Deaths in December 1996

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.

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.
 * 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.
 * 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.