Elizabeth Hardwick (91) Kentucky-born author and critic whose prose set the tone for the New York Review of Books, the literary magazine she cofounded in 1963 with her then-husband, poet Robert Lowell. Hardwick tolerated 23 years of Lowell's infidelities and manic depression before divorcing him in 1972. She had been hospitalized with a minor infection and died in her sleep in New York City on December 2, 2007.

James Kemsley (59) Australian cartoonist who drew the "Ginger Meggs" comic strip for more than 20 years. Kemsley was the fourth cartoonist to draw the comic strip about the precocious red-haired boy named Ginger. He took over production of the comic in 1984 and was widely credited with converting the Sunday strip to a daily format and expanding readership to more than 120 newspapers worldwide, including the US, Brazil, India, and Thailand, among others. He died of motor neuron disease in Bowral, Australia on December 3, 2007.

Norval Morrisseau (75?) one of Canada's most celebrated painters and an important influence in the development of North American indigenous art. An Ojibwa (also called Anishnaabe or Chippewa) shaman also known as "Copper Thunderbird," Morrisseau was one of the first native painters to adopt modernist styles to convey traditional aboriginal imagery and to have a crossover career in contemporary art. He died of Parkinson's disease in Toronto, Canada on December 4, 2007.

Liam O'Gallagher (90) sound artist, painter, and teacher whose San Francisco studio was an early gathering place for Beat writers and poets in the '50s. O'Gallagher's loft in San Francisco's Chinatown, where he moved in 1954, became a hangout for writers like poets Michael McClure, Allen Ginsberg, and Anne Waldman. He was an art teacher for many years at the Happy Valley School, now known as the Besant Hill School, in Ojai, Calif., founded by Aldous Huxley, Annie Besant, Jiddu Krishnamurti, and others who sought a more open model for education. O'Gallagher died in Santa Barbara, California on December 4, 2007.

Herman Rose (98) New York painter particularly admired for his cityscapes. Rose started out painting in an Expressionist style. At a time when big-scale abstraction was on the rise, Rose painted small light-filled views of skies and rooftops in an Impressionist style. He died of cancer in New York City on December 4, 2007.

Thomas P. Whitney (90) former diplomat and writer on Russian affairs best known for translating the work of dissident writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn into English. Whitney died in New York City on December 2, 2007.

Robert O. Anderson (90) legendary oil wildcatter and philanthropist who founded Atlantic Richfield Oil Co. and supported major cultural organizations from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to Harper's magazine. Anderson created Arco through a 1966 merger of the Atlantic and Richfield oil companies and was its chairman for 20 years. He led Arco's move from New York to Los Angeles in 1972, when it opened the landmark Arco Plaza at 5th and Flower streets. The company's twin 52-story towers raised the downtown skyline and launched a building boom that transformed the area. Anderson suffered a stroke recently. He died in Roswell, New Mexico on December 2, 2007.

William H. Dyer Jr. (89) former chairman and chief executive of Lucky Stores (1971-74) during a period of robust growth for the food retailer. Dyer was instrumental in implementing Lucky's concept of "everyday low prices." He died in Alamo, California on December 7, 2007.

Richard Ewing (61) Texas A&M University vice president who resigned last summer as head of the school's troubled federally funded biodefense research program. The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention had been investigating how and why the university failed to report a lab worker's infection with Brucella and three other workers' exposure to Q-fever. The university faces suspension of funding or other penalties from the US Health & Human Services Department if the findings are critical. Ewing was directly responsible for all lab work on campus, regardless of whether it involved federally protected agents. It was unclear whether he played a role in the failure to report the lab accidents. He died of a heart attack in College Station, Texas on December 5, 2007.

Murray Klein (84) retailer who helped to transform Zabar's from a typical Jewish delicatessen on the Upper West Side of Manhattan into a culinary and cultural landmark. Klein was a part owner for more than 30 years before retiring in 1994 and influenced the store's decisions about merchandise, pricing, and publicity. He died of lung cancer in New York City on December 6, 2007.

Alois Kracher Jr. (48) visionary winemaker whose sweet wines and energetic personality were instrumental in restoring the Austrian wine industry's international reputation after a 1985 scandal. That year, unscrupulous merchants were caught adding diethylene glycol, a component of antifreeze, to their wines in an effort to give them more body and sweetness. The scandal resulted in Austria's withdrawing from the world market, revamping its wine laws, and tightening controls over the wine industry. Kracher died of pancreatic cancer in Illmitz, Austria on December 4, 2007.

Dr. Peter LaMotte (78) founder in 1975 of Hilton Head (SC) Hospital and a former team physician for the New York Mets. LaMotte was chief of trauma surgery and orthopedic surgery at Roosevelt Hospital in New York and the Mets' physician before moving to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina in 1972. He died of complications from a Nov. 15 fall outside his Bluffton, Georgia home, in Savannah, Georgia on December 2, 2007.

Harold J. Leavitt (85) former Stanford U professor and pioneering author whose books helped to shape the way organizational behavior is taught in business schools and its theories are implemented in the workplace. Leavitt died of pulmonary fibrosis in Pasadena, California on December 8, 2007.

David Maybury-Lewis (78) Harvard anthropologist whose studies of modern incursions on native tribes in Amazonia inspired him, as host of PBS-TV's 10-hour series Millennium: Tribal Wisdom & the Modern World (1972), to work for the preservation of other indigenous cultures. Maybury-Lewis died of Parkinson's disease in Cambridge, Massachusetts on December 2, 2007.

Larry Wachtel (77) stock market analyst who gave financial advice to WINS-AM radio listeners for more than 30 years (1972-2005). Listeners recognized the native New Yorker by his heavy Brooklyn accent and his trademark signoff of "Gather those rosebuds." Wachtel was a consultant and guest commentator until his death from a heart ailment in Valhalla, New York on December 2, 2007.

H. Wiley Hitchcock (84) leading scholar of American music and founding director of the Institute for Studies in American Music at Brooklyn College. Hitchcock was probably best known as coeditor (and chief content editor), with British musicologist Stanley Sadie, of the New Grove Dictionary of American Music (1986). He died of prostate cancer in New York City on December 5, 2007.

Jennifer Alexander (35) ballet dancer who performed with the renowned American Ballet Theatre in New York for the last 13 years. Alexander had appeared in the Broadway productions of The Red Shoes (1993) and as Louise in the 1994 revival of Carousel. She was one of five people killed in a chain-reaction 10-car crash on an icy highway in East Rutherford, New Jersey on December 2, 2007.

Ralph Binder (58) Denver TV cameraman who often worked for ABC News. Binder had worked for ABC News in Washington and later moved to Denver, where he frequently did free-lance work for the network. Binder and sound man Dan Johnson were on their way to Omaha to cover the aftermath of a mass shooting at a shopping mall when their vehicle swerved to avoid another car that had gone out of control. Binder was killed in the collision on Interstate 80 near Grand Island, Nebraska on December 6, 2007. Johnson was treated at a hospital and released.

Donald Burton (73) British actor and husband of US film star Carroll Baker. For many years Burton was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He was also busy on TV, appearing on such shows as Upstairs, Downstairs, The Duchess of Duke Street, Fraud Squad, and Public Eye. He died of emphysema in Cathedral City, California on December 8, 2007.

Chad ("Pimp C") Butler (33) Texas rapper who helped to define Southern hip-hop with his group, Underground Kingz (UGK). Butler formed UGK with partner Bun B while the pair were still in high school in Port Arthur, Texas, and their delivery and lyrics influenced a generation of current superstars. Butler, who served three years (2002-05) in prison on gun charges, was found dead in the upscale Mondrian Hotel in Los Angeles, California on December 4, 2007. Update: Pimp C died of an accidental overdose of a combination of drugs he had named in his lyrics—codeine and promethazine, the Los Angeles County coroner’s office ruled February 4, 2008. The drugs are key ingredients in "syrup," a narcotic of choice in Southern rap circles, most famously celebrated by Three 6 Mafia and Pimp C's group Underground Kingz on the 2000 single "Sippin' on Some Syrup." Pimp C had sleep apnea, which causes sufferers to stop breathing for up to 30 seconds at a time while sleeping. That illness, combined with large amounts of prescription-strength cough syrup, was what killed the rapper.

Sam Chinnery (17) bassist and singer who had sung backing vocals for the two-city glam rock band Carla's Chin Job, and later played in another music project called Thee Cats Pajamas. Chinnery was found dead on his college campus, an apparent suicide, in Edinburgh, Scotland on December 2, 2007.

Ion Fiscuteanu (70) Romanian stage and film actor known to international audiences for his role in The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, which won the Prix un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005. Fiscuteanu died of colon cancer in Bucharest, Romania on December 8, 1007.

Katy French (24) Irish model who worked for the Assets Modeling Agency, where she represented Sony and Suzuki and made numerous TV appearances, including on RTE's Celebrities Go Wild, The Podge & Rodge Show, and more recently on Tubridy Tonight. French collapsed on December 2 and died unexpectedly four days later at a hospital in Navan, Meath, Ireland on December 6, 2007.

Arnold Hardy (85) amateur photographer who won a Pulitzer Prize for his gripping photo of a woman falling from a burning hotel—the Dec. 7, 1946 fire at Atlanta's Winecoff Hotel, a disaster that killed 119 people, more than any other hotel fire in US history. Hardy was a 24-year-old Georgia Tech graduate student and amateur photographer when he took the photo, using his SpeedGraphic and his last flashbulb to capture the image in the darkness. He died of complications after hip surgery, just two days before the 61st anniversary of the notorious Winecoff fire, in Atlanta, Georgia on December 5, 2007.

Andrew Imbrie (86) prolific composer and influential teacher best known for his 1976 opera, Angle of Repose, and for chamber, vocal, and symphonic scores. Imbrie joined the faculty at the University of California at Berkeley in 1947 and continued to teach there until '91. His works include five string quartets, three symphonies, and numerous chamber and choral works. He died in Berkeley, California on December 5, 2007.

Jillian Kesner-Graver (58) actress who played Fonzie's girlfriend Lorraine on Happy Days and with her late husband, director-cinematographer Gary Graver (d. 2006), worked to preserve the legacy of Hollywood legend Orson Welles. Kesner-Graver also was a production coordinator for many of Graver's movies. She had leukemia but died of a staph infection in Irvine, California on December 5, 2007.

Roger M. King (63) CBS and King World Productions executive who helped to bring stars including Oprah Winfrey, Alex Trebek, and "Dr. Phil" McGraw to TV. Under King's guidance, King World became the industry's leading distributor of first-run syndicated programming, bringing such shows to TV as The Oprah Winfrey Show, Dr. Phil, Jeopardy!, and Wheel of Fortune. King died one day after suffering a stroke, in Boca Raton, Florida on December 8, 2007.

Karlheinz Stockhausen (79) one of the most important and controversial postwar composers who helped to shape a new understanding of sound through electronic compositions. Stockhausen won fame through his avant-garde works in the '60s and '70s and later composed works for huge theaters and other projects. He died in Kuerten, Germany on December 5, 2007.

Carlos ("Patato") Valdés (81) conga drummer whose melodic beat made him a giant of Latin jazz in Cuba, then for more than 50 years in America. Valdés's signature song was "El Baile del Pingüino" ("The Penguin Dance"), which he illustrated with side-to-side, penguinlike movement in perfect time. After moving from Havana to New York in the '50s, he performed and recorded with some of the top names in jazz and Latin music. While flying home from concerts in California—including one at the San Francisco Jazz Festival on Nov. 9—he had trouble breathing, and the plane made an emergency landing for him in Cleveland, where he had been hospitalized since then. He died of respiratory failure in Cleveland, Ohio on December 4, 2007.

Dan Iosif (57) lawmaker for Romania's Social Democracy Party, one of the key figures in the 1989 Romanian revolution who stormed Communist party headquarters and helped to organize early street protests against dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Iosif died of lung cancer in Novosibirsk, Russia, where he had been undergoing treatment for the past month, on December 4, 2007.

Mel Cheren (74) record executive who helped to start the Paradise Garage, a focal point of the downtown Manhattan gay disco scene in the '70s and '80s. With his record label, West End, Cheren helped to create the 12-inch vinyl single, which gained its greatest popularity in discos because it permitted longer playing time. He died of AIDS-related pneumonia in New York City on December 7, 2007.

Dudley Gray (85) former South Bay attorney who in 1980 paid $3,600 for the 1885 Pottawattamie County (Iowa) courthouse and $2.5 million to move it and resurrect it as an office building in Torrance, California. Gray, who survived two bouts of cancer, died in Palm Springs, California on December 7, 2007.

Robert A. Hawkins (19) Nebraska man who fatally shot eight people and seriously wounded five others at a busy department store on the third-balcony in Omaha's Westroads shopping mall. The attack sent hundreds of Christmas shoppers running and screaming through the mall to barricade themselves in dressing rooms, in the second mass shooting at a mall this year. Hawkins was found dead on the third floor of a self-inflicted gunshot wound (suicide) in Omaha, Nebraska on December 5, 2007.

Violet Marie Lyman (104) one of the last survivors of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the nation's most devastating quake. Lyman became somewhat of a celebrity when she joined seven other survivors at a centennial celebration of the event, filmed by the Dateline TV staff and broadcast on the Today show. She died in Folsom, California on December 4, 2007.

Omaha Mall Shooting Victims top from left: Diane Trent (53), Angie Schuster (36), John McDonald (65), Beverly Flynn (47), Maggie Webb (24); bottom from left, Gary Joy (56), Gary Scharf (48), and Jan Jorgensen (67). All were shot and killed by gunman Robert A. Hawkins (19), who then shot himself to death at the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Nebraska on December 5, 2007.

Stanton Wheeler (77) Yale Law School professor who studied white-collar crime, prison systems, and the way judges think. Wheeler was a sociologist, not a lawyer, and was credited with helping to create the field of sociology of law. He died of complications of a cardiovascular condition, in New Haven, Connecticut on December 7, 2007.

Jake Gaudaur (87) former Canadian football commissioner (1968-84) who raised the profile of the Canadian Football League. Gaudaur spent more than 40 years in the CFL as a player, executive, and commissioner. Under his direction, the league enjoyed rapid growth. He negotiated a landmark TV deal for the league before he retired. He died of cancer in Burlington, Ontario, Canada on December 4, 2007.

David ("Chip") Reese (56) card star who won one of the biggest cash games in the world, a $1.8 million HORSE event in 2005 that combined five poker disciplines, and three World Series of Poker championships. Reese was on his way to Stanford business school in the early '70s when he stopped by a Las Vegas poker room, won big, and never left. After suffering symptoms of pneumonia, he died in his sleep and was found by his son at his home in Las Vegas, Nevada on December 4, 2007.