Deaths in October 2004

The following is a list of notable deaths in October 2004

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

 * Richard Avedon, 81, American fashion and portrait photographer, cerebral hemorrhage.
 * Frank Kendall Everest Jr., 84, American Air Force officer.
 * Ron Hayes, 75, American television actor, suicide from height.
 * Joyce Jillson, 58, American astrologer, newspaper columnist, author and actress, kidney failure.
 * Bruce Palmer, 58, Canadian bassist (Buffalo Springfield), heart attack.
 * Aleksandr Rogov, 48, Soviet Olympic canoer (gold medal winner in men's C-1 500 metres individual canoeing at the 1976 Summer Olympics).

2

 * Shaul Amor, 63, Israeli politician.
 * Bjørnar Andresen, 59, Norwegian jazz musician.
 * Max Geldray, 88, Dutch jazz harmonica player often credited as the world's first, and Goon Show performer.
 * Fialho Gouveia, 69, Portuguese radio and TV presenter, respiratory failure.
 * Norm Schachter, 90, American gridiron football official and referee.
 * Nick Skorich, 83, American NFL gridiron football player and coach (Philadelphia Eagles), complications from heart surgery.

3

 * Vernon Alley, 89, American jazz bassist.
 * Jacques Benveniste, 69, French immunologist and physician.
 * John Cerutti, 44, American Major League Baseball baseball player, announcer for the Toronto Blue Jays.
 * Donald Wills Douglas, Jr., 87, American industrialist and sportsman.
 * Matthäus Hetzenauer, 79, Austrian Wehrmacht sniper during World War II.
 * Janet Leigh, 77, American actress (Psycho, The Manchurian Candidate, Touch of Evil), vasculitis, vasculitis, heart attack.
 * Frits van Turenhout, 91, Dutch sports journalist.

4

 * Helmut Bantz, 83, German Olympic gymnast (gold medal in the vault at the 1956 Summer Olympics).
 * Syd Bycroft, 92, English footballer player.
 * Rodolfo Celletti, 87, Italian musicologist, critic, voice teacher, and novelist.
 * Gordon Cooper, 77, American astronaut and aeronautical engineer, one of the original Mercury Seven, heart failure.
 * Rio Diaz, 45, Filipino beauty queen, television presenter, actress and politician, colorectal cancer.
 * Michael Grant, 89, British ancient historian.
 * Emīlija Gudriniece, 84, Soviet/Latvian chemist.
 * Nilamani Routray, 84, Indian politician and Chief Minister.

5

 * Mario Ramón Beteta, 79, Mexican economist.
 * Rodney Dangerfield, 82, American comedian and actor (Easy Money, Caddyshack, Back to School), Grammy winner (1981), complications from heart surgery.
 * William H. Dobelle, 62, American biomedical researcher, eye doctor and artificial vision pioneer, complications of diabetes.
 * John Richards, 77, British Royal Marines general.
 * Wayne Rutledge, 62, Canadian professional ice hockey player (Los Angeles Kings, Houston Aeros), stomach cancer.
 * Maurice Wilkins, 87, New Zealand-British physicist and molecular biologist, Nobel laureate (Physiology or Medicine, 1962).

6

 * Frederica de Laguna, 98, American anthropologist and archaeologist.
 * Johnny Kelley, 97, American long-distance runner and Olympian (1936, 1948).
 * William Clark, Baron Clark of Kempston, 86, British politician and peer.
 * Pete McCarthy, 51, British travel writer and broadcaster, cancer.
 * Marvin Santiago, 56, Puerto Rican salsa singer, complications of diabetes.
 * Norm Schlueter, 88, American baseball player (Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians).
 * Veríssimo Correia Seabra, 57, Bissau-Guinean military commander, beaten to death in mutiny.
 * Clem Tholet, 56, Rhodesian singer and songwriter.
 * Harbhajan Singh Yogi, 75, Indian spiritual leader and head of the Sikh Dharma in the western hemisphere, heart failure.

7

 * Michael C. Astour, 87, Soviet-American professor of Yiddish and Russian literature.
 * Kenneth Bigley, 62, British civil engineer taken hostage in Iraq, beheaded by hostage takers, decapitation.
 * T. J. Binyon, 68, British author, Oxford professor, Pushkin scholar and crime novelist, heart attack.
 * Wolfgang Grzyb, 64, German football player.
 * Oscar Heisserer, 90, French football player.
 * Tony Lanfranchi, 69, British racing driver, cancer.
 * Miki Matsubara, 44, Japanese singer, cervical cancer.
 * Rosemary Murray, 91, British chemist, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge (1975–1977).
 * Jacques Noël, 84, French fencer.
 * Hildy Parks, 78, American actress, writer and TV producer, complications of stroke.
 * Július Toček, 65, Czechoslovak rower and Olympic medalist.
 * Nikola Dimitrov Tzanev, 64, Bulgarian football player.

8

 * James Chace, 72, American historian, heart attack.
 * Irina Demick, 67, French actress.
 * Tony Giuliani, 91, American baseball player (St. Louis Browns, Washington Senators, Brooklyn Dodgers).
 * Kenneth G. Mills, 81, Canadian philosopher and musician.
 * Johnny Sturm, 88, American baseball player (New York Yankees) and minor league manager, congestive heart failure.

9

 * Jacques Derrida, 74, French philosopher (deconstruction), pancreatic cancer.
 * Maxime Faget, 83, American aerospace engineer (NASA, Space Shuttle program), designer of the Mercury space capsule, bladder cancer.
 * Herschel Grossman, 65, American economist.
 * Don McEvoy, 75, English football player and manager.
 * Bryan R. Wilson, 78, British author of religious books.

10

 * Ken Caminiti, 41, American baseball player, drug overdose.
 * David G. Chandler, 70, British historian.
 * Kelsey Jones, 82, Canadian composer, pianist, harpsichordist, and music teacher, kidney failure.
 * Christopher Reeve, 52, American actor (Superman, The Remains of the Day, Deathtrap), heart failure.
 * Arthur H. Robinson, 89, American cartographer and geographer.
 * Maurice Shadbolt, 72, New Zealand novelist, playwright and journalist, Alzheimer's disease.
 * John William Tebbel, 91, American journalist, editor, writer, teacher, and media historian.

11

 * Paul Bryan, 91, British politician.
 * Bobby Cook, 81, American basketball player.
 * Lord Nicholas Gordon-Lennox, 73, British diplomat, Ambassador to Spain (1984–1989).
 * Elisabeth Klein, 93, Hungarian-Danish pianist.
 * Ben Komproe, 62, Netherlands Antilles politician, Prime Minister (2003) and Minister of Justice (2003–2004), complications from gastric surgery.
 * Mary Loos, 94, American actress, screenwriter, and novelist, complications from stroke.
 * Peter Kerr, 12th Marquess of Lothian, 82, British peer, politician and landowner.
 * Keith Miller, 84, Australian cricketer, Australian rules footballer, fighter pilot and journalist.
 * Gulshan Rai, 80, Indian film producer and distributor.
 * Fernando Sabino, 80, Brazilian writer and journalist, cancer.

12

 * Tommy Kalmanir, 78, American football player.
 * Samson Kutsuwada, 57, Japanese wrestler, acute myeloid leukemia.
 * Jackie McGrory, 62, Scottish football player.
 * Shigehiro Ozawa, 82, Japanese film director and screenwriter.

13

 * Mike Blyzka, 75, American baseball player (St. Louis Browns/Baltimore Orioles).
 * Erik Bye, 78, Norwegian journalist, radio/TV host, actor, and singer/songwriter, cancer.
 * Enrique M. Fernando, 89, Filipino judge and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
 * David Grose, 59, American archaeologist and classicist.
 * Grethe Holmer, 80, Danish actress.
 * Nirupa Roy, 73, Indian film actress, heart attack.
 * Bernice Rubens, 76, British Booker Prize-winning novelist (The Elected Member), complications from stroke.
 * Ivor Wood, 72, British animator (Paddington Bear, The Wombles Postman Pat), cancer.
 * Tetsu Yano, 80, Japanese science fiction writer and translato, colorectal cancer.

14

 * Peter Adelaar, 57, Dutch Olympic judoka.
 * Juan Francisco Fresno, 90, Chilean Roman Catholic prelate, Archbishop of Santiago de Chile (1983–1990).
 * Mohamed Zahir Ismail, 80, Malaysian lawyer and politician, kidney failure.
 * Cordell Jackson, 81, American rockabilly musician.
 * Sheila Keith, 84, British actress.
 * Lokesh, 103, Indian actor.
 * Conrad Russell, 5th Earl Russell, 67, British peer, historian and member of the House of Lords, complications of emphysema.
 * Ivan Shamiakin, 83, Soviet Belarusian writer.
 * Dattopant Thengadi, 83, Indian Hindu ideologueand trade union leader.

15

 * Bill Eyden, 74, British jazz drummer.
 * Dave Godin, 68, British soul music promoter and journalist, coined the term "northern soul".
 * Per Højholt, 76, Danish poet.
 * Irv Novick, 88, American comic book artist (Batman, The Flash, Superman).
 * Thiruthuraipoondi Radhakrishnan Pappa, 81, Indian music director of Tamil, Telugu and Sinhalese films.
 * Tex Ritter, 80, American professional basketball player (Eastern Kentucky, New York Knicks).

16

 * Doug Bennett, 52, Canadian rock singer (Doug and the Slugs).
 * Vincent Brome, 94, British biographer and novelist.
 * Susana Campos, 70, Argentine actress, brain cancer.
 * Don Carlson, 85, American basketball player.
 * Harold Perkin, 77, English social historian.
 * Pierre Salinger, 79, American journalist and Press Secretary to John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, heart failure.
 * Tomasz Strzembosz, 74, Polish historian and writer.

17

 * Ray Boone, 81, American Major League Baseball player, patriarch of first third-generation MLB family.
 * Wu Faxian, 89, Chinese revolutionary and military officer, commander of the People's Liberation Army Air Force/.
 * Julius Harris, 81, American actor (Live and Let Die, Super Fly, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three), heart failure.
 * Uzi Hitman, 52, Israeli singer, songwriter and composer, heart attack.
 * Bas Pease, 81, British physicist.
 * Franco Prosperi, 78, Italian film director and screenwriter.
 * Andreas Sassen, 36, German football player, stroke.

18

 * Nancy Carline, 94, British artist.
 * Edwin Arthur Hall, 95, American politician.
 * Richie Lemos, 84, Mexican-American boxer.
 * Elizabeth Nicholls, 58, American-Canadian paleontologist, cancer.
 * Fermin Rocker, 96, British painter and book illustrator.
 * Veerappan, 52, Indian criminial known as "Jungle Cat", shot by Special Task Force.
 * Viktor Zubarev, 31, Kazakhstani football player, drug overdose.

19

 * Antoine Abel, 69, Seychellois writer.
 * Anita Bitri, 36, Albanian pop singer, carbon monoxide poisoning.
 * Frank Chapple, 83, British trade unionist (General Secretary of EETPU, 1966–1984).
 * Kenneth E. Iverson, 84, Canadian computer scientist, inventor of the APL programming language, stroke.
 * Sang Lee, 51, Korean-American three-cushion billiard player, stomach cancer.
 * Elizabeth May McClintock, 92, American botanist.
 * Veljko Milatović, 82, Montenegrin communist partisan, politician, and President (1967-1969, 1974-1982).
 * Paul Nitze, 97, American diplomat and Cold War arms negotiator, pneumonia.
 * Calvin Ruck, 79, Canadian member of Parliament (Senate of Canada representing Nova Scotia).
 * Greg Shaw, 55, American rock music journalist and record label executive, heart attack.
 * Lewis Urry, 77, Canadian chemical engineer and inventor (alkaline battery, lithium battery).

20

 * William Brown, 66, American operatic tenor.
 * Veronika Cherkasova, 45, Belarusian journalist, stabbed.
 * Tevfik Gelenbe, 73, Turkish actor and comedian, complications of cancer.
 * Anthony Hecht, 81, American poet, lymphoma.
 * Chuck Hiller, 70, American Major League Baseball baseball player and coach, first National League player to hit a World Series grand slam, leukemia.
 * Nietzchka Keene, 52, American film director and writer, pancreatic cancer.
 * Lynda Lee-Potter, 69, British newspaper columnist (Daily Mail), brain tumour, brain cancer.
 * Ildo Lobo, 50, Cape Verdean singer.

21

 * Adnan al-Ghoul, Palestinian Hamas chief explosives expert, alleged "father" of the Qassam rocket, targeted killing by the IDF.
 * Sharifa Alkhateeb, 58, American teacher and writer, pancreatic cancer.
 * Jim Bucher, 93, American baseball player (Brooklyn Dodgers, St. Louis Cardinals, Boston Red Sox).
 * Neil Campbell, 58, American scientist, heart attack.
 * Jean Dondelinger, 73, Luxembourgian diplomat and civil servant.
 * Everett Rogers, 73, American communication scholar and sociologist, founder of diffusion of innovations theory.
 * Victoria Snelgrove, 21, American college junior, shot with pepper spray projectile by Boston Police.

22

 * Louis Bouyer, 91, French Catholic priest and Lutheran minister.
 * Galeazzo Dondi, 89, Italian Olympic basketball player and basketball coach.
 * Samuel L. Gravely, Jr., 82, American naval pioneer (first African American fleet commander and admiral), complications from stroke.
 * Katherine Victor, 81, American cult film actress, stroke.
 * Pedro Vilardebo, 51, Spanish racing cyclist.

23

 * Edward T. Cone, 87, American composer, music theorist, pianist, and philanthropist.
 * Jim McDonald, 77, American baseball player.
 * Robert Merrill, 87, American operatic baritone, natural causes.
 * Bill Nicholson, 85, British football manager (Tottenham Hotspur, 1958–1974), player, coach, and scout.
 * George Silk, 87, New Zealand WWII photojournalist (Life), congestive heart failure.

24

 * Dario Di Palma, 71, Italian film cinematographer.
 * Randy Dorton, 50, American engine builder (Hendrick Motorsports), plane crash.
 * Ricky Hendrick, 24, American NASCAR stock car driver and partial team owner, plane crash.
 * James Aloysius Hickey, 84, American Roman Catholic Cardinal, Archbishop of Washington, D.C. (1980–2000).
 * Isao Imai, 90, Japanese theoretical physicist.
 * Maaja Ranniku, 63, Soviet (Estonian) chess International Master, women's Soviet chess champion, ten-time Estonian women's chess champion.
 * Herbert Schilling, 74, German Olympic boxer (light welterweight boxing at the 1952 Summer Olympics).

25

 * Thomas Kanza, 71, Congolese diplomat and ambassador, heart attack.
 * Shyam Nandan Prasad Mishra, 84, Indian politician (foreign minister, 1979–1980), cardiac arrest.
 * John Peel, 65, English radio presenter and journalist, heart attack.
 * Jerzy Ustupski, 93, Polish rower and Olympic medalist.

26

 * Bobby Ávila, 79, Mexican MLB All-Star and American League batting champion (1954), complications of diabetes.
 * Helen Elsie Austin, 96, American attorney, civil rights leader, and diplomat.
 * Russ Derry, 88, American baseball player (New York Yankees, Philadelphia Athletics, St. Louis Cardinals).
 * Robin Kenyatta, 62, American jazz alto saxophonist.
 * Patricia Knight, 89, American actress.
 * Ricardo Odnoposoff, 90, Austrian violinist.
 * Fred Paine, 78, American basketball player (Providence Steamrollers).

27

 * Vladimir Arkhipov, 71, Soviet army general and politician.
 * Hermione Cobbold, Baroness Cobbold, 99, British aristocrat.
 * Claude Helffer, 82, French pianist.
 * Olavi Laaksonen, 83, Finnish Olympic football player.
 * Lester Lanin, 97, American jazz big band leader.
 * Lasse Nordvall, 76, Swedish Olympic cyclist (men's individual and team cycling road races at the 1952 and 1956 Summer Olympics).
 * Marwell Periotti, 65, Argentine Olympic footballer (men's football at the 1960 Summer Olympics).
 * V. V. Raghavan, 81, Indian communist politician.
 * Zdenko Runjić, 62, Croatian songwriter, stroke.
 * Paulo Sérgio Oliveira da Silva, 30, Brazilian footballer (São Caetano), heart attack during match.

28

 * Muhammad Alawi al-Maliki, 56, Saudi traditional Sunni Islamic scholar.
 * Rosalind Christie, 85, British literary guardian and the only child of Agatha Christie.
 * Maria Fiore, 69, Italian film and television actress, lung cancer.
 * Jimmy McLarnin, 96, British boxer, two-time welterweight world champion (1933, 1934).
 * Gil Mellé, 72, American artist, jazz saxophonist and film and television composer, heart attack.
 * George S. Schairer, 91, American aerodynamics expert at Boeing.
 * Ted Taylor, 79, Mexican-American theoretical physicist and nuclear weapon designere, coronary artery disease.
 * Charles F. Wheeler, 88, American cinematographer (Tora! Tora! Tora!), Alzheimer's disease.

29

 * Natalya Baranskaya, 95, Soviet writer of short stories and novellas.
 * Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, 102, British royal, aunt of Queen Elizabeth II, stroke.
 * Jacinto João, 60, Portuguese footballer, heart attack.
 * Shosei Koda, 24, Japanese backpacker, beheaded by Al-Qaeda in Iraq-terrorists.
 * Edward Oliver LeBlanc, 81, Dominican political leader, chief minister (1961–1967) and premier (1967–1974).
 * Vaughn Meader, 68, American Grammy-winning comedian and JFK impersonator, emphysema.
 * Gerard Ross Norton, 89, South African soldier and Victoria Cross recipient (1944),.
 * Ezra Stoller, 89, American architectural photographer.
 * Pierre Thibaud, 75, French classical trumpeter.
 * Peter Twinn, 88, British mathematician, codebreaker during World War II, and entomologist.

30

 * Brian Andre Doyle, 93, British judge, Attorney General of Fiji and Chief Justice of Zambia.
 * Dame Phyllis Frost, 87, Australian welfare worker and philanthropist.
 * David José Kohon, 75, Argentine film director and screenwriter.
 * Rein Otsason, 73, Estonian economist and banker, heart failure.
 * Peggy Ryan, 80, American actress (All Ashore, Hawaii Five-O), singer and dancer, stroke.
 * David Shulman, 91, American lexicographer and cryptographer.
 * Ed Waters, 74, American writer for film and television.

31

 * Mari Aldon, 78, Lithuanian-American actress.
 * Don Briscoe, 64, American stage and television actor (Dark Shadows), heart disease.
 * Roland Gibbs, 83, British Field Marshal.
 * David Gore-Booth, 61, British diplomat.
 * Valentin Nikolayev, 80, Soviet Olympic wrestler (gold medal winner in men's light heavyweight wrestling at the 1956 Summer Olympics).
 * Marie Tehan, 64, Australian Liberal politician (Victorian Parliament, 1987–1999), Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease.