Deaths in December 2003


The following is a list of notable deaths in December 2003.
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, reason for notability, cause of death, and reference.

    December 2003

1

  • Hamza Alavi, 82, Pakistani-British sociologist and activist.
  • Fernando Di Leo, 71, Italian film director and script writer.
  • Clark Kerr, 92, American academic, chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, complications from a fall.
  • Eugenio Monti, 75, Italian bobsledder, suicide by gunshot.
  • Carl Schenkel, 55, Swiss film director, heart attack.
  • Uday Singh Taunque, 21, U.S. Army soldier.

    2

  • Ruth Nanda Anshen, 103, American philosopher, author and editor.
  • Suzanne Cloutier, 80, Canadian film actress, liver cancer.
  • Alan Davidson, 79, British food writer and diplomat.
  • Vic Gordon, 92, British Australian actor of vaudeville, television and film.
  • Ignaz Kiechle, 73, German politician and minister for agriculture.
  • Frances Morris, 95, American actress.
  • Rudolph A. Peterson, 98, American banker.

    3

  • Dulce Chacón, 49, Spanish poet, novelist and playwright, pancreatic cancer.
  • Jay Difani, 80, American baseball player.
  • Ellen Drew, 88, American film actress, liver ailment.
  • Sita Ram Goel, 82, Indian historian, activist, writer, and publisher.
  • David Hemmings, 62, British actor and director, heart attack.

    4

  • John H. Hannah, Jr., 64, American judge, heart attack.
  • John Haley, 72, American attorney, plane crash.
  • Dezső Lemhényi, 85, Hungarian water polo player, coach and Olympic champion.
  • Georges Moreel, 79, French footballer
  • Jimmy Smith, 92, Scottish football player.
  • David Vaughan, 59, English psychedelic artist.
  • Jacques Viau, 84, Canadian lawyer and reformist.

    5

  • Paul Busby, 85, American baseball player.
  • Bob Gregory, 82, American comics artist and writer.
  • Felix Kaspar, 88, Austrian figure skater.
  • Jack Keller, 61, American poker player.
  • José Manuel Pesudo, 67, Spanish football goalkeeper and coach.
  • Antony Rowe, 79, English rower and Olympian.
  • Gregorio García Segura, 74, Spanish composer of film scores.
  • Yasuo Tanaka, 71, Japanese voice actor.

    6

  • Haddis Alemayehu, 93, Ethiopian Foreign Minister and novelist.
  • John Bingham, 61, British classical pianist.
  • Paul-Louis Halley, 69, French businessman, plane crash.
  • Hans Hotter, 84, German operatic bass-baritone.
  • José María Jiménez, 32, Spanish road bicycle racer, heart attack.
  • Barry Long, 77, Australian spiritual teacher and writer.
  • P. Madhavan, 75, Indian film director and producer in Tamil cinema.
  • Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio, 85, Guatemalan military ruler, President of Guatemala.
  • Jerry Tuite, 36, American wrestler, heart attack.

    7

  • Roland Asselin, 86, Canadian fencer.
  • Barta Barri, 92, Hungarian-Spanish film actor.
  • Robert R. Benton, 79, American set decorator, respiratory failure.
  • Carl F. H. Henry, 90, American Evangelical theologian and founder of Christianity Today magazine.
  • Azie Taylor Morton, 67, American public servant, complications from a stroke.
  • Joe Skeen, 76, American politician, Parkinson's disease.

    8

  • Lewis M. Allen, 81, American film and Broadway producer, nominated for seven Tony Awards, pancreatic cancer.
  • Margaret Jean Anderson, 84, Canadian businesswoman and senator.
  • Nelson Bobb, 79, American professional basketball player, cancer.
  • Agnès Delahaie, 83, French actress and film producer.
  • Robert Detweiler, 73, American competition rower and Olympic champion, naval officer, and scientist.
  • Rubén González, 84, Cuban pianist.
  • Pekka Siitoin, 59, Finnish satanist, occultist and neo-Nazi, esophageal cancer.
  • Francine Weisweiller, 87, French socialite and patron of Jean Cocteau.

    9

  • Carol M. Bundy, 61, American serial killer, heart failure.
  • Blackie Ko, 50, Taiwanese film director, stuntman, singer and actor, blood poisoning.
  • Keith McCreary, 63, Canadian hockey player, cancer.
  • Thomas M. Rees, 78, American politician.
  • Gladys Shelley, 91, American lyricist and composer.
  • Paul Simon, 75, American author and politician, United States Senator from Illinois, surgical complications.
  • Norm Sloan, 77, American college basketball player and coach.

    10

  • Abida Ahmed, 80, Indian politician, First Lady of India as wife of Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed.
  • Robert L. Bartley, 66, American newspaper editor and Pulitzer Prize winner.
  • Oswald Cheung, 81, Hong Kong lawyer and politician, complications from burns.
  • Elizabeth Harrower, 85, American actress and television writer, cancer.
  • Sean McClory, 79, Irish actor.
  • Bill Morey, 83, American actor.
  • Raúl Armando Savoy, 63, Argentine football player.
  • Don Wheeler, 81, American baseball player.

    11

  • Malcolm Clarke, 60, British composer.
  • Ahmadou Kourouma, 76, Ivorian novelist.
  • Shah Ahmad Noorani, 77, Pakistani Islamic scholar, mystic, philosopher, revivalist and an ultra–conservative politician.
  • Ann Petersen, 76, Belgian actress.
  • Ram Kishore Shukla, 80, Indian politician.
  • Paulos Tzadua, 82, Ethiopian Catholic Archbishop of Addis Ababa.

    12

  • Heydar Aliyev, 80, Azerbaijani politician, served as the third president of Azerbaijan.
  • Ross Belsher, 70, Canadian politician.
  • Eva Besnyö, 93, Dutch-Hungarian photographer.
  • Michael Casson, 78, British potter.
  • Joseph Anthony Ferrario, 77, American Roman Catholic prelate, Bishop of Honolulu, heart attack.
  • Earl Gillespie, 81, American sportscaster, voice of the Milwaukee Braves.
  • Marcello Giombini, 75, Italian composer.
  • Keiko, 27, orca famed for Reino Aventura and Free Willy, pneumonia.
  • Rudolf Krause, 76, German football player and coach.
  • Kurt Magnus, 91, German scientist.
  • Fadwa Tuqan, 86, Palestinian poet.

    13

  • Elizabeth Bates, 56, American professor of cognitive science, pancreatic cancer.
  • Luis González y González, 78, Mexican historian.
  • Mollie Hardwick, 87, British writer.
  • Alexis Kanner, 61, French-Canadian film and television actor, heart attack.
  • David Perlov, 73, Israeli documentary filmmaker.
  • Balasubramaniam Ramamurthi, 81, Indian neurosurgeon and author.
  • William Roth, 82, American lawyer and politician United States Senator from Delaware from 1971 to 2001.
  • Xie Tian, 89, Chinese actor and director.
  • Webster Young, 71, American jazz trumpeter, brain cancer.
  • Māris Čaklais, 63, Latvian poet and writer.

    14

  • Daniel Arasse, 59, French art historian, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
  • Don Concannon, 73, British Labour Party politician.
  • Jeanne Crain, 78, American actress, heart attack.
  • Blas Ople, 75, Filipino journalist and politician, heart attack.
  • François Rauber, 70, French pianist, composer, arranger and conductor.
  • Frank Sheeran, 83, American labor union leader and mobster, "The Irishman", cancer.

    15

  • Johnny Cunningham, 46, British folk musician, heart attack.
  • Jack Gregory, 80, British athlete and Olympic silver medalist.
  • Garvin Hamner, 79, American baseball player.
  • Göthe Hedlund, 85, Swedish speed skater and Olympic medalist.
  • David S. Lewis, 86, American aerospace engineer.
  • Keith Magnuson, 56, Canadian ice hockey player, road accident.
  • Edward Montagne, 91, American television series producer and film director.
  • Dora Wasserman, 84, Russian-Canadian actress, playwright, and theater director.

    16

  • Siegfried Hold, 72, German cinematographer.
  • Alfred Lynch, 72, English actor, cancer.
  • Judd Marmor, 93, American psychoanalyst and psychiatrist.
  • Hugo Moser, 77, Argentine television and film producer and screenwriter, cardiovascular disease.
  • Madlyn Rhue, 68, American actress, pneumonia.
  • Aglaja Schmid, 77, Austrian stage and film actress.
  • Veikko Sinisalo, 77, Finnish actor.
  • Robert Stanfield, 89, Canadian politician, pneumonia.
  • Gary Stewart, 58, American country music singer "She's Actin' Single ", suicide by gunshot.
  • Peter Hardy, Baron Hardy of Wath, 72, British Labour Party politician.

    17

  • Ed Devereaux, 78, Australian actor, cancer.
  • Otto Graham, 82, American gridiron football and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, heart aneurysm.
  • Wally Hedrick, 75, Seminal American artist in the 1950s California counterculture, gallerist, and educator.
  • Mary Ann Jackson, 80, American child actress, heart attack.
  • José Richa, 69, Brazilian politician.
  • David Smith, 69, English cricketer.
  • Alan Tilvern, 86, English actor and voice artist ''.
  • Jim Wolf, 51, American gridiron football player, multiple sclerosis.

    18

  • Charles Berlitz, 90, American linguist, spoke 32 languages.
  • Glenn Cunningham, 91, American politician.
  • Jack Dormand, 84, British politician.
  • Ergilio Hato, 77, Dutch Antillean goalkeeper from Curaçao.
  • Branko Horvat, 75, Croatian economist and politician.
  • Cresson Kearny, 89, United States Army officer.
  • Susan Travers, 94, only English woman to serve in the French Foreign Legion.
  • Richard Wahlstrom, 72, American Olympic rower.

    19

  • Roger Conant, 94, American herpetologist, cancer.
  • Yan Frid, 95, Soviet screenwriter and film director.
  • Roy Hughes, Baron Islwyn, 78, British Labour Party politician and trade union organiser.
  • Hope Lange, 70, American actress, ischemic colitis, infectious disease.
  • Heinz Marquardt, 80, German Luftwaffe fighter ace during World War II and recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.
  • Carmen Mauro, 77, American baseball player.
  • Les Tremayne, 90, English actor, heart failure.

    20

  • Charles Randolph Grean, 90, American producer and composer.
  • Grigore Grigoriu, 62, Moldovan actor, car accident.
  • Alan Magee, 84, American World War II airman, survived 22,000 ft. fall, stroke, kidney failure.
  • Gil Reece, 61, Welsh footballer.
  • Kostas Valsamis, 95, Greek sculptor.