Deaths in May 2004

The following is a list of notable deaths in May 2004.

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 2004

1

• Ejler Bille, 94, Danish artist.
• Vladimir Chernyshov, 52, Russian volleyball player and Olympic champion.
• Shimon Even, 68, Israeli computer science researcher.
• Ram Prakash Gupta, 80, Indian politician.
• Felix Haug, 52, Swiss pop musician (Double), heart attack.
• Larkin Kerwin, 79, Canadian physicist.
• Lojze Kovačič, 75, Slovene writer.
• Jean-Jacques Laffont, 57, French economist, cancer.
• John Howland Rowe, 85, American archaeologist and anthropologist.

2

• Moe Burtschy, 82, American Major League Baseball player, heart attack.
• Duncan Carse, 91, English explorer and actor.
• Nelson Gidding, 84, American screenwriter, congestive heart failure.
• Paul Guimard, 83, French writer.
• John Hammersley, 84, British mathematician.
• Allan Lindberg, 85, Swedish Olympic pole vaulter.
• Hyam Maccoby, 80, Jewish-British scholar and dramatist.
• Tony Poeta, 71, Canadian professional ice hockey player (Chicago Black Hawks).

3

• Anthony Ainley, 71, British actor (Doctor Who), cancer.
• Andrew Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire, 84, British aristocrat and politician.
• Ken Downing, 86, English racing driver.
• Darrell Johnson, 75, American MLB catcher and manager, cancer.
• Volus Jones, 90, American animator.
• Gilbert Lani Kauhi, 66, American actor and comedian, diabetes.
• James Mace, 52, American historian, professor, and researcher.
• Lygia Pape, 77, Brazilian visual artist, sculptor, and filmmaker.
• Derrick Robins, 89, English cricket player and sports promoter.
• Vladimir Terebilov, 88, Soviet judge and politician.

4

• Coxsone Dodd, 72, Jamaican reggae pioneer, heart attack.
• Tage Frid, 88, Danish woodworker, complications of Alzheimer's disease.
• Hugh Gillin, 78, American actor (Back to the Future Part III).
• Torsten Hägerstrand, 87, Swedish geographer, inventor of time geography.
• Boris Petrovsky, 95, Soviet and Russian general surgeon.
• David Reimer, 39, Canadian gender-reassignment victim, suicide by gunshot.
• Erik Smith, 73, German-British music producer.
• Jean-Pierre Vigier, 84, French theoretical physicist.

5

• Thea Beckman, 80, Dutch author of children's books (Crusade in Jeans).
• John Cornforth, 66, English architectural historian.
• José Maceda, 87, Filipino composer and ethnomusicologist.
• Kate Mundt, 74, Danish film actress.
• Ritsuko Okazaki, 44, Japanese singer-songwriter and author, sepsis.
• František Sláma, 80, Czech chamber music performer.

6

• Virginia Capers, 78, American actress (Raisin, Lady Sings the Blues, Ferris Bueller's Day Off), Tony winner (1974), pneumonia.
• Pepper Gomez, 77, American professional wrestler and bodybuilder, gastritis.
• Kjell Hallbing, (aka Louis Masterson), 69, Norwegian author of westerns.
• Philip Kapleau, 91, American teacher of Zen Buddhism.
• Barney Kessel, 80, American jazz guitarist and studio musician, brain cancer.
• James A. Krumhansl, 84, American physicist.
• Joe Lafata, 82, American baseball player (New York Giants).
• Charlotte Thiele, 85, German actress.
• Daniel Thompson, 69, American poet.

7

• Nick Berg, 26, American businessman and hostage, beheaded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq.
• Joseph Crespo, 79, French rugby player.
• Douglas John Foskett, 85, British librarian.
• Oliver David Jackson, 84, Australian army officer.
• William J. Knight, 74, American Vietnam War combat pilot, astronaut and politician, leukemia.
• Waldemar Milewicz, 48, Polish war journalist, killed in Iraq.

8

• Lewis Caine, 39, Australian organised crime figure, murdered during the Melbourne gangland killings.
• António Champalimaud, 86, Portuguese banker and industrialist.
• Valentin Ezhov, 83, Soviet and Russian screenwriter and playwright, stroke.
• Quentin Hughes, 84, British architect and army officer.
• Robert P. Multhauf, 84, American science historian, curator, and author.
• John Peel, 91, British politician, MP for Leicester South East (1957–1974).
• Ronnie Robinson, 53, American basketball player.

9

• Laxmi Chhaya, 56, Indian actress, dancer and teacher, cancer.
• Tommy Farrell, 82, American film and television actor.
• Brenda Fassie, 39, South African singer, AIDS-related complications.
• Alan Gewirth, 91, American philosopher and author, cancer.
• Akhmad Kadyrov, 52, Chechen politician, President of Chechnya, land mine explosion.
• Alan King, 76, American comedian and actor, lung cancer.
• Wayne McLeland, 79, American baseball player (Detroit Tigers).
• Olive Osmond, 79, American matriarch of the Osmond singing family.
• Sido L. Ridolfi, 90, American politician.
• Walter H. Stockmayer, 90, American chemist and university teacher.
• Percy M. Young, 91, British musicologist.

10

• Orvar Bergmark, 73, Swedish football player and manager.
• Ray Ferritto, 75, American mobster associated with the Cleveland and Los Angeles crime families.
• Phil Gersh, 92, American talent and literary agent.
• Eric Kierans, 90, Canadian economist and politician.
• Portland Mason, 55, British-American child actress and writer.
• Ershad Sikder, 49, Bangladeshi politician, criminal, and serial killer, executed.
• Ibsen Sørensen, 90, Danish Olympic rower (men's coxed four rowing at the 1936 Summer Olympics).
• Dennis Wilshaw, 78, English international footballer, heart attack.

11

• Mick Doyle, 63, Irish rugby union player and coach, traffic collision.
• Danny McLennan, 79, Scottish football player and coach.
• Abdul Reza Pahlavi, 79, Iranian royal and member of the Pahlavi dynasty.
• Ku Sang, 84, Korean poet.
• Alf Valentine, 74, West Indian cricket player.
• John Whitehead, 55, American R&B artist, shot.
• Giorgos Zongolopoulos, 101, Greek sculptor, painter and architect.

12

• Álvaro Cardoso, 90, Portuguese football player.
• Syd Hoff, 91, American children's author and cartoonist.
• John LaPorta, 84, American jazz clarinetist, composer and educator, stroke.
• Dave Piontek, 69, American professional basketball player (Rochester / Cincinnati Royals, St. Louis Hawks, Chicago Packers).
• John Robson, 54, English footballer, multiple sclerosis (MS).
• Alexander Skutch, 99, American naturalist, writer, and ornithologist.

13

• Kjell Bækkelund, 74, Norwegian classical pianist.
• Magnar Estenstad, 79, Norwegian cross-country skier and Olympic silver medalist.
• Bergfrid Fjose, 89, American politician.
• Muhammad Nawaz, 79, Pakistani Olympic javelin thrower (men's javelin throw at the 1956 and 1960 Summer Olympics).
• Carlo Scarascia-Mugnozza, 84, Italian politician.
• Evon Z. Vogt, 86, American cultural anthropologist.

14

• Rudi Arndt, 77, American politician.
• Charlotte Benkner, 114, American supercentenarian, oldest recognized person in United States.
• Rip Coleman, 72, American baseball player (New York Yankees, Kansas City Athletics, Baltimore Orioles).
• Günter Gaus, 74, German journalist and commentator.
• Jesús Gil, 71, Spanish businessman and politician, controversial owner of Atlético Madrid football club, stroke.
• Bill Hoffman, 86, American baseball player (Philadelphia Phillies).
• Jack Holland, 56, Irish journalist, novelist, and poet, cancer.
• Torsten Johansson, 84, Swedish tennis player.
• Anna Lee, 91, British-American actress, pneumonia.
• Lu Leonard, 77, American actress.
• Shaun Sutton, 84, British television executive.

15

• Gloria E. Anzaldúa, 61, American writer, academic and feminist, diabetes.
• Jack Bradbury, 89, American animator (Pinocchio, Bambi, Fantasia) and comic book artist, kidney failure.
• Marius Constant, 79, Romanian-French composer and conductor.
• Gill Fox, 88, American political cartoonist, comic book artist, and animator.
• Henrique Frade, 69, Brazilian football player.
• William H. Hinton, 85, American writer, and marxist, author of Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village.
• Narciso Ibáñez Menta, 91, Spanish actor, cardiovascular disease.
• Tatsuya Mihashi, 80, Japanese actor.
• Robert K. Morgan, 85, American US Air Force pilot, former pilot of the Memphis Belle, injuries from a fall.
• Clint Warwick, 63, British bass guitarist (The Moody Blues), hepatitis.

16

• Riccardo Brengola, 87, Italian violinist and professor.
• June Carroll, 87, American lyricist, singer and actress.
• Jim Colclough, 68, American gridiron football player.
• Simone Del Duca, 91, French businesswoman and philanthropist.
• Peter Hill-Norton, Baron Hill-Norton, 89, British Royal Navy Admiral of the Fleet.
• Kamala Markandaya, 80, Indian novelist and journalist.
• Marika Rökk, 90, Egyptian-German actress, heart attack.
• Billy Stone, 78, American professional football player (Bradley University, Baltimore Colts, Chicago Bears).
• June Taylor, 86, American television dancer and choreographer.

17

• Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, 97, South African naturalist and museum official.
• Gunnar Graps, 57, Estonian rock singer and percussionist, heart attack.
• Ken Mudford, 81, New Zealand Grand Prix motorcycle road racer.
• Buster Narum, 63, American baseball Major League Baseball pitcher (Orioles, Senators).
• Jørgen Nash, 84, Danish poet and performance artist.
• Tony Randall, 84, American actor (Pillow Talk, The Odd Couple, Inherit the Wind), Emmy winner (1975), pneumonia.
• James Armstrong Richardson, 82, Canadian member of House of Commons, Minister of Supply and Services, Minister of National Defence.
• Cathy Rosier, 59, French model and actress, aneurysm.
• Ezzedine Salim, 60–61, Iraqi politician, president of the Iraqi Governing Council.
• Enrique Zobel, 77, Filipino businessman, pilot, and polo player.

18

• Çetin Alp, 56, Turkish singer, heart attack.
• Arnold Orville Beckman, 104, American inventor, industrialist and philanthropist.
• John Maxwell Cowley, 81, Australian-American physicist and academic.
• Heinrich Isser, 76, Austrian Olympic bobsledder.
• Elvin Jones, 76, American jazz drummer, John Coltrane Quartet of the 1960s, heart attack.
• Lincoln Kilpatrick, 72, American actor, lung cancer.
• Hyacinthe Thiandoum, 83, Senegalese Roman Catholic Cardinal, Archbishop of Dakar.

19

• Mary Dresselhuys, 97, Dutch actress and comedian.
• Jack Eckerd, 91, American businessman.
• Haruhiko Kindaichi, 91, Japanese linguist and a scholar of kokugogaku.
• Melvin J. Lasky, 84, American journalist, intellectual and anti-communist.
• Robert David MacDonald, 74, Scottish playwright, translator and theatre director.
• Arnold Moore, 90, American blues artist.
• John Naka, 89, American horticulturist, teacher, author, and master bonsai cultivator.
• E. K. Nayanar, 87, Indian politician, three-time Chief Minister of Kerala, India, heart attack.
• Carl Raddatz, 92, German stage and film actor.
• Elvio Romero, 77, Paraguayan poet.
• Leonid Shcherbakov, 77, Russian triple jumper and Olympic silver medalist.

20

• Gary Ballman, 63, American gridiron football player.
• Lúcio de Castro, 93, Brazilian Olympic pole vaulter.
• Sophie Charlotte Ducker, 95, German-Australian botanist.
• Stanisław Gronkowski, 82, Polish actor.
• Len Murray, 81, British trade union leader, pneumonia.
• Claire Wilbur, 70, American actress and Academy Award-winning producer of short films, lung cancer.

21

• Jean-Pierre Blanc, 62, French film director and screenwriter, cancer.
• Proinsias Mac Cana, 77, Academic and Celtic scholar.
• June Cochran, 62, American model and beauty queen.
• Gunnar Dahlen, 86, Norwegian football player.
• Rick Henderson, 76, American jazz alto saxophonist and arranger.
• Toshikazu Kase, 101, Japanese civil servant and diplomat, heart attack.
• Gene Wood, 78, American television personality and announcer of game shows, lung cancer.

22

• Richard Biggs, 44, American actor (Babylon 5, Days of Our Lives, Strong Medicine), aortic dissection.
• Samuel Curtis Johnson, Jr., 76, American businessman, fourth generation president of SC Johnson company.
• Zinovy Korogodsky, 77, Russian theater director and academic.
• Alexandr Savko, 37, Belarusian wrestler, heart attack.
• Mikhail Voronin, 59, Russian gymnast, double Olympic champion, cancer.

23

• Adele Leigh, 75, English operatic soprano, heart attack.
• Ramon Margalef, 85, Spanish biologist and ecologist.
• Trudy Marshall, 84, American actress, lung cancer.
• Harry Preston, 72, Canadian Olympic field hockey player (Field hockey at the 1964 Summer Olympics).
• Maxime Rodinson, 89, French historian, sociologist and orientalist.

24

• Ya'akov Grundman, 64, Polish-Israeli football player and manager, cancer.
• Prentice Marshall, 77, American district judge, bladder cancer.
• Henry Ries, 86, American photographer, known for his photos of the 1948 Berlin Air Lift.
• Milton Shulman, 90, Canadian author, film and theatre critic.
• Edward Wagenknecht, 104, American literary critic and teacher.

25

• Nikolai Chernykh, 72, Soviet and Russian astronomer.
• David Dellinger, 88, American antiwar activist, member of Chicago Eight.
• Antonia Ivanova, 74, Bulgarian grandmaster chess player.
• Nicholas Luard, 66, British writer and politician.
• Robert P. Sharp, 92, American geomorphologist and expert on the geology of Earth and Mars.
• Roger Williams Straus, Jr., 87, American publisher (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).

26

• Robert Chapman, 81, New Zealand political scientist and historian.
• Gino de Pellegrín, 77, Argentine Olympic alpine skier.
• Rewata Dhamma, 74, Burmese Theravada Buddhist monk and scholar.
• Sir Donald Cameron of Lochiel, 93, Scottish landowner and a financier.

27

• Umberto Agnelli, 69, Italian industrialist, head of Fiat, lymphoma.
• Denis ApIvor, 88, British composer.
• Patience Cleveland, 73, American actress (Donnie Darko, Psycho III, General Hospital), cancer.
• Ladislav Hecht, 94, Czechoslovak tennis player.
• Jim Marshall, 63, British Labour MP, heart attack.
• Mikhail Postnikov, 76, Soviet mathematician, known for his work in algebraic and differential topology.
• Sigrid Lorenzen Rupp, 61, German-American architect, stomach cancer.
• Ronald Smith, 82, British classical pianist and teacher.
• Werner Tübke, 74, German painter.

28

• Michael Alison, 77, British Privy Council member, minister and MP.
• Gerald Anthony, 52, American actor, best known for playing Marco Dane on the TV show One Life to Live, suicide.
• Vittore Branca, 90, Philologist, literary critic, and Italian academic.
• Harvey Brooks, 88, American physicist.
• Francis Brunn, 81, German juggler.
• Josie Carey, 73, American lyricist, host of children's show "Children's Corner".
• Jean-Philippe Charbonnier, 82, French photographer.
• Jerzy Klempel, 51, Polish Olympic handball player and coach.
• Irene Manning, 91, American actress and singer (Yankee Doodle Dandy), heart failure.
• Catherine Dean May, 90, American politician.

29

• Lawrence Rosario Abavana, 84, Ghanaian politician and teacher.
• Anjuman Ara Begum, 62, Bangladeshi vocalist, pneumonia.
• Barry Brown, 42, Jamaican reggae singer, head trauma following fall.
• Zebedy Colt, 74, American actor, musician, and adult film director.
• Archibald Cox, 92, American lawyer, Watergate special prosecutor.
• Samuel Dash, 79, American lawyer, chief counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate scandal, heart failure.
• Magne Havnå, 40, Norwegian professional boxer, boating accident.
• Jack Rosenthal, 72, British television dramatist, multiple myeloma.
• Forrest Tucker, 83, American career criminal.
• Ivica Šerfezi, 68, Croatian pop singer, stomach cancer.

30

• Fenner Albert Chace, 95, American carcinologist.
• Raymond M. Clausen, Jr., 56, American marine, Medal of Honour recipient, liver failure.
• Alfred Coppel, 82, American author.
• Gérard de Sède, 82, French author.
• Rafał Kurmański, 21, Polish speedway rider, suicide by hanging.
• Nizamuddin Shamzai, 51, Pakistani Sunni Islamic scholar, assassinated.
• Ed Stanczak, 82, American basketball player (Anderson Packers, Boston Celtics).
• Klavdiya Tochonova, 82, Soviet Olympic shot putter.

31

• Lionel Abrahams, 76, South African novelist, poet, critic, and publisher.
• Pierre Duval, 71, French-Canadian operatic tenor.
• Artimus Parker, 52, American professional football player (Philadelphia Eagles, New York Jets).
• Robert Quine, 61, American punk rock guitarist, suicide by heroin overdose.
• Étienne Roda-Gil, 62, French songwriter, screenwriter and anarchist, stroke.

External links

• List of May 2004 deaths at IMDb