Karl Bissinger (94) photographer whose black and white portraits created a gallery of leading figures on the postwar American arts scene. As a photographer for magazines like Flair, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, and Town & Country, Bissinger immortalized a new generation of writers, actors, dancers, and free spirits who were reshaping American culture after World War II. He died of a stroke in New York City on November 19, 2008.

George C. Chesbro (68) writer who mixed science fiction and fantasy into private-eye novels, many featuring a dwarf detective as the main character. Considered by fans one of the field's most inventive writers, Chesbro had 27 novels published and was one of the few critically successful crossover authors in modern crime writing. He died of congestive heart failure in Albany, New York on November 18, 2008.

Peggy Chun (62) Honolulu artist known for her watercolor paintings of island life and Hawaiian-themed Christmas ornaments. Chun died after a six-year struggle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurodegenerative ailment also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, in Honolulu, Hawaii on November 19, 2008.

Guy Peellaert (74) Belgian painter-collagist who produced surreal album covers for rock stars John Lennon, David Bowie, and Mick Jagger, and images for a seminal book about rock mythology, Rock Dreams, first published in the early '70s. Peellaert died of kidney cancer in Paris, France on November 17, 2008.

Augustus ("Gus") Barber (87) founder of Barber Foods, a former meat cutter who built a frozen-food business that provided jobs for thousands of immigrants. The son of immigrants who fled Ottoman rule, Barber grew his business from a kitchen-based operation to a company with a workforce of 800. He began by offering cut-up chicken parts and later shifted to stuffed chicken entrées. More than 40% of the company's employees are immigrants, many of whom take English lessons on site. Barber died of cardiac arrest in Portland, Maine on November 21, 2008

Boris Fyodorov (50) reformist financier who helped to bring the Russian economy out of post-Soviet chaos. Fyodorov was among the economists who fostered reforms in Russia before and after the 1991 Soviet collapse. He also founded one of the country's largest investment banks, the United Financial Group. He suffered a heart attack three weeks ago and died at a clinic in London, England on November 20, 2008.

Kiyoshi Ito (93) mathematician whose innovative models of random motion are used today in fields as diverse as finance and biology. Ito was known for his contributions to probability theory, the study of randomness. His work, starting in the '40s, built on the earlier breakthroughs of Albert Einstein and Norbert Wiener. Ito's mathematical framework for describing the evolution of random phenomena came to be known as the Ito Calculus. He died of respiratory failure in Kyoto, Japan on November 17, 2008.

Betty James (90) cofounder with her then-husband Richard of the company that made the Slinky. Betty James beat the odds as a single mother in the late '50s to become a successful executive. Hundreds of millions of Slinkys have been sold worldwide. She died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 20, 2008.

Dr. Jay Katz (86) physician and a professor at Yale Law School who spent more than 40 years tackling confounding questions on the boundaries between law, medicine, psychology, and ethics. Among the issues that Katz explored as an outspoken public advocate were medical experimentation without patient consent, whether frozen embryos deserved consideration as potential human beings, and the rights of biological parents whose children lived with adoptive parents. He died of heart failure in New Haven, Connecticut on November 17, 2008.

Dr. John H. Menkes (79) pediatric neurologist who identified Menkes disease, maple syrup urine disease, and other congenital disorders of the neural system and established the pediatric neurology program at UCLA. Later in his career, Menkes was an expert witness for the plaintiffs in several trials involving damages caused by vaccines, and wrote three novels and three plays produced in Los Angeles. He died of cancer in Los Angeles, California on November 22, 2008.

John ("Jack") Roberts Sr. (80) father of US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. The elder Roberts was an executive of Bethlehem Steel Corp. and later worked for CSC Industries and taught at the University of South Carolina's Graduate School of Business. He died on November 18, 2008.

Sandy Ruby (67) mathematician turned entrepreneur who, with partner John Strohbeen, founded a business in an MIT dorm room and built it into Tech Hifi, a popular electronics retailer. The company was created in response to a demand for stereo equipment among college students in the '60s as recordings multiplied and technology improved. It became one of the nation's largest sellers of consumer electronics, with more than 80 stores, mostly in the Northeast, including more than a dozen in and around New York, before a recession and competition from discount retailers forced it out of business in the mid-'80s. Ruby died of complications from diabetes, in Boston, Massachusetts on November 22, 2008.

Wolfgang Schmitz (85) former Austrian finance minister under Chancellor Josef Klaus (1964-68) who later became president of the Austrian Central Bank. In 1971, Schmitz tied the exchange rate of Austria's currency at the time, the schilling, to several foreign currencies, primarily the West German mark; the move boosted Austria internationally. He died in Vienna, Austria on November 16, 2008.

Sheri Klittich (53) first administrator of the Hansen Trust, a California state-run trust that operates a demonstration farm near Santa Paula. The trust was established in 1993 when the will of Thelma Hansen (d. 1992)—last surviving member of a pioneering Ventura County farming family—gave $12 million to the University of California to promote local agriculture. In 1997, Klittich helped to orchestrate the trust's $1.5 million-purchase of a 27-acre farm and oversaw its transformation into a research and education center. She died of ovarian cancer and the autoimmune disease scleroderma one day after her 53rd birthday, in Fillmore, California on November 20, 2008.

Alma Pearson (96) major donor to California Lutheran University projects including the library that bears her name on the Thousand Oaks campus. Pearson and her husband, Clifford (d. 1999), made their first gift to the university in support of the new library in 1983; they continued to give to the university over the years, supporting the Alma & Clifford Pearson Endowed Scholarship and the School of Education Leadership Program, Center for Leadership & Values, Early Childhood Development Center, Alumni Board Study Abroad Program, and the development of athletic venues. Alma Pearson died in Santa Barbara, California on November 21, 2008.

Clive Barnes (81) longtime theater and dance critic for the New York Post. The London-born Barnes had a long run as a critic covering the arts scene in New York and abroad. He arrived in 1965 from England to write for the New York Times, where he was dance critic until 1977. He was also the paper's daily drama critic for 10 years. Barnes then moved to the Post, where he was the paper's chief theater and dance critic for more than 30 years. He was a prolific writer on the culture scene, often out four, five, or more nights a week, attending theater, ballet, and opera, which he also reviewed for the Post. He died of cancer in New York City on November 19, 2008.

Irving Brecher (94) comedy writer who wrote vaudeville sketches for Milton Berle, jokes for Henny Youngman, comedies for the Marx Brothers, a TV series for Jackie Gleason (The Life of Riley [1949]), and screenplays for movie musicals including Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) and Bye Bye Birdie (1963). Brecher had suffered a series of heart attacks the week before he died in Los Angeles, California on November 17, 2008.

Eric ("MC") Breed (37) Michigan rapper who burst onto the national scene with the 1991 hit “Ain’t No Future in Yo’ Frontin'." Breed released 13 albums (1991-2004) and collaborated with artists such as Tupac Shakur and Too Short. He moved to Atlanta in the ‘90s but always identified with his tough Flint roots. Breed suffered from kidney failure and died in Ypsilanti, Michigan, about 30 miles southwest of Detroit. on November 22, 2008.

Sandro Curzi (78) Italian journalist and TV executive. Curzi started RAI Tre and directed news coverage on the pro-left channel of the state broadcaster's network. He also directed Liberation, the newspaper of the Refoundation Communist Party. He died of lung cancer in Rome, Italy on November 22, 2008.

Ennio deConcini (84) Italian screenwriter who won an Oscar for the internationally popular comedy Divorce—Italian Style. Released in 1961 as Divorzio all'Italiana, the film was directed by Pietro Germi and starred Marcello Mastroianni. DeConcini shared an Oscar for best original screenplay with Germi and Alfredo Giannetti. He died in Rome, Italy on November 17, 2008.

Dick Dougherty (88) columnist for the Rochester (NY) Democrat & Chronicle who poked fun at Presidents, ridiculed his inability to kill crab grass, and chronicled his golden retriever's musings via "thought transference." Dougherty had been in failing health for several months and died in the Rochester suburb of Brighton, New York on November 19, 2008.

Tom Gish (82) award-winning publisher of the Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Ky. who shone the spotlight on corruption and environmental degradation in his corner of southeastern Kentucky for 50 years. Gish and his wife, Pat, overcame floods, threats, arson, and attempted suppression to deliver news in the weekly publication with the slogan: "It screams!" The Gishes took on previously untouched issues, from strip mining to police corruption; they endured advertising boycotts, faced violent threats, and had their newspaper offices firebombed in 1974. Tom Gish died in Pikeville, Kentucky on November 21, 2008.

Alan Gordon (64) songwriter who with his writing partner Garry Bonner wrote the Turtles' No. 1 hit "Happy Together" and other catchy pop songs of the '60s. The songwriting duo also wrote "She'd Rather Be with Me," "You Know What I Mean," and "She's My Girl" for the Turtles, and "Celebrate" for Three Dog Night. On his own, Gordon wrote "My Heart Belongs to Me" for Barbra Streisand, who recorded it for her 1977 album Streisand Superman. Gordon died of cancer in Scottsdale, Arizona on November 22, 2008.

John Michael Hayes (89) screenwriter nominated for Oscars for the classic Alfred Hitchcock film Rear Window and for Peyton Place. Hayes also collaborated with Hitchcock on To Catch a Thief, The Trouble with Harry, and the 1956 remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much. He died in Hanover, New Hampshire on November 19, 2008.

Charles Ottaviano (66) owner of Van Nuys jazz club Charlie O's, which offers live jazz seven nights a week and has become known for its roster of session musicians. In 2000, Ottaviano decided to transform the neighborhood restaurant he had opened in 1987 into a jazz hangout. He died of a heart attack in Northridge, California on November 17, 2008.

Reg Varney (92) comic actor who played a cheerful Cockney bus driver on the British TV sitcom On the Buses (1969-73). Varney began his career as a singer, piano player, and comic in England's rough-and-tumble world of pubs, music halls, and working men's clubs. He also secured his place in history by making the world's first withdrawal from an electronic automated teller machine at a branch of Barclays Bank in Enfield, north London in 1967. He died in Budleigh Salterton, England on November 16, 2008.

Jim Mattox (65) former Texas attorney general who also served in Congress and battled former Texas governor Ann Richards in a vicious primary campaign. Mattox was a bare-knuckled political brawler while the state was still fiercely Democrat. As attorney general, he was head of the agency that fought efforts to spare condemned inmates from death and was a fixture at executions in the nation's most active death penalty state. He died in Dripping Springs, Texas on November 20, 2008.

Rear Adm. George S. Morrison (89) retired US Navy rear admiral and father of The Doors late lead singer Jim Morrison. A veteran of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, George Morrison was the youngest naval officer ever promoted to rear admiral in the US Navy until '64 but was largely disowned by his rock star son (who insisted that his parents were dead in early interviews). The elder Morrison rarely discussed his son before his suspicious death in Paris in 1971. George Morrison died after a fall, in Coronado, California on November 17, 2008.

Ibrahim Nasir (82) politician who led the Maldives' independence movement from the British and became the island nation's first president. Nasir became prime minister of the British protectorate in 1957 at age 31 and signed an agreement with the British that won independence for the Indian Ocean islands in '65; in '68 he became the Maldives' first president. He modernized the country's fishing industry and introduced tourism, for which the Maldives are now world-famous. In 1978 he resigned and left the islands amid unproven allegations of corruption in handling public funds. He died in Singapore on November 22, 2008.

Abraham Biggs (19) Florida teen who committed suicide by overdosing on large amounts of pills while broadcasting live on the internet via Webcam, encouraged by several people watching on Justin.tv, a live video streaming Web site. Shortly after posting a detailed suicide note on another forum, Biggs said he was going to commit suicide on the chat forum bodybuilding.com, He lay on his bed, and only after several hours of no movement did others begin to take him seriously. With the video still running, forum members contacted local police, who eventually broke down Biggs's door, found his lifeless body, and switched off the camera. Up to 1,500 people were viewing the horrific video. Biggs died in Pembroke Pines, Florida on November 20, 2008.

Marco Allen Chapman (37) Kentucky inmate who resisted all appeals to stop his execution. In 2004, Chapman pleaded guilty to killing Chelbi Sharon (7) and Cody Sharon (6) in their northern Kentucky home in an '02 attack that wounded their mother and another child. He asked to be executed and fought for the right to fire his attorneys to clear the way. He was executed by lethal injection in Eddyville, Kentucky on November 21, 2008.

Brenden Foster (11) leukemia patient whose dying wish to feed the homeless touched hearts all over the world and became a national movement in the coalition of numerous food drives. Brenden was diagnosed with pediatric leukemia in 2005 but survived the terminal illness long enough to see his last wish come true. In Seattle alone, hundreds of volunteers donated truckloads of groceries, passed out sandwiches to the homeless, and raised more than $60,000 in cash to benefit Northwest Harvest and Food Lifeline during his final days. Brenden Foster died in Bothell, Washington on November 21, 2008.

Robert Jean Hudson (45) Texas man condemned to death for the capital murder of his former girlfriend Edith Kendrick (35), found stabbed to death at her Dallas home after a 1999 attack that left her 8-year-old son seriously wounded. Hudson's execution was the last one scheduled in Texas in 2008 (at least 10 Texas inmates were scheduled to die in 2009, including six in January). He was executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas on November 20, 2008.

Robert ("Bud") Marquis (79) retired airboat pilot who lived most of his adult life on the edge of the Florida Everglades. Marquis was frog-hunting from an airboat just before midnight on Dec. 29, 1972 when he witnessed the fatal plane crash of Eastern Airlines Flight 401, then rushed to help rescue more than 70 survivors of the impact that left almost 100 people dead. He received burns to his face, arms, and legs but continued shuttling people into and out of the crash site that night and the next day in what was one of the deadliest crashes in Florida's history. For his efforts, he received the Humanitarian Award from the National Air Disaster Alliance/Foundation and the Airboat Hero Award plaque in 2007. He died of complications from head injuries suffered in an accident five weeks earlier, in Homestead, Florida on November 21, 2008.

Rashid Rauf (27) British-born Pakistani terror suspect, among the approximately 25 militants arrested in connection with the 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot to blow up seven American airliners in Great Britain. Rauf was said to be one of the operative ringleaders behind the al-Qaeda network with links in Afghanistan to the alleged plot, but the Pakistani court found no evidence that he had been involved in any terrorist activities to justify his extradition to Britain. He was among five persons reportedly killed by a US missile strike in Waziristan, Pakistan on November 22, 2008.

Tina Loesch and Skye Hanson (37, 44) Idaho murder suspects and fugitives, a lesbian couple who met in prison in the '90s, sought on a first-degree murder charge in connection with the murder-for-insurance death of Loesch's mother, Barbara Loesch, found electrocuted in a backyard hot tub in Port Falls, Idaho in 1998. Police at first ruled the suspicious death an accident before Tina Loesch received $500,000 from her mother's life insurance policy. She had previously been a suspect in the 1995 murder of her father, Gary Loesch, found shot to death on his newspaper delivery route after an apparent dispute. The cold case remains unsolved and was featured on national TV in an episode of America's Most Wanted. Another person of interest, Bradley Steckman, convicted in 2001 of the 1996 murder of an 89-year-old woman, confessed to authorities that he had assisted the two women in the second Loesch murder after being promised $10,000. Hanson and Loesch were found dead in a sports utility vehicle of self-inflicted gunshot wounds in an apparent suicide pact near Tuscon, Arizona on November 16, 2008.

Juhi the Tiger (7 months) wild Indian tiger cub. Juhi and her sister, Jai, were rescued from angry villagers who had tried to kill them, fearing they would attack children and cattle. Doctors said the cubs, who appeared to have been abandoned by their mother, were weak, starving, and wounded when they were brought to the Nagpur zoo, some 530 miles southeast of New Delhi. Jai responded well to treatment, but Juhi's condition continued to deteriorate as her hemoglobin levels dropped dangerously. She died two days after being given a rare blood transfusion, in Nagpur, India on November 18, 2008.

Kelsey Altenbern (18) soccer player, a midfielder on Laramie County (Wyo.) Community College's women's soccer team. Altenbern won multiple state and regional honors in soccer and was named Co-Best Female Athlete at Cheyenne's East High School as a senior earlier this year. She was found dead in her dorm room, an apparent suicide in Cheyenne, Wyoming on November 21, 2008.

Carole Caldwell Graebner (65) American tennis player who won doubles titles at the US and Australian championships in the '60s. Graebner was ranked in the US top 10 in singles (1961-65, '67). She was a member of the inaugural 1963 US Fed Cup team and later chairwoman of the Fed Cup committee, a vice president of Tennis Week magazine, and a radio and TV commentator. She died of cancer in New York City on November 19, 2008.

Bob Jeter (71) former Green Bay Packers cornerback, father of Wisconsin-Milwaukee men's basketball coach Rob Jeter. Bob Jeter played on the Green Bay teams that won the NFL championship in 1965 and the first two Super Bowls. He played for the Packers (1963-70) and the Chicago Bears (1971-73). He died of cardiac arrest in Chicago, Illinois on November 20, 2008.

Pete Newell (93) one of the most influential coaches in the history of basketball, who won a national championship at the University of California at Berkeley in 1959 and an Olympic championship in '60. Since 1976, Newell's "big man" camp became a required seminar in low-post play for generations of professional stars, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O'Neal, and Patrick Ewing. Newell died of smoking-related lung problems in Rancho Santa Fe, near San Diego, California on November 17, 2008.

Glenn Sample (77) baseball coach at the University of Cincinnati for 21 years, an official scorer at Cincinnati Reds games for 29 seasons. Sample's baseball teams won the Missouri Valley Conference championship twice and played in four NCAA Tournaments. He had been a fixture in the press box at Reds games since 1980. He died in Cincinnati, Ohio on November 21, 2008.