Deaths in December 2008

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

  December 2008

1

• Thomas R. Adams, 87, American librarian.
• Paul Benedict, 70, American television actor.
• James Bree, 85, British actor.
• Beverly Dustrude, 82, American baseball player
• Betty Goodwin, 85, Canadian artist.
• Jodami, 23, Irish-bred, British-trained Thoroughbred racehorse, injury.
• Tom Kirby, 61, Irish darts player, pancreatic cancer.
• Siegfried Knappe, 91, German Wehrmacht artillery and General Staff officer, author.
• Mikel Laboa, 74, Spanish Basque singer and songwriter.
• Raymond Lederer, 70, American politician, U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania, lung cancer.
• Lav Mantula, 79, Yugoslavian football player and coach.
• Emanuel Rackman, 98, American Orthodox rabbi; President of Bar-Ilan University.
• H. Sridhar, 50, Indian sound engineer, heart attack.
• Dorothy Sterling, 95, American writer and historian.
• Sir John Wall, 78, British jurist and blind rights campaigner.
• Joseph B. Wirthlin, 91, American Mormon prelate, Apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, natural causes.

  2

• Carlos María Abascal Carranza, 59, Mexican public official, Secretary of the Interior, cancer.
• Kathleen Baskin-Ball, 50, American minister, cancer.
• Frank Crean, 92, Australian politician, Treasurer, Deputy Prime Minister, after short illness.
• Elizabeth Warnock Fernea, 81, American writer, filmmaker and scholar, after long illness.
• Leïla Karam, 80, Lebanese actress, after long illness.
• Margarita Karapanou, 62, Greek author, respiratory problems.
• Pyotr Latyshev, 60, Russian politician, presidential envoy to Urals Federal District.
• Patrick Maitland, 17th Earl of Lauderdale, 97, British aristocrat and politician.
• Henry Molaison, 82, American amnesiac, subject of brain science study, respiratory failure.
• Odetta, 77, American folk singer and human rights activist, heart disease.
• Edward S. Rogers Jr., 75, Canadian businessman, CEO of Rogers Communications and owner of the Toronto Blue Jays, heart failure.

  3

• William Pierson, Jr., 97, American art historian.
• Oliver Selfridge, 82, British-born American computer scientist, pioneer of artificial intelligence, injuries from a fall.
• William Spoelhof, 98, American academic, President of Calvin College, complications from a fall.
• Ignacio Uría Mendizábal, 71, Spanish businessman, shot.
• Elmer Valentine, 85, American nightclub owner.
• Derek Wadsworth, 69, British composer and jazz trombonist.
• Alex Widmer, 52, Swiss executive, CEO of Julius Baer bank.
• Robert Zajonc, 85, Polish-born American psychologist, pancreatic cancer.

  4

• Forrest J. Ackerman, 92, American science fiction expert, heart failure.
• Steve Bradley, 32, American wrestler.
• Ophélie Bretnacher, 22, French murder victim.
• Jan Kemp, 59, American academic, exposed bias in passing college football players, complications from Alzheimer's disease.
• Warren M. Robbins, 85, American art collector, complications from a fall.
• Richard Van Allan, 73, British opera singer, lung cancer.

  5

• A. Bernard Ackerman, 72, American dermatopathologist, heart failure.
• Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow, 79, Estonian-born Russian primate of the Russian Orthodox Church since 1990, heart failure.
• Jimmy Anderson, 55, American rodeo clown, heart disease.
• George Brecht, 82, American artist, natural causes.
• Martyn Crook, 52, Australian footballer and coach, heart attack.
• Constantin Ticu Dumitrescu, 80, Romanian politician, cancer.
• Nina Foch, 84, Dutch-born American actress and drama instructor, myelodysplasia.
• Joseph Gardner, 38, American convicted murderer and fugitive, execution by lethal injection.
• Beverly Garland, 82, American actress, after long illness.
• Paris Herouni, 75, Armenian scientist and professor.
• Sir Basil Kelly, 88, British politician and jurist, after short illness.
• Rawson Macharia, 96, Kenyan perjurer against Jomo Kenyatta, traffic accident.
• Jean-Pierre Nguema, 76, Gabonese politician, member of the Senate of Gabon.
• Anca Parghel, 51, Romanian jazz singer, metastatic breast cancer.
• Richard Topus, 84, American World War II messenger pigeon trainer and business executive, kidney failure.
• Dick Vertlieb, 78, American baseball and basketball executive.
• Wild Again, 28, American Thoroughbred racehorse, euthanized.

  6

• Tamar Adar, 69, Israeli children's author and poet.
• John Cumming, 78, Scottish footballer.
• Larry Devlin, 86, American CIA agent, emphysema.
• Sir Curtis Keeble, 86, British diplomat, Ambassador to the USSR.
• Gérard Lauzier, 76, French cartoonist and film director, after long illness.
• Elliot Manyika, 53, Zimbabwean politician, road accident.
• Richard Marsland, 32, Australian radio host, apparent suicide.
• Lloyd Ohlin, 90, American criminologist, complications of Shy–Drager syndrome.
• Ivan Semedi, 87, Ukrainian Roman Catholic prelate, bishop of Mukacheve.
• Sunny von Bülow, 76, American heiress, cardiopulmonary arrest.
• Peter Wardle, 77, New Zealand botanist.

  7

• Abul Ahsan, 71, Bangladeshi diplomat and politician, cardiac arrest.
• Marky Cielo, 20, Filipino Igorot actor, suspected acute pancreatitis.
• Jimmy Gourley, 82, American jazz guitarist.
• Herbert Hutner, 99, American chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee on the Arts.
• George Kuzma, 83, American Roman Catholic prelate, bishop of the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Van Nuys.
• Kerryn McCann, 41, Australian Olympic athlete, breast cancer.
• Georges Nguyen Van Loc, 75, French police officer, writer and actor.
• James H. Pomerene, 88, American electrical engineer.
• Roger Sonnabend, 83, American hotelier.
• John Ellis Williams, 84, British author.
• Dennis Yost, 65, American singer, respiratory failure.
• Mahbub Jamal Zahedi, 79, Pakistani journalist and philatelist, paralysis.

  8

• Maurice Andrieux, 83, French politician.
• Manzoor Hussain Atif, 81, Pakistani field hockey player and administrator, after long illness.
• Frank K. Edmondson, 96, American astronomer.
• Xavier Perrot, 76, Swiss auto racer.
• Oliver Postgate, 83, British animator.
• Robert Prosky, 77, American actor, complications following heart surgery.
• Bob Spiers, 63, British television director.
• William S. Stevens, 60, American lawyer, heart attack.
• Hillary Waugh, 88, American mystery writer.

  9

• Jonathan Bailey, 69, British Angelican prelate, Bishop of Derby and Clerk of the Closet.
• Emmanuel Bitanga, 55, Cameroonian Olympic sprinter.
• Ibrahim Dossey, 36, Ghanaian footballer, car accident.
• James Fergason, 74, American inventor.
• Yuri Glazkov, 69, Russian cosmonaut.
• Dražan Jerković, 72, Croatian football player and manager, heart failure.
• José María Larrauri Lafuente, 90, Spanish Roman Catholic prelate, bishop of Vitoria.
• Howard Pack, 90, American businessman, shipping magnate, heart failure.
• William Neff Patman, 81, American politician, U.S. Representative for Texas, cancer.
• Pentti Rummakko, 65, Finnish Olympic runner.
• George Turman, 80, American politician, Lieutenant Governor of Montana, natural causes.

  10

• Henning Christiansen, 76, Danish composer.
• Mildred Constantine, 95, American curator, heart failure.
• Chaudhary Munawwar Hasan, 44, Indian politician, car accident.
• Dorothy Porter, 54, Australian poet, breast cancer.
• Didith Reyes, 60, Filipino singer, heart attack and rupture of the pancreas.
• Chris Richardson, 28, American basketball player, brain aneurysm.
• Owen Wade, 87, British medical researcher and physician.
• Mizuki Yamada, 80, Japanese Olympic sailor.
• Sal Yvars, 84, American baseball player, amyloidosis.

  11

• Ali Alatas, 76, Indonesian politician, Foreign Minister, heart attack.
• Maddie Blaustein, 48, American voice actress, stomach virus.
• Ron Carey, 72, American labor leader, lung cancer.
• Robert Chandler, 80, American CBS executive, heart failure.
• Elie Amsini Kiswaya, 80, Congolese Roman Catholic prelate, bishop of Sakania-Kipushi.
• Angeliki Laiou, 67, Greek historian, anaplastic thyroid cancer.
• Bettie Page, 85, American pin-up model and actress, complications from a heart attack.
• Robert Shepherd, 71, American academic lawyer.
• Yeh Shih-tao, 83, Taiwanese writer, colorectal cancer.

  12

• David Charteris, 12th Earl of Wemyss, 96, British aristocrat and public servant.
• Paddy Dooley, 82, Irish Olympic rower.
• Avery Dulles, 90, American Roman Catholic Jesuit priest, theologian and cardinal.
• Max Elbin, 88, American golfer, president of the PGA, heart failure.
• Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, 85, American virologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
• Sigitas Geda, 65, Lithuanian poet.
• Van Johnson, 92, American actor.
• Emmanuel Kasonde, 72, Zambian economist and politician, Finance Minister.
• Tassos Papadopoulos, 74, Cypriot politician, President, small cell lung carcinoma.
• Maksym Pashayev, 20, Ukrainian footballer, car accident.
• Amalia Solórzano, 97, Mexican First Lady, respiratory complications.
• Robin Toner, 54, American journalist, colon cancer.

  13

• Doris Totten Chase, 85, American painter and sculptor.
• Christmas Past, 29, American Thoroughbred racehorse, infirmities of old age.
• Sir David Clutterbuck, 95, British admiral.
• John Drake, 49, New Zealand rugby union player.
• Mario Álvarez Dugan, 77, Dominican journalist and newspaper editor, heart problems.
• Otto Felix, 65, American actor, amyloidosis.
• Vince Karalius, 76, British rugby league player, cancer.
• David Margolis, 78, American industrialist, cardiac arrest.
• Maurice Meersman, 86, Belgian cyclist.
• Kjartan Slettemark, 76, Norwegian political artist, heart failure.
• Kathy Staff, 80, British actress, brain tumour.
• Horst Tappert, 85, German actor.