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.

May 1997

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.^[1]
• Fernand Dumont, 69, Canadian sociologist, philosopher, and theologian.^[2]
• Friedl Däuber, 86, German alpine and cross-country skier.^[3]
• Jim McDonald, 81, American football player and coach.^[4]
• Arthur Milne, 82, Scottish football player.
• Bo Widerberg, 66, Swedish actor and film director, stomach cancer.^[5]

2

• Raymond Sarif Easmon, 84, Sierra Leonean doctor and writer.
• John Eccles, 94, Australian neurophysiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.^[6]
• Heinz Ellenberg, 83, German biologist, botanist and ecologist.
• Paulo Freire, 75, Brazilian educator and philosopher, heart attack.^[7]
• Walter Hill, 62, American serial killer, execution by electrocution.
• Robin Kinahan, 80, Northern Irish politician and Orange Order member.^[8]
• 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.^[9]
• Keith R. Porter, 84, Canadian-American cell biologist, pneumonia.^[10]
• Eugene Vale, 81, American novelist.^[11]
• Jimmy Wilson, 77, American Negro league baseball player.^[12]

3

• Bruce Beetham, 61, New Zealand academic and politician, heart failure.
• Gerrit den Braber, 68, Dutch songwriter and lyricist, stroke.^[13]
• Sébastien Enjolras, 21, French racing driver, racing accident.
• Hughie Green, 77, English presenter, game show host and actor, cancer.^[14]
• 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.^[15]

4

• Suhayr al-Qalamawi, 85, Egyptian literary figure and politician.^[16]
• Jerome Alden, 76, American playwright and screenwriter, kidney cancer.^[17]
• Wijeyananda Dahanayake, 95, Sri Lankan politician.
• Esin Engin, 51, Turkish musician, composer, and film actor, leukemia.
• Danilo Fioravanti, 83, Italian gymnast and Olympian.^[18]
• Hilary Grivich, 19, American gymnast and diver, car accident.^[19]
• Fernando Hernández, 52, Costa Rican footballer, cancer.
• Lee Miglin, 72, American businessman and philanthropist, murdered by serial killer Andrew Cunanan.^[20]
• Alvy Moore, 75, American actor (Green Acres, The Littles, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind), heart failure.^[21]
• Lyman Bradford Smith, 92, American botanist.^[22]
• Lou Stathis, 44, American author, critic and editor, brain tumor.

5

• Bob Briggs, 52, American gridiron football player.^[23]
• George Burns, 86, British Army officer.
• Walter Gotell, 73, German actor (From Russia with Love, The Spy Who Loved Me, The Living Daylights), cancer.^[24]
• Alan Gussow, 65, American artist, author and conservationist, cancer.^[25]
• Murray Kempton, 79, American journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner, pancreatic cancer.^[26]
• David Scherman, 81, American photojournalist and editor, cancer.^[27]

6

• Ridge Bond, 74, American actor and singer.^[28]
• Sydney Joseph Freedberg, 82, American art historian and curator.^[29]
• Jorge Martínez de Hoyos, 76, Mexican actor, lung cancer.^[30]
• John Edwards Hill, 68, British mammalogist.
• Günther Jerschke, 75, German actor.^[31]
• Wang You, 86, Chinese biochemist.

7

• John C. Ewers, 87, American ethnologist and museum curator.^[32]
• Yip Hon, 93, Chinese gambling tycoon, heart attack.
• George Lynch, 78, American race car driver.^[33]
• 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.^[34]
• 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.^[35]
• Kai-Uwe von Hassel, 84, German politician, heart attack.^[36]
• Micheline Kerney Walsh, 77, Irish archivist and historian.^[37]
• Bob Whitcher, 80, American baseball player.^[38]

9

• Rawya Ateya, 71, Egyptian woman and first female parliamentarian in the Arab world.
• Bob Devaney, 82, American gridiron football coach, heart attack.^[39]
• Marco Ferreri, 68, Italian film director, screenwriter and actor, heart attack.^[40]
• Willy Hess, 90, Swiss musicologist and composer.^[41]
• Kazumi Kawai, 32, Japanese actress, suicide.
• Rina Lasnier, 86, Québécois poet.^[42]
• 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.^[43]
• Silvano Tranquilli, 71, Italian actor.^[44]
• Joan Weston, 62, American Roller derby skater, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.^[45]

11

• William Ragsdale Cannon, 81, American theologian and bishop of the United Methodist Church.^[46]
• David Christie, 49, French singer-songwriter, suicide.^[47]
• Ernie Fields, 92, American trombonist, pianist, arranger and bandleader.
• Genine Graham, 70, English actress.
• Dean M. Kelley, 70, American legal scholar, cancer.^[48]
• Catherine McLeod, 75, American actress.^[49]
• Howard Morton, 71, American actor, stroke.
• Peter Stackpole, 83, American photographer.^[50]

12

• Louis Barbarin, 94, American jazz drummer.^[51]
• Charles-Arthur Gauthier, 84, Canadian politician.
• Jiří Pecka, 79, Czechoslovak slalom and sprint canoeist.^[52]
• Henk Plenter, 83, Dutch football player.
• Avraham Yitzchak Stern, 61, Israeli administrator and politician.^[53]
• Frank A. Wenstrom, 93, American politician.^[54]

13

• Laurie Lee, 82, English poet, novelist and screenwriter, colorectal cancer.^[55]
• Carlos Augusto León, 82, Venezuelan poet, historian, politician and scientist.
• Tommy Turrentine, 69, American swing and hard bop trumpeter and composer.^[56]
• Zdeňka Veřmiřovská, 83, Czechoslovak/Czech gymnast and Olympian.^[57]
• Eduard Zakharov, 22, Russian boxer, homicide.^[58]

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.^[59]
• Thelma Carpenter, 75, American jazz singer and actress, cardiac arrest.^[60]
• Samuel Hoyt Elbert, 89, American linguist.^[61]
• Alan Furlan, 77, Italian-American actor.^[62]
• Morton Heilig, 70, American virtual reality technology pioneer and filmmaker.
• Boris Parsadanian, 72, Armenian-Estonian composer.
• Val Peat, 50, British sprinter and Olympian.^[63]
• Bessie Schonberg, 90, German-American dancer and choreographer.^[64]

15

• Oscar Berger, 96, American editorial cartoonist.^[65]
• David Martin, 89, American politician, pneumonia.
• Trevor Porteous, 63, English football player and coach.
• Saadallah Wannous, Syrian playwright, cancer.^[66]

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.^[67]
• Elbridge Durbrow, 93, American diplomat and ambassador, stroke.^[68]
• Bones McKinney, 78, American basketball player and coach.^[69]
• Harry Charles Moore, 56, American convicted murderer, execution by lethal injection.^[70]
• Wang Zengqi, 77, Chinese writer.^[71]

17

• Tusten Ackerman, 95, American basketball player.
• Mikhail Bychkov, 70, Russian ice hockey player.^[72]
• 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.^[73]

18

• Bridgette Andersen, 21, American actress.
• Mikhail Anikushin, 79, Soviet and Russian sculptor.
• Horst Lippmann, 70, German concert promoter and jazz musician.^[74]
• Paolo Panelli, 71, Italian comedian and film actor, pulmonary edema.
• Antonio Cornejo Polar, 60, Peruvian academic and literature and cultural critic.^[75]
• Soenario, 94, Indonesian politician and Foreign Minister.^[76]

19

• Aaron Henry, 74, American civil rights leader and politician, congestive heart failure.^[77]
• Sombhu Mitra, 81, Indian actor, director and playwright.
• Troy Ruttman, 67, American race car driver, lung cancer.^[78]
• Pāvels Seņičevs, 72, Soviet sports shooter.^[79]

20

• Don Parker, 88, British racing driver.
• John Rawlins, 94, American film editor and director.^[80]
• Virgilio Barco Vargas, 75, Colombian politician, cancer.^[81]
• Gopal Yonjan, 53, Nepalese musician, complications of jaundice.

21

• William Aston, 80, Australian politician.
• Amasa Stone Bishop, American nuclear physicist, pneumonia.^[82]
• Noël Browne, 81, Irish politician.
• Fiorenzo Carpi, 78, Italian composer and pianist.^[83]

22

• Myrtle Bachelder, 89, American chemist and Women's Army Corps officer.^[84]
• Alziro Bergonzo, 90, Italian architect and painter.
• Donald Curtis, 82, American actor.^[85]
• Herman de Coninck, 53, Belgian poet, essayist, journalist and publisher, heart attack.^[86]
• Genildo Ferreira de França, Brazilian spree killer, suicide.^[87]
• Jimmy Heale, 82, English footballer.^[88]
• Alfred Hershey, 88, American biochemist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, heart failure.^[89]
• Raúl Gómez Jattin, 51, Colombian poet.^[90]
• Arthur Milne, 82, Scottish football player.
• Renzo Montagnani, 66, Italian actor, lung cancer.^[91]
• 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.^[92]

23

• Alison Adburgham, 85, English fashion journalist and author.
• James Lee Byars, 65, American conceptual and performance artist, cancer.^[93]
• Dorothy Gulliver, 88, American actress, pneumonia.
• Sadayoshi Kobayashi, 92, Japanese field hockey player.^[94]
• Lovie Lee, 88, American electric blues pianist and singer.^[95]
• David M. Ludlum, 86, American historian, meteorologist, and author.^[96]
• Albert Rosen, 73, Austrian-Irish conductor.

24

• Muhammad Fadhel al-Jamali, 94, Iraqi politician and Prime Minister (1953-1954).^[97]
• 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.^[98]
• 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.^[99]
• Sepp Weiler, 76, West German ski jumper and Olympian.^[100]

25

• Syd Bidwell, 80, British politician.^[101]
• Chester Feldman, 71, American producer of game shows.
• Jay Hebert, 74, American golfer.^[102]
• Joseph Hoffman, 88, American screenwriter.^[103]
• Peter Rangmar, 40, Swedish comedian, actor and baritone.
• Ronald Vernieux, 86, Indian sprinter and Olympian.^[104]

26

• Jack Bennett, 76, Australian rules football player.
• Jenny Rosenthal Bramley, 87, Russian-American physicist.^[105]
• James Gordon, 88, American sprinter and Olympian.^[106]
• Ralph Horween, 100, American football player and coach.^[107]
• Bernard Jackson, 46, American football player and coach, liver cancer.^[108]
• Jack Jersey, 55, Dutch singer, composer, and producer of light music, cancer.^[109]
• Jack Vinall, 86, English football player and manager.^[110]
• Manfred von Ardenne, 90, German physicist and inventor.^[111]

27

• Robert Ambelain, 89, French essayist.^[112]
• Henry Barakat, 83, Egyptian film director.^[113]
• Karl Martz, 84, American studio potter and ceramic artist.^[114]
• Azem Shkreli, 59, Albanian writer, poet, director and producer.

28

• Ronald V. Book, 60, American theoretical computer scientist.^[115]
• Sydney Guilaroff, 89, American Hollywood hairdresser, pneumonia.^[116]
• Édouard Muller, 77, French road bicycle racer.^[117]
• Sung Nak-woon, 71, South Korean football forward.
• John H. Sengstacke, 84, American newspaper publisher, stroke.^[118]
• John Stack, 73, American X-ray engineer, rower and Olympic champion.^[119]
• Tatyana Sumarokova, 74, Soviet flight navigator during World War II.

29

• Jeff Buckley, 30, American singer, songwriter and guitarist, accidental drowning.^[120]
• George Fenneman, 77, American radio and television announcer, emphysema.^[121]
• Alexander Kazhdan, 74, Soviet-American Byzantinist.^[122]
• 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.^[123]
• Béla Barényi, 90, Austro-Hungarian automotive engineer.
• Winsome Cripps, 66, Australian sprinter.^[124]
• Doris Lindsey Holland Rhodes, 87, American politician.

31

• Pat Collins, 62, American hypnotist.^[125]
• Frei Damião, 98, Italian Roman Catholic priest and missionary, stroke.^[126]
• James Bennett Griffin, 92, American archaeologist.
• Fazal Haq Mujahid, Afghanistan mujahideen during the Soviet–Afghan War, assassinated.
• Eddie Jones, 68, American jazz double bassist.^[127]
• Oswald Kaduk, 90, German SS officer and war criminal during World War II.
• Jewel Lafontant, 75, American lawyer and White House official, breast cancer.^[128]
• Ove Ljung, 79, Swedish Army officer.^[129]
• Günter Luther, 75, German admiral.
• Johnny Papalia, 73, Canadian mobster, shot.^[130]
• Poul Petersen, 76, Danish football player and manager.