Deaths in December 2005

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The following is a list of notable deaths in December 2005.

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 2005

1

• Gust Avrakotos, 67, American CIA agent who armed the mujaheddin of Afghanistan, stroke.
• Mary Hayley Bell, 94, British actress, Alzheimer's disease.
• Béla Berger, 74, Hungarian-Australian chess master.
• Hermann Buchner, 86, German World War II flying ace.
• Jack Colvin, 71, American actor, (The Incredible Hulk), coronary thrombosis.
• Michael Evans, 61, American White House photographer, cancer.
• Ray Hanna, 77, New Zealand-English pilot and founder of The Old Flying Machine Company.
• Karin Himboldt, 85, German film actress.
• Michael Kehlmann, 78, Austrian theatre and television film director, screenwriter and actor.
• Victor Premasagar, 78, Indian theologian and Bishop of Medak (1983–1992).
• Eddie Schroeder, 94, American speed skater.

2

• Nikolai Artemov, 97, Soviet and Russian physiologist.
• Lillian Browse, 99, British art dealer.
• Shawn Paul Humphries, 34, American convicted murderer, executed by lethal injection.
• Malik Joyeux, 25, French professional surfer, drowned.
• William P. Lawrence, 75, American U.S. Navy Vice Admiral, first to fly at twice the speed of sound.
• Leonard Lewis, 78, British television director and producer.
• Peter Menegazzo, 61, Australian cattle baron, plane crash.
• Tom Miller, 87, American gridiron football player.
• Jaime Morón, 55, Colombian football player.
• Van Tuong Nguyen, 25, Australian convicted of drug trafficking, execution by hanging.
• Mohammed Hamza Zubeidi, 67, Iraqi politician, former prime minister under Saddam Hussein.

3

• Frederick Ashworth, 93, American naval officer, weaponeer who dropped atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
• John Ganzoni, 2nd Baron Belstead, 73, British aristocrat and politician.
• Peter Cook, 62, Australian politician, melanoma.
• Lance Dossor, 89, Australian pianist.
• Peter E. Haas, 86, American billionaire businessman, president, CEO and chairman of Levi Strauss & Co.
• Kikka, 41, Finnish pop and schlager singer, heart attack.
• Kåre Kristiansen, 85, Norwegian politician, minister of Oil and Energy (1983–1986).
• Lupe Madera, 52, Mexican boxer.
• Atsuko Tanaka, 73, Japanese avant-garde artist.

4

• Ted Allbeury, 88, British author of espionage fiction.
• Débora Arango, 98, Colombian artist.
• Percy Brandt, 83, Swedish actor.
• Errol Brathwaite, 81, New Zealand writer.
• Alfred Farag, 76, Egyptian playwright.
• Gregg Hoffman, 42, American film producer (Saw).
• Gloria Lasso, 83, Spanish singer, heart attack.
• Jacob Pins, 88, German-Israeli woodcut artist and art collector.

5

• John Alvheim, 75, Norwegian politician.
• Gerald Smedley Andrews, 101, Canadian frontier teacher, land surveyor, and soldier.
• Wesley Baker, 47, American convicted murderer, executed in Maryland.
• Gerard Bruggink, 88, Dutch fighter pilot during World War II and recipient of the Military Order of William.
• Liu Binyan, 80, Chinese author and dissident, cancer.
• Ursula Buckel, 79, German soprano.
• Netai Bysack, 84, Indian Olympic cyclist.
• Milo Dor, 82, Serbian-Austrian author, heart failure.
• Edward L. Masry, 73, American attorney and mentor to Erin Brockovich, complications of diabetes.
• Kevin "Big Kev" McQuay, 56, Australian businessman and media personality, heart attack.
• Ed Murphy, 75, American soccer player.
• Harry Pepl, 60, Austrian jazz guitarist and composer.
• Frits Philips, 100, Dutch businessman, grandson of the founder of Philips, complications from a fall.
• Bob Richardson, 77, American fashion photographer.
• Bill Robinson, 71, British rugby league player.
• Claude Ambrose Rogers, 85, English mathematician.
• Vladimir Toporov, 77, Russian philologist.

6

• Charly Gaul, 72, Luxembourgish cyclist, winner of the 1958 Tour de France, pneumonia.
• Richard Grimsdale, 76, British electrical engineer, built the world's first transistorised computer.
• Paul Halla, 74, Austrian footballer.
• Peter Hollfelder, 75, German classical pianist.
• Hanns Dieter Hüsch, 80, German political satirist.
• Koba Kurtanidze, 41, Soviet judoka.
• Stephen L. Mosko, 57, American composer.
• Devan Nair, 82, President of Singapore (1981–1985), dementia.
• Jerzy Pajaczkowski-Dydynski, 111, Polish-born oldest man in the UK at the time of his death.
• Danny Williams, 63, South African singer, lung cancer.
• William P. Yarborough, 93, American Army officer.

7

• Martine Bercher, 61, American football player.
• Adrian Biddle, 53, British cinematographer (Aliens, The Princess Bride, Thelma & Louise), heart attack.
• Marvin Braude, 85, American member of Los Angeles City Council.
• Carroll A. Campbell, Jr., 65, American politician, South Carolina governor (1987–1995), and member of U.S. House of Representatives (1979–1987), heart attack.
• Bud Carson, 75, American football player, former NFL head coach, emphysema.
• Loomis Dean, 88, American photographer, notably for Life magazine.
• Beach Dickerson, 81, American actor.
• Thukha, 95, Burmese film director, actor, and film producer.
• Eddy Verstraeten, 57, Belgian road bicycle racer.

8

• John Beale, 72, British virologist.
• R. W. Bradford, 58, American writer, publisher of Liberty magazine, kidney cancer.
• Rose Heilbron, 91, British judge, pneumonia.
• Donald Martino, 74, American composer.
• George D. Painter, 91, British biographer.
• David S. Saxon, 85, American physicist and educator.
• Leo Scheffczyk, 85, German Roman Catholic cardinal and theologian.
• Roger Shattuck, 82, American writer and critic, prostate cancer.
• Jim Simons, 55, American golfer, accidental multiple drug toxicity.
• J. N. Williamson, 73, American horror writer, author and publisher.
• Georgiy Zhzhonov, 90, Russian actor and writer, lung cancer.

9

• Norman Blundell, 88, Australian cricketer.
• Mike Botts, 61, American drummer, toured and recorded with Linda Ronstadt, Dan Fogelberg, and Tina Turner, cancer.
• Rudolf Meidner, 91, Swedish economist and socialist.
• Homer Mensch, 91, American internationally known bass player, Juilliard teacher.
• Eunice Norton, 97, American classical pianist and music promoter.
• Robert Sheckley, 77, American science fiction author, brain aneurysm.
• György Sándor, 93, Hungarian internationally famous pianist, Juilliard teacher, heart failure.
• Boris Taslitzky, 94, French painter.

10

• Evgenii Feinberg, 93, Soviet physicist.
• Mary Jackson, 95, American schoolteacher and actress (The Waltons, Parenthood), Parkinson's disease.
• Eugene McCarthy, 89, American politician, U.S. Senator from Minnesota (1959–1971), U.S. Representative (1949–1959), Parkinson's disease.
• Jim McIntyre, 78, American basketball player.
• Richard Pryor, 65, American comedian and actor (Stir Crazy, Harlem Nights), heart attack and complications of multiple sclerosis.
• Clark G. Reynolds, 65, American naval historian, heart attack.

11

• Walt Cudzik, 73, American NFL football player for the Boston Patriots.
• Maria Kaniewska, 94, Polish actress, screenplay writer, film director.
• Norman Leavitt, 92, American film and television actor.
• Richard Sandbrook, 59, British environmentalist, cancer.
• Hayim Tadmor, 82, Israeli assyriologist and professor.
• Max Walters, 85, British botanist and academic.

12

• Sandipan Chattopadhyay, 72, Indian Bengali writer.
• Eric D'Arcy, 81, Australian Roman Catholic archbishop.
• Max Mariu, 53, First Maori Catholic bishop.
• Robert Newmyer, 49, American film producer (The Santa Clause, Training Day, Sex, Lies, and Videotape), heart attack.
• David Pritchard, 86, British chess player and chess writer.
• Ramanand Sagar, 87, Indian director, producer, and writer.
• Juraj Szikora, 58, Slovak football player.
• Gebran Tueni, 48, Lebanese journalist and politician, assassinated by a car bomb.
• Gyula Trebitsch, 91, Hungarian-German film producer.
• Annette Vadim, 69, Danish actress, cancer.

13

• John Barraclough, 79, Australian politician.
• Roland Guy, 77, British army general.
• John Langstaff, 84, American singer and music educator.
• Majid Musisi, 38, Ugandan football player, AIDS-related complications.
• Dick Nolan, 66, Canadian musician.
• Stanley "Tookie" Williams, 51, American convicted murderer and co-founder of the Crips turned anti-gang activist, execution by lethal injection.
• Roberto Wagner Fernandes, 40, Brazilian serial killer and rapist, plane crash.

14

• Erhard Ahmann, 64, German football manager.
• Ruth Amiran, 91, Israeli archaeologist.
• Stew Bowers, 90, American baseball player.
• Gordon Duncan, 41, Scottish musician and bagpiper, suicide.
• Rokuro Ishikawa, 80, Japanese businessman (Kajima Corporation).
• Sudhir Joshi, 57, Indian actor, heart attack.
• Tom Milne, 79, British film critic.
• John B. Nixon, 77, American convicted murderer, executed in Mississippi.
• C. I. Paul, 61, Indian (Malayalam) actor, heart attack.
• Trevanian, 74, British author, wrote under pseudonyms such as "Trevanian".

15

• T. K. Balachandran, 77, Indian actor, cancer.
• Maurice Beresford, 85, British economic historian and archaeologist.
• James Ingo Freed, 75, American architect, Parkinson's disease.
• Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, 84, Italian writer and director of movies and theatre.
• Heinrich Gross, 90, Austrian alleged nazi doctor and war criminal during World War II.
• Jiřina Hauková, 86, Czech poet and translator.
• Walter Haut, 83, American Army lieutenant, central figure in the Roswell UFO incident in 1947.
• Stan Leonard, 90, Canadian golfer, heart failure.
• Julián Marías, 91, Spanish philosopher and father of author Javier Marías.
• John McIntyre, 89, Scottish theologian.
• Akira Ohgi, 70, Japanese baseball player and manager, lung cancer.
• Jim Ostendarp, 82, American football coach at Amherst College for 33 years.
• Enrico Paoli, 97, Italian international chess master.
• William Proxmire, 90, American politician, Democratic Senator from Wisconsin (1957–1989), complications of Alzheimer's disease.
• Darrell Russell, 29, American former NFL player for the Oakland Raiders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, car accident.

16

• Robert L. Baird, 85, American jockey and trainer in thoroughbred horse racing.
• Anthony Barber, 85, British politician and Chancellor of the Exchequer, complications of Parkinson's disease.
• Boyi Bhimanna, 94, Indian Telugu poet, Parkinson's disease.
• Kenneth Bulmer, 84, English writer (pseudonyms included Alan Burt Akers and Dray Prescot).
• Aleksandr Mazur, 92, Heavyweight Greco-Roman wrestler from Ukraine.
• Joseph Owades, 86, American biochemist, inventor of light beer.
• Helmut H. Schaefer, 80, German mathematician.
• John Spencer, 58, American actor (The West Wing, L.A. Law, The Rock), Emmy winner (2002), heart attack.
• Enzo Stuarti, 86, Italian tenor, was in many Broadway musicals, heart failure.

17

• Jack Anderson, 83, American Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, complications of Parkinson's disease.
• Trevor Duncan, 81, English composer.
• Mustafa Ertan, 79, Turkish footballer.
• Marc Favreau, 76, French Canadian television and film actor, cancer.
• Jacques Fouroux, 58, French rugby union captain and coach, heart attack.
• Agnès Guillemot, 74, French film editor.
• Yeleazar Meletinsky, 87, Russian scholar and academic.
• Emil Ratzenhofer, 91, Austrian Olympic pair skater.
• Sverre Stenersen, 79, Norwegian gold medal winner in the 1956 Winter Olympics.
• Ward Williams, 82, American basketball player.
• Tahsin Özgüç, 89, Turkish archaeologist.

18

• Belita, 82, British Olympic skater and film actress.
• Bill Coulthard, 81, Canadian basketball player.
• Keith Duckworth, 72, British automotive designer.
• Doug Dye, 84, New Zealand microbiologist.
• Howie Ferguson, 75, American gridiron football player.
• Rómulo García, 78, Argentine Roman Catholic archbishop.
• Barry Halper, 66, American baseball memorabilia collector and limited partner for the New York Yankees.
• N. Sankaran Nair, 80, Indian director of Malayalam movies.
• Dmitry Okhotsimsky, 84, Russian engineer in the Soviet space program.
• Doris Fisher, Baroness Fisher of Rednal, 86, British politician and peer.
• P. M. Sayeed, 64, Indian Minister of Power, heart attack.
• Tiago João da Silva, 17, Brazilian robber.
• Alan Voorhees, 83, American transportation engineer and city planner, stroke.

19

• Charles Brett, 77, Northern Irish architectural historian.
• George Bromilow, 74, British footballer at the 1956 Summer Olympics.
• Yū Fujiki, 74, Japanese film and television actor.
• Vincent Gigante, 77, American Genovese family crime boss, heart disease.
• Julio Iglesias Puga, 90, Spanish gynaecologist, heart attack.
• Marjorie Kellogg, 83, American author and playwright (Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon), Alzheimer's disease.
• William Leslie, 80, American film and television actor.
• Azra Sherwani, 65, Pakistani actress.

20

• Alfredo Arango, 60, Colombian international football player.
• Louis Biesbrouck, 84, Dutch football player.
• Raoul Bott, 82, Hungarian-American mathematician, cancer.
• Argentina Brunetti, 98, Argentine actress. (It's a Wonderful Life, The Caddy), writer, journalist.
• Theodore Holmes Bullock, 90, American neuroscientist.
• Bradford Cannon, 98, American plastic surgeon, pneumonia.
• Genrikh Fedosov, 73, Soviet football player.
• Lavinia Gianoni, 94, Italian gymnast.
• José Roberto Hill, 60, Mexican actor.
• William White Howells, 97, American anthropologist.
• Billy Hughes, 57, American former child/film actor during the 1960s.
• Óscar López, 66, Colombian international football player, diabetes.
• Graham Wilson, 66, Australian rugby league player.

21

• Horace Ellis Crouch, 87, American military aviator, member of the Doolittle Raid.
• Myron Healey, 82, American film actor who normally played Western villains.
• Elrod Hendricks, 64, U.S. Virgin Islander Baltimore Orioles coach, former MLB catcher, heart attack.
• Pericle Martinescu, 94, Romanian writer, journalist and translator.
• Traian Stoianovich, 84, American historian and academic.
• Hallam Tennyson, 85, British radio producer and great-grandson of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, suspected victim of murder.
• Vicente de Cadenas y Vicent, 90, Spanish officer of arms.

22

• Richard Bellucci, 91, American ear surgeon and inventor.
• T. Cooper Evans, 81, American politician, Republican US Representative from Iowa (1981–1987).
• Aurora Miranda, 90, Brazilian entertainer and sister of Carmen Miranda, heart attack.
• Bill Scott, 82, Australian author.
• George Speaight, 91, British art historian, actor and puppeteer.

23

• Lajos Baróti, 91, Hungarian football coach.
• Selma Jeanne Cohen, 85, American dance historian, editor of The International Encyclopedia of Dance, Alzheimer's disease.
• Ivar Eskeland, 78, Norwegian philologist, publisher, and radio personality.
• Gwynne Blakemore Evans, 93, American Shakespeare scholar, author of The Riverside Shakespeare, stroke.
• Truman Gibson, 93, American anti-segregation lawyer and boxing promoter.
• Harold Hallman, 43, Canadian football player, complications during surgery.
• Emmett Leith, 78, American electrical engineer.
• Kay Stammers, 91, British tennis player.
• Norman D. Vaughan, 100, American explorer and sportsman, part of Richard Byrd's 1928 South Pole expedition.
• Yao Wenyuan, 74, Chinese Communist political leader, member of the Gang of Four, diabetes.

24

• George Gerbner, 86, American professor of communication, cancer.
• Georg Johannesen, 74, Norwegian author and professor of rhetoric, drowned.
• Constance Keene, 84, American classical pianist.
• Harold Lawton, 105, British academic and veteran of World War I.
• Bhanumathi Ramakrishna, 80, Indian film actress, director, and singer/songwriter.
• Michael Vale, 83, American actor who appeared in over Dunkin' Donuts 1,300 commercials, diabetes.
• Wang Daohan, 90, Chinese politician and negotiator during the cross-straits talks.

25

• Felice Andreasi, 77, Italian actor, Parkinson's disease.
• Derek Bailey, 75, English avant-garde guitarist, motor neuron disease.
• Robert Barbers, 61, Filipino politician and senator, heart attack.
• Donald Dawson, 97, American lawyer, executive assistant to Harry S. Truman.
• John Hayes, 76, British art historian and museum curator.
• Henry Kock, 53, Canadian horticulturist and eco-activist, brain cancer.
• Birgit Nilsson, 87, Swedish soprano.
• Joseph Pararajasingham, 71, Sri Lankan politician and supporter of the Tamil Tiger rebels, shot.
• Clint Sampson, 44, American football player, car accident.
• Sarat Chandra Sinha, 92, Indian politician, Chief Minister of Assam.
• Charles Socarides, 83, American psychiatrist, physician, and author, heart failure.
• Roy Stuart, 70, American actor, cancer.

26

• Mikuláš Athanasov, 75, Czechoslovak wrestler and Olympic medalist.
• Bud Blake, 87, American cartoonist (Tiger).
• John Cooke, 68, American competition rower and Olympic champion.
• Muriel Costa-Greenspon, 68, American mezzo-soprano at the New York City Opera for 30 years.
• Bill DeArango, 84, American jazz guitarist.
• Guy Delorme, 76, French actor (The Three Musketeers, Moonraker), lip and oral cavity carcinoma.
• John Diebold, 79, American businessman, pioneering American computer engineer.
• Ted Ditchburn, 84, English football goalkeeper (Tottenham Hotspur, England national football team).
• Jules Gérard-Libois, 82, Belgian historian and writer.
• John H. Herz, 97, American scholar of international relations and law.
• Ernesto Leal, 60, Nicaraguan politician, presidential chief of staff and foreign minister, pneumonia.
• Geraldine McCormick, 81, American politician, member of the Washington House of Representatives (1969–1982).
• Kerry Packer, 68, Australian billionaire publishing-, media- and gaming tycoon, kidney failure.
• Viacheslav Platonov, 66, Russian volleyball player and coach.
• Vincent Schiavelli, 57, American actor (Ghost, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), lung cancer.
• Viktor Stepanov, 58, Russian actor, bone cancer.
• John Taylor, 80, Canadian football player (St. Hyacinthe-Donnacona Navy and Montreal Alouettes).
• Erich Topp, 91, German U-boat commander during World War II.

27

• Stuart Alexander, 44, American businessman and murderer, pulmonary embolism.
• Philip N. Carney, 86, American politician, member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
• Xavier Connor, 88, Australian jurist and foundation judge of the Federal Court of Australia.
• Hartmut Enke, 53, German musician.
• Edith Heath, 94, American studio potter.
• Leif Hermansen, 80, Danish Olympic rower.
• Dick Klein, 71, American gridiron football player.
• Abraham S. Luchins, 91, American Gestalt psychologist.
• Dee Pollock, 68, American film and television actor.
• Giancarlo Primo, 81, Italian basketball coach, the first to defeat USA and USSR in the 1970s.
• Tokuji Wakasa, 91, Japanese businessman, former president of All Nippon Airways.

28

• Bruce Carver, 57, American video game developer, cancer.
• Paul Cloyd, 85, American basketball player.
• Patrick Cranshaw, 86, American actor (Old School, Best in Show, Herbie: Fully Loaded), pneumonia.
• Tage Ekfeldt, 79, Swedish Olympic sprinter.
• Marco Guglielmi, 77, Italian actor, screenwriter and author.
• Stevo Žigon, 79, Serbian actor and theatre director, heart attack.

29

• Armand Phillip Bartos, 95, American architect.
• Gerda Boyesen, 83, Norwegian psychologist.
• Dan Carnevale, 87, American baseball player.
• Young-Oak Kim, 86, American military officer during World War II and the Korean War and civic leader, cancer.
• Ray Mattox, 78, American politician.
• Eileen Nolan, 85, British Director of the Women's Royal Army Corps.
• Elizabeth Parcells, 54, American operatic coloratura soprano, colorectal cancer.
• Cyril Philips, 93, British historian and academic administrator.
• Basil William Robinson, 93, British art scholar and author.
• Sir Eric Stroud, 81, British paediatrician.
• Abuna Yesehaq Mandefro, 72, Ethiopian Orthodox Archbishop.

30

• Eddie Barlow, 65, South African cricketer.
• Candy Barr, 70, American exotic dancer, pneumonia.
• Charles J. Bowles, 83, American physical education expert.
• Pasquale Carpino, 69, Italian-born Canadian television chef and operatic singer.
• Tory Dent, 47, American poet, essayist and art critic, AIDS-related complications.
• Rona Jaffe, 74, American novelist (The Best of Everything, Mazes and Monsters), cancer.
• Fred "Jock" Smith, 79, Scottish footballer (Hull City, Sheffield United and Millwall).
• Bobby Stevens, 98, American baseball player.

31

• Sanora Babb, 98, American writer.
• Harry Clarke, 89, American gridiron football player.
• Maurice Dodd, 83, British cartoonist (The Perishers), brain haemorrhage.
• Enrico Di Giuseppe, 73, American operatic tenor, cancer.
• Fee Malten, 94, German film actress.
• John Peel, 101, British gynaecologist.
• Erica Reiner, 81, American assyriologist and author.
• Carlos Roffé, 62, Argentine film and television actor.
• Maclovia Ruiz, 95, American dancer, pneumonia.
• Xolilizwe Sigcawu, 79, South African King of the Gcaleka.
• Aleksandr Silayev, 77, Russian sprint canoeist and Olympic silver medalist.
• Claude Sylvain, 75, French actor and singer.
• David Trustram Eve, 2nd Baron Silsoe, 75, British lawyer.
• Phillip Whitehead, 68, British politician and television presenter, MP for Derby North, heart attack.

External links

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