# Deaths in December 1996
## Contents

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The following is a list of notable deaths in December 1996.
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 1996
### 1

* Peter Bronfman, 67, Canadian businessman and entrepreneur, cancer.
* Alan Coldham, 90, Australian tennis player.
* Sonia Furió, 59, Spanish-Mexican actress, singer, and dancer.
* Irving Gordon, 81, American songwriter, myeloma cancer.
* Jacek Gutowski, 36, Polish weightlifter.
* James Record, 77, American politician and author.
* Jan G. Waldenström, 90, Swedish physician.

### 2

* Jules Bastin, 63, Belgian operatic bass.
* Jean Jérôme Hamer, 80, Belgian Roman Catholic cardinal.
* Mike Morgan, 54, American gridiron football player.
* Marri Chenna Reddy, 77, Indian politician.

### 3

* John Bateman, 56, American Major League baseball player.
* Georges Duby, 77, French historian, cancer.
* Norm Houser, 80, American racing driver.
* Babrak Karmal, 67, Afghan revolutionary and President of Afghanistan, liver cancer.
* Solveig von Schoultz, 89, Finnish writer, novelist, and teacher.

### 4

* Syd Heylen, 76, Australian actor, comedian, and variety performer, stroke.
* Azharul Islam, 52, Bangladeshi politician, cardiac arrest.
* Willard Parker, 84, American actor, heart attack.
* Leon Polk Smith, 90, American painter.
* Albert Winsemius, 86, Dutch economist, pneumonia.
* Ans Wortel, 67, Dutch painter, poet and writer.
* Jan Čuřík, 72, Czech cinematographer.

### 5

* Robert Brewer, 72, United States Army officer during World War II.
* Wilf Carter, 91, Canadian Country and Western singer, songwriter, and yodeller, stomach cancer.
* Karl H. Fell, 59, German politician.
* Cliff Mapes, 74, American baseball player.
* Carey Spicer, 87, American football and basketball player and coach.
* Adolf Bredo Stabell, 88, Norwegian diplomat.

### 6

* Harry Babcock, 66, American gridiron football player.
* Jean Bertholle, 87, French painter.
* Victor Bruns, 92, German composer and bassoonist.
* ʿAbd al-Hamid Kishk, 63, Egyptian preacher, scholar of Islam, activist, and author.
* Robert Lees, 74, American linguist.
* Ricky Owens, 57, American singer.
* Pete Rozelle, 70, American commissioner of the National Football League, brain cancer.

### 7

* José Donoso, 72, Chilean writer, journalist and professor, liver cancer.
* Johnny Hall, 79, American gridiron football player.
* Ali Hatami, 52, Iranian film director, screenwriter, art director, and costume designer, pancreatic cancer.
* Giuseppe Perego, 81, Italian comics artist.
* Phillip Reed, 88, American actor.
* Ryszard Szymczak, 51, Polish football player.

### 8

* Rolf Blomberg, 84, Swedish explorer, writer, photographer and producer of documentary films.
* Prince Eugenio, Duke of Genoa, 90, Italian prince.
* Espanto III, 56, Mexican professional wrestler, heart attack.
* José Luis González, 70, Puerto Rican essayist, novelist, and journalist.
* Jack H. Hexter, 86, American historian.
* Tommy Lahiff, 86, Australian rules football player.
* John Langeloth Loeb Sr., 94, American investor and executive.
* Paulene Myers, 83, American actress (Lady Sings the Blues, The Sting, My Cousin Vinny).
* Johnny Olszewski, 66, American gridiron football player.
* Howard Rollins, 46, American actor (Ragtime, In the Heat of the Night, A Soldier's Story), complications from AIDS-related lymphoma.
* Dorothy Schroeder, 68, American baseball player, intracranial aneurysm.
* Marin Sorescu, 60, Romanian poet, playwright, and novelist, heart attack.
* Kashiwado Tsuyoshi, 58, Japanese sumo wrestler, liver failure.

### 9

* June Carlson, 72, American actress, aneurysm.
* Patty Donahue, 40, American vocalist of new wave group the Waitresses, lung cancer.
* Li Ki-joo, 70, South Korean football player.
* Yun Chi-young, 96, South Korean politician.
* Mary Leakey, 83, British paleoanthropologist.
* Diana Morgan, 88, British playwright and screenwriter.
* Alain Poher, 87, French politician.
* Ivor Roberts-Jones, 83, British sculptor.
* Raphael Samuel, 61, British Marxist historian and intellectual.
* Woody Woodard, 79, American gridiron football player and coach, basketball coach, track coach, college athletics administrator.

### 10

* Jakov Blažević, 84, Croatian lawyer and politician.
* John Duffey, 62, American bluegrass musician, heart attack.
* John Price, 83, Danish film actor and director, and the father of Danish screenwriter Adam Price.
* Richa Sharma, 32, Indian actress.
* Eric Webber, 76, English football player and manager.
* Faron Young, 64, American country music producer, singer and songwriter, suicide.

### 11

* Juan Carlos Barbieri, 64, Argentine actor.
* Des Booth, 76, Australian politician.
* Charles Hamilton, 82, American paleographer, handwriting expert and author.
* Willie Rushton, 59, English cartoonist, comedian, and actor, heart attack.
* W. G. G. Duncan Smith, 82, British Royal Air Force flying ace during World War II.
* Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier, 84, French photojournalist and politician, cancer.

### 12

* Larry Gates, 81, American actor (Guiding Light, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, In the Heat of the Night).
* George Jumonville, 79, American Major League Baseball player.
* Buks Marais, 68, South African rugby player.
* Vance Packard, 82, American journalist, social critic, and author.

### 13

* Waheed Akhtar, 62, Indian poet, writer, critic, and a Muslim scholar and philosopher.
* Mae Barnes, 89, American jazz singer, dancer and comic entertainer.
* Edward Blishen, 76, English author and broadcaster.
* James Cassels, 89, British Army officer.
* Francesco Gabrieli, 92, Italian arabist.
* Arthur Jacobs, 74, British music critic and musicologist.
* Eulace Peacock, 82, American sprinter, Alzheimer's disease.
* Clarence Wijewardena, 53, Sri Lankan singer, composer and musician, liver cirrhosis.
* Cao Yu, 86, Chinese playwright.

### 14

* John Craven, 49, English football player, heart attack.
* Howard B. Keck, 83, American businessman and Thoroughbred racehorse owner and breeder.
* Andy McLaren, 74, Scottish football player.
* Gaston Miron, 68, French Canadian writer.

### 15

* Dawn Crosby, 33, American heavy metal singer, liver failure from substance abuse.
* Giuseppe Dossetti, 83, Italian jurist, politician, and Catholic priest.
* Dave Kaye, 90, English pianist.
* Harry Kemelman, 88, American mystery writer and a professor of English, kidney failure.
* Tristan Keuris, 50, Dutch composer.
* Adalberto López, 73, Mexican football player.
* Laurens van der Post, 90, South African Afrikaner author, farmer, journalist, philosopher, explorer and conservationist.

### 16

* Quentin Bell, 86, English biographer and art historian.
* Sven Bergqvist, 82, Swedish football and ice hockey player.
* George M. Jones, 85, United States Army brigadier general.
* Dolores Medio, 85, Spanish writer.
* Carlo Reguzzoni, 88, Italian football player.
* Arthur Shores, 92, American civil rights attorney.

### 17

* Armando, 26, American house music producer and DJ, leukemia.
* Wayne Barlow, 84, American composer of classical music.
* Li Han-hsiang, 70, Chinese film director, heart attack.
* Johannes Kaiser, 60, German sprinter.
* Adriaan Maas, 89, Dutch sailor and Olympian.
* Lawrie Miller, 73, New Zealand cricket player.
* Ruby Murray, 61, Northern Irish singer and actress, liver cancer.
* George Pfann, 94, American gridiron football player and coach.
* İlyas Seçkin, 78, Turkish politician.
* Stanko Todorov, 76, Bulgarian communist politician.
* Sun Yaoting, 92, last imperial Chinese eunuch.

### 18

* Irving Caesar, 101, American lyricist and theater composer.
* Charles Deaton, 75, American architect.
* Gwilym Hugh Lewis, 99, British flying ace during World War I.
* Ayşe Şan, 58, Kurdish singer.
* Suryakantam, 72, Indian actress.

### 19

* Bobby Cole, 64, American musician, heart attack.
* Ted Darling, 61, Canadian sportscaster, Pick disease.
* Ejvind Hansen, 72, Danish sprint canoeist.
* Ronald Howard, 78, English actor and writer.
* Amata Kabua, 68, President of the Marshall Islands (1979–1996).
* Yulii Borisovich Khariton, 92, Russian nuclear physicist.
* Marcello Mastroianni, 72, Italian actor (La Dolce Vita, 8½, Divorce Italian Style), pancreatic cancer.

### 20

* Melio Bettina, 80, American boxer.
* Osvaldo Lira, 92, Chilean priest, philosopher and theologian.
* Thakin Lwin, 82, Burmese politician, trade unionist, writer and journalist.
* Charles Morton, 80, American racing cyclist and Olympian.
* Carl Sagan, 62, American astronomer, astrophysicist, and author (Cosmos, Contact), pneumonia.

### 21

* Kell Areskoug, 90, Swedish Olympic sprinter.
* Christine Brückner, 75, German writer.
* Clarence Gosse, 84, Canadian politician.
* Barry Gray, 80, American radio personality, known as "The father of Talk Radio".
* Kálmán Hazai, 83, Hungarian water polo player.
* Margret Rey, 90, German-American children's author and illustrator, heart attack.
* Alfred Tonello, 67, French racing cyclist.

### 22

* Oscar Alende, 87, Argentine politician.
* Mária Bartuszová, 60, Slovakian sculptor.
* Nealie Duggan, 73, Irish Gaelic football player.
* Fred Green, 63, American baseball player.
* Chiang Hsiao-yung, 48, Taiwanese politician, esophageal cancer.
* Don Meade, 83, American National Champion jockey.
* Igor Oberberg, 89, Russian Empire-born German cinematographer.

### 23

* Aram Karamanoukian, 86, Syrian Army Lieutenant General, politician and author.
* Rina Ketty, 85, Italian singer.
* Vicente González Lizondo, 54, Spanish politician, heart attack.
* Mića Popović, 73, Serbian artist.
* Ronnie Scott, 69, British jazz tenor saxophonist and jazz club owner, accidental overdose of barbiturate.
* Infanta Maria Cristina of Spain, 85, Spanish princess, heart attack.
* Emrys Thomas, 96, Welsh socialist politician.
* Sophie Toscan du Plantier, 39, French television producer, beaten to death.

### 24

* Al Adair, 67, Canadian politician and baseball player, heart attack.
* Takeo Doi, 92, Japanese aircraft designer.
* Leonard Firestone, 89, American businessman, diplomat, and philanthropist.
* Bobby Robinson, 46, Scottish football player.
* Nguyen Huu Tho, 86, Vietnamese revolutionary and politician.
* Milan Vasojević, 63, Serbian basketball coach.

### 25

* Lee Alexander, 69, American politician, cancer.
* Tony Dauksza, 84, American football player, film-maker, and outdoorsman.
* Roger Duchesne, 90, French actor.
* Bill Hewitt, 68, Canadian sportscaster, heart attack.
* Bill Osmanski, 80, American gridiron football player and coach.
* Al Schottelkotte, 69, American news anchor and reporter, cancer.
* Sue Bailey Thurman, 93, American author, historian and civil rights activist.
* Clayton Tonnemaker, 68, American gridiron football player.
* Harry Watson, 92, New Zealand racing cyclist.
* August Wenzinger, 91, Swiss musician and conductor.

### 26

* Narcís Jubany Arnau, 83, Spanish Catholic cardinal.
* Ray Bray, 79, American gridiron football player.
* Michael Bruno, 64, Israeli economist, cancer.
* Frank Edwin Egler, 85, American plant ecologist.
* Frank Liebel, 77, American National Football League player.
* Eleanor Lynn, 80, American actress.
* Misha Mahowald, 33, American computational neuroscientist, suicide.
* JonBenét Ramsey, 6, American child beauty queen, asphyxia by strangulation and craniocerebral trauma.
* Morris Schapiro, 83, American investment banker and chess master.
* Olle Tandberg, 78, Swedish boxer.

### 27

* Gene Brabender, 55, American Major League Baseball pitcher, brain aneurysm.
* Mary Celine Fasenmyer, 90, American mathematician.
* Johnny Heartsman, 60, American blues musician and songwriter, stroke.
* Gabriel Loire, 92, French French stained glass artist.
* Julián Mateos, 58, Spanish actor and film producer, lung cancer.
* Kourkène Medzadourian, 88, Armenian activist.
* Nicolae Militaru, 71, Romanian soldier and communist politician, cancer.
* Neil O'Donnell, 82, American basketball player.
* Juan José Ortega, 92, Mexican film director, producer and screenwriter.
* Sarmad Sindhi, 35, Pakistani folk singer and songwriter, traffic accident.
* Jean-Claude Tramont, 62, Belgian film director.

### 28

* Edward Carfagno, 89, American fencer and art director (Ben-Hur, The Bad and the Beautiful, Soylent Green), Oscar winner (1953, 1954, 1960).
* Ferd Dreher, 83, American gridiron football player.
* Katherine Pollak Ellickson, 91, American labor economist.
* Edward Gerard Hettinger, 94, American Roman Catholic clergyman and bishop.
* Annik Shefrazian, 86-87, Iranian Armenian actress.

### 29

* Alma Birk, 79, British journalist and politician.
* Pennar Davies, 85, British writer.
* Mireille Hartuch, 90, French singer, composer, and actress.
* Margaret Herbison, 89, Scottish politician, cancer.
* Jerry Knight, 44, American R&B vocalist and bassist, cancer.
* Dorothy Livesay, 87, Canadian poet.
* Daniel Mayer, 87, French politician and member of the French Resistance.
* Robert J. Morris, 82, American anti-Communist activist, heart failure.
* Vasily Ilyich Mykhlik, 74, Soviet Air Forces pilot and Hero of the Soviet Union.
* Tom Pedi, 83, American actor.
* Gino Sinimberghi, 83, Italian opera singer.
* Oswald Szemerényi, 83, Hungarian linguist.

### 30

* Pokey Allen, 53, American gridiron football player and coach.
* Lew Ayres, 88, American actor (All Quiet on the Western Front, Dr. Kildare, Johnny Belinda).
* Lou Barle, 80, American basketball player.
* Erik Heiberg, 80, Norwegian sailor and Olympic medalist.
* Jack Nance, 53, American actor (Eraserhead, Twin Peaks, Dune), subdural hematoma.
* Lev Oshanin, 84, Russian poet, playwright and writer.
* Broome Pinniger, 94, Indian field hockey player.
* Keith A. Walker, 61, American writer, film producer, actor (The Fall Guy, The Goonies, Free Willy), cancer.

### 31

* Wesley Addy, 83, American actor.
* Annie Ducaux, 88, French actress.
* Sam Narron, 83, American baseball player and coach.
* Michael Roberts, 88, British historian of early modern Sweden.
* Winston P. Wilson, 85, United States Air Force major general.