# Deaths in May 1997
## Contents

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The following is a list of notable deaths in May 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.

## May 1997
### 1

* Elena Altieri, 80, Italian actress.
* Tridib Chaudhuri, 85, Indian politician and Indian independence activist.
* Russell G. Cleary, 63, American brewer, complications from heart surgery.
* Fernand Dumont, 69, Canadian sociologist, philosopher, and theologian.
* Friedl Däuber, 86, German alpine and cross-country skier.
* Jim McDonald, 81, American football player and coach.
* Arthur Milne, 82, Scottish football player.
* Bo Widerberg, 66, Swedish actor and film director, stomach cancer.

### 2

* Raymond Sarif Easmon, 84, Sierra Leonean doctor and writer.
* John Eccles, 94, Australian neurophysiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
* Heinz Ellenberg, 83, German biologist, botanist and ecologist.
* Paulo Freire, 75, Brazilian educator and philosopher, heart attack.
* Walter Hill, 62, American serial killer, execution by electrocution.
* Robin Kinahan, 80, Northern Irish politician and Orange Order member.
* Werner Lott, 89, German U-boat commander during World War II.
* Ralph McCreath, 78, Canadian figure skater.
* Queen Mother Moore, 98, African-American civil rights leader and a black nationalist.
* Keith R. Porter, 84, Canadian-American cell biologist, pneumonia.
* Eugene Vale, 81, American novelist.
* Jimmy Wilson, 77, American Negro league baseball player.

### 3

* Bruce Beetham, 61, New Zealand academic and politician, heart failure.
* Gerrit den Braber, 68, Dutch songwriter and lyricist, stroke.
* Sébastien Enjolras, 21, French racing driver, racing accident.
* Hughie Green, 77, English presenter, game show host and actor, cancer.
* Sir John Junor, 78, British journalist and editor of the Daily Express.
* Louis, Prince Napoléon, 83, French member of the Bonaparte dynasty.
* Narciso Yepes, 69, Spanish guitarist, cancer.

### 4

* Suhayr al-Qalamawi, 85, Egyptian literary figure and politician.
* Jerome Alden, 76, American playwright and screenwriter, kidney cancer.
* Wijeyananda Dahanayake, 94, Sri Lankan politician.
* Esin Engin, 51, Turkish musician, composer, and film actor, leukemia.
* Danilo Fioravanti, 83, Italian gymnast and Olympian.
* Hilary Grivich, 19, American gymnast and diver, traffic collision.
* Fernando Hernández, 52, Costa Rican footballer, cancer.
* Lee Miglin, 72, American businessman and philanthropist, stabbed.
* Alvy Moore, 75, American actor (Green Acres, The Littles, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind), heart failure.
* Lyman Bradford Smith, 92, American botanist.
* Lou Stathis, 44, American author, critic and editor, brain tumor.

### 5

* Bob Briggs, 52, American gridiron football player.
* George Burns, 86, British Army officer.
* Walter Gotell, 73, German actor (From Russia with Love, The Spy Who Loved Me, The Living Daylights), cancer.
* Alan Gussow, 65, American artist, author and conservationist, cancer.
* Murray Kempton, 79, American journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner, pancreatic cancer.
* David Scherman, 81, American photojournalist and editor, cancer.

### 6

* Ridge Bond, 74, American actor and singer.
* Sydney Joseph Freedberg, 82, American art historian and curator.
* Jorge Martínez de Hoyos, 76, Mexican actor, lung cancer.
* John Edwards Hill, 68, British mammalogist.
* Günther Jerschke, 75, German actor.
* Wang You, 86, Chinese biochemist.

### 7

* John C. Ewers, 87, American ethnologist and museum curator.
* Yip Hon, 93, Chinese gambling tycoon, heart attack.
* George Lynch, 78, American race car driver.
* Tom Lysons, 62, Canadian politician.

### 8

* Joachim Angermeyer, 73, German businessman and politician.
* Bijoy Chandra Bhagavati, 92, Indian politician.
* Ralph Wendell Burhoe, 85, American theologian.
* Scott Carpenter, 22, American convicted murderer, execution by lethal injection.
* Pat Hughes, 94, English tennis player.
* Bernhard Nooni, 88, Estonian football player.
* Clara Ottesen, 85, Norwegian government official, aid worker and politician.
* Nunzio Provenzano, 74, American mobster.
* William R. Royal, 92, American Air Force scuba diver.
* Michael Shersby, 64, British politician.
* Kai-Uwe von Hassel, 84, German politician, heart attack.
* Micheline Kerney Walsh, 77, Irish archivist and historian.
* Bob Whitcher, 80, American baseball player.

### 9

* Rawya Ateya, 71, Egyptian woman and first female parliamentarian in the Arab world.
* Bob Devaney, 82, American gridiron football coach, heart attack.
* Marco Ferreri, 68, Italian film director, screenwriter and actor, heart attack.
* Willy Hess, 90, Swiss musicologist and composer.
* Kazumi Kawai, 32, Japanese actress, suicide by jumping.
* Rina Lasnier, 81, Québécois poet.
* Augusto Céspedes Patzi, 93, Bolivian writer, politician, diplomat, and journalist.
* Paul Zastupnevich, 75, American costume designer.

### 10

* Bernard Anderson, 77, American jazz trumpeter.
* Jacinto Quincoces, 91, Spanish football player and manager.
* Silvano Tranquilli, 71, Italian actor.
* Joan Weston, 62, American Roller derby skater, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

### 11

* William Ragsdale Cannon, 81, American theologian and bishop of the United Methodist Church.
* David Christie, 49, French singer-songwriter, suicide.
* Ernie Fields, 92, American trombonist, pianist, arranger and bandleader.
* Genine Graham, 70, English actress.
* Dean M. Kelley, 70, American legal scholar, cancer.
* Catherine McLeod, 75, American actress.
* Howard Morton, 71, American actor, stroke.
* Peter Stackpole, 83, American photographer.

### 12

* Louis Barbarin, 94, American jazz drummer.
* Charles-Arthur Gauthier, 84, Canadian politician.
* Jiří Pecka, 79, Czechoslovak slalom and sprint canoeist.
* Henk Plenter, 83, Dutch football player.
* Avraham Yitzchak Stern, 61, Israeli administrator and politician.
* Frank A. Wenstrom, 93, American politician.

### 13

* Laurie Lee, 82, English poet, novelist and screenwriter, colorectal cancer.
* Carlos Augusto León, 82, Venezuelan poet, historian, politician and scientist.
* Tommy Turrentine, 69, American swing and hard bop trumpeter and composer.
* Zdeňka Veřmiřovská, 83, Czechoslovak/Czech gymnast and Olympian.
* Eduard Zakharov, 22, Russian boxer, stabbed.

### 14

* Jambyn Batmönkh, 71, Mongolian communist politician.
* Mel Bay, 84, American musician and music publisher.
* Harry Blackstone, Jr., 62, American magician and television performer, pancreatic cancer.
* Thelma Carpenter, 75, American jazz singer and actress, cardiac arrest.
* Samuel Hoyt Elbert, 89, American linguist.
* Alan Furlan, 77, Italian-American actor.
* Morton Heilig, 70, American virtual reality technology pioneer and filmmaker.
* Boris Parsadanian, 72, Armenian-Estonian composer.
* Val Peat, 50, British sprinter and Olympian.
* Bessie Schonberg, 90, German-American dancer and choreographer.

### 15

* Oscar Berger, 96, American editorial cartoonist.
* David Martin, 89, American politician, pneumonia.
* Trevor Porteous, 63, English football player and coach.
* Saadallah Wannous, Syrian playwright, cancer.

### 16

* Donatien Mahele Lieko Bokungu, 56, Zairean general, execution by firing squad.
* Flor Crowley, 62, Irish Fianna Fáil politician.
* Giuseppe De Santis, 80, Italian film director (Bitter Rice), heart attack.
* Elbridge Durbrow, 93, American diplomat and ambassador, stroke.
* Bones McKinney, 78, American basketball player and coach.
* Harry Charles Moore, 56, American convicted murderer, execution by lethal injection.
* Wang Zengqi, 77, Chinese writer.

### 17

* Tusten Ackerman, 95, American basketball player.
* Mikhail Bychkov, 70, Russian ice hockey player.
* Chris Julian, 60, English motorcycle racer, gyrocopter accident.
* Durgabai Kamat, 117/118, first Indian female actress of Indian cinema.
* Roscoe L. Koontz, 74, American health physicist.

### 18

* Bridgette Andersen, 21, American actress.
* Mikhail Anikushin, 79, Soviet and Russian sculptor.
* Horst Lippmann, 70, German concert promoter and jazz musician.
* Paolo Panelli, 71, Italian comedian and film actor, pulmonary edema.
* Antonio Cornejo Polar, 60, Peruvian academic and literature and cultural critic.
* Soenario, 94, Indonesian politician and Foreign Minister.

### 19

* Aaron Henry, 74, American civil rights leader and politician, congestive heart failure.
* Sombhu Mitra, 81, Indian actor, director and playwright.
* Troy Ruttman, 67, American race car driver, lung cancer.
* Pāvels Seņičevs, 72, Soviet sports shooter.

### 20

* Don Parker, 88, British racing driver.
* John Rawlins, 94, American film editor and director.
* Virgilio Barco Vargas, 75, Colombian politician, cancer.
* Gopal Yonjan, 53, Nepalese musician, complications of jaundice.

### 21

* William Aston, 80, Australian politician.
* Amasa Stone Bishop, 76, American nuclear physicist, pneumonia.
* Noël Browne, 81, Irish politician.
* Fiorenzo Carpi, 78, Italian composer and pianist.

### 22

* Myrtle Bachelder, 89, American chemist and Women's Army Corps officer.
* Alziro Bergonzo, 90, Italian architect and painter.
* Donald Curtis, 82, American actor.
* Herman de Coninck, 53, Belgian poet, essayist, journalist and publisher, heart attack.
* Genildo Ferreira de França, Brazilian spree killer, suicide by gunshot.
* Jimmy Heale, 82, English footballer.
* Alfred Hershey, 88, American biochemist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, heart failure.
* Raúl Gómez Jattin, 51, Colombian poet.
* Arthur Milne, 82, Scottish football player.
* Renzo Montagnani, 66, Italian actor, lung cancer.
* Candis Pettway, 72, American artist.
* Cornelius Michael Power, 83, American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church.
* T. R. Ramanna, 74, Indian film director and producer.
* Robert D. Russ, 64, United States Air Force general and commander of Tactical Air Command.
* Stanisław Swianiewicz, 97, Polish economist and historian.
* Klaus von Bismarck, 85, German broadcaster and cultural administrator.

### 23

* Alison Adburgham, 85, English fashion journalist and author.
* James Lee Byars, 65, American conceptual and performance artist, cancer.
* Dorothy Gulliver, 88, American actress, pneumonia.
* Sadayoshi Kobayashi, 92, Japanese field hockey player.
* Lovie Lee, 88, American electric blues pianist and singer.
* David M. Ludlum, 86, American historian, meteorologist, and author.
* Albert Rosen, 73, Austrian-Irish conductor.

### 24

* Muhammad Fadhel al-Jamali, 94, Iraqi politician and Prime Minister (1953-1954).
* M. Aram, 70, Indian educator and peace advocate.
* Kinpei Azusa, 66, Japanese voice actor, laryngeal cancer.
* Robbie Branscum, 62, American children's author, heart attack.
* Alfonso de Vinuesa, 38, Spanish racing driver, traffic collision.
* Edward Mulhare, 74, Irish actor (Knight Rider, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Von Ryan's Express), lung cancer.
* Sepp Weiler, 76, West German ski jumper and Olympian.

### 25

* Syd Bidwell, 80, British politician.
* Chester Feldman, 71, American producer of game shows.
* Jay Hebert, 74, American golfer.
* Joseph Hoffman, 88, American screenwriter.
* Peter Rangmar, 40, Swedish comedian, actor and baritone.
* Ronald Vernieux, 86, Indian sprinter and Olympian.

### 26

* Jack Bennett, 76, Australian rules football player.
* Jenny Rosenthal Bramley, 87, Russian-American physicist.
* James Gordon, 88, American sprinter and Olympian.
* Ralph Horween, 100, American football player and coach.
* Bernard Jackson, 46, American football player and coach, liver cancer.
* Jack Jersey, 55, Dutch singer, composer, and producer of light music, cancer.
* Jack Vinall, 86, English football player and manager.
* Manfred von Ardenne, 90, German physicist and inventor.

### 27

* Robert Ambelain, 89, French essayist.
* Henry Barakat, 82, Egyptian film director.
* Karl Martz, 84, American studio potter and ceramic artist.
* Azem Shkreli, 59, Albanian writer, poet, director and producer.

### 28

* Ronald V. Book, 60, American theoretical computer scientist.
* Sydney Guilaroff, 89, American Hollywood hairdresser, pneumonia.
* Édouard Muller, 77, French road bicycle racer.
* Sung Nak-woon, 71, South Korean football forward.
* John H. Sengstacke, 84, American newspaper publisher, stroke.
* John Stack, 73, American X-ray engineer, rower and Olympic champion.
* Tatyana Sumarokova, 74, Soviet flight navigator during World War II.

### 29

* Jeff Buckley, 30, American singer, songwriter and guitarist, accidental drowning.
* George Fenneman, 77, American radio and television announcer, emphysema.
* Alexander Kazhdan, 74, Soviet-American Byzantinist.
* William H. McNichols, Jr., 87, American politician and mayor of Denver, Colorado (1968-1983).
* Jack Parkinson, 73, American basketball player, brain tumor, brain cancer.

### 30

* West Arkeen, 36, American musician and songwriter for Guns N' Roses, opiate overdose.
* Béla Barényi, 90, Austro-Hungarian automotive engineer.
* Winsome Cripps, 66, Australian sprinter.
* Doris Lindsey Holland Rhodes, 87, American politician.

### 31

* Pat Collins, 62, American hypnotist.
* Frei Damião, 98, Italian Roman Catholic priest and missionary, stroke.
* James Bennett Griffin, 92, American archaeologist.
* Fazal Haq Mujahid, Afghanistan mujahideen during the Soviet–Afghan War, assassinated.
* Eddie Jones, 68, American jazz double bassist.
* Oswald Kaduk, 90, German SS officer and war criminal during World War II.
* Jewel Lafontant, 75, American lawyer and White House official, breast cancer.
* Ove Ljung, 79, Swedish Army officer.
* Günter Luther, 75, German admiral.
* Johnny Papalia, 73, Canadian mobster, shot.
* Poul Petersen, 76, Danish football player and manager.