Deaths in February 2007

The following is a list of notable deaths in February 2007.

February 2007

1

• Whitney Balliett, 80, American jazz critic, cancer.
• Ray Berres, 99, American baseball player who was second-oldest living major league player, pneumonia.
• Ahmad Abu Laban, 60, Egyptian-born Danish Muslim leader, key figure in the Muhammad cartoons controversy, cancer.
• Gian Carlo Menotti, 95, Italian-born opera composer (Amahl and the Night Visitors).
• Antonio María Javierre Ortas, 85, Spanish cardinal and prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship (1992–1996), cardiac arrest.
• Adelina Tattilo, 78, Italian founder of Playmen magazine. (Italian)
• Seri Wangnaitham, 70, Thai dancer, choreographer and national artist, heart failure.

2

• Edmund Arnold, 93, American newspaper designer, pneumonia.
• Vijay Arora, 62, Indian film and television actor, intestinal condition.
• Loren Grey, 91, American educational psychologist and son of Zane Grey, age-related complications.
• Billy Henderson, 67, American singer with The Spinners, diabetes.
• Joe Hunter, 79, American pianist and bandleader of The Funk Brothers.
• Terry Lee McMillan, 53, American harmonica player.
• Gisèle Pascal, 85, French actress and one-time lover of Prince Rainier.
• Filippo Raciti, 40, Italian police officer, fatal injury by football hooligan.
• Eric von Schmidt, 75, American folk/blues singer-songwriter, stroke.
• Masao Takemoto, 87, Japanese gymnast, gold medallist at 1960 Summer Olympics, bile duct cancer.
• Shannon J. Wall, 87, American union official, President of the National Maritime Union (1973–1990).

3

• Liliane Ackermann, 68, French Jewish community leader, writer and lecturer. (French)
• George Becker, 78, American president of United Steelworkers (1993–2001), prostate cancer.
• Ralph de Toledano, 90, Moroccan-born American political columnist and author.
• Stephan Epstein, 46, British professor of economic history at LSE, epileptic seizure.
• Ben Kaye, 68, Canadian songwriter and adviser to Celine Dion, cancer.
• Pedro Knight, 85, Cuban–American musician and husband of Celia Cruz.

4

• Steve Barber, 68, American Major League Baseball pitcher, pneumonia.
• José Carlos Bauer, 81, Brazilian World Cup footballer.
• Paul Burwell, 57, British percussionist.
• Ilya Kormiltsev, 47, Russian poet and translator, spinal cancer. .
• Barbara McNair, 72, American singer and actress, throat cancer.
• Jules Olitski, 84, Ukrainian-born American abstract painter and sculptor, cancer.

5

• John S. Beckett, 80, Irish musician.
• Angela King, 68, Jamaican diplomat, Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations (1997–2004), cancer.
• Leo T. McCarthy, 76, New Zealand-born American politician and Lieutenant Governor of California (1983–1995), kidney failure.
• Alfred Worm, 61, Austrian investigative journalist, heart attack.

6

• Wolfgang Bartels, 66, German bronze-medal winning Olympic alpine skiier (1964).
• Lew Burdette, 80, American baseball player, MVP of the 1957 World Series, stomach cancer.
• Lee Hoffman, 74, American science fiction and western writer, heart attack.
• Len Hopkins, 76, Canadian politician, Liberal MP from Ontario (1965–1997), pneumonia.
• Frankie Laine, 93, American singer ("Mule Train"), complications of hip replacement surgery.
• Reiner Merkel, 55, CEO of German Press Agency Picture Alliance, heart attack.
• Nelson W. Polsby, 72, American political scientist and author, heart failure.
• Sir Gareth Roberts, 66, British physicist and principal of Wolfson College, Oxford.
• Glenn Sarty, 77, Canadian original producer of CBC's The Fifth Estate, Take 30 and Take 60, emphysema.
• Bent Skovmand, 61, Danish plant scientist and conservationist, founder of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, brain tumor.
• Willye White, 68, African American first 5-time U.S. track and field Olympian, pancreatic cancer.
• Johnny Williams, 80, British champion professional boxer] in the 1940s and 50s.

7

• Helen Duncan, 65, New Zealand former union leader and politician, cancer.
• Tommy James, 83, American football player with the Cleveland Browns, congestive heart failure.
• Ken Kennedy, 61, American computer scientist at Rice University, pancreatic cancer.
• Alan MacDiarmid, 79, New Zealand recipient of Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2000, injuries from a fall.
• Erika Ortiz Rocasolano, 31, Spanish youngest sister of Letizia, Princess of Asturias.
• Fred Mustard Stewart, 74, American author (The Mephisto Waltz, Ellis Island), cancer.
• Brian Williams, 44, British former rugby union player for Wales and Neath RFC, heart attack.

8

• Tom Abraham, 96, Lebanese-born American businessman, stroke.
• Joe Edwards, 85, American comic book artist best known for his Archie and Li'l Jinx comics, heart failure.
• Adele Faccio, 86, Italian civil right activist. (Italian)
• Florence Melton, 95, American inventor, entrepreneur and philanthropist.
• Shelby Metcalf, 76, Texas A&M basketball coach, cancer.
• Antonio Pierro, 110, oldest man in the United States and oldest living World War I veteran.
• Ismail Semed, Chinese Muslim Uighur separatist, execution by firing squad.
• Anna Nicole Smith, 39, American 1993 Playmate of the Year, widow of J. Howard Marshall, accidental drug overdose.
• Ian Stevenson, 88, Canadian psychiatrist and reincarnation researcher.
• Peter Thornton, 81, British museum curator and historian.
• Harriett Woods, 79, American Lieutenant Governor of Missouri (1985–1989), leukemia.

9

• Hank Bauer, 84, American baseball outfielder and manager, three-time All Star, cancer.
• Eddie Feigner, 81, American softball player, respiratory failure.
• Alejandro Finisterre, 87, Spanish inventor of table football.
• Tara Lynn Grant, 34, American murdered and dismembered by her husband, strangulation.
• Benedict Kiely, 87, Irish writer and broadcaster.
• Aida Mason, 111, Britain's oldest person.
• Andrew McAuley, 39, Australian ocean kayak adventurer, presumed drowned.
• Ian Richardson, 72, British actor (House of Cards, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy) and member of the RSC, in his sleep.
• Bruno Ruffo, 86, Italian motorcycle racer, three-time world champion (1949–1951).

10

• Bill Clement, 91, Welsh rugby union player and soldier.
• Gary Frisch, 38, South African co-founder of Gaydar dating website, fall from balcony.
• Jung Da Bin, 26, South Korean actress, suspected suicide by hanging.
• James C. Melby, 57, American professional wrestling historian, author and magazine editor.
• Charles S. Swartz, 67, American filmmaker, brain cancer.
• Charles R. Walgreen, Jr., 100, American president of Walgreens (1939–1971), son of founder Charles R. Walgreen.
• Cardis Cardell Willis, 69, American comic.

11

• Jorge Antonio, 89, Argentinian Peronist party politician and business man. (Spanish)
• Marianne Fredriksson, 79, Swedish writer and journalist, heart attack.
• Derek Gardner, 92, British marine painter.
• Charles Langford, 84, American Alabama state senator and lawyer, represented Rosa Parks during Montgomery Bus Boycott.
• Jules Maenen, 75, Dutch Olympic cyclist.
• Yunus Parvez, 75, Indian Bollywood actor, complications of diabetes.
• Jim Ricca, 79, American football player (Washington Redskins, Philadelphia Eagles, Detroit Lions), cerebral aneurysm.

12

• Violet Barasa, 31, Kenyan women's volleyball team captain and Olympic competitor.
• Warren Batchelder, 89, American animator for Warner Bros..
• Georg Buschner, 81, East German football coach, prostate cancer.
• Jimmy Campbell, 63, British musician.
• Valucha deCastro, 77, Brazilian musician, liver disease.
• Peter Ellenshaw, 93, Anglo-American Academy Award-winning special effects designer.
• Thomas E. Fairchild, 94, American Federal Appeals Court Judge.
• Peggy Gilbert, 102, American jazz saxophonist and bandleader, complications of hip surgery.
• Ellen Hanley, 80, American Broadway theatre actress, stroke.
• Joseph Low, 95, American children's book illustrator.
• John MacLeod of MacLeod, 71, British 29th chief of the Clan MacLeod, leukaemia.
• Joseph McKeown, 82, British photojournalist, after a fall.
• Hasan Özbekhan, 86, Turkish economist.
• Paolo Pileri, 62, Italian motorcycle racer (1973–1979), 1975 World Champion and Capirossi team manager, natural causes.
• Randy Stone, 48, American casting director and Oscar-winning film producer, heart failure.
• Sulejman Talović, 18, American Salt Lake City spree killer, shot by police.
• Geraldine Warrick-Crisman, 76, African-American TV executive, former assistant New Jersey state treasurer, breast cancer.
• Eldee Young, 71, American musician, bass player for Ramsey Lewis Trio, heart attack.

13

• Sir Charles Harington, 96, British general.
• Elizabeth Jolley, 83, Australian author, illness.
• Bruce Metzger, 93, American professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and expert on Greek biblical manuscripts.
• Charlie Norwood, 65, American Republican Representative from Georgia since 1995, cancer.
• Eliana Ramos, 18, Uruguayan model and sister of late model Luisel Ramos, heart attack.
• Johanna Sällström, 32, Swedish actress.
• Sir Richard Wakeford, 84, British Air Marshal.

14

• Ryan Larkin, 63, Canadian animator, Oscar nominee and subject of the Oscar-winning animated short Ryan, lung cancer.
• Thomas Marealle, 91, Tanzanian chief, pneumonia.
• Benito Medero, 84, Uruguayan Minister of Agriculture (1972–1974). (Spanish)
• Gareth Morris, 86, British flautist and music teacher.
• John O'Banion, 59, American singer and actor, accident causing blunt force trauma.
• John Penn, 85, British architect.
• Steven Pimlott, 53, British theatre director, lung cancer.
• Richard S. Prather, 85, American novelist.
• Emmett Williams, 81, American poet and Fluxus artist.

15

• Robert Adler, 93, Austrian-born American co-inventor of the TV remote control, heart failure.
• Bill Carson, 80, American guitarist.
• Arthur J. Dixon, 88, Canadian member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta (1952–1975).
• Walker Edmiston, 81, American voice actor, cancer.
• Ray Evans, 92, American songwriter, partner of Jay Livingston for hits such as "Buttons and Bows", heart attack.
• Stephen Gardiner, 82, British architect.
• Buddy Hancken, 92, American baseball player.
• Daniel McDonald, 46, American Broadway actor, brain cancer.
• Mordkhe Schaechter, 79, American Yiddish linguist and lexicographer.

16

• Herminio Iglesias, 77, Argentinian Peronist Party politician.
• Jakov Lind, 80, Austrian Holocaust survivor and author.
• Norman Miscampbell, 81, British politician, Conservative MP for Blackpool North (1962–1992).
• Sheridan Morley, 65, British broadcaster and author, heart failure.
• Ralph Penza, 74, American senior correspondent and substitute anchor for WNBC.
• Lilli Promet, 85, Estonian writer. (Estonian)
• Gene Snyder, 79, American Republican Representative from Kentucky (1963–1965, 1967–1987).

17

• Michael "Mike Awesome" Alfonso, 42, American wrestler, twice ECW World Champion, suicide by hanging.
• Mehmet Altınsoy, 82, Turkish politician, intracranial hemorrhage. (Turkish)
• Mai Ghoussoub, 54, Lebanese author and publisher.
• Jurga Ivanauskaitė, 45, Lithuanian writer, cancer.
• Mary Kaye, 83, American singer/guitarist and leader of the Mary Kaye Trio, respiratory and heart failure.
• Dermot O’Reilly, 64, Irish-born Canadian singer and musician with Ryan's Fancy.
• Maurice Papon, 96, French World War II Vichy government official convicted of deporting Jews to Nazi death camps.

18

• Lawrence J. Fogel, 78, American computer scientist.
• Barbara Gittings, 74, American gay rights campaigner, breast cancer.
• Bob Oksner, 90, American comic book artist, pneumonia.
• Frank M. Snowden, Jr, 95, American authority on black people in the ancient world, heart failure.
• Juan "Pachín" Vicéns, 72, Puerto Rican basketball player.
• Jack Wood, 82, American television director.

19

• Janet Blair, 85, American actress (My Sister Eileen, The Fabulous Dorseys), complications of pneumonia.
• Celia Franca, 85, British-born Canadian dancer, founder and artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada.
• Antonio Serapio, 69, Philippine congressman representing the city of Valenzuela, car accident resulting from cardiac arrest.

20

• Sir John Akehurst, 77, British general.
• F. Albert Cotton, 76, American chemist and Texas A&M University professor.
• Sir Michael Hart, 58, British High Court judge, lung cancer.
• Ronald Hilton, 95, American Stanford University professor who helped uncover the Bay of Pigs Invasion plan.
• Sir Edward Gordon Jones, 92, British Air Marshal.
• Ihab Kareem, 26, Iraqi footballer, bombing.
• Siegfried Landau, 85, American musician and founding conductor of Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra, house fire.
• Carl-Henning Pedersen, 93, Danish painter known for his membership of CoBrA.
• Zilla Huma Usman, 35, Pakistani minister for social welfare in the Punjab province, shot.
• Derek Waring, 79, British actor (Z-Cars), widower of Dame Dorothy Tutin, cancer.
• Robert W. Young, 94, American linguist.

21

• Daniel Boemle, 36, Swiss disc jockey. (German)
• Victor Clemett, 107, Canada's second oldest living veteran of World War I.
• Sherman Jones, 72, American baseball player and Kansas state politician.
• Jim Kennedy, 74, British cricketer.
• Keith Kyle, 81, British journalist, historian and broadcaster.
• John Robins, 80, British rugby union player for Wales, coach of the British Lions.
• Barry Stevens, 44, American basketball player and second highest scorer in Iowa State University history, heart attack.

22

• Avrohom Blumenkrantz, 62, American Orthodox rabbi, posek, and kashrut authority, complications of diabetes.
• Lothar-Günther Buchheim, 89, German author (Das Boot), painter and art collector, heart failure.
• Irwin Caplan, 87, American cartoonist (Saturday Evening Post, Collier's), Parkinson's disease.
• Jozef Dunajovec, 73, Slovak journalist and non-fiction author. (Slovak)
• Edgar Evans, 94, British opera singer.
• George Jellicoe, 2nd Earl Jellicoe, 88, British soldier, politician and businessman.
• Dennis Johnson, 52, American All-Star basketball player and coach, 1979 NBA Finals MVP, cardiac arrest.
• Nikita Khrushchev, 47, Russian journalist, grandson of former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, stroke.
• Samuel Hinga Norman, 67, Sierra Leone leader of pro-government Kamajors militia, heart failure.
• Fons Rademakers, 86, Dutch Academy Award-winning film director (The Assault), emphysema.
• Howard Ramsey, 108, American who was one of the last surviving US World War I combat veterans.
• George André Robertson, 77, British educator and cricketer.
• Ian Wallace, 60, British drummer (King Crimson, 21st Century Schizoid Band), esophageal cancer.

23

• Hanna Barysevich, 118?, Belarusian claimed to be world's oldest person. (Polish)
• Heinz Berggruen, 93, German art collector and friend of Pablo Picasso, heart attack.
• Donnie Brooks, 71, American singer ("Mission Bell"), heart failure.
• Jock Dodds, 91, British footballer for Scotland and Blackpool F.C.
• Robert Engler, 84, American political scientist, heart ailment.
• Winthrop Jordan, 75, American historian, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
• Will Maslow, 99, American Jewish leader and civil rights lawyer.
• Robert W. Richardson, 96, American railroad preservationist.
• John Ritchie, 65, British footballer for Stoke City F.C., club's record goalscorer.
• Pascal Yoadimnadji, 56, Prime Minister of Chad, brain haemorrhage.

24

• Bryan Balkwill, 84, British conductor.
• Bruce Bennett, 100, American actor (New Adventures of Tarzan, Treasure of the Sierra Madre), 1928 Olympic medallist, hip fracture.
• Kåre Olav Berg, 62, Norwegian Olympic Nordic skier.
• Mordechai Breuer, 85, Israeli Bible researcher and Orthodox rabbi. 's%20Loss
• Mario Chanes de Armas, 80, Cuban political prisoner.
• Charles Frederick Ehret, 83, American molecular biologist.
• Leroy Jenkins, 74, American composer and free jazz violinist, lung cancer. .
• Lamar Lundy, 71, American football player, member of the Los Angeles Rams' "Fearsome Foursome" defensive line.
• Damien Nash, 24, American football running back for the Denver Broncos.
• George Preas, 73, American football lineman who won two NFL championships with the Baltimore Colts, Parkinson's disease.
• Paul Secon, 91, American businessman who founded Pottery Barn.

25

• William Anderson, 85, American congressman from Tennessee and captain of the USS Nautilus.
• P. Bhaskaran, 83, Indian director and lyricist in the Malayalam language.
• Jean Grelaud, 108, one of the last three 'official' French World War I veterans. (French)
• Brett Mycles, 29, American fitness model and bisexual pornography actor, heart failure.
• Mark Spoelstra, 66, American folk singer and veteran of the Greenwich Village music scene, pancreatic cancer.

26

• John Robert Anderson, 78, Australian chemist.
• Angelo Arcidiacono, 51, Italian Olympic fencer.
• Raúl Alonso de Marco, 72, Uruguayan member of the Supreme Court of Justice (1992–2002). (Spanish)
• James O. Hall, 96, American historian.
• Alex Henshaw, 94, British test pilot noted for his work with Spitfire and Lancaster aircraft.
• Baroness Jeger, 91, British Labour MP for Holborn and St Pancras South and opposition spokesman in the House of Lords.
• Sergio Previtali, 66, Uruguayan politician and former deputy (1990–1995). (Spanish)

27

• Brian Belle, 92, English cricketer.
• Russell Churney, 42, British pianist, pancreatic cancer.
• Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven, 93, German World War II General, survivor of Hitler's bunker.
• Wayne Hooper, 86, American music composer, arranger and singer.
• Jack Marks, 80, Canadian Chief of Metro Toronto Police (1984–1989), pancreatic cancer.
• Bobby Rosengarden, 82, American jazz drummer and bandleader on The Dick Cavett Show, kidney failure.
• Mel Swart, 87, Canadian politician, stroke.
• Judith Toups, 76, American birding expert and Sun Herald columnist.

28

• Angeline Barrette, 110, Canadian believed to be country's oldest person.
• Charles Forte, Baron Forte, 98, British hotelier.
• Alexander King, 98, British scientist who co-founded the Club of Rome.
• Robert C. Kingston, 78, American Army General, complications from a fall.
• Alexei Komech, 70, Russian architectural historian, cancer.
• Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., 89, American historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, heart attack.
• Sir John Smith, 83, British founder of the Landmark Trust.
• Billy Thorpe, 60, Australian rock musician, cardiac arrest.