Deaths in December 2002

The following is a list of notable deaths in December 2002.

Entries for each day are listed alphabetically by surname. A typical entry lists information in the following sequence:

• Name, age, country of citizenship at birth, subsequent country of citizenship (if applicable), reason for notability, cause of death (if known), and reference.

December 2002

1

• Abu Abraham, 78, Indian cartoonist, journalist, and author.
• Edward L. Beach, Jr., 84, American highly decorated United States Navy submarine officer and author (Run Silent, Run Deep).
• Cassius Chapin Cutler, 87, American communications engineer.
• John L. McLucas, 82, American politician and U.S. Secretary of the Air Force.
• Dave McNally, 60, American baseball player (Baltimore Orioles, Montreal Expos), lung cancer.
• José Chávez Morado, 93, Mexican artist.
• Boris Schapiro, 93, British international bridge player.

2

• Elizabeth B. Andrews, 91, American politician (U.S. Representative for Alabama's 3rd congressional district).
• Barney Berlinger, 94, American Olympic decathlon athlete (men's decathlon in the 1928 Summer Olympics).
• Achille Castiglioni, 84, Italian industrial designer.
• Aileen Fisher, 96, American children's writer (The Coffee-Pot Face, Runny Days, Sunny Days).
• Ivan Illich, 76, Austrian Roman Catholic priest, theologian, and social critic, brain cancer.
• Boris Ivanov, 82, Soviet and Russian film and theater actor.
• György Marx, 75, Hungarian physicist, astrophysicist, and science historian.
• Jim Mitchell, 56, Irish politician, cancer.
• Arno Peters, 86, German historian and filmmaker.
• Vjenceslav Richter, 85, Croatian architect.
• Edgar Scherick, 78, American television executive and producer.
• Mehmet Emin Toprak, 28, Turkish film actor, traffic collision.
• Ben Wade, 80, American baseball player (Chicago Cubs, Brooklyn Dodgers, St. Louis Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates) and scout.
• Mal Waldron, 77, American jazz pianist and composer (Billie Holiday, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane).
• Fay Gillis Wells, 94, American pioneer aviator.

3

• Adrienne Adams, 96, American children's writer and illustrator.
• Hariharananda Giri, 95, Indian yogi and guru.
• Pierre Guillaume, 77, French Navy officer, cancer.
• Klaus Löwitsch, 66, German actor, pancreatic cancer.
• Glenn Quinn, 32, Irish actor (Roseanne, Angel), heroin overdose.
• Jug Thesenga, 88, American baseball player (Washington Senators).

4

• Charles Pierce Davey, 77, American welterweight boxer, complications from paralysis.
• Noémia de Sousa, 76, Mozambique poet.
• Robert Mallet, 87, French writer and academic, .
• Hemmo Silvennoinen, 70, Finnish Olympic ski jumper.

5

• Roone Arledge, 71, American television producer and executive (Monday Night Football, Nightline), prostate cancer.
• Bob Berg, 51, American jazz saxophonist, traffic collision.
• Prosper Boulanger, 84, Canadian politician and a member of Parliament (House of Commons representing Mercier, Quebec).
• Geoff Coombes, 83, American soccer player.
• Arvell Shaw, 79, American jazz double-bassist.
• Einar Skinnarland, 84, Norwegian resistance fighter during World War II.
• Ann Welch, 85, British glider pilot (gliding, hang gliding, paragliding, microlight flying).
• Ne Win, 91, Burmese politician and dictator.

6

• Jerzy Adamski, 65, Polish featherweight boxer (silver medal winner in featherweight boxing at the 1960 Summer Olympics).
• Clarence Beers, 83, American baseball player (St. Louis Cardinals).
• Philip Berrigan, 79, American priest and political activist, kidney cancer.
• Antonino Caponnetto, 82, Italian Antimafia magistrate.
• William Henry Gleysteen, 76, American diplomat and ambassador, leukemia.
• Gerhard Löwenthal, 79, German journalist, human rights activist and author.

7

• R. Orin Cornett, 89, American physicist, university professor and inventor of Cued Speech.
• John R. Dellenback, 84, American politician (U.S. Representative for Oregon's 4th congressional district), viral pneumonia.
• Gunnar Helén, 84, Swedish liberal politician.
• Barbara Howard, 76, Canadian painter, wood engraver, and bookbinder, pulmonary embolism.
• Cal Lepore, 83, American gridiron football referee.
• Paddy Tunney, 81, Irish traditional artist.

8

• Bobby Joe Hill, 59, American basketball player, heart attack.
• Melvin Lax, 80, American physics professor, cancer.
• Anil Moonesinghe, 75, Sri Lankan revolutionary politician and trade unionist.
• Charles Rosen, 85, American computer scientist.
• Dorothy Walker, 73, Irish art critic and historian.

9

• Shigeru Chiba, 83, Japanese baseball player and manager.
• Joly Garbi, 90, Greek actress.
• Mary Hansen, 36, Australian guitarist and singer, traffic collision.
• Ian Hornak, 58, American draughtsman, painter and printmaker, aortic aneurysm.
• To Huu, 82, Vietnamese poet and politician.
• Johnny Lazor, 90, American baseball player (Boston Red Sox).
• Stan Rice, 60, painter, educator, poet, husband of author Anne Rice, cancer.
• Theodore Shackley, 75, American CIA officer known as "the Blond Ghost", cancer.

10

• Les Costello, 74, Canadian ice hockey player (Toronto Maple Leafs) and Catholic priest.
• Kurt Heintel, 78, Austrian film and television actor.
• Earl Henry, 85, American baseball player (Cleveland Indians).
• Átila Iório, 81, Brazilian actor, pulmonary emphysema.
• Andres Küng, 57, Swedish journalist, writer, and politician.
• Ian MacNaughton, 76, Scottish director of most episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
• Julie Schmitt, 89, German gymnast and Olympic champion.
• Homer Spragins, 82, American baseball player (Philadelphia Phillies).
• Peter Tanner, 88, British film editor.

11

• Domocao Alonto, 88, Filipino lawyer, author, and Islamic figure.
• Luis Ciges, 81, Spanish film actor, heart attack.
• Dolly Dawn, 86, American big band vocalist and recording star of the 1930s and 1940s.
• Muzaffer Demirhan, 70, Turkish alpine skier (Winter Olympics: 1948, 1956, 1960, 1964).
• Arthur Metcalfe, 64, British racing cyclist, cancer.
• Nanabhoy Palkhivala, 82, Indian jurist, economist and civil rights leader.
• Marvin Breckinridge Patterson, 97, American photojournalist, cinematographer, and philanthropist.
• Kay Rose, 80, American Oscar-winning sound editor, organ dysfunction.
• Lou Stein, 80, American jazz pianist.

12

• Mykola Amosov, 89, Soviet/Ukrainian heart surgeon and inventor.
• Dee Brown, 94, American author and historian (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee), heart failure.
• Nancy Caroline, 58, American EMS physician and writer (Emergency Care in the Streets), multiple myeloma.
• Brad Dexter, 85, American actor and film producer (Run Silent Run Deep, The Magnificent Seven, None but the Brave), pulmonary emphysema.
• Kazuo Kasahara, 75, Japanese screenwriter.
• Jabir Novruz, 69, Azerbaijani artist and poet.

13

• Carlos Agostí, 80, Spanish-Mexican film actor.
• Ronald Barnes, 61, Brazilian tennis player, cancer.
• Maria Björnson, 53, French theatre designer, two-time Tony Award winner for The Phantom of the Opera (Best Scenic Design, Best Costume Design).
• Stella Brooks, 92, American jazz singer of the 1940s.
• Ronald Butt, 82, British journalist, political columninst and writer.
• Ksenia Kepping, 65, Russian linguist and tangutologist.
• Anthony Ler, 35, Singaporean graphic designer and convicted murderer, execution by hanging.
• Shirley O'Hara, 78, American actress, diabetes.
• Zal Yanovsky, 57, Canadian folk rock musician, lead guitarist and singer for The Lovin' Spoonful, heart attack.

14

• Hank Arft, 80, American baseball player (St. Louis Browns).
• Jack Bradley, 86, English football player.
• Sidney Glazier, 86, American film producer.
• Ruth Kobart, 78, American performer, pancreatic cancer.
• Salman Raduyev, 35, Chechen separatist field commander, internal bleeding.
• Enrique Tarigo, 75, Uruguayan jurist and political figure, lung cancer.
• Frank Warren, 43, American gridiron football player, heart attack.
• Ray Wietecha, 74, American gridiron football player (Michigan State, New York Giants) and coach.

15

• John Crosby, 76, American conductor, founded the Santa Fe Opera.
• Charles E. Fraser, 73, American real estate developer, transformed Hilton Head Island into a world-class resort.
• Vladimir Haensel, 88, American chemical engineer.
• Jan Mikołajczak, 95, Polish rower and Olympic medalist.
• Dick Stuart, 70, American baseball player (Pittsburgh Pirates, Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies), cancer.

16

• Bill Hunter, 82, Canadian ice hockey player, general manager and coach, cancer.
• Licínio Rangel, 66, Brazilian Roman Catholic bishop.
• Nighat Sultana, 67, Pakistani actress.
• Don Vesco, 63, American businessperson and motorcycle racer, prostate cancer.

17

• Colin Clark, 70, British film director and writer (My Week with Marilyn).
• Muhammad Hamidullah, 94, Indian Hadith scholar and academic author.
• Aideu Handique, 87, Indian actress.
• James Hazeldine, 55, English actor and director, aortic dissection.
• Frederick Knott, 86, English playwright and screenwriter (Dial M for Murder).
• Hank Luisetti, 86, American basketball player and innovator.
• Aleksei Pogorelov, 83, Soviet mathematician.
• Boris Tokarev, 75, Soviet sprinter and Olympic silver medalist.

18

• Saul Amarel, 74, American computer scientist and artificial intelligence pioneer.
• Earl Audet, 81, American professional football player (USC, Washington Redskins, Los Angeles Dons) and actor.
• Mahmoud Fayad, 77, Egyptian weightlifter (gold medal in featherweight weightlifting at the 1948 Summer Olympics).
• Henry Gibson, 60, American percussionist.
• Lucy Grealy, 39, Irish-American poet and memoirist, drug overdose.
• Necip Hablemitoğlu, 48, Turkish historian and intellectual, shot.
• Ray Hnatyshyn, 68, Canadian politician and Governor-General of Canada, pancreatitis.
• Bert Millichip, 88, British football player and administrator.
• Edward Norris, 91, American film actor.
• Wayne Owens, 65, American politician and a member of Congress, heart attack.
• Jan Łomnicki, 73, Polish film director and screenwriter.

19

• Claude Crocker, 78, American baseball player (Brooklyn Dodgers).
• Will Hoy, 49, British racing driver.
• Barbara Lott, 82, British actress.
• Kote Makharadze, 76, Soviet and Georgian actor and sports commentator, stroke.
• Hrant Matevosyan, 67, Armenian writer and screenwriter.
• Babubhai J. Patel, 91, India politician and chief minister.
• Arthur Rowley, 76, English footballer, holder of the record for most career league goals.
• Aleksandar Sarievski, 80, Macedonian singer-songwriter.
• Roger Webb, 68, British musical director and composer (The Godsend, The Boy in Blue, Death of a Centerfold).
• George Weller, 95, American World War II journalist.

20

• Joanne Campbell, 38, British actress, starred in the 1980s comedy series Me and My Girl, deep-vein thrombosis.
• James Richard Ham, 91, American Roman Catholic prelate.
• Gordon McCarter, 71, American gridiron football official.
• Keith Pavitt, 65, English academic.
• Grote Reber, 90, American pioneer of radio astronomy.
• Fritz Røed, 74, Norwegian sculptor.
• Tore Tønne, 54, Norwegian politician, suicide.

21

• Jeu van Bun, 84, Dutch football player (football at the 1948 Summer Olympics).
• Duke Callaghan, 88, American cinematographer (Conan the Barbarian, Jeremiah Johnson, Miami Vice).
• José Hierro, 80, Spanish poet, pulmonary emphysema.
• Giò Pomodoro, 72, Italian sculptor, printmaker, and stage designer.
• Victor Watts, 64, British toponymist, medievalist, and academic, heart attack.

22

• Mario Ruiz Armengol, 88, Mexican pianist, composer, arranger, and conductor.
• Ian Craib, 57, English sociologist and psychotherapist (The Importance of Disappointment).
• William G. Bennett, 78, American gaming executive and real estate developer (Circus Circus Enterprises).
• Susan Fleming, 94, American actress (Million Dollar Legs, The Ziegfeld Follies) and wife of actor Harpo Marx, heart attack.
• Sanaa Gamil, 72, Egyptian actress, stomach cancer.
• Julius S. Held, 77, German art historian.
• Desmond Hoyte, 73, President of Guyana from 1985 to 1992.
• Wilhelm Kment, 88, Austrian football player and manager.
• Srboljub Krivokuća, 74, Yugoslav and Serbian football manager and player.
• Joe Strummer, 50, former singer for The Clash, heart attack.
• Clay Tanner, 71, American actor.
• Kenneth Tobey, 85, American actor (Twelve O'Clock High, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, The Thing from Another World).
• Gabrielle Wittkop, 82, French writer (The Necrophiliac), suicide.

23

• Tatamkhulu Afrika, 82, South African poet and writer, struck by vehicle.
• Anthony Besch, 78, British opera and theatre director (English National Opera, Scottish Opera, New Opera Company).
• George Bullard, 74, American baseball player (Detroit Tigers).
• John Henry Kyl, 83, American politician.
• Ratheesh, 48, Indian film actor, heart attack.

24

• Kjell Aukrust, 82, Norwegian author, poet, artist and humorist.
• Miguel Busquets, 82, Chilean footballer.
• Luciano Chailly, 82, French-Italian composer and arts administrator.
• Ward Cuff, 89, American football player (New York Giants, Chicago Cardinals, Green Bay Packers).
• James Ferman, 72, American-British film censor and director of British Board of Film Classification.
• Erroll Fraser, 52, British Virgin Island speed skater (men's 500 metres, men's 1000 metres at the 1984 Winter Olympics).
• Tita Merello, 98, Argentinian actress and singer.
• V. K. Ramasamy, 76, Indian actor.
• Richie Regan, 72, American basketball player and coach, heart failure.
• Jake Thackray, 64, English singer-songwriter, heart failure.
• Mihai Țurcaș, 60, Romanian sprint canoeist and Olympic medalist.

25

• Gabriel Almond, 91, American political scientist.
• Íñigo Cavero, 73, Spanish aristocrat, lawyer and politician.
• Attilio Lambertini, 82, Italian racing cyclist.
• Tine Logar, 86, Slovenian historical linguist, dialectologist, and academic.
• William T. Orr, 85, American television executive producer (Maverick, F-Troop, 77 Sunset Strip).
• Davina Whitehouse, 90, British-New Zealand actress (Night Nurse, Sleeping Dogs, Braindead), stroke.

26

• Louis Laurie, 85, American boxer.
• Åke Lindström, 74, Swedish actor and film director.
• Al Lujack, 82, American basketball player.
• Heinz Raack, 85, German field hockey player and Olympic silver medalist.
• Frank Reiber, 93, American baseball player (Detroit Tigers).
• Herb Ritts, 50, American celebrity and fashion photographer, pneumonia.
• Armand Zildjian, 81, Armenian-American entrepreneur and manufacturer of cymbals.

27

• Truid Blaisse-Terwindt, 85, Dutch field hockey- and tennis player.
• Bill Chipley, 82, American professional football player (Boston Yanks, New York Bulldogs).
• Judy Clark, 78, American film and television actress and singer.
• Daniel Deffayet, 80, French classical saxophonist.
• Youssef Fakhr Eddine, 67, Egyptian actor.
• Carla Henius, 83, German soprano, mezzo-soprano and librettist.
• George Roy Hill, 81, American film director (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, Slap Shot), Parkinson's disease.
• Olli Lounasmaa, 72, Finnish experimental physicist and neuroscientist, drowned.
• Yayori Matsui, 68, Japanese journalist and women's rights activist, cancer.
• Pratima Barua Pandey, 68, Indian folk singer.
• Ruth Svedberg, 99, Swedish track and field athlete and Olympic medalist.
• María Luisa Zea, 89, Mexican actress and singer.

28

• Maria Carbone, 94, Italian operatic soprano.
• José Cibrián, 86, Argentine actor.
• Fadia of Egypt, 59, Egyptian princess.
• Clyde Goodnight, 78, American gridiron football player.
• Achyut Kanvinde, 86, Indian architect.
• Koreyoshi Kurahara, 75, Japanese screenwriter and director, pneumonia.
• Albert Stubbins, 83, English footballer.
• Per Voksø, 79, Norwegian newspaper editor and Christian leader.
• Meri Wilson, 53, American model and singer-songwriter ("Telephone Man"), traffic collision.

29

• Al Babartsky, 87, American gridiron football player (Fordham University, Chicago Cardinals, Chicago Bears).
• Lloyd Barbee, 77, American lawyer and politician.
• Billy Brown, 84, American triple jumper and long jumper (1941 world long jump leader, 1936 Summer Olympics men's triple jump).
• Ralph Clanton, 88, American actor of film, stage, and television.
• Don Clarke, 69, New Zealand rugby player.
• John G. Dreyfus, 84, British typographer and printing historian.
• Paul Hawkins, 90, British politician.
• Lorenzo Miguel, 75, Argentine labor leader, kidney failure.
• Július Satinský, 61, Slovak actor and comedian.
• Robert Wierinckx, 87, Belgian road bicycle racer.

30

• Mary Brian, 96, American actress, silent and sound film star (Peter Pan, The Virginian, Charlie Chan in Paris, Man on the Flying Trapeze), cardiovascular disease.
• Barbara Durham, 60, American judge, first female chief justice of the Washington Supreme Court.
• Wang Fanxi, 95, Chinese Trotskyist revolutionary.
• Eleanor J. Gibson, 92, American psychologist.
• Stan Javie, 83, American gridiron football player.
• Antony Ponzini, 69, American actor.
• Carl Schwende, 82, Canadian fencer and Olympian.
• Mary Wesley, 90, English novelist (Jumping the Queue, The Camomile Lawn, Part of the Furniture).

31

• Kazimierz Dejmek, 78, Polish actor, theatre and film director, and politician.
• D. J. Enright, 82, British poet, novelist and critic.
• Giovanni Rossi Lomanitz, 81, American physicist, cancer.
• Kaare Meland, 87, Norwegian politician.
• Hanni Ossott, 56, Venezuelan poet, translator and critic.
• Li Rong, 82, Chinese linguist.
• Desmond Tester, 83, English film and television actor and television presenter.
• Flaviano Vicentini, 60, Italian road race cyclist.