# Deaths in December 1997
## Contents

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The following is a list of notable deaths in December 1997.
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 1997
### 1

* Julius Barnathan, 70, American broadcast engineer, lung cancer.
* Stéphane Grappelli, 89, French-Italian jazz violinist.
* Władysław Młynek, 67, Polish teacher, writer and poet.
* Jiří Pleskot, 75, Czech actor.
* Khan Ataur Rahman, 68, Bangladeshi film actor, director, and singer.
* Edwin Rosario, 34, Puerto Rican boxer, aneurysm.

### 2

* Guido Brunner, 67, Spanish-German diplomat and politician.
* Silvio Ceccato, 83, Italian philosopher and linguist.
* Shirley Crabtree, 67, British wrestler known as Big Daddy, stroke.
* Harald Gelhaus, 82, German U-boat commander during World War II.
* Robert A. Hall, 86, American linguist.
* Steve Hamilton, 63, American basketball player, colon cancer.
* Michael Hedges, 43, American composer, guitarist and singer-songwriter, traffic collision.
* Marge Kotlisky, 70, American actress (Major League, Thief, Sixteen Candles).
* Endicott Peabody, 77, American gridiron football player and politician, leukemia.
* Robert E. Williams, 61, American murderer, execution by electrocution.

### 3

* Stan Anderson, 58, Scottish football player.
* Domenico Enrici, 88, Italian prelate of the Catholic Church.
* Benito Jacovitti, 74, Italian comic artist.
* Vic Lombardi, 75, American Major League Baseball player.
* Olaf Pedersen, 77, Danish historian of science.

### 4

* Leo August, 83, American philatelist.
* Morton Bard, 73, American psychologist and author of The Crime Victim's Book.
* Buck Barry, 80, American actor and radio and television personality.
* Joe Brown, 71, American boxer.
* Ho Sin Hang, 97, Hong Kong entrepreneur and philanthropist.
* G. S. Jayanath, Sri Lankan army officer, killed in action.
* Vytautas Kazimieras Jonynas, 90, Lithuanian artist.
* Alberto Manzi, 73, Italian school teacher, writer and television host.
* K. A. Nizami, 71, Indian historian and diplomat.
* Richard Vernon, 72, English actor (Goldfinger, Gandhi, The Man in Room 17), complications from Parkinson's disease.
* Joseph Wolpe, 82, South African psychiatrist.

### 5

* Rudolf Bahro, 62, East Germany dissident and politician, cancer.
* Forrest Burmeister, 84, American gridiron football player.
* Eugen Cicero, 57, Romanian-German jazz pianist.
* Frederick Dainton, Baron Dainton, 83, British academic chemist.
* Ali Forney, 22, American gay and transgender youth, shot.
* Lutz Hoffmann, 38, East German gymnast and Olympic silver medalist, suicide.
* John E. Moss, 82, American politician.
* Jakob Sverdrup, 78, Norwegian historian.
* Jan Voigt, 69, Norwegian actor, dancer and museum director.

### 6

* George Chisholm, 82, Scottish jazz trombonist and vocalist.
* Lou Clinton, 60, American baseball player, pneumonia.
* Eliot Daniel, 89, American songwriter and lyricist.
* Gilbert Delahaye, 74, Belgian author (Martine).
* Willy den Ouden, 79, Dutch swimmer and Olympic champion.
* Jagmohan Kaur, 49, Indian singer and actress.
* Peter Leventritt, 82, American bridge player.
* Eddie Myers, 91, British Army officer and author.
* Willie Pastrano, 62, American boxer, liver cancer.

### 7

* Billy Bremner, 54, Scottish footballer and manager, suspected heart attack.
* Barry S. Brook, 81, American musicologist.
* Félix Candela, 87, Spanish architect.
* Torbjörn Caspersson, 87, Swedish cytologist and geneticist.
* Fernand Cornez, 90, French road bicycle racer.
* Karl August Folkers, 91, American biochemist.
* George R. Gardiner, 80, Canadian businessman and philanthropist.
* Annette B. Weiner, 64, American anthropologist.
* Woodrow Wyatt, 79, British politician, author and journalist.

### 8

* Bob Bell, 75, American actor famous for his alter-ego, Bozo the Clown.
* Walter Molino, 82, Italian comics artist and illustrator.
* Léon Poliakov, 87, French historian.
* Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, 84, Cuban communist politician, Parkinson's disease.
* Laurean Rugambwa, 85, Tanzanian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.
* Stephen Tredre, 34, English actor and writer, bone cancer.
* Armando Valente, 94, Italian track and field athlete and Olympian.
* Shehu Musa Yar'Adua, 54, Nigerian army general, politician and Vice President.

### 9

* Tamara Geva, 91, Russian-American actress, ballet dancer, and choreographer.
* Angelo Herndon, 84, American labor organizer.
* K. Shivaram Karanth, 95, Indian polymath.
* Michael Lee Lockhart, 37, American convicted serial killer, execution by lethal injection.
* Keith W. Piper, 76, American football coach, congestive heart failure.
* Stefano Ludovico Straneo, 95, Italian entomologist and author.
* John D. Winters, 80, American historian.

### 10

* Anatoliy Banishevskiy, 51, Azerbaijani football player, diabetic coma attack.
* Kalmen Kaplansky, 85, Canadian human rights and trade union activist.
* Yevgeni Mayorov, 59, Soviet ice hockey player, A.L.S.
* Eve McVeagh, 78, American actress (High Noon, The Clear Horizon, The Glass Web).

### 11

* Roger Brown, 72, American social psychologist.
* Eddie Chapman, 83, English criminal and spy during World War II.
* Robert Cosmoc, 66, Romanian footballer.
* Jorge Castañeda y Álvarez de la Rosa, 76, Mexican diplomat.
* Simon Jeffes, 48, English classical guitarist, composer and arranger, brain tumor, brain cancer.
* Paul Scull, 90, American football player.

### 12

* Jim Bob Altizer, 65, American calf and steer roper.
* R. Stanton Avery, 90, American inventor.
* Wacław Gajewski, 86, Polish geneticist.
* Brian Deneke, 19, American punk musician, homicide by vehicular impact.
* Evgenii Landis, 76, Soviet and Russian mathematician.
* M. G. Soman, 53, Indian Air Force officer and actor.

### 13

* Giovanni Alberto Agnelli, 33, Italian businessman and member of the Agnelli family, stomach cancer.
* Martin Carter, 70, Guyanese poet and political activist.
* Paddy DeMarco, 69, American lightweight boxer.
* Don Edward Fehrenbacher, 77, American historian and Pulitzer Prize winner.
* Harry Glaß, 67, East German ski jumper and Olympian.
* Jimmy Milne, 86, Scottish football player and manager.
* W. D. Mochtar, 69, Indonesian actor.
* David Nicholson, 93, Australian politician.
* Alexander Oppenheim, 94, British mathematician.
* David Rousset, 85, French writer and political activist.
* Claude Roy, 82, French poet and essayist, cancer.

### 14

* John Adair, 84, American anthropologist.
* Owen Barfield, 99, British philosopher, author, critic, and member of the Inklings.
* Frank Baumholtz, 79, American baseball and basketball player.
* Marion Bell, 78, American singer and musical theatre performer.
* Gerald Legge, 9th Earl of Dartmouth, 73, British peer and businessman.
* Stubby Kaye, 79, American actor (Guys and Dolls, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Cat Ballou), comedian and singer, lung cancer.
* Edna F. Kelly, 91, American politician.
* Emily Cheney Neville, 77, American author.
* Torsten Nilsson, 92, American politician.
* Kurt Winter, 51, Canadian guitarist and songwriter, kidney failure.

### 15

* Karsten Andersen, 77, Norwegian conductor.
* Cosmo Campoli, 74, American sculptor.
* Siegfried Flügge, 85, German theoretical physicist.
* Albert Heremans, 91, Belgian football player.
* Amin Ahsan Islahi, 93, Pakistani Muslim scholar.
* Borislav Mihajlović Mihiz, 75, Serbian writer and literary critic.

### 16

* Lillian Disney, 98, American ink artist and wife of Walt Disney, stroke.
* Ralph Fasanella, 84, American painter.
* Kim Hak-sun, 73, Korean human rights activist.
* Oksana Ivanenko, 91, Soviet and Ukrainian children's writer and translator.
* Nicolette Larson, 45, American pop singer, cerebral edema.
* David L. McDonald, 91, American admiral, Chief of Naval Operations.
* Hu Ning, 81, Chinese physicist and writer.
* William A. Smalley, 74, American linguist, heart attack.
* Frans Stafleu, 76, Dutch botanist.
* Richard Warwick, 52, English actor, AIDS-related complications.

### 17

* Juan Francisco Barraza, 62, Salvadoran football player and manager, cardiac problems.
* Paul Bindrim, 77, American psychotherapist.
* Ernest Bromley, 85, American minister and civil rights activist.
* Katharine Fowler-Billings, 95, American writer, naturalist, and geologist.
* Reginald Victor Jones, 86, British physicist and scientific military intelligence expert.
* Karl Kainberger, 85, Austrian football (soccer) player.
* Marie Gudme Leth, 102, Danish textile printer.
* Mel Mazzera, 83, American baseball player.
* Uzi Narkiss, 72, Israeli general.
* Peter Taylor, 75, English film editor (The Bridge on the River Kwai, Summertime, The Taming of the Shrew), Oscar winner (1958).
* Leo Turner, 69, Australian rules football player.
* Hanna Walz, 79, German politician.

### 18

* Geoff Campion, 81, British comics artist.
* Chris Farley, 33, American comedian and actor (Saturday Night Live, Tommy Boy, Black Sheep), drug overdose.
* Harriet Holter, 75, Norwegian social psychologist.
* Michel Quoist, 76, French catholic priest, theologian and writer, pancreatic cancer.
* George Tsutakawa, 87, American painter and sculptor.
* James Kemsey Wilkinson, founder of Wilko.
* Kasino Hadiwibowo, 47, Indonesian comedian and actor, a member of Warkop DKI, brain tumor.

### 19

* Michael Alldredge, 56, American actor (Scarface, Iron Eagle, Shoot the Moon).
* Siegfried Barth, 81, German Luftwaffe bomber pilot during World War.
* David Bradley, 77, American motion picture director and actor.
* Jack Bruen, 48, American basketball coach, cancer.
* Bonny Hicks, 29, Singaporean model and writer, plane crash.
* Sara Northrup Hollister, 73, American occultist and second wife of author L. Ron Hubbard.
* Masaru Ibuka, 89, Japanese electronics industrialist and co-founder of Sony, heart failure.
* Patsy Lawlor, 64, Irish businesswoman and politician.
* Jimmy Rogers, 73, American blues musician, colon cancer.
* David Schramm, 52, American astrophysicist, plane crash.
* Fyodor Simashev, 52, Russian cross-country skier.
* Uldis Ģērmanis, 82, Latvian historian, writer and publicist.

### 20

* Jim Gibbons, 73, Irish politician.
* Richard Glazar, 77, Czech-Jewish Holocaust survivor, suicide by self-defenestration.
* Jūzō Itami, 64, Japanese actor, screenwriter and film director, suicide by jumping.
* Wenceslas Kalibushi, 78, Rwandan catholic bishop.
* Denise Levertov, 74, American poet, lymphoma.
* Esther Peterson, 91, American consumer and women's advocate.
* Dick Spooner, 77, English cricket player.
* Dawn Steel, 51, American film studio executive and producer (Cool Runnings, Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, Honey, I Blew Up the Kid), brain cancer.

### 21

* Joseph Ahrens, 94, German composer and organist.
* Roger Barkley, 61, American radio personality, pancreatic cancer.
* Blai Bonet, 71, Spanish poet, novelist and art critic.
* Johnny Coles, 71, American jazz trumpeter, cancer.
* Amie Comeaux, 21, American country music singer, traffic collision.
* Igor Dmitriev, 56, Russian ice hockey player and coach.
* Sacco van der Made, 79, Dutch actor.
* Jerry Masucci, 63, American attorney and businessman.
* Roxbee Cox, Baron Kings Norton, 95, British aeronautical engineer.
* Sholom Schwadron, Israeli Haredi rabbi and orator.
* Józef Stefański, 89, Polish cyclist.
* Bruce Woodcock, 76, English boxer.

### 22

* Sebastian Arcos Bergnes, 66, Cuban human rights activist.
* Flea Clifton, 89, American baseball player.
* Francis Haar, 89, Hungarian socio-photographer.
* José Oliva, 26, Dominican baseball player, traffic collision.
* Hal Rice, 73, American baseball player.
* Clara Lee Tanner, 92, American anthropologist and art historian.

### 23

* Felix Bwalya, 30, Zambian boxer and Olympian, head injuries sustained in a boxing fight.
* Stanley Cortez, 89, American cinematographer, heart attack.
* Les Harrison, American basketball player and coach.
* Zaur Kaloyev, 66, Soviet and Georgian football player.
* Thomas S. Moorman, 87, United States Air Force officer.
* Fred Page, 82, Canadian ice hockey referee and administrator.
* Paula Stone, 85, American actress.

### 24

* Fahd Ballan, 64, Syrian druze singer and actor.
* Jacques Fabbri, 72, French actor.
* Vic Feller, 74, Luxembourgish football player.
* Kemper Goodwin, 91, American architect.
* Harry Groves, 79, English boxer.
* Andy Kerr, 66, Scottish football player.
* Charles Roman Koester, 82, American prelate of the Catholic Church.
* James Komack, 73, American television producer and writer (The Courtship of Eddie's Father, Chico and the Man, Welcome Back, Kotter), heart failure.
* Toshiro Mifune, 77, Japanese actor (Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood), multiple organ failure.
* Lotte Motz, 75, Austrian-American scholar.

### 25

* Anatoli Boukreev, 39, Russian and Kazakhstani mountaineer, avalanche.
* Anita Conti, 98, French explorer and photographer.
* Yvonne Cormeau, 88, British SOE agent during World War II.
* Georgi Gavasheli, 50, Soviet/Georgian football player.
* Myriam Marbe, 66, Romanian composer and pianist.
* Jerry March, 68, American organic chemist.
* Paul M. O'Leary, 96, American economist and educator.
* Denver Pyle, 77, American actor (The Dukes of Hazzard, Bonnie and Clyde, The Andy Griffith Show), lung cancer.
* Kenneth Spring, 76, British Army officer and artist.
* Giorgio Strehler, 76, Italian opera and theatre director, heart attack.

### 26

* Cahit Arf, 87, Turkish mathematician.
* Cornelius Castoriadis, 75, Greek-French philosopher, social critic and economist, complications following heart surgery.
* Simone Duvalier, 84, First Lady of Haiti as wife of François "Papa Doc" Duvalier.
* John Hinde, 81, English photographer.
* Sergei Mamchur, 25, Russian football player, heart failure.
* Victor Oehrn, 90, German U-boat commander during World War II.
* Karlis Osis, 80, Latvian-American parapsychologist.
* Kenneth Pitzer, 83, American physical and theoretical chemist.
* Tommy Price, 86, British speedway rider.
* Mircea Veroiu, 56, Romanian film director and screenwriter.

### 27

* Ewart Abner, 74, American record company executive.
* Yousef Mohamed Alghoul, 61, Libyan football referee.
* Said Brahimi, 66, Algerian-French football player.
* Webster Chikabala, Zambian football player and coach, HIV/AIDS.
* Brendan Gill, 83, American journalist.
* James Nabrit, Jr., 97, American civil rights attorney.
* Buxton Orr, 73, British composer and teacher.
* Malayattoor Ramakrishnan, 70, Indian writer, cartoonist and lawyer.
* Kent Robbins, 50, American country music songwriter, traffic collision.
* Bess Whitehead Scott, 107, American journalist.
* Tamara Tyshkevich, 66, Soviet shot putter and Olympian.
* Danny Wagner, 75, American basketball player.
* Billy Wright, 37, Northern Irish paramilitary leader, shot.

### 28

* Heikki A. Alikoski, 85, Finnish astronomer and discoverer of minor planets.
* Bill Anderson, 86, American producer, cerebral hemorrhage after falling.
* Shaikh Ayaz, 74, Pakistani poet, heart attack.
* Corneliu Baba, 91, Romanian painter.
* Henry Barraud, 97, French composer.
* James Lees-Milne, 89, English writer and expert on country houses.
* William Martínez, 69, Uruguayan footballer.
* Steve Musseau, 74, American football coach and motivational speaker, heart failure.
* Vassily Solomin, 44, Soviet and Russian boxer and Olympian, lung cancer.
* Wacław Wójcik, 78, Polish racing cyclist.

### 29

* J. Richardson Dilworth, 81, American businessman.
* Helen Kirkpatrick, 88, American war correspondent during World War II.
* István Kiss, 70, Hungarian sculptor and politician.
* André Marchand, 90, French painter.
* Robert Walter Steel, 82, British geographer.

### 30

* Danilo Dolci, 73, Italian social activist, sociologist and poet, heart attack.
* Raymond Ericson, 82, American music critic.
* Bernard Girard, 79, American screenwriter, producer and film director.
* Shinichi Hoshi, 71, Japanese novelist and science fiction writer.
* Warren Mehrtens, 77, American thoroughbred horse racing jockey.
* Bernard Soysa, 83, Sri Lankan politician.
* Kim Sun-ja, South Korean serial killer.
* John Howard Yoder, 70, American theologian and ethicist.

### 31

* Jim Chambers, 70, Canadian football player.
* Floyd Cramer, 64, American pianist, lung cancer.
* Dominique de Menil, 89, French-American art collector and philanthropist.
* Billie Dove, 94, American actress, pneumonia.
* Richard Elman, 63, American novelist, poet, and journalist.
* Michael LeMoyne Kennedy, 39, American lawyer, son of Robert F. Kennedy, skiing accident.
* Liu Lantao, 87, Chinese communist revolutionary and politician.
* Sandy McPeak, 61, American actor.
* Ken Olfson, 60, American actor.