Marion Cajori (56) independent filmmaker who chronicled the creative process in documentaries about artists. In 1998, PBS-TV broadcast Cajori's Emmy-nominated special, Chuck Close: A Portrait in Progress. Cajori died of cancer in New York City on August 8, 2006.

Buffie Johnson (94) painter whose work spanned much of the 20th century and ranged from Surrealism to Abstract Expressionism to larger-than-life hyperrealism. Johnson, who began showing her paintings in the ’30s, continued to exhibit until the end of her life. She died of Alzheimer’s disease in New York City on August 11, 2006.

Mazisi Kunene (76) South African poet who lived for nearly 20 years in Los Angeles, California, where he was a professor at the University of California (UCLA). Kunene returned to South Africa in 1993 when apartheid was on the way out. He died in Durban, South Africa on August 11, 2006.

Bob Thaves (81) cartoonist whose nationally syndicated comic strip "Frank & Ernest" amused newspaper readers for decades with its quirky observations. The long-running (first syndicated in 1972) strip stars punsters Frank and Ernest, who travel the universe and through time as they comment on anything and everything. Thaves died of respiratory failure in Torrance, California on August 8, 2006.

Victor Del Corral (84) Cuban emigre whose Manhattan restaurant, Victor's Cafe, was a celebrated gathering place during its heyday in the '60s and '70s. Featuring robust Cuban food at affordable prices, the restaurant was routinely packed with an assortment of New Yorkers. Del Corral died in Miami, Florida on August 11, 2006.

Yasuo Takei (76) Japan's richest man, who rose to fame as founder of the consumer credit company Takefuji Corporation, but retired in shame after a wiretapping scandal. Takei died of liver failure in Tokyo on August 10, 2006.

James A. van Allen (91) US physicist, a leader in space exploration who discovered the radiation belts surrounding the Earth that now bear his name. In the late '50s, instruments Van Allen designed and placed aboard the first US satellite, Explorer I, discovered the bands of intense radiation that surround the earth, now known as the Van Allen Belts. He died of heart failure in Iowa City, Iowa on August 9, 2006.

John L. Weinberg (81) senior investment banker who ran Goldman Sachs during some of the most transformative years on Wall Street (1976-90) and was part of a family dynasty at the firm since 1907. Weinberg died of complications from a fall two weeks earlier in Greenwich, Connecticut on August 7, 2006.

John L. Bull (92) largely self-taught ornithologist and educator whose definitive guidebooks to New York state birds led a generation of bird-watchers into the woods. Bull led popular birding tours of Long Island and Central Park in the '60s and '70s. He died in Queens, New York on August 11, 2006.

Alice Ilchman (71) economist and political scientist, the 8th and longest-serving (1981-98) president of Sarah Lawrence College. Ilchman died of pancreatic cancer in Bronxville, New York on August 11, 2006.

Fred Sudermann (73) former college executive assistant who helped to found the National Institute for Aviation Research at Wichita State University. Sudermann died of pancreatic cancer in Wichita, Kansas on August 9, 2006.

Irving Sidney ("Duke") Jordan (84) pianist whose work with saxophonist Charlie Parker endures in the jazz canon. Jordan was regarded as one of the great early bebop pianists. Living in self-imposed exile from the US since 1978, he died in Valby, Denmark, a suburb of Copenhagen, on August 8, 2006.

Donald K. Baldwin (88) former editor of the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times in the '60s who built the newspaper's circulation and prestige and later was first president of the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists. Baldwin died of complications from heart surgery, in St. Petersburg, Florida on August 7, 2006.

Miguel ("Anga") Diaz (45) Cuban percussionist, an acclaimed conga master who perfected a dazzling five-drum technique. Diaz was also a composer and arranger. He died of a heart attack in San Sadurni d'Anoia, near Barcelona, Spain on August 9, 2005.

Mike Douglas (81) entertainer whose affable personality and singing talent won him 21 years as a TV talk-show host (1961-82), featuring his big-band singing style, other musicians, comedians, sports figures, and political personalities, including seven former, sitting, or future US Presidents. Douglas died in West Palm Beach, Florida on his 81st birthday, August 11, 2006.

Melissa Hayden (83) ballet dancer who spent most of her career with the New York City Ballet in the '40s, appearing in over 60 ballets, mainly works by George Balanchine. Hayden later taught at the North Carolina School of Arts. She died of pancreatic cancer in Winston-Salem, North Carolina on August 9, 2006.

Lois January (93) redheaded film actress of the '30s and '40s. In The Wizard of Oz (1939), playing an Emerald City manicurist, January sang to Dorothy (Judy Garland) that "we can make a dimpled smile out of a frown." She died of Alzheimer's disease in Los Angeles, California on August 7, 2006.

Stella Moray (83) British actress whom some regarded as one of the unsung heroines of British musical theater. Moray also appeared on TV in dramas, sitcoms, and soaps. Her hallmark was an immense likeability, honed by an infectious sense of humor. She died in England on August 6, 2006

Moacir Santos (80) influential arranger and composer of Brazilian popular music whose 60 years of music were rediscovered and celebrated in Brazil and the US only in the last five years. Santos died of complications from a stroke he had suffered some years earlier, in Pasadena, California on August 6, 2006.

Ann Mason Stockton (89) Los Angeles-based harpist who played for Frank Sinatra in one of his first films (Las Vegas Nights [1941]) and later performed in more than 800 movies, including Steven Spielberg's Schindler’s List (1993). Stockton died of heart failure in West Los Angeles, California on August 11, 2006.

Victoria Gray Adams (73) civil rights activist who helped to open Freedom Schools that pushed for civil rights in Mississippi in 1964 and became a founding member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Adams died of cancer in Petersburg, Virginia on August 12, 2006.

Gustavo Arcos Bergnes (79) Cuban who fought alongside Fidel Castro in the Cuban revolution but was later imprisoned as a dissident. Arcos deeply opposed the government of Fulgencio Batista and joined Castro's ill-fated 1953 assault on a military barracks that launched the Cuban revolution. He died in Havana, Cuba on August 8, 2006.

Stephen Dresch (62) former Michigan state legislator, Michigan Tech University dean, and forensic analyst. Dresch made headlines in 2005 after tipping off the FBI when a mobster imprisoned in Colorado told him that explosives were hidden in the former home of Terry Nichols, convicted in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Dresch died of lung cancer in Hancock, Michigan on August 6, 2006,

Joel W. Harnett (80) businessman and civic watchdog who finished last in the Democrat primary for mayor of New York City in 1977. Harnett helped to force the release of a federal investigative report on questionable financial manipulations by city leaders. He died of prostate cancer in Phoenix, Arizona on August 11, 2006.

Dorothy Healey (91) onetime labor organizer, civil rights activist, and Marxist radio commentator, a former chairwoman of the southern California district of the Communist Party USA from the late '40s through the '60s. Healey died of pneumonia in Washington, DC on August 6, 2006.

Leonard H. Marks (90) communications lawyer who helped former President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife acquire the TV stations that built their fortune and later was director of the US Information Agency in the Johnson administration. Marks died of Parkinson’s disease in Washington, DC on August 11, 2006.

Sayed Abdullo Nuri (59) Tajikistan Islamic leader who led his political party through a civil war against the former Soviet republic's secular government in the '90s. Nuri died of cancer in the Tajikistan capital of Dushanbe on August 9, 2006.

George Chapman (85) said to be one of Britain's most remarkable healers. For 60 years Chapman treated patients from all walks of life, including celebrities and members of the medical profession, by going into a trance. He died on August 9, 2006.

David Dawson (57) Montana man convicted of the kidnapping and strangulation of David and Monica Rodstein and their 11-year-old son Andrew in his Billings, Montana motel room in 1986. Dawson was executed by lethal injection in Deer Lodge, Montana on August 11, 2006.

Darrell Ferguson (28) Ohio man convicted of the 2001 killing of his 61-year-old disabled stepuncle Thomas King and the beating deaths of his former neighbors Arlie (68) and Mae Fugate (69), from whom he stole two TV sets and a radio to buy crack cocaine. Ferguson was executed by lethal injection in Lucasville, Ohio on August 8, 2006.

Charles ("Bud") Hayes (55) sometimes controversial advocate who spent 10 years working on downtown Los Angeles's skid row as executive director of the nonprofit SRO Housing Corporation. Hayes was also a consultant for many substance abuse prevention and treatment programs in California. He died from injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident in Los Angeles, California on August 12, 2006.

Camille Loiseau (114) oldest living person in France and the 5th oldest person in the world. Loiseau was ranked 5th in the world in the 2007 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records. She died in Paris, France on August 12, 2006.

Robert McCullough (64) civil rights leader who led a group of black students in a landmark civil rights protest in 1961, choosing to serve jail time on a chain gang for the crime of sitting at a whites-only lunch counter. McCullough died in Rock Hill, South Carolina on August 7, 2006.

Jim Pomeroy (53) first US motorcycle racer to win a World Championship Motocross event, at age 20 in 1973. Pomeroy was killed when his 1979 Jeep CJ5 went off the road near Tampico, Washington, about 20 miles west of his hometown of Yakima, hit a telephone pole wire, and landed on its side, on August 6, 2006.