Deaths in April 2003

The following is a list of notable deaths in April 2003.

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.

1

 * Booker Bradshaw, 61, American record producer, actor, and Motown executive, heart attack.
 * Lloyd L. Brown, 89, American writer, activist and labor organizer.
 * Richard Caddel, 53, English poet, publisher and editor, a key figure in the British Poetry Revival, leukemia.
 * Leslie Cheung, 46, Hong Kong actor and singer, suicide.
 * Marcel Ernzer, 77, Luxembourgian cyclist.
 * Jean-Yves Escoffier, 52, French cinematographer, heart failure.
 * Sven Holmberg, 85, Swedish actor.
 * Robert M. Levine, 62, American historian and academic, cancer.
 * Mutsuhiro Watanabe, 85, Japanese war criminal during World War II.
 * Adriaan Cornelis Zaanen, 89, Dutch mathematician, known for his books on Riesz spaces.

2

 * Seymour Friedman, 85, American film director.
 * Kaveh Golestan, 52, Iranian photojournalist and artist, land mine.
 * Terenci Moix, 61, Spanish writer, pulmonary emphysema.
 * Joan Phipson, 90, Australian children's writer.
 * György Révész, 75, Hungarian screenwriter and film director.
 * Harold S. Sawyer, 83, American politician (U.S. Representative for Michigan's 5th congressional district), throat cancer.
 * Edwin Starr, 61, American soul singer, heart attack.
 * Sékou Touré, 68, Ivorian football player.
 * Michael Wayne, 68, American film producer and son of John Wayne, heart failure from complications of lupus.

3

 * Homer Banks, 61, American songwriter and record producer ("(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want to Be Right"), cancer.
 * Arthur Guyton, 83, American physiologist, traffic collision.
 * Scott Hain, 32, American convict, execution by lethal injection.
 * Gunadasa Kapuge, 57, Sri Lankan musician, fall.

4

 * Anthony Caruso, 86, American actor.
 * Fred J. Cook, 92, American investigative journalist.
 * Izzat Ghazzawi, 51, Palestinian writer.
 * Abdul Kadir, 54, Indonesian footballer, kidney failure.
 * Michael Kelly, 46, American journalist, columnist and magazine editor, war-related vehicular accident.
 * Helmut Knochen, 93, German Nazi official and commander of the SiPo and SD.
 * Billy McPhail, 75, Scottish football player, Alzheimer's disease.
 * J. Quigg Newton, 91, American lawyer and politician.
 * Resortes, 87, Mexican comedian, emphysema.
 * Paul Ray Smith, 33, United States Army sergeant and Medal of Honor recipient, killed in action.

5

 * Kirby Doyle, 70, American poet.
 * Seymour Lubetzky, 104, American cataloging theorist and librarian.
 * Frédéric Kibassa Maliba, 63, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) politician, heart attack.
 * Federico Pizarro, 76, Argentine football player.

6

 * David Bloom, 39, American television journalist (NBC News, Weekend Today), pulmonary embolism.
 * Anita Borg, 54, American computer scientist, advocate for the advancement of women in computer science, brain cancer.
 * Gerald Emmett Carter, 91, Canadian Roman Catholic prelate, Archbishop of Toronto (1978-1990).
 * Aleksandr Fatyushin, 52, Russian actor, pneumonia.
 * Susan French, 91, American actress.
 * Leon Levy, 77, American investor, fund manager, and philanthropist.
 * Nicole Loraux, 59, French historian of classical Athens.
 * Vic Metcalfe, 81, English football player.
 * Babatunde Olatunji, 75, African drummer; recorded Drums of Passion, diabetes.
 * Robert John Pratt, 96, Canada comedian and politician.
 * Princess Tenagnework, 91, Ethiopian royal and eldest child of Emperor Haile Selassie and Empress Menen Asfaw.

7

 * Cecile de Brunhoff, 99, French pianist and teacher, created the children's book character Babar the Elephant.
 * David Greene, 82, British television and film director, pancreatic cancer.
 * Jutta Hipp, 78, Germen-American jazz pianist and composer, pancreatic cancer.
 * Maurice Kouandété, 70, Benin military officer and politician.
 * Julio Anguita Parrado, 32, Spanish journalist and war correspondent (El Mundo), missile strike.
 * Robin Winks, 72, American professor, historian, author and diplomat.

8

 * Kathie Browne, 72, American film and television actress (Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, Star Trek, The Love Boat).
 * Patrick Fani Chakaipa, 70, Zimbabwean prelate of the Roman Catholic Church, Archbishop of Harare (1976-2003).
 * Charles Douglass, 93, Mexican-American sound engineer, credited as the inventor of the laugh track, pneumonia.
 * Dee Gibson, 79, American basketball player.
 * Maki Ishii, 66, Japanese composer of contemporary classical music, cancer.
 * Spider Martin, 64, American photographer, suicide.
 * Franz Rosenthal, 88, German-American professor of Semitic languages.
 * Bing Russell, 76, American actor and baseball club owner, cancer.
 * Correspondents killed in the Battle of Baghdad:
 * Tareq Ayyoub, 35, Jordanian journalist for Al Jazeera, missile strike.
 * José Couso Permuy, 37, Spanish cameraman, missile strike.
 * Taras Protsyuk, 35, Ukrainian cameraman, tank fire.

9

 * Earl Bramblett, 61, American mass murderer, execution by electrocution.
 * Ray Murray, 85, American baseball player (Cleveland Indians, Philadelphia Athletics, Baltimore Orioles).
 * Rod Navarro, 67, Filipino actor.
 * Jorge Oteiza, 94, Basque Spanish sculptor, painter, and writer.
 * Robert Wallace Wilkins, 96, American medical researcher.
 * Abraham Zabludovsky, 78, Mexican modernist architect (Rufino Tamayo Museum, National Auditorium).
 * Vera Zorina, 86, Norwegian ballerina, actress and choreographer (The Goldwyn Follies, Star Spangled Rhythm), stroke.
 * Wu Zuguang, 85, Chinese playwright, film director and social critic, stroke.

10

 * Abdul-Majid al-Khoei, 40, Iraqi Shia cleric, stabbed.
 * Chumy Chúmez, 75, Spanish cartoon humorist, writer and film director, liver cancer.
 * Little Eva, 59, American pop singer (The Loco-Motion), cervical uterine cancer.
 * Jack Fincher, 72, American screenwriter and journalist.
 * Aatos Fred, 85, Finnish chess player, two-time Finnish Chess Championship winner (1947, 1955).
 * Aubrey Jones, 91, British politician.
 * Franco Valle, 63, Italian boxer (bronze medal in middleweight boxing at the 1964 Summer Olympics).

11

 * Vasyl Barka, 94, Ukrainian-American poet, writer, and literary critic.
 * John Nevill Eliot, 90, English entomologist.
 * Cecil Howard Green, 102, American businessman and founder of Texas Instruments.
 * Siddiq Manzul, 71, Sudanese football player.
 * Brian Nelson, 55, Northern Irish paramilitary intelligence chief, brain haemorrhage.
 * Lucy Saroyan, 57, American actress and photographer, liver cirrhosis.

12

 * Clarence W. Blount, 81, American politician.
 * Charles Janeway, 60, American immunologist.
 * Sydney Lassick, 80, American film actor (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), complications of diabetes.
 * Štefan Matlák, 69, Slovak football player.
 * Chalom Messas, 94, Moroccan rabbi and writer.

13

 * Farouk Afero, 63, Pakistani-Indonesian film actor, cancer.
 * Majid bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, 64, Saudi prince and member of the House of Saud.
 * Sean Delaney, 58, American musician, complications following strokes.
 * Allen Eager, 76, American jazz tenor and alto saxophonist, liver cancer.
 * D. Gale Johnson, 86, American economist and an expert on Russia and China.
 * Lucy Taxis Shoe Meritt, 96, American classical archaeologist.
 * Elder Tadej Štrbulović, 88, Serbian Orthodox elder and author.

14

 * Pierre Blondiaux, 81, French rower (silver medal in men's coxless four at the 1952 Summer Olympics).
 * Al Epperly, 84, American baseball player (Chicago Cubs, Brooklyn Dodgers).
 * Addie McPhail, 97, American film actress.
 * Jyrki Otila, 61, Finnish quiz show judge and member of the European Parliament.
 * Milla Sannoner, 64, Italian film and television actress.

15

 * Betty Baskcomb, 88, British actress (Everything in the Garden, Afternoon of a Nymph, Doctor on the Go).
 * Don Bunce, 54, American football quarterback (Stanford, 1972 Rose Bowl MVP) and orthopedic surgeon, heart attack.
 * Erin Leslie Fleming, 61, Canadian actress, suicide.
 * Robert Helmick, 66, American president of the US Olympic Committee, cardiac failure.
 * Rebeca Iturbide, 78, Mexican-American actress, gastrointestinal perforation.
 * Maurice Rapf, 88, American screenwriter and professor of film studies.
 * Franco Scandurra, 91, Italian actor.
 * Leonard Tose, 88, American sports executive, owner of the Philadelphia Eagles (1969-1985).
 * Keith Walwyn, 47, Kittitian footballer, complications during heart surgery.
 * Theodore Weiss, 86, American poet, professor and literary magazine editor.

16

 * Jack Donohue, 71, American-Canadian basketball coach.
 * Isao Iwabuchi, 69, Japanese football player.
 * Graham Jarvis, 72, Canadian actor in American films and television, multiple myeloma.
 * Samuel J. LeFrak, 85, American real estate tycoon.
 * Ray Mendoza, 73, Mexican professional wrestler, kidney failure.
 * Lili Muráti, 88, Hungarian film and stage actress.
 * Danny O'Dea, 91, British actor.
 * Jewell Young, 90, American basketball player (Purdue University, Indianapolis Kautskys, Oshkosh All-Stars).

17

 * Mario Sandoval Alarcón, 79, Guatemalan politician.
 * Robert Atkins, 72, American nutritionist (Atkins Diet), accident.
 * H. B. Bailey, 66, American NASCAR driver, heart attack.
 * Jean-Pierre Dogliani, 60, French football player.
 * John Paul Getty Jr., 70, British philanthropist and book collector, chest infection.
 * Earl King, 69, American Blues musician/songwriter, complications of diabetes.
 * Koji Kondo, 30, Japanese football player.
 * Yiannis Latsis, 92, Greek shipping tycoon.
 * Ong Poh Lim, 81, Malayan/Singaporean badminton player.
 * Jozef Schell, 67, Belgian biologist.
 * Hilde Sessak, 87, German actress.
 * Graham Stuart Thomas, 94, British horticultural artist, author and garden designer.
 * Peter Cathcart Wason, 78, British cognitive psychologist, founded the study of the psychology of reasoning.
 * Sergei Yushenkov, 52, Russian politician, member of Russian Parliament and critic of President Vladimir Putin, homicide.

18

 * Rudolf Brunnenmeier, 62, German football player, alcohol-related issues.
 * Edgar F. Codd, 79, English computer pioneer, heart failure.
 * Jean Drucker, 61, French television executive, heart attack.
 * Kiril Gospodinov, 68, Bulgarian stage and film actor.
 * Toni Hagen, 85, Swiss geologist.
 * Emil Loteanu, 66, Soviet and Moldovan film director.
 * Diego Ronchini, 67, Italian road racing cyclist.
 * Nguyễn Đình Thi, 78, Vietnamese writer, poet and composer.
 * Juan Bautista Villalba, 78, Paraguayan football player.

19

 * Mirza Tahir Ahmad, 74, Pakistani spiritual leader of the Ahmadiyya Muslim movement.
 * Cholly Atkins, 89, American dancer and choreographer, pancreatic cancer.
 * Nazeh Darwazi, Palestinian freelance cameraman, shot by Israeli soldier.
 * Denise Ramsden, 51, English Olympian sprint athlete.
 * Aurelio Sabattani, 90, Italian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.
 * Chris Zachary, 59, American baseball player (Houston Colt .45s / Astros, St. Louis Cardinals, Detroit Tigers), cancer.

20

 * Debbie Barham, 26, English comedy writer, anorexia nervosa.
 * Johnny Douglas, 82, English musician.
 * Len Duquemin, 78, British football player.
 * Teddy Edwards, 78, American jazz tenor saxophonist, prostate cancer.
 * Daijiro Kato, 26, Japanese Grand Prix motorcycle road racer, racing accident.
 * Bernard Katz, 92, German-British Nobel Prize-winning biophysicist.
 * Henri Lemaître, 81, Belgian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church.
 * Richard Proenneke, 86, American naturalist, conservationist, and writer, cerebral hemorrhage.
 * Bertram Ross, 82, American dancer and choreographer.
 * Cole Weston, 84, American photographer.

21

 * Robert Blackburn, 82, American artist and printmaker, one of America's foremost fine art lithographers.
 * Balwant Gargi, 86, Indian dramatist, theatre director, and short story writer.
 * Nina Simone, 70, American jazz singer, known as the "High Priestess of Soul", breast cancer.

22

 * Felice Bryant, 77, American songwriter ("Bye Bye Love", "Wake Up Little Susie", "Raining in My Heart").
 * James H. Critchfield, 86, American CIA operative during the Cold War, pancreatic cancer.
 * Martha Griffiths, 91, American congresswoman and women's rights activist.
 * Andrea King, 84, American actress.
 * Ola H. Kveli, 81, Norwegian politician.
 * Mike Larrabee, 69, American athlete, two gold medals at the 1964 Summer Olympics, pancreatic cancer.
 * Len Reid, 86, Australian fighter pilot and politician.
 * Fred Schaub, 42, German football player, car accident.
 * Yuriy Voynov, 71, Soviet and Ukrainian football player and manager.
 * Maria Wine, 90, Swedish-Danish poet and writer.

23

 * Abram Bergson, 89, American economist.
 * Jim Browne, 72, American basketball player (Chicago Stags, Denver Nuggets).
 * Hansgeorg Bätcher, 89, German decorated Luftwaffe bomber ace during World War II.
 * Fernand Fonssagrives, 93, French photographer.
 * Raymond Galle, 89, French stage and film actor.
 * Guy Mountfort, 97, British advertising executive and ornithologist.
 * Austin Wright, 80, American novelist, literary critic and academic.

24

 * Bob Dunn, 56, British Conservative Party politician.
 * Nüzhet Gökdoğan, 92, Turkish astronomer, mathematician and academic.
 * Yuri Kholopov, 70, Russian musicologist and educator.
 * Gino Orlando, 73, Brazilian footballer, cardiac arrest.
 * Belus Smawley, 85, American basketball player (Appalachian State, St. Louis Bombers, Baltimore Bullets) and coach.
 * Fuzz White, 86, American baseball player (St. Louis Browns, New York Giants).

25

 * Viktor Bushuev, 69, Soviet weightlifter (gold medal in men's lightweight weightlifting at the 1960 Summer Olympics).
 * Lynn Chadwick, 88, English sculptor and artist.
 * Jaime Silva Gómez, 67, Colombian footballer.
 * Ted Joans, 74, American jazz poet, trumpeter, and painter, diabetes.
 * Samson Kitur, 37, Kenyan athlete and an Olympic medalist.
 * André Perraudin, 88, Swiss Roman Catholic prelate.
 * Borislav Đurović, 51, Montenegrin football player.

26

 * Bernhard Baier, 90, German water polo player (silver medal in men's water polo at the 1936 Summer Olympics).
 * Rosemary Brown, 72, Canadian politician (NDP), first black woman elected to a provincial legislature, myocardial infarction, heart attack.
 * Mohammed Ghazali, 78, Pakistan Air Force officer and cricket player.
 * Yun Hyon-seok, 18, South Korean LGBT poet, writer, and activist, suicide.
 * David Lavender, 93, American historian and writer.
 * Danny Napoleon, 61, American baseball player (New York Mets).
 * Edward Max Nicholson, 98, British environmentalist, a founder of the World Wildlife Fund.
 * Peter Stone, 73, American screenwriter (Charade, Father Goose, 1776), Oscar and Tony-winner, pulmonary fibrosis.

27

 * Peter M. Bowers, 84, Aeronautical engineer, journalist and aviation historian.
 * Edward Gaylord, 83, American businessman, media mogul and philanthropist, cancer.
 * Edward Loyden, 79, British politician.
 * Piet Roozenburg, 78, Dutch draughts player.
 * Elaine Anderson Steinbeck, 88, American actress and Broadway stage manager, wife of John Steinbeck.
 * Dorothee Sölle, 73, German liberation theologian, heart attack.
 * Juha Tiainen, 47, Finnish hammer thrower and Olympic champion, pneumonia.

28

 * Ira Herskowitz, 56, American phage and yeast geneticist, pancreatic cancer.
 * Ciccio Ingrassia, 80, Italian actor, comedian and film director, heart attack.
 * Carmelo Morales, 72, Spanish racing cyclist.
 * André Muhirwa, Burundian politician and Prime Minister.
 * Charlie Tolar, 65, American gridiron football player.

29

 * Ron Barclay, 88, New Zealand politician (member of New Zealand Parliament for New Plymouth).
 * Janko Bobetko, 84, Croatian general, hailed as a hero of Croatia but charged with war crimes by the U.N.
 * John Gilbert Hurst, 75, British archaeologist and pioneer of mediaeval archaeology.
 * Etti Plesch, 89, Austro-Hungarian countess, huntress, racehorse owner, and socialite.
 * Vasily Tolstikov, 85, Soviet diplomat and Communist Party official.
 * Jerry Williams, 79, American radio host, a pioneer of talk radio.

30

 * Gbenga Adeboye, 43, Nigerian singer, comedian and radio host, kidney-related disease.
 * Ferdinand P. Beer, 87, French-American mechanical engineer and university professor.
 * Possum Bourne, 47, New Zealand rally car driver, racing accident.
 * Aureliano Chaves, 74, Brazilian politician.
 * Chris Crowe, 63, English football player.
 * Vasile Deheleanu, 92, Romanian football player.
 * Lionel Wilson, 79, American voice actor, audiobook reader and children's author, pneumonia.