Ardeshir Mohassess (70) Iranian artist who moved to the US in 1977 and pushed the art of the cartoon to almost Surrealist satire of his native land in work that was teeming with slain and mutilated shahs, mullahs, and ordinary citizens, with sardonic captions and references to ancient art forms. Mohassess died of a heart attack in New York City on October 9, 2008.

Iba Ndiaye (80) Senaglese artist, one of the most important painters of 20th-century African modernism. Ndiaye died of heart failure in Paris, France, where he had lived for many years, on October 5, 2008.

Jim Benson (63) entrepreneur, founder and board member of the aerospace firm SpaceDev, which helped to build the rocket engine that launched the world's first privately built manned spaceship into suborbital space. Benson founded the company in 1997 after 30 years working in the computer industry. He died in his sleep from a glioblastoma multiforme brain tumor, diagnosed in 2007, in Poway, California on October 10, 2008.

Dr. Ernest Beutler (80) Scripps Research Institute physician and researcher, a leading US expert on diseases of the blood and iron metabolism whose studies opened an important new window onto the treatment of leukemia. Beutler died of lymphoma in San Diego, California on October 5, 2008.

David Lett (69) pioneering Oregon winemaker considered the father of the state's pinot noir industry and a major force in winning worldwide respect for its wines. Founder of Eyrie Vineyards in Dundee, Lett was the first to plant the pinot noir grape in Oregon's Willamette Valley, more than 40 years earlier, and first to plant pinot gris in the US. He died of heart failure in Dundee, Oregon on October 9, 2008.

Dr. George Palade (95) Romanian-born physician and scientist who won a Nobel Prize in 1974 for his work in isolating and identifying cell structure. Palade also helped to create one of the leading cell biology programs in the US at UC San Diego. He died in San Diego, California on October 7, 2008.

Robert W. Plaster (78) Missouri business leader once accused of plotting to bomb a competitor's truck in an effort to dominate the propane business. Plaster made his fortune by turning Empire Gas into one of the nation's largest propane distributors. In the '70s the US Justice Department accused Empire of antitrust violations by using a variety of tactics to acquire a monopoly of the propane market. Plaster, Empire, and three other men were also accused of using dynamite to destroy a competitor's tank truck. Plaster was defended by famous lawyer F. Lee Bailey and was acquitted after a three-week trial. He died south of Lebanon, Missouri on October 11, 2008.

Carmen Rocha (77) longtime waitress at El Cholo Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles, credited with introducing the city to nachos, the now-ubiquitous appetizer of tortilla chips, cheese, and jalapeńo peppers. Rocha died of cancer in Los Angeles, California on October 9, 2008.

Kim Chan (94) actor who became a familiar face in a variety of Asian roles, notably as Jerry Lewis's butler in the Martin Scorsese film The King of Comedy (1982), a character who did furious battle with an obsessed fan played by Robert De Niro. From bit parts as a houseboy or a Japanese soldier, Chan worked his way up to playing dignified old men with access to the wisdom of the East, as he did in Kung Fu: The Legend Continues (1993-97), a spinoff of the '70s TV series Kung Fu. He died in Brooklyn, New York on October 5, 2008.

William Claxton (80) photographer who worked with such entertainers as Bob Dylan and Frank Sinatra and helped to establish the Recording Academy, which runs the Grammy Awards. Claxton was best known for his portraits of jazz artists such as Chet Baker and later photographed Dylan and other musicians such as Joni Mitchell and Tom Jones. His images graced the covers of numerous albums and appeared in such magazines as Life, Paris Match, and Vogue. He died of congestive heart failure one day before his 81st birthday, in Los Angeles, California on October 11, 2008.

Lauren Dombrowski (51) comedy writer and coexecutive producer of the award-winning Fox hit variety show MADtv. Dombrowski wrote and produced over 150 episodes (2006-07). She moved to Los Angeles and rose through the ranks of TV after a brief stint with Boston's standup comedy scenes in the early '90s. She died of cancer in Los Angeles, California on October 8, 2008.

Alton Ellis (70) Jamaican reggae music pioneer, known as "the Godfather of rocksteady," who enjoyed a career revival in recent years after a string of hits in the '60s. Ellis had been hospitalized for several weeks after he collapsed during a performance in London in August. He died of lymphatic cancer in London, England on October 10, 2008.

Gidget Gein (39) (born Bradley Stewart) onetime Marilyn Manson bassist whose stage name was derived from the '60s surfer girl played by Sally Field and noted serial killer Ed Gein (inspiration for the Hitchcock thriller Psycho [1960]). Gidget Gein was found dead of an apparent drug overdose at his home in Burbank, California on October 9, 2008.

Ernst-Paul Hasselbach (42) Dutch TV producer best known for Expediton Robinson, the Dutch equivalent of the American TV show Survivor. Hasselbach and his assistant, Belgian-born Leentje Custers (26), were filming a new show in Norway when their car went off the road and plunged into a river, killing both, on October 11, 2008.

Neal Hefti (85) former big band trumpeter, arranger, and composer of themes for the movie The Odd Couple and for the Batman TV series; the latter became a Top-40 hit and won a Grammy in 1966 for best instrumental theme. Hefti died 18 days before his 86th birthday, in Los Angeles, California on October 11, 2008.

Eileen Herlie (90) Scottish-born stage and TV actress who appeared on the ABC-TV soap opera All My Children for more than 30 years as former carny turned boutique owner Myrtle Fargate. Before that, Herlie was a regular on Broadway, appearing in several plays, including as Queen Gertrude in a 1964 production of Hamlet, and two musicals. She died of pneumonia in New York City on October 8, 2008.

Nadia Nerina (80) South African-born principal ballerina for the Royal Ballet (1952-62), known for her technical virtuosity, lightness afoot, seemingly effortless jumps, and joyful charm onstage, especially in comedic roles. Nerina died 15 days before her 81st birthday, in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, on the French Mediterranean coast west of Nice, on October 6, 2008.

Austin D. Niles (20) lead singer, guitarist, and steel drummer for the New York-based all-genre musical bands Tin Pan Alley and The Bruce Peterson Blues Project. Niles won several vocal and music awards in the NYSSMA Music Competition earlier in the year. He was killed in a car accident in Busti, New York on October 11, 2008.

Alex Nixon (??) actor whose one and only film credit was one of half a dozen supporting character roles as the patron writing a novel at the bar in director Richard Linklater's avant-garde surrealistic indie drama Waking Life (2001). Nixon was also active in Austin's improvisational theater. He committed suicide in Austin, Texas on October 9, 2008.

Ken Ogata (71) versatile and prolific leading man in Japanese films and TV. Ogata first made his name in the West playing a brutal serial killer in Shohei Imamura's 1979 film Vengeance Is Mine. His best-known performance in an English-language film was as a calligrapher in The Pillow Book (1996), directed by Peter Greenaway. Ogata died of liver cancer in Tokyo, Japan on October 5, 2008.

Marion Scott (86) noted dancer, choreographer, and teacher who returned to the stage at age 62 and in her 80s mounted concerts that displayed the talents of aging artists like herself. Scott ran her own dance company in New York for 20 years before moving west in 1969 to become resident choreographer of UCLA's dance company and organizing Spirit Dances, a collaborative dance group whose members ranged in age from their 40s to their 80s. She died in Los Angeles, California on October 5, 2008.

Lloyd Thaxton (81) Emmy-winning producer and host of a popular Los Angeles TV dance show that went national in the '60s. Thaxton was known for his comic lip-syncing to rock 'n' roll songs on KCOP's Lloyd Thaxton's Record Shop, which launched in 1959 and became a hit. The show was eventually renamed The Lloyd Thaxton Show and featured teenagers dancing to records and guest appearances by top recording artists such as Sonny & Cher and the Righteous Brothers. Thaxton later worked as an Emmy-winning producer with the consumer advocacy program Fight Back! With David Horowitz. He died of multiple myeloma in Studio City, California on October 5, 2008.

Harry W. Albright Jr. (83) superintendent of the New York State Banking Department in the early '70s who championed the needs of consumers. A protégé of Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller and his close aide, in 1973 Albright warned all state-chartered lending institutions to stop discriminating against women in granting loans. He died in Valhalla, New York on October 5, 2008.

Jörg Haider (58) popular Austrian politician whose far-right rhetoric at times sounded sympathetic to the Nazis and contemptuous of Jews. Haider was governor of the province of Carinthia and leader of the Alliance for the Future of Austria. He died after suffering severe head and chest injuries when his Volkswagen Phaeton veered off the road and overturned several times after he successfully passed another car, outside Klagenfurt in southern Austria on October 11, 2008.

Richard Stephen Heyser (81) U-2 spy plane pilot who took the first photos of ballistic missile launch sites during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. President John F. Kennedy announced to the world that the photos proved the Soviet Union was building secret sites for nuclear-tipped missiles 90 miles south of Key West, Fla. Heyser died in Port St. Joe, Florida on October 6, 2008.

Bonny Jacobs (78) retired homemaker and mother-in-law of Democrat vice presidential nominee Sen. Joe Biden. Jacobs was the mother of Biden's second wife, Jill Jacobs Biden. She died in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania on October 5, 2008.

Allan H. Spear (71) former Minnesota state senator, one of the nation's first openly gay legislators. A member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party—Minnesota's version of the Democrat Party—Spear was first elected in 1972 and was state Senate president (1993-2000) until he retired. He announced he was gay in a 1974 interview with the Minneapolis Star, becoming one of only two openly gay legislators in the country, then started working to amend Minnesota's Human Rights Act to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. The legislation passed in 1993. Spear died of complications after heart surgery in Minneapolis, Minnesota on October 11, 2008.

Daniel de Gale (21) British transplant patient whose courageous battle with acute lymphoblastic leukemia inspired a major push to promote awareness of the disease in the United Kingdom's black community. In 1996, De Gale's mother and stepfather launched the African-Caribbean Leukaemia Trust to support and assist black or mixed-parentage people suffering from leukemia and other blood-related cancers. After six years of chemotherapy, De Gale became one of the first black patients in the UK to receive a bone marrow transplant from an unrelated matching donor. He died in London, England on October 8, 2008.

DeWayne McKinney (47) man who became a successful businessman in Hawaii after serving almost 20 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit. McKinney was convicted of the 1980 Orange County, Calif. killing of Burger King manager Walter Horace Bell Jr. after four employees identified him in court as the gunman. He was cleared of the crime in 2000 after another man admitted driving the getaway car and identified another man as the shooter. McKinney used a $1 million settlement from the Orange Police Department and $1.7 million settlement from the state of California to start an ATM business in Hawaii. He wasn't wearing a helmet when his moped hit a bus stop sign and utility pole and was killed when he was thrown onto the street, in Honolulu, Hawaii on October 7, 2008.

Kazuyoshi Miura (61) Japanese businessman accused of conspiring to have his wife, Kazumi Miura (28), murdered 27 years ago in Los Angeles. LA County prosecutors contended Miura wanted his wife dead so he could collect about $750,000 on her life insurance policies. Miura was found dead in an apparent suicide, less than 24 hours after he set foot in the continental US to answer to the charges. He apparently hanged himself while in police custody, in Los Angeles, California on October 10, 2008.

Simon Rios (36) Indiana man serving a 100-plus life sentence in connection with the abduction, rape, and murder of 10-year-old Alejandra Gutierrez. Rios also pleaded guilty in the strangling death of his wife, Anna Casas-Rios (28), and their three small children at their Fort Wayne home, just five days after Gutierrez, a classmate of one of his daughters, was reportedly last seen on her way to school near a bus stop in December 2005. He was found dead in his cell, an apparent suicide by hanging, in Fort Wayne, Indiana on October 9, 2008.

Bruce Dal Canton (66) former Pennsylvania high school teacher who turned a good showing at a tryout camp into a lengthy career as a major league pitcher and coach. In the mid-'60s, Dal Canton went to a Pirates' tryout camp, hoping for one last chance at a baseball career, and made his major league debut with them in 1967. After pitching stints with Kansas City, Atlanta, and Chicago, he spent more than 25 years in the Atlanta system as a pitching coach. He died of esophageal cancer in Carnegie, Pennsylvania on October 7, 2008.

Kevin Foster (39) baseball player who spent seven years in the majors pitching mostly for the Chicago Cubs. Foster was working as a truck driver when he died in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma after a six-month bout with renal cell carcinoma on October 11, 2008.

George Kissell (88) one of baseball's most renowned teachers in a long career with the St. Louis Cardinals' organization as a manager, player, coach, and instructor. Kissell tutored virtually every player who made it to the Cardinals through their minor league system going back to the '40s. He was a passenger in a car driven by his daughter that collided with another auto on Oct. 6. He died a day later of injuries suffered in the accident, in Tampa, Florida on October 7, 2008.

Roland Ortmayer (91) longtime football coach at the University of La Verne. Ortmayer was hired to coach football and baseball at what was then La Verne College in 1948; when he stepped down as football coach at the end of the 1990 season, he had compiled a record of 182-193-8 at the Division III level. He died of pneumonia in La Verne, California on October 9, 2008.

Alexei Prokurorov (44) Russian cross-country skier who won a gold medal at the 1988 Olympics. Prokurorov was a 13-time national champion and won state honors for his services to the sport. He competed in five Winter Games, winning the 30-km freestyle in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He was about to board a train for Moscow in Vladimir, 100 miles east of Moscow, when he was hit by a car while crossing a road and died at the scene on October 10, 2008.

Dom Rosselli (93) winningest basketball and baseball coach at Youngstown State. Rosselli totaled 1,000 career wins in the two sports over 38 years. He also was an assistant football coach for 21 years. He died in Cleveland, Ohio on October 7, 2008.

Gil Stratton (86) longtime TV and radio news anchor in southern California who later became the voice of the Rams and Santa Anita horse racing. Stratton became known to California audiences for his hallmark line, "I call 'em as I see 'em," during a 17-year tenure spanning the '60s on KNXT-TV, which later became KCBS, and on KNX-AM. He was also announcer for the Rams and hosted horse racing from Santa Anita, Hollywood Park, and Del Mar. He died of congestive heart failure in Toluca Lakes, California on October 11, 2008.