# Deaths in December 1988
## Contents

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The following is a list of notable deaths in December 1988.
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 1988
### 1

* Martin Hinds, 47, British scholar of the Middle East, historiographer of early Islamic history.
* Włodzimierz Mazur, 34, Polish international footballer (Zagłębie Sosnowiec, Poland).
* J. Vernon McGee, 84, American Presbyterian minister and radio minister, heart failure.

### 2

* Karl-Heinz Bürger, 84, Nazi German member of the SS.
* Tata Giacobetti, 66, Italian singer and jazz musician (Quartetto Cetra).
* Lloyd Rees, 93, Australian landscape painter.

### 3

* Panos Gavalas, 62, Greek singer.
* John Maher, 48, American former child alcoholic and heroin addict, founded Delancey Street Foundation, pneumonia.
* Johnny Paychek, 74, American boxer.
* Erwin Sick, 79, German inventor and entrepreneur, heart attack.
* Thawan Thamrongnawasawat, 87, Thai politician, Prime Minister of Thailand.

### 4

* Osman Achmatowicz, 89, Polish chemist.
* Gerd Arntz, 87, German artist (woodcuts).
* Rafi Muhammad Chaudhry, 85, Pakistani nuclear physicist.
* Fernand Mourlot, 93, French director of Mourlot Studios.
* Kola Onadipe, 66, Nigerian author of children's books (Sugar Girl), stroke.
* Göran von Otter, 81, Swedish diplomat.
* Jangal Santhal, 62–63, Indian political activist.
* Sir David Trench, 73, British Army officer, Governor of Hong Kong and the Solomon Islands.
* Alberto Uría, 64, Uruguayan racing driver.

### 5

* Winfield S. Harpe, 51, American pilot, general in the U.S. Air Force, air crash.
* August Lenz, 78, German international footballer (Borussia Dortmund, Germany) and Olympian.
* Erik Lundin, 84, Swedish chess master.
* Teodor Parnicki, 79–80, Polish writer of historical novels.
* William Everett Potter, 83, American engineer and military officer, governor of the Panama Canal Zone, heart failure.

### 6

* Bill Harris, 63, American guitarist, pancreatic cancer.
* Timothy Patrick Murphy, 29, American actor (Dallas), AIDS.
* Roy Orbison, 52, American singer and songwriter (Pretty Woman, Only the Lonely, Crying), heart attack.
* Charles Saxon, 68, American cartoonist (The New Yorker), heart failure.
* Veerendra, 40, Indian film actor and director.

### 7

* Christopher Connelly, 47, American actor (Peyton Place), lung cancer.
* Josephine Groves Holloway, 90, American scouting leader.
* Dorothy Jordan, 82, American actress, heart failure.
* Mitsu Yashima, 80, Japanese-born American artist and children's book author.

### 8

* Ivan Bonar, 64, American actor (General Hospital).
* John Joe McGirl, 67, Irish republican, Sinn Féin politician and Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army.
* Gene Quill, 60, American jazz alto saxophonist.
* Hellmuth Reymann, 96, Nazi German army officer, defender of Berlin.
* Anne Seymour, 79, American film and television actress, heart failure.
* Ludovico Silva, 50–51, Venezuelan poet and philosopher.
* Ulanhu, 80, Chinese chairman of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, vice president of People's Republic of China.

### 9

* Rafael Calvo, 76, Spanish actor (Miracle of Marcelino).
* Kainikkara Kumara Pillai, 88, Indian actor, short story writer and playwright.

### 10

* Dennis Arundell, 90, British actor, director and composer of incidental music.
* Richard S. Castellano, 55, American actor (Lovers and Other Strangers, The Godfather), heart attack.
* Scott Johnson, 27, American student killed in Australia in a gay-hate attack. (body found on this date)
* Johnny Lawrence, 77, English cricketer (Somerset, Lincolnshire).
* Elizabeth Rawson, 54, British classical scholar (biography of Cicero).
* Dorothy de Rothschild, 93, English philanthropist and activist for Jewish affairs.
* John Baker White, 86, English politician and amateur spy, Member of Parliament.
* Lawrence Wien, 83, American lawyer and real estate investor, prostate cancer.

### 11

* Kari Kairamo, 55, Finnish chairman and CEO of Nokia, suicide.
* Nagendra Singh, 74, Indian lawyer, President of the International Court of Justice, heart attack.

### 12

* K. K. Chen, 90, Chinese-born American scientist, pharmacological researcher at Eli Lilly and Company (ephedrine).
* Dick Clair, 57, American television producer, actor and writer (It's a Living, The Facts of Life, Mama's Family), AIDS.
* Bruce Alan Davis, 40, American serial killer, suicide.
* June Tarpé Mills, 76, American comic book creator (Miss Fury).
* Henri Peyre, 87, French-born American linguist, heart failure.
* Anthony Provenzano, 71, American mobster of the Genovese crime family, heart attack.
* Joe Reichler, 73, American sports writer (Associated Press), cancer.
* Rudolf Schündler, 82, German actor and director (The Exorcist), heart attack.
* Loudon Wainwright Jr., 63, American writer and columnist (The View from Here), colon cancer.

### 13

* Hans Fischer, 27, Brazilian cyclist and Olympian, cardiac arrest.
* Brynmor John, 54, British politician, Shadow Secretary of State for Defence, heart attack.
* María Teresa León, 85, Spanish writer.
* Muhammad Mangundiprojo, 83, Indonesian soldier, revolutionary and civil servant.
* Bill Nichols, 70, American politician, member of U.S. House of Representatives, heart attack.
* Fyodor Reshetnikov, 82, Soviet painter.
* Brian Sinclair, 73, British veterinary surgeon and novelist, heart attack.
* Betty Snowball, 80, English women's test cricketer, international squash and lacrosse player for Scotland.
* Roy Urquhart, 87, British army general.

### 14

* Charlie T. Black, 87, American college basketballer.
* Narciso Busquets, 58, Mexican actor of theatre, film, television and radio.
* Evald Schorm, 56, Czechoslovakian film and stage director, screenwriter and actor.
* Jean Schramme, 59, Belgian planter, mercenary in Belgian Congo.
* Stuart Symington, 87, American businessman and politician, U.S. Secretary of the Air Force, heart failure.
* Win Oo, 53, Burmese actor, singer and director, colorectal cancer.

### 15

* Leonid Andrussow, 92, German chemical engineer (hydrogen cyanide).
* Andrew James Wray Geddes, 82, Indian-born British Royal Air Force officer, led planning for Operation Manna.
* Muriel Martin-Harvey, 97, English stage actress.

### 16

* Anna Jean Ayres, 68, American occupational therapist and educational psychologist, breast cancer.
* Frank Bonham, 74, American author of Westerns and young adult novels.
* Tom Eastick, 88, Australian Army artillery officer during World War II.
* Joe Hatten, 72, American Major League baseballer (Brooklyn Dodgers).
* Hunter "Stork" Hendry, 93, Australian test cricketer.
* Ryōhei Koiso, 85, Japanese artist.
* Gisella Perl, 81, Hungarian gynecologist, helped women at Auschwitz concentration camp.
* Babe Pratt, 72, Canadian NHL ice hockey player (New York Rangers, Toronto Maple Leafs), heart attack.
* Sylvester, 41, American singer-songwriter, AIDS.

### 17

* Jerry Hopper, 81, American film and television director, heart disease.
* Jimmie Mattern, 83, American aviator.
* Gisella Perl, 81, Hungarian-American gynecologist, providing assistance to prisoners at Auschwitz.

### 18

* R. Arumugam, 35, Malaysian international footballer (Selangor, Malaysia), car accident.
* Niyazi Berkes, 80, Turkish Cypriot sociologist.
* Milt Gantenbein, 78, American NFL footballer (Green Bay Packers).
* Ka. Naa. Subramanyam, 76, Indian writer and literary critic.

### 19

* Robert Bernstein, 69, American comic book writer, playwright and concert impresario ("Aquaman"), heart failure.
* Umashankar Joshi, 77, Indian poet and writer, lung cancer.
* Joseph Towles, 52, African American anthropologist and author, AIDS.

### 20

* B. Jayamma, 73, Indian actress and singer.
* György Marik, 64, Hungarian international footballer (Vasas, Hungary).
* Alphonse Ouimet, 80, Canadian television pioneer, president of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, heart failure.
* Max Robinson, 49, American broadcast journalist, co-anchor on ABC World News Tonight, AIDS.
* Elizabeth Scott, 71, American mathematician specialising in statistics.

### 21

* Eithne Dunne, 69, Irish actress.
* Willie Kamm, 88, American Major League baseballer (Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians), Parkinson's disease.
* Philip Magnus, 82, British biographer.
* Federico Moura, 37, Argentinian singer, songwriter and record producer, lead vocalist of Virus, AIDS.
* Aileen Palmer, 73, British-born Australian poet.
* Curt Richter, 94, American biologist and geneticist (circadian rhythm).
* Dave Ruhl, 68, Canadian professional wrestler.
* Merryle Rukeyser, 91, American financial columnist, heart failure.
* Bob Steele, 81, American actor, heart failure.
* Nikolaas Tinbergen, 81, Dutch biologist and ornithologist, Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, stroke.
* Venus Xtravaganza, 23, American transgender performer, strangled.
* Notable people killed in the Lockerbie aeroplane disaster:
** Bernt Carlsson, 60, Swedish diplomat, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations.
** Peter Dix, 35, Irish Olympic sailor.
** James Fuller, 50, American automobile executive (Volkswagen).
** Matthew Gannon, 34, American CIA officer.
** Paul Jeffreys, 36, English rock musician (Cockney Rebel).

### 22

* Franziska Boas, 86, American dancer.
* Chico Mendes, 44, Brazilian trade union member and environmental activist, murdered.
* Tom William Scott, 86, American general in the U.S. Air Force.
* Tucker Smith, 52, American actor, dancer and singer (West Side Story), cancer.
* Rexhai Surroi, 59, Yugoslav Albanian journalist, diplomat and writer, ambassador to five countries, car accident.
* Wang Bingnan, 79–80, Chinese diplomat, ambassador to Poland.

### 23

* Gerhard Adler, 84, German analytical psychologist.
* Elvin C. Drake, 85, American track and field coach, heart attack.
* Carlo Scorza, 91, Italian secretary of the National Fascist Party.

### 24

* Blanche Barrow, 77, American member of the Barrow Gang, lung cancer.
* Whitney Bourne, 74, American actress (Head over Heels).
* Mary Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, 93, Mistress of the Robes to Queen Elizabeth II.
* Jainendra Kumar, 83, Indian writer.
* Theyre Lee-Elliott, 85, English artist.
* Alfred M. Pride, 91, American admiral of the U.S. Navy, heart attack.
* Noel Willman, 70, Irish-born American actor and theatre director (The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Odessa File), heart attack.
* Mumon Yamada, 88, Japanese Rinzai religious leader.

### 25

* Bunny Bell, 77, English footballer (Tranmere Rovers, Everton).
* Jan Białostocki, 67, Polish art historian.
* Terence Dudley, 69, British television director and producer for the BBC (Doctor Who, All Creatures Great and Small), cancer.
* Evgeny Golubev, 78, Soviet composer.
* W. F. Grimes, 83, Welsh archaeologist.
* Denis Matthews, 69, English pianist and musicologist, suicide.
* John Ulric Nef, 89, American economic historian, co-founder of Committee on Social Thought.
* Shōhei Ōoka, 79, Japanese novelist and translator of French literature.
* Edward Pelham-Clinton, 68, English lepidopterist and military officer, Duke of Newcastle.
* Cynthia Stone, 62, American actress.
* Napoleon Andrew Tuiteleleapaga, 84, Samoan lawyer, author and musician, heart attack.

### 26

* Herluf Bidstrup, 76, Danish cartoonist (Land og Folk).
* Anthony Gaeta, 61, American politician, Borough President of Staten Island, heart attack.
* Evie Hayes, 76, American-born Australian actor and singer (Come Up Smiling, Annie Get Your Gun), heart attack.
* Julanne Johnston, 88, American silent-screen actress (The Thief of Bagdad).
* John Loder, 90, English-American film actor.
* Glenn McCarthy, 81, American oil tycoon.
* Vangaveeti Mohana Ranga, 41, Indian politician, member of the Indian National Congress, assassinated.
* Gunnar Rosendal, 91, Swedish Lutheran priest.
* Charles Smith, 68, American actor (The Shop Around the Corner, The Major and the Minor).
* Pablo Sorozábal, 91, Spanish composer.
* Tao Zhiyue, 95–96, Chinese politician and general in the National Revolutionary Army.

### 27

* Hal Ashby, 59, American film director (Coming Home, Shampoo), pancreatic cancer.
* Joseph Beam, 33, American gay rights activist, AIDS.
* Walter Crook, 76, English international footballer and manager (Blackburn Rovers, England).
* Jack Favor, 77, American rodeo performer, acquitted after serving time for murder, cancer.
* Fox Harris, 52, American actor (Repo Man), lung cancer.
* Freda James, 77, British tennis player and Wimbledon Doubles champion.
* Vaso Katraki, 74, Greek painter and engraver.
* Khin Kyi, 76, Burmese politician and diplomat, ambassador to India, stroke.
* Donald Laycock, 51–52, Australian linguist and anthropologist (languages of Papua New Guinea).
* C. J. McLin, 67, American politician, member of the Ohio House of Representatives.
* Jess Oppenheimer, 75, American radio and television writer and director (I Love Lucy), heart failure.
* Tecwyn Roberts, 63, Welsh-born American spaceflight engineer, helped design NASA's Mission Control Center.

### 28

* Alberto Armando, 78, Argentinian businessman and football manager (Boca Juniors).
* Karlfried Graf Dürckheim, 92, German diplomat and psychotherapist.
* Björn Kurtén, 64, Finnish vertebrate paleontologist.
* Charlotte Peters, 75, American television show host.

### 29

* Émile Aillaud, 86, French architect (La Grande Borne).
* Mike Beuttler, 48, British Formula One driver, AIDS.
* Carl J. Johnson, 59, American physician, whistleblower on effects of nuclear testing, complications following coronary bypass.
* Rita Rait-Kovaleva, 91, Soviet literary translator and writer, translator of The Catcher in the Rye into Russian.

### 30

* Faber Birren, 88, American writer, consultant on colour theory, stroke.
* Jan Baalsrud, 71, Norwegian Resistance commando.
* Yuli Daniel, 63, Soviet writer and dissident (Sinyavsky–Daniel trial), stroke.
* Takeo Fujisawa, 78, Japanese businessman, co-founder of Honda Motor Co., heart attack.
* Dennis H. Klatt, 50, American researcher in speech and hearing science, cancer.
* Ernesto Lazzatti, 73, Argentinian international footballer (Boca Juniors, Argentina).
* Isamu Noguchi, 84, American artist and landscape architect, heart failure.
* Nikolai Sologubov, 64, Russian ice hockey player and Olympic gold medalist.

### 31

* Yara Amaral, 52, Brazilian actress (Mulher Objeto), heart attack from drowning.
* Christopher Andrewes, 92, British virologist who discovered the human influenza A virus.
* Ahmet Arvasi, 56, Turkish writer and philosopher.
* Oliver L. Austin, 85, American ornithologist.
* Nicolas Calas, 81, Greek-American poet and art critic, heart failure.
* Loel Guinness, 82, British politician, Member of Parliament, heart disease.

### Unknown date

* Charles Ganimian, 61–62, American musician and singer.