Eleanor Frazetta (74) wife of prolific fantasy-science fiction artist and illustrator Frank Frazetta, best known for his work in comic books, paperback book covers, paintings, posters, record-album covers, and other media, including the famed Keelian Mothman cover for the May 1980 issue of High Times magazine. Married for 53 years, the couple had settled on a 67-acre estate in the Pocono Mountains in southeastern Pennsylvania, where they maintained a small museum open to the public and sold reproductions of his artwork. Eleanor Frazetta died of cancer in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania on July 17, 2009.

Otto Heino (94) master potter, educator, and symbol of the mid-20th century California studio crafts movement who along with his late wife, Vivika (d. 1995), reformulated a lost Chinese glaze that made him a multimillionaire. Otto Heino died of acute renal failure in Ventura, California on July 16, 2009.

Julius Shulman (98) architectural photographer who turned photos of Modernist buildings into works of art. Shulman had more than 260,000 images in his archive when it was purchased by the Getty Center in 1995. His photos at one time sold for less than $50 each but in later years were considered art and brought between $2,000 and $20,000. His most famous work was “Case Study House No. 22” (shown above), a black and white photo of a glass-and-steel frame home built by architect Pierre Koenig in the Hollywood Hills in the ‘50s. Shulman died in the Hollywood Hills, California on July 15, 2009.

Dash Snow (27) artist who rebelled against his privileged, art-loving family to become a promising artist in his own right. Snow’s art eventually included photography, drawing, collage, installation, zines, film, and video. A known heroin addict, he died of a drug overdose in the East Village, New York on July 13, 2009.

Jane Weinberger (91) widow of US President Ronald Reagan’s defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger (d. 2006), and a writer and publisher of children’s stories. Jane Weinberger had been in declining health before suffering a massive stroke a week before her death in Bar Harbor, Maine on July 12, 2009.

Dr. Margaret Billingham (78) Stanford University pathologist who developed criteria by which surgeons could tell whether a transplanted heart was thriving or being rejected. Billingham died of kidney cancer in Grass Valley, California on July 14, 2009.

Dr. Thomas Dao (88) former research director of the breast surgery department at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo (1957-88), one of the US’s leading cancer institutes, and an early advocate of a conservative approach to breast cancer surgery. Dao died of Pick’s disease, a rare neurodegenerative disorder, in Buffalo, New York on July 16, 2009.

Harry Edelstein (91) owner, with his wife Frances, of New York’s Café Edison, a Broadway hangout in the Hotel Edison affectionately dubbed “the Polish Tea Room.” Childhood sweethearts from Poland, the Edelsteins were Holocaust survivors who came to the US in 1948 and ran the café—a place where playwrights and producers, actors, stagehands, and tourists stuff themselves with blintzes and matzo ball soup—from 1980 to 2006. Harry Edelstein died in Englewood, New Jersey on July 13, 2009.

Christopher G. Hipp (47) founder in 2000 of RLX Technologies whose groundbreaking work with a supercompact computer helped companies to vastly increase their computer power. Hipp’s major technological contribution involved blade servers, which have in the last 10 years become a popular computer workhorse for businesses. A semiprofessional cyclist, he had taken blood thinners to prevent clots and it was thought he might have died of an embolism after collapsing while cycling along Sand Hill Road in Palo Alto, California on July 14, 2009.

Jeff Locker (52) motivational speaker who offered workshops on dealing with workplace issues like stress, frustration, and anxiety. Major companies around the country hired Locker to speak, and he was also a radio talk-show host. But he had recent serious legal and financial troubles: a federal bankruptcy court trustee in Florida sued him in April, identifying him as one of the investors who profited from a giant Ponzi scheme run by Louis Pearlman, the impresario who created boy bands ‘N Sync and the Backstreet Boys. Locker was found dead in his car with his hands bound behind his back with an electrical cord and multiple stab wounds to the chest, with injuries to his heart, lung, liver, and aorta, in East Harlem, New York, on July 16, 2009.

Update: On July 22, a homeless man named Kenneth Minor was arrested after numerous videotapes showed him using Locker’s ATM card to withdraw cash. Minor claimed that Locker gave him the card and asked to be stabbed to death so his family could collect insurance money, but police found no evidence that Locker wanted to die.

Tom Runyon (89) sometime fiction writer and occasional actor who shared his family name with a Hollywood Hills canyon, named by his uncle, coal baron Carmen Runyon, who bought it in 1919. In 1969, Tom Runyon and his wife Barbara opened a restaurant-saloon called The Old Place in nearby Agoura where celebrities came to mingle with locals. Runyon had a scene-stealing role in The Getaway (1972), among other character parts. He died of cancer in Malibu, California on July 17, 2009.

Yury Verlinsky (65) Russian émigré, first researcher in the US to perform chorionic villus sampling to detect birth defects. Verlinsky also pioneered the development of preimplantation genetic diagnosis to detect potential genetic problems before a fertilized egg is implanted in the mother. He died of colon cancer in Chicago, Illinois on July 16, 2009.

Dr. Joel D. Weisman (66) one of the first physicians to detect the AIDS epidemic who then became a national advocate for AIDS research, treatment, and prevention. Weisman and UCLA immunologist Dr. Martin S. Gottlieb cowrote a report that appeared in the June 5, 1981 issue of the Centers for Disease Control’s Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report that signaled the official start of the epidemic, which the federal agency later named acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. Weisman died of heart disease in Westwood, California on July 18, 2009.

Fred Atkinson (89) former superintendent (1965-79) of Bloomington, Minn. schools, a staunch supporter of vocational, special, and community education. Atkinson developed Project Read and brought flexible scheduling to secondary schools. He died of congestive heart failure in Leland, Michigan on July 18, 2009.

Lionel Casson (94) professor of classics at New York University (1961-79) who combined classical literature with underwater archaeology in books about the history of ancient seafaring, from the primitive dory to the armadas of the Roman Empire. Casson died of pneumonia four days before his 95th birthday, in New York City on July 18, 2009.

Walter Cronkite (92) premier TV anchorman of the networks’ golden age who reported the news during a tumultuous time with reassuring authority and came to be called “the most trusted man in America.” Cronkite was the face of the CBS Evening News (1962-81) when stories ranged from the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and Sen. Robert Kennedy to racial and antiwar riots, Watergate, and the Iranian hostage crisis. He was the broadcaster to whom the title “anchorman” was first applied. In 1974 he appeared as himself in an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, receiving journalistic advice from that sitcom’s supercilious anchor, Ted Baxter (Ted Knight). As many as 18 million households tuned in to Cronkite’s top-rated program each evening; twice that number watched his final show, on March 6, 1981. He died of cerebral vascular disease in New York City on July 17, 2009.

Danielle Keller (29) estranged girlfriend of Jim Mitchell Jr., son of San Francisco’s sex-industry entrepreneur Jim Mitchell (d. 2007), sentenced to only six years in prison for manslaughter in the 1991 shooting death of his brother and business partner Artie. Keller had been involved in an abusive relationship with the late porn mogul’s troubled son and was granted sole custody of their infant daughter Samantha after she filed a restraining order against him. She was found beaten to death in the backyard of her home after an apparent domestic dispute in Novato, California on July 12, 2009. Mitchell was later arrested and charged with her murder and aggravated kidnapping of their daughter.

Michael Klenfner (62) former Atlantic Records music executive who helped to transform the Blues Brothers (comedians Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi) from a Saturday Night Live skit into Grammy-nominated recording artists. Klenfner died of congestive heart failure in New York City on July 14, 2009.

Dallas McKennon (89) character and voice actor who provided the TV voices for “Gumby,” “Archie Andrews,” “Buzz Buzzard,” and many other animated characters. McKennon also played tavern keeper Cincinnatus on the ‘60s TV series Daniel Boone and dozens of other codgers on film and TV. He died in Raymond, Washington on July 14, 2009.

Hart McNee (66) bass flutist and baritone saxophonist, a longtime musical fixture in New Orleans, San Francisco, and his native Chicago. McNee played more than 40 times at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. He died of liver cancer in New Orleans, Louisiana on July 14, 2009.

Cal Olson (84) former managing editor, photographer, and member of the Fargo (ND) Forum team awarded a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of a deadly 1957 tornado. Olson fell and struck his head at his cabin on Big Island Lake in Itasca County, Minn. and died the next day at a Duluth, Minnesota hospital, on July 16, 2009.

Tom Pfaeffle (49) longtime sound engineer and music arranger involved with an impressive array of star-studded rock music groups, including Nirvana, The Black Crowes, Great White, Heart, Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, B. B. King, and countless others. Pfaeffle owned and operated The Tank, a local Washington state recording studio, and worked as an audio instructor at the Art Institute of Seattle. He was shot and killed as he tried to enter the wrong motel room in Twisp, Washington on July 17, 2009.

Beverly Roberts (96) actress who costarred with Humphrey Bogart in the 1936 film Two Around the World. A Warner Bros. contract player from 1935, Roberts made her first film appearance with Al Jolson in The Singing Kid. She also appeared with Bogart and Pat O’Brien in China Clipper and with Errol Flynn and Joan Blondell in Perfect Specimen. She died in Laguna Niguel, California on July 13, 2009.

Gordon Waller (64) Scottish-born singer and acoustic guitarist, formerly of the pop duo Peter & Gordon, part of the ‘60s British Invasion, who had a string of hits including several songs written by their friend Paul McCartney. Waller and Peter Asher hit No. 1 on music charts around the world in 1964 with their debut single “A World Without Love.” Waller went into cardiac arrest on July 16 and died of cardiovascular disease the next day, in Norwich, Connecticut on July 17, 2009.

Amin al-Hafez (83) former Lebanese prime minister who served a turbulent two-month term in 1973 before he was forced to resign. al-Hafez died after a long battle with an undisclosed chronic illness, in Beirut, Lebanon on July 13, 2009.

Henry Allingham (113) one of the last surviving veterans of World War I and the world’s oldest man. Allingham was one of only two surviving WWI serviceman in Britain. He joined the Royal Naval Air Service—precursor to the RAF—in 1915 and in ‘16 took part in the Battle of Jutland, the war’s largest naval battle. He died in his sleep in Ovingdean, near Brighton on England’s south coast, on July 18, 2009.

Gen. Meir Amit (88) former general who headed Israel’s famed Mossad intelligence agency (1963-68). Under Amit’s leadership, the agency provided crucial intelligence that led to Israel’s victory in the 1967 Mideast war, when the country defeated its Arab enemies in six days. He died in Jerusalem, Israel on July 17, 2009.

Sam Church (72) former leader of the United Mine Workers of America. Church began working in the mines in 1965 at Clinchfield Coal Co. in southwest Virginia. He quickly rose through the local union ranks and joined UMWA’s headquarters staff in 1975. In 1979, he became the union’s international president, a job he held until ’82, and worked to improve conditions for miners and their families, including winning pension benefits for UMWA widows and insisting that miners afflicted by black lung disease receive compensation for their illness. He died in Bristol, Virginia on July 14, 2009.

Natalya Estemirova (50) human rights worker who for 10 years documented kidnappings and killings in Chechnya. Estemirova was snatched outside her home in Grozny, Chechnya and found a few hours later, dead of gunshot wounds to the head and chest, 50 miles away near a highway in Ingushetia, a neighboring republic, on July 15, 2009.

Leszek Kolakowski (81) leading Polish philosopher who turned against his own Marxist beliefs, went into exile, then branded his old doctrine "the greatest fantasy of the 20th century." Starting off as an orthodox Marxist in postwar Poland, Kolakowski became progressively disenchanted, and his calls for a more democratic version of socialism led him into conflicts with the censors that finally forced him to move to the West. He died in Oxford, England on July 17, 2009.

Capt. Bobby C. Wilks (78) first black Coast Guard aviator and the first black to reach the rank of Coast Guard captain. Also the first black to command a Coast Guard air station, Wilks pulled off several daring sea rescues around the world, for one of which, in 1971, he received the Air Medal. He died of complications from Parkinson’s disease, in Woodbridge, Virginia on July 13, 2009.

John Fautenberry (45) former Oregon truck driver who went on a multistate killing spree. Fautenberry was sentenced to death for killing Joseph Daron Jr. (46), who picked up the hitchhiking Fautenberry east of Cincinnati in 1991. He confessed to that murder and to killing four people in three other states—Alaska, Oregon, and New Jersey—during a five-month period in late 1990 and early ’91. He was executed by lethal injection in Lucasville, Ohio on July 14, 2009.

Maurice Grimaud (95) former French police chief credited with averting a bloodbath on the streets of Paris during the May 1968 riots. As students laid siege to the capital during weeks of civil unrest, Grimaud’s restraint was later seen as crucial to avoiding any direct casualties. He died in Paris, France on July 16, 2009.

Florence (Floss) Schumacher (86) leader on Orange County’s social and arts scene for nearly 30 years, instrumental in establishing the Orange County Performing Arts Center and several other similar organizations. Schumacher died of a stroke in Morro Bay, California on July 17, 2009.

Clarence Wagner (64) American Indian historian who pushed for repatriation of ancestral remains to tribes. A cultural director for the Blackfeet Tribe, Wagner shared his culture in his travels throughout the US and Europe. He died of cancer on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in northwestern Montana on July 16, 2009.

Pat Brady (83) football player whose punts for the Nevada Wolf Pack and Pittsburgh Steelers remain part of football legend more than half a century later. A University of Nevada Hall of Famer, Brady arrived there in 1949 as a quarterback and punter. In 1950, he set an NCAA record with a 99-yard punt in a game against Loyola, Calif. He joined the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1952 and led the league in punting (1953-54) before his career was ended by an injury. He died of lymphoma in Reno, Nevada on July 14, 2009.

Wiles Hallock (91) former Pacific-10 Conference commissioner (1971-83) who oversaw the league’s expansion in 1978 from eight to 10 teams when the University of Arizona and Arizona State University moved from the Western Athletic Conference. Hallock died in Walnut Creek, California on July 13, 2009.

Nelson Munsey (61) football cornerback who played six seasons (1972-77) for the Baltimore Colts. In 1975, Munsey started all 14 games for Baltimore, helping the Colts to win the AFC East Division before losing to Pittsburgh in the playoffs. He died of heart disease in San Diego, California on July 13, 2009.

Nikola Stanchev (78) wrestler who became Bulgaria’s first Olympic champion. Stanchev won gold in freestyle wrestling in the middleweight division at the 1956 Melbourne Games and a silver medal at the world championships in Istanbul that same year. He also won 11 Bulgarian titles, eight in freestyle and three in Greco-Roman style. He died in Sofia, Bulgaria on July 13, 2009.