DEATHS IN DECEMBER 2005

Deaths in 2005 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December- →

The following is a list of notable deaths in December 2005.
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★ Sanora Babb, 98, American novelist, widow of the cinematographer James Wong Howe [1]

★ Harry Clarke, 89, former National Football League player with the Chicago Bears, Alzheimer's disease. [2]

★ Enrico Di Giuseppe, 73, American operatic tenor, cancer. [3]

★ Maurice Dodd, 83, cartoonist (''The Perishers''), brain haemorrhage. [4]

★ St John Ellis, 41, Doncaster Lakers rugby league coach and former Great Britain international.

★ Harry Farrell, 81, American political journalist and author

★ Sir John Peel, 101, Surgeon-Gynaecologist to Queen Elizabeth II

★ Maclovia Ruiz, 95, ballet and specialty dancer in many Hollywood films of the 1930's [5]

★ Xolilizwe Sigcau, 79, King of the Xhosas. [6]

★ Neil Strawser, 78, CBS Radio correspondent and anchor [7]

★ Phillip Whitehead, 68, Labour Party MEP for the East Midlands and former television producer.
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★ Eddie Barlow, 65, South African cricketer. [8]

★ Candy Barr, 70, exotic dancer [9][10][11]

★ Tory Dent, 47, American poet, essayist and art critic [12]

★ Rona Jaffe, 74, American novelist (''The Best of Everything'', ''Mazes and Monsters''), cancer. [13]

★ Jean Ollivier, 81, French comics writer [14]

★ Pasquale Carpino, 69, Italian Canadian ''singing chef'
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★ Armand Phillip Bartos, 95, American architect [15]

★ Abuna Yesehaq Mandefro, 72, Ethiopian-Orthodox Archbishop [16]

★ Elizabeth Parcells, 54, American operatic coloratura soprano

★ M C Puri, 61, Professor Emeritus Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India.

★ James G. Pulliam, 80, architect, Parkinson's disease. [17]

★ Alan Rolfe, 97, British actor and film historian
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★ Patrick Cranshaw, 86, American actor, famous for character "Blue" in Old School.

★ Richard De Angelis, 73, comedian and actor (''The Wire''), congestive heart failure. [18]

★ Virginia Dighero-Zolezzi, 114, oldest living person ever recognized in the history of Italy.

★ Jacinto Figueira Jr., 78, "The Man In White Shoes", Brazilian TV . [19]

★ George Dabelich O'Brien, 78, design director of Tiffany & Company, home furnishings editor of the ''New York Times''. [20]

★ Stevo Žigon, 79, Serbian actor and theatre director
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★ Xavier Connor, 88, Australian jurist, foundation judge of the Federal Court of Australia, President of the Australian Law Reform Commission 1985 - 1987.

★ Ted Ditchburn, 84, goalkeeper for Tottenham Hotspur & England. [21]

★ John Druze, 91, last surviving member of the 1930s Fordham University football team's "Seven Blocks of Granite". [22]

★ Lewis Hanson, 81, former Air Force One pilot. [23]

★ Mary Pellatt, 94, niece of Major-General Sir Henry Mill Pellatt, the builder of Casa Loma

★ Dee Pollock, 68, American actor

★ Giancarlo Primo, 81, Italian basketball coach, the first to defeat National Teams USA and USSR in 1970s.

★ Erich Topp, 91, German U-boat commander in World War II.

★ Tokuji Wakasa, 91, Japanese businessman, former president of All Nippon Airways.
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★ Julian "Bud" Blake, 87, American cartoonist (''Tiger''). [24]

★ Muriel Costa-Greenspon, 68, mezzo-soprano at the New York City Opera for 30 years [25]

★ John Diebold, 79, pioneering American computer engineer. [26].

★ Ernesto Leal, 60, presidential chief of staff and former foreign minister of Nicaragua, pneumonia.

★ Linda Leighton, 88, American film and TV actress

★ Onoe Matsusuke, 59, Japanese film and kabuki actor.

★ Kerry Packer, 68, publishing, media and gaming tycoon, Australia's richest individual amassing a fortune of over $6 billion. [27]

★ Vyacheslav Platonov, 66, Russian volleyball trainer.

★ Vincent Schiavelli, 57, American character actor, lung cancer. [28]
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★ Felice Andreasi, 77, Italian actor, writer and painter, Parkinson's disease.

★ Derek Bailey, 75, free improvising avant-garde guitarist, motor neuron disease. [29]

★ Robert Barbers, 61, former Philippines senator, heart attack. [30]

★ Bhanumathi, 80, Indian actress.

★ Donald Dawson, 97, executive assistant to Harry S. Truman. [31]

★ Charles Engell France, 59, assistant to Mikhail Baryshnikov at the American Ballet Theater. [32]

★ Henry Kock, 53, Canadian horticulturist and eco-activist, brain cancer. [33]

★ Birgit Nilsson, 87, Swedish soprano. [34][35]

★ Joseph Pararajasingham, 71, Sri Lankan politician and supporter of the Tamil Tiger rebels, shot and killed at a midnight Christmas mass. [36]

★ Rajshekhar, 69, Indian actor.

★ Roy Stuart, 70, American actor. [37]
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★ Douglas Bigelow, 49, chief of web security at AOL, pancreatic cancer [38]

★ Constance Keene, 84, American classical pianist known for playing the romantic repertoire.

★ Harold Lawton, 106, British academic and veteran of the First World War. [39]

★ Michael Vale, 83, American actor who appeared in over 1,300 commercials as the sleepy doughnut maker for Dunkin' Donuts from 1982 - 1997.

★ Wang Daohan, 90, negotiator for People's Republic of China in cross-straits talks, who contributed to the formation of the 1992 Consensus with Koo Chen-fu from the Republic of China on Taiwan. [40][41]
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★ Lajos Baróti, 91, Hungarian football coach.

★ Jimmy Boyle (coach), 63, former St. Joseph's University basketball coach.

★ Selma Jeanne Cohen, 85, dance historian, editor of ''The International Encyclopedia of Dance''. [42]

★ G. Blakemore Evans, 93, Shakespeare scholar, author of ''The Riverside Shakespeare'', stroke. [43]

★ Truman Gibson, 93, anti-segregation lawyer and boxing promoter [44]

★ Camille Gravel, 90, Louisiana lawyer and civil rights activist, advisor to three governors. [45]

★ Norman D. Vaughan, 100, American explorer and sportsman, part of Richard Byrd's 1928 South Pole expedition. [46][47]

★ Yao Wenyuan, 74, Chinese Communist political leader, member of the Gang of Four. [48]
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★ James Dungy, 18, son of NFL coach Tony Dungy, apparent suicide.

★ David Engelhard, 64, former general secretary of the Christian Reformed Church, brain cancer. [49]

★ Cooper Evans, 81, former Republican US Representative from Iowa from 1981 - 1987.

★ Luis Hernandez, 56, witness of the investigation into Puerto Rico's senate's infamous "Video 59", heart attack.

★ Ulf Janson, 56, President International Casting Federation, cancer.

★ Aurora Miranda, 90, Brazilian entertainer, sister of Carmen Miranda. Appeared in ''The Three Caballeros'' in 1945, where she danced with Donald Duck.
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★ Takis Binis, 82, one of the last classic Greek singers of Rebetiko, renal failure.

★ Camille Budarz, 70, American concert pianist

★ Clinton Carpenter, 84, American composer (finished Mahler's 10th Symphony).

★ O.B. Copeland, 89, first editor of ''Southern Living'' magazine. [50]

★ Horace Crouch ,87, Lt. Col. US Air Force ret.; a participant in the Doolittle Raid

★ Charles F. Cummings, 68, Official Historian of Newark, New Jersey. [51]

★ Myron Healey, 82, American actor [52]

★ Elrod Hendricks, 64, Baltimore Orioles coach, former MLB catcher, heart attack. [53]

★ Lucille Cipriano Szabo, 76, American opera singer.

★ Hallam Tennyson, 85, British radio producer and great-grandson of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, suspected victim of murder. [54]

★ Albert L. Weimorts, 67, civilian engineer for the US Air Force, designer of the GBU-28 and MOAB bombs. [55]

★ Paul M. Williams, 80, mountain climber and founder of Seattle Mountain Rescue, congestive heart failure. [56]
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★ Raoul Bott, 82, Harvard mathematician, cancer.[57]

★ Argentina Brunetti, 98, actress (''It's a Wonderful Life'', ''The Caddy''), writer, journalist.

★ Bradford Cannon, 98, Boston plastic surgeon, pneumonia. [58]

★ William W. Howells, 97, American anthropologist. [59]

★ Billy Hughes (actor), 57, American former child actor during the 60's.

★ Lyndon Olson Sr., 80, American lawyer. [60]
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★ Sergio Danguillecourt, 42, great-great-grandson of Bacardi founder, and Bacardi Ltd. board member, killed in seaplane crash near Miami Beach, Florida. [61]

★ Hyman Engelberg, 92, physician to Marilyn Monroe, natural causes. [62]

★ Vincent Gigante, 77, Genovese family crime boss, heart disease.

★ Phyllis Gretzky, 64, mother of NHL legend Wayne Gretzky, lung cancer.

★ Julio Iglesias, Sr., 90, Spanish gynaecologist, among the oldest men to have fathered a child; Julio Iglesias's father and Enrique Iglesias's grandfather, heart attack.

★ Marjorie Kellogg, 83, American author and playwright (''Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon''). [63]

★ John D. Laupheimer, 75, golfer and second commissioner of the LPGA tour, cancer. [64]

★ Alan Shields, 61, American artist. [65]

★ Ted Tulchin, 79, Broadway producer (''Sweeney Todd''). [66]

★ Miller Upton, 88, president of Beloit College for 21 years. [67]

★ Reynaldo Wycoco, 59, head of the National Bureau of Investigation, the Philippines' lead intelligence agency, complications after suffering a hemorrhagic stroke last November 23, 2005.
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★ Keith Duckworth, 72, co-founder of Cosworth engines.

★ Doug Dye, 84, New Zealand microbiologist.

★ Howie Ferguson, 75, former NFL player.

★ Rafael Fornés Collado, 88, Cuban cartoonist. [68]

★ Barry Halper, 66, baseball memorabilia collector and limited partner for the New York Yankees. [69]

★ Belita Jepson-Turner, 82, Olympic skater and film actress.

★ Siphiwe Khumalo, 50, South African actor and director and ex-husband of Sibongile Khumalo, heart attack.

★ John McIntyre, 89, Moderator of the Church of Scotland's General Assembly (1982), former acting principal and professor of divinity of the University of Edinburgh. [70][71]

★ Philip Oakes, 77, British writer, poet and television producer, heart attack. [72]

★ P.M. Sayeed, 64, India's Minister of Power, heart attack. [73]

★ Alan M. Voorhees, 83, transportation engineer and city planner [74]
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★ Jack Anderson, 83, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, complications of Parkinson's disease. [75]

★ Marc Favreau, 76, French Canadian television and film actor, best known for his creation of the clown Sol.

★ Jacques Fouroux, 58, French rugby union captain and coach, heart attack. [76]

★ T. Edward Hambleton, 94, theatrical producer. [77]

★ Sankaran Nair, 80, Indian film director.

★ Haljand Udam, 69, Estonian translator and encyclopedist.
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★ Anthony Barber, 85, British politician and former Conservative Party Chancellor of the Exchequer, complications of Parkinson's disease.

★ Kenneth Bulmer, 84, English writer (pseudonyms included Alan Burt Akers and Dray Prescot).

★ Joseph L. Owades, 86, American biochemist, inventor of light beer. [78] [79]

★ John Spencer, 58, American actor (''The West Wing''), heart attack.

★ Sverre Stenersen, 79, Norwegian Gold medal winner in the 1956 Winter Olympics.

★ Enzo Stuarti, 86, Italian tenor, was in many Broadway musicals, heart failure. [80]

★ Joey Villa, 68, American stand-up comedian.
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★ T.K. Balachandran, 78, Indian Bollywood producer.

★ Sidney B. Factor, 89, Max Factor heir, natural causes. [81]

★ James Ingo Freed, 75, American architect.

★ Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, 84, Italian writer and director of movies and theatre.

★ Heinrich Gross, 90, Austrian alleged Nazi doctor and war criminal. [82] [83]

★ Walter Haut, 83, retired U.S. Army lieutenant, central figure in the Roswell UFO incident in 1947. [84]

★ Swami Jagdishwaranand, 71, Hindu spiritual leader in New York City. [85]

★ D.A. "Swanny" Kirby, 88, rodeo pioneer. [86]

★ Stan Leonard, 90, Canadian golfer, heart failure. [87]

★ Julian Marías, 91, Spanish philosopher and father of author Javier Marías.

★ Jim Ostendarp, 82, football coach at Amherst College for 33 years [88]

★ William Proxmire, 90, former Democratic Senator from Wisconsin (1957 - 1989), giver of the Golden Fleece Awards for wasteful government spending, complications of Alzheimer's disease.

★ Darrell Russell, 29, former NFL player for the Oakland Raiders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, car accident.
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★ Gordon Duncan, 41, Scottish musician, best known for his virtuoso Highland bagpiping in Celtic music, committed suicide in his home in Pitlochry.

★ Eliot Freidson, 82, sociologist, author of ''Profession of Medicine: A Study of the Sociology of Applied Knowledge''. [89]

★ Sudhir Joshi, 57, Indian actor, heart attack.

★ John B. Nixon, 77, American convicted murderer, executed in Mississippi.

★ Stevenson J. Palfi, 53, American documentary filmmaker (''Piano Players Rarely Ever Play Together''). [90]

★ William "Duke" Procter, 106, Canadian WWI veteran. [91]

★ Herman Roiphe, 81, psychoanalyst, co-author of ''Infantile Origins of Sexual Identity'' and ''Your Child's Mind''. [92]

★ M. Gladys Swetland, 113, believed to be the oldest resident of Pennsylvania. [93]

★ Rodney William Whitaker, 74, British author, wrote under pseudonyms such as "Trevanian".

★ Gery Scott, 82, British / Australian jazz and cabaret singer and teacher
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★ Nathalie Babel Brown, 76, French-American scholar and editor, daughter of Isaac Babel. [94]

★ Stanley Tookie Williams, 51, American convicted murderer and co-founder of the Crips turned anti-gang activist, executed by lethal injection for killing 4 people in California.
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★ Eric D'Arcy, 81, Australian Roman Catholic Archbishop Emeritus of Hobart.

★ George Bernau, 60, novelist, stroke.

★ Jon de Cortina, S.J., 71, Basque-Salvadoran priest, survived the 1989 massacre of the Jesuits; stroke. [95]

★ Annie Dodds, 62, documentary filmmaker, leukemia. [96]

★ Grace Ingoldby, 56, British author and poet.

★ Abraham Melamed, 85, Israeli politician (National Religious Party).

★ Robert Newmyer, 49, American film producer, heart attack and complications of asthma.

★ Ramanand Sagar, 87, Bollywood film producer. [97]

★ Annette Stroyberg, 69, Danish actress and former wife of Roger Vadim. [98]

★ Gyula Trebitsch, 91, Hungarian film and TV producer.

★ Gebran Tueni, 48, Lebanese journalist and legislator, injuries sustained in a car bombing attack. [99]

★ Julius Wile, 91, US wine importer and educator [100]
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★ Ulises Barrera, 80, Argentine boxing sportscaster, heart failure.

★ Walter Cudzik, 73, NFL and AFL center for the Boston Patriots.

★ Richard Sandbrook, 59, founding member of Friends of the Earth. [101]

★ Professor Hayim Tadmor, 82, Israeli Assyriologist. [102]

★ Del Philpott, 82, American soldier and scientist
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★ Mary Jackson, 95, American actress.

★ Sydney Leff, 104, sheet-music illustrator for Irving Berlin. [103]

★ Donald Martino, 74, American composer.

★ Eugene McCarthy, 89, former Democratic United States Senator from Minnesota (1959-1971), and United States Representative (1949-1959) and presidential primary candidate.

★ David Patterson, 83, founder of the Oxford Center for Hebrew and Jewish Studies at Oxford University. [104]

★ Richard Pryor, 65, American comedian and actor, heart attack and complications of multiple sclerosis.

★ Gardner Read, 92, American classical composer.

★ Bob Richardson, 73, fashion photographer.
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★ Mike Botts, 61, American drummer, toured and recorded with Linda Ronstadt, Dan Fogelberg, Tina Turner and others, cancer.

★ Pauline Farrell, 93, operatic soprano, and former ambassador

★ Homer Mensch, 91, internationally known bass player, Juilliard teacher.

★ Eunice Norton, 97, American classical pianist and music promoter

★ György Sándor, 93, internationally famous pianist, Juilliard teacher, heart failure.

★ Robert Sheckley, 77, American science fiction author, brain aneurysm.

★ Boris Tazlitzky, 94, French artist, Nazi concentration camp survivor.

★ Brian Whittle, 59, British journalist and news agency head. [105]
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★ R. W. Bradford, 58, publisher of ''Liberty'' magazine, cancer.

★ Dame Rose Heilbron, 91, British judge.

★ William J. Oswald, 86, algae scientist. [106]

★ Leo Scheffczyk, 85, German Cardinal Deacon of San Francesco Saverio alla Garbatella, Germany. [107]

★ Roger Shattuck, 82, American literary (Proust) scholar and author, prostate cancer. [108]

★ J.N. Williamson, 73, American horror writer, author and publisher.

★ Georgiy Zhzhonov, 90, Russian actor.
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★ Lucy d'Abreu, 113, oldest person in the UK at the time of her death. [109]

★ Rigoberto Alpizar, 44, airplane passenger fatally shot by U.S. Air Marshals after allegedly claiming he had placed a bomb aboard.

★ James Bastien, 71, author of instructional books for the piano [110]

★ Adrian Biddle, 53, British cinematographer, heart attack.

★ Albert Henry Bosch, 97, Republican United States Representative from New York (1953 - 1960).

★ Carroll A. Campbell, Jr., 65, former South Carolina governor (1987-1995), and member of U.S. House of Representatives (1979-1987), heart attack and complications of Alzheimer's disease.

★ Bud Carson, 75, former NFL head coach, emphysema.

★ Loomis Dean, 88, photographer, notably for LIFE magazine.

★ Beach Dickerson, 81, actor in B films of Roger Corman.

★ Devan Nair, 82, former president of Singapore. [111]

★ Manouchehr Nozari, 69, Iranian television actor.

★ Bob O'Brien, 87, comedy writer (''Here's Lucy'').
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★ Charly Gaul, 72, Luxembourgian cyclist, winner of the 1958 Tour de France.

★ Richard Grimsdale, 76, built the world's first transistorised computer and was at the forefront of work on Read Only Memory. [112]

★ Hanns Dieter Hüsch, 80, German political satirist.

★ Stephen L. Mosko, 58, American composer.

★ Jerzy Pajaczkowski-Dydynski, 111, oldest man in the UK at the time of his death. [113]

★ Danny Williams, 63, South African popular singer (best known for his version of the song "Moon River").
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★ John Alvheim, 75, Norwegian politician.

★ Wesley Baker, 47, American convicted murderer, executed in Maryland.

★ Liu Binyan, 80, Chinese author and dissident, cancer. [114]

★ Milo Dor, 82, Serbian-Austrian author. ()

★ Edward L. Masry, 73, attorney and mentor to Erin Brockovich, complications of diabetes.

★ Charles McElmurry, 84, American animation designer.

★ Kevin "Big Kev" McQuay, 56, Australian businessman and media personality, heart attack. [115]

★ Frits Philips, 100, Dutch businessman, grandson of the founder of Philips, complications from a fall.
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★ Fred Benavente, 79, Dutch comedian and television maker.

★ Hisako Hara, 96, Japanese actress.

★ Gregg Hoffman, 42, film producer, natural causes (autopsy result pending). [116]

★ Gloria Lasso, 83, Spanish singer.

★ Doug Murphy, 53, former CBS (KPIX) news anchorman, house fire.
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★ Maggie Bailey, 101, nicknamed "Queen of the Mountain Bootleggers." [117]

★ Peter Cook, 62, Australian politician, melanoma.

★ Lance Dossor, 90, Australian pianist.

★ Peter E. Haas, Sr., 86, great-grandnephew of Levi Strauss, who with his brother built the Levi company into a major brand. [118]

★ Maurice Harris, 84, trumpet player, Hollywood, studio, TV and sessions player, (''Tonight Show'').

★ Kikka Sirén, 41, Finnish pop/schlager singer.

★ Kåre Kristiansen, 85, Norwegian politician; minister of Oil and Energy (1983 - 1986).

★ Lupe Madera, 52, Mexican former world champion boxer.

★ Sophie Thoko Mcgina, 67, South African actress and musician.

★ Abu Hamsa Rabia, Egyptian-born operational commander for Al-Qaeda. [119]

★ Atsuko Tanaka, 73, Japanese avant-garde artist, pneumonia.

★ Allan Waters, 84, Canadian broadcasting icon.
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★ John Barber, 93, British newspaper drama critic. [120]

★ Kenneth Boyd, 57, American convicted murderer, executed in North Carolina, the 1,000th U.S. execution since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. [121]

★ Lillian Browse, 99, British art dealer and historian.

★ Shawn Paul Humphries, 34, American convicted murderer, executed in South Carolina.

★ John Iannaccone, 94, sky sailor, Hindenburg disaster witness.

★ Malik Joyeux, 25, professional surfer, killed at Hawaii's Banzai Pipeline. [122]

★ Maury Kraines, 84, co-owner of 1992 Indy 500 winner, heart failure.

★ William P. Lawrence, 75, retired U.S. Navy Vice Admiral, first to fly at twice the speed of sound. [123]

★ Peter Menegazzo, early 60s, Australian cattle baron, killed (along with his wife Angela) in a plane crash. [124][125]

★ Van Tuong Nguyen, 25, Australian executed at Changi Prison in Singapore for trafficking 396 grams of heroin in 2002, hanging. [126]

★ Mohammed Amza Zubeidi, 67, former Iraqi prime minister under Saddam Hussein.
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★ Gust L. Avrakotos, 67, CIA agent who armed the mujaheddin of Afghanistan. [127]

★ Mary Hayley Bell, 94, British actress and writer, and wife of Sir John Mills.

★ Jack Colvin, 73, American actor, ''The Incredible Hulk'', coronary thrombosis.

★ Werner Enders, 81, German tenor.

★ Michael Evans, 61, White House photographer, noted for capturing the trademark image of Ronald Reagan wearing a cowboy hat, cancer. [128]

★ Adam W. Kaiser, 19, American United States Marine Corps, Killed in Action, December 1, 2005, Operation Iraqi Freedom.

★ William Henry Ottley, 76, sports innovator, credited with promoting skydiving as a sport, pneumonia. [129]

★ William B. Tanner, 75, American multimillionaire businessman.

★ Ray Hanna, 77, New Zealand born warbird pilot and founder of The Old Flying Machine Company. [130]