Deaths in January 2002

The following is a list of notable deaths in January 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

 * Rolando Del Bello, 76, Italian tennis player.
 * Mohand Arav Bessaoud, 77, Algerian writer and activist.
 * Daulat Bikram Bista, 76, Nepali writer and poet.
 * Bonnie Mealing, 89, Australian swimmer (silver medal in women's 100 metre backstroke at the 1932 Summer Olympics).
 * Eugene Nickerson, 83, American county executive and judge, complications from ulcer surgery.
 * Carol Ohmart, 74, American actress (House on Haunted Hill, The Wild Party, The Scarlet Hour) and model.
 * Julia Phillips, 57, American film producer (The Sting, Taxi Driver, Close Encounters of the Third Kind) and author, Oscar winner (1974), cancer.
 * Patrick Kwame Kusi Quaidoo, 77, Ghanaian politician and businessman.
 * Nuchhungi Renthlei, 88, Indian poet and singer.
 * Astrid Sampe, 92, Swedish textile designer.
 * Catya Sassoon, 33, American actress, singer and model, heart attack after drug overdose.
 * Meg Wyllie, 84, American actress (The Twilight Zone, Perry Mason, Star Trek, The Fugitive).

2

 * Armi Aavikko, 43, Finnish beauty queen and singer, pneumonia.
 * Anil Agarwal, 55, Indian environmentalist and science correspondent.
 * Rui Campos, 79, Brazilian football player.
 * Pablo Antonio Cuadra, 89, Nicaraguan essayist, playwright, and graphic artist.
 * Ahmed Dawood, 102, Pakistani industrialist and philanthropist.
 * Ian Grist, 63, British Conservative politician, stroke.
 * Heath MacQuarrie, 82, Canadian politician, scholar, and writer.
 * Charlie Mitten, 80, English football player and manager.
 * Chester Nimitz Jr., 86, American submarine commander.
 * Bibi Osterwald, 81, American actress.
 * Bob Stevens, 85, American sportswriter.

3

 * Donald Martin Carroll, 92, American Roman Catholic priest.
 * Satish Dhawan, 81, Indian aerospace engineer.
 * Miki Dora, 67, American surfer, stunt double and actor (Beach Blanket Bingo, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini), pancreatic cancer.
 * Juan García Esquivel, 83, Mexican bandleader and composer for film and television.
 * Freddy Heineken, 78, Dutch beer magnate, pneumonia.
 * Martin Ruby, 79, American gridiron football player.
 * Al Smith, 73, American baseball player (Cleveland Indians, Chicago White Sox, Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox).
 * Baldur R. Stefansson, 84, Canadian agricultural scientist.

4

 * Nathan Chapman, 31, U.S. Army soldier, first American soldier killed in combat in the war in Afghanistan.
 * Georg Ericson, 82, Swedish football (soccer) player and coach.
 * Ada Falcón, 96, Argentine tango dancer, singer and film actress.
 * Michael Howard, 79, English choral conductor, organist and composer.
 * Douglas Jung, 74, Canadian politician and a member of Parliament (House of Commons), heart attack.
 * Mustafa Krantja, 80, Albanian classical music conductor and composer.
 * Grace Mera Molisa, 55, Ni-Vanuatu politician, poet and feminist.
 * Jim Sears, 70, American gridiron football player.
 * Adrián Zabala, 85, Cuban-American baseball player (New York Giants).

5

 * Igor Cassini, 86, American syndicated gossip columnist (Cholly Knickerbocker) for the Hearst newspaper.
 * Valentin Chernikov, 64, Soviet Olympic fencer (1956 men's team épée, bronze medal at 1960 men's team épée).
 * Fielding Dawson, 71, American author, poet and artist.
 * Roger Gyselinck, 81, Belgian racing cyclist.
 * Astrid Henning-Jensen, 87, Danish film director, actress, and screenwriter.
 * Kamel Maghur, 67, Libyan lawyer and diplomat.
 * Graham Ryder, 52, English geologist and lunar scientist, cancer of the esophagus.
 * Vadim Shefner, 86, Soviet and Russian poet and writer.
 * Bryan Thurlow, 65, English football player.

6

 * Bobby Austin, 68, American country musician ("Apartment No. 9", "For Your Love").
 * Per-Arne Berglund, 74, Swedish Olympic javelin thrower (1948 men's javelin throw, 1952 men's javelin throw).
 * Serge Brignoni, 98, Swiss avant-garde painter and sculptor.
 * Sanya Dharmasakti, 94, Thai jurist, university professor and politician, Prime Minister of Thailand from 1973 to 1975.
 * Kunjandi, 82, Indian actor.
 * Johnnie Mae Matthews, 79, American blues and R&B singer, songwriter, and record producer, cancer.
 * Mario Nascimbene, 88, Italian film soundtrack composer.
 * John W. Reynolds, 80, American politician and jurist, Governor of Wisconsin (1963–1965).
 * Fred Taylor, 77, American basketball coach (Ohio State University) and baseball player (Washington Senators).
 * Marian Wenzel, 69, British artist and art historian, leading authority on the art of medieval Bosnia and Herzegovina, cancer.
 * Christa Worthington, 45, American fashion writer (Women's Wear Daily, Cosmopolitan, ELLE, Harper's Bazaar), homicide.

7

 * Frank Cave, 59, British trade unionist and political activist (National Union of Mineworkers), brain cancer.
 * Geoff Crompton, 46, American basketball player (Denver Nuggets, Portland Trail Blazers, Milwaukee Bucks, San Antonio Spurs, Cleveland Cavaliers), leukemia.
 * Geoffrey Crossley, 80, British Formula One race car driver, stroke.
 * René Etiemble, 92, French essayist, scholar, and novelist.
 * Mighty Igor, 70, American professional wrestler, heart attack.
 * Björn Landström, 84, Finnish-Swedish artist, writer, and illustrator.
 * Jon Lee, 33, British drummer (Feeder), suicide.
 * Bill Lenny, 78, British film editor.
 * Hal Marnie, 83, American baseball player (Philadelphia Phillies).
 * Raúl Mazorra, 73, Cuban sprinter and Olympian.
 * Avery Schreiber, 66, American comedian and actor, heart attack.
 * Lev Zaykov, 78, Soviet politician and statesman.

8

 * M. S. Bartlett, 91, English statistician.
 * Romeo Cascarino, 79, American composer of classical music.
 * David McWilliams, 56, Northern Irish singer-songwriter ("Days of Pearly Spencer"), heart attack.
 * Alexander Prokhorov, 85, Soviet physicist, winner of 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics.
 * Dave Thomas, 69, American entrepreneur, founder of Wendy's, liver cancer, liver tumor.
 * Glayde Whitney, 62, American behavioral geneticist and psychologist, promoted controversial race based genetics.
 * Viggo Widerøe, 97, Norwegian aviator and entrepreneur.

9

 * Mush March, 93, Canadian ice hockey player (Chicago Black Hawks).
 * Bill McCutcheon, 77, American actor (Sesame Street, Anything Goes, Steel Magnolias), Tony winner (1988), Alzheimer's disease.
 * Wang Ruoshui, 75, Chinese journalist, political theorists and philosopher, lung cancer.
 * K. William Stinson, 71, U.S. Representative from Washington.

10

 * Olga Biglieri, 86, Italian futurist painter and aviator.
 * John Buscema, 74, American comic book artist (Marvel Comics), cancer.
 * Wallie Amos Criswell, 92, American pastor, author and two-term president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1968 to 1970.
 * Philip Drazin, 67, British mathematician, university teacher and author, an international expert in fluid dynamics.
 * Andrés Hammersley, 82, Chilean tennis player.
 * Günther Ortmann, 85, German field handball player.
 * Cedric Smith, 84, British statistician.
 * Ikkō Tanaka, 71, Japanese graphic designer, heart attack.
 * C. R. Vyas, 77, Indian classical singer.

11

 * Gerrit Brokx, 68, Dutch politician.
 * Gene Dinwiddie, 65, American blues saxophonist.
 * Ajay Mitra Shastri, 67, Indian academic, historian and numismatist.
 * Christer Strömholm, 83, Swedish photographer.
 * Henri Verneuil, 81, French filmmaker and playwright.

12

 * Bernard Bennett, 70, English snooker and billiards player.
 * John Berger, 92, Swedish Olympic cross-country skier (bronze medal winner in the men's 4 × 10 kilometre relay at the 1936 Winter Olympics).
 * Moss Evans, 76, British union leader, general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union.
 * Edwin M. Martin, 93, American diplomat and ambassador, pneumonia.
 * Harold B. McSween, 75, American politician (U.S. Representative for Louisiana's 8th congressional district) and businessman.
 * Ernest Pintoff, 70, American film and television director and animator (Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for The Critic), stroke.
 * Henry S. Reuss, 89, American politician.
 * Neville Sandelson, 78, British politician.
 * Stanley Unwin, 90, South African-born English comedian.
 * Cyrus Vance, 84, United States Secretary of State, international peacemaker, pneumonia.

13

 * Richard Bolt, 90, American physicist, specializing in acoustics, founded Bolt, Beranek and Newman.
 * Ted Demme, 38, American film and television director (Blow, The Ref, Yo! MTV Raps, Beautiful Girls), heart attack.
 * Samuel Dolin, 84, Canadian composer and music educator.
 * Guadalupe Dueñas, Mexican short story writer and essayist.
 * Charity Adams Earley, 83, United States Army officer.
 * Paul Fannin, 94, American politician and businessman, Governor of Arizona (1959–1965), U.S. Senator from Arizona (1965–1977), cerebrovascular disease.
 * Gregorio Fuentes, 104, Cuban sailor and Ernest Hemingway's first mate, fishing companion and confidant.
 * Georges Glasser, 94, French tennis player and president of the Tennis Club de Paris.
 * Antonije Isaković, 78, Serbian writer.
 * Pierre Joubert, 91, French illustrator and comics artist.
 * Frank Shuster, 85, Canadian comedian.
 * José María Sánchez-Silva, 90, Spanish writer.
 * Christian von Bülow, 84, Danish Olympic sailor (silver medal in 1956 Dragon sailing, gold medal in 1964 Dragon sailing).

14

 * Edith Bouvier Beale, 84, American socialite, fashion model and cabaret performer, known as "Little Edie", heart attack.
 * Michael Young, Baron Young of Dartington, 86, British sociologist, social activist and politician, coined the term "meritocracy".
 * David John Hamer, 78, Australian politician.
 * Rachel Bubar Kelly, 79, American politician for the Prohibition Party.
 * Cele Goldsmith Lalli, 68, American editor, accidental death.
 * Antonio Sbardella, 76, Italian football player, referee and sports official.
 * Olav Selvaag, 89, Norwegian engineer and residential contractor.

15

 * Michael Anthony Bilandic, 78, American politician (39th Mayor of Chicago), heart failure.
 * Eugène Brands, 89, Dutch painter, an early member of the COBRA avant-garde art movement.
 * Jean Dockx, 60, Belgian football player and manager.
 * David Epstein, 71, American composer, conductor, and music scientist.
 * Miguel Flores, 81, Chilean football player.
 * John M. Gaver, Jr., 61, American trainer of thoroughbred racehorses.
 * Jeremy Hawk, 83, British actor (Elizabeth).
 * Tomislav Kaloperović, 69, Yugoslav and Serbian football player and coach.
 * Vithabai Bhau Mang Narayangaonkar, Indian artist.
 * Michel Poniatowski, 79, French politician.

16

 * John Boulos, 80, Haitian soccer player.
 * Robert Hanbury Brown, 85, British astronomer and astrophysicist, pioneered the development of radar and radio astronomy.
 * Jean Elleinstein, 74, French historian specializing in communism.
 * Henry E. Erwin, 80, American U.S. Army Air Forces airman and recipient of the Medal of Honor for his actions in World War II.
 * Ivan Foxwell, 87, British film producer and screenwriter (Colditz Story, A Touch of Larceny, The Quiller Memorandum).
 * Ralph Jacobi, 73, Australian politician.
 * Milutin Kukanjac, 67, Yugoslav military officer.
 * Bobo Olson, 73, American boxer, Alzheimer's disease.
 * Ron Taylor, 49, American actor (The Wiz, The Simpsons, Rover Dangerfield), heart attack.
 * Jim Tunney, 78, Irish Fianna Fáil politician.
 * Michael Walford, 86, British field hockey, rugby and cricket player (silver medal in field hockey at the 1948 Summer Olympics).

17

 * Peter Adamson, 71, British actor (Coronation Street), stomach cancer.
 * Camilo José Cela, 85, Spanish novelist, poet, and essayist, 1989 Nobel Prize in Literature, cardiovascular disease.
 * Queenie Leonard, 96, British character actress and singer.
 * Harvey Matusow, 75, American artist, communist and Federal Bureau of Investigation informer, car accident.
 * Eddie Meduza, 53, Swedish rockabilly composer and musician, heart attack.
 * Bus Mertes, 80, American gridiron football player and coach, stroke.
 * Brian Simon, 86, British educationalist and historian.
 * Héctor Tosar, 78, Uruguayan pianist and classical composer.

18

 * Celso Daniel, 50, Brazilian politician and mayor, murdered.
 * Michel Fleury, 78, French historian, archivist and archaeologist, specialising in the history and archaeology of Paris.
 * Jovdat Hajiyev, 84, Azerbaijani composers of the Soviet period.
 * Alex Hannum, 78, American basketball coach.
 * Yasmeen Ismail, 51, Pakistani television actress and theater director.
 * Jorma Karhunen, 88, Finnish Air Force ace.

19

 * Jeff Astle, 59, English footballer, degenerative brain disease.
 * Jim Cameron, 71, Australian politician (Speaker of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly).
 * Martti Miettunen, 94, Finnish politician.
 * Vavá, 67, Brazilian football player, heart attack.
 * Ricky Womack, 40, American professional boxer (1982 U.S. amateur heavyweight champion), suicide.

20

 * John Aveni, 66, American gridiron football player (Indiana University, Chicago Bears, Washington Redskins).
 * Walter Carter, 72, Canadian politician and a member of Parliament (House of Commons).
 * Jean-Toussaint Desanti, 87, French educator and philosopher.
 * Moti Lal Dhar, 87, India drug chemist and academic.
 * Carrie Hamilton, 38, American actress (Cool World, Fame), lung cancer.
 * John Jackson, 77, American blues musician, liver cancer.
 * R. N. Kao, 83, Indian spy and the first chief of India's intelligence agency.
 * Ivan Karabyts, 57, Ukrainian composer and conductor.
 * Harold Kasket, 75, English actor.
 * Rudolf Staffel, 90, American ceramic artist and educator.
 * Luule Viilma, 51, Estonian doctor, esotericist and practitioner of alternative medicine, car crash.

21

 * Max Angst, 80, Swiss Olympic bobsledder (1956 Winter Olympics: two-man bobsleigh bronze medal, four-man bobsleigh).
 * Rolando Barral, 62, Cuban actor and talk show host (El Show de Rolando Barral), often called "the Latino Johnny Carson", stroke.
 * Peggy Lee, 81, American singer & actress (Lady and the Tramp, Pete Kelly's Blues, The Jazz Singer), diabetes, heart attack.
 * John Arthur Love, 85, American attorney and Republican politician (36th Governor of Colorado, first "Energy Czar").
 * Adolfo Marsillach, 73, Spanish actor, playwright and theatre director, prostate cancer.
 * Charlie Puckett, 90, Australian sportsman.
 * Zenon Snylyk, 68, Ukrainian-American soccer player.
 * George Trapp, 53, American basketball player (Atlanta Hawks, Detroit Pistons), stabbed.

22

 * Sheldon Allman, 77, Canadian-American singer, actor (Hud, In Cold Blood), songwriter and voice actor.
 * Kenneth Armitage, 85, British sculptor.
 * Peter Bardens, 57, English keyboardist and a founding member of the British progressive rock group Camel, lung cancer.
 * Guido Bernardi, 80, Italian cyclist (silver medal in men's team pursuit cycling at the 1948 Summer Olympics).
 * Henry Cosby, 73, American songwriter ("My Cherie Amour", "The Tears of a Clown", "Uptight (Everything's Alright)").
 * Eric de Maré, 91, British architectural photographer and writer.
 * George W. Dickerson, 88, American college football coach, interim head coach at UCLA for three games in 1958.
 * Stanley Marcus, 96, American businessman.
 * John McGrath, 66, British playwright and theatre theorist.
 * Jean Patchett, 75, American fashion model.
 * Salomon Tandeng Muna, 89, Cameroonian politician.
 * Jack Shea, 91, American speed skater (gold medalist: 500 metres and 1500 metres at the 1932 Winter Olympics), traffic collision.
 * A. H. Weiler, 93, American writer, editor and film critic for The New York Times.
 * John Andrew Young, 85, American politician (U.S. Representative for Texas's 14th congressional district).

23

 * Louis T. Benezet, 86, American educator and president of multiple colleges.
 * Pierre Bourdieu, 71, French sociologist and philosopher (Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste), cancer.
 * Charlie Bradshaw, 65, American gridiron football player (Baylor, Los Angeles Rams, Pittsburgh Steelers, Detroit Lions), cancer.
 * Thomas Carey, 70, American operatic baritone, pancreatic cancer.
 * Domingo Drummond, 44, Honduran football player, heart attack.
 * Igor Kipnis, 71, American harpsichordist, pianist and conductor, cancer.
 * Vittorio Mero, 27, Italian football player, traffic collision.
 * Robert Nozick, 63, American philosopher, lung cancer.
 * Pier Giorgio Perotto, 71, Italian electrical engineer and inventor.
 * Gerhard Prokop, 62, German football player and manager.
 * John Symank, 66, American gridiron football player.
 * Johannes E. Vecchi, 70, Argentine Roman Catholic priest, Rector Major of the Salesians.
 * Phil Warren, 63, New Zealand music promoter and politician, chairman of Auckland Regional Council.

24

 * Stuart Burge, 84, British film director, producer and actor (Nottingham Playhouse, Royal Court Theatre).
 * Paul B. Carpenter, 73, American politician (California State Assembly, California State Senate), convicted of corruption.
 * Nunzio Filogamo, 99, Italian television and radio presenter, actor and singer.
 * Peter Gzowski, 67, Canadian broadcaster, writer and reporter, emphysema.
 * Elie Hobeika, 45, Lebanese militia commander and politician, murdered.
 * Upendra Kumar, 60, Indian composer.
 * Andrei Mercea, 76, Romanian football player.
 * Edgar Ritchie, 85, Canadian diplomat.
 * Kurt Schaffenberger, 81, American comic book artist (Captain Marvel, Superman, Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane).
 * Gregorio Walerstein, 88, Mexican film producer and screenwriter.

25

 * J. Clifford Baxter, 43, American executive (Enron Corporation), suicide.
 * Willard Estey, 82, Canadian justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.
 * Chris Perry, 73, Indian musician, composer, songwriter and film producer.
 * Winston Place, 87, English cricketer.

26

 * Phyllis Bartholomew, 87, English track and field athlete.
 * Francisco Cabañas, 90, Mexican Olympic flyweight boxer (silver medal winner in flyweight boxing at the 1932 Summer Olympics).
 * Dorothy Carrington, 91, British writer, one of the leading scholars on Corsican culture and history.
 * Rudolph B. Davila, 85, United States Army officer, World War II Medal of Honor recipient.
 * Loonis McGlohon, 80, American songwriter and jazz pianist.
 * Ray Yochim, 79, American baseball player (St. Louis Cardinals).

27

 * Robert L. Chapman, 81, American professor, dictionary editor and thesaurus editor (Roget's Thesaurus).
 * Yelena Gorchakova, 68, Russian javelin thrower and Olympic medalist.
 * John James, 87, British racing driver.
 * Edgar Manske, 89, American gridiron football player.
 * Franz Meyers, 93, German politician and Minister President of North Rhine-Westphalia.
 * Reggie Sanders, 52, American baseball player (Detroit Tigers).
 * Alain Vanzo, 73, French opera singer and composer, stroke.

28

 * Hilda Carrero, 50, Venezuelan model and actress, cancer.
 * Andrew W. Cooper, 74, American activist, journalist, and editor-in-chief of The City Sun, stroke.
 * Gustaaf Deloor, 88, Belgian road racing cyclist.
 * Herbert Hirche, 91, German architect and furniture and product designer.
 * Hennie Keetelaar, 75, Dutch Olympic water polo player.
 * Andy Kulberg, 57, American musician, lymphoma.
 * Astrid Lindgren, 94, Swedish writer of fiction and screenplays, viral infection.
 * Jack Witikka, 85, Finnish film director and screenwriter.
 * Ayşenur Zarakolu, 55, Turkish publisher and human rights activist, cancer.

29

 * Stephen Wayne Anderson, 48, American murderer, execution by lethal injection.
 * Suzanne Bloch, 94, Swiss-American musician, teacher and early music specialist.
 * Florian Côté, 72, Canadian politician (member of Parliament representing Nicolet—Yamaska, Quebec and Richelieu, Quebec).
 * Daniel De Luce, 90, American journalist for Associated Press from 1929 to 1976.
 * Richard Grenier, 68, American columnist and film critic, heart attack.
 * Sarla Grewal, 74, Indian State Governor.
 * Haim Haberfeld, 70, Israeli trade union leader and the chairman of the Israel Football Association.
 * R. M. Hare, 82, English moral philosopher, series of strokes.
 * Heinz Hennig, 74, German choral conductor and an academic teacher.
 * Stratford Johns, 76, South African-born British actor (Z Cars, Softly, Softly, Cromwell), heart disease.
 * Dick Lane, 74, American football player, heart attack.
 * Phil McCall, 76, British actor.
 * John R. McGann, 77, American prelate of the Catholic Church.
 * Berto Pisano, 73, Italian composer, conductor, arranger and jazz musician.
 * Harold Russell, 88, Canadian-American actor (The Best Years of Our Lives), Oscar winner (1947), heart attack.

30

 * Carlo Karges, 50, German musician, liver disease.
 * Inge Morath, 78, Austrian-born American photographer, cancer.
 * Jeanne Robert, 91, French historian and epigrapher.
 * Louis Salica, 89, American boxer (bronze medal in flyweight boxing at the 1932 Summer Olympics, 1935 and 1940 world bantamweight title).

31

 * Francis Acharya, 82, Belgian Roman Catholic monk.
 * Ernest Butler, 82, English football player.
 * Jim Camp, 77, American gridiron football player (Brooklyn Dodgers) and college football head coach (George Washington University).
 * Harry Chiti, 69, American baseball player (Chicago Cubs, Kansas City Athletics, Detroit Tigers, New York Mets).
 * Gabby Gabreski, 83, Polish-American World War II and Korean War fighter pilot, heart attack.
 * Ad Hermes, 72, Dutch politician.
 * Henry Kloss, 72, American audio engineer and entrepreneur.
 * Jim Letsinger, 90, American gridiron football player.
 * Evelyn Scott, 86, American film and television actress (The Untouchables, Bonanza, Bachelor Father, Peyton Place).
 * Ger Stroker, 85, Dutch football player.
 * Karel Voous, 81, Dutch ornithologist and author.
 * Predrag Vranicki, 80, Yugoslav and Croatian philosopher and Marxist humanist.