The following is a list of notable deaths in October 2003.

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.

October 2003

1

• John Brim, 81, American Chicago blues musician, heart cancer.^[1]
• Hardiman Cureton, 69, American football player.
• Lillian DeCambra, 77, American baseball player (AAGPBL)^[2]
• Huntington Hardisty, 74, U.S. Navy admiral.
• Joy N. Houck Jr., 61, American actor, screenwriter and film director.
• Khalid Masud, 67, Pakistani muslim scholar.
• Frank Taylor, 95, British politician, MP for Manchester Moss Side.

2

• Milan Bjegojević, 75, Serbian basketball player and coach.
• John Thomas Dunlop, 89, American administrator and Secretary of Labor under Gerald Ford.
• Otto Günsche, 86, German SS escort of Adolf Hitler, who was tasked to cremate his body on 30 April 1945, heart failure.^[3]
• Ahmed Khadr, 55, Egyptian-Canadian Islamist.
• Hasan Mahsum, Turkestani Islamic extremist group leader, shot by the Pakistani Army.
• Denis Moore, 93, English cricketer.

3

• John Baldock, 87, British politician (Member of Parliament for Harborough).^[4]
• Lyall Barry, 77, New Zealand competitive swimmer.
• Greg Biagini, 51, American minor league baseball player and manager, and MLB hitting coach (Baltimore Orioles).^[5]
• Tish Daija, 78, Albanian composer.
• Edward Hartman, 39, American convicted murderer.
• Florence Stanley, 79, American voice actress.
• William Steig, 95, American cartoonist and children's author; creator of Shrek.^[6]
• Winifred Watkins, 79, British biochemist.^[7]

4

• Athar Ali, 40, Pakistani rocket scientist, murdered.
• Bill Cayton, 85, American boxing manager, former manager of Edwin Rosario and Mike Tyson.
• John Horace Ragnar Colvin, 81, British intelligence officer.
• Mary Donaldson, Baroness Donaldson of Lymington, 82, first female Lord Mayor of London.
• Sid McMath, 91, American attorney and politician, 34th governor of Arkansas.^[8]
• Elisabeta Rizea, 91, Romanian anti-communist partisan, viral pneumonia.^[9]

5

• Wil van Beveren, 91, Dutch sprinter (1936 Summer Olympics: men's 100m, men's 200m, men's 4x100m relay).^[10]
• Neil Postman, 72, American media critic.^[11]
• Elena Slough, 114, oldest recognized person in the United States.
• Denis Quilley, 75, British actor.
• Dan Snyder, 25, Canadian professional ice hockey player (Atlanta Thrashers).^[12]
• Timothy Treadwell, 46, American environmentalist and documentary filmmaker.
• Dwain Weston, 30, Australian skydiver and base jumper.^[13]

6

• Mary Christine Tan, 72, Filipino missionary, nun, and activist.
• Joe Baker, 63, English footballer.
• Sir Antony Buck, 74, British politician (Member of Parliament for Colchester, Colchester North).^[14]
• Sir Michael Livesay, 67, British admiral, Second Sea Lord.
• Charles Millot, 81, Yugoslav-French actor.
• Mary Christine Tan, 72, Filipino missionary, nun, and activist.

7

• Izzy Asper, 71, Canadian tax lawyer and media magnate (CanWest Global Communications Corp).^[15]
• Arthur Berger, 91, American composer, music critic, teacher and an academic music writer.^[16]
• Dame Felicitas Corrigan, 95, Benedictine nun.
• Ryan Halligan, 13, American suicide victim.
• Eleanor Lambert, 100, United States fashion pioneer.^[17]

8

• Juan Armenteros, 84, Cuban-American Negro league baseball player, played in the 1953 East-West All-Star Game.^{[citation needed]}
• David Margolis, American mural artist.
• Cyril May, 82, British politician.
• Petter Thomassen, 62, Norwegian politician.
• Junior Wren, 73, American professional football player (Missouri, Cleveland Browns, Pittsburgh Steelers).^[18]

9

• Carolyn Gold Heilbrun, 77, American academic.^[19]
• Mervyn Blake, 95, Canadian stage actor, performed at the Stratford Festival of Canada for 42 seasons.^[20]
• Adolphe Deledda, 84, Italian professional cyclist.
• Carl Fontana, 75, American jazz trombonist.^[21]
• Tommy Hanlon Jr., 80, American-Australian actor, comedian, television host and circus ringmaster, cancer.
• Carolyn Gold Heilbrun, 77, American academic and author.
• Alexei Sidorov, 31, Russian journalist and editor, stabbed.

10

• Viola Burnham, 72, Guyanese politician, First Lady (Prime Minister/President Forbes Burnham) and Vice President.^[22]
• Eugene Istomin, 77, American pianist.^[23]
• Johnny Klippstein, 75, American baseball player (Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Redlegs, Minnesota Twins).^[24]
• Eve Newman, 88, American music and film editor (Academy Award nominations: Wild in the Streets, Two-Minute Warning).^[25]
• Max Rayne, Baron Rayne, 85, British property developer and philanthropist.
• Julia Trevelyan Oman, 73, British set designer.

11

• Vivien Alcock, 79, English children's book writer, television adaptation of novel: Haunting of Cassie Palmer.^[26]
• William J. Dorgan, 81, American Party politician.
• Ivan A. Getting, 91, American physicist and electrical engineer.^[27]
• Wally Nanayakkara, 64, Sri Lankan actor.
• Franklyn Perring, 76, British naturalist and botanist.
• Mu Qing, 82, Chinese journalist and politician, lung cancer.
• Lila Ram, 72, Indian wrestler.
• Siegfried Schmutzler, 88, German Evangelical Lutheran pastor.

12

• J. B. Banks, 79, American politician (Missouri House of Rep., Missouri Senate, Missouri Senate Majority Leader).^[28]
• Jim Cairns, 89, Australian politician (Deputy Prime Minister, Treasurer of Australia).^[29]
• Joan Gadsdon, 80, Australian ballet dancer, actor and artist.
• Ram Gopal, 90, Indian dancer and choreographer.^[30]
• Fathur Rahman al-Ghozi, 32, Indonesian Islamic terrorist and bomb-maker, shot by police.
• Ion Ioanid, 77, Romanian dissident and writer.
• Joan B. Kroc, 75, philanthropist; widow of McDonald's founder Ray Kroc, brain cancer.^[31]
• Pete Morisi, 75, American comic book writer and artist.
• Willie Shoemaker, 72, American Hall of Fame jockey, rode the winners in eleven Triple Crown races.^[32]

13

• Butch Brickell, 46, American race car driver (24 Hours of Daytona) and stuntman (The Specialist, 2 Fast 2 Furious).^[33]
• Bertram Brockhouse, 85, Canadian physicist, 1994 Nobel Prize winner in physics for the development of neutron spectroscopy.^[34]
• Gjorgji Kolozov, 55, Macedonian actor.
• Theodore P. Mansour, 77, American politician.^[35]
• Laurence Ryan, 72, Irish bishop and theologian.
• Anne Ziegler, 93, English singer, known for her duets with her husband Webster Booth.^[36]

14

• Fqih Basri, 75-76, Moroccan activist and opposition leader.^[37]
• Ned Breathitt, 78, American politician, 51st governor of Kentucky from 1963 to 1967, ventricular fibrillation.^[38]
• Findley Burns Jr., 86, American Foreign Service officer, ambassador (Jordan, Ecuador) and U.N. employee.^[39]
• Wil Culmer, 45, Bahamian baseball player (Cleveland Indians).^[40]
• Patrick Dalzel-Job, 90, British naval intelligence officer and commando.
• Ben Metcalfe, 83, Greenpeace activist and co-founder, heart attack.^[41]
• Moktar Ould Daddah, 78, former President of Mauritania.
• William Redd, 91, American businessman and philanthropist.
• Frances Watt, 81, Scottish singer.

15

• Pierre Chanal, 56, Egyptian-French soldier and suspected serial killer, suicide.
• Norman Elder, 64, Canadian writer, artist, and Olympic equestrian., suicide.
• Said Fayad, 82, Lebanese poet and literary journalist.
• Benny Lévy, 58, Egyptian-French philosopher, political activist and author.
• Arthur E. Martell, 86, American chemist.^[42]

16

• Avni Arbas, Turkish artist, cancer.
• Lee Bailey, 76, American author and expert on cooking and entertaining.^[43]
• Don Evans, 65, American playwright, theater director, and actor, heart attack.^[44]
• Stu Hart, 88, Canadian wrestler; patriarch of Hart wrestling.
• László Papp, 77, Hungarian boxer.
• Carl Urbano, 93, American animator and director.

17

• Charlie Justice, 79, American gridiron football player (Washington Redskins).
• Billy Hughes, 74, Scottish footballer.
• Frank O'Flynn, 84, New Zealand politician.
• Janice Rule, 72, American actress.^[45]
• Clare Venables, 60, English theatre director, director of education at the Royal Shakespeare Company.^[46]

18

• Joseph R. Applegate, 77, American linguistics expert, professor of African studies and a specialist in the Berber languages.^[47]
• Leslie James Bennett, 82/83, British/Canadian counter-intelligence officer.
• William C. Cramer, 81, American attorney and politician, heart attack^[48]
• Preston Smith, 91, American politician (40th Governor of Texas from 1969 to 1973).^[49]
• Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, 64, Spanish novelist (Detective Carvalho saga), journalist and poet.^[50]
• R. V. Vernède, 97, British writer and colonial administrator.

19

• Jaime Allende, 79, Spanish field hockey player (field hockey at the 1948 Summer Olympics).^[51]
• Sir Peter Berger, 78, British admiral (Amethyst Incident).^[52]
• Michael Hegstrand, 45, "Road Warrior Hawk".
• Alija Izetbegović, 78, Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
• Margaret Murie, 101, "Mother of the Modern Conservationist Movement".^[53]
• Georgi Vladimov, 72, Soviet (Ukrainian) dissident writer.^[54]

20

• František Balvín, 88, Czechoslovak cross-country skier (Olympic skiing: 1948 50km, 1948 relay, 1952 50km).^[55]
• Ernie Calverley, 79, American professional basketball player (Rhode Island, Providence Steamrollers) and coach.^[56]
• Miodrag Petrović Čkalja, 79, Serbian actor.
• Jack Elam, 84, American actor.^[57]
• Luis A. Ferré, 99, Puerto Rican industrialist and politician.^[58]
• Peter Morgan, 83, British sports car manufacturer.

21

• John Walter Baxter, 86, British civil engineer, designer of west London's Westway.^[59]
• Bob Beckus, 83, American triple jumper (men's triple jump at the 1948 Summer Olympics).^[60]
• Fred Berry, 52, American actor, known for his role of "Rerun" on the show What's Happening!!.^[61]
• Louise Day Hicks, 87, American politician (Boston City Council, U.S. Representative for Massachusetts's 9th congress. dist.).^[62]
• Elliott Smith, 34, American musician.^[63]

22

• Dee Andros, 79, American football player, coach (University of Idaho, Oregon State University) and athletic director.^[64]
• Derya Arbaş, 35, Turkish American actress, heart attack.
• Ron Collier, 73, Canadian jazz trombonist, composer, and arranger.
• Miguel Ángel Burelli Rivas, 81, Venezuelan diplomat (Ambassador to the U.S., Foreign Minister of Venezuela).^[65]
• Tony Renna, 26, American motor racer and IndyCar driver, killed in an accident during a tire test.

23

• Tony Capstick, 59, British actor, comedian, musician and broadcaster.
• Pete Chisman, 63, British cyclist, complications from surgery.^[66]
• Al Corwin, 76, American baseball player (New York Giants).^[67]
• Madame Chiang Kai-shek, 105, widow of the Nationalist Chinese president Chiang Kai-shek.^[68]
• Judah Segal, 91, British linguist.

24

• József Apró, 82, Hungarian middle-distance runner (men's 3000 metres steeplechase at the 1952 Summer Olympics).^[69]
• Bob Bailey, 72, Canadian ice hockey player (Toronto Maple Leafs, Detroit Red Wings, Chicago Blackhawks).^[70]
• Scott Bauer, 49, American senior pastor (The Church on the Way), radio program host and author.^[71]
• Veikko Hakulinen, 78, Finnish cross-country skier, triple Olympic- and world champion.
• Rosie Nix Adams, 45, American singer and songwriter, daughter of June Carter Cash.^[72]
• Peter Sykes, 80, British chemist.

25

• Hemu Adhikari, 84, Indian cricketer.
• Pandurang Shastri Athavale, 83, Indian philosopher and social activist.
• Noreen Branson, 93, British political activist and historian of the Communist Party of Great Britain.^[73]
• John Hart Ely, 64, American legal scholar.^[74]
• Behram Kurşunoğlu, 81, Turkish physicist.^[75]

26

• Steve Death, 54, English football goalkeeper, cancer.
• Emory Ellis, 96, American biochemist.
• Leonid Filatov, 56, Soviet and Russian actor, director and poet.
• Hans-Joachim Jabs, 85, German Luftwaffe officer in World War II.
• Elem Klimov, 70, Soviet Russian film director, brain hypoxia.
• Alec Linwood, 83, Scottish football player.
• Arthur McIntyre, 57, Australian artist and art critic.
• Viguen, 73, Iranian pop music singer ("Sultan of pop") and actor.^[76]

27

• Hank Beenders, 87, Dutch-American professional basketball player (Providence Steamrollers, Philadelphia Warriors, Boston Celtics).^[77]
• Johnny Boyd, 77, American racecar driver, twelve Indianapolis 500-mile races from 1955 to 1966.^[78]
• Pete Gudauskas, 87, American professional football player (Murray State, Cleveland Rams, Chicago Bears).^[79]
• Manoj Khanderia, 60, Indian poet writer.
• Virginia Lanier, 72, American writer and author.
• Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz, 88, British food writer.
• Rod Roddy, 66, American radio and television announcer.
• Walter Washington, 88, American civil servant and politician, first Mayor of the District of Columbia.^[80]
• Buzz Westfall, 59, American lawyer and politician (St. Louis County Executive), meningitis staph infection.^[81]
• Fred Whittingham, 64, American professional football player (Philadelphia Eagles, New Orleans Saints), complications from back surgery.^[82]

28

• Sally Baldwin, 62, British social scientist.
• Ruth Batson, 82, American educator and civil rights activist, an outspoken advocate of equal education.^[83]
• Jean Carbonnier, 95, French jurist.
• Marie Maynard Daly, 82, American biochemist.
• Edward Hartwig, 94, Polish photographer.
• Joan Perucho, 82, Spanish novelist, poet and art critic, and judge.
• Alexander Raichev, 81, Bulgarian composer.
• Oliver Sain, 71, American musician and record producer, cancer.
• Walter Trohan, 100, 20th-century American journalist (Chicago Tribune).
• Christopher Porteous, 82, Headmaster of Eltham College, London, 1959 to 1983.

29

• Hal Clement, 81, American author.^[84]
• Gerrie Deijkers, 56, Dutch football player, heart attack.
• A. Carl Helmholz, 88, American nuclear physicist.

30

• Lynn S. Beedle, 85, American structural engineer, founder of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.^[85]
• Carl Berner, 90, Danish rower (men's coxed pairs, men's eights at the 1936 Summer Olympics).^[86]
• Franco Bonisolli, 65, Italian operatic tenor.^[87]
• Franco Corelli, 81, operatic tenor.^[88]
• Lillian Jackson, 84, American baseball player (AAGPBL).^[89]
• John M. Lovett, 60, Australian government officer and former President of the ICSD.
• Gil Nickel, 64, American Napa Valley vintner.^[90]
• Richard Taylor, 83, American philosopher.
• Mike Yaconelli, 61, American youth minister, magazine editor (The Door) and writer, co-founder of Youth Specialties.^[91]

31

• Robert Guenette, 68, American film/television producer, screenwriter, and film/television director, brain tumor.
• Daphne Hardy Henrion, 86, British sculptor.
• Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, 95, Indian Classical (Carnatic) musician.
• José Juncosa, 81, Spanish football player and manager.
• Richard Neustadt, 84, American professor, a leading presidential scholar and an advisor to several presidents.^[92]
• A. S. Rao, 89, Indian scientist.
• Yechiel Shemi, Israeli sculptor.
• Lindsay Weir, 95, New Zealand cricketer.