Deaths in March 2008

The following is a list of notable deaths in March 2008.

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

 * Haroldo de Andrade, 73, Brazilian radio presenter (Rádio Globo), multiple organ dysfunction syndrome.
 * Dora Dolz, 66, Spanish-born Dutch artist.
 * Kevin Dunn, 57, British Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle.
 * Bhanbhagta Gurung, 86, Nepalese Gurkha soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross.
 * Raúl Reyes, 59, Colombian FARC second-in-command, airstrike.
 * Moustafa Soheim, 70, Egyptian Olympic fencer.
 * Sid Spindler, 75, Polish-born Australian senator (Democrats) (1990–1996), liver cancer.
 * Andrey Tissin, 32, Russian world and European canoeing champion, Olympian and coach, drowning.
 * George Toley, 91, American collegiate tennis coach.

2

 * Sofiko Chiaureli, 70, Georgian actress.
 * Barbara Anne Davis, 77, American baseball player (AAGPBL)
 * Roger Gill, 35, Guyanese Olympic sprinter, car accident.
 * Jeff Healey, 41, Canadian jazz and blues-rock guitarist and vocalist, sarcoma.
 * Carl Hoddle, 40, English footballer (Leyton Orient, Barnet), brain aneurysm.
 * Paul Raymond, 82, British pornographic magazine publisher and property magnate.
 * Ted Robinson, 84, American golf course architect, pancreatic cancer.
 * Frederick Seitz, 96, American physicist who co-discovered the Wigner-Seitz cell.

3

 * Bertil Albertsson, 86, Swedish runner.
 * Vizol Koso, 93, Indian Naga politician.
 * Ramón Barquín, 93, Cuban army colonel and diplomat, opponent of Fulgencio Batista, led 1956 coup attempt, cancer.
 * William Brice, 86, American painter and UCLA professor, injuries from fall.
 * Giuseppe Di Stefano, 86, Italian operatic tenor, after long coma following assault.
 * Donald S. Lopez, Sr., 84, American deputy director of the National Air and Space Museum, heart attack.
 * Malcolm McKenna, 77, American paleontologist.
 * Norm O'Neill, 71, Australian cricketer, throat cancer.
 * Annemarie Renger, 88, German politician (SPD), Speaker of Parliament (1972–1976).
 * Iván Ríos, 45, Colombian FARC commander, shot by his Chief of Security.
 * Norman "Hurricane" Smith, 85, British singer, recording engineer (The Beatles, Pink Floyd) and record producer.
 * Kenneth Woollcombe, 84, British Bishop of Oxford (1971–1978).

4

 * Hossein Alikhani, 63, Iranian NGO founder, political scientist and author, leukemia.
 * Richard Davis Anderson, 86, American mathematician.
 * Erwin Ballabio, 89, Swiss football goalkeeper.
 * Robert Bruning, 79, Australian actor, heart attack.
 * Gary Gygax, 69, American game designer, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons.
 * Tina Lagostena Bassi, 82, Italian politician.
 * Elena Nathanael, 61, Greek actress, lung cancer.
 * Leonard Rosenman, 83, American film composer (Barry Lyndon, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Bound for Glory), Oscar winner (1977, 1978), heart attack.
 * Semka Sokolović-Bertok, 72, Croatian actress, stroke.
 * George Walter, 79, Antiguan Premier (1971–1976), heart attack.

5

 * Eve Carson, 22, American student leader (UNC Chapel Hill), shot.
 * Derek Dooley, 78, British footballer and former chairman of Sheffield United.
 * Elfriede Kaun, 93, German 1936 Olympic bronze medalist in the high jump.
 * Nader Khalili, 72, Iranian architect, heart failure.
 * John C. Mackie, 87, American Representative from Michigan (1965–1967).
 * Richard Miles McCool, 86, American Medal of Honor recipient for actions during World War II.
 * Don McFarlane, 81, Canadian Olympic sprinter.
 * Stephen Oliver, 66, American actor (Peyton Place), gastric cancer.
 * Sixty Rayburn, 91, American politician.
 * Hajibey Sultanov, 86, Azerbaijani astronomer, fire accident.
 * Joseph Weizenbaum, 85, German-born American computer scientist, inventor of ELIZA computer program, stroke.
 * Ihor Yemchuk, 77, Ukrainian Olympic silver (1952) and bronze (1956) medal-winning rower.

6

 * Gloria Shayne Baker, 84, American songwriter (Rain Rain Go Away, Do You Hear What I Hear?), lung cancer.
 * Lili Boniche, 87, Algerian-born French singer of Andalusian Arabic songs.
 * Don Curtis, 80, American professional wrestler, stroke.
 * Kurt Eberling, Sr., 77, German-American inventor of SpaghettiOs, cancer.
 * Gustaw Holoubek, 84, Polish film and theatre actor and politician.
 * Stanislav Konopásek, 84, Czechoslovakian Olympic silver medallist in ice hockey (1948).
 * Peter Poreku Dery, 89, Ghanaian cardinal, Archbishop of Tamale (1974–1994).
 * Kiddinan Sivanesan, 51, Sri Lankan Tamil Parliament member (TNA), roadside bomb.
 * Malvin Wald, 90, American screenwriter (The Naked City).

7

 * Ossie Álvarez, 74, American Major League Baseball player (Washington Senators, Detroit Tigers).
 * Luisa Isabel Álvarez de Toledo, 71, Spanish noblewoman and author.
 * Isaías Carrasco, 43, Spanish Basque politician, shot.
 * Leonardo Costagliola, 87, Italian football goalkeeper (ACF Fiorentina).
 * Dick Durrell, 82, American founding publisher of People magazine, lung cancer.
 * David Gale, 86, American mathematician, heart attack.
 * Charles A. Gillespie, Jr., 72, American diplomat, Ambassador to Colombia and Chile, cancer.
 * Leon Greenman, 97, British Holocaust survivor, only Englishman sent to Auschwitz.
 * Julius Paltiel, 83, Norwegian Holocaust survivor.
 * Francis Pym, 86, British Conservative Party politician, Foreign Secretary (1982–1983).
 * Howard Wing, 92, Chinese Olympic cyclist.

8

 * Lucy G. Acosta, 81, Mexican-American activist.
 * Sadun Aren, 85, Turkish academic and politician.
 * Carol Barnes, 63, British ITN news presenter, stroke.
 * Donald C. MacDonald, 94, Canadian politician, former leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party.
 * Les Smith, 80, English footballer (Wolves, Aston Villa), cancer.

9

 * Gus Giordano, 84, American Emmy Award-winning jazz dancer, pneumonia.
 * Edward L. Hart, American poet and Mormon hymnwriter.
 * Florent Jodoin, 85, Canadian Olympic cyclist.
 * Simon Reisman, 88, Canadian chief negotiator of the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement, cardiac arrest.

10

 * Galo Ador Jr., 39, Filipino cartoonist.
 * Richard Biegenwald, 67, American serial killer.
 * William Bradford, 61, American serial killer, natural causes.
 * Hugh Brown, 88, British Labour politician, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (1974–1979).
 * Charles Wayne Day, 65, American blues guitarist, wrote the distinctive riff in "Secret Agent Man".
 * Robert P. Foster, 90, American academic administrator, president of Northwest Missouri State University (1964–1977).
 * Ricardo García, 81, Mexican Olympic cyclist.
 * Dennis Irwin, 56, American jazz double bassist, complications of cancer.
 * Ana Kalandadze, 83, Georgian poet.
 * Vangelis Kazan, 70, Greek actor.
 * Lee Ho-seong, 41, South Korean baseball player, thief and murderer, suicide by drowning.
 * Radovan Lukavský, 88, Czech actor.
 * Sai Htee Saing, 57, Burmese singer.
 * Otto Schnellbacher, 84, American football and basketball player, cancer.

11

 * J. I. Albrecht, 77, American-born Canadian manager and director in the Canadian Football League, complications from a stroke.
 * Zakaria Deros, 62, Malaysian former politician, heart attack.
 * John Roderick, 93, American journalist (AP) and author, extensively covered China (1930s–2000s), heart failure and pneumonia.
 * Phyllis Spira, 64, South African prima ballerina, complications of surgery.
 * Dave Stevens, 52, American comic book writer and artist (The Rocketeer), leukemia.
 * Michael J. Todd, 50, British Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, exposure.
 * Lukas Vischer, 81, Swiss theologian.

12

 * Alan Buckley, 66, British rugby union and rugby league player.
 * Folke Eriksson, 82, Swedish Olympic water polo player.
 * Erwin Geschonneck, 101, German actor.
 * Jorge Guinzburg, 59, Argentine journalist and comedian, pulmonary infection.
 * Alun Hoddinott, 78, Welsh composer.
 * Cassià Maria Just, 81, Spanish cleric, former abbot of Santa Maria de Montserrat, stroke.
 * Howard Metzenbaum, 90, American politician, Senator from Ohio (1974, 1976–1995).
 * Ovidiu Iuliu Moldovan, 66, Romanian actor, cancer.
 * Károly Németh, 85, Hungarian politician.
 * Lazare Ponticelli, 110, Italian-born last official French veteran of World War I.
 * Asesela Ravuvu, 77, Fijian politician and former University of the South Pacific academic, natural causes.
 * Tom Tuohy, 90, British chemist, averted potential disaster at Windscale.

13

 * Tessa Birnie, 73, New Zealand concert pianist.
 * Iosif Boyarsky, 90, Russian former Soyuzmultfilm director, one of the fathers of Soviet animation.
 * Claire Brooks, 76, British politician.
 * Martin Fierro, 66, American saxophonist, cancer.
 * Scarlet Garcia, 23, Filipino model, shot.
 * Terry Moloney, 68, Irish hurler.
 * Chike Obi, 86, Nigerian mathematician and politician.
 * Rafael Tufiño, 85, Puerto Rican painter and printmaker, lung cancer.

14

 * Taslim Arif, 53, Pakistani cricketer, lung infection.
 * Gary Binfield, 42, British swimmer, heart attack.
 * Mel Brandt, 88, American actor and announcer.
 * Clyde Cameron, 95, Australian politician, MP (1949–1980), Minister in the Whitlam Government.
 * Mike Dawson, 54, American football player, heart attack.
 * Stig-Olof Grenner, 68, Finnish Olympic swimmer
 * Chiara Lubich, 88, Italian Catholic activist, founder of the Focolare Movement.
 * Ingvald Ulveseth, 83, Norwegian politician.

15

 * Sambhaji Angre, 87, Indian politician.
 * Jacob DeShazer, 95, American bombardier, participant in the Doolittle Raid.
 * Mikey Dread, 54, Jamaican singer, record producer and broadcaster, brain tumor.
 * Vytautas Kernagis, 56, Lithuanian singer, television announcer, gastric cancer.
 * G. David Low, 52, American astronaut, colon cancer.
 * Benjamin Ngoubou, 82, Gabonese foreign minister.
 * Sam C. Pointer, Jr., 73, American federal judge for the District Court for the Northern District of Alabama (1970–2000).
 * Ken Reardon, 86, Canadian ice hockey defenceman (Montreal Canadiens), Alzheimer's disease.
 * Ross Scaife, 47, American classicist and digital humanist, cancer.
 * Yury Tsuranov, 72, Soviet Olympic sport shooter.
 * Vicki Van Meter, 26, American pilot, suicide by gunshot.

16

 * Anura Bandaranaike, 59, Sri Lankan politician, complications from cancer.
 * Bill Brown, 95, Australian cricket captain, member of 1948 Invincibles team.
 * Ola Brunkert, 61, Swedish session drummer for ABBA, injuries from accidental fall.
 * Wayne Davis, 44, American football player, motor neurone disease.
 * Ivan Dixon, 76, American actor (Hogan's Heroes, A Raisin in the Sun, Porgy and Bess), complications from kidney failure.
 * Gary Hart, 66, American professional wrestling manager, heart attack.
 * John Hewer, 86, British actor (Captain Birdseye), natural causes.
 * Otto Jemelka, 93-94, Czechoslovakian Olympic modern pentathlete.
 * Daniel MacMaster, 39, Canadian rock vocalist (Bonham), group A streptococcal infection.
 * Mary Meader, 91, American aerial photographer.
 * Bob Purkey, 78, American baseball player (Cincinnati Reds, Pittsburgh Pirates), Alzheimer's disease.
 * John Shedd Reed, 90, American president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (1967–1986), natural causes.
 * Laurus Škurla, 80, Czechoslovakian-born American first hierarch of the ROCOR.
 * Jonathan Williams, 79, American poet, photographer and publisher, founder of The Jargon Society.

17

 * Roland Arnall, 68, American owner of Ameriquest Mortgage, Ambassador to the Netherlands (2006–2008), cancer.
 * Claude Farell, 93, Austrian actress.
 * Kim Goetz, 50, American basketball player.
 * Claus Luthe, 75, German automobile designer.
 * Georges Pisani, 89, French Olympic sailor

18

 * Hazel Barnes, 92, American philosopher.
 * Andrew Britton, 27, British-born spy novelist, undiagnosed heart condition.
 * Mariano Di Gangi, 84, Canadian Presbyterian minister.
 * Philip Jones Griffiths, 72, British photojournalist, cancer.
 * Martin Halliday, 81, British physician.
 * Jyrki Hämäläinen, 65, Finnish journalist, editor of Suosikki magazine.
 * Anthony Minghella, 54, British director (The English Patient, Cold Mountain, The Talented Mr. Ripley), Oscar winner (1997), post-surgery haemorrhage.
 * Geoffrey Pearson, 80, Canadian diplomat, son of former Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson.
 * Anton Pongratz, 60, Romanian Olympic fencer.
 * Maral Rahmanzadeh, 92, Azeri painter, visual artist.
 * Oreste Rizzini, 67, Italian voice actor, stomach cancer.
 * Justin Wright, 27, American animator (Ratatouille), heart attack.

19

 * Joe Blackledge, 79, British cricketer, former captain and president of the Lancashire County Cricket Club.
 * Sir Arthur C. Clarke, 90, British science fiction author (2001: A Space Odyssey), heart failure.
 * Hugo Claus, 78, Belgian author, voluntary euthanasia.
 * John Dowie, 93, Australian sculptor, stroke.
 * Mia Permanto, 19, Finnish singer, finalist in Idols, accidental drug overdose.
 * Raghuvaran, 59, Indian actor, cardiac arrest.
 * Paul Scofield, 86, British actor (A Man for All Seasons, Quiz Show, Serpico), Oscar winner (1967), leukaemia.
 * Chantal Sébire, 53, French esthesioneuroblastoma patient and euthanasia activist, Pentobarbital overdose

20

 * Eric Ashton, 73, British rugby league player for Wigan and Great Britain, cancer.
 * Sobhan Babu, 71, Indian actor, cardiac arrest.
 * Ann Baumgartner, 89, American aviator.
 * Alexandru Custov, 53, Romanian footballer.
 * Prince Ferdinand, Duke of Castro, 81, Italian claimant to headship of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.
 * Jon Hassler, 74, American author, progressive supranuclear palsy.
 * Al Hofmann, 60, American drag racer, heart attack.
 * Carlos Galvão de Melo, 86, Portuguese general, Conservative member of National Salvation Junta.
 * Bestia Salvaje, 46, Mexican lucha libre wrestler, liver disease.
 * Brian Wilde, 80, British actor (Porridge, Last of the Summer Wine, The Dustbinmen).

21

 * Gadzhi Abashilov, 58, Russian journalist, chief of VGTRK TV company in Dagestan, shot.
 * Anna Alchuk, 52, Russian poet and visual artist, suicide.
 * Henri Blaffart, 42, Belgian wildlife conservationist for Conservation International in New Caledonia, drowned.
 * Tamás Bujkó, 48, Hungarian judo competitor, stabbed and beaten.
 * Denis Cosgrove, 59, British geographer and Alexander von Humboldt professor of geography at UCLA, cancer.
 * Klaus Dinger, 61, German drummer (Neu!, Kraftwerk), heart failure.
 * Roy Foster, 62, American baseball player (Cleveland Indians).
 * Lynne Golding-Kirk, 87, Australian ballerina, complications of surgery.
 * George Gross, 85, Canadian sports journalist, founding sports editor of the Toronto Sun, heart attack.
 * Shusha Guppy, 72, Iranian writer and singer.
 * Raymond Leblanc, 92, Belgian comic book producer and publisher (The Adventures of Tintin).
 * John List, 82, American mass murderer, complications of pneumonia.
 * Gabriel París Gordillo, 98, Colombian military governor, chairman of Colombian Military Junta.
 * Waltrude Schleyer, 92, German widow of Hanns-Martin Schleyer, advocate against the Red Army Faction.
 * Ilyas Shurpayev, 32, Russian journalist responsible for North Caucasus news on Channel One, murder by strangulation.
 * Merv Wallace, 91, New Zealand cricket captain (1952–1953).

22

 * Robert Dyk, 71, American television reporter (ABC News, WMTW-TV), cancer.
 * Cachao, 89, Cuban musician credited with creating mambo, renal failure.
 * Robert J. McIntosh, 85, American politician, U.S. Representative from Michigan (1957–1959).
 * Harvey Picker, 92, American philanthropist.
 * Adolfo Suárez Rivera, 81, Mexican cardinal, Archbishop Emeritus of Monterrey, brain hemorrhage.

23

 * Abdallah al-Ajmi, 29, Kuwaiti bomber, suicide.
 * Big Jack Armstrong, 62, American radio DJ.
 * Heath Benedict, 24, American football offensive lineman (Newberry College), 2008 NFL Draft prospect, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
 * Al Copeland, 64, American restaurateur, founder of Popeyes Chicken, salivary gland cancer.
 * Hugo Correa, 81, Chilean journalist and science fiction writer.
 * Maryam Farman Farmaian, 94, Iranian feminist activist.
 * E. A. Markham, 68, Montserrat-born British poet and writer.
 * George Switzer, 92, American mineralogist, acquired the Hope Diamond for the Smithsonian Institution, pneumonia.
 * Chase Tatum, 34, American World Championship Wrestling wrestler and road manager for Outkast, apparent accidental drug overdose.
 * Vaino Vahing, 68, Estonian writer and psychiatrist.

24

 * Severin Cecile Abega, 52, Cameroonian author and anthropologist.
 * Chalmers Alford, 53, American jazz guitarist, diabetes.
 * Neil Aspinall, 66, British road manager for The Beatles and executive of Apple Corps, lung cancer.
 * Rafael Azcona, 81, Spanish screenwriter, lung cancer.
 * Victor Christ-Janer, 92, American architect.
 * John Cushley, 65, Scottish footballer (Celtic, West Ham United), motor neurone disease.
 * Ray Drinkwater, 76, British footballer (Queens Park Rangers).
 * Boris Dvornik, 68, Croatian actor, stroke.
 * Mary Joan Nielubowicz, 79, American head of the Navy Nurse Corps (1983–1987).
 * Hal Riney, 75, American advertising executive, founder of Publicis & Hal Riney, cancer.
 * Dina Sassoli, 87, Italian actress.
 * Sam Toy, 84, British chair of Ford UK (1980–1986).
 * Richard Widmark, 93, American actor ('Kiss of Death', Judgment at Nuremberg, Against All Odds).
 * Sherri Wood, 28, Canadian journalist (Toronto Sun), brain cancer.

25

 * Art Aragon, 80, American boxer, stroke.
 * Ben Carnevale, 92, American college basketball coach.
 * Tony Church, 77, British actor.
 * Jimmy Dell, 83, British Wing Commander and test pilot.
 * Ronald Dick, 76, British Royal Air Force officer.
 * Thierry Gilardi, 49, French journalist and TF1 sports commentator, heart attack.
 * William G. Hyland, 79, American intelligence official.
 * Sergey Kramarenko, 61, Russian football player.
 * Abby Mann, 80, American screenwriter (Judgment at Nuremberg), Oscar winner (1962), heart failure.
 * Herb Peterson, 89, American fast food pioneer, inventor of the McDonald's Egg McMuffin.
 * Gene Puerling, 78, American vocal jazz musician, singer, musical arranger for the Hi-Los and Singers Unlimited.
 * Edward Rafeedie, 79, American senior judge for the California Central District Court, cancer.
 * Sérgio de Souza, 73, Brazilian journalist, co-founder and editor of Caros Amigos magazine, respiratory illness.
 * Ivan Toms, 55, South African physician, activist against apartheid and conscription, meningitis.

26

 * Hawley Ades, 99, American choral arranger.
 * Christian Bergelin, 62, French politician.
 * Robert Fagles, 74, American professor, poet and translator of ancient epics, prostate cancer.
 * Donald Hunter, 81, British football player.
 * Manuel Marulanda, 78, Colombian founder and commander-in-chief of terrorist organization FARC.
 * Wally Phillips, 82, American radio personality, pioneer of talk radio, Alzheimer's disease.

27

 * Jean-Marie Balestre, 86, French former President of FISA and later FIA.
 * Beverly Broadman, 60, American broadcaster with CNN and CBS News, cancer.
 * Billy Consolo, 73, American baseball player and coach, heart attack.
 * George Pruteanu, 60, Romanian literary critic and senator, heart attack.

28

 * Mohammad Asaduzzaman, 60, Bangladeshi university academic and administrator, cardiac arrest.
 * Lorne Ferguson, 77, Canadian ice hockey player.
 * Kunio Lemari, 65, Marshall Islands acting President (1996–1997).
 * Michael Podro, 77, British art historian.
 * Herb Rich, 79, American football player.
 * Ron Slinker, 62, American professional wrestler.
 * Helen Yglesias, 92, American novelist.

29

 * Fereydun Adamiyat, 87, Iranian historian.
 * Albert Alcalay, 90, American abstract artist.
 * Angus Fairhurst, 41, British artist, suicide by hanging.
 * Allan Ganley, 77, British jazz drummer.
 * Josef Mikl, 78, Austrian painter, cancer.
 * Isabella Nardoni, 5, Brazilian murder victim, thrown out of window.
 * Ralph Rapson, 93, American architect, heart attack.
 * Albert Stallard, Baron Stallard, 86, British Labour MP and life peer.
 * Myint Thein, 62, Burmese National League for Democracy spokesman, stomach cancer.

30

 * Marie-Françoise Audollent, 70, French actress, accidental fall.
 * Anders Göthberg, 32, Swedish guitarist (Broder Daniel).
 * Douglas Kent Hall, 69, American writer and photographer.
 * David Leslie, 54, British racing driver and commentator, Farnborough air crash.
 * Sean Levert, 39, American R&B singer.
 * Richard Lloyd, 63, British racing driver and team owner, Farnborough air crash.
 * Jim Mooney, 88, American comic book artist (Batman, Spider-Man, Thor).
 * David D. Newsom, 90, American Ambassador to the Philippines (1977–1978), respiratory failure.
 * Dith Pran, 65, Cambodian-born American journalist, survivor of the Killing Fields, pancreatic cancer.

31

 * Nikolai Baibakov, 97, Russian economist, Gosplan head (1955–1957, 1965–1985), pneumonia.
 * Jules Dassin, 96, American film director (The Naked City, Rififi, Never on Sunday), influenza.
 * William Louis Dickinson, 82, American judge and Representative from Alabama (1965–1993), colon cancer.
 * Eliyahu Boruch Finkel, 60, Israeli rabbi and lecturer.
 * Robert F. Goheen, 88, American President of Princeton University (1957–1972), Ambassador to India (1977–1980), heart failure.
 * Bill Keightley, 81, American equipment manager for Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball since 1962, bleeding from spinal tumor.
 * Halszka Osmólska, 77, Polish palaeontologist.
 * David Todd, 93, American architect, designed Manhattan Plaza, former chairman of NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission.