The following is a list of notable deaths in May 2000.

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 2000

1

• Cláudio Christovam de Pinho, 77, Nicknamed “Manager”.
• John Emery, 84, British paediatric pathologist.
• Gil Fates, 85, American television producer.^[1]
• David J. Mahoney, 76, American businessman and philanthropist, heart disease.^[2]
• Gibby Mbasela, 37, Zambian footballer.
• Steve Reeves, 74, American actor, lymphoma.^[3]
• Nora Swinburne, 97, British actress.^[4]
• Jukka Tapanimäki, 38, Finnish game programmer, heart failure.
• Gérard Théberge, 69, Canadian Olympic ice hockey player, bronze medalist (1956)^[5]

2

• Laurie Calvin Battle, 87, American politician.^[6]
• Belva Cottier, 79, American Sioux activist and social worker.
• Bob Homme, 81, American-Canadian television actor, known for his role as The Friendly Giant, prostate cancer.^[7]
• Bobbi Martin, 56, American country and pop music singer, songwriter, and guitarist, cancer.^[8]
• Billy Munn, 88, British jazz pianist.^[9]
• Harry Newman, 90, American football player.^[10]
• Sundar Popo, 56, Trinidadian and Tobagonian musician.
• Christina Marie Riggs, 28, American convicted murderer, execution by lethal injection.^[11]
• Teri Thornton, 65, American jazz singer, bladder cancer.^[12]
• Norman Wainwright, 85, English competition swimmer and Olympian.^[13]

3

• Lewis Allen, 94, British film and television director.^[14]
• Richard Friederich Arens, 81, American mathematician.^[15]
• Obie Baizley, 82, Politician in Manitoba, Canada.
• Ed Chapman, 94, American baseball player.^[16]
• William Keys, 77, Australian Army officer.
• Mamuka Kikaleishvili, 39, Georgian actor and film director.
• Bryan Lobb, 69, English cricket player.^[17]
• Yoshinao Nakada, 76, Japanese composer, colorectal cancer.^[18]
• John Joseph O'Connor, 80, American Roman Catholic prelate, brain cancer.^[19]
• Shakuntala Paranjpye, 94, Indian writer, actress and a social worker.
• Jon Vincent, 38, American pornographic actor, suicide.
• Edward J. Sponga, 82, American Jesuit priest in the Society of Jesus.

4

• Sir Derick Ashe, 81, British diplomat.
• Hendrik Casimir, 90, Dutch physicist known for the Casimir effect.^[20]
• Humberto Donoso, 61, Chilean football player.
• Jacques Gerschwiler, 101, Swiss figure skater and coach.
• Alwyn Kurts, 84, Australian drama and comedy actor, liver failure.
• Kieran Nugent, Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteer, cardiovascular disease.
• Diana Ross, 89, English children's author.^[21]
• Sugi Sito, 73, Mexican wrestler known as El Orgullo de Oriente.

5

• Edward Ashley-Cooper, 93, Australian actor, congestive heart failure.^[22]
• Gino Bartali, 85, Italian racing cyclist.^[23]
• Jan Firbas, 79, Czech linguist.
• Don Kindt, 74, American football player.^[24]
• Rolf Magener, 89, German escapee from India during World War II.^[25]
• Bill Musselman, 59, American basketball coach, stroke.^[26]

6

• Benoy Choudhury, Indian freedom fighter and politician.
• Eleazar Jiménez, 71, Cuban chess master.
• Gordon McClymont, 79, Australian agricultural scientist and ecologist.^[27]
• Lee Moore, 61, Saint Kitts and Nevis politician.
• Roger von Norman, 91, Hungarian-born German film editor and director.^[28]
• John Clive Ward, 75, British-Australian physicist, respiratory illness.
• Sir Peter William Youens, 84, British diplomat and colonial administrator, pneumonia.^[29]

7

• Dov Bar-Nir, 88, Belgium-Israeli politician.
• Douglas Fairbanks Jr., 90, American actor and the son of Douglas Fairbanks, heart attack.^[30]
• Hideo Hamamura, 71, Japanese marathon runner and Olympian.^[31]
• Ferrel Harris, 59, American NASCAR racecar driver.^[32]
• Henry Laskau, 83, American Olympic racewalker.^[33]
• José Luis López de Lacalle, Spanish journalist and trade unionist, killed by the ETA.
• Homer Thompson, 93, Canadian classical archaeologist.^[34]
• Timmy Payungka Tjapangati, 58, Aboriginal Australian artist.
• Masaru Shintani, 72, Japanese-Canadian master of karate, heart attack.

8

• Pita Amor, 81, Mexican poet.^[35]
• Stanley Boxer, 73, American abstract artist.^[36]
• X Brands, 72, German-American actor.
• Glen Bredon, 67, American mathematician.
• William C. Brennan, 81, American lawyer and politician.
• Dédé Fortin, 37, Canadian musician, suicide.
• Hubert Maga, 83, Dahomey politician.
• Henry Nicols, 26, American HIV/AIDS activist.^[37]

9

• György Csordás, 71, Freestyle swimmer from Hungary.^[38]
• Arthur Davis, 94, American animator and a director.
• Chris Evans, 53, Canadian ice hockey player.^[39]
• William Fairchild, 82, English author, playwright, director and screenwriter.^[40]
• Todor Nikolov, 54, Bulgarian football player.^[41]
• John Nucatola, 92, American basketball player, coach and referee.
• Carmen Romano, 74, First Lady of Mexico (1976-1982).
• Zheng Weishan, 84, Chinese general and politician.

10

• Raymond Eddé, 87, Lebanese statesman.^[42]
• Martin Farndale, 71, British army general.^[43]
• Carden Gillenwater, 82, American baseball player.^[44]
• Margaret Harris, 95, British costume designer.^[45]
• Kiyoshi Kuromiya, 57, Japanese-American author and civil rights activist, cancer.^[46]
• Virgil W. Raines, 89, American thoroughbred racehorse trainer.
• Kaneto Shiozawa, 46, Japanese voice actor, cerebral contusion.^[47]
• Dick Sprang, 84, American comic book artist and penciller.
• Craig Stevens, 81, American actor, cancer.^[48]

11

• Verna Aardema, 88, American writer.^[49]
• David Bretherton, 76, American film editor, pneumonia.^[50]
• Dale Jennings, 82, American LGBT rights activist, playwright and author.^[51]
• René Muñoz, 62, Cuban actor and screenwriter, cancer.
• Albert Roberts, 91, British politician.
• Hanny Thalmann, 83, Swiss women's rights activist and politician.
• Paula Wessely, 93, Austrian actress, bronchitis.^[52]

12

• Pete Abele, 83, American politician (U.S. Representative for Ohio's 10th congressional district, Alzheimer's disease.^[53]
• Dave Crowe, 66, New Zealand cricket player.^[54]
• Dong Kingman, 89, Chinese American artist and watercolor master.^[55]
• Adam Petty, 19, American race car driver, car crash.^[56]

13

• Paul Bartel, 61, American actor, writer and director, liver cancer, heart attack.^[57]
• Olivier Greif, 50, French composer.^[58]
• Stanley Korchinski, 71, Canadian politician.
• Boško Perošević, 43, Serbian politician.^[59]
• Jumbo Tsuruta, 49, Japanese professional wrestler known as Jumbo Tsuruta, complications from liver transplant.
• Cesare Valletti, 77, Italian operatic tenor.^[60]

14

• Urda Arneberg, 71, Norwegian actress.
• Johnny Cook, 51, American gospel singer formerly of the Happy Goodman Family.^[61]
• Garrett Eckbo, 89, American landscape architect.^[62]
• C. Eric Lincoln, 75, American scholar, diabetes.^[63]
• Bob Maza, 60, Australian actor and playwright.^[64]
• Keizō Obuchi, 62, Japanese politician and Prime Minister, stroke.^[65]
• Rodman Rockefeller, 68, American businessman and philanthropist.^[66]
• Karl Shapiro, 86, American poet.^[67]

15

• Roberto Benedicto, 83, Filipino lawyer, diplomat and banker.
• Geoff Goddard, 62, English songwriter, singer and instrumentalist, heart attack.
• Robert Lee Knous, 82, American politician.
• Alfred Kuchevsky, 68, Soviet ice hockey defenceman.^[68]
• George Marshall, 96, American conservationist and political activist.^[69]
• Gösta Prüzelius, 77, Swedish actor, leukemia.
• Anthony Squire, 86, British screenwriter and director.^[70]

16

• Bodacious, "World's Most Dangerous Bull" World Champion title holder.
• Frido Frey, 78, German basketball player.^[71]
• Evald Hermaküla, 58, Estonian actor and director, suicide.
• Ghulam Ali Okarvi, 80, Pakistani Islamic scholar and jurist.
• Andrzej Szczypiorski, 72, Polish novelist and politician.^[72]
• Ronald Jay Williams, 72, Trinidadian businessman and politician.

17

• Donald Coggan, 90, English Anglican and 101st Archbishop of Canterbury.^[73]
• Hümeyra Hanımsultan, 82, Ottoman princess.^[74]
• Elsie Lessa, 86, Brazilian journalist and writer of American descent.
• William H. Poteat, 81, American philosopher, scholar and professor.^[75]
• Sajjan, 79, Indian actor.
• Angelina Stepanova, 94, Soviet and Russian stage and film actress, teacher.^[76]

18

• Domingos da Guia, 87, Brazilian football player and manager, stroke.^[77]
• Bruno Fait, 75, Italian racewalker and Olympian.^[78]
• Denis Gifford, 72, British writer, broadcaster and journalist.
• Doyle Lade, 79, American baseball player.^[79]
• Yusuf Ludhianvi, 67/68, Pakistani Muslim scholar, author and muhaddith, murdered.

19

• Lee Brewster, 57, American drag queen and transvestite activist, cancer.^[80]
• John Grigas, 79, American gridiron football player.^[81]
• Evgeniy Vasilievich Khrunov, 66, Soviet cosmonaut, heart attack.^[82]
• Larry Lamb, 70, British newspaper editor.^[83]

20

• Adelaide Aglietta, 59, Italian politician.^[84]
• Charles Antenen, 70, Swiss football player.^[85]
• Edward Bernds, 94, American director.^[86]
• Dick Brown, 74, Canadian football player.
• Loyd Jowers, 73, American restaurateur, heart attack.^[87]
• David Pearce, 41, Welsh heavyweight boxing champion.
• Jean-Pierre Rampal, 78, French flautist, heart failure.^[88]
• Malik Sealy, 30, American basketball player, traffic collision.^[89]

21

• Jules Alfonse, 88, American gridiron football player.^[90]
• Barbara Cartland, 98, English novelist.^[91]
• Buzzy Drootin, 80, American jazz drummer.^[92]
• John Gielgud, 96, English actor.^[93]
• Dulcie Holland, 87, Australian composer and music educator.^[94]
• Mark R. Hughes, 44, American entrepreneur and founder of Herbalife, accidental overdose.^[95]
• Erich Mielke, 92, German communist official.^[96]
• Zhao Puchu, 92, Chinese religious leader and calligrapher.^[97]
• Mahmoud Zuabi, Syrian politician and Prime Minister, suicide (disputed).

22

• Bahadoor, Indian actor.
• Krzysztof Boruń, 76, Polish physicist, journalist and science fiction writer.
• David Brookman, 83, Australian politician, traffic collision.^[98]
• Eldridge Dickey, 54, American gridiron football player, stroke.^[99]
• Davie Fulton, 84, Canadian politician and judge.^[100]
• Gary Kerkorian, 70, American football player.^[101]
• Bennie Lee Sinclair, 61, American poet, novelist, and short story writer, heart attack.^[102]
• David Chadwick Smith, 68, Canadian economist.^[103]
• José Rafael Molina Ureña, 79, President of the Dominican Republic.

23

• Eddy Blondeel, 94, Belgian commander of the SAS during WWII.
• Roger Garrett, 59, American actor.
• Jack Halliday, 71, American gridiron football player.^[104]
• Mishari bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Saudi prince as member of the House of Saud.^[105]

24

• Kevin Lyons, 77, Australian politician.
• Kurt Schork, 53, American reporter and war correspondent, homicide.^[106]
• Majrooh Sultanpuri, 80, Indian Urdu poet and lyricist.
• Cliff Sutter, 89, American tennis player.
• Oleg Yefremov, 72, Soviet/Russian actor and theatre producer, lung disease.^[107]

25

• Ken Bousfield, 80, British golfer.^[108]
• Nicholas Clay, 53, British actor, liver cancer.^[109]
• Elizabeth Durack, 84, Australian artist and writer.^[110]
• Seymour S. Kety, 84, American neuroscientist.^[111]
• Francis Lederer, 100, Austrian-American actor.^[112]
• Jaya Pathirana, 79, Sri Lankan Supreme Court justice.

26

• Sandra Gwyn, 65, Canadian journalist and writer.^[113]
• William McCaughey, 70, American sound engineer.
• Hamp Pool, 85, American football player, coach and scout, heart failure.
• Max Schellenberg, 72, Swiss racing cyclist.^[114]
• Samuel A. Taylor, 87, American playwright and screenwriter, heart failure.^[115]
• Vernon Crompton Woodward, 83, Canadian fighter pilot and flying ace during World War II.
• Sō Yamamura, 90, Japanese actor and film director, heart attack.^[116]

27

• Inga Abel, 53, German actress, cancer.^[117]
• Prince Gonzalo de Bourbon, 62, Spanish aristocrat, leukemia.^[118]
• Kazimierz Leski, 87, Polish engineer, fighter pilot, and (counter-)intelligence officer.^[119]
• Murray MacLehose, 82, British diplomat, Governor of Hong Kong.^[120]
• Maurice Richard, 78, Canadian hockey player, cardiovascular disease.^[121]

28

• George Irving Bell, 73, American scientist and mountaineer.^[122]
• Donald Davies, 75, Welsh computer scientist.^[123]
• Maraden Panggabean, 77, Indonesian Army general and Defense Minister, cerebrovascular disease.
• Vincentas Sladkevičius, 79, Lithuanian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.
• Eric Turner, 31, American gridiron football player, stomach cancer.^[124]
• Francisco Vestil, 86, Filipino basketball player and Olympian.^[125]
• Heleen Sancisi Weerdenburg, 56, Dutch historian.^[126]

29

• Clement Isong, 80, Nigerian banker and politician.
• Robert T. Oliver, 90, American author and lecturer.^[127]
• Aubrey Richards, 79, British actor.
• Anthony Spinelli, 73, American actor and producer.^[128]
• Doreen Young Wickremasinghe, 93, British communist politician.

30

• Tex Beneke, 86, American bandleader and musician (Glenn Miller Orchestra).^[129]
• Iko Carreira, 66, Angolan army general and politician.^[130]
• Robert P. Casey, 68, American lawyer and politician, amyloidosis.^[131]
• Doris Hare, 95, Welsh actress.^[132]
• Daisuke Inoue, 58, Japanese singer and composer, suicide.
• Ram Vilas Sharma, 87, Indian academic, poet and writer.^[133]
• Bill Thomas, 78, American costume designer.

31

• John Coolidge, 93, American businessman and son of President Calvin Coolidge.^[134]
• Andrew Faulds, 77, British actor and Lpolitician.^[135]
• Erich Kähler, 94, German mathematician.^[136]
• Petar Mladenov, 63, Bulgarian communist diplomat and politician.^[137]
• Nikolaos Oikonomides, 66, Greek byzantinist.^[138]
• Rodolfo Pini, 73, Uruguayan football player.^[139]
• Tito Puente, 77, American musician, songwriter ("Oye Como Va") and record producer, cardiac surgery.^[140]
• Joe Puma, 72, American jazz guitarist.^[141]
• Hank Ruszkowski, 74, American baseball player.^[142]
• Walter Sparrow, 73, English film and television actor.
• Johnnie Taylor, 66, American singer, heart attack.^[143]
• A. Jeyaratnam Wilson, 72, Sri Lankan Tamil academic, historian and author.