Deaths

Henry Wood

He'd been conducting for so long that his baton hand developed a permanent curl. Henry Wood launched the BBC Proms in 1895 with a simple, stubborn idea: classical music shouldn't cost a working man a week's wages. Cheap standing tickets. No dress code. He ran it for 46 straight years. He died in 1944 just weeks after conducting his 50th Proms season, exhausted and 75. The concerts he fought to keep affordable now fill the Royal Albert Hall 70 nights every summer — still called the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts.

Yahi Saïd, ouvrier et résistant algérien (° 1902)

William K. Boone, filántropo estadounidense (n.

William K. Boone, filántropo estadounidense (n. 1875).

Günther von Kluge

Günther von Kluge knew about the July 20 plot to assassinate Hitler. He didn't participate, didn't inform on it, and after the assassination failed he was in an impossible position. Born in 1882, he'd commanded Army Group Center on the Eastern Front and Army Group B in Normandy, where the German defenses were collapsing. He was relieved of command on August 17, 1944. Two days later he swallowed a cyanide capsule rather than face what came next.

Juan Zanelli, chilenischer Automobilrennfahrer und Widerstandskämpfer im Zweiten Weltkrieg

Günther von Kluge, militar alemán (n.

Günther von Kluge, militar alemán (n. 1882).

Yves Barbier, ingénieur et résistant français (° 1er décembre 1893).

1945

Tomas Burgos

Tomas Burgos was a Chilean philanthropist who funded schools, hospitals, and welfare institutions in the early twentieth century with a fortune built on the nitrate trade. Born in 1875, he died in 1945 during the same years that the Chilean nitrate industry collapsed under competition from synthetic fertilizers. His charitable works outlasted the economy that made them possible.

1946

Jules-Albert de Dion, pionnier de l’industrie automobile en France et homme politique français (° 10 mars 1856).

1946

Bob McKinney

American baseball player who played in the early 20th century. McKinney was part of the generation of ballplayers who shaped the dead-ball era of the sport.

1947

Oskar Moll, deutscher Maler

1947

Earl Fuller, US-amerikanischer Musiker

1948

Frederick Philip Grove, deutscher und kanadischer Schriftsteller und Übersetzer

1950

Giovanni Giorgi

Giovanni Giorgi was an Italian engineer and physicist who died in 1950. His lasting contribution was a proposal he made in 1901: a coherent system of units combining meters, kilograms, and seconds with electrical units. That proposal eventually became the International System of Units — SI — the measurement framework that every scientist on Earth uses today. He didn't live to see its full adoption. The system was formally established in 1960, a decade after his death.

1951

Adolf von Achenbach, preußischer Politiker

1951

Walter Bloem, deutscher Schriftsteller

1954

Alcide De Gasperi

He ran Italy's postwar reconstruction from a borrowed desk — De Gasperi spent years in a Vatican library job after Mussolini banned him from politics entirely. When he finally became Prime Minister in 1945, he held the role for eight consecutive years, longer than anyone in the republic's history. He negotiated Italy's entry into NATO and anchored the country to western Europe. Died broke, almost forgotten by the politicians who inherited his work. The republic he built outlasted every government that followed.

David Bomberg

David Bomberg painted The Mud Bath in 1914 — angular, fragmented figures that looked like the industrial age dismantling the human body. Born in 1890, he was one of the most original artists working in Britain before the First World War and spent most of the rest of his career being ignored for it. His later work, painted in Spain and Palestine, was more painterly and even better. His students at Borough Polytechnic included Frank Auerbach. He died in 1957, still underrated.

Carl-Gustaf Rossby

Carl-Gustaf Rossby was born in Sweden and died in Stockholm in 1957 after becoming one of the most influential meteorologists in history. He moved to the United States, built weather services for the Navy, and described the large-scale atmospheric waves — Rossby waves — that govern weather patterns across entire hemispheres. Every modern weather forecast runs on the physics he mapped. He died of a heart attack in his office, at his desk. Still working.

Julián Alarcón, compositor y violinista paraguayo (n.

Julián Alarcón, compositor y violinista paraguayo (n. 1888).

Carl-Gustaf Rossby, meteorólogo estadounidense de origen sueco (n.

Carl-Gustaf Rossby, meteorólogo estadounidense de origen sueco (n. 1898).

Blind Willie McTell, cantautor y guitarrista estadounidense (n.

Blind Willie McTell, cantautor y guitarrista estadounidense (n. 1901).

Jacob Epstein

Jacob Epstein was born in New York in 1880 and became one of the most controversial sculptors of the twentieth century — not because his work was bad, but because it unsettled. His early public commissions in London attracted protests. Critics called his work obscene. His sculptures of figures from the Bible were dense and primal and refused to be decorative. By the time he died in 1959, he had a knighthood. The protests were a footnote. The work is still standing.

Blind Willie McTell

Blind Willie McTell could play in any key without a capo and recorded under at least five different names for different labels, which says something about the recording industry's relationship with its artists in the 1920s and 30s. Born around 1901 in Georgia, he played a twelve-string guitar with a slide technique that influenced every blues player who heard him. Bob Dylan wrote 'Blind Willie McTell' in 1983 and called him the best. He died in 1959, poor.

Jacob Epstein, escultor estadounidense (n.

Jacob Epstein, escultor estadounidense (n. 1880).

1962

Robert Bürkner, deutscher Schauspieler, Theaterintendant, Regisseur und Autor

1963

Kathleen Parlow

Kathleen Parlow was born in Calgary in 1890 and became, by her teens, one of the most acclaimed violinists in Europe — performing for royalty, touring Russia at 16, studying under the great Leopold Auer in St. Petersburg. She spent decades teaching in Canada and the United States after her performing career wound down, training the next generation. She died in 1963. The students she shaped are where her career actually ended.

1964

Ewald Kluge, deutscher Motorradrennfahrer

1965

Andreas Madsen, explorador y escritor dano-argentino (n.

Andreas Madsen, explorador y escritor dano-argentino (n. 1881).

1965

Abby Berlin, US-amerikanischer Filmregisseur

Isaac Deutscher

Polish-born British historian and political biographer best known for his three-volume biography of Leon Trotsky, considered one of the great political biographies of the 20th century. Deutscher's work shaped how an entire generation of leftist intellectuals understood the Soviet Union and the betrayal of revolutionary ideals.

Pierre Chami, libanesischer Erzbischof

Hugo Gernsback

Hugo Gernsback invented the word 'scientifiction' in 1926 when he launched 'Amazing Stories,' the first magazine dedicated entirely to science fiction. He was born in Luxembourg in 1884 and had already been publishing electronics magazines for years before he decided stories about the future deserved their own format. The Hugo Award — science fiction's top honor — is named after him. He died in New York in 1967, having watched the genre he named become a global industry.

José Pérez Jiménez, pintor español (n.

José Pérez Jiménez, pintor español (n. 1887).

1968

George Gamow

He predicted the cosmic microwave background radiation — the faint afterglow of the Big Bang — in 1948, twenty years before anyone confirmed it. But Gamow didn't win the Nobel Prize for it. The 1978 award went to Penzias and Wilson, who discovered it almost by accident while he was already dead. He also cracked how stars fuse hydrogen into helium and co-decoded how DNA triplets map to amino acids. One physicist. Three fields. And history handed the trophy to someone else.

1968

Spiro Dellerba, US-amerikanischer American-Football-Spieler

1969

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

He designed some of the 20th century's most copied buildings, but Mies van der Rohe never got a formal architecture degree. Not one. He learned by apprenticing in his father's stone-carving shop in Aachen, then working under furniture designer Bruno Paul. That craftsman's obsession stuck — he'd spend months perfecting a single steel joint. His Barcelona Pavilion, built in 1929 and demolished just a year later, had to be painstakingly reconstructed from old photographs decades after his death. The building nearly vanished completely. The idea never did.

1969

Alejandro "Patón" Carrasquel, beisbolista venezolano (n.

Alejandro "Patón" Carrasquel, beisbolista venezolano (n. 1912).

1969

Nakayama Gishū, japanischer Schriftsteller

1970

Paweł Jasienica

Paweł Jasienica was a Polish historian who wrote popular histories of medieval and early modern Poland that sold in enormous numbers under communist rule — which made the regime nervous. He was a soldier in the Home Army during World War II and spent the postwar decades writing the past carefully, precisely, for a public hungry for a history the state didn't control. The authorities harassed him near the end. He died in 1970. The books outlasted the system that harassed him.

1971

Reinhold Maier, Ministerpräsident von Baden-Württemberg

1972

Tony Taylor, australischer Vulkanologe

1972

Serge Deyglun, auteur-compositeur-interprète, acteur et animateur de radio et de télévision québécois (° 18 décembre …

Serge Deyglun, auteur-compositeur-interprète, acteur et animateur de radio et de télévision québécois (° 18 décembre 1929).

1972

Leopold Reitz, deutscher Schriftsteller

1973

Paul Aellen, botánico suizo (n.

Paul Aellen, botánico suizo (n. 1896).

1974

Anna Arena, italienische Schauspielerin

1974

Fernando Cerchio, italienischer Regisseur, Drehbuchautor und Filmproduzent

1974

Wifredo Ricart, ingeniero español (n.

Wifredo Ricart, ingeniero español (n. 1897).

Frank Shields, joueur de tennis américain (° 18 novembre 1909).

Jim Londos

Jim Londos was a professional wrestler born in Greece who became the biggest draw in the sport during the 1930s and 40s. Born Christos Theofilou, he built a persona around Greco-Roman heritage, good looks, and genuine athletic ability — a combination that made him a crossover star when wrestling was still claiming to be a legitimate sport. He drew 35,000 people to Yankee Stadium in 1934. He died in 1975 in Escondido, California, at 78. That Yankee Stadium crowd didn't forget him.

Mark Donohue

Mark Donohue died in 1975, two days after crashing during practice at the Austrian Grand Prix. He was 38. He had already done nearly everything in American racing — won at Indianapolis, dominated Can-Am, won a NASCAR race. The Penske partnership built some of the most technically advanced race cars of the era. Donohue was as much engineer as driver and cared more about getting the car right than getting the credit. The tire blowout that ended his life had nothing to do with skill.

Argentino Larrabure, militar argentino secuestrado durante un año (n.

Argentino Larrabure, militar argentino secuestrado durante un año (n. 1932).

Konrad Swinarski, polnischer Theaterregisseur

1976

Alastair Sim

He spent decades terrifying schoolchildren and delighting adults as cinema's most rubbery-faced villain — yet Alastair Sim privately loathed watching himself onscreen. Born in Edinburgh to a tailor father, he didn't act professionally until his thirties. Then came a sprint: headmistress Millicent Fritton in *The Belles of St. Trinian's*, the redeemed Scrooge in the 1951 *A Christmas Carol* that many still consider definitive. He died in London, age 75. That Scrooge still airs every December, meaning the man who hated watching himself never really stopped being watched.

1976

Ken Wadsworth

Ken Wadsworth was a New Zealand cricketer who died in 1976 at 29, from cancer diagnosed not long after a tour of England. He had been one of New Zealand's steadiest wicketkeepers through the early 1970s, part of a team that was building toward genuine Test respectability. His death came just as New Zealand cricket was finding its footing. He never saw what came next — the 1977 tour victories, the 1980s sides that announced New Zealand on the world stage.

1977

Aleksander Kreek

Estonian shot putter and discus thrower who competed for the Soviet Union. Kreek represented Estonia's athletic tradition during decades of Soviet occupation.

1977

Groucho Marx

Groucho Marx perfected the art of the rapid-fire insult, using his greasepaint mustache and cigar to dismantle the pomposity of the American elite. His death in 1977 silenced the sharpest wit in vaudeville and film, ending a career that defined the anarchic, wordplay-heavy style of the Marx Brothers for generations of subsequent comedians.

1977

Peter Dyneley

English-Canadian actor best remembered as the voice of Jeff Tracy in the original Thunderbirds puppet television series (1965-66). Dyneley gave the patriarch of International Rescue his commanding authority in Gerry Anderson's most famous creation.

1978

Jean Eschbach, résistant alsacien et chef FFI (°29 mars 1895).

1978

Max Mallowan, britischer Archäologe

1978

Hermann Jacobsen, deutscher Gärtner und Sukkulentenforscher

Dorsey Burnette, chanteur américain (° 28 décembre 1932).

Morris Surdin, kanadischer Komponist und Dirigent

Dorsey Burnette

Dorsey Burnette helped invent rockabilly with his brother Johnny and guitarist Paul Burlison as the Rock and Roll Trio in the 1950s. The records they cut for Coral were raw and fast and decades ahead of what radio was playing. The trio never had a major commercial hit. But musicians heard those recordings and everything they did afterward carried the fingerprints. Dorsey had a modest solo career in the 1970s, writing songs that others made famous. He died of a heart attack in 1979 at 46.

Joel Teitelbaum

Joel Teitelbaum was the Satmar Rebbe, the spiritual leader of one of the largest Hasidic dynasties in the world. Born in Romania in 1887, he survived the Holocaust — rescued, controversially, on the Kastner train in 1944 — and rebuilt his community in Brooklyn, growing it into tens of thousands of followers. He was a fierce opponent of Zionism on religious grounds, a position that put him in conflict with nearly every other major Jewish institution of the twentieth century. He died in 1979. The debate he embodied continues.

1980

Otto Frank

He survived Auschwitz, but couldn't save his daughters. Otto Frank was the only member of his immediate family to walk out of the camps alive — and he spent the next 35 years as the keeper of Anne's diary, personally answering thousands of letters from readers worldwide. He'd found the manuscript in his own apartment, left behind by a friend who'd hidden it. He was 90 when he died in Basel. What he left wasn't a book. It was a voice that outlasted everyone who tried to silence it.

1980

Eric John Underwood, cientista australiano (n.

Eric John Underwood, cientista australiano (n. 1905).

1981

Jessie Matthews

Jessie Matthews was the biggest British film star of the 1930s — a dancer, singer, and actress who filled theaters across Europe while Hollywood tried to recruit her. She turned down American contracts and stayed in England. Depression and stage fright shadowed her career. By the 1950s, her film career was gone. She found a second life on BBC Radio as Mrs. Dale in the long-running serial 'Mrs. Dale's Diary,' heard by millions for years. She died in 1981. The radio audience knew her longer than the film one.

1981

بدوي الجبل، شاعر ووزير سوري أسبق.

1982

August Neo

August Neo was an Estonian wrestler who won Olympic gold in 1936 in Berlin — under the shadow of a Games designed as Nazi spectacle — in the Greco-Roman category. Estonia was then an independent nation, though that independence had less than five years left. The Soviet occupation of 1940 erased the country from Olympic rosters. Neo spent the postwar decades in Sweden, living as a refugee from a country that had been absorbed into an empire. He died in 1982. His gold medal preceded the disappearance of the flag it was won under.

1983

Ulyses Petit de Murat, poeta, dramaturgo y escritor argentino (n.

Ulyses Petit de Murat, poeta, dramaturgo y escritor argentino (n. 1907).

1983

Rudolf Adametz, deutscher Politiker

1984

Azar Andami, iranische Medizinerin und Bakteriologin

1984

Fritz Kranz, deutscher Schauspieler, Theaterregisseur und Theaterintendant

1985

Henri Flammarion, éditeur français (° 1er avril 1910).

1985

Yamazaki Hōdai, japanischer Schriftsteller

1986

Viv Thicknesse

Australian rugby union player Viv Thicknesse competed during the mid-20th century, representing a generation of amateur athletes who played for the love of the game before professionalism transformed the sport.

1986

Willy Kramp, deutscher Schriftsteller

1986

Hermione Baddeley

Hermione Baddeley was born in Shropshire in 1906 and built one of the more durable careers in British acting — theater, film, television, a second act in Hollywood that included an Oscar nomination for 'Room at the Top' in 1960. Her nomination was for eight minutes of screen time, a record at the time for shortest performance nominated. She appeared in 'Mary Poppins' as Mrs. Brill, the housekeeper. She died in Los Angeles in 1986, with a career stretching from silent-era British theater to Disney musicals.

1987

Fridolin Gallati, Schweizer Unternehmer

1987

Margot Moles Piña, deportista española especializada en atletismo, hockey, natación y esquí.

Margot Moles Piña, deportista española especializada en atletismo, hockey, natación y esquí. (n.1910)

1987

Ydnekachew Tessema, äthiopischer Fußballer und Sportfunktionär

1988

Ferdinand Käs, österreichischer Berufssoldat und Beamter

1990

Gerold Fischer, deutscher Motorradrennfahrer

1990

An Rutgers, niederländische Schriftstellerin

Karl Storch, deutscher Leichtathlet

Jean Hubeau, französischer Komponist, Pianist und Musikpädagoge

George McIlraith, homme politique canadien (° 29 juillet 1908).

Mario Pantaleo, sacerdote sanador y fundador de la Obra del Padre Mario (n.

Mario Pantaleo, sacerdote sanador y fundador de la Obra del Padre Mario (n. 1915).

Hans Lebert, österreichischer Schriftsteller und Opernsänger

Utpal Dutt

Towering figure in Bengali theater who acted in over 100 films while directing and writing politically charged plays that challenged authority. Dutt's 1965 production Kallol brought leftist political theater to mainstream Bengali audiences and repeatedly drew government censorship.

Donald William Kerst, physicien américain († 1er novembre 1911).

Fritz Pirkl, deutscher Psychologe und Politiker, MdL, Landesminister, MdEP

Jack Bartlett, britischer Unternehmer und Automobilrennfahrer

صلاح جديد، أبرز قادة حزب البعث قبل وصول حافظ الأسد إلى السلطة.

1994

Linus Pauling Dies: Only Dual Unshared Nobel Winner

Linus Pauling won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954 for his work on chemical bonding. Then he started campaigning against nuclear weapons testing and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962. He is the only person to win two unshared Nobel Prizes. In his later years he became convinced that high doses of Vitamin C could cure cancer and prevent colds. The scientific consensus disagreed. He took 18,000 mg a day. He died at 93 of prostate cancer. The Vitamin C debate outlived him.

1994

Antoine Khoraiche, prélat libanais, patriarche de l’Église maronite de 1975 à 1986 (° 20 septembre 1907).

1994

Hanna-Maria Zippelius, deutsche Verhaltensbiologin

1995

Silvio Amadio, italienischer Filmregisseur und Drehbuchautor

1995

Pierre Schaeffer

Pierre Schaeffer recorded train sounds in a Paris radio studio in 1948 and played them back at different speeds, spliced together, layered over each other — and invented musique concrète. The idea that recorded sound, any sound, could be musical material was radical enough that most classical musicians dismissed it. Born in 1910, he also designed the SMPTE timecode system used to synchronize film and audio. He died in 1995. The trains are still playing somewhere.

1996

Claire Rommer, deutsche Schauspielerin

1996

Torresmo, palhaço brasileiro (n.

Torresmo, palhaço brasileiro (n. 1918).

1997

Cathleen Cordell

American actress who worked across stage and screen in mid-20th-century Hollywood. Cordell appeared in various television and film productions during her career.

Max Holste, constructeur aéronautique français (° 13 septembre 1913).

Wassili Alexandrowitsch Archipow, sowjetischer Marineoffizier

Hellmut Andics, österreichischer Journalist und Autor

Yuri Yappa, físico teórico soviético (n.

Yuri Yappa, físico teórico soviético (n. 1927)

1999

Rodrigo Riera, guitarrista y compositor venezolano (n.

Rodrigo Riera, guitarrista y compositor venezolano (n. 1923).

2000s 161

Theodore Trautwein

American judge who served on the New Jersey Superior Court. Trautwein was known for his judicial career in the Garden State's legal system.

Antonio Pugliese

Antonio Pugliese was an Italian professional wrestler who competed from the 1960s through the 1980s, working through European circuits at a time when wrestling there was a distinct culture from American professional wrestling. He died in 2000. The European wrestling tradition produced champions who are largely unknown to American audiences but who drew devoted crowds across Italy, France, and the United Kingdom for decades. Pugliese was part of that structure.

Bineshwar Brahma

Bineshwar Brahma was a poet, author, and educator from Assam who spent his life working in and writing about Bodo culture — one of the indigenous communities of Northeast India. He died in 2000. His work preserved oral traditions in written form at a moment when modernization was accelerating the erasure of minority languages and literatures across India. The Bodo language had fewer than two million speakers. Brahma wrote toward that fact, not away from it.

Tony Parisi

Italian-Canadian professional wrestler born Antonio Pugliese who was a fixture of 1970s-80s WWF tag team wrestling. Parisi held the WWF Tag Team Championship and was known for his crowd-pleasing in-ring style during the territory era.

Luce Fabbri, anarquista italo-uruguaya (n.

Luce Fabbri, anarquista italo-uruguaya (n. 1908).

Betty Everett

Betty Everett's most famous song — 'The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)' — reached number six in 1964. She was from Greenwood, Mississippi, had been singing gospel since childhood, and brought that depth to pop music in a way that producers couldn't manufacture. The song was covered so many times that later generations didn't always know she came first. She died in Beloit, Wisconsin in 2001. If you want to know if he loves you, she already told you.

Betty Everett, cantante estadounidense (n.

Betty Everett, cantante estadounidense (n. 1939).

Xavier Orville, écrivain français (° 3 janvier 1932).

Henri-François Van Aal, journaliste et homme politique belge (° 4 janvier 1933).

Willy Vannitsen, cycliste sur route belge (° 8 février 1935).

Donald Woods

Donald Woods was the South African journalist who befriended Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko in the 1970s and then watched the apartheid government kill him. When Biko died in police custody in 1977, Woods began writing about it. The government banned him. He fled South Africa disguised as a priest, crossing into Lesotho with his family and eventually reaching Britain. His book about Biko became the film 'Cry Freedom' in 1987. He came home when apartheid fell. He died in London in 2001.

Eduardo Chillida, escultor español (n.

Eduardo Chillida, escultor español (n. 1924).

Otto Wüst, Schweizer Geistlicher, Bischof von Basel

Sabri al Banna, terroriste palestinien (° mai 1937).

Irving Copi, filósofo estadounidense (n.

Irving Copi, filósofo estadounidense (n. 1917).

Aldo Zeoli, militar e ingeniero astronáutico argentino (n.

Aldo Zeoli, militar e ingeniero astronáutico argentino (n. 1916).

Hermann Withalm, österreichischer Politiker, Abgeordneter zum Nationalrat, Staatssekretär, Bundesparteiobmann der ÖVP

Sérgio Vieira de Mello

Sergio Vieira de Mello was the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and one of the most capable diplomatic operators the organization had produced, known for his work in Cambodia, Kosovo, East Timor, and Iraq. On August 19, 2003, a suicide bomber destroyed the Canal Hotel in Baghdad where the UN mission was headquartered. Vieira de Mello was buried under the rubble for hours and died before rescuers could reach him. He was 55. The UN had just established its Iraq mission. He was the mission.

Carlos Roberto Reina

Carlos Roberto Reina was President of Honduras from 1994 to 1998 and came to office on a platform he called 'moral revolution' — addressing corruption and military impunity in a country that had endured decades of both. He was a human rights lawyer before becoming a politician and genuinely meant some of what he said. He got military conscription abolished. He died in 2003. Honduras's structural problems didn't end with him, but his presidency marked a direction, even if the country didn't stay on it.

2004

Pascal Arrighi, résistant et homme politique français (° 16 juin 1921).

2004

George Gibson, US-amerikanischer American-Football-Spieler

2004

Günter Rexrodt, deutscher Politiker, Senator von Berlin, MdB, Bundesminister, MdA

Michael Collins (Dennis Lynds dit), auteur américain de romans policiers (° 15 janvier 1924).

Mo Mowlam

She removed her wig in front of IRA prisoners. That moment — a brain tumor had cost her her hair — cracked something open in the Maze Prison negotiations that formal diplomacy couldn't. Mo Mowlam's decision to visit loyalist inmates in January 1998 was unauthorized, unscheduled, and almost certainly saved the Good Friday Agreement from collapse. Tony Blair hadn't sent her. She just went. The deal was signed three months later. She died at 55, leaving behind the agreement that's held — imperfectly, stubbornly — ever since.

Aušra Augustinavičiūtė, litauische Psychologin, Soziologin und Ökonomin

Félix Latrónico, comerciante y representante de futbolistas argentino (n.

Félix Latrónico, comerciante y representante de futbolistas argentino (n. 1912).

Abraham Bueno de Mesquita

Abraham Bueno de Mesquita was a Dutch actor born in 1918 who spent decades in Dutch theater and film in a career that never reached international prominence but remained a fixture of Dutch cultural life. He died in 2005 at 87. The Netherlands has a small but serious theatrical tradition, and Bueno de Mesquita was part of the generation that maintained it through the postwar decades when Dutch cinema was rebuilding its identity. Long careers in small industries deserve their own accounting.

Oscar Muller, footballeur français (° 28 juillet 1957).

Óscar Míguez, futbolista uruguayo (n.

Óscar Míguez, futbolista uruguayo (n. 1927).

Joseph Hill, jamaikanischer Musiker

Jacqueline Beytout, femme d'affaires française (° 20 février 1918).

Saraswathi Gora, indische Aktivistin

2007

Carlos Trías Sagnier, ensayista y escritor español (n.

Carlos Trías Sagnier, ensayista y escritor español (n. 1946).

2007

Francis Ryck, écrivain français (° 4 mars 1920).

2007

Daniel Maes, footballeur belge (° 7 juillet 1966).

Habib Miyan, supercentenario hindú (n.

Habib Miyan, supercentenario hindú (n. 1878).

Walter Scheler, deutscher Buchhalter, Opfer des Aufstands vom 17.

Walter Scheler, deutscher Buchhalter, Opfer des Aufstands vom 17. Juni 1953 in der DDR, Ehrenbürger Jenas

LeRoi Moore

LeRoi Moore died in Los Angeles on August 19, 2008, from complications following an ATV accident on his Virginia farm in June. He was 46. He was the saxophonist who gave Dave Matthews Band its sonic fingerprint — the jazz-inflected, improvisationally wild, formally trained wind beneath a band that sold millions of records by not sounding like radio. He had been with the band since the beginning in 1991. They were on tour when he died. They finished it. He would have told them to.

Mohamed Baniyahya, journaliste et homme politique marocain (° inconnue).

LeRoi Moore, musicien américain, saxophoniste du Dave Matthews Band (° 7 septembre 1961).

Levy Mwanawasa

Levy Mwanawasa died in a Paris hospital, ending a presidency defined by his aggressive anti-corruption campaign and efforts to stabilize Zambia’s economy. His administration’s focus on fiscal discipline and legal reform helped secure significant debt relief from international creditors, providing the country with the budgetary breathing room necessary to pursue long-term infrastructure development.

2009

Julio Ardiles Gray, argentinischer Schriftsteller

2009

Don Hewitt

Television producer who created 60 Minutes in 1968, inventing the newsmagazine format that became the most successful broadcast in American TV history. Hewitt ran the show for 36 years, and 60 Minutes has never left the air — now the longest-running primetime program in U.S. broadcast history.

Joe Matthews, homme politique sud-africain (° 17 juin 1929).

Blanca Curi, ilusionista y tarotista argentina (n.

Blanca Curi, ilusionista y tarotista argentina (n. 1950).

Sergio Castillo Mandiola, escultor y académico chileno (n.

Sergio Castillo Mandiola, escultor y académico chileno (n. 1925).

Johannes Riedl, deutscher Fußballspieler

Skandor Akbar

American wrestling manager born James Wehba who became one of the most hated heels in Texas wrestling during the 1970s-80s. Skandor Akbar's "Devastation Inc." stable was a cornerstone of World Class Championship Wrestling's golden age.

Paul Yonnet, sociologue et essayiste français (° 1948).

René La Borderie, professeur et pédagogue français (° 10 avril 1935).

Gun Hägglund

Swedish journalist who worked in print media during a long career in Scandinavian journalism.

Gil Courtemanche, journaliste et écrivain québécois (° 18 août 1943).

Janusz Kierzkowski, cycliste sur piste polonais (° 26 février 1947).

Jaroslav Smolka, tschechischer Komponist und Musikwissenschaftler

حسين رشيد خريس، شاعر أردني.

Raúl Ruiz

Chilean filmmaker who directed over 100 films across five decades, working in Chile, France, and Portugal. Ruiz's surrealist, labyrinthine storytelling — particularly in Mysteries of Lisbon (2010) — made him one of the most admired art-house directors of his era.

Giff Roux, jugador de baloncesto estadounidense (n.

Giff Roux, jugador de baloncesto estadounidense (n. 1923).

Jimmy Sangster, réalisateur, scénariste et producteur de cinéma britannique (° 2 décembre 1927).

Maïté Nahyr

Belgian actress who worked in French-language film and television. Nahyr appeared in various Belgian and French productions during her career.

Tony Scott

He didn't leave a note explaining why. Tony Scott, 68, climbed over a railing on the Vincent Thomas Bridge in Los Angeles and jumped 185 feet into the harbor below. The director who'd trained audiences to love kinetic, sun-drenched chaos — *Top Gun*, *True Romance*, *Man on Fire* — was gone in seconds. He left behind 35 films, twin sons who were 12 years old, and a visual style so imitated that Hollywood still hasn't fully recovered from his influence.

Edmund Skellings

American poet who was one of the earliest practitioners of multimedia poetry, combining spoken word with electronic music and visual projection. Skellings was a pioneer of performance poetry in Florida's literary scene.

Horacio Galloso, periodista argentino (n.

Horacio Galloso, periodista argentino (n. 1933).

Catherine Lépront, romancière et nouvelliste française (° juin 1951).

Maïté Nahyr, comédienne belge (° 25 octobre 1947).

David Weir, US-amerikanischer Automobilrennfahrer

Lothar Ruschmeier, deutscher Jurist und Kommunalpolitiker

Ghazi al-Sadiq

Sudanese politician from the Mahdi family, descendants of Muhammad Ahmad who led the Mahdist revolt against Anglo-Egyptian rule in the 1880s. Al-Sadiq was active in Sudanese political life during a turbulent period.

Donal Henahan

American music critic who served as chief classical music critic of The New York Times from 1980 to 1991. Henahan's reviews shaped public opinion on classical performance in America during a transformative decade for the art form.

Ivar Iversen

Norwegian canoe racer who competed in the first half of the 20th century. Iversen represented Norway in international paddling competitions, reaching a remarkable age of 98.

Cedar Walton

Jazz pianist and composer who was one of hard bop's most prolific session musicians, recording with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and leading dozens of his own albums. Walton's composition "Bolivia" became a jazz standard, and his sophisticated harmonic approach influenced generations of pianists.

Wolfgang Lüder, deutscher Jurist und Politiker, Senator von Berlin, MdA, MdB

Musa'id bin Abdulaziz Al Saud

Saudi Arabian prince who was a son of the kingdom's founder, Ibn Saud. Musa'id was one of the many sons of Abdulaziz who formed the extensive Saudi royal family that continues to govern the kingdom.

Lee Thompson Young, acteur, réalisateur et scénariste américain (° 1er février 1984).

José Sarria

José Sarria transformed LGBTQ+ political activism by founding the Imperial Court System, a massive international network that raised millions for charity while fostering community pride. His death in 2013 silenced the first openly gay candidate to run for public office in the United States, a trailblazer who proved that drag performance could serve as a powerful engine for grassroots organizing.

Henri Debs, chanteur français (° 24 novembre 1932).

Abdelrahman El-Trabely

Egyptian wrestler who competed internationally before his early death at age 24. El-Trabely represented Egypt in Greco-Roman wrestling.

Abdul Rahim Hatef

Afghan politician who served as the 8th President of Afghanistan during the transitional period following the Soviet withdrawal. Hatef briefly led the country in 1992 as the communist government collapsed, presiding over one of Afghanistan's most chaotic political moments.

Lee Thompson Young

American actor who became the first Black actor to star in a Disney Channel series with The Famous Jett Jackson (1998). Young's talent was widely recognized, but his death at 29 shocked the entertainment community.

Donna Hightower

American singer-songwriter whose 1972 recording of "This World Today Is a Mess" became an unlikely Northern Soul classic in Britain, decades after its initial release. Hightower's career spanned jazz, pop, and soul across five decades.

Russell S. Doughten

American filmmaker who produced the rapture-themed film series A Thief in the Night (1972), one of the most widely seen Christian films of the 20th century. The four-film series was viewed by an estimated 300 million people and essentially created the evangelical apocalyptic film genre.

Samih al-Qasim

Palestinian poet and journalist who was one of the leading voices of Palestinian resistance poetry alongside Mahmoud Darwish. Al-Qasim's work, published across 15 collections, expressed the Palestinian experience of displacement and occupation with fierce lyricism.

Kåre Kolberg, norwegischer Komponist und Organist

Walter Thirring, österreichischer Physiker

Elaine M. Alphin

American author of young adult fiction who wrote historical mysteries and nonfiction for children. Alphin's works often explored American history through accessible narratives for young readers.

Edmund Höfer, deutscher Fotograf

James Foley

American freelance journalist who was kidnapped while covering the Syrian civil war and became the first American citizen killed by ISIS in a filmed execution that shocked the world in August 2014. Foley's murder, along with that of Steven Sotloff, marked a turning point in Western public awareness of ISIS atrocities.

Brian G. Hutton

American actor-turned-director who helmed the World War II adventure films Where Eagles Dare (1968) and Kelly's Heroes (1970), both starring Clint Eastwood. Hutton's two war epics became enduring cable television staples.

Adyar K. Lakshman

Indian dancer and choreographer who was a master of Bharatanatyam, the classical dance form of Tamil Nadu. Lakshman trained hundreds of students and performed across India and internationally, helping preserve and popularize the art form.

Candida Lycett Green

Irish-born English journalist and author, daughter of Poet Laureate John Betjeman. Lycett Green championed English rural life, architectural preservation, and small-town character through her writing for The Daily Telegraph and her many books.

Odessa Sathyan

Indian film director and producer who worked primarily in Malayalam cinema. Sathyan directed multiple films during Kerala's vibrant regional film industry boom.

Simin Behbahani

Iranian poet known as "the lioness of Iran" who became one of the country's most prominent literary and political voices. Behbahani modernized the ghazal form and was repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, while her activism for women's rights and free expression drew government persecution.

Sanat Mehta

Sanat Mehta served as a Gujarat state minister and was a prominent figure in India's labor and cooperative movements. His political career was rooted in the Gandhian tradition of constructive work and social uplift, particularly in Gujarat's textile and cooperative sectors.

Lina Morgan, actriz española (n.

Lina Morgan, actriz española (n. 1936).

Antonio Larreta, actor, crítico y escritor uruguayo (n.

Antonio Larreta, actor, crítico y escritor uruguayo (n. 1922).

Fernand Grosjean, Schweizer Skirennläufer

George Houser

George Houser co-founded the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in 1942 and organized the first Freedom Ride — the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation — years before the better-known 1961 rides. He later led the American Committee on Africa for 26 years, connecting the U.S. civil rights movement with African independence struggles.

Egon Bahr, deutscher Politiker, Bundesminister, führender Mitgestalter der Ost- und Deutschlandpolitik Willy Brandts …

Egon Bahr, deutscher Politiker, Bundesminister, führender Mitgestalter der Ost- und Deutschlandpolitik Willy Brandts („Architekt der Ostverträge“)

Nina Apollonowna Ponomarjowa, sowjetische Diskuswerferin, Olympiasiegerin

Lou Pearlman, US-amerikanischer Musikproduzent

Jack Riley

Jack Riley is best remembered as the neurotic Elliot Carlin on *The Bob Newhart Show* (1972-78), a recurring patient whose sessions with Bob Hartley became some of the series' funniest moments. He also voiced Stu Pickles on *Rugrats* for over 100 episodes, giving voice to one of the most anxious cartoon fathers in television history.

Mohammad Ali Samatar, militar e político somali (n.

Mohammad Ali Samatar, militar e político somali (n. 1931).

2017

Karl Otto Götz, deutscher Maler und Lyriker

2017

Dick Gregory

He weighed 140 pounds when he started fasting for civil rights — and kept going anyway. Dick Gregory turned his body into a protest tool, staging hunger strikes that lasted weeks, once going 81 days on only water and juices. He ran 3,000 miles across America to protest drug abuse. He marched with King, got arrested in Birmingham, ran for president in 1968. But he'd want you to remember the punchline: the man who starved himself for justice sold a diet program. Activism and hustle, inseparable to the end.

2017

Brian Aldiss, britischer Science-Fiction-Autor

2018

Pier Felice Barchi, Schweizer Politiker, Nationalrat

2018

Pedro Roncal, periodista español (n.

Pedro Roncal, periodista español (n. 1962).

2018

Alastair Gillespie, kanadischer Wirtschaftsmanager und Politiker, Minister

2019

Stefan Hecker, deutscher Handballspieler

2019

Lars Larsen

Lars Larsen built a global retail empire from a single bedding store in Aarhus, transforming JYSK into a household name across 50 countries. His death in 2019 concluded the career of a man who mastered the art of the discount, proving that a focus on affordable home goods could sustain a massive, multi-generational international business.

2019

Federica Diémoz, italienisch-schweizerische Romanistin und Dialektologin

Henads Schutau, belarussischer Aktivist

Helmut Hubacher, Schweizer Politiker

Agnes Simon, ungarische Tischtennisspielerin

Borys Paton (Борис Євгенович Патон), scientifique et ingénieur ukrainien (° 27 novembre 1918).

Chuck Close, peintre et photographe américain (° 5 juillet 1940).

Wolfgang Scholz, deutscher Feuerwehrmann, Landesbranddirektor der Berliner Feuerwehr

Trygve Brudevold, norwegischer Bobsportler und Unternehmer

Els Bolkestein, niederländische Opernsängerin (Sopran)

Sonny Chiba

He trained so hard in karate that the Japan Karate Association certified him at the highest level — making him one of the few actors who could genuinely break bones on set. Sonny Chiba didn't fake it. His 1974 film *The Street Fighter* became the first movie ever rated X in America purely for violence. Quentin Tarantino cast him in *Kill Bill* decades later as a tribute. He died of COVID-19 complications at 82. Behind the screen violence was a man who'd wanted to be an astronaut.

Guy de Rougemont, peintre et sculpteur français (° 23 avril 1935).

Raoul Cauvin, scénariste de bande dessinée belge (° 26 septembre 1938).

Raymonde Dien, militante communiste française (° 13 mai 1929).

Mildred Kornman, US-amerikanische Schauspielerin

Tekla Juniewicz

Polish supercentenarian Tekla Juniewicz lived to 116, making her the oldest verified person in European history at the time of her death in 2022. Born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, she survived two world wars, the partition of Poland, and Communist rule.

Felix Huby, deutscher Journalist und Autor

Rodney Elton, homme politique britannique (° 2 mars 1930).

Tonino Zorzi, basketteur puis entraîneur italien (° 10 juin 1935).

Gloria Coates, compositrice américaine (° 10 octobre 1933).

Roberto Colaninno, industriel italien (° 16 août 1943).

Gianni Ferlenghi, coureur cycliste italien (° 11 février 1931).

Wolfram Heicking, compositeur, musicologue et professeur allemand (° 19 mars 1927).

Howard Hubbard, prélat de l'Église catholique américain (° 31 octobre 1938).

Igor Iassoulovitch, acteur soviétique puis russe (° 24 septembre 1941).

Tadaaki Kuwayama, peintre japonais (° 1932).

Carlo Mazzone, footballeur puis entraîneur italien (° 19 mars 1937).

Jean-Claude Nallet, athlète de sprint et de haies français (° 15 mars 1947).

François Roddier, physicien et astronome français (° 23 septembre 1936).

John Warnock, informaticien américain (° 6 octobre 1940).

Nizō Yamamoto, artiste du cinéma d'animation japonais (° 27 juin 1953).

Václav Patejdl

Slovak musician Václav Patejdl was a founding member of the pop group Elán, one of Czechoslovakia's most popular bands, whose music provided a soundtrack for an entire generation living through the Velvet Revolution and the split of Czechoslovakia.

Ron Cephas Jones, actor estadounidense (n.

Ron Cephas Jones, actor estadounidense (n. 1957).

Richard Pettibone, peintre américain (° 5 janvier 1938).

Mike Lynch, entrepreneur technologique britannique (° 16 juin 1965).

Rudi Jacques, organiste, claveciniste et facteur d'orgues belge (° 28 avril 1965).

Michel Guérard, chef cuisinier français (° 27 mars 1933).

Toussaint Natama, footballeur burkinabè (° 31 octobre 1982).

Somaya Ramadan, traductrice, femme de lettres et universitaire égyptienne (° 1951).

Maria Branyas

Maria Branyas became the world's oldest verified living person at 117, having been born in San Francisco in 1907 and raised in Spain. She survived the 1918 flu pandemic as a child, the Spanish Civil War, and COVID-19 at age 113 — crediting her longevity to 'staying away from toxic people.'.

Guy de Muyser, homme politique et diplomate luxembourgeois (° 20 juin 1926).

André Fort, évêque catholique français (° 20 septembre 1935).

Michel Fessler, scénariste et réalisateur français (° 1955).

Eftichios Bitsakis, physicien, philosophe, écrivain et chimiste grec (° 24 août 1927).

Johan Vermeersch, homme d'affaires belge (° 10 novembre 1951).

Eduardo Serra, directeur de la photographie portugais (° 2 octobre 1943).

Ernesto Barajas, cantante, compositor, y youtuber mexicano (n.

Ernesto Barajas, cantante, compositor, y youtuber mexicano (n. 1986).

Herwig Schopper, physicien allemand (° 24 février 1924).

Idun Reiten, mathématicienne et professeure émérite norvégienne (° 1er janvier 1942).

Eemeli Peltonen, homme politique finlandais (° 15 septembre 1994).

Razak Omotoyossi, footballeur béninois (° 8 octobre 1985).

Michel Odent, chirurgien et obstétricien français (° 7 juillet 1930).