The following is a list of notable deaths in December 2001.

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.

December 2001

1

• Danilo Donati, 75, Italian costume designer and production designer (two-time winner of the Academy Award for Best Costume Design).^[1]
• Ellis R. Dungan, 92, American film director.
• Michael Gallanagh, 82, Irish Fianna Fáil politician and Army captain.
• Cor de Jager, 76, Dutch army officer, Chief of Defence (1980-1983).
• Lin Haiyin, 83, Taiwanese writer, organ dysfunction.
• Celia M. Hunter, 82, American environmentalist and conservationist.^[2]
• Chris Rees, 70, Welsh politician.
• Pavel Sadyrin, 59, Soviet and Russian football player and manager, cancer.^[3]

2

• John W. Collins, 89, American chess master, author and teacher.^[4]
• Chase Craig, 91, American comic strip and comic book writer and cartoonist, fall.^[5]
• Bruce Halford, 70, British racing driver.
• Martha Kneale, 92, British philosopher.
• Roger McDonough, 92, American librarian.
• Amir Abdullah Khan Rokhri, 85, Pakistani politician.
• Max Rood, 74, Dutch jurist and politician.^[6]
• Naomi Schor, 58, American literary critic and theorist, brain hemorrhage.^[7]
• Manuel Velasco Suárez, 86, Mexican neurologist, scientist and humanist.
• Dmitri Voskoboynikov, 60, Russian Olympic volleyball player.^[8]
• Willie Woodburn, 82, Scottish footballer.^[9]

3

• Juan José Arreola, 83, Mexican writer, academic, and actor.^[10]
• Dee Barton, 64, American jazz trombonist, big band drummer and composer.^[11]
• Marike de Klerk, 64, First Lady of South Africa, as wife of President Frederik Willem de Klerk, murdered.
• Anthony Gigliotti, 79, American clarinetist and music teacher (Philadelphia Orchestra).^[12]
• Nebojša M. Krstić, 37, Serbian theologian and sociologist, car accident.
• Grady Martin, 72, American country music guitarist (The Nashville A-Team), heart attack.^[13]
• Gerhart M Riegner, 90, German philosopher, and the secretary-general of the World Jewish Congress from 1965 to 1983.^[14]
• Harry Winter, 87, Austrian singer.^[15]

4

• Silvio Clementelli, 75, Italian film producer.
• Pierre de Bénouville, 87, French Army officer, member of the Resistance during World War II, and politician.^[16]
• Mercedes Matter, 87/88, American painter, draughtswoman, and writer.^[17]
• Eddie Popowski, 88, American baseball coach and manager.
• Princess Maria Francesca of Savoy, 86, Italian royal and daughter of Victor Emmanuel III of Italy.^[18]
• John Townsend, 85, American basketball player.
• Ed Whalen, 74, Canadian television personality and journalist, heart attack.

5

• Anton Benya, 89, Austrian politician and trade unionist.
• Peter Blake, 53, New Zealand sailor and environmentalist, shot.^[19]
• Muhamed Kreševljaković, 62, Bosnian politician and Mayor of Sarajevo.
• Franco Rasetti, 100, Italian-American physicist.^[20]
• Bill Roberts, 89, British athlete.^[21]
• Dharam Singh, 82, Indian field hockey player and Olympic champion.^[22]
• Tomás Vio, 80, Argentine basketball player.

6

• Colin Buchanan, 94, Scottish town planner.^[23]
• Robert W. Camac, 61, American thoroughbred horse racing trainer and breeder, murdered.
• Thomas William Gould, 86, English Royal Navy submariner and World War II hero (Victoria Cross).^[24]
• Charles McClendon, 78, American football player (University of Kentucky) and coach (Louisiana State University).^[25]
• Walt Mulconery, 69, American film editor (Flashdance, The Karate Kid, Touch and Go).^[26]

7

• David Astor, 89, British newspaper proprietor.^[27]
• Eva Calvo, 80, Mexican actress.
• Wally Cruice, 88, American NFL football player, assistant coach, and scout.
• James Crutchfield, 89, American blues singer, piano player and songwriter, heart disease.^[28]
• Peter Elias, 78, American information theorist, Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease.^[29]
• Faith Hubley, 77, American animator (Moonbird, The Hole, Sesame Street, A Doonesbury Special), breast cancer.^[30]
• Billie Matthews, 71, American gridiron football coach.^[31]
• Subrata Mitra, 70, Indian cinematographer.
• Pauline Moore, 87, American actress (Heidi, The Three Musketeers, Young Mr. Lincoln, Charlie Chan at Treasure Island), ALS.^[32]
• Ray Powell, 73, British politician.^[33]

8

• Agha Shahid Ali, 52, Kashmiri-American poet, brain cancer.^[34]
• Mirza Delibašić, 47, Bosnian and Yugoslav basketball player and coach.^[35]
• Maurice Gross, 67, French linguist and scholar.^[36]
• Betty Holberton, 84, American computer programmer, one of six original programmers of the ENIAC computer.^[37]
• Pete Perreault, 62, American gridiron football player.^[38]
• Sergei Suponev, 38, Soviet/Russian television director and children's television presenter, snowmobile accident.
• Miroslav Vlach, 66, Czech ice hockey player and Olympic medalist.^[39]
• George Young, 71, American football executive.^[40]

9

• Cesina Bermudes, 93, Portuguese obstetrician and feminist.
• Michael Carver, Baron Carver, 86, British Field Marshal.^[41]
• Joseph Mees, 78, Belgian prelate of the Catholic Church.^[42]
• Frederick Stewart, 85, British geologist.^[43]
• Lisa Welander, 92, Swedish neurologist.

10

• Mikhail Budyko, 81, Russian climatologist.
• Gus Doerner, 79, American basketball player.
• Alan Fennell, 65, British writer and editor.
• Knut Fægri, 92, Norwegian botanist and palaeoecologist.^[44]
• Ashok Kumar, 90, Indian film actor, heart failure.^[45]
• Vernon Richards, 86, Anglo-Italian anarchist, author, and photographer.^[46]
• Heinz Rögner, 72, German conductor.^[47]

11

• Beverly Hope Atkinson, 66, American actress, cancer.
• Andrei Bantikov, 87, Russian and Soviet painter.^[48]
• Graham Billing, 65, New Zealand novelist, journalist and poet.
• Mainza Chona, 71, Zambian politician and diplomat, kidney failure.
• Ramchandra Narayan Dandekar, 92, Indian indologist and scholar.^[49]
• Zdeněk Dítě, 81, Czechoslovak film actor.
• Teguh Karya, 64, Indonesian film director, complications from a stroke.
• Clark Mills, 86, American boatbuilder and designer.
• John Wilkinson Taylor, 95, American academic and UNESCO director-general.^[50]

12

• Friedel Apelt, 99, German political activist and trades union official.
• Josef Bican, 88, Austrian-Czech footballer.
• Ardito Desio, 104, Italian explorer, geologist, and cartographer.^[51]
• Berit Granquist, 92, Swedish Olympic fencer (women's foil at the 1936 Summer Olympics).^[52]
• Armando Theodoro Hunziker, 82, Argentine botanist (Botanical Museum of the National University of Córdoba), cancer.^[53]
• Farnham Johnson, 77, American gridiron football player (Chicago Rockets).^[54]
• Lê Phổ, 94, Vietnamese painter.
• Giuseppe Prisco, 80, Italian lawyer and sporting director.
• Jean Richard, 80, French actor, comedian, and circus entrepreneur, cancer.^[55]
• Roger Scotti, 76, French football player.^[56]
• U. S. Grant Sharp, Jr., 95, United States Navy admiral.^[57]
• William Stobie, 51, Northern Irish paramilitary, shot.

13

• Michael Bradshaw, 68, English actor.^[58]
• Larry Costello, 70, American basketball player and coach, cancer.^[59]
• Yvan Craipeau, 90, French Trotskyist.^[60]
• Jack Hoffman, 71, American gridiron football player (Xavier University, Chicago Bears).^[61]
• György Kőszegi, 51, Hungarian weightlifter and Olympic silver medalist.^[62]
• Nigel Lovell, 85, Australian actor and opera director.
• Beatrice Macola, 36, Italian actress, cerebral infarction.
• Vidadi Narimanbekov, 75, Azerbaijani painter.
• Chuck Schuldiner, 34, American death metal guitarist, vocalist and songwriter, brain cancer.
• Dušan Slobodník, 74, Slovak literary theoretician, translator and politician.

14

• Conte Candoli, 74, American jazz trumpeter, prostate cancer.^[63]
• Arghiri Emmanuel, 90, French marxian economist.^[64]
• Alfred Byrd Graf, 100, German-American botanist, photographer and author.^[65]
• John Guedel, 88, American radio and television producer (You Bet Your Life, People Are Funny, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet).^[66]
• Pauline Mills McGibbon, 91, Canadian politician, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario.
• Claude Santelli, 78, French film director and screenwriter.^[67]
• W. G. Sebald, 57, German writer, car collision.^[68]
• Eoin Ryan, Snr, 81, Irish politician and senator.

15

• Wilkie Cooper, 90, British cinematographer (Jason and the Argonaut).^[69]
• Russ Haas, 27, American professional wrestler, heart failure.^[70]
• Bianca Halstead, 36, American hard rock singer, car collision.
• Franciszek Kępka, 61, Polish glider pilot and European champion.
• José O'Callaghan Martínez, 79, Spanish Jesuit priest and biblical scholar.
• Rufus Thomas, 84, American R&B/soul singer, heart failure.^[71]

16

• Stuart Adamson, 43, Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist of Big Country and The Raphaels, suicide by hanging.^[72]
• Roy Brocksmith, 56, American actor, diabetes.^[73]
• Stefan Heym, 88, German writer, heart failure.^[74]
• Martin Isaksson, 80, Finnish politician and diplomat.
• Carwood Lipton, 81, American soldier during World War II and member of the Band of Brothers.^[75]
• Lester Persky, 76, American film, television, and theatre producer, complications following heart surgery.^[76]
• Villy Sørensen, 72, Danish writer, philosopher and literary critic.^[77]
• Lincoln Tate, 67, American actor and marine.

17

• Mohammad al-Husayni al-Shirazi, 73, Iranian-Iraqi Shia marja' and political theorist.
• Gerald Ashby, 52, English football referee, heart attack.^[78]
• Luigi Bertoldi, 81, Italian socialist politician.
• Fred Chaney, Sr., 87, Australian politician.
• Nelson Chelle, 70, Uruguayan basketball player.^[79]
• Frédéric de Pasquale, 70, French actor.^[80]
• Martin Glaberman, 83, American marxist writer , historian, and academic.^[81]
• Martha Mödl, 89, German soprano, and later mezzo-soprano.^[82]
• Wale Ogunyemi, 62, Nigerian dramatist, film actor, and playwright.^[83]
• Aleksandr Volodin, 82, Soviet and Russian playwright, screenwriter and poet.
• Alf Wood, 86, English football goalkeeper and manager.

18

• Gilbert Bécaud, 74, French singer, composer ("What Now My Love"), pianist and actor, lung cancer.^[84]
• Dan DeCarlo, 82, American cartoonist (Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Josie and the Pussycats, Cheryl Blossom), pneumonia.^[85]
• Dimitris Dragatakis, 87, Greek classical music composer.^[86]
• Mary Hardwick, 88, English tennis player.
• Bill Howerton, 80, American baseball player.^[87]
• Kira Ivanova, 38, Soviet Olympic figure skater (bronze medal winner in women's figure skating at the 1984 Winter Olympics), homicide.^[88]
• Jim Letherer, 67, American civil rights activist.
• Marcel Mule, 100, French saxophonist.^[89]
• Tolomush Okeyev, 66, Kyrgyz screenwriter and film director.
• Amal Kumar Sarkar, 100, Indian judge and Chief Justice.
• Fyodor Shutkov, 77, Russian sailor.^[90]
• Marcelle Tassencourt, 87, French actress and theatre director.^[91]
• Cecil Waidyaratne, 63, Sri Lankan general.
• Clifford T. Ward, 57, English singer-songwriter, pneumonia.^[92]

19

• Susheela Gopalan, 71, Indian communist leader and politician.
• Christine Kittrell, 72, American R&B singer, emphysema.^[93]
• Wang Ruowang, 83, Chinese author and dissident, lung cancer.
• Julia Sánchez, 71, Peruvian track and field sprinter.
• Hans Warren, 80, Dutch writer, liver problems.^[94]
• Dale Waters, 92, American football player.^[95]
• Jakob Weidemann, 78, Norwegian artist.^[96]
• Arkie Whiteley, 37, Australian actress (A Town Like Alice, Mad Max 2, Princess Caraboo), adrenal cancer.^[97]
• Kiyoji Ōtsuji, 78, Japanese photographer, photography theorist, and educator.^[98]

20

• Manuhuia Bennett, 85, New Zealand anglican prelate.
• Foster Brooks, 89, American actor and comedian, heart failure.^[99]
• Edward Evans, 87, English film and television actor (The Grove Family, Coronation Street, Z-Cars).^[100]
• Kōji Nanbara, 74, Japanese actor, heart attack.^[101]
• Léopold Sédar Senghor, 95, Senegalese politician and poet, President (1960 -1980).^[102]
• Joan Wheeler, 88, American actress.^[103]

21

• Heinz Macher, 81, German Waffen-SS member and Nazi official during World War II.
• Kevin Manser, 72, Australian actor, cancer.
• Jacques Mauclair, 82, French film actor.^[104]
• Ed Salem, 73, American gridiron football player, complications from diabetes.
• Dick Schaap, 67, American sportswriter, broadcaster, and author.^[105]
• Thomas Sebeok, 81, Hungarian-American polymath, semiotician, and linguist.^[106]
• Leonid Smirnov, 85, Soviet statesman.
• Namık Kemal Yolga, 87, Turkish diplomat and statesman.
• Vladimir Zherikhin, 56, Soviet/Russian paleoentomologist and coleopterist.

22

• Grzegorz Ciechowski, 44, Polish rock musician (Republika) and film music composer, heart attack after surgery.^[107]
• Bob Davis, 68, American baseball player.^[108]
• Angèle Durand, 76, Belgian singer and actress.^[109]
• Lance Fuller, 73, American actor.^[110]
• Jovan Gojković, 26, Serbian football player, traffic collision.
• Shidzue Katō, 104, Japanese feminist and politician.
• Jan Kott, 87, Polish theatre critic and political activist, heart attack.^[111]
• Lance Loud, 50, American television personality and magazine columnist, liver failure as a result of hepatitis C.^[112]
• Jacques Mayol, 74, French diver and holder of many records in free diving, suicide.^[113]
• Gene Taylor, 72, American jazz double bassist.^[114]
• Liu Zihou, 92, Chinese politician, governor of Hubei and Hebei.

23

• Mark Clinton, 86, Irish Fine Gael politician.
• Vicente Gómez, 90, Spanish guitarist and composer.^[115]
• Bola Ige, 71, Nigerian lawyer and politician (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Nigeria), homicide.^[116]
• Dimitri Obolensky, 83, Russian-born British historian.^[117]
• Pedro Richards, 45, English footballer, pneumonia.^[118]
• Donald C. Spencer, 89, American mathematician,.^[119]
• Jelle Zijlstra, 83, Dutch politician and economist, Prime Minister (1966-1967), dementia.^[120]

24

• Doug Adam, 78, Canadian ice hockey player and coach.^[121]
• Hiroshi Kuroki, 94, Japanese politician and governor of Miyazaki Prefecture, pneumonia.
• Robert Leckie, 81, United States Marine and author, Alzheimer's disease.
• Harvey Martin, 51, American gridiron football player, pancreatic cancer.^[122]
• Hank Soar, 87, American gridiron football player.^[123]
• Gareth Williams, 48, British musician (This Heat), cancer.

25

• Mike Davis, 45, American professional wrestler, heart attack.^[124]
• Bryan Drake, 76, New Zealand operatic baritone.^[125]
• Andrew J. Evans Jr., 83, American air force officer and flying ace.^[126]
• Ramón García, 77, Cuban baseball player.^[127]
• Alfred A. Tomatis, 81, French otolaryngologist and inventor.^[128]
• Billy Wells, 70, American football player.^[129]

26

• Jacques Cauvin, French archaeologist.^[130]
• Edward Downes, 90, American musicologist, radio personality, and music critic.^[131]
• Nigel Hawthorne, 72, British actor (The Madness of King George, Yes Minister, Tarzan), pancreatic cancer, heart attack.^[132]
• Paul Landres, 89, American film and television editor and director, cancer.^[133]
• Tom McBride, 87, American baseball player.^[134]
• George Rochester, 93, British physicist, heart failure.^[135]

27

• Momčilo Cemović, 73, Montenegrin politician.
• Pete D'Alonzo, 72, American gridiron football player.^[136]
• Robert Fowler, 70, South African cyclist (silver medal winner of the men's cycling team pursuit at the 1952 Summer Olympics).^[137]
• Ian Hamilton, 63, British critic, poet, magazine publisher, cancer.^[138]
• John Hoffman, 58, American baseball player.^[139]
• Paul Hogarth, 84, British artist.^[140]
• Boris Rybakov, 83, Russian historian.
• Helen Rodríguez Trías, 72, American pediatrician and women's rights activist, cancer.

28

• T. R. Govindachari, 86, Indian chemist and academic.
• Hovie Lister, 75, American gospel singer and manager of The Statesmen Quartet.^[141]
• Arne Rettedal, 75, Norwegian politician.
• Anthony Royle, Baron Fanshawe of Richmond, 74, British politician and businessman.^[142]
• Sam Solon, 70, American politician, malignant melanoma.
• Gerard van Leijenhorst, 73, Dutch politician and chemist.^[143]

29

• Tom Bourke, 83, Australian rugby player.
• Cássia Eller, 39, Brazilian singer and musician, heart attack.^[144]
• Florian Fricke, 57, German musician, stroke.^[145]
• György Kepes, 95, Hungarian-American painter, photographer, designer, and art theorist.^[146]
• Anatoly Kubatsky, 93, Soviet/Russian actor.
• Clinton D. McKinnon, 95, American politician and journalist.
• Josef Věntus, 70, Czech rower ad Olympic medalist.^[147]
• Louis Waltniel, 76, Belgian politician and industrialist.

30

• Eric Cheney, 77, British motorcycle designer.
• Frankie Gaye, 60, American soul musician and brother of Marvin Gaye, heart attack.
• Chaim Kreiswirth, 83, Belgian orthodox rabbi.
• Samuel Mockbee, 57, American architect, leukemia.^[148]
• Ray Patterson, 90, American animator (The Smurfs, Dumbo, Challenge of the GoBots).^[149]
• Sheila Sherlock, 83, British physician, pulmonary fibrosis.^[150]
• Ralph Sutton, 79, American jazz pianist, stroke.^[151]
• Vladislav Čáp, 75, Czech figure skater.

31

• Mathew H. Ahmann, 70, American Catholic layman and civil rights activist, cancer.
• John Grigg, 2nd Baron Altrincham, 77, British writer, historian and politician.^[152]
• Guido di Tella, 70, Argentine businessman, academic and diplomat, cerebral hemorrhage.^[153]
• Eileen Heckart, 82, American actress (Butterflies Are Free, The Bad Seed, The First Wives Club), Oscar winner (1973), lung cancer.^[154]
• Paul Hubschmid, 84, Swiss actor (Funeral in Berlin, My Fair Lady, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms), pulmonary embolism.^[155]
• Harshad Mehta, 47, Indian stockbroker and fraudster.
• Bernie Purcell, 73, Australian rugby player and coach.
• T. M. Chidambara Ragunathan, 78, Tamil, writer, journalist and literary critic.
• David Swift, 82, American screenwriter and film director (How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, The Parent Trap, Pollyanna), heart failure.^[156]