Louise Deutschman (92) New York curator and art gallery director who gave photographer Gordon Parks (d. 2006) his first gallery show in the '70s. Deutschman died in New York City on May 10, 2009.

Newt Heisley (88) commercial artist who designed the Vietnam-era PoW/MiA flag that came to symbolize US concern for military personnel missing or held prisoner in post-World War II conflicts. After years of failing health, Heisley died in Colorado Springs, Colorado on May 14, 2009.

Eden Ross Lipson (66) retired children's book editor at the New York Times's "Book Review" (1984-2005), only the third person to hold the post created in 1935, who brought children’s literature to wide public awareness. Lipson was also nationally known as the author of the New York Times Parent’s Guide to the Best Books for Children, a reference guide to 1,001 titles, published in its third edition in 2000. She died of pancreatic cancer in New York City on May 12, 2009.

Kay Barragan (65) estranged wife of 1800mattress.com founder Napoleon Barragan who helped her husband to establish the bedding company and was credited with lending $2,000 to start Dial-a-Mattress in 1976, which later became 1800mattress.com. Kay Barragan was found dead at the bottom of a flight of stairs in her Searingtown, Long Island, New York home on May 14, 2009. Her son, Eduardo (38), suffering from schizophrenia and other mental health-related problems, was charged with second-degree murder.

Dr. Alexander G. Bearn (86) physician and scientist whose research in the ‘50s on Wilson's disease, a potentially fatal buildup of copper in the body, helped to lay the groundwork for the field of human biochemical genetics. Bearn died of heart failure in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on May 15, 2009.

L. William Seidman (88) former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (1985-91). A managing partner of Seidman & Seidman, an international accounting firm founded by his father, Seidman joined President Gerald R. Ford’s administration in 1974 as an economic adviser. He also was head of the Resolution Trust Corp. in the aftermath of the savings and loan crisis of the ‘80s and a principal founder of Grand Valley State, a state-funded university in Allendale, Mich., about 15 miles west of Grand Rapids. He died of pneumonia in Albuquerque, New Mexico on May 13, 2009.

Dr. Leonard Shlain (71) San Francisco surgeon, a pioneer in the use of laparoscopic surgery who later wrote three best-selling books combining anthropology, science, and art. Shlain had been battling brain cancer for two years when he died in San Francisco, California on May 11, 2009.

Robert J. Sinclair (77) automobile executive whose brainchild, the Saab 900 convertible, turned Saab into a prestigious brand in the American market. Sinclair died of cancer in Santa Barbara, California, where he had lived since shortly after his retirement in 1991, on May 10, 2009.

Kenneth E. Stager (94) emeritus senior curator of ornithology and mammalogy at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Stager died in Los Angeles, California on May 13, 2009.

Claudine Williams (88) first woman to manage a major Las Vegas Strip casino. In the '60s, with her husband, Shelby (d. 1977), Claudine Williams bought property across from Caesars Palace and opened the riverboat-themed Holiday Casino adjacent to the Holiday Inn. After Shelby's death, she was president and general manager of the Holiday. She sold 40% of the casino in 1979 to Holiday Inns Inc., then the parent company of Harrah’s Entertainment, which—by then spun off—bought her remaining interest in ’83. Williams kept the title of chairman of the renamed Harrah’s Las Vegas, the company’s first casino in town. She died in Las Vegas, Nevada on May 13, 2009.

Tom Buckley (23) British cancer research activist and fund-raiser who raised more than £84,000 (US$132,000) for Manchester's The Christie Hospital cancer treatment center despite being gravely ill with terminal bone cancer. Buckley was first diagnosed with osteosarcoma (a rare type of bone cancer) in 2004 and received chemotherapy, but the cancer returned and he was recently told that he had just months to live because of an inoperable brain tumor. Still, he embarked on a 180-mile coast-to-coast charity walk in September 2008. He died in Northwich, England on May 13, 2009.

Frank Aletter (83) veteran character actor who starred in the ‘60s sitcoms Bringing Up Buddy and It’s About Time. Aletter was once married (1958-74) to actress and former Miss America 1955 Lee Meriwether. As a guest actor, he appeared on more than 100 series, including Perry Mason, The Lucy Show, M*A*S*H, Kojak, All in the Family, Fantasy Island, Murder, She Wrote, and Dallas. He died of cancer in Tarzana, California on May 13, 2009.

Monica Bleibtreu (65) actress well known in the German-speaking world for a broad range of film, TV, and theater roles. Born in Vienna, Bleibtreu made her movie debut in Ludwig—Requiem for a Virgin King (1972). Her later roles included appearances in Tom Tykwer’s Run Lola Run (1998), which also starred her son, German actor Moritz Bleibtreu; German TV biodrama The Manns—Novel of a Century; and Knef (2009), a biopic of actress and singer Hildegard Knef. Bleibtreu died of cancer in Hamburg, Germany on May 14, 2009.

Rafael Escalona (81) Colombian composer and performer of vallenato (Colombian folk music) classics. Escalona composed his first song at age 15 and later wrote “La Casa en el Aire” and “El Manantial." He was the father of 23 children from various relationships. He died of cancer in the capital city of Bogotá, Colombia on May 13, 2009.

Al Kuettner (95) former United Press International reporter who covered the civil rights movement from the tear gas-choked campus of Ole Miss to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech at the Lincoln Memorial. Kuettner had been in declining health and contracted pneumonia in April. He died in Bella Vista, Arkansas on May 16, 2009.

Mark Landon (60) adopted son of the late Little House on the Prairie star Michael Landon. The eldest of nine children, Mark Landon appeared in three movies, including the CBS-TV movie Us, written and directed by his father in 1991 just before he died of cancer at age 54. Mark Landon was found dead at his home in West Hollywood, California on May 11, 2009.

Isaac ("Nick") Levi (76) news correspondent who covered Latin America for the Associated Press over a 40-year career. Levi joined the AP in Argentina in 1963 and worked there and in Uruguay until ’69. He became bureau chief in Santiago, Chile before moving to head AP’s Lima, Peru bureau in 1973. He was transferred in 1978 to Mexico City, where he covered more than 20 turbulent years in the country’s history. After his retirement in 2001, Levi remained in Mexico City, Mexico, where he died of pneumonia on May 15, 2009.

Charles ("Buddy") Montgomery (79) jazz pianist and vibraphonist best known for his work with guitarist Wes Montgomery (d. 1968), his elder brother. Buddy Montgomery and another brother, bassist Monk Montgomery (d. 1982), were members of Wes’s quartet on and off during the ‘60s. Buddy died of a heart attack in Palmdale, California on May 14, 2009.

Thomas Nordseth-Tiller (28) Norwegian screenwriter who wrote the screenplay for the 2008 war biopic Max Manus, based on the real life of the World War II resistance fighter of the same name. The film became Norway's biggest cinema success since 1975 and sparked a public debate about the role of the Norwegian resistance movement during the German occupation. Nordseth-Tiller died of cancer in Lorenskog, Norway on May 12, 2009.

Roy Talbot (94) last surviving member of the original Talbot Brothers (five brothers and a cousin) of Bermuda, one of the top calypso groups of the ‘50s. Roy Talbot sang with the group and played his Bermudavarius, a homemade bass with a single fishing-line string. In their heyday, the late ‘40s and ’50s, the Talbot Brothers were a major attraction at Bermuda’s hotels and clubs and at the private homes of wealthy Americans discovering the island. Roy Talbot died in Paget, Bermuda on May 15, 2009.

Charles ("Bud") Tingwell (86) actor who starred in more than 100 films and TV programs in his native Australia and in Britain. In a career that lasted more than 60 years, Tingwell probably was best known for his roles on the TV shows Emergency Ward 10 in Britain and Homicide and Neighbours in Australia. He had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and fell ill two weeks before his death in Melbourne, Australia on May 15, 2009.

Hugh van Es (67) Dutch photojournalist who covered the Vietnam War and recorded the most famous image of the fall of Saigon in 1975—a group of people scaling a ladder to an Air America helicopter on a hotel rooftop. Van Es suffered a brain hemorrhage last week and never regained consciousness. He died in Hong Kong, where he had lived for more than 35 years, on May 15, 2009.

Robert Willey (88) actor, theatrical producer, and husband of longtime As the World Turns soap star Helen Wagner. Willey was a director-producer-actor on stage and in film as a longtime member of the American Federation of Radio & Television Artists (AFTRA) and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). The couple had planned to celebrate their 55th wedding anniversary in June. Willey died in Mount Kisco, New York on May 12, 2009.

Susanna ("Suni") Agnelli (87) heiress to the Fiat car dynasty, the only female foreign minister in Italian history. Susanna Agnelli was a granddaughter of Giovanni Agnelli, who founded Fiat. She started a career in politics in the ‘70s when she became mayor of Monte Argentario, a village on the Tuscan coast where the family had a home, and was later a member of the Italian parliament and the European Parliament. In 1983 she was named undersecretary of state for foreign affairs, a post she held until the early ‘90s. In 1995-96 she was foreign minister in the centrist government of Lamberto Dini. She died of complications from a broken hip in Rome, Italy on May 15, 2009.

Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi (46) Libyan paramilitary trainer for the revolutionary Islamic terror group al-Qaeda whose false information was cited by the Bush Administration in the months preceding the 2003 US invasion of Iraq as evidence of a connection between deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda operative officials. Al-Libi had previously been chief militant trainer at a camp in Afghanistan but was later captured and interrogated by American and Egyptian intelligence forces at the Guantanamo Bay detention center for several years after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks before he was repatriated to Libyan custody in '06. He allegedly committed suicide in his cell while in custody in Tripoli, Libya on May 11, 2009.

Jack Boles (84) decorated World War II veteran who suffered from a series of debilitating injuries after he was severely beaten in a vicious attack during a home invasion robbery in October 2008. No suspects have been arrested in connection with the case. Boles died as a result of his injuries in Dallas, Texas on May 15, 2009.

Rev. Robert J. Cornell (89) one of only two Roman Catholic priests to serve as voting delegates to Congress. The other priest was Rev. Robert F. Drinan (D-Mass., 1971-81; d. 2007). Like Drinan, Cornell (D-Wis., 1975-79) held liberal views on most issues and focused on welfare reform and benefits for Vietnam veterans; unlike Drinan, he was against government funding of abortions. Both priests dropped out of reelection campaigns in 1980 when Pope John Paul II forbade priests to seek elective office. Cornell died in De Pere, Wisconsin on May 10, 2009.

Roy Frankhouser (69) longtime Ku Klux Klan leader and former member of the American Nazi Party in southeastern Pennsylvania, acquitted in Cumberland County Court of assault charges stemming from a 1992 stabbing incident involving a KKK security guard. Frankhouser had been convicted of several civil rights violations, including allegations that he advised a white supremacist's mother to destroy evidence linking her son to the desecration of synagogues in Randolph and Brockton, Mass.; alleged assaults on black residents; and several assassination plots against US government leaders as he waged a battle to get his white supremacist TV show on public access cable. He died in West Reading, Pennsylvania on May 15, 2009.

Si Frumkin (78) Lithuanian-born survivor of Dachau concentration camp and a successful Los Angeles textile manufacturer. In the late ‘60s, as reports of repression of Soviet Jews began to increase, Frumkin founded the Southern California Council for Soviet Jews and for the next 20 years organized protests at Soviet cultural events in the US. He died of cancer in Tarzana, California on May 15, 2009.

Donald Lee Gilson (48) Oklahoma man convicted of battering his girlfriend’s 8-year-old son and stuffing the body in a freezer in 1995. Gilson was executed by lethal injection in McAlester, Oklahoma on May 14, 2009.

Msgr. William A. Kerr (68) leading human rights figure whom serial killer Ted Bundy sought out as his spiritual counselor on death row. Kerr last spoke with Bundy two days before the condemned man died in Florida’s electric chair in January 1989. Kerr was hospitalized May 3 after suffering a stroke as he concluded celebrating a Mass. He died 10 days later in Tallahassee, Florida on May 13, 2009.

Rodger McFarlane (54) Denver-based advocate for gay rights and HIV-AIDS treatment and education. After leaving a note citing back and heart problems that limited his ability to work and travel, McFarlane committed suicide in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico on May 15, 2009.

Willie McNair (44) Alabama man on death row for fatally stabbing a 68-year-old retired textile worker and mother of six in 1990. Ella Foy Riley was stabbed in the neck with a pocket knife in her Abbeville home after refusing to give $20 to McNair, described as a cocaine addict. The blade broke in her neck, and McNair then used a kitchen knife during a violent struggle. He confessed to the crime and was executed at Holman Prison near Atmore, Alabama on May 14, 2009.

Edwin S. Shneidman (91) pioneer in the field of suicide prevention and a cofounder in 1958 of the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center, which most famously helped the city coroner to determine that the death of actress Marilyn Monroe in '62 was suicide. Shneidman suffered from diabetes, cancer, and congestive heart failure. He died in West Los Angeles, California on May 15, 2009.

Jay C. Smith (80) former Pennsylvania high school principal who spent six years on death row for conspiring with a teacher, William Bradfield (died in prison in 1998), to kill another teacher and her two children. Smith was later freed when his 1986 conviction was overturned after the state Supreme Court determined the government hid evidence that would have helped him. He consistently maintained his innocence. Echoes in the Darkness, a 1987 book about the case by true crime author Joseph Wambaugh, was a best-seller and the basis for a network TV miniseries starring Peter Coyote, Robert Loggia (as Smith), and Stockard Channing. Smith died in a Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania hospital, where he had been treated for a heart condition, on May 12, 2009.

Angel Arce Torres (79) man left paralyzed and mute after being struck by a hit-and-run driver in May 2008, then left alone in the street by passing motorists and pedestrians. Torres died after being removed from life support in Hartford, Connecticut on May 11, 2009.

Achille Compagnoni (94) Italian mountain climber, a member of the first team to reach the summit of the world’s second-highest peak. On July 31, 1954, Compagnoni and fellow Italian climber Lino Lacedelli became the first to reach the summit of Pakistan’s K2, which at 28,251 feet is the world’s second-highest peak after Mt. Everest. Compagnoni died at a hospital where he had been treated for several weeks, in Aosta, Italy on May 12, 2009.

Norm Daniels (102) longtime Wesleyan University coach. Daniels coached five sports in almost 40 years at the school. His longest assignment was baseball, which he coached for 33 seasons beginning in 1941. He also coached football, basketball, wrestling, and squash. He was football coach for 19 seasons starting in 1945; his football teams had a 25-game winning streak (1945-48). Daniels died in Middletown, Connecticut on May 11, 2009.

Julio Mazzei (78) Brazilian soccer coach who helped to persuade Pelé to play in the US and coached the Cosmos to a North American Soccer League title in 1982. A renowned physical trainer in Brazil, Mazzei was the Cosmos’ coach (1979-80, ‘82-83), leading the 1982 team that featured Giorgia Chinaglia to its fourth NASL title in six years. He died after a nine-year fight with Alzheimer’s disease, in Santos, Brazil on May 10, 2009.

Bill Passmore (76) former jockey who rode in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes and later became a Maryland racing steward. Passmore won 3,531 races and earned nearly $23 million in purses during a riding career that began as a teenager in 1948 and ended in ’86. He suffered from emphysema and died two days before the 134th running of the Preakness, in Annapolis, Maryland on May 14, 2009.

Bob Rosburg (82) pro golfer who won the 1959 PGA Championship and spent 30 years with ABC Sports as the first reporter to call the shots from the golf course. Rosburg had been battling cancer but died of head injuries at home in Palm Springs, Calif. after a fall while leaving a restaurant in Indio, California, on May 14, 2009.

Wayman Tisdale (44) three-time All-American at Oklahoma who played 12 seasons for the NBA and later became a leading contemporary jazz guitarist. Tisdale had a leg amputated last August and died of bone cancer in Tulsa, Oklahoma on May 15, 2009.