Deaths in December 2002

The following is a list of notable deaths in December 2002.

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

 * Abu Abraham, 78, Indian cartoonist, journalist, and author.
 * Edward L. Beach, Jr., 84, American highly decorated United States Navy submarine officer and author (Run Silent, Run Deep).
 * Cassius Chapin Cutler, 87, American communications engineer.
 * John L. McLucas, 82, American politician and U.S. Secretary of the Air Force.
 * Dave McNally, 60, American baseball player (Baltimore Orioles, Montreal Expos), lung cancer.
 * José Chávez Morado, 93, Mexican artist.
 * Boris Schapiro, 93, British international bridge player.

2

 * Elizabeth B. Andrews, 91, American politician (U.S. Representative for Alabama's 3rd congressional district).
 * Barney Berlinger, 94, American Olympic decathlon athlete (men's decathlon in the 1928 Summer Olympics).
 * Achille Castiglioni, 84, Italian industrial designer.
 * Aileen Fisher, 96, American children's writer (The Coffee-Pot Face, Runny Days, Sunny Days).
 * Ivan Illich, 76, Austrian Roman Catholic priest, theologian, and social critic, brain cancer.
 * Boris Ivanov, 82, Soviet and Russian film and theater actor.
 * György Marx, 75, Hungarian physicist, astrophysicist, and science historian.
 * Jim Mitchell, 56, Irish politician, cancer.
 * Arno Peters, 86, German historian and filmmaker.
 * Vjenceslav Richter, 85, Croatian architect.
 * Edgar Scherick, 78, American television executive and producer.
 * Mehmet Emin Toprak, 28, Turkish film actor, traffic collision.
 * Ben Wade, 80, American baseball player (Chicago Cubs, Brooklyn Dodgers, St. Louis Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates) and scout.
 * Mal Waldron, 77, American jazz pianist and composer (Billie Holiday, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane).
 * Fay Gillis Wells, 94, American pioneer aviator.

3

 * Adrienne Adams, 96, American children's writer and illustrator.
 * Hariharananda Giri, 95, Indian yogi and guru.
 * Pierre Guillaume, 77, French Navy officer, cancer.
 * Klaus Löwitsch, 66, German actor, pancreatic cancer.
 * Glenn Quinn, 32, Irish actor (Roseanne, Angel), heroin overdose.
 * Jug Thesenga, 88, American baseball player (Washington Senators).

4

 * Charles Pierce Davey, 77, American welterweight boxer, complications from paralysis.
 * Noémia de Sousa, 76, Mozambique poet.
 * Robert Mallet, 87, French writer and academic,.
 * Hemmo Silvennoinen, 70, Finnish Olympic ski jumper.

5

 * Roone Arledge, 71, American television producer and executive (Monday Night Football, Nightline), prostate cancer.
 * Bob Berg, 51, American jazz saxophonist, traffic collision.
 * Prosper Boulanger, 84, Canadian politician and a member of Parliament (House of Commons representing Mercier, Quebec).
 * Geoff Coombes, 83, American soccer player.
 * Arvell Shaw, 79, American jazz double-bassist.
 * Einar Skinnarland, 84, Norwegian resistance fighter during World War II.
 * Ann Welch, 85, British glider pilot (gliding, hang gliding, paragliding, microlight flying).
 * Ne Win, 91, Burmese politician and dictator.

6

 * Jerzy Adamski, 65, Polish featherweight boxer (silver medal winner in featherweight boxing at the 1960 Summer Olympics).
 * Clarence Beers, 83, American baseball player (St. Louis Cardinals).
 * Philip Berrigan, 79, American priest and political activist, kidney cancer.
 * Antonino Caponnetto, 82, Italian Antimafia magistrate.
 * William Henry Gleysteen, 76, American diplomat and ambassador, leukemia.
 * Gerhard Löwenthal, 79, German journalist, human rights activist and author.

7

 * R. Orin Cornett, 89, American physicist, university professor and inventor of Cued Speech.
 * John R. Dellenback, 84, American politician (U.S. Representative for Oregon's 4th congressional district), viral pneumonia.
 * Gunnar Helén, 84, Swedish liberal politician.
 * Barbara Howard, 76, Canadian painter, wood engraver, and bookbinder, pulmonary embolism.
 * Cal Lepore, 83, American gridiron football referee.
 * Paddy Tunney, 81, Irish traditional artist.

8

 * Bobby Joe Hill, 59, American basketball player, heart attack.
 * Melvin Lax, 80, American physics professor, cancer.
 * Anil Moonesinghe, 75, Sri Lankan revolutionary politician and trade unionist.
 * Charles Rosen, 85, American computer scientist.
 * Dorothy Walker, 73, Irish art critic and historian.

9

 * Shigeru Chiba, 83, Japanese baseball player and manager.
 * Joly Garbi, 90, Greek actress.
 * Mary Hansen, 36, Australian guitarist and singer, traffic accident.
 * Ian Hornak, 58, American draughtsman, painter and printmaker, aortic aneurysm.
 * To Huu, 82, Vietnamese poet and politician.
 * Johnny Lazor, 90, American baseball player (Boston Red Sox).
 * Stan Rice, 60, painter, educator, poet, husband of author Anne Rice, cancer.
 * Theodore Shackley, 75, American CIA officer known as "the Blond Ghost", cancer.

10

 * Les Costello, 74, Canadian ice hockey player (Toronto Maple Leafs) and Catholic priest.
 * Kurt Heintel, 78, Austrian film and television actor.
 * Earl Henry, 85, American baseball player (Cleveland Indians).
 * Átila Iório, 81, Brazilian actor, pulmonary emphysema.
 * Andres Küng, 57, Swedish journalist, writer, and politician.
 * Ian MacNaughton, 76, Scottish director of most episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
 * Julie Schmitt, 89, German gymnast and Olympic champion.
 * Homer Spragins, 82, American baseball player (Philadelphia Phillies).
 * Peter Tanner, 88, British film editor.

11

 * Domocao Alonto, 88, Filipino lawyer, author, and Islamic figure.
 * Luis Ciges, 81, Spanish film actor, heart attack.
 * Dolly Dawn, 86, American big band vocalist and recording star of the 1930s and 1940s.
 * Muzaffer Demirhan, 70, Turkish alpine skier (Winter Olympics: 1948, 1956, 1960, 1964).
 * Arthur Metcalfe, 64, British racing cyclist, cancer.
 * Nanabhoy Palkhivala, 82, Indian jurist, economist and civil rights leader.
 * Marvin Breckinridge Patterson, 97, American photojournalist, cinematographer, and philanthropist.
 * Kay Rose, 80, American Oscar-winning sound editor, organ dysfunction.
 * Lou Stein, 80, American jazz pianist.

12

 * Mykola Amosov, 89, Soviet/Ukrainian heart surgeon and inventor.
 * Dee Brown, 94, American author and historian (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee), heart failure.
 * Nancy Caroline, 58, American EMS physician and writer (Emergency Care in the Streets), multiple myeloma.
 * Brad Dexter, 85, American actor and film producer (Run Silent Run Deep, The Magnificent Seven, None but the Brave), pulmonary emphysema.
 * Kazuo Kasahara, 75, Japanese screenwriter.
 * Jabir Novruz, 69, Azerbaijani artist and poet.

13

 * Carlos Agostí, 80, Spanish-Mexican film actor.
 * Ronald Barnes, 61, Brazilian tennis player, cancer.
 * Maria Björnson, 53, French theatre designer, two-time Tony Award winner for The Phantom of the Opera (Best Scenic Design, Best Costume Design).
 * Stella Brooks, 92, American jazz singer of the 1940s.
 * Ronald Butt, 82, British journalist, political columninst and writer.
 * Ksenia Kepping, 65, Russian linguist and tangutologist.
 * Anthony Ler, 35, Singaporean graphic designer and convicted murderer, executed by hanging.
 * Shirley O'Hara, 78, American actress, diabetes.
 * Zal Yanovsky, 57, Canadian folk rock musician, lead guitarist and singer for The Lovin' Spoonful, heart attack.

14

 * Hank Arft, 80, American baseball player (St. Louis Browns).
 * Jack Bradley, 86, English football player.
 * Sidney Glazier, 86, American film producer.
 * Ruth Kobart, 78, American performer, pancreatic cancer.
 * Salman Raduyev, 35, Chechen separatist field commander, internal bleeding.
 * Enrique Tarigo, 75, Uruguayan jurist and political figure, lung cancer.
 * Frank Warren, 43, American gridiron football player, heart attack.
 * Ray Wietecha, 74, American gridiron football player (Michigan State, New York Giants) and coach.

15

 * John Crosby, 76, American conductor, founded the Santa Fe Opera.
 * Charles E. Fraser, 73, American real estate developer, transformed Hilton Head Island into a world-class resort.
 * Vladimir Haensel, 88, American chemical engineer.
 * Jan Mikołajczak, 95, Polish rower and Olympic medalist.
 * Dick Stuart, 70, American baseball player (Pittsburgh Pirates, Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies), cancer.

16

 * Bill Hunter, 82, Canadian ice hockey player, general manager and coach, cancer.
 * Licínio Rangel, 66, Brazilian Roman Catholic bishop.
 * Nighat Sultana, 67, Pakistani actress.
 * Don Vesco, 63, American businessperson and motorcycle racer, prostate cancer.

17

 * Colin Clark, 70, British film director and writer (My Week with Marilyn).
 * Muhammad Hamidullah, 94, Indian Hadith scholar and academic author.
 * Aideu Handique, 87, Indian actress.
 * James Hazeldine, 55, English actor and director, aortic dissection.
 * Frederick Knott, 86, English playwright and screenwriter (Dial M for Murder).
 * Hank Luisetti, 86, American basketball player and innovator.
 * Aleksei Pogorelov, 83, Soviet mathematician.
 * Boris Tokarev, 75, Soviet sprinter and Olympic silver medalist.

18

 * Saul Amarel, 74, American computer scientist and artificial intelligence pioneer.
 * Earl Audet, 81, American professional football player (USC, Washington Redskins, Los Angeles Dons) and actor.
 * Mahmoud Fayad, 77, Egyptian weightlifter (gold medal in featherweight weightlifting at the 1948 Summer Olympics).
 * Henry Gibson, 60, American percussionist.
 * Lucy Grealy, 39, Irish-American poet and memoirist, drug overdose.
 * Necip Hablemitoğlu, 48, Turkish historian and intellectual, homicide.
 * Ray Hnatyshyn, 68, Canadian politician and Governor-General of Canada, pancreatitis.
 * Bert Millichip, 88, British football player and administrator.
 * Edward Norris, 91, American film actor.
 * Wayne Owens, 65, American politician and a member of Congress, heart attack.
 * Jan Łomnicki, 73, Polish film director and screenwriter.

19

 * Claude Crocker, 78, American baseball player (Brooklyn Dodgers).
 * Will Hoy, 49, British racing driver, illness.
 * Barbara Lott, 82, British actress.
 * Kote Makharadze, 76, Soviet and Georgian actor and sports commentator, stroke.
 * Hrant Matevosyan, 67, Armenian writer and screenwriter.
 * Babubhai J. Patel, 91, India politician and chief minister.
 * Arthur Rowley, 76, English footballer, holder of the record for most career league goals.
 * Aleksandar Sarievski, 80, Macedonian singer-songwriter.
 * Roger Webb, 68, British musical director and composer (The Godsend, The Boy in Blue, Death of a Centerfold).
 * George Weller, 95, American World War II journalist.

20

 * Joanne Campbell, 38, British actress, starred in the 1980s comedy series Me and My Girl, deep-vein thrombosis.
 * James Richard Ham, 91, American Roman Catholic prelate.
 * Gordon McCarter, 71, American gridiron football official.
 * Keith Pavitt, 65, English academic.
 * Grote Reber, 90, American pioneer of radio astronomy.
 * Fritz Røed, 74, Norwegian sculptor.
 * Tore Tønne, 54, Norwegian politician, suicide.

21

 * Jeu van Bun, 84, Dutch football player (football at the 1948 Summer Olympics).
 * Duke Callaghan, 88, American cinematographer (Conan the Barbarian, Jeremiah Johnson, Miami Vice).
 * José Hierro, 80, Spanish poet, pulmonary emphysema.
 * Giò Pomodoro, 72, Italian sculptor, printmaker, and stage designer.
 * Victor Watts, 64, British toponymist, medievalist, and academic, heart attack.

22

 * Mario Ruiz Armengol, 88, Mexican pianist, composer, arranger, and conductor.
 * Ian Craib, 57, English sociologist and psychotherapist (The Importance of Disappointment).
 * William G. Bennett, 78, American gaming executive and real estate developer (Circus Circus Enterprises).
 * Susan Fleming, 94, American actress (Million Dollar Legs, The Ziegfeld Follies) and wife of actor Harpo Marx, heart attack.
 * Sanaa Gamil, 72, Egyptian actress, stomach cancer.
 * Julius S. Held, 77, German art historian.
 * Desmond Hoyte, 73, President of Guyana from 1985 to 1992.
 * Wilhelm Kment, 88, Austrian football player and manager.
 * Srboljub Krivokuća, 74, Yugoslav and Serbian football manager and player.
 * Joe Strummer, 50, former singer for The Clash, heart attack.
 * Clay Tanner, 71, American actor.
 * Kenneth Tobey, 85, American actor (Twelve O'Clock High, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, The Thing from Another World).
 * Gabrielle Wittkop, 82, French writer (The Necrophiliac), suicide.

23

 * Tatamkhulu Afrika, 82, South African poet and writer, struck by vehicle.
 * Anthony Besch, 78, British opera and theatre director (English National Opera, Scottish Opera, New Opera Company).
 * George Bullard, 74, American baseball player (Detroit Tigers).
 * John Henry Kyl, 83, American politician.
 * Ratheesh, 48, Indian film actor, heart attack.

24

 * Kjell Aukrust, 82, Norwegian author, poet, artist and humorist.
 * Miguel Busquets, 82, Chilean footballer.
 * Luciano Chailly, 82, French-Italian composer and arts administrator.
 * Ward Cuff, 89, American football player (New York Giants, Chicago Cardinals, Green Bay Packers).
 * James Ferman, 72, American-British film censor and director of British Board of Film Classification.
 * Erroll Fraser, 52, British Virgin Island speed skater (men's 500 metres, men's 1000 metres at the 1984 Winter Olympics).
 * Tita Merello, 98, Argentinian actress and singer.
 * V. K. Ramasamy, 76, Indian actor.
 * Richie Regan, 72, American basketball player and coach, heart failure.
 * Jake Thackray, 64, English singer-songwriter, heart failure.
 * Mihai Țurcaș, 60, Romanian sprint canoeist and Olympic medalist.

25

 * Gabriel Almond, 91, American political scientist.
 * Íñigo Cavero, 73, Spanish aristocrat, lawyer and politician.
 * Attilio Lambertini, 82, Italian racing cyclist.
 * Tine Logar, 86, Slovenian historical linguist, dialectologist, and academic.
 * William T. Orr, 85, American television executive producer (Maverick, F-Troop, 77 Sunset Strip).
 * Davina Whitehouse, 90, British-New Zealand actress (Night Nurse, Sleeping Dogs, Braindead), stroke.

26

 * Louis Laurie, 85, American boxer.
 * Åke Lindström, 74, Swedish actor and film director.
 * Al Lujack, 82, American basketball player.
 * Heinz Raack, 85, German field hockey player and Olympic silver medalist.
 * Frank Reiber, 93, American baseball player (Detroit Tigers).
 * Herb Ritts, 50, American celebrity and fashion photographer, pneumonia.
 * Armand Zildjian, 81, Armenian-American entrepreneur and manufacturer of cymbals.

27

 * Truid Blaisse-Terwindt, 85, Dutch field hockey- and tennis player.
 * Bill Chipley, 82, American professional football player (Boston Yanks, New York Bulldogs).
 * Judy Clark, 78, American film and television actress and singer.
 * Daniel Deffayet, 80, French classical saxophonist.
 * Youssef Fakhr Eddine, 67, Egyptian actor.
 * Carla Henius, 83, German soprano, mezzo-soprano and librettist.
 * George Roy Hill, 81, American film director (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, Slap Shot), Parkinson's disease.
 * Olli Lounasmaa, 72, Finnish experimental physicist and neuroscientist, drowned.
 * Yayori Matsui, 68, Japanese journalist and women's rights activist, cancer.
 * Pratima Barua Pandey, 68, Indian folk singer.
 * Ruth Svedberg, 99, Swedish track and field athlete and Olympic medalist.
 * María Luisa Zea, 89, Mexican actress and singer.

28

 * Maria Carbone, 94, Italian operatic soprano.
 * José Cibrián, 86, Argentine actor.
 * Fadia of Egypt, 59, Egyptian princess.
 * Clyde Goodnight, 78, American gridiron football player.
 * Achyut Kanvinde, 86, Indian architect.
 * Koreyoshi Kurahara, 75, Japanese screenwriter and director, pneumonia.
 * Albert Stubbins, 83, English footballer.
 * Per Voksø, 79, Norwegian newspaper editor and Christian leader.
 * Meri Wilson, 53, American model and singer-songwriter ("Telephone Man"), car accident.

29

 * Al Babartsky, 87, American gridiron football player (Fordham University, Chicago Cardinals, Chicago Bears).
 * Lloyd Barbee, 77, American lawyer and politician.
 * Billy Brown, 84, American triple jumper and long jumper (1941 world long jump leader, 1936 Summer Olympics men's triple jump).
 * Ralph Clanton, 88, American actor of film, stage, and television.
 * Don Clarke, 69, New Zealand rugby player.
 * John G. Dreyfus, 84, British typographer and printing historian.
 * Paul Hawkins, 90, British politician.
 * Lorenzo Miguel, 75, Argentine labor leader, kidney failure.
 * Július Satinský, 61, Slovak actor and comedian.
 * Robert Wierinckx, 87, Belgian road bicycle racer.

30

 * Mary Brian, 96, American actress, silent and sound film star (Peter Pan, The Virginian, Charlie Chan in Paris, Man on the Flying Trapeze), cardiovascular disease.
 * Barbara Durham, 60, American judge, first female chief justice of the Washington Supreme Court.
 * Wang Fanxi, 95, Chinese Trotskyist revolutionary.
 * Eleanor J. Gibson, 92, American psychologist.
 * Stan Javie, 83, American gridiron football player.
 * Antony Ponzini, 69, American actor.
 * Carl Schwende, 82, Canadian fencer and Olympian.
 * Mary Wesley, 90, English novelist (Jumping the Queue, The Camomile Lawn, Part of the Furniture).

31

 * Kazimierz Dejmek, 78, Polish actor, theatre and film director, and politician.
 * D. J. Enright, 82, British poet, novelist and critic.
 * Giovanni Rossi Lomanitz, 81, American physicist, cancer.
 * Kaare Meland, 87, Norwegian politician.
 * Hanni Ossott, 56, Venezuelan poet, translator and critic.
 * Li Rong, 82, Chinese linguist.
 * Desmond Tester, 83, English film and television actor and television presenter.
 * Flaviano Vicentini, 60, Italian road race cyclist.