Deaths in June 2002

The following is a list of notable deaths in June 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

 * Michael Alexander, 65, British diplomat (ambassador to Austria, ambassador to NATO).
 * Tom Austin, 78, Australian politician.
 * Hansie Cronje, 32, South African cricketer, plane crash.
 * Joseph Nanven Garba, 58, Nigerian soldier, diplomat and politician.
 * James Gathers, 71, American Olympic track and field athlete.
 * Tibor Scitovsky, 91, Hungarian-American economist.

2

 * Boyd Bennett, 77, American rockabilly songwriter and singer ("Seventeen", "My Boy, Flat Top"), lung ailment.
 * Herman Cohen, 76, American film producer (I Was a Teenage Werewolf), esophageal cancer.
 * Tim Lopes, 51, Brazilian investigative journalist and television producer, murdered by organized crime.
 * Hugo van Lawick, 65, Dutch wildlife filmmaker and photographer.
 * Konrad Wirnhier, 64, German sports shooter (bronze medal in 1968 mixed skeet, gold medal in 1972 mixed skeet).

3

 * Charles Antrobus, 69, Governor-General of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, leukemia.
 * Cecil Hankins, 80, American gridiron football player.
 * Fran Rogel, 74, American football player (Penn State, Pittsburgh Steelers), Parkinson's disease.
 * Edward Somers, 73, New Zealand jurist and member of the Privy Council.
 * Lew Wasserman, 89, American talent agent and studio executive(Universal Studios, Decca Records, MCA), complications from a stroke.
 * Sam Whipple, 41, American actor (Seven Days, The Larry Sanders Show, Open All Night), cancer.
 * Brian Woledge, 97, English scholar of medieval French language and literature.

4

 * Fernando Belaúnde Terry, 89, Peruvian politician, President of Peru (1963–1968, 1980–1985).
 * John W. Cunningham, 86, American author.
 * Ann Henderson, 60, Australian politician.
 * Pyotr Ivashutin, 92, Soviet Army General and head of the state.
 * Bob Lackey, 53, American professional basketball player (Marquette University, New York Nets), cancer.

5

 * Curtis Amy, 72, American jazz saxophonist.
 * Carlos Berlanga, 42, Spanish musician and painter, liver disease.
 * Carmelo Bernaola, 72, Spanish composer and clarinetist.
 * Michel Bernholc, 60, French composer, arranger and producer, suicide.
 * Gaston Geens, 70, Belgian politician, Minister-President of Flanders (1981 -1992).
 * Aden Abdullahi Nur, Somali politician and army general.
 * Truck Parham, 91, American jazz double-bassist.
 * Gwen Plumb, 89, Australian performer and entertainer.
 * Dee Dee Ramone, 50, American musician, founding member of The Ramones, heroin overdose.
 * M. Sivasithamparam, 78, Sri Lankan Tamil politician.

6

 * Peter Cowan, 87, Australian writer.
 * Robbin Crosby, 42, American guitarist (Ratt), AIDS-related complications and heroin overdose.
 * Bernard Destremau, 85, French tennis player, diplomat and politician.
 * Yat Malmgren, 86, Swedish dancer and acting teacher.
 * Shanta Shelke, 79, Indian poet and writer in the Marathi language, cancer.
 * Holly Solomon, 68, American collector of contemporary art and art dealer, complications from pneumonia.
 * Betty Winkler, 88, American radio actor.

7

 * Wayne Cody, 65, American sportscaster.
 * Donald S. Fredrickson, 77, American medical researcher.
 * Signe Hasso, 86, Swedish actress, writer, and composer, pneumonia.
 * Rodney Hilton, 85, British medieval historian.
 * Basappa Danappa Jatti, 89, Indian politician and acting president of India (1977), kidney cancer.
 * James Luisi, 73, American basketball player and actor, cancer.
 * Lilian, Princess of Réthy, 85, British-Belgian royal.
 * Anselmo Sule, 68, Chilean politician.
 * Edmond Séchan, 82, French cinematographer and film director.

8

 * Ray Alexander, 77, American jazz drummer and vibraphonist, complications from elective surgery.
 * George Mudie, 86, Jamaican cricketer.
 * Antonio Oppes, 85, Italian Olympic show jumping rider.
 * Lino Tonti, 81, Italian motorcycle engineer.

9

 * Elena Burke, 74, Cuban singer of boleros and romantic ballads, cancer.
 * Paul Chubb, 53, Australian actor (The Coca-Cola Kid, Stan and George's New Life, The Roly Poly Man, Dirty Deeds), post operative cardiomyopathy complications.
 * Hans Janmaat, 67, Dutch far-right politician, heart failure.
 * Peter Mokaba, 53, South African politician and political activist, acute pneumonia and respiratory problems.
 * Alexander Molodchy, 81, Soviet long-range pilot during World War II.
 * Maxwell M. Rabb, 91, American lawyer and diplomat.
 * Alexander Vlasov, 70, Soviet/Russian politician.
 * James Wheaton, 78, American actor, heart attack.

10

 * Dick Brittenden, 82, New Zealand cricket writer.
 * Louis Carré, 77, Belgian football player and coach.
 * John Gotti, 61, Italian-American gangster and boss of the Gambino crime family, throat cancer.
 * Maury Travis, 36, American murderer and serial killer, suicide.
 * John Wansbrough, 74, American historian and professor.
 * Benjamin Ward, 75, first African American New York City Police Commissioner.

11

 * Tahseen Bashir, 77, Egyptian diplomat, spokesman for Gamal Nasser and Anwar Sadat.
 * Regīna Ezera, 71, Polish-Latvian author.
 * Bertrand Goldschmidt, 89, French chemist, nuclear physicist and diplomat.
 * Margaret E. Lynn, 78, American theater director.
 * Jürgen Kraft, 50, German racing cyclist.
 * Robert Roswell Palmer, 93, American historian and writer.

12

 * Bill Blass, 79, American fashion designer, esophageal cancer.
 * Jean de Beaumont, 98, French IOC sports administrator and Olympic sport shooter (men's team shooting at the 1924 Summer Olympics).
 * John Tileston Edsall, 99, American biochemist.
 * José Serra Gil, 78, Spanish racing cyclist.
 * Jeong Seung-hwa, 73, South Korean officer.

13

 * Guilford Dudley, 94, American businessman and diplomat (U.S. Ambassador to Denmark).
 * Vincent Fago, 87, American comic-book artist and writer, stomach cancer.
 * Stanley L. Greigg, 71, American Watergate break-in victim.
 * John Hope, 83, American meteorologist, complications of an open heart surgery.
 * R. W. B. Lewis, 84, American literary scholar and critic and winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
 * Ante Mladinić, 72, Croatian football manager.
 * Hideo Murata, 73, Japanese rōkyoku and enka singer.
 * Ralph Shapey, 81, American composer and conductor.
 * Maia Wojciechowska, 74, Polish-American writer of children's books (Shadow of a Bull).

14

 * Albert Band, 78, American film director and film producer, frequently collaborated with John Huston.
 * Rino Benedetti, 73, Italian road bicycle racer.
 * José Bonilla, 34, Venezuelan boxer, asthma attack.
 * Lily Carlstedt, 76, Danish Olympic javelin thrower (bronze medal at 1948 women's javelin throw, 1952 women's javelin throw).
 * George William Coventry, 11th Earl of Coventry, 68, British peer and politician.
 * W. Nelson Francis, 91, America author, linguist and university professor, scholar of the English language.
 * June Jordan, 65, Caribbean-American poet, essayist and activist, breast cancer.

15

 * Said Belqola, 45, Moroccan referee of the 1998 FIFA World Cup final, cancer.
 * Silas Bissell, 60, American activist and member of The Weatherman, brain cancer.
 * Mutal Burhonov, 86, Soviet/Uzbek composer.
 * Choi Hong-hi, 83, South Korean Army general and martial artist, purported "father of Taekwon-Do", cancer.
 * Big Mello, 33, American rapper from Houston, Texas, traffic collision.
 * Hideo Murota, 64, Japanese actor.
 * Dick White, 70, English football player.
 * Robert Whitehead, 86, Canadian theatre producer, winner of four Tony Awards.

16

 * Louis Giguère, 90, Canadian politician.
 * Barbara Goalen, 81, British model.
 * Kiço Ngjela, 82, Albanian politician.
 * Harry Oakman, 96, Australian horticulturalist and writer.

17

 * Bill Adair, 89, American baseball manager and coach (Milwaukee Braves, Atlanta Braves, Chicago White Sox, Montreal Expos).
 * Louis George Alexander, 70, British teacher and author (New Concept English), a prolific writer of English-language text books.
 * Stein Ove Berg, 53, Norwegian singer, songwriter, and journalist.
 * J. Carter Brown, 67, American director of the National Gallery of Art from 1969 to 1992, multiple myeloma.
 * Willie Davenport, 59, American Olympic hurdler (1968 gold medal, 1976 bronze medal), heart attack.
 * John C. Davies II, 82, American politician (U.S. Representative for New York's 35th congressional district).
 * Dobri Dzhurov, 86, Bulgarian politician and military leader.
 * Francisco Escudero, 89, Basque composer.
 * Zora Kolínska, 60, Slovak actress, singer, and presenter.
 * Yuri Korneev, 65, Russian basketball player.
 * Roger Mackay, 46, Australian golfer, lymphoma.
 * Antony C. Sutton, 77, British-American writer, economist, and academic.
 * Fritz Walter, 81, German football player, captain of 1954 World Cup winners.

18

 * Nancy Addison, 54, American soap actress, cancer.
 * Naseem Banu, 85, Indian actress.
 * Jack Buck, 77, American sportscaster, best known for announcing MLB games of the St. Louis Cardinals, Parkinson's disease.
 * Nilima Ibrahim, 81, Bangladeshi writer.
 * Jack Jenkins, 59, American baseball player (Washington Senators, Los Angeles Dodgers).
 * Walter Villa, 58, Italian four-time Grand Prix motorcycle road racing world champion, heart attack.

19

 * Ross Carter, 88, American gridiron football player (University of Oregon, Chicago Cardinals).
 * Margaret Johnston, 87, Australian-British actress.
 * Robert W. Lenski, 76, American screenwriter.
 * Pascal Mazzotti, 78, French actor (The King and the Mockingbird).
 * Dmitry Oboznenko, 71, Soviet Russian painter and graphic artist.
 * Count Flemming of Rosenborg, 80, Danish prince.
 * Johnny Strzykalski, 80, American gridiron football player.
 * N. F. Varghese, 53, Indian actor.

20

 * Carlos Badion, 66, Filipino basketball player (basketball at the 1956 Summer Olympics, basketball at the 1960 Summer Olympics), heart attack.
 * Heinz Bigler, 76, Swiss football player.
 * Erwin Chargaff, 96, Austro-Hungarian biochemist.
 * Fred Drake, 44, American musician, lung cancer.
 * Timothy Findley, 71, Canadian author (The Wars, Headhunter, Pilgrim, Elizabeth Rex).
 * Irene MacDonald, 68, Canadian athlete, sports executive and broadcaster.
 * Tinus Osendarp, 86, Dutch sprinter (two-time bronze medal at 1936 Summer Olympics: men's 100 metres, men's 200 metres).
 * Enrique Regüeiferos, 53, Cuban boxer (silver medal in light welterweight boxing at the 1968 Summer Olympics).
 * Sa'id Akhtar Rizvi, 75, Indian scholar.
 * Stanisław Trepczyński, 78, Polish diplomat.
 * John Wirth, 66, American professor and historian of Latin American studies.

21

 * Sidney Armus, 77, American actor, cancer.
 * Matt Dennis, 88, American singer, pianist and composer ("Angel Eyes", "Everything Happens to Me", "Violets for Your Furs").
 * Henry Keith, Baron Keith of Kinkel, 80, British jurist.
 * Wladimiro Panizza, 57, Italian road bicycle racer.
 * Kurt Seibt, 94, East German politician.
 * Berl Senofsky, 86, American classical violinist and teacher, lung disease.
 * Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, 70, Australian painter.

22

 * Chang Cheh, 79, Hong Kong film director, pneumonia.
 * David O. Cooke, 81, American civil servant, Director of Administration and Management at the U.S. Department of Defense.
 * Justin Whitlock Dart, Jr., 71, American activist and advocate for people with disabilities.
 * Conrad Hansen, 95, German pianist and a piano teacher.
 * Darryl Kile, 33, Major League Baseball player (Houston Astros, Colorado Rockies, St. Louis Cardinals), heart attack.
 * Ron Kline, 70, American baseball player (Pittsburgh Pirates, Detroit Tigers, Washington Senators).
 * Eppie Lederer, 83, American media celebrity and advice columnist known by her pen name Ann Landers, multiple myeloma.
 * Helen Nielsen, 83, American author and screen writer (Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock Presents).
 * Yoshio Okada, 75, Japanese football player.
 * Cho Yoon-ok, 62, South Korean football player and manager.

23

 * Lionel Bernstein, 82, South African anti-apartheid activist and political prisoner.
 * Fadzil Noor, 63, Malaysian politician and religious teacher, complications following heart bypass surgery.
 * Carlo Savina, 82, Italian composer and conductor.
 * Alice Stewart, 95, British physician and epidemiologist.

24

 * Larry Alcala, 75, Filipino editorial cartoonist and illustrator.
 * Pedro Alcázar, 26, Panamanian boxer, injuries sustained during title fight.
 * Robert Dorfman, 85, American economist.
 * Doreen Fernandez, 67, Filipino writer, teacher, cultural historian, food critic and scholar.
 * Bernard Longpré, 65, Canadian director and animator.
 * Miles Fitzalan-Howard, 17th Duke of Norfolk, 86, 17th Duke of Norfolk.
 * Frank Ripploh, 52, German actor, film director, and author, cancer.
 * Pierre Werner, 88, Prime Minister of Luxembourg (1959–1974, 1979–1984), considered the "father of the euro".

25

 * Syed Ali Ahsan, 82, Bangladeshi poet, writer and academic.
 * Joe Antolick, 86, American baseball player (Philadelphia Phillies).
 * Gordon Park Baker, 64, American philosopher, focussing on the writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein.
 * Turhan Baytop, 82, Turkish botanist and pharmacist.
 * Jean Corbeil, 68, Canadian politician (Minister of Labour, Minister of Transport, member of Parliament).
 * Derrek Dickey, 51, American basketball player and sportscaster (Cincinnati, Golden State Warriors, Chicago Bulls), heart attack.

26

 * Barbara G. Adams, 57, British egyptologist, cancer.
 * Humaira Begum, 83, Afghan royal as the last queen consort of Afghanistan, heart failure.
 * Arnold Brown, 88, British General of the Salvation Army.
 * Donald A. Bullough, 74, British historian and author.
 * Dolores Gray, 78, American actress and singer, heart attack.
 * Martti Ketelä, 57, Finnish modern pentathlete.
 * Henry Jepson Latham, 93, American attorney, politician, and jurist.
 * Raoul Rémy, 82, French road bicycle racer.
 * Dermot Walsh, 77, Irish actor (Richard the Lionheart, Sea of Sand, The Challenge).
 * Philip Whalen, 78, American Beat generation poet and Zen Buddhist priest.
 * Turgut Özatay, 74, Turkish film actor, lung cancer.

27

 * Qu Bo, 79, Chinese novelist.
 * Charles Frederick Carter, 82, British economist and academic administrator.
 * John Entwistle, 57, English bassist (The Who), heart attack.
 * Ralph Erickson, 100, American baseball player (Pittsburgh Pirates).
 * Richard Evonitz, 38, American serial killer, kidnapper, and rapist, suicide.
 * Muharram Fouad, 68, Egyptian actor and singer, starred in Hassan and Nayima with co-star Soad Hosny.
 * Russ Freeman, 76, American bebop and jazz pianist and songwriter.
 * Robert L. J. Long, 82, American admiral.
 * Georgi Sokolov, 60, Bulgarian football player.
 * Timothy White, 50, American rock music journalist and editor (Crawdaddy!, Rolling Stone, Billboard), heart attack.

28

 * Anatoly Akimov, 54, Soviet Olympic water polo player (gold medal winner in water polo at the 1972 Summer Olympics).
 * William Dufty, 86, American writer, musician, and activist (Lady Sings the Blues, Sugar Blues), cancer.
 * Doug Elmore, 62, American professional football player (Ole Miss, Washington Redskins).
 * François Périer, 82, French actor, heart attack.

29

 * Terry Bourke, 62, Australian screenwriter, producer and director (Spyforce, Night of Fear, The Tourist).
 * Rosemary Clooney, 74, American singer and actress ("Come On-a My House", "Hey There", "This Ole House"), lung cancer.
 * Ole-Johan Dahl, 70, Norwegian computer scientist, considered one of the fathers of object-oriented programming.
 * Alfred Dregger, 81, German politician and a leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
 * Obby Kapita, 47, Zambian football player and coach, colorectal cancer.
 * Roger Lévêque, 81, French road racing cyclist from 1946 to 1953.
 * William Edward Ozzard, 87, American politician.
 * Jaime Brocal Remohi, 66, Spanish comic book artist.
 * Jan Tomasz Zamoyski, 90, Polish political activist, aristocrat and member of anti-Nazi underground resistance.

30

 * Claude Berge, 76, French mathematician.
 * Josef Buršík, 90, Czech resistance fighter, dissident, and political prisoner.
 * W. Maxwell Cowan, 70, South African neurobiologist.
 * Pete Gray, 87, American one-armed baseball player (St. Louis Browns).
 * Nikolay Haytov, 82, Bulgarian fiction writer, playwright, and publicist, cancer.
 * Raúl Sánchez, 71, Cuban-American baseball player (Washington Senators, Cincinnati Redlegs/Reds).
 * Roberto Villa, 86, Italian actor (The Fornaretto of Venice), pancreatitis.
 * Dave Wilson, 70, American television director (Saturday Night Live), aortic aneurysm.
 * Chico Xavier, 92, Brazilian spiritual medium and author, acute heart attack.