Deaths in March 2002

The following is a list of notable deaths in March 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

 * John Blume, 92, American structural engineer, known as "the father of earthquake engineering".
 * C. Farris Bryant, 87, American Governor (34th Governor of Florida from 1961 to 1965).
 * John Challens, 86, British scientist and civil servant, helped develop Britain's first atomic bomb.
 * David DiMeglio, 35, American professional wrestler, heart attack.
 * Leigh Gerdine, 85, American musician, composer, and civic leader, heart attack.
 * David Mann, 85, American songwriter.
 * Bob Smith, 76, American professional football player (Brooklyn Dodgers, Detroit Lions).
 * Hocine Soltani, 29, Algerian boxer, murdered.
 * Doreen Waddell, 36, British soul singer (Soul II Soul), struck by vehicle.
 * John Wieners, 68, American poet.
 * Roger Wilson, 96, British Anglican prelate.

2

 * Andrés Archila, 88, Guatemalan violinist and music conductor.
 * Alvin Eicoff, 80, American advertising executive, known as a founder of direct response television advertising.
 * Pasquale Giannattasio, 61, Italian sprinter.
 * Friedrich Gorenstein, 69, Russian-Jewish author and screenwriter.
 * Don Haig, 68, Canadian filmmaker, editor, and producer.
 * Jason Mayélé, 26, Congolese football player, traffic collision.
 * Halfdan Rasmussen, 87, Danish poet.
 * Fritz-Rudolf Schultz, 85, German army officer during World War II and politician.
 * Alexei Yegorov, 26, Russian ice hockey player (San Jose Sharks), beating.

3

 * Henry Nathaniel Andrews, 91, American paleobotanist.
 * G. M. C. Balayogi, 50, Indian lawyer and politician, helicopter crash.
 * Vijaya Bhaskar, 71, Indian music director and composer, heart attack.
 * Marvin E. Frankel, 81, American judge (US district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York).
 * Harlan Howard, 74, American country music songwriter ("I Fall to Pieces", "Busted", "Heartaches By The Number", "Why Not Me").
 * Charles H. MacDonald, 87, American Air Force officer and a fighter ace during World War II.
 * Fran McKee, 75, American Navy Rear Admiral.
 * Al Pollard, 73, American gridiron football player (Army, New York Yanks, Philadelphia Eagles) and broadcaster, lymphoma.
 * Roy Porter, 55, British historian and writer, heart attack.
 * H. Keith Thompson, 79, American neo-Nazi and political writer..

4

 * John A. Chapman, 36, US Air Force combat controller who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
 * Eric Flynn, 62, British actor and singer (Ivanhoe, The Caesars, Freewheelers), cancer.
 * Ryō Hanmura, 68, Japanese science fiction, fantasy, and horror author, pneumonia.
 * Ugnė Karvelisehebeb, 66, Lithuanian writer and diplomat.
 * Bernard Matemera, 56, Zimbabwean sculptor.
 * Stephen McGonagle, 87, Northern Irish and Irish trade unionist.
 * Elyne Mitchell, 88, Australian author.
 * Prunella Ransome, 59, English actress, throat cancer.
 * K. V. Raghunatha Reddy, 77, Indian politician.
 * Shirley Ann Russell, 66, British costume designer, cancer.
 * Velibor Vasović, 62, Serbian footballer and manager, heart attack.
 * Jean Elizabeth Geiger Wright, 78, American conservationist, educator, and animal activist.

5

 * Howard Cannon, 90, American politician (U.S. Senator from Nevada from 1959 to 1983).
 * Stanisław Jankowski, 90, Polish SOE agent and resistance fighter during World War II.
 * Surendra Jha 'Suman', 91, Indian poet, writer, publisher and politician, heart failure.
 * Frances Macdonald, 87, English painter.
 * Clay Smith, 87, American baseball player (Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers).

6

 * Chuck Chapman, 90, Canadian Olympic basketball player (silver medal in basketball at the 1936 Summer Olympics).
 * Richard Kenneth Dell, 81, New Zealand malacologist.
 * Bryan Fogarty, 32, Canadian ice hockey player (Quebec Nordiques, Pittsburgh Penguins, Montreal Canadiens), enlarged heart.
 * Walter Goodman, 74, American author and journalist for The New York Times.
 * David Jenkins, 89, Welsh librarian.
 * Johnny Norlander, 81, American basketball player.
 * Bill Radovich, 86, American gridiron football player and film actor.
 * Henry Rapoport, 83, American organic chemist and academic.
 * Ralph Rumney, 67, English artist, cancer.
 * Dietrich Schmidt, 82, German Luftwaffe night fighter ace during World War II.
 * Elizabeth W. Stone, 83, American librarian and educator.
 * Ernie Williamson, 79, American gridiron football player (Washington Redskins, New York Giants, Los Angeles Dons).
 * Donald Wilson, 91, British television writer and producer (The Forsyte Saga, Doctor Who).

7

 * Doris Twitchell Allen, 100, American child psychologist.
 * Geoff Charles, 93, Welsh photojournalist.
 * Daaf Drok, 87, Dutch football player.
 * John Goodyear, 81, American gridiron football player.
 * Troy Graham, 52, American professional wrestler, heart attack.
 * Mickey Haslin, 92, American baseball player (Philadelphia Phillies, Boston Bees, New York Giants).
 * Ian Vernon Hogg, 75, British author of books and biographies on military subjects.
 * Mati Klarwein, 69, German painter, cancer.
 * Franziska Rochat-Moser, 35, Swiss Olympic marathon runner, avalanche.
 * Charles H. Wright, 83, American physician, founder of the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.

8

 * Justin Ahomadégbé-Tomêtin, 85, Beninese politician.
 * Robin Anderson, 53, Australian documentary filmmaker, cancer.
 * Al Bonniwell, 90, American basketball player (Akron Firestone Non-Skids).
 * George F. Carrier, 83, American mathematician, esophageal cancer.
 * Marțian Dan, 66, Romanian politician and university professor.
 * Yury Gusov, 61, Russian Olympic welterweight freestyle wrestler.
 * Sanji Hase, 66, Japanese voice actor, lung cancer.
 * Peter Holmes, 69, British businessman.
 * Bill Johnson, 85, American football player (University of Minnesota, Green Bay Packers).
 * Jansug Kakhidze, 66, Georgian musician, composer, singer and conductor.
 * Winnie Markus, 80, Czechoslovakia-German actress, pneumonia.
 * Ted Sepkowski, 78, American baseball player (Cleveland Indians, New York Yankees).
 * Ellert Sölvason, 84, Icelandic football player.

9

 * Denise Bosc, 85, French film actress.
 * Carlos Casares, 60, Spanish Galician language writer, cardiac arrest.
 * Mary Elmes, 93, Irish aid worker credited who saved over 200 Jewish children during World War II.
 * Leonard Gershe, 79, American playwright, screenwriter, and lyricist, cerebrovascular disease.
 * Hamish Henderson, 82, Scottish poet.
 * Bora Spužić Kvaka, 67, Serbian vocalist and recording artist.
 * Normand Lockwood, 95, American composer.
 * Mohammad Paziraei, 72, Iranian Greco-Roman flyweight wrestler and Olympic medalist.
 * Oleg Trubachyov, 71, Soviet and Russian linguist.

10

 * Elguja Amashukeli, 73, Georgian sculptor and painter.
 * Louise Carletti, 80, French film actress.
 * Irán Eory, 64, Iranian-Mexican actress, stroke.
 * Genevieve Fiore, 90, American women's rights and peace activist.
 * George Fix, 62, American mathematician, cancer.
 * Erik Lönnroth, 91, Swedish historian.
 * George Mungwa, Zambian football coach.
 * Vladimir Nakhabtsev, 63, Soviet cinematographer and actor.
 * Gilmore Schjeldahl, 89, American businessman, Alzheimer's disease.
 * Shirley Scott, 67, American jazz organist, heart failure.
 * Howard Thompson, 82, American journalist and film critic, pneumonia.
 * Irene Worth, 85, American actress (Tiny Alice, Sweet Bird of Youth, Lost in Yonkers), Tony winner (1965, 1976, 1991), stroke.

11

 * Al Cowens, 50, American baseball player (Kansas City Royals, California Angels, Detroit Tigers, Seattle Mariners), heart attack.
 * Marion Gräfin Dönhoff, 92, German journalist and publisher of Die Zeit, known for opposing Hitler.
 * George Joseph Gottwald, 87, American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church.
 * Rudolf Hell, 100, German inventor and manufacturer.
 * Willibald Jentschke, 90, Austrian-German nuclear physicist.
 * Franjo Kuharić, 82, Croatian Catholic cardinal, cardiac arrest.
 * Albert Ritserveldt, 86, Belgian racing cyclist.
 * Herbert Spencer, 77, British designer, writer and photographer.
 * Nicholas Gilman Thacher, 86, American diplomat, pulmonary fibrosis.
 * James Tobin, 84, American economist, cerebrovascular disease.

12

 * Louis-Marie Billé, 64, French Roman Catholic cardinal, cancer.
 * Peter Blau, 84, American sociologist.
 * Steve Gromek, 82, American baseball player (Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers).
 * Abdul Kadir, 57, Pakistani cricket player.
 * John "Speedy" Keene, 56, English songwriter, vocalist, and drummer, heart failure.
 * Spiros Kyprianou, 69, 2nd President of Cyprus, cancer.
 * Jacqueline Patorni, 84, French tennis player.
 * Heinz Pehlke, 79, Freelance German cinematographer in film and television.
 * Vitaly Peskov, 57, Russian cartoonist.
 * Jean Paul Riopelle, 78, Canadian painter and sculptor.

13

 * Ivano Blason, 78, Italian football player.
 * Hans-Georg Gadamer, 102, German philosopher.
 * Abd al-Wahhab Hawmad, 87, Syrian politician, lawyer, and academic.
 * Nasir Hussain, 75, Indian film producer, director, and screenwriter, cardiovascular disease.
 * Jacques Jansen, 88, French baryton-martin singer.
 * Lou Kahn, 86, American baseball player, manager, scout and coach.
 * Bayliss Levrett, 88, American racecar driver from Jacksonville, Florida, Alzheimer's disease.
 * Nick Mickoski, 74, Canadian ice hockey forward.
 * Alice du Pont Mills, 89, American aviator.
 * Marc Moreland, 44, American rock musician, kidney failure.
 * Polly Riley, 75, American amateur golfer, cancer.
 * Ri Tu-ik, 81, North Korean Army officer and politician.
 * Hubert Wagner, 61, Polish volleyball player and coach (men's volleyball at the 1968 Summer Olympics), traffic collision.

14

 * Smail Balić, 81, Bosnian-Austrian historian, culturologist and scholar.
 * Nelson Estupiñán Bass, 89, Ecuadorian writer, pneumonia.
 * Kevin Danaher, 89, Irish folklorist and author on Irish traditional customs and beliefs.
 * Karl Gratz, 83, Austrian-German Luftwaffe fighter ace during World War II.
 * Leon L. Van Autreve, 82, American Army Sergeant Major.
 * Cherry Wilder, 71, New Zealand writer, cancer.
 * Thomas Winship, 81, American newspaper editor of the Boston Globe from 1965 until 1984.

15

 * Tamala Krishna Goswami, 55, American Hare Krishna, car accident.
 * Rand Holmes, 60, Canadian artist and illustrator, Hodgkin's lymphoma.
 * Oscar Pérez, 79, Argentine basketball player.
 * Werner Unger, 70, German football player.
 * Sylvester Weaver, 93, American television executive, credited with creating Today, Tonight, Home, Wide Wide World.
 * Jairo Zulbarán, 32, Colombian football player, murdered.

16

 * Kid Azteca, 88, Mexican boxer.
 * Carmelo Bene, 64, Italian actor, director and screenwriter, cancer.
 * Isaías Duarte Cancino, 63, Colombian Roman Catholic archbishop, killed by the FARC.
 * Marcus Fox, 74, British politician (Member of Parliament for Shipley).
 * Salah-Hassan Hanifes, 89, Israeli politician.
 * Umar Kayam, 69, Indonesian sociologist and writer, intestinal bleeding.
 * Ernst Künnecke, 64, German football player and football coach.
 * Danilo Stojković, 67, Serbian actor, lung cancer.

17

 * Arthur Altschul, 81, American banker.
 * Bill Davis, 60, American football coach.
 * Ernest E. Debs, 98, American politician, California State Assembly (1942–1947), L.A. County Supervisor (1958–1974).
 * Rajammal P. Devadas, 82, Indian nutritionist and educator.
 * Van Tien Dung, 84, Vietnamese general in the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN).
 * Georges Gorse, 87, French politician and diplomat.
 * Rosetta LeNoire, 90, American actress (Family Matters, The Sunshine Boys, Brewster's Millions), diabetes.
 * Vasil Mitkov, 58, Bulgarian football player.
 * Luise Rinser, 90, German writer.
 * Paul Runyan, 93, American golfer (two-time PGA Championship winner and a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame).
 * Christian Graf von Krockow, 74, German writer and political scientist.
 * William Witney, 86, American film and television director, known as a "B" movie action director.

18

 * Dalton Camp, 81, Canadian journalist, political strategist, and commentator.
 * Marcel Denis, 79, Belgian comic artist (Tif et Tondu).
 * Maude Farris-Luse, 115, American supercentenarian, pneumonia.
 * Denis Forest, 41, Canadian actor, stroke.
 * Mario Gariazzo, 71, Italian screenwriter and film director.
 * R. A. Lafferty, 87, American science fiction writer.
 * Van Leo, 80, Armenian-Egyptian photographer.
 * Johnny Lombardi, 86, Canadian media tycoon and television producer/host.
 * Gösta Winbergh, 58, Swedish operatic tenor, heart attack.

19

 * Marco Biagi, 51, Italian jurist, homicide.
 * Laura Bohannan, 80, American cultural anthropologist, heart attack.
 * John Patton, 66, American jazz, blues and R&B musician, complications from diabetes.
 * David Beers Quinn, 92, Irish historian.
 * Erkki Salmenhaara, 61, Finnish composer and musicologist.
 * Bachtiar Siagian, 79, Indonesian film director and scriptwriter.
 * Naren Tamhane, 70, Indian cricket player.
 * Eduard Meine van Zinderen-Bakker, 94, Dutch-South African palynologist, stroke.

20

 * Andra Akers, 58, American actress and philanthropist, complications following surgery.
 * Ibn al-Khattab, 32, Saudi Arabian Saudi mujahid emir and terrorist, nerve agent poisoning.
 * Giulio Alfieri, 77, Italian racing and production cars engineer, affiliated with Maserati.
 * Samuel Warren Carey, 90, Australian geologist, an early advocate of continental drift.
 * Eugene Figg, 65, American structural engineer, award-winning designer of dozens of bridges (Sunshine Skyway Bridge).
 * George Macovescu, 88, Romanian writer and communist politician.
 * Aleksei Yeskov, 57, Soviet football player and coach.

21

 * David E. Blackmer, 75, American audio engineer, known as the inventor of the DBX noise reduction system and founder of dbx.
 * James F. Blake, 89, American bus driver, antagonist for the Montgomery bus boycott, heart attack.
 * Thomas Flanagan, 78, American professor and novelist.
 * Horst Hauthal, 88, German ambassador.
 * Renée Massip, 94, French writer and journalist.
 * Nikos Pangalos, 87, Greek football manager.
 * Eugene G. Rochow, 92, American inorganic chemist.
 * Boris Sichkin, 79, Soviet and American film actor, dancer, choreographer, and entertainer.
 * Herman Talmadge, 88, American politician.
 * Ernest van den Haag, 87, Dutch-American sociologist, social critic, and author.

22

 * Rudolf Baumgartner, 84, Swiss conductor, violinist, and music educator.
 * Jaroslav Cejp, 77, Czechoslovak football player.
 * Kingsford Dibela, 70, Governor-General of Papua New Guinea.
 * Marcel Hansenne, 85, French middle distance runner and Olympic medalist.
 * Hugh R. Stephen, 88, Canadian politician.

23

 * Enzo Barboni, 79, Italian film director, cinematographer and screenwriter.
 * John Biby, 90, American Olympic sailor (gold medal winner in 8 metre sailing at the 1932 Summer Olympics).
 * Richard Bradford, 69, American novelist (Red Sky at Morning, So Far from Heaven).
 * Antonio Calebotta, 71, Italian Olympic basketball player (men's basketball at the 1960 Summer Olympics).
 * Jack Doolan, 82, American professional football player (Georgetown, New York Giants, Chicago Cardinals).
 * Lloyd L. Duxbury, 80, American politician and member of the Minnesota House of Representatives.
 * Eileen Farrell, 82, American soprano, performed both classical and popular music.
 * Piara Singh Gill, 90, Indian nuclear physicist.
 * Ben Hollioake, 24, English cricketer, car crash.
 * Marcel Kint, 87, Belgian bicycle racer.
 * Neal E. Miller, 92, American psychologist.
 * Minnie Rojas, 68, Cuban-American baseball player (California Angels).
 * Richard Sylbert, 73, American film production designer and art director (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Dick Tracy, Chinatown), Oscar winner (1967, 1991), cancer.
 * Leif Wager, 80, Finnish actor.

24

 * Beverly Bower, 76, American operatic soprano (New York City Opera, Metropolitan Opera), cancer.
 * Mace Brown, 92, American baseball player (Pittsburgh Pirates, Brooklyn Dodgers, Boston Red Sox).
 * Dorothy DeLay, 84, American violin instructor, cancer.
 * César Milstein, 74, Argentinian biochemist.
 * Wayne Molis, 58, American basketball player, stroke.
 * Erik Møller, 92, Danish architect.
 * Bob Said, 69, American racing driver.

25

 * Ronald Verlin Cassill, 82, American writer, editor, painter and lithographer.
 * Eduardo Lim, 71, Filipino Olympic basketball player.
 * Ken Traill, 75, British rugby league player.
 * Kenneth Wolstenholme, 81, British football commentator.
 * Hilde Zimmermann, 81, member of the Austrian Resistance during WWII.

26

 * Randy Castillo, 51, American musician, Ozzy Osbourne and Mötley Crüe drummer, skin cancer.
 * Hugh Davis Graham, 65, American historian, sociologist, civil rights scholar and author.
 * Louis M. Heyward, 81, American producer and film and television writer (The Ernie Kovacs Show, Winky Dink and You), pneumonia.
 * Gerald Hylkema, 56, Dutch footballer.
 * Eugen Meier, 71, Swiss footballer.
 * Joe Schermie, 56, American musician, heart attack.
 * Taisto Sinisalo, 75, Finnish communist politician, leader of the Communist Party of Finland.
 * Heinz Welzel, 90, German actor.
 * Whitey Wietelmann, 83, American baseball player (Boston Bees/Braves, Pittsburgh Pirates) and coach.

27

 * Milton Berle, 93, American comedian dubbed "Uncle Miltie" and "Mr. Television" (Texaco Star Theater, The Milton Berle Show), colorectal cancer.
 * Giorgi Melikishvili, 83, Georgian historian.
 * Dudley Moore, 66, British actor and writer (Foul Play, 10, Arthur), pneumonia.
 * Cecil Pearce, 87, Australian Olympic rower.
 * Glen Robinson, 87, American special and visual effects artist, six-time Academy Award winner.
 * Tadeusz Rut, 70, Polish Olympic hammer thrower.
 * Geoffrey Sim, 90, New Zealand politician.
 * Jess Stearn, 87, American journalist and author of more than thirty books, nine of which were bestsellers, heart failure.
 * Sture Stork, 71, Swedish sailor and Olympic champion.
 * Lotte Ulbricht, 98, East Germany official and second wife of Walter Ulbricht, fall.
 * Billy Wilder, 95, Austrian-American film director and screenwriter (Double Indemnity, The Apartment, Some Like It Hot), six-time Oscar winner, pneumonia.

28

 * Tofail Ahmed, 83, Bangladeshi researcher of Folk Art.
 * Clarence B. Craft, 80, U.S. Army soldier and a recipient of the Medal of Honor.
 * Klaus Croissant, 70, East German lawyer of the Red Army Faction and later spy and a political activist.
 * Tikka Khan, 86, Pakistani army general.
 * Francis Newton Souza, 77, British artist.
 * Albert Whitford, 96, American physicist and astronomer, dean of modern photoelectric photometry.

29

 * Henning Bahs, 74, Danish screenwriter and special effects designer.
 * John Cameron, 84, Australian baritone opera singer.
 * James T. Cushing, 65, American professor of physics, philosophy, and the history and philosophy of science.
 * Franklin S. Forsberg, 96, American publisher and diplomat (U.S. Ambassador to Sweden).
 * Eberhard Mehl, 66, German fencer and Olympic medalist.
 * Rico Yan, 27, Filipino model and actor, acute pancreatitis.

30

 * Anand Bakshi, 71, Indian poet and lyricist.
 * Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, 101, British consort of King George VI, pneumonia.
 * Jean Pictet, 87, Swiss jurist and legal practitioner.
 * Bjørn Spydevold, 83, Norwegian football player and football manager.
 * Alfie Stokes, 69, British footballer.

31

 * Yara Bernette, 82, Brazilian classical pianist, heart attack.
 * Lady Anne Brewis, 91, English botanist.
 * Edgardo Madinabeytia, 69, Argentine football goalkeeper.
 * Lucio D. San Pedro, 89, Filipino composer and teacher, cardiac arrest.
 * Barry Took, 73, English writer, television presenter and comedian, cancer.