The following is a list of notable deaths in June 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.

June 1997

1

• Florence Wysinger Allen, 84, African American artists' model.^[1]
• Ruth Atkinson, 78, American cartoonist, cancer.^[2]
• Garland T. Byrd, 72, American politician from Georgia.
• Giorgos P. Livanos, 70, Greek-American shipping magnate.^[3]
• Fred Rauch, 87, Austrian singer and songwriter.
• Mickey Rocco, 81, American baseball player.^[4]
• Bernard Segal, 89, American lawyer civil rights activist, cancer.^[5]
• Robert Serber, 88, American physicist, brain cancer.^[6]
• Nikolai Tikhonov, 92, Soviet Russian-Ukrainian statesman.^[7]

2

• Lukas Aurednik, 79, Austrian football player and football manager.
• Zhenya Belousov, 32, Soviet/Ukrainian pop singer, stroke.
• Martin Bronfenbrenner, 82, American economist.^[8]
• Doc Cheatham, 91, American jazz trumpeter, singer, and bandleader.^[9]
• Corwin Clatt, 73, American gridiron football player.^[10]
• Louise Huntington, 92, American actress.^[11]
• Helen Jacobs, 88, American tennis champion, heart failure.^[12]
• William Alexander Levy, 87, American architect.^[13]
• Kenneth McNaught, 78, Canadian historian.
• Nikolai Ozerov, 74, Soviet tennis player and actor.
• Eddie Thomas, 70, Welsh boxer and manager, cancer.
• Ida Turay, 89, Hungarian film actress.

3

• Salvatore Fiume, 81, Italian painter, sculptor, architect and writer.^[14]
• John Holt, 73, Jamaican cricket player.
• Dennis James, 79, American television personality and philanthropist, lung cancer.^[15]
• Meenakshi Shirodkar, 80, Indian actress.

4

• Thomas Boylston Adams, 86, American business executive and writer.^[16]
• Stewart Anderson, 85, Australian rules football player.
• Katherine Esau, 99, German-American botanist.^[17]
• Ronnie Lane, 51, English musician, songwriter, and producer, pneumonia.^[18]
• Johnny "Hammond" Smith, 63, American soul jazz and hard bop organist, cancer.
• Pedro Zaballa, 58, Spanish football player.

5

• Jack Wilson Evans, 74, American politician and mayor of Dallas, Texas, cancer.
• Elaine Ryan Hedges, 69, American feminist.^[19]
• Olga Kirsch, 72, South African and Israeli poet, brain tumor, brain cancer.
• J. Anthony Lukas, 64, American journalist and author, suicide by hanging.^[20]
• Gustav Richter, 84, German SS officer and aide to Adolf Eichmann during World War II.

6

• Eitel Cantoni, 90, Uruguayan racecar driver.
• Magda Gabor, 81, Hungarian-American actress and socialite, and sister of Zsa Zsa and Eva Gabor, kidney failure.
• Monica Golding, 94, British Army nurse and nursing administrator.^[21]
• Charles Jones, 86, Canadian-American composer of contemporary classical music.^[22]
• Hannu Leminen, 87, Finnish film director, set designer and screenwriter.^[23]
• Ted Nathanson, 72, American television director, lung cancer.^[24]
• Richard Neilson, 59, British diplomat.
• Liao Shantao, 77, Chinese mathematician.
• Alangudi Somu, 64, Indian Tamil film lyricist.

7

• Raghu Raj Bahadur, 73, Indian statistician.^[25]
• Lewis White Beck, 83, American philosopher and scholar of German philosophy.^[26]
• Jacques Canetti, 88, French music executive and talent manager.^[27]
• Paul Reade, 54, English composer.^[28]
• Stanley Schachter, 75, American social psychologist, colon cancer.^[29]
• Nadezhda Simonyan, 75, Soviet and Russian composer.

8

• Betty Andujar, 84, American civic activist and politician.^[30]
• Norman Cleaveland, 96, American rugby player and Olympian.^[31]
• Ken Hunt, 62, American baseball player.^[32]
• Park Jaesam, 64, Korean poet.
• Reid Shelton, 72, American actor, stroke.^[33]
• George Turner, 80, Australian writer and critic.^[34]
• Amos Tutuola, 76, Nigerian writer, diabetes.^[35]
• Karen Wetterhahn, 48, American professor of chemistry, mercury poisoning.

9

• Károly Bajkó, 52, Hungarian wrestler.^[36]
• Robert W. Hansen, 86, American lawyer and jurist.
• Ismael Huerta, 80, Chilean admiral and politician, cardiac embolism.
• Stanley Knowles, 88, Canadian politician.^[37]
• Yevgeni Lebedev, 80, Soviet and Russian film and theater actor.^[38]
• Thornton Lee, 90, American baseball player.^[39]
• Witness Lee, 91-92, Chinese christian preacher and hymnist, cancer.

10

• Carolina Cotton, 71, American singer and actress, ovarian cancer.^[40]
• Leo Fuld, 84, Dutch singer.^[41]
• Kim Ki-soo, 57, South Korean boxing champion, liver cancer.^[42]
• Zhou Lin, 85, Chinese politician.^[43]

11

• Herman Basudde, 38, Ugandan kadongo kamu musician, traffic accident.
• Robert Bates, 48, Northern Irish Ulster loyalist, shot.
• Thalassa Cruso, 88, British-American presenter and author on horticulture, Alzheimer's disease.^[44]
• Ben Dunkelman, 83, Canadian-Israeli military officer, heart attack.
• Gonzalo Fonseca, 74, Uruguayan artist, stroke.^[45]
• Ralph Kohl, 73, American football player, coach and scout.^[46]
• Satyanarayan Rajguru, 93, Indian litterateur, epigraphist and historian.
• Mihir Sen, 66, Indian long distance swimmer, combination of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
• Kurt Stöpel, 89, German road bicycle racer.
• Lütfiye Sultan, 87, Turkish Ottoman princess.

12

• Jo Backaert, 75, Belgian football player.
• Rick Baldwin, 42, American racing driver, racing accident.
• Pieter d'Hont, 80, Dutch sculptor.
• Colette Magny, 70, French singer and songwriter.^[47]
• Vittorio Mussolini, 80, Italian film critic and producer.
• Bulat Okudzhava, 73, Soviet/Russian poet, writer, musician, and singer-songwriter.^[48]
• Arnaldo Sentimenti, 83, Italian football player and coach.^[49]
• Veikko Vennamo, 84, Finnish politician.
• Joe Ben Wheat, 81, American archaeologist and author.^[50]

13

• Al Berto, 49, Portuguese poet and painter, lymphoma.^[51]
• Ladislau Bonyhádi, 74, Romanian football player of Hungarian ethnicity.
• Anand Narain Mulla, 95, Indian Urdu poet.^[52]
• George Strugar, 63. American gridiron football player, lung cancer.^[53]

14

• Marjorie Best, 94, American costume designer (Giant, Rio Bravo, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Oscar winner (1950).
• Helmut Fischer, 70, German actor, carcinoma.^[54]
• Richard Jaeckel, 70, American actor (The Dirty Dozen, Sometimes a Great Notion. Starman), melanoma.^[55]
• Helena Sanders, 86, British cultural activist, politician and poet.

15

• Nicholas Danby, British organist and composer.
• George Denholm, 88, British flying ace during World War II.
• Frode Jakobsen, 90, Danish author and politician.
• Edmond Leburton, 82, Belgian politician and Prime Minister.^[56]
• Robert C. McEwen, 77, American politician.^[57]
• Attilio Redolfi, 73, Italian-French racing cyclist.^[58]
• Son Sen, 67, Cambodian communist politician and soldier, summary execution.
• Dal Stivens, 85, Australian writer.

16

• Mariya Batrakova, 74, Soviet and Russian Red Army officer and Hero of the Soviet Union.
• Rolf Ericson, 74, Swedish jazz trumpeter.^[59]
• Badi-ud-din Mahmud, 92, Sri Lankan politician.
• Elizabeth McBride, 42, American costume designer (Driving Miss Daisy, Thelma & Louise, The Shawshank Redemption), cancer.
• Michael O'Herlihy, 68, Irish television producer and director.^[60]
• Sukumaran, 49, Indian film actor and producer, heart attack.
• Sue Sumii, 95, Japanese social reformer, writer, and novelist.^[61]
• Tom Søndergaard, 53, Danish football player.
• Inge Wersin-Lantschner, 92, Austrian alpine skier and world champion.

17

• Frances Foster, 73, American film, television and stage actress, cerebral hemorrhage.^[62]
• Bernhard Jensen, 85, Danish flatwater canoeist and Olympian.^[63]
• Maurice Rootes, 80, British film editor.
• Hari Krishna Shastri, 59, Indian politician.

18

• James Willard Hurst, 86, American legal scholar and law history pioneer, cancer.^[64]
• Lev Kopelev, 85, Soviet author and dissident.^[65]
• Devon Russell, Jamaican rocksteady and reggae singer and record producer, brain tumour.
• Cândido Tavares, 85, Portuguese football goalkeeper and manager.
• José María Fernández Unsáin, 78, Argentine film director, screenwriter, and playwright.^[66]
• C. Martin Wilbur, 89, American historian and professor at Columbia University.^[67]
• Héctor Yazalde, 51, Argentine footballer, heart failure.

19

• Basu Bhattacharya, Indian film director, acute pancreatitis.^[68]
• Robert Francis Byrnes, 79, American professor of history, heart attack.^[69]
• Jiří David, 74, Czech sprinter and Olympian.^[70]
• Cathleen Delany, 89, Irish actress.^[71]
• Olga Georges-Picot, 57, French actress, suicide.^[72]
• Thurman Green, 56, American jazz trombonist.^[73]
• Bobby Helms, 63, American country music singer, emphysema and asthma.^[74]
• Robert Henrion, 81, Belgian politician.^[75]
• Julia Smith, 70, English television director and producer, cancer.^[76]
• Stan Stasiak, 60, Canadian professional wrestler known as Stan Stasiak, heart failure.

20

• John Akii-Bua, 47, Ugandan hurdler and the nation's first Olympic champion.^[77]
• Armando Brancia, 79, Italian film and television actor.^[78]
• Paul Carell, 85, German Nazi politician and propagandist.
• Henri Haest, 70, Belgian hammer thrower and Olympian.^[79]
• Cahit Külebi, 80, Turkish poet and author, cancer.
• John Michael Macdonald, 91, Canadian politician.
• Lawrence Payton, 59, American tenor, songwriter, musician, and record producer, liver cancer.^[80]
• Alberto Rivera, 61, Spanish anti-Catholic religious activist, colon cancer.

21

• Shintarō Katsu, 65, Japanese actor, singer, producer, and director, pharyngeal cancer.^[81]
• Shantilal Jamnadas Mehta, 92, Indian surgeon and medical academic.
• Arthur Prysock, 68, American jazz and R&B singer.^[82]
• Karl Ridderbusch, 65, German operatic bass.^[83]
• Fidel Velázquez Sánchez, 97, Mexican union leader, cardiac and respiratory failure.^[84]
• Vladimir Vinogradov, 75, Soviet diplomat.

22

• Lars Bergendahl, 88, Norwegian cross-country skier.
• William Slater Brown, 100, American novelist, biographer, and translator of French literature.^[85]
• Larry Grossman, 53, Canadian politician (Legislative Assembly of Ontario), brain cancer.
• Ted Gärdestad, 41, Swedish singer, songwriter, musician, and actor, suicide.
• Don Henderson, 65, English actor (Star Wars, The Paradise Club, Strangers), throat cancer.^[86]
• Paul Napolitano, 74, American basketball player.^[87]
• Gérard Pelletier, 78, Canadian journalist and politician.^[88]

23

• Tom Calder, 79, Australian rules football player.
• Rosina Lawrence, 84, British-Canadian actress and singer, cancer.^[89]
• Prince Nico Mbarga, 47, Nigerian Igbo highlife musician, motorcycle accident.
• Don Norton, 59, American gridiron football player.^[90]
• Betty Shabazz, 63, American civil rights advocate and widow of Malcolm X, burns.^[91]
• Acharya Tulsi, 82, Indian Jain religious leader.^[92]

24

• Brian Keith, 75, American actor (Family Affair, The Parent Trap, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming), suicide.^[93]
• Paul Lavalle, 88, American conductor, composer, arranger and peron clarinet and saxophone.^[94]
• Sanjukta Panigrahi, 52, Indian Odissi dancer, cancer.^[95]
• Leonard B. Strang, 72, British professor of paediatric sciences, cancer.

25

• Bobby Blackwood, 62, Scottish footballer.^[96]
• Jacques Cousteau, 87, French explorer, conservationist, and oceanographer, heart attack.^[97]
• William Grinnell, 87, American football player and coach, congestive heart failure.
• Mario Salvadori, 90, American structural engineer and professor at Columbia University.^[98]
• Sotim Ulugzoda, 85, Soviet and Tajik writer.

26

• George Bassman, 83, American composer and arranger.^[99]
• Don Bradley, 72, English football player.
• Charlie Chester, 83, English comedian, radio and television presenter and writer.
• Robert Frucht, 90, German-Chilean mathematician.
• Don Hutson, 84, American football player (Green Bay Packers) and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.^[100]
• Israel Kamakawiwoʻole, 38, Native Hawaiian musician and activist, heart attack.
• Thomas Joseph Murphy, 64, American prelate in the Catholic Church, cerebral hemorrhage.^[101]
• William Turnbull, 62, American architect, cancer.^[102]

27

• Ray Benge, 95, American baseball player.^[103]
• Narinder Biba, 56, Indian Punjabi singer.
• Samuel L. Devine, 81, American politician, cancer.^[104]
• Joseph Zong Huaide, 80, Chinese Roman Catholic Bishop.
• W. O. G. Lofts, 73, British researcher and author.^[105]
• Harrison Marks, 70, English glamour photographer and director of pornographic films.^[106]
• Kenneth Neate, 82, Australian tenor, opera producer, composer and author.^[107]
• Ken Richardson, 85, English racing and test driver.
• Ondino Viera, 95, Uruguayan football manager.^[108]

28

• Gary DeVore, 55, American Hollywood screenwriter, murdered.^[109]
• Forest Dewey Dodrill, 95, American doctor and inventor of the Dodrill-GMR heart machine.^[110]
• Jack Hinton, 87, New Zealand soldier during World War II and recipient of the Victoria Cross.
• Hubert Lamb, 83, English climatologist.
• Hildegard Ochse, 61, German photographer, leukemia.
• Friedrich von Mellenthin, 92, German Wehrmacht general during World War II.^[111]
• Yang Yichen, 83, Chinese politician.

29

• Nicholas Cleaveland Bodman, 83, American linguist.
• William Hickey, 69, American actor (Prizzi's Honor, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, The Nightmare Before Christmas), emphysema and bronchitis.^[112]
• Marjorie Linklater, 88, Scottish arts and environment campaigner, cancer and heart failure.^[113]
• Tom Lovell, 88, American illustrator and painter, car accident.^[114]
• Petey Rosenberg, 79, American basketball player.^[115]

30

• Gyula Benkő, 78, Hungarian actor and father of actor Péter Benkő.^[116]
• Su Bingqi, 87, Chinese archaeologist.
• William Bradley, 64, English bicycle racer and Olympian.^[117]
• Larry O'Dea, 53, Australian professional wrestler, liver cancer.^[118]
• Alcira Soust Scaffo, 73, Uruguayan teacher and poet, respiratory disease.