actor whose unscripted profanity on Saturday Night Live in 1981 cost him his network TV job. Rocket's movie credits included Earth Girls Are Easy, Dumb & Dumber, and Dances with Wolves. He played a role on the '80s TV series Max Headroom and provided voices for several cartoon characters. He committed suicide by cutting his own throat and was found dead behind his home in Canterbury, Connecticut on October 7, 2005.

Nipsey Russell (80) comic actor best known for playing the Tin Man alongside Diana Ross and Michael Jackson in the movie musical The Wiz (1978). Russell enjoyed a decades-long career on stage, TV, and film that began with a TV role as Officer Anderson in the 1961 series Car 54, Where Are You? He became a fixture on popular TV game and talk shows, where he was welcomed for his poetic delivery that won him the moniker "The Poet Laureate of Television." He died of cancer in New York City on October 2, 2005.

August Wilson (60) renowned playwright and one of the most influential visionaries in the theater. Wilson was best known for a series of plays depicting life for blacks called the Pittsburgh Cycle, an unprecedented series of 10 plays, one for each decade of the 20th century, that culminated with Radio Golf (which opened earlier this year). Wilson won Pulitzer Prizes for his plays Fences and The Piano Lesson and won a Tony for the latter. He died of liver cancer in Seattle, Washington on October 2, 2005.

Tobin Armstrong (82) rancher with strong political ties who for 48 years was director of the Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, a leading cattle industry lobbying and law enforcement group. Armstrong was a White House guest of former President George H. W. Bush and a former hunting buddy of Vice President Dick Cheney. He died in Houston, Texas on October 7, 2005.

Amy White Fixler (80) pioneering attorney who worked for early legislation to improve collection of child support payments. Fixler wrote the 1974 state law that first authorized deduction of court-ordered payments from a father's paycheck. She was also president of the Encino Business & Professional Women's Club, director of the San Fernando Valley Soroptimists, and an active speaker for women's and children's rights groups. She died in Encino, California on October 5, 2005.

Louise Gore (80) Maryland Republican state lawmaker who became the party's nominee for governor in 1974. Gore won the GOP nomination for governor, ultimately losing to incumbent Democrat Gov. Marvin Mandel. She was a second cousin to Al Gore Sr. She died of cancer in Annapolis, Maryland on October 6, 2005.

Stan Hathaway (81) former governor who spearheaded the creation of a trust fund to harness Wyoming's mineral wealth and established the state's first environmental restraints on mineral development. Hathaway died in Cheyenne, Wyoming on October 4, 2005.

Bert T. Kobayashi Sr. (89) former Hawaii state Supreme Court associate justice noted for his ability to mediate labor disputes. Kobayashi mediated several dock strikes that threatened to cripple the state's economy, and continued to work as a mediator after his retirement. He died in Honolulu, Hawaii on October 6, 2005.

Edward B. Marks (94) advocate who spent more than 50 years helping refugees around the world to find new homes. Marks worked for the War Relocation Authority during World War II, which cared for Japanese-Americans on the West Coast forced into internment camps. He later worked for the United Nations International Refugee Organization, aiding displaced people in Europe. He was the first executive director of the US Committee for Refugees and worked for UNICEF, among other organizations. He died of heart disease and renal failure in Mill Valley, California on October 8, 2005.

Stefan Presser (52) lawyer who for 21 years was legal director of the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. Presser worked for 10 years to broker a 2001 settlement that led to systemic changes in the care provided to abused and neglected children in Philadelphia. He was a professor at Temple University and founding codirector of its Public Interest Scholars Program. He died of brain cancer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on October 7, 2005.

Andrew O. E. Raven (46) one of the most committed and influential contributors to modern land policy in Scotland. Raven had the deepest and widest knowledge of land reform of any Scottish landowner and in a series of appointments steered what might have been a set of rather traditional Scottish institutions toward a more radical future. He was appointed a member of the Forestry Commission in 2000 and became chairman of its National Committee for Scotland in '03. He died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma on October 2, 2005.

David Zenoff (89) former Nevada Supreme Court Justice who performed the 1967 marriage ceremony between Elvis and Priscilla Presley. Zenoff served more than 10 years as a Supreme Court justice and became the state's first senior justice. He was also a boxing judge for the Nevada State Athletic Commission at nine world championship bouts. He died of a respiratory ailment in Encinitas, California on October 3, 2005.

Taylor Marie Behl (17) Virginia Commonwealth University freshman who went missing from her dormitory on September 6. Behl's car was found two weeks after her disappearance with its license plates replaced with stolen Ohio plates. Her badly decomposed body was found in a shallow grave 75 miles east of Richmond, Virginia on October 5, 2005. Update: Benjamin Fawley (38), an amateur photographer, was indicted for Behl's murder on January 17, 2006. The indictment accused him of killing Behl "willfully, deliberately, and with premeditation" while attempting to abduct and rape her. On August 9, 2006, he was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Lady Abbess Benedict Duss (94) cofounder of the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut, the first cloistered Benedictine abbey for women in the US. Duss saw the abbey (the subject of a 1949 movie, Come to the Stable, starring Loretta Young) through several unusually public periods from the time it was established as a monastery in 1948, and endured a Vatican investigation and allegations that she and the abbey's spiritual advisor imposed a cultlike discipline on the nuns and some lay people associated with the abbey—allegations that led to her resignation. She died at the abbey in Bethlehem, Connecticut on October 2, 2005.

Ronald R. Howard (32) former food service worker who gunned down a Texas state trooper in 1992, a slaying his trial attorneys had argued was prompted by antipolice rap music. Howard was executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas on October 6, 2005.

Msgr. Paul Martin (75) longtime pastor at the Mission Basilica San Juan Capistrano, so devoted to the sick he would sleep in a chair waiting for late-night calls. Martin led the parish for more than 40 years before retiring in 2003. He died of colon cancer in San Juan Capistrano, California on October 2, 2005.

Alvaro Domecq y Diez (88) aristocratic Spanish bullfighter, horseman, pilot, and scion of a distinguished sherry family who embodied the Andalusian virtues of the caballero, or gentleman, by dedicating his life to the lance and the rosary. Domecq y Diez fought in the Spanish Civil War as a pilot and later became one of the finest horsemen of his generation. He participated in more than 50 bullfights but retired after witnessing the goring and death of his close friend Manolete, the most famous bullfighter of his generation. Domecq y Diez also suffered through the deaths of 17 of his children. He died on October 5, 2005.

Dick Hill (77) one of the most successful coaches in southern California high school football history, a football head coach in Orange County for 29 years. Hill's career began at Downey in 1956, when he coached that team to a championship game that ended in a 13-13 tie against Anaheim at the Coliseum before 41,383 people, still a record for the largest crowd in the state for a playoff game. He died of cancer in Fullerton, California on October 3, 2005.

Pat Kelly (61) former All-Star outfielder who played for five teams during a 15-year major league career, including the Chicago White Sox and the Baltimore Orioles. Kelly was selected to play in the 1973 All-Star game and played in the '79 World Series. He later became a minister for Lifeline Ministries in Maryland after his retirement. He died of a heart attack in Baltimore, Maryland on October 2, 2005.