Deaths in February 2003

The following is a list of notable deaths in February 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

 * Anne Burr, 84, American actress (Native Son, The Hasty Heart, As the World Turns).
 * Bodil Kjer, 85, Danish actress.
 * Adalberto Ortiz, 88, Ecuadorian writer.
 * Mongo Santamaría, 85, Cuban Latin jazz percussionist.
 * Nancy Whiskey, 67, Scottish folk singer ("Freight Train").
 * Crew of STS-107 killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster:
 * Michael P. Anderson, 43, American, payload commander.
 * David M. Brown, 46, American, mission specialist.
 * Kalpana Chawla, 40, American, mission specialist.
 * Laurel Clark, 41, American, mission specialist.
 * Rick Husband, 45, American, commander.
 * William C. McCool, 41, American, pilot.
 * Ilan Ramon, 48, Israeli, payload specialist.

2

 * Vincent "Randy" Chin, 65, Jamaican record producer, diabetes.
 * Tom Edmunds, 77, Australian politician.
 * József Gál, 84, Hungarian Olympic wrestler.
 * Lou Harrison, 85, American composer, noted for his microtonal works, heart attack.
 * Jack Lauterwasser, 98, English racing cyclist and cycling engineer, fall at home.
 * Richard C. Lee, 86, American politician, Mayor of New Haven, Connecticut.
 * Marcello Truzzi, 67, American professor of sociology, cancer.
 * Emerson Woelffer, 88, American abstract expressionist artist and teacher.
 * Eizo Yuguchi, 57, Japanese football player, stomach cancer.

3

 * Fulgencio Berdugo, 84, Colombian football player.
 * Natascha Artin Brunswick, 93, German-American mathematician and economist.
 * Lana Clarkson, 40, American actress (Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Scarface, Barbarian Queen), shot by record producer Phil Spector.
 * Venanzo Crocetti, 89, Italian sculptor.
 * João César Monteiro, 64, Portuguese film director, actor, writer and film critic, lung cancer.
 * Trevor Morris, 82, Welsh footballer and World War II pilot.
 * Peter Schat, 67, Dutch composer, cancer.

4

 * Charles McLaren, 3rd Baron Aberconway, 89, British industrialist and horticulturalist.
 * Benyoucef Benkhedda, 82, Algerian politician, head of Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (1961–1962).
 * Charlie Biddle, 76, American-Canadian jazz bassist, played with Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker.
 * Jean Brossel, 84, French physicist and modern quantum optics pioneer.
 * Pierre Carteus, 59, Belgian football player.
 * Jerome Hines, 81, American operatic bass.
 * Qalandar Momand, 72, Pakistani poet and writer.
 * James Needs, 83, British film editor.
 * André Noyelle, 71, Belgian road racing cyclist (1952 Olympic gold medals: individual road race, team road race).
 * Jaroslav Šajtar, 81, Czech chess master.

5

 * Guillermo González Calderoni, 54, Mexican Federal Judicial Police official, murdered.
 * René Cardona Jr., 63, Mexican filmmaker and actor.
 * Micky Fenton, 89, England football player.
 * Larry LeSueur, 93, American journalist, Parkinson's disease.
 * Antonina Shuranova, 66, Russian stage, television and film actress.
 * Joseph P. Vigorito, 84, American politician (U.S. Representative for Pennsylvania's 24th congressional district).
 * Manfred von Brauchitsch, 97, German auto racing driver, winner of three Grand Prix races in the 1930s.

6

 * Eric Ashby, 85, English naturalist and wildlife cameraman.
 * José Craveirinha, 80, Mozambican journalist, story writer and poet.
 * Arthur Doherty, 71, Irish politician.
 * René Haby, 83, French politician.
 * Robert William St. John, 100, American author, broadcaster, and journalist.
 * Peter Saunders, 91, British theatre impresario.

7

 * Augusto Monterroso, 81, Honduran writer, heart failure.
 * Amalia Nieto, 95, Uruguayan painter, engraver and sculptor.
 * Malcolm Roberts, 58, English pop singer, heart attack.
 * Stephen Whittaker, 55, British actor and director (Nicholas Nickleby, Sons and Lovers), complications following surgery.

8

 * Alfred Aston, 90, French football winger and manager.
 * William Louis Culberson, 73, American lichenologist, cancer.
 * John Charles Cutler, 87, American surgeon.
 * K. K. Soundar, 78, Tamil film actor.
 * Alice Treff, 96, German film actress.
 * Konrad Weichert, 68, German Olympic sailor (bronze medal in 1968 Dragon, silver medal in 1972 Dragon).

9

 * Herma Bauma, 88, Austrian javelin thrower (gold medal in women's javelin throw at the 1948 Summer Olympics).
 * Ruby Braff, 75, American jazz trumpeter and cornetist.
 * Masatoshi Gündüz Ikeda, 76, Japanese-Turkish mathematician.
 * Ken McKinlay, 74, British speedway rider.
 * Billy Parker, 61, American baseball player (California Angels), cancer.
 * Vera Ralston, 82, Czechoslovakian-American figure skater and "B" actress, star of ice capades, cancer.

10

 * Chuck Aleno, 85, American baseball player (Cincinnati Reds).
 * Ralph Beard, 73, American baseball player (St. Louis Cardinals).
 * Antoni Czubiński, 74, Polish historian.
 * Edgar de Evia, 92, American photographer pneumonia.
 * Antoinette Feuerwerker, 90, French jurist and member of the French Resistance during World War II.
 * Curt Hennig, 44, American professional wrestler, drug overdose.
 * Lars-Eric Kjellgren, 84, Swedish screenwriter and film director.
 * José Lewgoy, 82, American-Brazilian actor.
 * Clark MacGregor, 80, American politician and congressman (1961–1970).
 * Robert Rush Miller, 86, American zoologist and ichthyologist.
 * Walter Thomas James Morgan, 102, British biochemist.
 * Max Pécas, 77, French filmmaker, writer and producer, lung cancer.
 * Jan Veselý, 79, Czechoslovakian cyclist (men's individual road race, men's team road race at the 1952 Summer Olympics).
 * Ron Ziegler, 63, former press secretary for Richard Nixon during the Watergate Scandal, heart attack.

11

 * Socorro Avelar, 77, Mexican actress, stomach cancer.
 * Arndt Bause, 66, German composer, pulmonary embolism.
 * Marc Iliffe, 30, British strongman, suicide.
 * Daniel Toscan du Plantier, 61, French film producer, heart attack.
 * Moses Hogan, 45, American composer and arranger of choral music, brain cancer.
 * Luke Chia-Liu Yuan, 90, Chinese-American physicist and grandson of Yuan Shikai.

12

 * Wally Burnette, 73, American baseball player (Kansas City Athletics).
 * Michel Graillier, 56, French jazz pianist.
 * Vali Myers, 72, Australian artist, cancer.
 * Devendra Satyarthi, 94, Indian folklorist and writer.
 * Jeanne Stuart, 94, British stage and film actress.
 * Haywood Sullivan, 72, American baseball player (Boston Red Sox, Kansas City Athletics) and owner (Boston Red Sox), stroke.
 * Dick Whitman, 82, American baseball player (Brooklyn Dodgers, Philadelphia Phillies).
 * Kemmons Wilson, 90, American businessman, founder of Holiday Inn.

13

 * Joe Connelly, 85, American television and radio scriptwriter.
 * James Thomas Flexner, 95, American historian and biographer.
 * Kid Gavilán, 77, Cuban world boxing champion, heart attack.
 * Robert Ivers, 68, American actor.
 * Axel Jensen, 71, Norwegian author, ALS.
 * Stacy Keach, Sr., 88, actor (Pretty Woman, Teen Wolf, The Parallax View).
 * Stuart Keith, 71, British-American ornithologist.
 * Leonor Llausás, 73, Mexican actress, heart attack.
 * Walt Whitman Rostow, 86, American political advisor.

14

 * Dolly, 6, the world's first cloned mammal, euthanization following a lung disease.
 * Gunnar Johansson, 78, Swedish football player and manager.
 * Johnny Longden, 96, American jockey.
 * Paul E. Meehl, 83, American clinical psychologist.
 * Grigory Mkrtychan, 78, Soviet and Russian ice hockey goalkeeper.
 * Archie Savage, 88, American dancer, choreographer, and film and theatre actor.

15

 * Vincent Apap, 93, Maltese sculptor.
 * Alexander Bennett, 73, British ballet dancer, teacher and ballet master, principal dancer with the Royal Ballet.
 * Miroslav Horníček, 84, Czech actor, writer, director, and artist.
 * Vlastimil Koubek, 75, Czech-American architect, cancer.
 * Roberto Leydi, 74, Italian ethnomusicologist.
 * Fritz Pollard, 87, American athlete and Olympic medalist.
 * Francisque Ravony, 60, Malagasy lawyer and politician, heart attack.
 * Joaquín Solano, 89, Mexican Olympic medalist in equestrianism.
 * Richard Wilberforce, Baron Wilberforce, 95, British judge.

16

 * Philip John Gardner, 88, British recipient of the Victoria Cross.
 * Jim Gordon, 76, American television and radio newscaster, cancer.
 * Abu Ishaque, 76, Bangladeshi novelist.
 * Rusty Magee, 47, American composer of musicals, cancer.
 * Aleksandar Tišma, 79, Serbian novelist.

17

 * Steve Bechler, 23, American baseball player (Baltimore Orioles), ephedra overdose.
 * Julian Bigelow, 89, American computer engineer, built one of the first digital computers (IAS machine).
 * Allen Britton, 88, American music educator, contributed to the history of music pedagogy.
 * Pete Schrum, 68, American actor.

18

 * Quentin Anderson, 90, American literary critic and cultural historian (Henry James, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman), heart attack.
 * Ittla Frodi, 72, Swedish actress, writer and producer.
 * Isser Harel, 90/91, Israeli spymaster and director of the Mossad.
 * Beth Marion, 90, American B-movie actress, stroke.

19

 * Washington Beltrán, 88, Uruguayan politician, President (1965–1966).
 * Buck Divecha, 75, Indian cricket player.
 * Igor Gorbachyov, 75, Soviet and Russian actor, theater director and pedagogue.
 * James Hardy, 84, American pioneer surgeon.
 * Tanya Moiseiwitsch, 88, English theatre designer.
 * Johnny Paycheck, 64, American country music singer, pulmonary emphysema.

20

 * Maurice Blanchot, 95, French writer, philosopher and literary theorist.
 * Orville Freeman, 84, American politician, Governor of Minnesota and Secretary of Agriculture, Alzheimer's disease.
 * Harry Jacunski, 87, American gridiron football player (Green Bay Packers).
 * Ty Longley, 31, American guitarist for the heavy metal band Great White; victim in the Station nightclub fire.
 * Mushaf Ali Mir, 55, Pakistan statesman and air force general, plane crash.
 * Golam Mustafa, 67, Bangladeshi actor and reciter.
 * Jerzy Passendorfer, 79, Polish film director and member of parliament.
 * Robert Grier Stephens, Jr., 89, American politician.
 * Peter Tewksbury, 79, American film and television director.

21

 * Virginia Biddle, 92, American revue performer, showgirl, and nude model, complications following car accident.
 * Jim Courtright, 88, Canadian Olympic track and field athlete.
 * John E. Fryer, 65, American psychiatrist and gay rights activist, pneumonia.
 * Tom Glazer, 88, American folk singer and songwriter.
 * Karel Kosik, 76, Czech marxist philosopher.
 * Nelly Mazloum, 73, Egyptian actress, dancer, and choreographer.
 * Nora Ney, 96, Polish film actress.
 * Kevin O'Shea, 77, American basketball player.
 * Rusty Peters, 88, American baseball player (Philadelphia Athletics, Cleveland Indians, St. Louis Browns).
 * Eddie Thomson, 55, Scottish football player and coach, lymphoma.

22

 * Kurt Gscheidle, 78, German politician.
 * Donald Haldeman, 55, American sport shooter and Olympic gold medalist.
 * Jean-Pierre Miquel, 66, French actor and theatre director, cancer.
 * Daniel Taradash, 90, American screenwriter and winner of the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for From Here to Eternity, pancreatic cancer.

23

 * Shlomo Argov, 73, Israeli diplomat, Ambassador of Israel to the United Kingdom.
 * Howie Epstein, 47, American bass player for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, drug overdose.
 * Christopher Hill, 91, British historian.
 * Pavel Lebeshev, 63, Soviet and Russian cinematographer.
 * Robert K. Merton, 92, American sociologist.
 * Marcel Prawy, 91, Austrian dramaturg and opera critic.
 * Hasanagha Turabov, 64, Azerbaijani and Soviet actor.
 * Titos Vandis, 85, Greek actor (The Exorcist, Baretta, The A-Team, M*A*S*H, Kojak, Newhart), cancer.

24

 * Alex Cameron, 65, American English professor and pronouncer of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
 * Al Hibbs, 78, American mathematician and physicist known as "The Voice of JPL".
 * Susan Johnson, 75, American actor and singer, pulmonary emphysema.
 * Sam King, 91, English golfer.
 * Bernard Loiseau, 52, French chef, suicide by gunshot.
 * Walter Scharf, 92, American film composer, heart failure.
 * Alberto Sordi, 82, Italian comedy actor, heart attack.
 * Antoni Torres, 59, Spanish footballer, cancer.
 * Güven Önüt, 63, Turkish football player.

25

 * Alexander Kemurdzhian, 81, Armenian scientist and aerospace engineer.
 * John Lecky, 62, Canadian sport rower.
 * Eric Marsh, 82, English cricket player.
 * Tom O'Higgins, 86, Irish Fine Gael politician, barrister and judge.
 * René Römer, 73, Dutch academic and Governor of the Netherlands Antilles (1983-1990).

26

 * Harold Amos, 84, American microbiologist and professor, chairman of Harvard Medical School bacteriology department.
 * Brian Evans, 60, Welsh football player, cancer.
 * Akira Fujiwara, 80, Japanese historian.
 * Christian Goethals, 74, Belgian racing driver.
 * Jaime Ramírez, 71, Chilean football player.

27

 * Johnny Carpenter, 88, American film actor, screenwriter and producer, cancer.
 * Charles Knott, 88, English cricket player.
 * John Lanchbery, 79, British-Australian musician.
 * Wolfgang Larrazábal, 91, Venezuelan naval officer and politician.
 * James D. Nichols, 74, American horse racing jockey, rode in seven U.S. Triple Crown races.
 * Peter Petroff, 83, Bulgarian-American inventor, engineer, NASA scientist, and adventurer.
 * Fred Rogers, 74, American television personality, host of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
 * Othar Turner, 95, American fife player.

28

 * Albert Batteux, 83, French football player and manager, Alzheimer's disease.
 * Alfred Bernstein, 92, American civil rights, civil liberties and union activist.
 * Göte Blomqvist, 75, Swedish ice hockey player (bronze medal in ice hockey at the 1952 Winter Olympics).
 * Chris Brasher, 74, British track and field athlete (gold medal in men's 3000m steeplechase at the 1956 Summer Olympics).
 * Jacob E. Davis, 97, American politician.
 * Dinos Dimopoulos, 81, Greek film director.
 * Jim Fridley, 78, American baseball player (Cleveland Indians, Baltimore Orioles, Cincinnati Redlegs).
 * Fidel Sánchez Hernández, 85, former President of El Salvador, heart attack.
 * Yō Inoue, 56, Japanese voice actress, lung cancer.
 * Rudolf Kingslake, 99, English academic, lens designer, and engineer.
 * Major Sundarrajan, 67, Indian actor and director.