George Bernau (60) lawyer who turned his what-if musings into popular novels, beginning with Promises to Keep (1988), an imagined post-Dallas life for President John F. Kennedy, which won positive reviews and was optioned for a TV miniseries, and Candle in the Wind (1990), which explored what might have happened if Marilyn Monroe had survived her 1962 drug overdose. Bernau died of complications from a stroke he suffered in October, in Washington state on December 12, 2005.

Henry George Fischer (82) former curator of Egyptology at the Metropolitan Museum of Art who helped the Temple of Dendur to find a new life in New York as a focal point of the museum. Fischer also published several collections of poetry including Timely Rhymes (1993) and Small Ponderings (2002). He died in Newtown, Pennsylvania on December 11, 2005.

Margaret Hodges (94) award-winning author of books for young readers including the most recent illustrated books of familiar stories Merlin & the Making of the King (2004), The Wee Christmas Cabin (2005), and Moses (2005). Hodges' other books still in print include The Wave (1964) and St. George & the Dragon, which won a Caldecott Medal in 1985. Hodges died of Parkinson's disease in Verona, Pennsylvania on December 13, 2005.

Donald A. Mackay (91) artist and illustrator best known for a series of drawings showing the evolution of Manhattan in the book The Building of Manhattan (1987), which detailed in text and drawings how Manhattan was built from the ground up (pictured above, Mackay's drawing of the famous Flatiron Building under construction in 1901). Mackay also illustrated numerous children's books and contributed to several publications. He died of heart disease in Frederick, Maryland on December 17, 2005.

Julian Marias (91) Spanish writer and philosopher, a longtime member of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language who wrote more than 60 books. Marias was imprisoned and nearly executed during the Spanish Civil War, in which he had backed the losing Republican side. He won the Prince of Asturias prize for communication and humanities in 1996. He died in Madrid, Spain on December 15, 2005.

Lee Hai Peng (91) veteran artist whose works can be found in the National Art Gallery and the offices of large companies. Lee was noted for his sculptures and portraits of well-known personalities, including Malaysia's first prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman, former Indonesian president Sukarno, and Queen Elizabeth II. He died in China on December 12, 2005.

Rodney Whitaker (74) writer best known by one of his many pen names, Trevanian, and the only writer of airport paperbacks to be compared to Zola, Ian Fleming, Poe, and Chaucer. Whitaker's book, The Eiger Sanction (1972), was made into a film starring Clint Eastwood. Whitaker's 10 known published books sold more than 5 million copies and were translated into at least 14 languages. He died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in England on December 14, 2005.

Sidney B. Factor (89) son of Hollywood makeup man Max Factor who helped to build Max Factor & Co., the cosmetics firm his father founded, into an internationally known name. Sidney Factor died in Beverly Hills, California on December 15, 2005.

James Ingo Freed (75) architect and partner of I. M. Pei, whose own buildings ranged from the provocatively somber US Holocaust Memorial Museum to the sprawling crystal palace of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York. Freed most recently had been working on the US Air Force Memorial in Arlington, Virginia. He died in New York City on December 16, 2005.

Dr. Heinrich Gross (90) German physician who worked at the infamous Am Spiegelgrund clinic in Vienna, where the Nazis killed and conducted cruel experiments on thousands of children (although Gross insisted he was not present at the hospital at the time children were killed). Gross became a prominent neurologist after the war and won the prestigious Austrian Honorary Cross for Science & Art in 1975 but was stripped of the medal in 2003. He died in Austria on December 15, 2005.

John L. Magee (91) chemist who participated in the Manhattan Project that developed the atom bomb during World War II, one of the most celebrated and controversial projects in the history of science. Magee was among project members who opposed using the bomb against Japan. He died in Moraga, California on December 16, 2005.

Joseph L. Owades (86) biochemist and microbrewing pioneer credited with inventing light beer and creating the formula for several leading brands including Samuel Adams Boston Lager, Tuborg, New Amsterdam Beer, Pete's Wicked Ale, and Foggy Bottom Beer, among others. Owades died of heart failure in Sonoma, California on December 16, 2005.

Jack Anderson (83) Pulitzer Prize-winning muckraking columnist who struck fear into the hearts of corrupt or secretive politicians (even inspiring Nixon operatives to plot his murder). Anderson's column broke a string of big scandals, from Eisenhower assistant Sherman Adams taking a vicuna coat and other gifts from a wealthy industrialist in 1958 to the Reagan administration's secret arms-for-hostages deal with Iran in '86. He won a 1972 Pulitzer Prize for reporting that the Nixon administration secretly tilted toward Pakistan in its war with India. He gave up his syndicated "Washington Merry-Go-Round" column in July 2004, after Parkinson's disease left him too ill to continue. He died in Bethesda, Maryland on December 17, 2005.

Arthur J. Dommen (71) foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times in the '60s and early '70s, who joined the newspaper in 1965 as Tokyo bureau chief and was bureau chief in New Delhi before covering the war in Vietnam (1968-71). In 2001, Dommen also wrote a 1,168-page political history of Indochina in the French and American eras. He died of cancer in Washington, DC on December 15, 2005.

T. Edward Hambleton (94) founder of off-Broadway's Phoenix Theater, which showcased some of the theater's finest talent, including Jessica Tandy, Hume Cronyn, Helen Hayes, Uta Hagen, and John Houseman. Hambleton won a Tony for lifetime achievement in 2000. He became ill only the day before he died. An esophageal tumor was found on Dec. 16, but on Dec.15 he had been drinking Champagne and eating oysters. He died in Baltimore, Maryland on December 17, 2005.

Stephen Hamblett (71) newspaper executive who led the Providence (RI) Journal for nearly 12 years as publisher and chief executive. Hamblett helmed the newspaper when it won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for uncovering corruption and patronage in the state court system. He died from a blood clot on the brain, in Providence, Rhode Island on December 13, 2005.

John Langstaff (84) concert singer who started the musical and theatrical celebration of the winter solstice known as the Christmas Revels. Langstaff first staged A Christmas Masque of Traditional Revels at New York's Town Hall in 1957 and later was asked by NBC to direct a similar production as a Hallmark Hall of Fame Special in '66. It later became an annual event at Harvard University, and Langstaff presided over its expansion into a national phenomenon. He died of a stroke in Basel, Switzerland on December 13, 2005.

Robert F. ("Bobby") Newmyer (49) film producer and cofounder of Outlaw Productions whose credits include Training Day, sex, lies & videotape, and the Santa Clause movies. Newmyer had more than two dozen movie credits and was known for his passion for making both big studio pictures and independent films. He was currently working on a film called The Lost Boys of the Sudan, developed from a 60 Minutes segment about a group of young boys trying to flee the violence in the African country (Newmyer was so moved by their stories that he housed some of the boys in his home over the last several years). He died of a heart attack while working out in a gym in Toronto, Canada on December 12, 2005.

Stevenson J. Palfi (53) filmmaker whose documentary Piano Players Rarely Ever Play Together (1982) chronicled the lives of three New Orleans jazzmen. Palfi was currently in the final stages of production on a feature-length program about musician Allen Toussaint entitled Songwriter, Unknown, which he had been working on for more than 15 years. Palfi had been severely depressed after Hurricane Katrina damaged most of his property and possessions. He committed suicide by shooting himself in New Orleans, Louisiana on December 14, 2005.

Giuseppe Patroni Griffi (84) Italian director whose career spanned decades and included feature films and stage productions. Patroni Griffi won an Emmy in 1993 with fellow director Brian Large for the TV movie Tosca in the Settings & at the Times of Tosca. His other highlights included the film Identikit (1974; The Driver's Seat), starring Elizabeth Taylor and based on Muriel Spark's novel. Patroni Griffi also directed countless stage productions and had been artistic director at the Eliseo, one of Rome's main theaters. He suffered from a sudden "grave illness" and died in Rome, Italy on December 15, 2005

John Spencer (58) popular actor who played Leo McGarry, a tough and dedicated chief of staff to the President (Martin Sheen) on TV's The West Wing, a role for which he won an Emmy in 2002. Earlier Spencer had starred on LA Law as attorney Tommy Mullaney and appeared on The Patty Duke Show, besides countless other stage, film, and TV appearances. He died of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California on December 16, 2005.

Enzo Stuarti (86) Italian tenor who appeared in more than a dozen Broadway musicals, including Around the World in 80 Days, South Pacific, and Kiss Me Kate. Stuarti was also known for appearing in commercials for Ragu spaghetti sauce, delivering the famous line "That's a-nice," about the sauce. He died of heart failure in Midland, Texas on December 16, 2005.

Gibran Tueni (48) charismatic journalist whose tough anti-Syrian commentaries in the newspaper he ran, An-Nahar, Lebanon's leading daily, were widely acclaimed for courage and tenacity in his uncompromising stand against Damascus. Tueni was a tireless advocate for Lebanese freedom and sovereignty and was prominent among speakers who whipped up crowds during massive anti-Syrian protests in downtown Beirut after the Feb. 14 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. He most recently accused Syria of crimes against humanity after mass graves were discovered in Lebanon. He was killed in a car bombing just a day after returning to Lebanon from France, where he took periodic refuge because he feared assassination in his homeland, on December 12, 2005.

Lord Anthony Barber (85) British chancellor of the Exchequer in the Conservative government of 1970-74, known for the '72 budget that produced a Barber Boom of inflation and rising demands from public sector workers. Barber was a prisoner of war in World War II and was involved in several escape attempts, before earning a law degree and becoming chairman of the Standard Chartered banking group. He died in Suffolk, England on December 16, 2005.

Hernan Briones (92) Chilean industrialist known in Britain for his prominent support for Gen. Augusto Pinochet during his house arrest in England for human rights violations (1998-2000). Briones helped to create, then presided over the Pinochet Foundation, which billed itself as a charity organization aimed at boosting the military's image and providing scholarships for the families of service personnel (the foundation actually became largely a fund-raising group for Pinochet's legal expenses in England). He died in Santiago, Chile on December 14, 2005.

Walter Haut (83) former US Air Force lieutenant and press officer who originally released a statement from the Roswell Army Air Field stating that the Army had captured a flying disk, putting the small town of Roswell (NM) on the map and laying the groundwork for its enduring legacy as ground zero for those who believe in unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and alien beings. Haut later founded the International UFO Museum in Roswell, which boosted the town's economy. He died in Roswell, New Mexico on December 15, 2005.

Richard Hemstad (72) former Washington state senator, gubernatorial adviser, and 12-year member of the Washington Utilities & Transportation Commission. A liberal Republican, Hemstad died of cancer in Olympia, Washington on December 13, 2005.

Clinton Jencks (87) union organizer who led New Mexico mineworkers in a McCarthy-era strike chronicled in the classic film Salt of the Earth (1953). Jencks was an organizer for the Amalgamated Bayard District Union of Mine, Mill & Smelter Workers Local 890, a progressive union, in a 15-month strike begun in 1950 against Empire Zinc Co. He died in San Diego, California on December 14, 2005.

Lt. Col. Daniel A. McGovern (96) US Air Force officer who as a combat photographer filmed the aftermath of the atomic bomb detonations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan in 1945. McGovern shot footage used in William Wyler's wartime documentary The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress (1944) and in numerous other films and TV shows. He wrote, directed, and produced classified films on nuclear weapons testing and development at Lookout Mountain, a secret Cold War-era government film lab and studio in the Hollywood Hills. He died of cancer in Laguna Woods, California on December 14, 2005.

William Proxmire (90) former US senator (D-Wis.) and a political maverick who became Congress’s leading scourge of big spending and government waste. Proxmire's monthly Golden Fleece awards, which he began in 1975 to point out what he thought were frivolous expenditures of taxpayers' money, became a Washington tradition. He died of Alzheimer's disease in Sykesville, Maryland on December 15, 2005.

Rev. Jon de Cortina Garaigorta (71) Spanish Jesuit priest who dedicated the last 10 years to searching for the missing children of El Salvador's brutal civil war through the Association for Missing Children, which he founded. De Cortina used basic detective work, then later DNA testing, to solve the disappearances of about 310 children. He died of a stroke in Guatemala City, Guatemala on December 12, 2005.

Eliot Freidson (82) sociologist at New York University who studied the inner workings of society's professions, particularly the way doctors are organized to practice medicine. Freidson wrote the influential book Profession of Medicine: A Study of the Sociology of Applied Knowledge (1970) and was a former president of the Eastern Sociological Society and an editor of the Journal of Health & Social Behavior. He died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in San Francisco, California on December 14, 2005.

Swami Jagdishwaranand (71) prominent Hindu spiritual leader in New York responsible for establishing several temples there, including the Geeta Temple, one of the major centers of Hindu religious life in the metropolitan area and one of the oldest Hindu temples in the country. Swami Jagdishwaranand died at the Geeta Temple in Elmhurst, Queens, New York on December 15, 2005.

John B. Nixon Sr. (77) convicted Mississippi hitman who became the oldest person in the nation put to death since capital punishment was reinstated nearly 30 years earlier. Nixon continued to proclaim his innocence and on the day of his execution claimed that it was actually his son and another man who had committed the 1985 murder of a Mississippi woman for which he had been condemned to death. He was executed by lethal injection in Parchman, Mississippi on December 14, 2005.

Richard Sandbrook (59) British advocate of sustainable development and one of the founding members of the environmental group Friends of the Earth. Sandbrook also worked on a United Nations project that helped large firms to put capital and expertise to work for the world's poor. His advice was widely sought by governments, aid agencies, and high-profile individuals such as the Prince of Wales and Bob Geldof. Sandbrook died in London, England on December 11, 2005.

Hermie the Turtle (2-3) 20-gram turtle with a defective beak that didn't allow him to close his mouth completely and made it difficult to eat. Hermie recently underwent an experimental orthodontic procedure to try to keep him alive. He died of kidney failure at the State Zoo in Watertown, New York on December 15, 2005.

Patricia Anne van Tighem (47) author of The Bear's Embrace, a best-selling account of a bear attack that left her permanently disfigured and in chronic pain. Van Tighem endured multiple surgeries and posttraumatic stress after she and her husband were attacked by a grizzly bear while returning from an overnight hike in Waterton Lakes National Park (just across the border from Glacier National Park in Montana) in 1983. Van Tighem committed suicide at a hotel in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada on December 14, 2005.

Stanley ("Tookie") Williams (51) cofounder with Raymond Washington of the widely known and notorious Crips street gang, convicted and sentenced to death in 1979 after he killed 7-11 store clerk Albert Owens and Tawainese family members Tsai-Shai Yang, Yen-I Yang, and Yee Chen Li. Williams later became an activist while on death row and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and the Nobel Prize for literature. He was the subject of Redemption, an award-winning film starring Jamie Foxx. Williams was executed by lethal injection in San Quentin, California on December 13, 2005.

Michael Bastianelli (29) former De La Salle High School quarterback and USC receiver who played on a Rose Bowl team his freshman year. Bastianelli started the last seven games during his sophomore season and was the team's third-leading receiver. He was invited to the San Francisco '49ers training camp in 1999, but skipped a practice and was later arrested for driving with a suspended license, which led to his release by the '49ers. He was killed when the car he was driving crashed, also killing his passenger, former NFL player Darrell Russell, in Los Angeles, California on December 15, 2005.

Walt Cudzik (73) former NFL and AFL center, an original member of the Boston Patriots who played in all 56 games (1960-63) when the Patriots won their first division title and played in their first AFL championship game. Cudzik later earned a law degree and practiced as an attorney. He died in Gulf Shores, Alabama on December 11, 2005.

John Ferguson (86) broadcaster of Louisiana State University sports for more than 40 years. Ferguson began broadcasting the school's games in 1946 and retired in '87. He also did play-by-play for the New Orleans Saints for a time, and other sports events. He died in Zachary, Louisiana on December 17, 2005.

Jacques Fouroux (58) former France international skipper and coach, nicknamed "Le Petit Caporal," captain of the national team (1975-80) who won three Five Nations titles as a player and four as a coach. Fouroux coached the national team (1981-90) and led them to the final of the inaugural World Cup against New Zealand in Auckland in 1987. He won 28 caps (1972-77) and had been working more recently as coach of the Italian side Aquila. He died of a heart attack in Auch, France on December 17, 2005.

Stan Leonard (90) member of the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame who won three times on the PGA Tour. Leonard had three top-10 finishes in 12 Masters appearances and won the Canadian PGA Championship an unprecedented eight times (1940-61). He won 40 professional tournaments across Canada and became a Hall of Famer in 1972. He died of heart failure in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on December 15, 2005.

Ak(ton) Miller (84) Danish-born pioneer drag racer who helped to found the National Hot Rod Association and was a racing driver and car builder for 60 years. Miller (born Moeller) twice was president of the Southern California Timing Association and won a place in the Dry Lakes Hall of Fame. He died in Pico Rivera, California on December 15, 2005.

Akira Ogi (70) Japanese baseball manager who discovered the talent of Seattle Mariners star Ichiro Suzuki in the '90s. Ogi became manager of the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes in 1988 and trained Hideo Nomo, who later joined the Los Angeles Dodgers and claimed National League Rookie of the Year honors in '95. Ogi was manager of the Kobe Orix BlueWave from 1994, where he pushed Suzuki to stardom. He died of respiratory failure in Fukuoka, Japan on December 15, 2005.

Darrell Russell (29) former Oakland Raiders football player whose prodigious physical talents were undercut by substance abuse and off-the-field problems. Russell was a University of Southern California defensive tackle and the second player picked in the 1997 NFL draft. He made the Pro Bowl in 1998 and '99 but was suspended indefinitely after many drug violations in 2004 (the NFL recently ruled him eligible to play again). He was killed in a violent high-speed wreck that also killed fellow ex-USC player Mike Bastianelli (the driver), in Los Angeles, California on December 15, 2005.