Deaths in December 2003

The following is a list of notable deaths in December 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

 * Hamza Alavi, 82, Pakistani-British sociologist and activist (Campaign Against Racial Discrimination).
 * Fernando Di Leo, 71, Italian film director and script writer.
 * Clark Kerr, 92, American academic, chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley (1952–58), complications from a fall.
 * Eugenio Monti, 75, Italian bobsledder (six Olympic bobsledding medals: 1956 two silver, 1964 two bronze, 1968 two gold), suicide.
 * Carl Schenkel, 55, Swiss film director, heart attack.

2

 * Ruth Nanda Anshen, 103, American philosopher, author and editor.
 * Suzanne Cloutier, 80, Canadian film actress, liver cancer.
 * Alan Davidson, 79, British food writer and diplomat.
 * Vic Gordon, 92, British Australian actor of vaudeville, television and film.
 * Ignaz Kiechle, 73, German politician and minister for agriculture (1983–1993).
 * Frances Morris, 95, American actress.
 * Rudolph A. Peterson, 98, American banker.

3

 * Dulce Chacón, 49, Spanish poet, novelist and playwright, pancreatic cancer.
 * Jay Difani, 80, American baseball player (Washington Senators).
 * Ellen Drew, 88, American film actress, liver ailment.
 * Sita Ram Goel, 82, Indian historian, activist, writer, and publisher.
 * David Hemmings, 62, British actor and director, heart attack.

4

 * John H. Hannah, Jr., 64, American judge (U.S. District Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas), heart attack.
 * Dezső Lemhényi, 85, Hungarian water polo player, coach and Olympic champion.
 * Jimmy Smith, 92, Scottish football player.
 * David Vaughan, 59, English psychedelic artist.
 * Jacques Viau, 84, Canadian lawyer and reformist.

5

 * Paul Busby, 85, American baseball player (Philadelphia Phillies).
 * Bob Gregory, 82, American comics artist and writer.
 * Felix Kaspar, 88, Austrian figure skater (bronze medal in men's singles figure skating at the 1936 Winter Olympics).
 * Jack Keller, 61, American poker player.
 * José Manuel Pesudo, 67, Spanish football goalkeeper and coach.
 * Antony Rowe, 79, English rower and Olympian.
 * Gregorio García Segura, 74, Spanish composer of film scores.
 * Yasuo Tanaka, 71, Japanese voice actor.

6

 * Haddis Alemayehu, 93, Ethiopian Foreign Minister and novelist.
 * John Bingham, 61, British classical pianist.
 * Hans Hotter, 84, German operatic bass-baritone.
 * José María Jiménez, 32, Spanish road bicycle racer, heart attack.
 * Barry Long, 77, Australian spiritual teacher and writer.
 * P. Madhavan, 75, Indian film director and producer in Tamil cinema.
 * Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio, 85, Guatemalan military ruler, President of Guatemala.
 * Jerry Tuite, 36, American wrestler, heart attack.

7

 * Roland Asselin, 86, Canadian fencer (1948 Olympic fencing, 1952 Olympic fencing, 1956 Olympic fencing).
 * Barta Barri, 92, Hungarian-Spanish film actor.
 * Robert R. Benton, 79, American set decorator, respiratory failure.
 * Carl F. H. Henry, 90, American Evangelical theologian and founder of Christianity Today magazine.
 * Azie Taylor Morton, 67, American public servant (Treasurer of the United States), complications from a stroke.
 * Joe Skeen, 76, American politician, Parkinson's disease.

8

 * Lewis M. Allen, 81, American film and Broadway producer, nominated for seven Tony Awards, pancreatic cancer.
 * Margaret Jean Anderson, 84, Canadian businesswoman and senator (representing Northumberland--Miramichi, New Brunswick).
 * Nelson Bobb, 79, American professional basketball player (Temple University, Philadelphia Warriors), cancer.
 * Agnès Delahaie, 83, French actress and film producer.
 * Robert Detweiler, 73, American competition rower and Olympic champion, naval officer, and scientist.
 * Rubén González, 84, Cuban pianist.
 * Pekka Siitoin, 59, Finnish satanist, occultist and neo-Nazi, esophageal cancer.
 * Francine Weisweiller, 87, French socialite and patron of Jean Cocteau.

9

 * Carol M. Bundy, 61, American serial killer, heart failure.
 * Blackie Ko, 50, Taiwanese film director, stuntman, singer and actor, blood poisoning.
 * Keith McCreary, 63, Canadian hockey player, cancer.
 * Thomas M. Rees, 78, American politician.
 * Gladys Shelley, 91, American lyricist and composer.
 * Paul Simon, 75, American author and politician, United States Senator from Illinois (1985-1997), surgical complications.
 * Norm Sloan, 77, American college basketball player and coach (The Citadel, University of Florida, North Carolina State).

10

 * Begum Abida Ahmed, 80, Indian politician, First Lady of India as wife of Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed (974-1977).
 * Robert L. Bartley, 66, American newspaper editor (The Wall Street Journal editorial page) and Pulitzer Prize winner.
 * Oswald Cheung, 81, Hong Kong lawyer and politician, complications from burns.
 * Elizabeth Harrower, 85, American actress and television writer, cancer.
 * Sean McClory, 79, Irish actor.
 * Bill Morey, 83, American actor.
 * Raúl Armando Savoy, 63, Argentine football player.
 * Don Wheeler, 81, American baseball player (Chicago White Sox).

11

 * Malcolm Clarke, 60, British composer.
 * Ahmadou Kourouma, 76, Ivorian novelist.
 * Shah Ahmad Noorani, 77, Pakistani Islamic scholar, mystic, philosopher, revivalist and an ultra–conservative politician.
 * Ann Petersen, 76, Belgian actress.
 * Ram Kishore Shukla, 80, Indian politician.
 * Paulos Tzadua, 82, Ethiopian Catholic Archbishop of Addis Abeba.

12

 * Heydar Aliyev, 80, Azerbaijani politician, served as the third president of Azerbaijan.
 * Ross Belsher, 70, Canadian politician (member of Parliament of Canada for Fraser Valley East, British Columbia).
 * Eva Besnyö, 93, Dutch-Hungarian photographer.
 * Michael Casson, 78, British potter.
 * Joseph Anthony Ferrario, 77, American Roman Catholic prelate, Bishop of Honolulu (1982–1993), heart attack.
 * Earl Gillespie, 81, American sportscaster, voice of the Milwaukee Braves.
 * Marcello Giombini, 75, Italian composer, well.
 * Keiko, 27, orca famed for Reino Aventura and Free Willy, pneumonia.
 * Rudolf Krause, 76, German football player and coach.
 * Kurt Magnus, 91, German scientist.
 * Fadwa Tuqan, 86, Palestinian poet.

13

 * Elizabeth Bates, 56, American professor of cognitive science, pancreatic cancer.
 * Luis González y González, 78, Mexican historian.
 * Mollie Hardwick, 87, British writer.
 * Alexis Kanner, 61, French-Canadian film and television actor, heart attack.
 * David Perlov, 73, Israeli documentary filmmaker.
 * Balasubramaniam Ramamurthi, 81, Indian neurosurgeon and author.
 * William Roth, 82, American lawyer and politician United States Senator from Delaware from 1971 to 2001.
 * Xie Tian, 89, Chinese actor and director.
 * Webster Young, 71, American jazz trumpeter (Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie), brain cancer.
 * Māris Čaklais, 63, Latvian poet and writer.

14

 * Daniel Arasse, 59, French art historian, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
 * Don Concannon, 73, British Labour Party politician.
 * Jeanne Crain, 78, American actress, heart attack.
 * Blas Ople, 75, Filipino journalist and politician, heart attack.
 * François Rauber, 70, French pianist, composer, arranger and conductor.
 * Frank Sheeran, 83, American labor union leader and mobster, "The Irishman", cancer.

15

 * Johnny Cunningham, 46, British folk musician, heart attack.
 * Jack Gregory, 80, British athlete and Olympic silver medalist.
 * Garvin Hamner, 79, American baseball player (Philadelphia Phillies).
 * Göthe Hedlund, 85, Swedish speed skater and Olympic medalist.
 * David S. Lewis, 86, American aerospace engineer.
 * Keith Magnuson, 56, Canadian ice hockey player (Chicago Black Hawks), road accident.
 * Edward Montagne, 91, American television series producer and film director.
 * Dora Wasserman, 84, Russian-Canadian actress, playwright, and theater director.

16

 * Siegfried Hold, 72, German cinematographer.
 * Alfred Lynch, 72, English actor, cancer.
 * Judd Marmor, 93, American psychoanalyst and psychiatrist.
 * Hugo Moser, 77, Argentine television and film producer and screenwriter, cardiovascular disease.
 * Madlyn Rhue, 68, American actress, pneumonia.
 * Aglaja Schmid, 77, Austrian stage and film actress.
 * Veikko Sinisalo, 77, Finnish actor.
 * Robert Stanfield, 89, Canadian politician (member of Parliament representing Colchester—Hants and Halifax, Nova Scotia), pneumonia.
 * Gary Stewart, 58, American country music singer "She's Actin' Single (I'm Drinkin' Doubles)", suicide.
 * Peter Hardy, Baron Hardy of Wath, 72, British Labour Party politician.

17

 * Ed Devereaux, 78, Australian actor, cancer.
 * Otto Graham, 82, American gridiron football (Cleveland Browns) and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, heart aneurysm.
 * Wally Hedrick, 75, Seminal American artist in the 1950s California counterculture, gallerist, and educator.
 * Mary Ann Jackson, 80, American child actress, heart attack.
 * José Richa, 69, Brazilian politician.
 * David Smith, 69, English cricketer.
 * Alan Tilvern, 86, English actor and voice artist (Bhowani Junction, The Lord of the Rings (1978 film), Who Framed Roger Rabbit).
 * Jim Wolf, 51, American gridiron football player (Prairie View A&M, Pittsburgh Steelers, Kansas City Chiefs), multiple sclerosis.

18

 * Charles Berlitz, 90, American linguist, spoke 32 languages.
 * Glenn Cunningham, 91, American politician.
 * Jack Dormand, 84, British politician.
 * Ergilio Hato, 77, Dutch Antillean goalkeeper from Curaçao.
 * Branko Horvat, 75, Croatian economist and politician.
 * Cresson Kearny, 89, United States Army officer.
 * Susan Travers, 94, only English woman to serve in the French Foreign Legion.
 * Richard Wahlstrom, 72, American Olympic rower (bronze medal in men's coxed four at the 1952 Summer Olympics).

19

 * Roger Conant, 94, American herpetologist, cancer.
 * Yan Frid, 95, Soviet screenwriter and film director.
 * Roy Hughes, Baron Islwyn, 78, British Labour Party politician and trade union organiser.
 * Hope Lange, 72, American actress, ischemic colitis, infectious disease.
 * Heinz Marquardt, 80, German Luftwaffe fighter ace during World War II and recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.
 * Carmen Mauro, 77, American baseball player (Chicago Cubs, Brooklyn Dodgers, Washington Senators, Philadelphia Athletics).
 * Les Tremayne, 90, English actor, heart failure.

20

 * Charles Grean, 90, American producer and composer.
 * Grigore Grigoriu, 62, Moldovan actor, car accident.
 * Alan Magee, 84, American World War II airman, survived 22,000 ft. fall, stroke, kidney failure.
 * Gil Reece, 61, Welsh footballer.
 * Kostas Valsamis, 95, Greek sculptor.

21

 * Gawaine Baillie, 69, British amateur racing driver, industrialist, and stamp collector.
 * M. J. Gopalan, 94, Indian sportsman, among which cricket.
 * Prince Alfonso of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, 79, Spanish businessman and playboy, prostate cancer.
 * G. V. Iyer, 86, Indian film director and actor.
 * Hans Koller, 82, Austrian jazz tenor saxophonist and bandleader.
 * Andrea Scotti, 72, Mainly active in genre films.
 * Oleg Troyanovsky, 84, Soviet ambassador to Japan and China and representative to the United Nations (1976-1986).

22

 * Mikhail Borodulin, 36, Kazakhstani ice hockey player (men's ice hockey at the 1998 Winter Olympics), lung cancer.
 * Wah Chang, 86, Chinese-American designer, sculptor, and artist.
 * Dave Dudley, 75, American country music singer, heart attack.
 * Rose Hill, 89, English actress and operatic soprano.
 * George Patterson, 64, American basketball player.
 * Doris Shadbolt, 85, Canadian art curator and writer.
 * Andreas Tietze, 89, Austrian scholar of Turkish lexicography and language.

23

 * Charlie Bowles, 86, American baseball player (Philadelphia Athletics).
 * Kriangsak Chamanan, 86, Prime minister of Thailand.
 * Valentin Gavrilov, 57, Russian high jumper and Olympic medalist.
 * Don Lamond, 83, American jazz drummer, brain tumor.
 * John Newlove, 65, Canadian poet and editor.
 * John Sanders, 70, British organist, pneumonia.
 * Chandu Sarwate, 83, Indian cricketer and fingerprint expert.
 * Guglielmo Trevisan, 85, Italian football manager and football player.

24

 * Herman Keiser, 89, American golfer, Alzheimer's disease.
 * James Kitching, 81, South African vertebrate palaeontologist, cancer.
 * Gunnar Alf Larsen, 83, Norwegian Labour Party politician.
 * Eugene Maltsev, 74, Soviet Russian painter.
 * Noel Toy, 84, American burlesque performer.

25

 * Charles Concordia, 95, American electrical engineer and computer pioneer.
 * Ulf Isaksson, 49, Swedish ice hockey player.
 * Nicholas Mavroules, 74, American politician.
 * Nicola Paone, 88, American singer, songwriter, and restaurateur.

26

 * Hugh Bean, 74, English violinist, teacher and leader of the Philharmonia Orchestra.
 * Gale Bishop, 81, American professional basketball player (Washington State, Philadelphia Warriors).
 * Redfern Froggatt, 79, English footballer.
 * Phil Goldman, 39, American engineer and entrepreneur, heart failure.
 * Chauncy Harris, 89, American geographer.
 * Clifton McNeely, 84, American basketball player and coach.
 * Paul Owens, 79, American Major League Baseball manager, and scout.
 * Ivan Petrov, 83, Soviet and Russian bass opera singer.
 * Yoshio Shirai, 80, first Japanese world boxing champion, pneumonia.
 * Milan Vasić, 75, Serbian historian.

27

 * Pete Alvarado, 83, American animation and comic book artist (Disney Studios, Warner Bros. Animation, Western Publishing), heart attack.
 * Alan Bates, 69, British actor (The Fixer, Zorba the Greek, Women in Love), pancreatic cancer.
 * Iván Calderón, 41, Puerto Rican baseball player (Seattle Mariners, Chicago White Sox, Montreal Expos), homicide by gunshot.
 * Ingeborg Cook, 88, Norwegian actress and singer.
 * Lawrence Cook, 73, American actor.
 * Gerhard Doerfer, 83, German philologist.
 * Vestal Goodman, 74, American Southern Gospel singer, complications from influenza.
 * Heinz Kiessling, 77, German musician, conductor, composer and music producer.
 * Nagavally R. S. Kurup, 86, Indian writer and broadcaster.
 * E. Arsenio Manuel, 94, Filipino academic, historian, and anthropologist.
 * K. S. Narasimhaswamy, 88, Indian poet.
 * Richie Niemiera, 82, American basketball player and coach (Notre Dame, Fort Wayne Pistons, Anderson Packers).
 * Juan García Ponce, 71, Mexican novelist, short-story writer, essayist, and art critic.
 * Patrick J. Reynolds, 83, Irish politician.
 * Ying Ruocheng, 74, Chinese actor (Marco Polo, The Last Emperor, Little Buddha), director, and China's vice-minister of culture.

28

 * Harald Feller, 90, Swiss diplomat and Righteous Among the Nations for his efforts during World War II.
 * Guy Héraud, 83, French politician and lawyer.
 * Helen Kleeb, 96, American film and television actress.
 * Michael Melle, 73, South African cricket player.
 * Frank Parr, 85, British chess player.
 * Thomas Pearsall, 83, Australian politician.
 * Polly Rosenbaum, 104, American politician and teacher.
 * Johannes Schmitt, 60, German athlete and Olympian.
 * Murray Smith, 63, British television writer and producer.
 * A. William Sweeney, 83, American soldier and lawyer.
 * John Terraine, 82, British military historian.
 * Kushabhau Thakre, 81, Indian politician and a Member of parliament.

29

 * Charles E. Beatley, 87, American politician, mayor of Alexandria, Virginia.
 * Michael Courtney, 58, Irish prelate of the Catholic Church, homicide.
 * Jaime de Piniés, 86, Spanish diplomat.
 * Gerald Gutierrez, 53, American Tony Award-winning stage director, respiratory failure.
 * Earl Hindman, 61, American actor (Home Improvement, The Parallax View, Taps), lung cancer.
 * Dinsdale Landen, 71, British actor, pneumonia.
 * Don Lawrence, 75, British comic book artist, pulmonary emphysema.
 * Bob Monkhouse, 75, British comedian and game show host, prostate cancer.
 * Tino Schwierzina, 76, German lawyer and politician.
 * Michel Zanoli, 35, Dutch road cyclist (men's individual road race, men's team time trial at 1988 Summer Olympics), heart failure.
 * Ersa Siregar, 52, Indonesian journalist, murdered

30

 * David Bale, 62, South African businessman and activist, lymphoma.
 * Vladimir Bogomolov, 77, Soviet writer (The Moment of Truth, 1973).
 * John Gregory Dunne, 71, American novelist and screenwriter, heart attack.
 * Nora Heysen, 92, Australian artist.
 * Ibram Lassaw, 90, Russian-American sculptor.
 * Anita Mui, 40, Hong Kong pop queen, cervix uterine cancer.
 * Patricia Roc, 88, English film actress, kidney failure.
 * Johnny Sands, 75, American film and television actor.
 * Salma Sobhan, 66, Bangladeshi lawyer, academic, and human rights activist.
 * Hukwe Zawose, 65, Tanzanian musician.

31

 * German Apukhtin, 67, Soviet Russian football player.
 * Geoffrey Thomas Sandford Baylis, 90, New Zealand botanist and academic.
 * John A. Franks, 78, American businessman and a thoroughbred racehorse owner and breeder.
 * Dora Gad, 91, Israeli interior designer.
 * Gerald Goldberg, 91, Irish lawyer and politician.
 * Béla Julesz, 75, Hungarian-American visual neuroscientist and experimental psychologist.
 * Béla Kárpáti, 74, Hungarian football player.
 * Paula Raymond, 79, American model and actress, respiratory failure.
 * David Scott-Barrett, 81, British army general.
 * Arthur R. von Hippel, 105, German-American scientist and MIT professor.
 * Sieglinde Wagner, 82, Austrian operatic contralto.
 * Max West, 87, American baseball player (Boston Bees/Braves, Cincinnati Reds, Pittsburgh Pirates), brain cancer.