# Deaths in December 2005
## Contents

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The following is a list of notable deaths in December 2005.
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 2005
### 1

* Gust Avrakotos, 67, American CIA agent who armed the mujaheddin of Afghanistan, stroke.
* Mary Hayley Bell, 94, British actress, Alzheimer's disease.
* Béla Berger, 74, Hungarian-Australian chess master.
* Hermann Buchner, 86, German World War II flying ace.
* Jack Colvin, 71, American actor, (The Incredible Hulk), coronary thrombosis.
* Michael Evans, 61, American White House photographer, cancer.
* Ray Hanna, 77, New Zealand-English pilot and founder of The Old Flying Machine Company.
* Karin Himboldt, 85, German film actress.
* Michael Kehlmann, 78, Austrian theatre and television film director, screenwriter and actor.
* Victor Premasagar, 78, Indian theologian and Bishop of Medak (1983–1992).
* Eddie Schroeder, 94, American speed skater.

### 2

* Nikolai Artemov, 97, Soviet and Russian physiologist.
* Lillian Browse, 99, British art dealer.
* Shawn Paul Humphries, 34, American convicted murderer, executed by lethal injection.
* Malik Joyeux, 25, French professional surfer, drowned.
* William P. Lawrence, 75, American U.S. Navy Vice Admiral, first to fly at twice the speed of sound.
* Leonard Lewis, 78, British television director and producer.
* Peter Menegazzo, 61, Australian cattle baron, plane crash.
* Tom Miller, 87, American gridiron football player.
* Jaime Morón, 55, Colombian football player.
* Van Tuong Nguyen, 25, Australian convicted of drug trafficking, execution by hanging.
* Mohammed Hamza Zubeidi, 67, Iraqi politician, former prime minister under Saddam Hussein.

### 3

* Frederick Ashworth, 93, American naval officer, weaponeer who dropped atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
* John Ganzoni, 2nd Baron Belstead, 73, British aristocrat and politician.
* Peter Cook, 62, Australian politician, melanoma.
* Lance Dossor, 89, Australian pianist.
* Peter E. Haas, 86, American billionaire businessman, president, CEO and chairman of Levi Strauss & Co.
* Kikka, 41, Finnish pop and schlager singer, heart attack.
* Kåre Kristiansen, 85, Norwegian politician, minister of Oil and Energy (1983–1986).
* Lupe Madera, 52, Mexican boxer.
* Atsuko Tanaka, 73, Japanese avant-garde artist.

### 4

* Ted Allbeury, 88, British author of espionage fiction.
* Débora Arango, 98, Colombian artist.
* Percy Brandt, 83, Swedish actor.
* Errol Brathwaite, 81, New Zealand writer.
* Alfred Farag, 76, Egyptian playwright.
* Gregg Hoffman, 42, American film producer (Saw).
* Gloria Lasso, 83, Spanish singer, heart attack.
* Jacob Pins, 88, German-Israeli woodcut artist and art collector.

### 5

* John Alvheim, 75, Norwegian politician.
* Gerald Smedley Andrews, 101, Canadian frontier teacher, land surveyor, and soldier.
* Wesley Baker, 47, American convicted murderer, executed in Maryland.
* Gerard Bruggink, 88, Dutch fighter pilot during World War II and recipient of the Military Order of William.
* Liu Binyan, 80, Chinese author and dissident, cancer.
* Ursula Buckel, 79, German soprano.
* Netai Bysack, 84, Indian Olympic cyclist.
* Milo Dor, 82, Serbian-Austrian author, heart failure.
* Edward L. Masry, 73, American attorney and mentor to Erin Brockovich, complications of diabetes.
* Kevin "Big Kev" McQuay, 56, Australian businessman and media personality, heart attack.
* Ed Murphy, 75, American soccer player.
* Harry Pepl, 60, Austrian jazz guitarist and composer.
* Frits Philips, 100, Dutch businessman, grandson of the founder of Philips, complications from a fall.
* Bob Richardson, 77, American fashion photographer.
* Bill Robinson, 71, British rugby league player.
* Claude Ambrose Rogers, 85, English mathematician.
* Vladimir Toporov, 77, Russian philologist.

### 6

* Charly Gaul, 72, Luxembourgish cyclist, winner of the 1958 Tour de France, pneumonia.
* Richard Grimsdale, 76, British electrical engineer, built the world's first transistorised computer.
* Paul Halla, 74, Austrian footballer.
* Peter Hollfelder, 75, German classical pianist.
* Hanns Dieter Hüsch, 80, German political satirist.
* Koba Kurtanidze, 41, Soviet judoka.
* Stephen L. Mosko, 57, American composer.
* Devan Nair, 82, President of Singapore (1981–1985), dementia.
* Jerzy Pajaczkowski-Dydynski, 111, Polish-born oldest man in the UK at the time of his death.
* Danny Williams, 63, South African singer, lung cancer.
* William P. Yarborough, 93, American Army officer.

### 7

* Lucy d'Abreu, 113, Indian-born oldest person in the UK at the time of her death.
* Martine Bercher, 61, American football player.
* Adrian Biddle, 53, British cinematographer (Aliens, The Princess Bride, Thelma & Louise), heart attack.
* Marvin Braude, 85, American member of Los Angeles City Council.
* Carroll A. Campbell, Jr., 65, American politician, South Carolina governor (1987–1995), and member of U.S. House of Representatives (1979–1987), heart attack.
* Bud Carson, 75, American football player, former NFL head coach, emphysema.
* Loomis Dean, 88, American photographer, notably for Life magazine.
* Beach Dickerson, 81, American actor.
* Thukha, 95, Burmese film director, actor, and film producer.
* Eddy Verstraeten, 57, Belgian road bicycle racer.

### 8

* John Beale, 72, British virologist.
* R. W. Bradford, 58, American writer, publisher of Liberty magazine, kidney cancer.
* Rose Heilbron, 91, British judge, pneumonia.
* Donald Martino, 74, American composer.
* George D. Painter, 91, British biographer.
* David S. Saxon, 85, American physicist and educator.
* Leo Scheffczyk, 85, German Roman Catholic cardinal and theologian.
* Roger Shattuck, 82, American writer and critic, prostate cancer.
* Jim Simons, 55, American golfer, accidental multiple drug toxicity.
* J. N. Williamson, 73, American horror writer, author and publisher.
* Georgiy Zhzhonov, 90, Russian actor and writer, lung cancer.

### 9

* Norman Blundell, 88, Australian cricketer.
* Mike Botts, 61, American drummer, toured and recorded with Linda Ronstadt, Dan Fogelberg, and Tina Turner, cancer.
* Rudolf Meidner, 91, Swedish economist and socialist.
* Homer Mensch, 91, American internationally known bass player, Juilliard teacher.
* Eunice Norton, 97, American classical pianist and music promoter.
* Robert Sheckley, 77, American science fiction author, brain aneurysm.
* György Sándor, 93, Hungarian internationally famous pianist, Juilliard teacher, heart failure.
* Boris Taslitzky, 94, French painter.

### 10

* Evgenii Feinberg, 93, Soviet physicist.
* Mary Jackson, 95, American schoolteacher and actress (The Waltons, Parenthood), Parkinson's disease.
* Eugene McCarthy, 89, American politician, U.S. Senator from Minnesota (1959–1971), U.S. Representative (1949–1959), Parkinson's disease.
* Jim McIntyre, 78, American basketball player.
* Richard Pryor, 65, American comedian and actor (Stir Crazy, Harlem Nights), heart attack and complications of multiple sclerosis.
* Clark G. Reynolds, 65, American naval historian, heart attack.

### 11

* Walt Cudzik, 73, American NFL football player for the Boston Patriots.
* Maria Kaniewska, 94, Polish actress, screenplay writer, film director.
* Norman Leavitt, 92, American film and television actor.
* Richard Sandbrook, 59, British environmentalist, cancer.
* Hayim Tadmor, 82, Israeli assyriologist and professor.
* Max Walters, 85, British botanist and academic.

### 12

* Sandipan Chattopadhyay, 72, Indian Bengali writer.
* Eric D'Arcy, 81, Australian Roman Catholic archbishop.
* Max Mariu, 53, First Maori Catholic bishop.
* Robert Newmyer, 49, American film producer (The Santa Clause, Training Day, Sex, Lies, and Videotape), heart attack.
* David Pritchard, 86, British chess player and chess writer.
* Ramanand Sagar, 87, Indian director, producer, and writer.
* Juraj Szikora, 58, Slovak football player.
* Gebran Tueni, 48, Lebanese journalist and politician, assassinated by a car bomb.
* Gyula Trebitsch, 91, Hungarian-German film producer.
* Annette Vadim, 69, Danish actress, cancer.

### 13

* John Barraclough, 79, Australian politician.
* Roland Guy, 77, British army general.
* John Langstaff, 84, American singer and music educator.
* Majid Musisi, 38, Ugandan football player, AIDS-related complications.
* Dick Nolan, 66, Canadian musician.
* Stanley "Tookie" Williams, 51, American convicted murderer and co-founder of the Crips turned anti-gang activist, execution by lethal injection.

### 14

* Erhard Ahmann, 64, German football manager.
* Ruth Amiran, 91, Israeli archaeologist.
* Stew Bowers, 90, American baseball player.
* Gordon Duncan, 41, Scottish musician and bagpiper, suicide.
* Rokuro Ishikawa, 80, Japanese businessman (Kajima Corporation).
* Sudhir Joshi, 57, Indian actor, heart attack.
* Tom Milne, 79, British film critic.
* John B. Nixon, 77, American convicted murderer, executed in Mississippi.
* C. I. Paul, 61, Indian (Malayalam) actor, heart attack.
* Trevanian, 74, British author, wrote under pseudonyms such as "Trevanian".

### 15

* T. K. Balachandran, 77, Indian actor, cancer.
* Maurice Beresford, 85, British economic historian and archaeologist.
* James Ingo Freed, 75, American architect, Parkinson's disease.
* Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, 84, Italian writer and director of movies and theatre.
* Heinrich Gross, 90, Austrian alleged nazi doctor and war criminal during World War II.
* Jiřina Hauková, 86, Czech poet and translator.
* Walter Haut, 83, American Army lieutenant, central figure in the Roswell UFO incident in 1947.
* Stan Leonard, 90, Canadian golfer, heart failure.
* Julián Marías, 91, Spanish philosopher and father of author Javier Marías.
* John McIntyre, 89, Scottish theologian.
* Akira Ohgi, 70, Japanese baseball player and manager, lung cancer.
* Jim Ostendarp, 82, American football coach at Amherst College for 33 years.
* Enrico Paoli, 97, Italian international chess master.
* William Proxmire, 90, American politician, Democratic Senator from Wisconsin (1957–1989), complications of Alzheimer's disease.
* Darrell Russell, 29, American former NFL player for the Oakland Raiders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, car accident.

### 16

* Robert L. Baird, 85, American jockey and trainer in thoroughbred horse racing.
* Anthony Barber, 85, British politician and Chancellor of the Exchequer, complications of Parkinson's disease.
* Boyi Bhimanna, 94, Indian Telugu poet, Parkinson's disease.
* Kenneth Bulmer, 84, English writer (pseudonyms included Alan Burt Akers and Dray Prescot).
* Aleksandr Mazur, 92, Heavyweight Greco-Roman wrestler from Ukraine.
* Joseph Owades, 86, American biochemist, inventor of light beer.
* Helmut H. Schaefer, 80, German mathematician.
* John Spencer, 58, American actor (The West Wing, L.A. Law, The Rock), Emmy winner (2002), heart attack.
* Enzo Stuarti, 86, Italian tenor, was in many Broadway musicals, heart failure.

### 17

* Jack Anderson, 83, American Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, complications of Parkinson's disease.
* Trevor Duncan, 81, English composer.
* Mustafa Ertan, 79, Turkish footballer.
* Marc Favreau, 76, French Canadian television and film actor, cancer.
* Jacques Fouroux, 58, French rugby union captain and coach, heart attack.
* Agnès Guillemot, 74, French film editor.
* Yeleazar Meletinsky, 87, Russian scholar and academic.
* Emil Ratzenhofer, 91, Austrian Olympic pair skater.
* Sverre Stenersen, 79, Norwegian gold medal winner in the 1956 Winter Olympics.
* Ward Williams, 82, American basketball player.
* Tahsin Özgüç, 89, Turkish archaeologist.

### 18

* Belita, 82, British Olympic skater and film actress.
* Bill Coulthard, 81, Canadian basketball player.
* Keith Duckworth, 72, British automotive designer.
* Doug Dye, 84, New Zealand microbiologist.
* Howie Ferguson, 75, American gridiron foootballL player.
* Rómulo García, 78, Argentine Roman Catholic archbishop.
* Barry Halper, 66, American baseball memorabilia collector and limited partner for the New York Yankees.
* N. Sankaran Nair, 80, Indian director of Malayalam movies.
* Dmitry Okhotsimsky, 84, Russian engineer in the Soviet space program.
* Doris Fisher, Baroness Fisher of Rednal, 86, British politician and peer.
* P. M. Sayeed, 64, Indian Minister of Power, heart attack.
* Tiago João da Silva, 17, Brazilian robber.
* Alan Voorhees, 83, American transportation engineer and city planner , stroke.

### 19

* Charles Brett, 77, Northern Irish architectural historian.
* George Bromilow, 74, British footballer at the 1956 Summer Olympics.
* Yū Fujiki, 74, Japanese film and television actor.
* Vincent Gigante, 77, American Genovese family crime boss, heart disease.
* Julio Iglesias Puga, 90, Spanish gynaecologist, heart attack.
* Marjorie Kellogg, 83, American author and playwright (Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon), Alzheimer's disease.
* William Leslie, 80, American film and television actor.
* Azra Sherwani, 65, Pakistani actress.

### 20

* Alfredo Arango, 60, Colombian international football player.
* Louis Biesbrouck, 84, Dutch football player.
* Raoul Bott, 82, Hungarian-American mathematician, cancer.
* Argentina Brunetti, 98, Argentine actress. (It's a Wonderful Life, The Caddy), writer, journalist.
* Theodore Holmes Bullock, 90, American neuroscientist.
* Bradford Cannon, 98, American plastic surgeon, pneumonia.
* Genrikh Fedosov, 73, Soviet football player.
* Lavinia Gianoni, 94, Italian gymnast.
* José Roberto Hill, 60, Mexican actor.
* William White Howells, 97, American anthropologist.
* Billy Hughes, 57, American former child/film actor during the 1960s.
* Óscar López, 66, Colombian international football player, diabetes.
* Graham Wilson, 66, Australian rugby league player.

### 21

* Horace Ellis Crouch, 87, American military aviator, member of the Doolittle Raid.
* Myron Healey, 82, American film actor who normally played Western villains.
* Elrod Hendricks, 64, U.S. Virgin Islander Baltimore Orioles coach, former MLB catcher, heart attack.
* Pericle Martinescu, 94, Romanian writer, journalist and translator.
* Traian Stoianovich, 84, American historian and academic.
* Hallam Tennyson, 85, British radio producer and great-grandson of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, suspected victim of murder.
* Vicente de Cadenas y Vicent, 90, Spanish officer of arms.

### 22

* Richard Bellucci, 91, American ear surgeon and inventor.
* T. Cooper Evans, 81, American politician, Republican US Representative from Iowa (1981–1987).
* Aurora Miranda, 90, Brazilian entertainer and sister of Carmen Miranda, heart attack.
* Bill Scott, 82, Australian author.
* George Speaight, 91, British art historian, actor and puppeteer.

### 23

* Lajos Baróti, 91, Hungarian football coach.
* Selma Jeanne Cohen, 85, American dance historian, editor of The International Encyclopedia of Dance, Alzheimer's disease.
* Ivar Eskeland, 78, Norwegian philologist, publisher, and radio personality.
* Gwynne Blakemore Evans, 93, American Shakespeare scholar, author of The Riverside Shakespeare, stroke.
* Truman Gibson, 93, American anti-segregation lawyer and boxing promoter.
* Harold Hallman, 43, Canadian football player, complications during surgery.
* Emmett Leith, 78, American electrical engineer.
* Kay Stammers, 91, British tennis player.
* Norman D. Vaughan, 100, American explorer and sportsman, part of Richard Byrd's 1928 South Pole expedition.
* Yao Wenyuan, 74, Chinese Communist political leader, member of the Gang of Four, diabetes.

### 24

* George Gerbner, 86, American professor of communication, cancer.
* Georg Johannesen, 74, Norwegian author and professor of rhetoric, drowned.
* Constance Keene, 84, American classical pianist.
* Harold Lawton, 106, British academic and veteran of World War I.
* Bhanumathi Ramakrishna, 80, Indian film actress, director, and singer/songwriter.
* Michael Vale, 83, American actor who appeared in over Dunkin' Donuts 1,300 commercials, diabetes.
* Wang Daohan, 90, Chinese politician and negotiator during the cross-straits talks.

### 25

* Felice Andreasi, 77, Italian actor, Parkinson's disease.
* Derek Bailey, 75, English avant-garde guitarist, motor neuron disease.
* Robert Barbers, 61, Filipino politician and senator, heart attack.
* Donald Dawson, 97, American lawyer, executive assistant to Harry S. Truman.
* John Hayes, 76, British art historian and museum curator.
* Henry Kock, 53, Canadian horticulturist and eco-activist, brain cancer.
* Birgit Nilsson, 87, Swedish soprano.
* Joseph Pararajasingham, 71, Sri Lankan politician and supporter of the Tamil Tiger rebels, shot.
* Clint Sampson, 44, American football player, car accident.
* Sarat Chandra Sinha, 92, Indian politician, Chief Minister of Assam.
* Charles Socarides, 83, American psychiatrist, physician, and author, heart failure.
* Roy Stuart, 70, American actor, cancer.

### 26

* Mikuláš Athanasov, 75, Czechoslovak wrestler and Olympic medalist.
* Bud Blake, 87, American cartoonist (Tiger).
* John Cooke, 68, American competition rower and Olympic champion.
* Muriel Costa-Greenspon, 68, American mezzo-soprano at the New York City Opera for 30 years.
* Bill DeArango, 84, American jazz guitarist.
* Guy Delorme, 76, French actor (The Three Musketeers, Moonraker), lip and oral cavity carcinoma.
* John Diebold, 79, American businessman, pioneering American computer engineer.
* Ted Ditchburn, 84, English football goalkeeper (Tottenham Hotspur, England national football team).
* Jules Gérard-Libois, 82, Belgian historian and writer.
* John H. Herz, 97, American scholar of international relations and law.
* Ernesto Leal, 60, Nicaraguan politician, presidential chief of staff and foreign minister, pneumonia.
* Kerry Packer, 68, Australian billionaire publishing-, media- and gaming tycoon, kidney failure.
* Viacheslav Platonov, 66, Russian volleyball player and coach.
* Vincent Schiavelli, 57, American actor (Ghost, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), lung cancer.
* Viktor Stepanov, 58, Russian actor, bone cancer.
* John Taylor, 80, Canadian football player (St. Hyacinthe-Donnacona Navy and Montreal Alouettes).
* Erich Topp, 91, German U-boat commander during World War II.

### 27

* Stuart Alexander, 44, American businessman and murderer, pulmonary embolism.
* Philip N. Carney, 86, American politician, member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
* Xavier Connor, 88, Australian jurist and foundation judge of the Federal Court of Australia.
* Hartmut Enke, 53, German musician.
* Edith Heath, 94, American studio potter.
* Leif Hermansen, 80, Danish Olympic rower.
* Dick Klein, 71, American gridiron football player.
* Abraham S. Luchins, 91, American Gestalt psychologist.
* Dee Pollock, 68, American film and television actor.
* Giancarlo Primo, 81, Italian basketball coach, the first to defeat USA and USSR in the 1970s.
* Tokuji Wakasa, 91, Japanese businessman, former president of All Nippon Airways.

### 28

* Bruce Carver, 57, American video game developer, cancer.
* Paul Cloyd, 85, American basketball player.
* Patrick Cranshaw, 86, American actor (Old School, Best in Show, Herbie: Fully Loaded), pneumonia.
* Tage Ekfeldt, 79, Swedish Olympic sprinter.
* Marco Guglielmi, 77, Italian actor, screenwriter and author.
* Stevo Žigon, 79, Serbian actor and theatre director, heart attack.

### 29

* Armand Phillip Bartos, 95, American architect.
* Gerda Boyesen, 83, Norwegian psychologist.
* Dan Carnevale, 87, American baseball player.
* Young-Oak Kim, 86, American military officer during World War II and the Korean War and civic leader, cancer.
* Ray Mattox, 78, American politician.
* Eileen Nolan, 85, British Director of the Women's Royal Army Corps.
* Elizabeth Parcells, 54, American operatic coloratura soprano, colorectal cancer.
* Cyril Philips, 93, British historian and academic administrator.
* Basil William Robinson, 93, British art scholar and author.
* Sir Eric Stroud, 81, British paediatrician.
* Abuna Yesehaq Mandefro, 72, Ethiopian Orthodox Archbishop.

### 30

* Eddie Barlow, 65, South African cricketer.
* Candy Barr, 70, American exotic dancer, pneumonia.
* Charles J. Bowles, 83, American physical education expert.
* Pasquale Carpino, 69, Italian-born Canadian television chef and operatic singer.
* Tory Dent, 47, American poet, essayist and art critic, AIDS-related complications.
* Rona Jaffe, 74, American novelist (The Best of Everything, Mazes and Monsters), cancer.
* Fred "Jock" Smith, 79, Scottish footballer (Hull City, Sheffield United and Millwall).
* Bobby Stevens, 98, American baseball player.

### 31

* Sanora Babb, 98, American writer.
* Harry Clarke, 89, American gridiron football player.
* Maurice Dodd, 83, British cartoonist (The Perishers), brain haemorrhage.
* Enrico Di Giuseppe, 73, American operatic tenor, cancer.
* Fee Malten, 94, German film actress.
* John Peel, 101, British gynaecologist.
* Erica Reiner, 81, American assyriologist and author.
* Carlos Roffé, 62, Argentine film and television actor.
* Maclovia Ruiz, 95, American dancer, pneumonia.
* Xolilizwe Sigcawu, 79, South African King of the Gcaleka.
* Aleksandr Silayev, 77, Russian sprint canoeist and Olympic silver medalist.
* Claude Sylvain, 75, French actor and singer.
* David Trustram Eve, 2nd Baron Silsoe, 75, British lawyer.
* Phillip Whitehead, 68, British politician and television presenter, MP for Derby North, heart attack.