Deaths in December 1991

The following is a list of notable deaths in December 1991.

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

 * Ernst Albrecht, 77, German politician and member of the Bundestag.
 * Charles D. Breitel, 82, American lawyer and politician.
 * Karl Chmielewski, 88, German SS officer and concentration camp commandant.
 * Barbara Hanrahan, 52, Australian artist, printmaker and writer.
 * Zin Harris, 64, New Zealand cricket player.
 * Thomas J. Hillery, 87, American politician.
 * Robert Kerber, 78, American swimmer and Olympian.
 * Jim Knox, 72, New Zealand trade unionist.
 * Buster Mills, 83, American baseball player, coach, and scout.
 * Pat O'Callaghan, 85, Irish Olympic hammer thrower (1928, 1932).
 * Pyotr Pochynchuk, 37, Soviet and Russian athlete and Olympic medalist.
 * Alden Sanborn, 92, American rower and Olympic champion.
 * George Stigler, 80, American economist and Nobel Prize laureate (1982), heart failure.

2

 * Ernst Achenbach, 82, German politician.
 * Bimal Mitra, 79, Indian writer.
 * Tracy D. Terrell, 48, American education theorist, AIDS.
 * John J. Tolson, 76, United States Army lieutenant general.
 * Eleanor Tufts, 64, American art historian and academic, ovarian cancer.

3

 * René Brossy, 85, French cyclist.
 * Arthur Fischer, 94, Swedish actor, writer, and sculptor.
 * Jack Laird, 68, American screenwriter, heart disease.
 * George Lott, 85, American tennis player and coach.
 * Petre Țuțea, 89, Romanian philosopher, journalist, and economist.

4

 * Cliff Bastin, 79, English football player.
 * Moysés Baumstein, 60, Brazilian artist.
 * Bert T. Combs, 80, American jurist and politician, hypothermia.
 * Alex Graham, 78, Scottish cartoonist (Fred Basset).
 * Orestes Jordán, 78, Peruvian international football player.
 * Eugen Maucher, 79, German politician and member of the Bundestag.
 * Irving Taylor, 72, Canadian ice hockey player.
 * Herb Thomas, 89, American baseball player and manager.

5

 * Earl Evans, 91, American gridiron football player.
 * Robert Karvelas, 70, American actor (Get Smart).
 * Aad Mansveld, 47, Dutch footballer, cancer.
 * Héctor Orezzoli, 38, Argentine stage director and costume-, set-, and lighting designer, cardiopulmonary arrest.
 * Richard Speck, 49, American convicted mass murderer, heart attack.
 * Dimitrije Stefanović, 95, Yugoslav Olympic long-distance runner (1928).
 * Jack Trevor Story, 74, English novelist.
 * Roy Welensky, 84, Northern Rhodesian politician and Prime Minister.
 * Hein van der Zee, 62, Dutch boxer and Olympian.

6

 * Rodney Ackland, 83, English playwright, actor, and screenwriter.
 * György Aczél, 74, Hungarian communist politician.
 * Vladimir Colin, 70, Romanian author.
 * Virgilio Corbo, 73, Italian archaeologist.
 * Vishnu Madhav Ghatage, 83, Indian aeronautical engineer.
 * Tsuguhiro Hattori, 71, Japanese baseball player.
 * Terry Slater, 54, Canadian ice hockey player and coach.
 * Mimi Smith, 85, British nurse and secretary, aunt and parental guardian of musician John Lennon.
 * Richard Stone, 78, British economist, Nobel Prize laureate (1984), pneumonia.

7

 * Judith Hart, 67, British politician, cancer.
 * Herb Jaffe, 70, American film producer (Fright Night), cancer.
 * Ataur Rahman Khan, 86, Bangladeshi lawyer, politician and Prime Minister.
 * Spiro Kostof, 55, American architectural historian, and academic, cancer.
 * Gordon Pirie, 60, English Olympic runner (1956), cholangiocarcinoma.

8

 * Francisco de Assis Barbosa, 77, Brazilian essayist, historian, and journalist.
 * Buck Clayton, 80, American trumpeter.
 * Attila Laták, 46, Hungarian Olympic wrestler (1972).
 * Bill Lewis, 75, Australian politician.

9

 * Berenice Abbott, 93, American photographer.
 * Olga Bondareva, 54, Soviet mathematician and economist, traffic accident.
 * Maurice Joyeux, 81, French writer and anarchist.
 * Greta Kempton, 90, American artist, heart failure.
 * Gisèle Lestrange, 64, French graphic artist.

10

 * Mark Faber, 41, English cricket player, complications from surgery.
 * Tippy Larkin, 74, American boxer, kidney failure.
 * Franco Maria Malfatti, 64, Italian politician, president of the European Commission (1970–1972).
 * José María Cabo Puig, 84, Spanish football player and manager.
 * Jean Rigaux, 82, French songwriter and actor.
 * Gustav Schäfer, 85, German rower.
 * György Szűcs, 79, Hungarian football player.

11

 * Enid Moodie Heddle, 87, Australian poet, editor children's writer.
 * Kavisena Herath, 75, Ceylonese politician.
 * Dick Kelley, 51, American baseball player.
 * Robert Q. Lewis, 70, American television personality (What's My Line?) and actor, pulmonary emphysema.
 * Artur Lundkvist, 85, Swedish writer.
 * Matthew Rapf, 71, American television producer (Kojak, Ben Casey, The Loretta Young Show), influenza.
 * Carmen Rosales, 74, Filipina actress and guerilla fighter during World War II.
 * Joe Scibelli, 52, American gridiron football player.
 * Simon Scott, 71, American actor (Trapper John, M.D., McHale's Navy, Cold Turkey), Alzheimer's disease.
 * Mudiyanse Tennakoon, 57, Sri Lankan politician.
 * Mario Tobino, 81, Italian poet, writer and psychiatrist.
 * Pat Walshe, 91, American dwarf actor and circus performer, heart attack.

12

 * Eleanor Boardman, 93, American actress (The Crowd).
 * Moshe Castel, 82, Israeli painter.
 * Joaquim Gomis, 89, Spanish photographer, entrepreneur, and art collector.
 * Harold St. John, 99, American botanist and academic.
 * Ken Keltner, 75, American baseball player.
 * Peter Kienast, 42, Austrian bobsledder and Olympian.
 * Henk Ngantung, 70, Indonesian painter and politician.
 * Ronnie Ross, 58, British saxophonist, cancer.
 * Amherst Villiers, 91, English engineer and painter.

13

 * Stuart Challender, 44, Australian conductor, AIDS-related complications.
 * André Pieyre de Mandiargues, 82, French writer.
 * Jan Hendriks, 63, German film actor.
 * Judy Moorcroft, 58, British costume designer (A Passage to India, The Europeans, The Killing Fields).
 * Vincent Saurin, 84, French rower and Olympian.

14

 * John Arlott, 77, English broadcaster (Test Match Special).
 * Guillermo Barreto, 62, Cuban drummer and timbalero.
 * Robert Eddison, 83, English actor (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade), pneumonia.
 * Claude Faraggi, 49, French writer.
 * Nikolay Gusakov, 57, Soviet nordic combined skier and Olympic medalist.

15

 * Reidar Andersen, 80, Norwegian ski jumper and Olympic medalist.
 * Grete Mostny, 77, Austrian-Chilean anthropologist, cancer.
 * Ray Smith, 55, Welsh actor, heart attack.
 * Sid Youngelman, 60, American gridiron football player.
 * Vasily Zaytsev, 76, Soviet sniper during World War II and Hero of the Soviet Union.

16

 * H. C. Casserley, 88, British photographer.
 * Horatio Luro, 90, American racehorse trainer, pancreatic cancer.
 * Pier Vittorio Tondelli, 36, Italian writer, AIDS-related complications.
 * Mohammad Javad Tondguyan, 53, Iranian engineer and politician.
 * Leopold Vogl, 81, Austrian football player and manager.

17

 * Mitsuo Aida, 67, Japanese poet, brain hemorrhage.
 * John Anton Blatnik, 80, American politician, member of the U.S. House of Representatives (1947–1974).
 * Heinz Brücher, 76, German-Argentine botanist and SS officer during World War II, murdered.
 * Jim Cunningham, 56, American basketball player.
 * Jesse Flores, 77, Mexican Major League Baseball player.
 * Armand Frappier, 87, Canadian physisican.
 * Chen Wen Hsi, 85, Chinese-Singaporean artist.
 * Carl Shy, 83, American basketball player.
 * Joey Smallwood, 90, Canadian politician.
 * Ronnie Starling, 82, English football player.
 * Kurt Weyher, 90, German rear admiral of the navy (Kriegsmarine) of Nazi Germany.

18

 * George Abecassis, 78, British racing driver.
 * Richard Bruck, 76, American mathematician.
 * Kerry Fitzgerald, 43, Australian rugby referee.
 * King Kolax, 79, American jazz trumpeter and bandleader, Alzheimer's disease.
 * Jean Orcibal, 78, French historian on religion.
 * Marion L. Starkey, 90, American historian.
 * June Storey, 73, Canadian-American actress, cancer.

19

 * Joe Cole, 30, American roadie (Rollins Band, Black Flag), shot.
 * Howie Dallmar, 69, American basketball player, heart failure.
 * Ernest K. Gann, 81, American aviator, sailor, and author (Fate Is the Hunter, The High and the Mighty), kidney failure.
 * Paul Maxwell, 70, Canadian-British actor (Coronation Street, Aliens, A Bridge Too Far).

20

 * Simone Beck, 87, French cookbook writer.
 * Walter Chiari, 67, Italian actor, heart attack.
 * John Brian Harley, 59, English cartographer.
 * Lal Chand Yamla Jatt, 77, Indian folk singer.
 * Waldemar Kazanecki, 62, Polish musician.
 * Maynard C. Krueger, 85, American socialist politician and academic.
 * Samuel Rabin, 80, English artist and Olympic wrestler (1928).
 * Albert Van Vlierberghe, 49, Belgian cyclist.
 * Gaston Waringhien, 90, French linguist.

21

 * José Miguel Barandiarán, 101, Spanish anthropologist, ethnographer, and catholic priest.
 * Minna Citron, 95, American painter and printmaker.
 * Alvin Robert Cornelius, 88, Pakistani jurist, legal philosopher and judge.
 * Colin Douglas, 79, English actor.
 * Francesco Golisano, 62, Italian film actor.
 * Hannes Häyrinen, 77, Finnish actor.
 * Sheldon Mayer, 74, American comics artist, writer, and editor.
 * Byron N. Scott, 88, American lawyer and politician.

22

 * Franz Brunner, 78, Austrian field handball player and Olympian silver medalist.
 * Joe Carter, 82, American football player.
 * James C. Fletcher, 72, American academic and NASA administrator.
 * Ernesto Grassi, 89, Italian philosopher.
 * Beaver Harris, 55, American jazz drummer.
 * Mirza Nurul Huda, 72, Bangladesh politician and academic.
 * Ernst Krenek, 91, Austrian-American composer.
 * Jack Otterson, 86, American art director.
 * Bruno Pellizzari, 84, Italian racing cyclist.
 * Hans Edmund Wolters, 76, German ornithologist.
 * Édouard Woolley, 75, Haitian-Canadian tenor, actor, and composer.

23

 * José Guerrero, 77, Spanish artist.
 * Gene Milford, 89, American film and television editor.
 * Andrew Odom, 55, American blues musician, heart attack.
 * Bořivoj Zeman, 79, Czech film director and screenwriter.

24

 * Jimmy Crapnell, 88, Scottish footballer.
 * El-Sayed El-Dhizui, 65, Egyptian football player.
 * Alfons Goppel, 86, German politician and Prime Minister of Bavaria.
 * Marion West Higgins, 76, American politician, traffic collision.
 * Ghulam Rasul, 60, Pakistani educationist and field hockey Olympic champion.
 * Virginia Sorensen, 79, American writer.

25

 * Curt Bois, 90, German actor.
 * Anton Burger, 80, German SS officer and concentration camp commandant.
 * Orane Demazis, 97, French actress.
 * Frank Finnigan, 88, Canadian ice hockey player.
 * Wilhelm Harster, 87, German policeman, SS officer and war criminal during World War ||.
 * Mahmood Hussain, 59, Pakistani cricket player, diabetes.
 * Gotlib Roninson, 75, Soviet actor.
 * Wilbur Snyder, 62, American gridiron football player.
 * Richard G. Stilwell, 74, United States Army general.

26

 * Prince Gorm of Denmark, 72, Danish prince.
 * Gustav Neidlinger, 81, German bass-baritone.
 * Tom Neumeier, 70, Dutch rower and Olympian.
 * Sid Wayne, 69, American songwriter, lyricist and composer.

27

 * Cary Cox, 73, American gridiron football player.
 * Hervé Guibert, 36, French writer and photographer, AIDS.
 * Eitan Livni, 72, Israeli revisionist zionist activist and politician.
 * Petro Marko, 78, Albanian writer.

28

 * Jacques Aubuchon, 67, American actor, heart failure.
 * Cassandra Harris, 43, Australian actress (For Your Eyes Only), ovarian cancer.
 * Enrique Herrera, 87, Cuban film actor.
 * Cy Kasper, 96, American football player and coach.
 * Leon Punch, 63, Australian politician.
 * Alfred Dudley Ward, 86, British Army general.

29

 * Dora Gordine, 96, Estonian-British sculptor.
 * V. N. Reddy, 77, Indian cinematographer and director.
 * Brian Reilly, 90, Irish chess master, writer and editor.
 * Tony Strobl, 76, American comic artist and animator (Pinocchio).
 * Alex Tremulis, 77, American automotive designer.

30

 * Jean Grumellon, 68, French football player.
 * Louis Henry, 80, French historian.
 * José Miguel Marín, 47, Argentine football player and coach, heart attack.
 * Michiko Nakanishi, 78, Japanese sprinter.
 * Marcus Morton Rhoades, 88, American cytogeneticist.
 * Piet Vermeylen, 87, Belgian lawyer and politician.

31

 * Yuri Belov, 61, Soviet and Russian film and theatre actor.
 * Felicja Blumental, 83, Polish pianist.
 * Marco Antonio Serna Díaz, 55, Colombian herpetologist, ornithologist, and naturalist.
 * Mary Virginia Gaver, 85, American librarian.
 * Raymond R. Guest, 84, American businessman and thoroughbred race horse owner, pneumonia.
 * Laurdine "Pat" Patrick, 62, American jazz musician, leukemia.
 * Georges Poulet, 89, Belgian literary critic.
 * Ken Robinson, 64, Canadian lawyer and politician.
 * Christopher Steel, 53, British composer.