Deaths in December 1997

• Name, age, country of citizenship at birth, subsequent country of citizenship, reason for notability, cause of death, and reference.

  December 1997

1

• Julius Barnathan, 70, American broadcast engineer, lung cancer.
• Stéphane Grappelli, 89, French-Italian jazz violinist.
• Alex McGregor, 89, Australian rules footballer.
• Władysław Młynek, 67, Polish teacher, writer and poet.
• Jiří Pleskot, 75, Czech actor.
• Khan Ataur Rahman, 68, Bangladeshi film actor, director, and singer.
• Edwin Rosario, 34, Puerto Rican boxer, aneurysm.

  2

• Guido Brunner, 67, Spanish-German diplomat and politician.
• Silvio Ceccato, 83, Italian philosopher and linguist.
• Shirley Crabtree, 67, British wrestler known as Big Daddy, stroke.
• Harald Gelhaus, 82, German U-boat commander during World War II.
• Robert A. Hall, 86, American linguist.
• Steve Hamilton, 63, American basketball player, colon cancer.
• Michael Hedges, 43, American composer, guitarist and singer-songwriter, traffic collision.
• Marge Kotlisky, 70, American actress.
• Endicott Peabody, 77, American gridiron football player and politician, leukemia.
• Robert E. Williams, 61, American murderer, execution by electrocution.

  3

• Stan Anderson, 58, Scottish football player.
• Domenico Enrici, 88, Italian prelate of the Catholic Church.
• Benito Jacovitti, 74, Italian comic artist.
• Vic Lombardi, 75, American Major League Baseball player.
• Olaf Pedersen, 77, Danish historian of science.

  4

• Leo August, 83, American philatelist.
• Morton Bard, 73, American psychologist and author of The Crime Victim's Book.
• Buck Barry, 80, American actor and radio and television personality.
• Joe Brown, 71, American boxer.
• Ho Sin Hang, 97, Hong Kong entrepreneur and philanthropist.
• G. S. Jayanath, Sri Lankan army officer, killed in action.
• Vytautas Kazimieras Jonynas, 90, Lithuanian artist.
• Alberto Manzi, 73, Italian school teacher, writer and television host.
• K. A. Nizami, 71, Indian historian and diplomat.
• Pepper Sharpe, 78, American baseball player.
• Richard Vernon, 72, English actor, complications from Parkinson's disease.
• Joseph Wolpe, 82, South African psychiatrist.

  5

• Rudolf Bahro, 62, East Germany dissident and politician, cancer.
• Forrest Burmeister, 84, American gridiron football player.
• Eugen Cicero, 57, Romanian-German jazz pianist.
• Frederick Dainton, Baron Dainton, 83, British academic chemist.
• Ali Forney, 22, American gay and transgender youth, shot.
• Lutz Hoffmann, 38, East German gymnast and Olympic silver medalist, suicide.
• John E. Moss, 82, American politician, member of the United States House of Representatives.
• Jakob Sverdrup, 78, Norwegian historian.
• Jan Voigt, 69, Norwegian actor, dancer and museum director.

  6

• Bob Adkins, 80, American football player.
• George Chisholm, 82, Scottish jazz trombonist and vocalist.
• Lou Clinton, 60, American baseball player, pneumonia.
• Eliot Daniel, 89, American songwriter and lyricist.
• Gilbert Delahaye, 74, Belgian author.
• Willy den Ouden, 79, Dutch swimmer and Olympic champion.
• Jagmohan Kaur, 49, Indian singer and actress.
• Peter Leventritt, 82, American bridge player.
• Eddie Myers, 91, British Army officer and author.
• Willie Pastrano, 62, American boxer, liver cancer.

  7

• Billy Bremner, 54, Scottish footballer and manager, suspected heart attack.
• Barry S. Brook, 81, American musicologist.
• Félix Candela, 87, Spanish architect.
• Torbjörn Caspersson, 87, Swedish cytologist and geneticist.
• Fernand Cornez, 90, French road bicycle racer.
• Karl August Folkers, 91, American biochemist.
• George R. Gardiner, 80, Canadian businessman and philanthropist.
• Armando Valente, 94, Italian racewalker and Olympian.
• Annette B. Weiner, 64, American anthropologist.
• Woodrow Wyatt, 79, British politician, author and journalist.

  8

• Bob Bell, 75, American actor famous for his alter-ego, Bozo the Clown.
• Walter Molino, 82, Italian comics artist and illustrator.
• Léon Poliakov, 87, French historian.
• Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, 84, Cuban communist politician, Parkinson's disease.
• Laurean Rugambwa, 85, Tanzanian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.
• Bob Tanner, 90, American football player.
• Stephen Tredre, 34, English actor and writer, bone cancer.
• Shehu Musa Yar'Adua, 54, Nigerian army general, politician and Vice President.

  9

• Tamara Geva, 91, Russian-American actress, ballet dancer, and choreographer.
• Angelo Herndon, 84, American labor organizer.
• K. Shivaram Karanth, 95, Indian polymath.
• Michael Lee Lockhart, 37, American convicted serial killer, execution by lethal injection.
• Keith W. Piper, 76, American football coach, congestive heart failure.
• Stefano Ludovico Straneo, 95, Italian entomologist and author.
• John D. Winters, 80, American historian.

  10

• Luis Bagnato, 73, Argentine footballer.
• Anatoliy Banishevskiy, 51, Azerbaijani football player, diabetic coma attack.
• Kalmen Kaplansky, 85, Canadian human rights and trade union activist.
• Ken Keller, 63, American football player.
• Yevgeni Mayorov, 59, Soviet ice hockey player and Olympian, A.L.S.
• Eve McVeagh, 78, American actress.

  11

• Roger Brown, 72, American social psychologist.
• Eddie Chapman, 83, English criminal and spy during World War II.
• Robert Cosmoc, 66, Romanian footballer.
• Jorge Castañeda y Álvarez de la Rosa, 76, Mexican diplomat.
• Simon Jeffes, 48, English classical guitarist, composer and arranger, brain tumor, brain cancer.
• Paul Scull, 90, American football player.

  12

• Jim Bob Altizer, 65, American calf and steer roper.
• R. Stanton Avery, 90, American inventor.
• Wacław Gajewski, 86, Polish geneticist.
• Brian Deneke, 19, American punk musician, homicide by vehicular impact.
• Evgenii Landis, 76, Soviet and Russian mathematician.
• M. G. Soman, 53, Indian Air Force officer and actor.

  13

• Giovanni Alberto Agnelli, 33, Italian businessman and member of the Agnelli family, stomach cancer.
• Martin Carter, 70, Guyanese poet and political activist.
• Paddy DeMarco, 69, American lightweight boxer.
• Don Edward Fehrenbacher, 77, American historian and Pulitzer Prize winner.
• Harry Glaß, 67, German ski jumper and Olympian.
• Gran Harrison, 80, American football player.
• Harry Lippiatt, 79, Australian rules footballer.
• Jimmy Milne, 86, Scottish football player and manager.
• W. D. Mochtar, 69, Indonesian actor.
• David Nicholson, 93, Australian politician.
• Alexander Oppenheim, 94, British mathematician.
• Georges Rose, 87, French footballer.
• David Rousset, 85, French writer and political activist.
• Claude Roy, 82, French poet and essayist, cancer.

  14

• John Adair, 84, American anthropologist.
• Owen Barfield, 99, British philosopher, author, critic, and member of the Inklings.
• Frank Baumholtz, 79, American baseball and basketball player.
• Marion Bell, 78, American singer and musical theatre performer.
• Leola Brody, 75, American baseball player.
• Teodoro Goliardi, 70, Uruguayan fencer and Olympian.
• Gerald Legge, 9th Earl of Dartmouth, 73, British peer and businessman.
• Stubby Kaye, 79, American actor, comedian and singer, lung cancer.
• Edna F. Kelly, 91, American politician, member of the United States House of Representatives.
• Nico Lutkeveld, 81, Dutch javelin thrower and Olympian.
• Emily Cheney Neville, 77, American author.
• Torsten Nilsson, 92, American politician.
• Kurt Winter, 51, Canadian guitarist and songwriter, kidney failure.

  15

• Karsten Andersen, 77, Norwegian conductor.
• Cosmo Campoli, 74, American sculptor.
• Siegfried Flügge, 85, German theoretical physicist.
• Albert Heremans, 91, Belgian football player.
• Amin Ahsan Islahi, 93, Pakistani Muslim scholar.
• Borislav Mihajlović Mihiz, 75, Serbian writer and literary critic.
• Aleksandar Strain, 78, Croatian Olympic cyclist.

  16

• Lillian Disney, 98, American ink artist and wife of Walt Disney, stroke.
• Ralph Fasanella, 84, American painter.
• Kim Hak-sun, 73, Korean human rights activist.
• Oksana Ivanenko, 91, Soviet and Ukrainian children's writer and translator.
• Nicolette Larson, 45, American pop singer, cerebral edema.
• David L. McDonald, 91, American admiral, Chief of Naval Operations.
• Hu Ning, 81, Chinese physicist and writer.
• José Pi, 65, Spanish Olympic sailor.
• William A. Smalley, 74, American linguist, heart attack.
• Frans Stafleu, 76, Dutch botanist.
• Richard Warwick, 52, English actor, AIDS-related complications.

  17

• Juan Francisco Barraza, 62, Salvadoran football player and manager, cardiac problems.
• Paul Bindrim, 77, American psychotherapist.
• Ernest Bromley, 85, American minister and civil rights activist.
• Katharine Fowler-Billings, 95, American writer, naturalist, and geologist.
• Reginald Victor Jones, 86, British physicist and scientific military intelligence expert.
• Karl Kainberger, 85, Austrian Olympic football player.
• Marie Gudme Leth, 102, Danish textile printer.
• Mel Mazzera, 83, American baseball player.
• Uzi Narkiss, 72, Israeli general.
• Peter Taylor, 75, English film editor, Oscar winner.
• Leo Turner, 69, Australian rules football player.
• Hanna Walz, 79, German politician.

  18

• Lennart Andersson, 83, Swedish athlete and Olympian.
• Ted Bond, 93, American baseball player.
• Geoff Campion, 81, British comics artist.
• Chris Farley, 33, American comedian and actor, drug overdose.
• Harriet Holter, 75, Norwegian social psychologist.
• Michel Quoist, 76, French catholic priest, theologian and writer, pancreatic cancer.
• George Tsutakawa, 87, American painter and sculptor.
• James Kemsey Wilkinson, founder of Wilko.
• Kasino Hadiwibowo, 47, Indonesian comedian and actor, a member of Warkop DKI, brain tumor.