Deaths in May 1997

The following is a list of notable deaths in May 1997.

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

 * Elena Altieri, 80, Italian actress.
 * Tridib Chaudhuri, 85, Indian politician and Indian independence activist.
 * Russell G. Cleary, 63, American brewer, complications from heart surgery.
 * Fernand Dumont, 69, Canadian sociologist, philosopher, and theologian.
 * Friedl Däuber, 86, German alpine and cross-country skier.
 * Jim McDonald, 81, American football player and coach.
 * Arthur Milne, 82, Scottish football player.
 * Bo Widerberg, 66, Swedish actor and film director, stomach cancer.

2

 * Raymond Sarif Easmon, 84, Sierra Leonean doctor and writer.
 * John Eccles, 94, Australian neurophysiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
 * Heinz Ellenberg, 83, German biologist, botanist and ecologist.
 * Paulo Freire, 75, Brazilian educator and philosopher, heart attack.
 * Walter Hill, 62, American serial killer, execution by electrocution.
 * Robin Kinahan, 80, Northern Irish politician and Orange Order member.
 * Werner Lott, 89, German U-boat commander during World War II.
 * Ralph McCreath, 78, Canadian figure skater.
 * Queen Mother Moore, 98, African-American civil rights leader and a black nationalist.
 * Keith R. Porter, 84, Canadian-American cell biologist, pneumonia.
 * Eugene Vale, 81, American novelist.
 * Jimmy Wilson, 77, American Negro league baseball player.

3

 * Bruce Beetham, 61, New Zealand academic and politician, heart failure.
 * Gerrit den Braber, 68, Dutch songwriter and lyricist, stroke.
 * Sébastien Enjolras, 21, French racing driver, racing accident.
 * Hughie Green, 77, English presenter, game show host and actor, cancer.
 * Sir John Junor, 78, British journalist and editor of the Daily Express.
 * Louis, Prince Napoléon, 83, French member of the Bonaparte dynasty.
 * Narciso Yepes, 69, Spanish guitarist, cancer.

4

 * Suhayr al-Qalamawi, 85, Egyptian literary figure and politician.
 * Jerome Alden, 76, American playwright and screenwriter, kidney cancer.
 * Wijeyananda Dahanayake, 95, Sri Lankan politician.
 * Esin Engin, 51, Turkish musician, composer, and film actor, leukemia.
 * Danilo Fioravanti, 83, Italian gymnast and Olympian.
 * Hilary Grivich, 19, American gymnast and diver, car accident.
 * Fernando Hernández, 52, Costa Rican footballer, cancer.
 * Lee Miglin, 72, American businessman and philanthropist, murdered by serial killer Andrew Cunanan.
 * Alvy Moore, 75, American actor (Green Acres, The Littles, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind), heart failure.
 * Lyman Bradford Smith, 92, American botanist.
 * Lou Stathis, 44, American author, critic and editor, brain tumor.

5

 * Bob Briggs, 52, American gridiron football player.
 * George Burns, 86, British Army officer.
 * Walter Gotell, 73, German actor (From Russia with Love, The Spy Who Loved Me, The Living Daylights), cancer.
 * Alan Gussow, 65, American artist, author and conservationist, cancer.
 * Murray Kempton, 79, American journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner, pancreatic cancer.
 * David Scherman, 81, American photojournalist and editor, cancer.

6

 * Ridge Bond, 74, American actor and singer.
 * Sydney Joseph Freedberg, 82, American art historian and curator.
 * Jorge Martínez de Hoyos, 76, Mexican actor, lung cancer.
 * John Edwards Hill, 68, British mammalogist.
 * Günther Jerschke, 75, German actor.
 * Wang You, 86, Chinese biochemist.

7

 * John C. Ewers, 87, American ethnologist and museum curator.
 * Yip Hon, 93, Chinese gambling tycoon, heart attack.
 * George Lynch, 78, American race car driver.
 * Tom Lysons, 62, Canadian politician.

8

 * Joachim Angermeyer, 73, German businessman and politician.
 * Bijoy Chandra Bhagavati, 92, Indian politician.
 * Ralph Wendell Burhoe, 85, American theologian.
 * Scott Carpenter, 22, American convicted murderer, execution by lethal injection.
 * Pat Hughes, 94, English tennis player.
 * Bernhard Nooni, 88, Estonian football player.
 * Clara Ottesen, 85, Norwegian government official, aid worker and politician.
 * Nunzio Provenzano, 74, American mobster.
 * William R. Royal, 92, American Air Force scuba diver.
 * Michael Shersby, 64, British politician.
 * Kai-Uwe von Hassel, 84, German politician, heart attack.
 * Micheline Kerney Walsh, 77, Irish archivist and historian.
 * Bob Whitcher, 80, American baseball player.

9

 * Rawya Ateya, 71, Egyptian woman and first female parliamentarian in the Arab world.
 * Bob Devaney, 82, American gridiron football coach, heart attack.
 * Marco Ferreri, 68, Italian film director, screenwriter and actor, heart attack.
 * Willy Hess, 90, Swiss musicologist and composer.
 * Kazumi Kawai, 32, Japanese actress, suicide.
 * Rina Lasnier, 86, Québécois poet.
 * Augusto Céspedes Patzi, 93, Bolivian writer, politician, diplomat, and journalist.
 * Paul Zastupnevich, 75, American costume designer.

10

 * Bernard Anderson, 77, American jazz trumpeter.
 * Jacinto Quincoces, 91, Spanish football player and manager.
 * Silvano Tranquilli, 71, Italian actor.
 * Joan Weston, 62, American Roller derby skater, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

11

 * William Ragsdale Cannon, 81, American theologian and bishop of the United Methodist Church.
 * David Christie, 49, French singer-songwriter, suicide.
 * Ernie Fields, 92, American trombonist, pianist, arranger and bandleader.
 * Genine Graham, 70, English actress.
 * Dean M. Kelley, 70, American legal scholar, cancer.
 * Catherine McLeod, 75, American actress.
 * Howard Morton, 71, American actor, stroke.
 * Peter Stackpole, 83, American photographer.

12

 * Louis Barbarin, 94, American jazz drummer.
 * Charles-Arthur Gauthier, 84, Canadian politician.
 * Jiří Pecka, 79, Czechoslovak slalom and sprint canoeist.
 * Henk Plenter, 83, Dutch football player.
 * Avraham Yitzchak Stern, 61, Israeli administrator and politician.
 * Frank A. Wenstrom, 93, American politician.

13

 * Laurie Lee, 82, English poet, novelist and screenwriter, colorectal cancer.
 * Carlos Augusto León, 82, Venezuelan poet, historian, politician and scientist.
 * Tommy Turrentine, 69, American swing and hard bop trumpeter and composer.
 * Zdeňka Veřmiřovská, 83, Czechoslovak/Czech gymnast and Olympian.
 * Eduard Zakharov, 22, Russian boxer, homicide.

14

 * Jambyn Batmönkh, 71, Mongolian communist politician.
 * Mel Bay, 84, American musician and music publisher.
 * Harry Blackstone, Jr., 62, American magician and television performer, pancreatic cancer.
 * Thelma Carpenter, 75, American jazz singer and actress, cardiac arrest.
 * Samuel Hoyt Elbert, 89, American linguist.
 * Alan Furlan, 77, Italian-American actor.
 * Morton Heilig, 70, American virtual reality technology pioneer and filmmaker.
 * Boris Parsadanian, 72, Armenian-Estonian composer.
 * Val Peat, 50, British sprinter and Olympian.
 * Bessie Schonberg, 90, German-American dancer and choreographer.

15

 * Oscar Berger, 96, American editorial cartoonist.
 * David Martin, 89, American politician, pneumonia.
 * Trevor Porteous, 63, English football player and coach.
 * Saadallah Wannous, Syrian playwright, cancer.

16

 * Donatien Mahele Lieko Bokungu, 56, Zairean general, execution by firing squad.
 * Flor Crowley, 62, Irish Fianna Fáil politician.
 * Giuseppe De Santis, 80, Italian film director (Bitter Rice), heart attack.
 * Elbridge Durbrow, 93, American diplomat and ambassador, stroke.
 * Bones McKinney, 78, American basketball player and coach.
 * Harry Charles Moore, 56, American convicted murderer, execution by lethal injection.
 * Wang Zengqi, 77, Chinese writer.

17

 * Tusten Ackerman, 95, American basketball player.
 * Mikhail Bychkov, 70, Russian ice hockey player.
 * Chris Julian, 60, English motorcycle racer, gyrocopter accident.
 * Durgabai Kamat, 97/98, first Indian female actress of Indian cinema.
 * Roscoe L. Koontz, 74, American health physicist.

18

 * Bridgette Andersen, 21, American actress.
 * Mikhail Anikushin, 79, Soviet and Russian sculptor.
 * Horst Lippmann, 70, German concert promoter and jazz musician.
 * Paolo Panelli, 71, Italian comedian and film actor, pulmonary edema.
 * Antonio Cornejo Polar, 60, Peruvian academic and literature and cultural critic.
 * Soenario, 94, Indonesian politician and Foreign Minister.

19

 * Aaron Henry, 74, American civil rights leader and politician, congestive heart failure.
 * Sombhu Mitra, 81, Indian actor, director and playwright.
 * Troy Ruttman, 67, American race car driver, lung cancer.
 * Pāvels Seņičevs, 72, Soviet sports shooter.

20

 * Don Parker, 88, British racing driver.
 * John Rawlins, 94, American film editor and director.
 * Virgilio Barco Vargas, 75, Colombian politician, cancer.
 * Gopal Yonjan, 53, Nepalese musician, complications of jaundice.

21

 * William Aston, 80, Australian politician.
 * Amasa Stone Bishop, American nuclear physicist, pneumonia.
 * Noël Browne, 81, Irish politician.
 * Fiorenzo Carpi, 78, Italian composer and pianist.

22

 * Myrtle Bachelder, 89, American chemist and Women's Army Corps officer.
 * Alziro Bergonzo, 90, Italian architect and painter.
 * Donald Curtis, 82, American actor.
 * Herman de Coninck, 53, Belgian poet, essayist, journalist and publisher, heart attack.
 * Genildo Ferreira de França, Brazilian spree killer, suicide.
 * Jimmy Heale, 82, English footballer.
 * Alfred Hershey, 88, American biochemist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, heart failure.
 * Raúl Gómez Jattin, 51, Colombian poet.
 * Arthur Milne, 82, Scottish football player.
 * Renzo Montagnani, 66, Italian actor, lung cancer.
 * Candis Pettway, 72, American artist.
 * Cornelius Michael Power, 84, American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church.
 * T. R. Ramanna, 74, Indian film director and producer.
 * Robert D. Russ, 64, United States Air Force general and commander of Tactical Air Command.
 * Stanisław Swianiewicz, 97, Polish economist and historian.
 * Klaus von Bismarck, 85, German broadcaster and cultural administrator.

23

 * Alison Adburgham, 85, English fashion journalist and author.
 * James Lee Byars, 65, American conceptual and performance artist, cancer.
 * Dorothy Gulliver, 88, American actress, pneumonia.
 * Sadayoshi Kobayashi, 92, Japanese field hockey player.
 * Lovie Lee, 88, American electric blues pianist and singer.
 * David M. Ludlum, 86, American historian, meteorologist, and author.
 * Albert Rosen, 73, Austrian-Irish conductor.

24

 * Muhammad Fadhel al-Jamali, 94, Iraqi politician and Prime Minister (1953-1954).
 * M. Aram, 70, Indian educator and peace advocate.
 * Kinpei Azusa, 66, Japanese voice actor, laryngeal cancer.
 * Robbie Branscum, 62, American children's author, heart attack.
 * Alfonso de Vinuesa, 38, Spanish racing driver, traffic collision.
 * Edward Mulhare, 74, Irish actor (Knight Rider, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Von Ryan's Express), lung cancer.
 * Sepp Weiler, 76, West German ski jumper and Olympian.

25

 * Syd Bidwell, 80, British politician.
 * Chester Feldman, 71, American producer of game shows.
 * Jay Hebert, 74, American golfer.
 * Joseph Hoffman, 88, American screenwriter.
 * Peter Rangmar, 40, Swedish comedian, actor and baritone.
 * Ronald Vernieux, 86, Indian sprinter and Olympian.

26

 * Jack Bennett, 76, Australian rules football player.
 * Jenny Rosenthal Bramley, 87, Russian-American physicist.
 * James Gordon, 88, American sprinter and Olympian.
 * Ralph Horween, 100, American football player and coach.
 * Bernard Jackson, 46, American football player and coach, liver cancer.
 * Jack Jersey, 55, Dutch singer, composer, and producer of light music, cancer.
 * Jack Vinall, 86, English football player and manager.
 * Manfred von Ardenne, 90, German physicist and inventor.

27

 * Robert Ambelain, 89, French essayist.
 * Henry Barakat, 83, Egyptian film director.
 * Karl Martz, 84, American studio potter and ceramic artist.
 * Azem Shkreli, 59, Albanian writer, poet, director and producer.

28

 * Ronald V. Book, 60, American theoretical computer scientist.
 * Sydney Guilaroff, 89, American Hollywood hairdresser, pneumonia.
 * Édouard Muller, 77, French road bicycle racer.
 * Sung Nak-woon, 71, South Korean football forward.
 * John H. Sengstacke, 84, American newspaper publisher, stroke.
 * John Stack, 73, American X-ray engineer, rower and Olympic champion.
 * Tatyana Sumarokova, 74, Soviet flight navigator during World War II.

29

 * Jeff Buckley, 30, American singer, songwriter and guitarist, accidental drowning.
 * George Fenneman, 77, American radio and television announcer, emphysema.
 * Alexander Kazhdan, 74, Soviet-American Byzantinist.
 * William H. McNichols, Jr., 87, American politician and mayor of Denver, Colorado (1968-1983).
 * Jack Parkinson, 73, American basketball player, brain tumor, brain cancer.

30

 * West Arkeen, 36, American musician and songwriter for Guns N' Roses, opiate overdose.
 * Béla Barényi, 90, Austro-Hungarian automotive engineer.
 * Winsome Cripps, 66, Australian sprinter.
 * Doris Lindsey Holland Rhodes, 87, American politician.

31

 * Pat Collins, 62, American hypnotist.
 * Frei Damião, 98, Italian Roman Catholic priest and missionary, stroke.
 * James Bennett Griffin, 92, American archaeologist.
 * Fazal Haq Mujahid, Afghanistan mujahideen during the Soviet–Afghan War, assassinated.
 * Eddie Jones, 68, American jazz double bassist.
 * Oswald Kaduk, 90, German SS officer and war criminal during World War II.
 * Jewel Lafontant, 75, American lawyer and White House official, breast cancer.
 * Ove Ljung, 79, Swedish Army officer.
 * Günter Luther, 75, German admiral.
 * Johnny Papalia, 73, Canadian mobster, shot.
 * Poul Petersen, 76, Danish football player and manager.