# Deaths in August 1997
## Contents

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The following is a list of notable deaths in August 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.

## August 1997
### 1

* Ángel Acuña, 78, Mexican basketball player.
* Kenneth W. Bilby, 78, American RCA executive, leukemia.
* Berta Alves de Sousa, 91, Portuguese pianist and composer.
* Ngiratkel Etpison, 73, Palauan politician.
* Dame Bertha Isaacs, 97, Bahamian teacher, tennis player, politician and women's rights activist.
* Lawrence Alexander Sidney Johnson, 72, Australian taxonomic botanist, cancer.
* Norio Nagayama, 48, Japanese spree killer and novelist, execution by hanging.
* Sviatoslav Richter, 82, Ukrainian pianist, heart attack.
* Janet G. Travell, 95, American physician and medical researcher, heart failure.
* Hans von Luck, 86, German Wehrmacht officer during World War II.

### 2

* William S. Burroughs, 83, American author (Naked Lunch, Junkie) and visual artist, heart attack.
* John Churcher, 91, British army general.
* Antonis Daglis, Greek serial killer, suicide by hanging.
* Joyce Dingwell, 89, Australian writer.
* Feim Ibrahimi, 61, Albanian composer.
* Harald Kihle, 92, Norwegian painter and illustrator.
* James Krüss, 71, German children's author and illustrator.
* Fela Kuti, 58, Nigerian musician and human rights activist, AIDS (disputed).
* Frank E. Smith, 79, American politician, complications from strokes.
* Ricardo Muñoz Suay, 79, Spanish film director, producer and screenwriter.
* Michèle Pujol, 46, French intellectual, feminist, and human rights activist, cancer.
* Rhydwen Williams, 80, Welsh poet, novelist and baptist minister.

### 3

* Peter A. Carruthers, 62, American physicist.
* Joan Erikson, 94, Austrian-Canadian author, educator, and dance ethnographer.
* Mladen Koščak, 60, Croatian football player.
* Pietro Rizzuto, 63, Canadian politician.
* Nirmal Chandra Sinha, 85–86, Indian tibetologist and author.

### 4

* Horace Bristol, 88, American photographer.
* Dick Bush, 65, British cinematographer (Tommy, Victor Victoria, Twins of Evil).
* Jeanne Calment, 122, French supercentenarian and the oldest person ever documented in history, senility.
* Tom Eckersley, 82, English poster artist and teacher of design.
* Nicholas J. Hoff, 91, Hungarian-American aeronautics and astronautic engineer.
* Gene Johnson, 61, American gridiron football player.
* Lloyd Marshall, 83, American light heavyweight boxer.
* Ariel Maughan, 74, American basketball player.
* Ray Renfro, 67, American gridiron football player.
* Sidney Simon, 80, American painter, sculptor, and muralist.
* Alexander Young, 58, Scottish musician, lung cancer.

### 5

* Clarence M. Kelley, 85, American politician and director of the FBI.
* Poul Møller, 77, Danish Conservative People's Party politician.
* Don Steele, 61, American disc jockey, lung cancer.
* Michael J. Tully Jr., 64, American lawyer and politician, heart attack.

### 6

* Lance Barnard, 78, Australian politician and diplomat.
* Maria Antonietta Beluzzi, 67, Italian actress, infarction.
* Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya, 72, Indian writer.
* Shin Ki-ha, 56, South Korean politician, plane crash.
* Jürgen Kuczynski, 92, German economist and communist.
* Tom Normanton, 80, British politician.
* John Porter, 93, Canadian ice hockey player.
* Samuel Paul Welles, 89, American palaeontologist.
* Bora Öztürk, 42, Turkish football player, cancer.

### 7

* Rudolf Blügel, 70, German politician and member of the Bundestag.
* Jules Goedhuys, 92, Belgian racing cyclist.
* Kay Halle, 93, American journalist, author and World War II OSS operative.
* Elisabeth Höngen, 90, German operatic mezzo-soprano and actress.
* Volker Prechtel, 55, German actor, cancer.

### 8

* Joseph Aquilina, 78, Maltese author and linguist.
* Orville H. Hampton, 80, American screenwriter.
* Dardanelle Hadley, 79, American jazz musician.
* Plato Malozemoff, 87, Russian-American engineer and businessman, congestive heart failure.
* Paul Rudolph, 78, American architect, peritoneal mesothelioma.

### 9

* Doug Adams, 47, American gridiron football player.
* Max Bloesch, 89, Swiss field handball player and Olympian.
* Gabriel Cattand, 73, French actor.
* Herbert de Souza, 61, American sociologist and activist, AIDS-related complications.
* Ilpo Koskela, 52, Finnish ice hockey player.
* Trần Đại Nghĩa, 83, Vietnamese scientist and military engineer.

### 10

* Peter Braestrup, 66–67, American journalist, heart attack.
* Valery Chaptynov, 52, Russian politician.
* Roy Chipman, 58, American basketball coach, colorectal cancer.
* Malú Gatica, 75, Chilean actress and singer.
* William Jordy, 80, American architectural historian.
* Steve Kraftcheck, 68, Canadian ice hockey player.
* Jean-Claude Lauzon, 43, Canadian filmmaker and screenwriter, plane crash.
* Carlton Moss, 88, American screenwriter, actor and film director.
* Conlon Nancarrow, 84, American-Mexican composer.
* Bob Welborn, 69, American racing driver.
* George Zames, 63, Polish-Canadian control theorist and professor.

### 11

* Miksa Bondi, 79, Hungarian boxer.
* Bert McTaggart, 81, Australian rules footballer.
* Frank Pearson, 77, American Negro league baseball player.
* Jacques Robert, 76, French author, screenwriter and journalist.

### 12

* Luther Allison, 57, American blues guitarist, cancer.
* Anna Balakian, 82, Armenian-American professor of comparative literature, congestive heart failure.
* Rex Barney, 72, American baseball player.
* Ambrogio Bessi, 82, Italian basketball player.
* Gösta Bohman, 86, Swedish politician.
* Jack Delano, 83, American photographer, kidney failure.
* Keith Harper, 70, Australian rules football player.
* Robert Hetzron, 58, Hungarian-born linguist.
* Gulshan Kumar, 46, Indian businessman and film producer, shot.
* Dick Marx, 73, American jazz pianist and arranger, traffic collision.
* Mario Montuori, 77, Italian film cinematographer and painter.
* Abe Newborn, 77, American talent agent and theatre producer, congestive heart failure.
* Sam Nolutshungu, 52, South African academic, cancer.
* Len Norris, 83, Canadian editorial cartoonist.
* Achilles Papapetrou, 90, Greek theoretical physicist.
* Albert L. Smith, Jr., 65, American politician.
* Conrad von Molo, 90, Austrian film producer and editor.
* Ali Yata, 76, Moroccan communist leader.

### 13

* Vladimir Gribov, 67, Soviet and Russian theoretical physicist.
* Robert L. Leggett, 71, American politician.
* Dick Mather, 56, Canadian politician, heart attack.
* Emil Mosbacher, 75, American yachtsman and Chief of Protocol of the United States, cancer.
* Harlow Rothert, 89, American Olympic shot putter.
* Marjorie Lynette Sigley, 68, English artist, writer, actress, choreographer and theatre director, cancer.
* Carel Weight, 88, English painter.

### 14

* John Elliot, 79, British novelist, screenwriter and television producer.
* Charlie Fleming, 70, Scottish footballer.
* Diana E. Forsythe, 49, American anthropology researcher, hiking accident.
* Frederick Carl Galda, 79, American attorney and politician.
* George Pfister, 78, American baseball player and coach, heart attack.
* Guido Vincenzi, 65, Italian football player and manager, A.L.S.

### 15

* Ida Gerhardt, 92, Dutch writer and poet.
* Ray Heatherton, 88, American singer, Broadway performer and television personality, Alzheimer's disease.
* Lubka Kolessa, 95, Canadian-Ukrainian pianist and educator.
* Lawrence Morgan, 82, Australian rules footballer, equestrian and Olympian.
* Steve Pruski, 73, Canadian football player.
* Dave Solomon, 84, Fijian-New Zealand rugby player and coach.
* Çesk Zadeja, 70, Albanian composer.

### 16

* Yanick Dupré, 24, Canadian ice hockey player, leukemia.
* Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, 48, Pakistani Qawwali musician, heart attack.
* Alf Malland, 80, Norwegian actor.
* Plum Mariko, 29, Japanese female professional wrestler, wrestling accident.
* Jacques Pollet, 75, French racing driver.
* Donn Reynolds, 76, Canadian country music singer and yodeler.
* Hendrik van den Bergh, 82, South African police official.
* Roger Vrigny, 77, French writer.

### 17

* Burnum Burnum, 61, Australian Aboriginal activist, actor, and author, heart disease.
* Secondo Magni, 85, Italian racing cyclist.
* Don Owens, 65, American gridiron football player.
* David Schweitzer, 72, Israeli football player and manager.
* Richard Skalak, 74, American biomedical engineering pioneer.

### 18

* Praphas Charusathien, 84, Thai military officer and politician.
* Fedor Hanžeković, 84, Croatian film director.
* Don Knight, 64, English actor (The Apple Dumpling Gang, Swamp Thing, The Hawaiians), stroke.
* Maria Prymachenko, 89, Ukrainian folk art painter.
* Frank P. Sanders, 78, American Under Secretary of the Navy (1972–73).
* Robert Swenson, 40, American professional wrestler (WCCW) and actor (Batman & Robin, Bulletproof), heart failure.
* Harry R. Wellman, 98, American academic.

### 19

* Cathleen Cordell, 82, American actress, emphysema.
* Jim Karcher, 83, American gridiron football player.
* Robson Lowe, 92, English philatelist, stamp dealer and stamp auctioneer.
* Petr Novák, 51, Czech rock musician, poisoned.
* Mario Velarde, 57, Mexican football player.

### 20

* Norris Bradbury, 88, American physicist, infectious disease.
* William Humphrey, 73, American writer, cancer.
* Leo Jaffe, 88, American film executive.
* Bob Switzer, 83, American inventor, businessman and environmentalist, Parkinson's disease.

### 21

* Misael Pastrana Borrero, 73, President of Colombia.
* Somers Cox, 86, New Zealand rower and Olympian.
* Abdul Rahim Ghafoorzai, Afghani politician and diplomat, plane crash.
* Jean Horsley, 84, New Zealand artist.
* William Jopling, 86, Italian-British leprologist.
* Yuri Nikulin, 75, Soviet/Russian actor and clown, heart failure.

### 22

* Prince Álvaro of Orleans, 87, Spanish noble and Infante.
* James Edmund Jeffries, 72, American politician.
* James K. Johnson, 81, United States Air Force officer.
* François Lachenal, 79, Swiss publisher and diplomat.
* Eduardo Lopes, 79, Portuguese road and track cyclist, cerebral vascular accident.
* Matti Sippala, 89, Finnish athlete.
* Robin Skelton, 71, British-Canadian academic, writer, poet, and anthologist.
* Mary Louise Smith, 82, American politician and women's rights activist, lung cancer.
* Brendan Smyth, 70, Northern Irish Roman Catholic priest and convicted child molester, heart attack.
* Virgil Wagner, 75, Canadian football player.
* Roy Zimmerman, 79, American gridiron football player.

### 23

* Mike Calhoun, 40, American football player (Chicago Bears, San Francisco 49ers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers).
* Eric Gairy, 75, Prime Minister of Grenada (1974–1979).
* Buddy Hassett, 85, American baseball player, bone cancer.
* Lucy Somerville Howorth, 102, American lawyer, feminist and politician.
* John Kendrew, 80, British molecular biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
* Elena Mayorova, 39, Soviet and Russian actress, burns.
* Jean Poperen, 72, French politician.
* Jan Šejna, 70, Czechoslovak Army Major General and defector.

### 24

* Werner Abrolat, 73, German actor.
* Davide Ancilotto, 23, Italian basketball player, brain ischemia during game.
* Hardial Bains, 58, Indian-Canadian microbiology lecturer and communist politician, cancer.
* Rex Ellsworth, 89, American thoroughbred horse breeder.
* Louis Essen, 88, English physicist.
* Tete Montoliu, 64, Spanish jazz pianist, lung cancer.
* Zofia Rydet, 86, Polish photographer.
* Edgar F. Shannon, Jr., 79, American university director, cancer.
* Luigi Villoresi, 88, Italian motor racing driver.

### 25

* Clodomiro Almeyda, 74, Chilean politician, colon cancer.
* Mauro Cristofani, 56, Linguist and researcher in Etruscan studies.
* Muriel Frances Dana, 80, American silent film era child actress.
* Peter Dews, 67, British stage director.
* James Gould, 83, New Zealand rower.
* Carl Richard Jacobi, 89, American journalist and author.
* Füreya Koral, 87, Turkish ceramics artist.
* Noé Murayama, 67, Mexican actor.
* Bijan Najdi, 55, Iranian writer and poet.
* Robert Pinget, 78, French avant-garde writer.
* Camilla Spira, 91, German actress.
* Vitaly Tulenev, 60, Soviet and Russian painter, visual artist and art teacher.

### 26

* Marcello Aliprandi, 63, Italian film director.
* Hone Glendinning, 85, British cinematographer.
* William Kenneth Kiernan, 81, Canadian businessman and politician.
* Brendan McCarthy, 52, American football player, heart attack.

### 27

* Sotiria Bellou, 76, Greek singer, cancer.
* Sally Blane, 87, American actress, cancer.
* Ing Chang-ki, 79, Chinese industrialist and Go player, cancer.
* Johannes Edfelt, 92, Swedish writer, poet, and literary critic.
* Noël Henderson, 69, Northern Irish rugby player.
* James Lindsay, 90, British politician.
* Dick N. Lucas, 77, American animator (The Fox and the Hound, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, The Rescuers).
* Samuel A. Peeples, 79, American writer, cancer.
* Brandon Tartikoff, 48, American television executive, Hodgkin's lymphoma.

### 28

* Frank Bencriscutto, 68, American concert band conductor and composer.
* Joyce Ebert, 64, American actress, cancer.
* Werner Mieth, 85, American gridiron football player.
* Peter Springett, 51, English footballer, cancer.
* Masaru Takumi, 61, Japanese yakuza lord, shot.
* Lloyd A. Thompson, 65, Nigerian classicist and academic.

### 29

* Richard Cottam, 72, American political scientist, Iranist and CIA operative.
* Osborne Cowles, 98, American basketball player and coach.
* Kansari Halder, 86, Indian politician.
* Rudolf Pichlmayr, 65, German surgeon.
* Nelly Prono, 71, Paraguayan actress, cerebrovascular disease.

### 30

* John D. Craig, 94, American writer, film producer, and television host.
* Frunze Dovlatyan, 70, Armenian film director and actor.
* Toshiya Fujita, 65, Japanese film director, film actor, and screenwriter, liver failure.
* Dale Lewis, 64, American wrestler and Olympian.
* Ernst Wilimowski, 81, German–Polish football player.
* Veselin Đuranović, 72, Montenegrin politician.

### 31

* Will Hare, 81, American actor (Back to the Future, The Rose, Silent Night, Deadly Night), heart attack.
* Heinz Kaufmann, 83, German rower.
* John M. Leddy, 83, United States Department of State official.
* Lotus Weinstock, 54, American stand-up comedian, author, musician, and actress, brain tumor.
* People killed in the 1997 Pont de l'Alma car crash:
** Diana, Princess of Wales, 36, British royal and activist.
** Dodi Fayed, 42, Egyptian film producer (Chariots of Fire, Hook).
** Henri Paul, 41, French chauffeur.