Deaths in December 2005
The following is a list of notable deaths in December 2005.
December 2005
- Gust Avrakotos, 67, CIA agent who armed the mujaheddin of Afghanistan.
- Mary Hayley Bell, 94, British actress, memoirist and writer, Alzheimer's disease.
- Hermann Buchner, 86, German World War II fighter pilot.
- Jack Colvin, 73, American actor, (The Incredible Hulk), coronary thrombosis.
- Michael Evans, 61, White House photographer, noted for capturing the trademark image of Ronald Reagan wearing a cowboy hat, cancer.
- Ray Hanna, 77, New Zealand-born warbird pilot and founder of The Old Flying Machine Company, natural causes.
- Kenneth Boyd, 57, American convicted murderer, executed in North Carolina, the 1,000th U.S. execution since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976
- Lillian Browse, 99, British art dealer.
- Shawn Paul Humphries, 34, American convicted murderer, executed in South Carolina
- Malik Joyeux, 25, professional surfer, killed at Hawaii's Banzai Pipeline
- William P. Lawrence, 75, retired U.S. Navy Vice Admiral, first to fly at twice the speed of sound
- Peter Menegazzo, early 60s, Australian cattle baron, killed (along with his wife Angela) in a plane crash ,
- Van Tuong Nguyen, 25, Australian executed at Changi Prison in Singapore for trafficking 396 grams of heroin in 2002, hanging
- Mohammed Amza Zubeidi, 67, former Iraqi prime minister under Saddam Hussein
- Peter Aschwanden, 63, American illustrator.
- Frederick Ashworth, 93, American naval officer, weaponeer who dropped atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
- Peter Cook, 62, Australian politician, melanoma.
- Lance Dossor, 90, Australian pianist.
- John Ganzoni, 2nd Baron Belstead, 73, British aristocrat and politician.
- Maurice Harris, 84, trumpet player, Hollywood, studio, TV and sessions player (The Tonight Show).
- Kikka Sirén, 41, Finnish pop/schlager singer.
- Kåre Kristiansen, 85, Norwegian politician; minister of Oil and Energy (1983–1986).
- Bill Robinson, 71, British rugby league player.
- Allan Waters, 84, Canadian broadcasting icon.
- Débora Arango, 98, Colombian artist.
- Percy Brandt, 83, Swedish actor.
- Gregg Hoffman, 42, film producer (Saw), natural causes.
- Gloria Lasso, 83, Spanish singer.
- Doug Murphy, 53, former CBS (KPIX) news anchorman, house fire.
- John Alvheim, 75, Norwegian politician.
- Gerald Smedley Andrews, 101, Canadian civil servant.
- Wesley Baker, 47, American convicted murderer, executed in Maryland.
- Peter Beet, 68, British railway preservation pioneer.
- Liu Binyan, 80, Chinese author and dissident, cancer. .
- Netai Bysack, 84, Indian Olympic cyclist.
- Milo Dor, 82, Serbian-Austrian author, heart failure.
- Edward L. Masry, 73, attorney and mentor to Erin Brockovich, complications of diabetes.
- Kevin "Big Kev" McQuay, 56, Australian businessman and media personality, heart attack.
- Frits Philips, 100, Dutch businessman; grandson of the founder of Philips, complications from a fall.
- Charly Gaul, 72, Luxembourgan cyclist, winner of the 1958 Tour de France
- Richard Grimsdale, 76, built the world's first transistorised computer and was at the forefront of work on Read Only Memory
- Hanns Dieter Hüsch, 80, German political satirist
- Jerzy Pajaczkowski-Dydynski, 111, oldest man in the UK at the time of his death
- Danny Williams, 63, South African popular singer, lung cancer
- Lucy d'Abreu, 113, oldest person in the UK at the time of her death.
- Rigoberto Alpizar, 44, airplane passenger fatally shot by U.S. Air Marshals after allegedly claiming he had placed a bomb aboard.
- James Bastien, 71, author of instructional books for the piano.
- Martine Bercher, 61, American football player.
- Adrian Biddle, 53, British cinematographer (Aliens, The Princess Bride, Thelma & Louise), heart attack.
- Marvin Braude, 85, American member of Los Angeles City Council.
- Carroll A. Campbell, Jr., 65, former South Carolina governor (1987–1995), and member of U.S. House of Representatives (1979–1987), heart attack and complications of Alzheimer's disease.
- Bud Carson, 75, former NFL head coach, emphysema.
- Loomis Dean, 88, photographer, notably for Life magazine.
- Devan Nair, 82, former president of Singapore.
- R. W. Bradford, 58, publisher of Liberty magazine, kidney cancer.
- Dame Rose Heilbron, 91, British judge.
- George D. Painter, 91, British biographer.
- Leo Scheffczyk, 85, German Roman Cardinal Deacon of San Francesco Saverio alla Garbatella, Germany.
- Roger Shattuck, 82, American writer and critic, prostate cancer.
- J.N. Williamson, 73, American horror writer, author and publisher.
- Alan John Beale, 72, British virologist.
- Norman Blundell, 88, Australian cricketer.
- Mike Botts, 61, American drummer, toured and recorded with Linda Ronstadt, Dan Fogelberg, Tina Turner and others, cancer.
- Homer Mensch, 91, internationally known bass player, Juilliard teacher.
- Eunice Norton, 97, American classical pianist and music promoter.
- György Sándor, 93, internationally famous pianist, Juilliard teacher, heart failure.
- Robert Sheckley, 77, American science fiction author, brain aneurysm.
- Brian Whittle, 59, British journalist and news agency head .
- Frank Cooke, 92, American entrepreneur.
- Mary Jackson, 95, American film and television actress (The Exorcist III, Parenthood).
- Donald Martino, 74, American composer.
- Eugene McCarthy, 89, former Democratic United States Senator from Minnesota (1959–1971), and United States Representative (1949–1959) and presidential primary candidate.
- Jim McIntyre, 78, American basketball player.
- Richard Pryor, 65, American comedian and actor (Stir Crazy, Harlem Nights), heart attack and complications of multiple sclerosis.
- Gardner Read, 92, American classical composer.
- Clark G. Reynolds, 65, American naval historian.
- Bob Richardson, 73, fashion photographer.
- Erhard Ahmann, 64, German football manager.
- Stew Bowers, 90. American baseball player.
- Gordon Duncan, 41, Scottish musician and bagpiper, suicide
- Sudhir Joshi, 57, Indian actor, heart attack
- John B. Nixon, 77, American convicted murderer, executed in Mississippi
- William "Duke" Procter, 106, Canadian WWI veteran
- Rodney William Whitaker, 74, British author, wrote under pseudonyms such as "Trevanian"
- Will Wilson, 93, American politician, Attorney General of Texas (1957-1963).
- Maurice Beresford, 85, British economic historian and archaeologist.
- James Ingo Freed, 75, American architect.
- Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, 84, Italian writer and director of movies and theatre.
- Heinrich Gross, 90, Austrian alleged Nazi doctor and war criminal.
- Walter Haut, 83, retired U.S. Army lieutenant, central figure in the Roswell UFO incident in 1947.
- Stan Leonard, 90, Canadian golfer, heart failure.
- Julian Marías, 91, Spanish philosopher and father of author Javier Marías.
- John McIntyre, 89, Scottish theologian.
- Akira Ohgi, 70, Japanese baseball player and manager.
- Jim Ostendarp, 82, football coach at Amherst College for 33 years.
- William Proxmire, 90, former Democratic Senator from Wisconsin (1957–1989), giver of the Golden Fleece Awards for wasteful government spending, complications of Alzheimer's disease.
- Darrell Russell, 29, former NFL player for the Oakland Raiders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, car accident.
- Anthony Barber, 85, British politician and former Conservative Party Chancellor of the Exchequer, complications of Parkinson's disease.
- Boyi Bhimanna, 94, Indian Telugu poet.
- Kenneth Bulmer, 84, English writer (pseudonyms included Alan Burt Akers and Dray Prescot).
- Joseph Owades, 86, American biochemist, inventor of light beer.
- John Spencer, 58, American actor (The West Wing, The Rock), heart attack.
- Sverre Stenersen, 79, Norwegian Gold medal winner in the 1956 Winter Olympics.
- Enzo Stuarti, 86, Italian tenor, was in many Broadway musicals, heart failure.
- Jack Anderson, 83, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, complications of Parkinson's disease.
- Marc Favreau, 76, French Canadian television and film actor, best known for his creation of the clown Sol.
- Jacques Fouroux, 58, French rugby union captain and coach, heart attack.
- Haljand Udam, 69, Estonian translator and encyclopedist.
- Belita, 82, British skater, dancer and actress.
- Doug Dye, 84, New Zealand microbiologist.
- Howie Ferguson, 75, former NFL player.
- Doris Fisher, Baroness Fisher of Rednal, 86, British politician.
- Barry Halper, 66, baseball memorabilia collector and limited partner for the New York Yankees.
- Belita Jepson-Turner, 82, Olympic skater and film actress.
- John McIntyre, 89, Moderator of the Church of Scotland's General Assembly (1982), former acting principal and professor of divinity of the University of Edinburgh.
- P.M. Sayeed, 64, India's Minister of Power, heart attack.
- Alan M. Voorhees, 83, transportation engineer and city planner
- Billy Amstell, 94, British jazz musician.
- Sir Charles Brett, 77, Northern Irish architectural historian.
- George Bromilow, 74, British footballer at the 1956 Summer Olympics.
- Keith Duckworth, 72, British automotive designer.
- Vincent Gigante, 77, Genovese family crime boss, heart disease.
- Phyllis Gretzky, 64, mother of NHL legend Wayne Gretzky, lung cancer.
- Julio Iglesias, Sr., 90, Spanish gynaecologist who is among the oldest men to have fathered a child (also Julio Iglesias's father and Enrique Iglesias's grandfather), heart attack.
- Marjorie Kellogg, 83, American author and playwright (Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon).
- Raoul Bott, 82, Harvard mathematician, cancer.
- Argentina Brunetti, 98, Argentine-Italian actress. (It's a Wonderful Life, The Caddy), writer, journalist.
- Theodore Holmes Bullock, 90, American neuroscientist.
- Bradford Cannon, 98, Boston plastic surgeon, pneumonia.
- Genrikh Fedosov, 73, Soviet football player.
- William W. Howells, 97, American anthropologist.
- Billy Hughes, 57, American former child/film actor during the 1960s.
- Graham Wilson, 66, Australian rugby league player.
- Vicente de Cadenas y Vicent, 90, Spanish officer of arms.
- Myron Healey, 82, American film actor who normally played Western villains.
- Elrod Hendricks, 64, Baltimore Orioles coach, former MLB catcher, heart attack.
- Hallam Tennyson, 85, British radio producer and great-grandson of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, suspected victim of murder.
- Lajos Baróti, 91, Hungarian football coach.
- Selma Jeanne Cohen, 85, dance historian, editor of The International Encyclopedia of Dance.
- G. Blakemore Evans, 93, Shakespeare scholar, author of The Riverside Shakespeare, stroke.
- Truman Gibson, 93, anti-segregation lawyer and boxing promoter.
- Camille Gravel, 90, Louisiana lawyer and civil rights activist, advisor to three governors.
- Norman D. Vaughan, 100, American explorer and sportsman, part of Richard Byrd's 1928 South Pole expedition.
- Yao Wenyuan, 74, Chinese Communist political leader, member of the Gang of Four.
- Douglas Bigelow, 49, chief of web security at AOL, pancreatic cancer
- Georg Johannesen, 74, Norwegian author and professor of rhetoric.
- Constance Keene, 84, American classical pianist known for playing the romantic repertoire
- Harold Lawton, 106, British academic and veteran of the First World War
- Michael Vale, 83, American actor who appeared in over 1,300 commercials as the sleepy doughnut maker for Dunkin' Donuts from 1982–1997, diabetes.
- Wang Daohan, 90, negotiator for People's Republic of China in cross-straits talks, who contributed to the formation of the 1992 Consensus with Koo Chen-fu from the Republic of China on Taiwan
- Felice Andreasi, 77, Italian actor.
- Derek Bailey, 75, free improvising avant-garde guitarist, motor neuron disease.
- Robert Barbers, 61, former Philippines senator, heart attack.
- Bhanumathi, 80, Indian film actress, director, singer/songwriter.
- Donald Dawson, 97, executive assistant to Harry S. Truman.
- Henry Kock, 53, Canadian horticulturist and eco-activist, brain cancer.
- Birgit Nilsson, 87, Swedish soprano.
- Joseph Pararajasingham, 71, Sri Lankan politician and supporter of the Tamil Tiger rebels, shot and killed at a midnight Christmas Mass.
- Roy Stuart, 70, American actor.
- Mikuláš Athanasov, 75, Czechoslovak wrestler.
- Julian "Bud" Blake, 87, American cartoonist (Tiger).
- Muriel Costa-Greenspon, 68, mezzo-soprano at the New York City Opera for 30 years.
- John Diebold, 79, pioneering American computer engineer.
- Ernesto Leal, 60, presidential chief of staff and former foreign minister of Nicaragua, pneumonia. (Spanish)
- Kerry Packer, 68, publishing, media and gaming tycoon, Australia's richest individual amassing a fortune of over $6 billion.
- Vincent Schiavelli, 57, American actor (Ghost, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), lung cancer.
- John Taylor, 80, Canadian football player (St. Hyacinthe-Donnacona Navy and Montreal Alouettes).
- Stuart Alexander, 44, American businessman and murderer.
- Philip N. Carney, 86, American politician, member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
- Xavier Connor, 88, Australian jurist, foundation judge of the Federal Court of Australia, President of the Australian Law Reform Commission 1985 - 1987.
- Ted Ditchburn, 84, English football goalkeeper (Tottenham Hotspur, England national football team).
- John McCabe, 75, American writer.
- Giancarlo Primo, 81, Italian basketball coach, the first to defeat National Teams USA and USSR in 1970s.
- Erich Topp, 91, German U-boat commander in World War II.
- Tokuji Wakasa, 91, Japanese businessman, former president of All Nippon Airways.
- Armand Phillip Bartos, 95, American architect.
- Gerda Boyesen, 83, Norwegian psychologist.
- Dan Carnevale, 87, American baseball player.
- Abuna Yesehaq Mandefro, 72, Ethiopian-Orthodox Archbishop.
- Eileen Nolan, 85, British Director of the Women's Royal Army Corps.
- Elizabeth Parcells, 54, American operatic coloratura soprano.
- Clint Sampson, 44, American football player.
- Eddie Barlow, 65, South African cricketer.
- Candy Barr, 70, exotic dancer, pneumonia.
- Charles J. Bowles, 83, American physical education expert.
- Pasquale Carpino, 69, Italian-Canadian Singing Chef.
- Tory Dent, 47, American poet, essayist and art critic.
- Rona Jaffe, 74, American novelist (The Best of Everything, Mazes and Monsters), cancer.
- Fred "Jock" Smith, 79, Scottish footballer (Hull City, Sheffield United and Millwall).
- Bobby Stevens, 98, American baseball player.
- Sanora Babb, 98, American writer.
- Enrico Di Giuseppe, 73, American operatic tenor, cancer.
- Maurice Dodd, 83, British cartoonist (The Perishers), brain haemorrhage.
- Sir John Peel, 101, British gynaecologist.
- Maclovia Ruiz, 95, American dancer, pneumonia.
- David Silsoe, 75, British lawyer.
- Phillip Whitehead, 68, British Labour Party MEP for Derby North, former television producer, heart attack.