Deaths in May 2000


The following is a list of notable deaths in May 2000.
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.

    May 2000

1

  • Cláudio Christovam de Pinho, 77, Brazilian footballer.
  • John Emery, 84, British paediatric pathologist.
  • Gil Fates, 85, American television producer.
  • David J. Mahoney, 76, American businessman and philanthropist, heart disease.
  • Gibby Mbasela, 37, Zambian footballer.
  • Steve Reeves, 74, American actor, lymphoma.
  • Nora Swinburne, 97, British actress.
  • Jukka Tapanimäki, 38, Finnish game programmer, heart failure.
  • Gérard Théberge, 69, Canadian Olympic ice hockey player, bronze medalist

    2

  • Gretel Ammann, 53, Spanish philosopher.
  • Laurie Calvin Battle, 87, American politician, member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
  • Belva Cottier, 79, American Sioux activist and social worker.
  • Bob Homme, 81, American-Canadian television actor, known for his role as The Friendly Giant, prostate cancer.
  • Bobbi Martin, 60, American country and pop music singer, songwriter, and guitarist, cancer.
  • Billy Munn, 88, British jazz pianist.
  • Harry Newman, 90, American football player.
  • Sundar Popo, 56, Trinidadian and Tobagonian musician.
  • Christina Marie Riggs, 28, American convicted murderer, execution by lethal injection.
  • Teri Thornton, 65, American jazz singer, bladder cancer.
  • Norman Wainwright, 85, English competition swimmer and Olympian.

    3

  • Ibrahim Akasha, Kenyan drug lord, shot.
  • Lewis Allen, 94, British film and television director.
  • Richard Friederich Arens, 81, American mathematician.
  • Obie Baizley, 82, Canadian politician.
  • Júlia Báthory, 98, Hungarian glass designer.
  • Ed Chapman, 94, American baseball player.
  • William Keys, 77, Australian Army officer.
  • Mamuka Kikaleishvili, 39, Georgian actor and film director.
  • Bryan Lobb, 69, English cricket player.
  • Yoshinao Nakada, 76, Japanese composer, colorectal cancer.
  • John Joseph O'Connor, 80, American Roman Catholic prelate, brain cancer.
  • Shakuntala Paranjpye, 94, Indian writer, actress, and social worker.
  • Jon Vincent, 38, American pornographic actor, heroin overdose.
  • Edward J. Sponga, 82, American Jesuit priest in the Society of Jesus.

    4

  • Aleksandr Akhiezer, 88, Soviet Ukrainian physicist.
  • Sir Derick Ashe, 81, British diplomat.
  • Hendrik Casimir, 90, Dutch physicist known for the Casimir effect.
  • Humberto Donoso, 61, Chilean football player.
  • Jacques Gerschwiler, 101, Swiss figure skater and coach.
  • Alwyn Kurts, 84, Australian drama and comedy actor, liver failure.
  • Kieran Nugent, Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteer, cardiovascular disease.
  • Diana Ross, 89, English children's author.
  • Sugi Sito, 73, Mexican wrestler known as El Orgullo de Oriente.

    5

  • Edward Ashley-Cooper, 93, Australian actor, congestive heart failure.
  • Gino Bartali, 85, Italian racing cyclist.
  • Jan Firbas, 79, Czech linguist.
  • Don Kindt, 74, American football player.
  • Rolf Magener, 89, German escapee from India during World War II.
  • Bill Musselman, 59, American basketball coach, stroke.

    6

  • Benoy Choudhury, Indian freedom fighter and politician.
  • Eleazar Jiménez, 71, Cuban chess master.
  • Gordon McClymont, 79, Australian agricultural scientist and ecologist.
  • Lee Moore, 61, Saint Kitts and Nevis politician.
  • Roger von Norman, 91, Hungarian-born German film editor and director.
  • John Clive Ward, 75, British-Australian physicist, respiratory illness.
  • Sir Peter William Youens, 84, British diplomat and colonial administrator, pneumonia.

    7

  • Dov Bar-Nir, 88, Belgium-Israeli politician.
  • Douglas Fairbanks Jr., 90, American actor and the son of Douglas Fairbanks, heart attack.
  • Hideo Hamamura, 71, Japanese marathon runner and Olympian.
  • Ferrel Harris, 59, American NASCAR racecar driver.
  • Henry Laskau, 83, American Olympic racewalker.
  • José Luis López de Lacalle, Spanish journalist and trade unionist, killed by the ETA.
  • Homer Thompson, 93, Canadian classical archaeologist.
  • Timmy Payungka Tjapangati, 58, Aboriginal Australian artist.
  • Masaru Shintani, 72, Japanese-Canadian master of karate, heart attack.

    8

  • Pita Amor, 81, Mexican poet.
  • Stanley Boxer, 73, American abstract artist.
  • X Brands, 72, German-American actor.
  • Glen Bredon, 67, American mathematician.
  • William C. Brennan, 81, American lawyer and politician.
  • Dédé Fortin, 37, Canadian musician, suicide.
  • Hubert Maga, 83, Dahomey politician.
  • Henry Nicols, 26, American HIV/AIDS activist, car accident.

    9

  • György Csordás, 71, Freestyle swimmer from Hungary.
  • Arthur Davis, 94, American animator.
  • Chris Evans, 53, Canadian ice hockey player.
  • William Fairchild, 82, English author, playwright, director and screenwriter.
  • Todor Nikolov, 54, Bulgarian football player.
  • John Nucatola, 92, American basketball player, coach and referee.
  • Carmen Romano, 74, First Lady of Mexico.
  • Zheng Weishan, 84, Chinese general and politician.

    10

  • Bart the Bear, 23, Kodiak bear, cancer.
  • Raymond Eddé, 87, Lebanese statesman.
  • Martin Farndale, 71, British army general.
  • Carden Gillenwater, 82, American baseball player.
  • Margaret Harris, 95, British costume designer.
  • Kiyoshi Kuromiya, 57, Japanese-American author and civil rights activist, cancer.
  • Virgil W. Raines, 89, American thoroughbred racehorse trainer.
  • Kaneto Shiozawa, 46, Japanese voice actor, cerebral contusion.
  • Dick Sprang, 84, American comic book artist.
  • Craig Stevens, 81, American actor, cancer.

    11

  • Verna Aardema, 88, American writer.
  • Shariful Haq Amjadi, 79, Indian Islamic scholar.
  • David Bretherton, 76, American film editor, Oscar winner, pneumonia.
  • Dale Jennings, 82, American LGBT rights activist, playwright and author.
  • René Muñoz, 62, Cuban actor and screenwriter, cancer.
  • Albert Roberts, 91, British politician.
  • Hanny Thalmann, 83, Swiss women's rights activist and politician.
  • Paula Wessely, 93, Austrian actress, bronchitis.

    12

  • Pete Abele, 83, American politician, Alzheimer's disease.
  • Dave Crowe, 66, New Zealand cricket player.
  • Dong Kingman, 89, Chinese American artist and watercolor master.
  • Adam Petty, 19, American race car driver, car crash.

    13

  • Paul Bartel, 61, American actor, writer and director, liver cancer, heart attack.
  • Olivier Greif, 50, French composer.
  • Stanley Korchinski, 71, Canadian politician.
  • Boško Perošević, 43, Serbian politician.
  • Jumbo Tsuruta, 49, Japanese professional wrestler known as Jumbo Tsuruta, complications from liver transplant.
  • Cesare Valletti, 77, Italian operatic tenor.

    14

  • Urda Arneberg, 71, Norwegian actress.
  • Johnny Cook, 51, American gospel singer formerly of the Happy Goodman Family.
  • Garrett Eckbo, 89, American landscape architect.
  • C. Eric Lincoln, 75, American scholar, diabetes.
  • Bob Maza, 60, Australian actor and playwright.
  • Keizō Obuchi, 62, Japanese politician and Prime Minister, stroke.
  • Rodman Rockefeller, 68, American businessman and philanthropist.
  • Karl Shapiro, 86, American poet.

    15

  • Roberto Benedicto, 83, Filipino lawyer, diplomat and banker.
  • Geoff Goddard, 62, English songwriter, singer and instrumentalist, heart attack.
  • Robert Lee Knous, 82, American politician.
  • Alfred Kuchevsky, 68, Soviet ice hockey defenceman.
  • George Marshall, 96, American conservationist and political activist.
  • Gösta Prüzelius, 77, Swedish actor, leukemia.
  • Anthony Squire, 86, British screenwriter and director.

    16

  • Bodacious, 11–12, American bucking bull and ProRodeo Hall of Fame inductee.
  • Frido Frey, 78, German basketball player.
  • Evald Hermaküla, 58, Estonian actor and director, suicide by hanging.
  • Ghulam Ali Okarvi, 80, Pakistani Islamic scholar and jurist.
  • Andrzej Szczypiorski, 72, Polish novelist and politician.
  • Ronald Jay Williams, 72, Trinidadian businessman and politician.

    17

  • Donald Coggan, 90, English Anglican and 101st Archbishop of Canterbury.
  • Hümeyra Hanımsultan, 82, Ottoman princess.
  • Elsie Lessa, 86, Brazilian journalist and writer of American descent.
  • William H. Poteat, 81, American philosopher, scholar and professor.
  • Sajjan, 79, Indian actor.
  • Angelina Stepanova, 94, Soviet and Russian stage and film actress, teacher.

    18

  • Domingos da Guia, 87, Brazilian football player and manager, stroke.
  • Bruno Fait, 75, Italian racewalker and Olympian.
  • Denis Gifford, 72, British writer, broadcaster and journalist.
  • Doyle Lade, 79, American baseball player.
  • Yusuf Ludhianvi, 67/68, Pakistani Muslim scholar, author and muhaddith, murdered.

    19

  • James Verne Adams, 86, American politician.
  • Tony Arefin, 38, Bangladeshi art director, heart attack.
  • Lee Brewster, 57, American drag queen and transvestite activist, cancer.
  • John Grigas, 79, American gridiron football player.
  • Evgeniy Vasilievich Khrunov, 66, Soviet cosmonaut, heart attack.
  • Larry Lamb, 70, British newspaper editor.

    20

  • Adelaide Aglietta, 59, Italian politician.
  • Charles Antenen, 70, Swiss football player.
  • Edward Bernds, 94, American director.
  • Dick Brown, 74, Canadian football player.
  • Loyd Jowers, 73, American restaurateur, heart attack.
  • David Pearce, 41, Welsh heavyweight boxing champion.
  • Jean-Pierre Rampal, 78, French flautist, heart failure.
  • Malik Sealy, 30, American basketball player, traffic collision.

    21

  • Jules Alfonse, 88, American gridiron football player.
  • Dame Barbara Cartland, 98, English novelist.
  • Buzzy Drootin, 80, American jazz drummer.
  • Sir John Gielgud, 96, English actor, Oscar winner.
  • Dulcie Holland, 87, Australian composer and music educator.
  • Mark R. Hughes, 44, American entrepreneur and founder of Herbalife, accidental overdose.
  • Erich Mielke, 92, German communist official.
  • Zhao Puchu, 92, Chinese religious leader and calligrapher.
  • Mahmoud Zuabi, Syrian politician and Prime Minister, suicide by gunshot.