Maurice Druon (90) French author, a fighter in France’s World War II Resistance movement and writer of one of its anthems. Druon joined the movement against France’s German wartime occupiers in his mid-20s and cowrote “Le Chant des Partisans,” or “The Partisans’ Song." After the conflict he wrote historical novels including the Rois Maudits, or Accursed Kings series. He died in Paris, France on April 14, 2009.

James D. Houston (75) novelist, essayist, and short-story writer rooted in the West, whose works explored his native California, Hawaiian culture, and, in collaboration with his wife, Jeanne Wakatsuki, the World War II internment of Japanese-Americans. The Houstons cowrote Farewell to Manzanar (1973), a classic first-person account of Wakatsuki's family’s experiences during and after their detention at the Manzanar camp. With more than 1.5 million copies in print, the book is a staple of high school and college reading lists and was made into an Emmy-nominated TV movie in 1976. James Houston died of lymphoma in Santa Cruz, California on April 16, 2009.

Jack D. Hunter (87) writer whose World War I aviation novel The Blue Max was made into a 1966 movie starring George Peppard, James Mason, and Ursula Andress. Hunter died of cancer in St. Augustine, Florida on April 13, 2009.

Tom Kennedy (48) San Francisco artist whose auto sculptures helped to popularize the Art Car movement. Kennedy's first creation, in the '90s, was “Ripper the Friendly Shark,” an old Nissan Sentra on which he built a saw-toothed jaw and a tail that swished. In 2007, he built the “Topsy-Turvy,” a school bus with a second upside-down bus welded to its top. He drowned while body-surfing off San Francisco’s Ocean Beach on April 12, 2009.

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (58) author whose critical writings on the uncertainties of sexual identity in fiction helped to create the discipline known as queer studies. Sedgwick drew on feminist scholarship to reveal hidden sociosexual subplots in the works of writers like Charles Dickens and Henry James. She died of breast cancer in New York City on April 12, 2009.

Honoré Sharrer (88) American artist of the ‘40s and later whose paintings portrayed the daily lives of ordinary working people. In a time of Abstract Expressionism, Sharrer stood by figurative art as a vehicle for social criticism. Her masterpiece is Tribute to the American Working People (1951), a polyptych that resembles a medieval or Renaissance altarpiece. She died of complications from dementia, in Washington, DC on April 17, 2009.

Richard Baker (62) president of the Surf Industry Manufacturers Association and president and chief executive of the Ocean Pacific brand who helped to shape the surf apparel industry. Baker’s ability to appreciate the surf culture and act as ambassador and mentor between the wave riders and business interests made him an influential spokesman for the burgeoning surf industry. He died of colon cancer in Mission Viejo, California on April 14, 2009.

Dr. Carl Camras (55) glaucoma researcher who spent part of his career at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Camras helped to develop latanoprost, sold under the trade name Xalatan, the most effective drug for the treatment of glaucoma, a leading cause of blindness that affects more than 2 million Americans. He died of heart failure in Omaha, Nebraska on April 14, 2009.

James W. Davant (93) financial consultant who rose from trainee to chief executive at the investment firm Paine Webber and led its transformation from a traditional brokerage partnership into an international full-service company. Davant died in Delray Beach, Florida on April 17, 2009.

Sir Eddie George (70) former governor of the Bank of England (1993–2003), in charge when it was given independent authority to set interest rates in 1998. Knighted in 2000, George was appointed to the House of Lords in '04, a year after he retired. He died of cancer in London, England on April 18, 2009.

Albert L. Greene (59) president and chief executive of Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys since 2006. Greene had a reputation for reviving financially ailing medical centers. Under his supervision, Valley Presbyterian went from a $7.8-million deficit in 2006 to a $625,000 surplus in ’07. He oversaw the installation of a new cardiac facility and the beginning of a major upgrade of the hospital’s operating rooms. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in June 2008 and died in Calabasas, California on April 16, 2009.

John Maddox (83) editor who over 22 years (1966-73, '80-95) turned the British journal Nature into a showcase for the most recent developments in scientific research while livening up its staid pages. Maddox died of pneumonia associated with a chest infection, in Abergavenny, Wales on April 12, 2009.

Wally Marks (78) philanthropist and human rights activist whose family real estate firm helped to develop Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade. In 1956, Marks’s father founded the Beverly Hills real estate firm that he named for himself—Walter N. Marks Inc.—and sold or created many complexes on Wilshire Boulevard from downtown to the ocean. After his father developed the Santa Monica Mall in the ‘60s, the junior Marks helped to transform it into the Third Street Promenade in the ‘80s and looked for ways to use real estate to benefit the community. Wally Marks died in West Los Angeles, California on April 13, 2009.

Charles D. Peebler Jr. (72) ad man who turned a small Omaha advertising company, Bozell & Jacobs, into a global powerhouse over 30 years as chief executive. Peebler died of progressive supranuclear palsy, a rare brain disease, in Indian Wells, California on April 18, 2009.

Ernest Stempel (92) former vice chairman of American International Group Inc. and a self-made billionaire. Stempel died of a heart attack while visiting his wife's family in Cape Town, South Africa on April 13, 2009.

Dr. John Visher (88) California psychiatrist who cofounded a national organization in support of stepfamilies. With his psychologist wife Emily (d. 2001), Visher launched the Stepfamily Association of America in 1979. When the Vishers married in 1959, they each had four children ranging in age from 5 to 16 and soon discovered that their combined family was no Brady Bunch. Visher had pancreatic cancer but died of a stroke in Walnut Creek, California on April 17, 2009.

Thomas Dillon (62) president since 1991 of Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, Calif. who during his 18-year tenure defended its strict adherence to Catholic teaching and devotion to a curriculum emphasizing the “great books” of Western civilization. Dillon was attending a meeting of the International Council of Universities of St. Thomas Aquinas when he was killed in a car accident, in Limerick, Ireland on April 15, 2009.

Louis Lowenstein (83) Columbia University business law professor and former corporate executive who for nearly 30 years pointed out the excesses of Wall Street and warned of the dangers of short-term investing. Lowenstein died of pancreatic cancer in New York City on April 18, 2009.

Stefan Brecht (84) son of German playwright Bertolt Brecht who for decades chronicled the rise of avant-garde theater in a series of books. The younger Brecht, who suffered from Lewy body dementia, a progressive brain disease, died of a heart attack in New York City on April 13, 2009.

Julissa Brisman (26) aspiring actress and model who appeared in a 2007 TV commercial promoting responsible cell phone use. Brisman also worked for Spike TV on music videos and other photo shoots. Most recently she was working as a masseuse, advertising on the web site craigslist. Her bullet-riddled body was found after an apparent attempted robbery in a hotel room in Boston, Massachusetts on April 14, 2009.

Update: On April 20, Boston police arrested Philip Markoff (22), a second-year student at Boston University medical school, and charged him with Brisman's murder and a robbery at gunpoint of another woman on April 10.

Robert Brookins (46) singer-songwriter-producer, featured singer on George Duke's 1986 self-titled album. That year, Brookins signed with MCA as a solo artist and recorded his first album, In the Night, which included the tracks "Come to Me" and the Stephanie Mills duet "Where Is the Love." As a songwriter or producer he worked with The Reddings, Bobby Brown ("Seventeen"), Jackie Jackson, Stephanie Mills, Deniece Williams, Jeffrey Osborne, and The Whispers ("Innocent"). Brookins died of a heart attack in Elk Grove, California on April 15, 2009.     

Marilyn Chambers (56) actress and model whose photograph as the mother of a newborn on a laundry soap package and performance in a pornographic movie offered opposing portrayals of womanhood. In 1972, Chambers starred in Behind the Green Door, a pornographic film that became popular when its star was found to be the same blonde who appeared holding a baby on boxes of Ivory Snow, a laundry soap famously described by Procter & Gamble, its manufacturer, as "99 and 44/100 percent pure." Chambers was found dead at her home on the outskirts of Santa Clarita, California on April 12, 2009. An autopsy revealed that she died from the effects of a cerebral hemorrhage and aneurysm related to heart disease.

Peter Dennis (75) British actor who toured for decades in his one-man show of readings from Winnie-the-Pooh and other A. A. Milne classics. Dennis died of cancer in Shadow Hills, California on April 18, 2009.

Joseph Fretti (48) prominent mortician and brother-in-law of Hollywood screen and TV actress Katie Holmes. Fretti was separated from Holmes's elder sister Tamera, who filed for divorce on Feb. 13 and had recently been granted temporary custody of their two young children. The couple had been married since 1995 and owned a funeral home near their Sylvania, Ohio home where Holmes grew up. Fretti died unexpectedly of apparent heart failure at his parents' home in Sarasota, Florida on April 12, 2009.

Sir Clement Freud (84) grandson of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud who became a well-known writer, politician (Liberal MP, 1973-87), and regular on British radio. Sir Clement was best known for his 30 years of appearances on the BBC game show, Just a Minute, on which panelists compete to see who can talk the longest without hesitating, deviating from the subject, or repeating himself. Freud’s extensive vocabulary and deadpan delivery made him a master at the game. He died in London, England on April 15, 2009.

Timothy J. Holst (61) talent scout who joined the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus as a Keystone Kops clown, then rose to become a singing ringmaster and later the show’s vice president of talent and production. Holst traveled the world for more than 20 years signing performers from star clowns to trapeze hangers. He died in São Paulo, Brazil during a visit to sign up circus acts, on April 16, 2009.

Roger Orr (76) TV newsman and longtime spokesman for Pacific Bell telephone company (into what is now known as AT&T) who was nearly struck by a bullet through the windshield inside a motorcade when Sara Jane Moore fired at US President Gerald Ford in an apparent assassination attempt outside the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco on Sept. 22, 1975. Orr died in Applegate, California on April 18, 2009.

Stephanie Parker (22) Welsh actress best known for playing Stacey Weaver on the BBC Wales TV series Belonging. Parker had played the role of the feisty young full-time mother on the recently canceled program since she was 15 in 2002. She had also appeared on the BBC's Casualty and The Bill and in drama productions for Radio 4. She was found dead of an apparent suicide by hanging in Pontypridd, Wales on April 18, 2009.

Whitelaw Reid (95) descendant of a prominent New York publishing family who joined the New York Herald Tribune in the late ‘30s and became a war correspondent and later the paper’s editor, president, and chairman. Reid was the namesake and grandson of Whitelaw Reid, who succeeded Horace Greeley as owner and editor of the New York Tribune in the 1870s and was later ambassador to France and Great Britain. The younger Reid's father was Ogden Mills Reid, who merged the Tribune and the Herald in 1924 and for many years was editor and publisher of the paper and its European edition, known as the Paris Herald, now the International Herald Tribune, owned by the New York Times Co. Whitelaw Reid died of lung and heart failure in White Plains, New York on April 18, 2009.

Peter Rogers (95) British producer of all 31 “Carry On” films, starting with Carry On Sergeant (1958) and ending with Carry On Emmanuelle (1978). The comedy series was popular and lucrative, although its humor, based on leering references to breasts and bottoms, was disdained by highbrow critics. Rogers died in Gerrards Cross, 20 miles (30 km) northwest of London, England on April 14, 2009.

Les Sarnoff (60) longtime Portland, Ore. radio host. Sarnoff was morning host on KINK-FM for 22 years and had been a familiar voice on the air in Portland ever since he began his career with KGON-FM in 1974. He was diagnosed with melanoma in April 2008 and had surgery before returning to work with a clean bill of health. Tests in December showed the cancer had returned. He died in Portland, Oregon on April 17, 2009

Gayle Ronan Sims (61) longtime obituary writer and editor for the Philadelphia Inquirer, which reported that Sims "lyrically described the lives of the famous, the infamous, and the ordinary," but didn’t want a funeral or obituary for herself. She never smoked but suffered a chronic and progressive lung disease. She died of multiple organ failure after a double lung transplant in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on April 16, 2009.

Lesley Gilb Taplin (62) cult film actress and community activist best known for her title role as the eponymous matriarch of a backwoods vampire clan during the Prohibition era in the 1973 fantasy-horror film Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural. Taplin's only other film credit is the movie The Activist (1969). She was killed in a car accident in Los Angeles, California on April 13, 2009.

Rubin ("Zeke") Zarchy (93) trumpeter for several leading big bands best known for his association with Glenn Miller’s orchestra in the ‘40s. From the mid-‘30s on, Zarchy played with a who’s who of big band leaders including Joe Haymes, Benny Goodman, Bob Crosby, Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, Paul Weston, and Miller. He died of pneumonia in Irvine, California on April 12, 2009.

Toi Aukuso Cain (77) Samoan politician who served as a Cabinet Minister in the tiny Polynesian country's Member of Parliament for more than 20 years until his arrest with fellow politician Leafa Vitale and the latter's son Eletise Vitale in connection with the 1999 murder of then-Cabinet Minister of Works Luagalau Levaula Kamu (who was shot dead outside a reception office during a social function celebrating the 20th anniversary of the ruling Human Rights Protection Party). All three men were sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to the killing and gave evidence implicating that one of the shooters had carried out in the plotting of the assassination. Cain died of liver cancer at a prison hospital in Apia, Samoa on April 18, 2009.

Sal Guarriello (90) longtime West Hollywood city councilman first elected in 1990. An advocate for rent control and affordable housing, Guarriello was instrumental in the creation of the city’s veterans’ memorial at Holloway Park in 2003. He died after a sudden illness, in Los Angeles, California on April 16, 2009.

Stephen J. Minarik 3rd (49) political operative, New York State Republican chairman (2004-06), a time of declining fortunes for the party. During his two-year tenure, Minarik struggled to find candidates to compete against Eliot Spitzer for governor, Hillary Rodham Clinton for senator, and other strong Democrats in 2006. He had a stroke in 2001 and died of a heart attack in Rochester, New York on April 12, 2009.

Bill Orton (60) former US congressman (D-Utah, 1991-97). Orton ran an unsuccessful campaign for Utah governor in 2000. He was killed in an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) accident when his machine flipped over on a sand dune at Little Sahara Recreation Area in western Utah on April 18, 2009.

Ed Blake (83) pitcher whose 15 seasons in professional baseball included time with the Cincinnati Reds and Kansas City Athletics. Blake was 17 when he pitched batting practice for the St. Louis Cardinals during the 1943 World Series. He died in Edwardsville, Illinois on April 15, 2009.

Gabriel Dickson (8) son of former Australian Football League midfield player and reality TV star Rob Dickson who suffered massive internal injuries, including a burst blood vessel in his brain, in an April 11 car accident that killed his father and younger brother Byron while vacationing with their family in South Africa. Gabriel Dickson died of his injuries in Pretoria, South Africa on April 15, 2009.

Nate Dolin (95) former vice president and part-owner of the Cleveland Indians. Bill Veeck sold the Indians in 1949 for $2.2 million to a seven-member group including Dolin and headed by insurance executive Ellis W. Ryan. Dolin sold his share in late 1962. He died of pneumonia in Rancho Mirage, California on April 12, 2009.

Mark ("The Bird") Fidrych (54) golden-curled, eccentric pitcher known as the Bird, who became a rookie phenomenon for the Detroit Tigers in 1976 but within five years saw his career cut short by injury. Fidrych’s record in 1976 was 19-9, with an ERA of 2.34, the best in major league baseball, and 97 strikeouts; his 24 complete games were the year’s best in the American League, and he was named rookie of the year in the AL. A real character, he often talked to the baseball, fidgeted on the mound, and got down on his knees to scratch the dirt. He was found dead beneath a dump truck on his farm in Northborough, Massachusetts on April 13, 2009. Fidrych's death was ruled accidental when it was determined that he suffocated after his clothes became entangled with a spinning part (power takeoff shaft) on the truck he was working on.

Dr. Irving V. Glick (92) US Open tennis tournament doctor for more than 25 years. Glick ran the medical department at the US Open until 1991 and was the International Tennis Federation’s medical representative to the Olympic Games in South Korea in ‘88 and Spain in ’92. He was team doctor for St. John’s University's men’s basketball for about 20 years, including the school’s 1985 Final Four team. He died in Great Neck, New York on April 17, 2009.

Earl Gustkey (69) former Los Angeles Times sportswriter for more than 30 years who enlivened the paper’s coverage of boxing, outdoor sports, and the Women's NBA. Gustkey was diagnosed with leukemia in early March and died of the disease in Billings, Montana on April 17, 2009.

Merle Harmon (82) broadcaster who, in a career spanning more than 40 years, called professional and college sports for NBC and ABC, including the World Series, the Super Bowl, and the Winter Olympics. Harmon also was a popular motivational speaker. He had been hospitalized for a couple of weeks and died of pneumonia in Arlington, Texas on April 15, 2009.

Harry Kalas (73) voice of the Philadelphia Phillies for nearly 40 years, since 1971 when they played their first game at Veterans Stadium. Kalas was known for his “outta here!” call when a Philadelphia player hit a home run. He died after collapsing in the broadcast booth before the Phillies’ game at Nationals Park in Washington, DC on April 13, 2009.

Les Keiter (89) longtime Hawaii sportscaster who called Muhammad Ali’s first title win over Sonny Liston in 1964. After World War II, Keiter moved to the East Coast, where he narrated a dozen championship heavyweight fights for ABC and the Mutual Broadcasting Co. (1956-85). He was also a sports announcer for the Giants baseball franchise (1954-62)—the team moved from New York to San Francisco in 1958—and for the New York Knicks (1955-62). In the early ‘70s, he became the voice of University of Hawaii sports and Triple-A baseball’s Hawaii Islanders. He died just two weeks shy of his 90th birthday, in Honolulu, Hawaii on April 14, 2009.

Jack McCoy (72) NASCAR champion of the West. McCoy won a record 54 races in the ‘60s and ‘70s in NASCAR’s regional series and won series championships (1966, ’73). The stock car driver was inducted into the West Coast Stock Car Hall of Fame in 2002, a year after he wrote about his exploits in a book entitled Racing’s Real McCoy. He died in Modesto, California on April 14, 2009.

Bruce Snyder (69) college football coach whose 20-year career included an unbeaten regular season at Arizona State University, where he coached (1992-2000). Snyder's best season was 1996, when ASU went 11-0 in the regular season but lost to Ohio State in the final seconds of the Rose Bowl; that year, he was named Pac-10 coach of the year. He had been diagnosed with melanoma in June 2008 and died in Phoenix, Arizona on April 13, 2009.

Andia Wilson (30) longtime girlfriend of Arizona Cardinals running back Edgerrin James. The couple had been in a long-term relationship for more than 12 years and had four children. Wilson died of acute myeloid leukemia in Tampa, Florida on April 14, 2009.