Deaths in March 2008

The following is a list of notable deaths in March 2008.

March 2008

1

• Haroldo de Andrade, 73, Brazilian radio presenter (Rádio Globo), multiple organ dysfunction syndrome. (Portuguese)
• Kevin John Dunn, 57, British Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle.
• Bhanbhagta Gurung, 86, Nepalese Gurkha soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross.
• Raúl Reyes, 59, Columbian FARC second-in-command, airstrike.
• Moustafa Soheim, 70, Egyptian Olympic fencer.
• Sid Spindler, 75, Polish-born Australian senator (Democrats) (1990–1996), liver cancer.
• Andrey Tissin, 32, Russian world and European canoeing champion, Olympian and coach, drowning. (Russian)
• George Toley, 91, American collegiate tennis coach.

2

• Sofiko Chiaureli, 70, Georgian actress.
• Roger Gill, 35, Guyanese Olympic sprinter, car accident.
• Jeff Healey, 41, Canadian jazz and blues-rock guitarist and vocalist, lung cancer.
• Carl Hoddle, 40, British football player, brain aneurysm.
• Paul Raymond, 82, British pornographic magazine publisher and property magnate.
• Frederick Seitz, 96, American physicist who co-discovered the Wigner-Seitz cell.

3

• Ramón Barquín, 93, Cuban army colonel and diplomat, opponent of Fulgencio Batista, led 1956 coup attempt, cancer.
• William Brice, 86, American painter and UCLA professor, injuries from fall.
• Giuseppe Di Stefano, 86, Italian operatic tenor, after long coma following assault.
• Donald S. Lopez, Sr., 84, American deputy director of the National Air and Space Museum, heart attack.
• Malcolm McKenna, 77, American paleontologist.
• Norm O'Neill, 71, Australian cricketer, throat cancer.
• Annemarie Renger, 88, German politician (SPD), Speaker of Parliament (1972–1976).
• Iván Ríos, 45, Columbian FARC commander, shot by his Chief of Security.
• Norman "Hurricane" Smith, 85, British singer, recording engineer (The Beatles, Pink Floyd) and record producer.
• Kenneth Woollcombe, 84, British Bishop of Oxford (1971–1978).

4

• Robert Bruning, 79, Australian actor, heart attack.
• E. Gary Gygax, 69, American co-creator of role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons.
• Tina Lagostena Bassi, 82, Italian politician.
• Elena Nathanael, 67, Greek actress, lung cancer.
• Leonard Rosenman, 83, American Academy Award-winning composer (Barry Lyndon, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home), heart attack.
• Semka Sokolović-Bertok, 72, Croatian actress, stroke.
• George Walter, 79, Antiguan Premier (1971–1976), heart attack.

5

• Eve Carson, 22, American student leader (UNC Chapel Hill), shot.
• Derek Dooley, 78, British footballer and former chairman of Sheffield United.
• Elfriede Kaun, 93, German 1936 Olympic bronze medalist in the high jump. (German)
• Nader Khalili, 72, Iranian architect, heart failure.
• John C. Mackie, 87, American Representative from Michigan (1965–1967).
• Richard Miles McCool, 86, American Medal of Honor recipient for actions during World War II.
• Stephen Oliver, 66, American actor (Peyton Place), gastric cancer.
• Joseph Weizenbaum, 85, German-born American computer scientist, inventor of ELIZA computer program, stroke.
• Ihor Yemchuk, 77, Ukrainian Olympic silver (1952) and bronze (1956) medal-winning rower.

6

• Gloria Shayne Baker, 84, American songwriter (Rain Rain Go Away, Do You Hear What I Hear?), lung cancer.
• Lili Boniche, 87, Algerian-born French singer of Andalusian Arabic songs.
• Don Curtis, 80, American professional wrestler, stroke.
• Gustaw Holoubek, 84, Polish film and theatre actor and politician.
• Stanislav Konopásek, 84, Czechoslovakian Olympic silver medallist in ice hockey (1948).
• Peter Poreku Dery, 89, Ghanaian cardinal, Archbishop of Tamale (1974–1994).
• K. Sivanesan, 51, Sri Lankan Tamil Parliament member (TNA), roadside bomb.
• Malvin Wald, 90, American screenwriter (The Naked City).

7

• Luisa Isabel Álvarez de Toledo, 71, Spanish noblewoman and author.
• Isaías Carrasco, 43, Spanish Basque politician, shot.
• Leonardo Costagliola, 87, Italian football goalkeeper (ACF Fiorentina).
• Dick Durrell, 82, American founding publisher of People magazine, lung cancer.
• David Gale, 86, American mathematician, heart attack.
• Leon Greenman, 97, British Holocaust survivor, only Englishman sent to Auschwitz.
• Julius Paltiel, 83, Norwegian Holocaust survivor.
• Francis Pym, 86, British Conservative Party politician, Foreign Secretary (1982–1983).

8

• Al-Bandari bint Abdulaziz, 80, Saudi sister of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
• Ossie Alvarez, 74, American Major League Baseball player (Washington Senators, Detroit Tigers).
• Erwin Ballabio, 89, Swiss football goalkeeper. (German)
• Carol Barnes, 63, British ITN news presenter, stroke.
• Charles A. Gillespie, Jr., 72, American diplomat, Ambassador to Colombia and Chile, cancer.
• Donald C. MacDonald, 94, Canadian politician, former leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party.
• Les Smith, 80, British ex-Aston Villa footballer, cancer.

9

• Gus Giordano, 84, American Emmy Award-winning jazz dancer, pneumonia.
• Simon Reisman, 88, Canadian chief negotiator of the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement, cardiac arrest.
• Varvara Semennikova, 117?, Russian who claimed to be oldest living person.

10

• Richard Biegenwald, 67, American serial killer.
• William Richard Bradford, 61, American serial killer, natural causes.
• Hugh Brown, 88, British Labour politician, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (1974–1979).
• Chuck Day, 65, American blues guitarist, wrote the distinctive riff in "Secret Agent Man".
• Kurt Eberling, Sr., 77, German-American inventor of SpaghettiOs, cancer.
• Ricardo García, 81, Mexican Olympic cyclist.
• Dennis Irwin, 56, American jazz double bassist, complications of cancer.
• Ana Kalandadze, 83, Georgian poet.
• Vangelis Kazan, 70, Greek actor. (Greek)
• Lee Ho-seong, 41, South Korean baseball player, thief and murderer, suicide by drowning.
• Radovan Lukavský, 88, Czech actor.
• Otto Schnellbacher, 84, American football and basketball player, cancer.
• Dave Stevens, 52, American illustrator, creator of The Rocketeer, leukemia.

11

• J. I. Albrecht, 77, American-born Canadian manager and director in the Canadian Football League, complications from a stroke.
• Zakaria Deros, 62, Malaysian former politician, heart attack.
• John Roderick, 93, American journalist (AP) and author, extensively covered China (1930s–2000s), heart failure and pneumonia.
• Phyllis Spira, 64, South African prima ballerina, complications of surgery.
• Michael J. Todd, 50, British Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police.
• Lukas Vischer, 81, Swiss theologian.

12

• Folke Eriksson, 82, Swedish Olympic water polo player. (Swedish)
• Erwin Geschonneck, 101, German actor.
• Jorge Guinzburg, 59, Argentine journalist and comedian, pulmonary infection.
• Alun Hoddinott, 78, Welsh composer.
• Cassià Maria Just, 81, Spanish cleric, former abbot of Santa Maria de Montserrat, stroke. (Spanish)
• Howard Metzenbaum, 90, American politician, Senator from Ohio (1974, 1976–1995).
• Ovidiu Iuliu Moldovan, 66, Romanian actor, cancer.
• Károly Németh, 85, Hungarian politician.
• Lazare Ponticelli, 110, last official French veteran of World War I.
• Asesela Ravuvu, 77, Fijian politician and former University of the South Pacific academic, natural causes.
• Tom Tuohy, 90, British chemist, averted potential disaster at Windscale.

13

• Taslim Arif, 53, Pakistani cricketer, lung infection.
• Tessa Birnie, 73, New Zealand concert pianist.
• Bill Bolick, 90, American country music performer (The Blue Sky Boys).
• Iosif Boyarsky, 90, Russian former Soyuzmultfilm director, one of the fathers of Soviet animation.
• Claire Brooks, 76, British politician.
• Martin Fierro, 66, American saxophonist, cancer.
• Scarlet Garcia, 23, Filipino model, shot.
• Rafael Tufiño, 85, Puerto Rican painter and printmaker, lung cancer.

14

• Mel Brandt, 88, American actor and announcer.
• Clyde Cameron, 95, Australian politician, MP (1949–1980), Minister in the Whitlam Government.
• Mike Dawson, 54, American football player, heart attack.
• Chiara Lubich, 88, Italian Catholic activist, founder of the Focolare Movement.
• Ingvald Ulveseth, 83, Norwegian politician. (Norwegian)

15

• Jacob DeShazer, 95, American bombardier, participant in the Doolittle Raid.
• Mikey Dread, 54, Jamaican singer, record producer and broadcaster, brain tumor.
• Vytautas Kernagis, 56, Lithuanian singer, television announcer, gastric cancer.
• G. David Low, 52, American astronaut, colon cancer.
• Benjamin Ngoubou, 83/84, Gabonese foreign minister.
• Sam C. Pointer, Jr., 73, American federal judge for the District Court for the Northern District of Alabama (1970–2000).
• Ken Reardon, 86, Canadian ice hockey defenceman (Montreal Canadiens), Alzheimer’s disease.
• Ross Scaife, 47, American classicist and digital humanist, cancer.
• Vicki Van Meter, 26, American pilot, suicide by gunshot.

16

• Anura Bandaranaike, 59, Sri Lankan politician.
• Bill Brown, 95, Australian cricket captain, member of 1948 Invincibles team.
• Ola Brunkert, 61, Swedish session drummer for ABBA, injuries from accidental fall.
• Wayne Davis, 44, American football player, motor neurone disease.
• Ivan Dixon, 76, American actor and director (Hogan's Heroes), hemorrhage.
• Gary Hart, 66, American professional wrestling manager, heart attack.
• John Hewer, 86, British actor (Captain Birdseye), natural causes.
• Otto Jemelka, 93/94, Czechoslovakian Olympic modern pentathlete.
• Metropolitan Laurus, 80, Czechoslovakian-born American first hierarch of the ROCOR.
• Daniel MacMaster, 39, Canadian rock vocalist (Bonham), group A streptococcal infection.
• Mary Meader, 91, American aerial photographer.
• Bob Purkey, 78, American baseball player, Alzheimer’s disease.
• John Shedd Reed, 90, American president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (1967–1986), natural causes.
• Jonathan Williams, 79, American poet, photographer and publisher, founder of The Jargon Society.

17

• Roland Arnall, 68, American owner of Ameriquest Mortgage, Ambassador to the Netherlands (2006–2008), cancer.
• Claude Farell, 93, Austrian actress. (German)
• Claus Luthe, 75, German automobile designer.

18

• Hazel Barnes, 92, American philosopher.
• Andrew Britton, 27, British-born spy novelist (The Assassin, The Invisible), undiagnosed heart condition.
• Alan Buckley, 66, British rugby union and rugby league player.
• Philip Jones Griffiths, 72, British photojournalist, cancer.
• Jyrki Hämäläinen, 65, Finnish journalist, editor of Suosikki magazine.
• Anthony Minghella, 54, British director (The English Patient, Cold Mountain), BFI chairman, post-surgery haemorrhage.
• Geoffrey Pearson, 80, Canadian diplomat, son of former Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson.
• Oreste Rizzini, 67, Italian voice actor, stomach cancer. (Italian)
• Crispin Sanchez, 82, American pioneer of Mexican American education and sports.

19

• Joe Blackledge, 79, British cricketer, former captain and president of the Lancashire County Cricket Club.
• Sir Arthur C. Clarke, 90, Sri Lankan/British science fiction author (2001: A Space Odyssey), heart failure.
• Hugo Claus, 78, Belgian author, voluntary euthanasia.
• John Dowie, 93, Australian sculptor, stroke.
• Mia Permanto, 19, Finnish singer, finalist in Idols.
• Raghuvaran, 59, Indian actor, cardiac arrest.
• Paul Scofield, 86, British Academy Award–winning actor (A Man for All Seasons), leukaemia.
• Chantal Sébire, 53, French esthesioneuroblastoma sufferer and euthanasia activist, Pentobarbital overdose

20

• Eric Ashton, 73, British rugby league player for Wigan and Great Britain, cancer.
• Sobhan Babu, 71, Indian actor, cardiac arrest.
• Ann Baumgartner, 89, American aviator.
• Alexandru Custov, 53, Romanian footballer. (Romanian)
• Klaus Dinger, 61, German drummer (Neu!, Kraftwerk), heart failure.
• Prince Ferdinand, Duke of Castro, 81, Italian claimant to headship of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. (Italian)
• Jon Hassler, 74, American author, progressive supranuclear palsy.
• Al Hofmann, 60, American drag racer, heart attack.
• Carlos Galvão de Melo, 86, Portuguese general, Conservative member of National Salvation Junta. (Portuguese)
• Bestia Salvaje, 46, Mexican lucha libre wrestler, liver disease.
• Abigail Taylor, 6, American girl whose severe swimming pool injury led to tougher laws. .
• Brian Wilde, 80, British comedic actor (Porridge, Last of the Summer Wine).

21

• Gadzhi Abashilov, 58, Russian journalist, chief of VGTRK TV company in Dagestan, shot.
• Henri Blaffart, 42, Belgian wildlife conservationist for Conservation International in New Caledonia, drowned.
• Tamás Bujkó, 45, Hungarian judo competitor, stabbed and beaten.
• Denis Cosgrove, 59, British geographer and Alexander von Humboldt professor of geography at UCLA, cancer.
• Roy Foster, 62, American baseball player.
• John Fowler, 42, American drummer (Steelheart), brain aneurysm.
• Lynne Golding-Kirk, 87, Australian ballerina, complications of surgery.
• George Gross, 85, Canadian sports journalist, founding sports editor of the Toronto Sun, heart attack.
• Shusha Guppy, 72, Iranian writer and singer.
• Raymond Leblanc, 92, Belgian comic book producer and publisher (The Adventures of Tintin).
• John List, 82, American mass murderer, complications of pneumonia.
• Gabriel París Gordillo, 98, Columbian military governor, chairman of Colombian Military Junta. (Spanish)
• Waltrude Schleyer, 92, German widow of Hanns-Martin Schleyer, advocate against the Red Army Faction.
• Ilyas Shurpayev, 32, Russian journalist responsible for North Caucasus news on Channel One, murder by strangulation.
• Merv Wallace, 91, New Zealand cricket captain (1952–1953).

22

• Robert Dyk, 71, American television reporter (ABC News, WMTW-TV), cancer.
• Arbella Ewing, 114, American who was the third-oldest verified person in the world.
• Cachao López, 89, Cuban musician credited with creating mambo, renal failure.
• Robert J. McIntosh, 85, American politician, U.S. Representative from Michigan (1957–1959).
• Harvey Picker, 92, American philanthropist.
• Adolfo Suárez Rivera, 81, Mexican cardinal, Archbishop Emeritus of Monterrey, brain hemorrhage.

23

• Big Jack Armstrong, 62, American radio DJ.
• Neil Aspinall, 66, British road manager for The Beatles and executive of Apple Corps, lung cancer.
• Al Copeland, 64, American restaurateur, founder of Popeyes Chicken, salivary gland cancer.
• Hugo Correa, 81, Chilean journalist and science fiction writer. (Spanish)
• Maryam Farman Farmaian, 94, Iranian feminist activist.
• E. A. Markham, 68, Montserrat-born British poet and writer.
• George Switzer, 92, American mineralogist, acquired the Hope Diamond for the Smithsonian Institution, pneumonia.
• Chase Tatum, 34, American World Championship Wrestling wrestler and road manager for Outkast, apparent accidental drug overdose.
• Vaino Vahing, 68, Estonian writer and psychiatrist. (Estonian)

24

• Severin Cecile Abega, 52, Cameroonian author and anthropologist.
• Chalmers Alford, 53, American jazz guitarist, diabetes.
• Rafael Azcona, 81, Spanish screenwriter, lung cancer.
• Victor Christ-Janer, 92, American architect.
• John Cushley, 65, Scottish footballer (Celtic, West Ham United), motor neurone disease.
• Ray Drinkwater, 76, British footballer (Queens Park Rangers).
• Boris Dvornik, 68, Croatian actor, stroke.
• Mary Joan Nielubowicz, 79, American head of the Navy Nurse Corps (1983–1987).
• Hal Riney, 75, American advertising executive, founder of Publicis & Hal Riney, cancer.
• Dina Sassoli, 87, Italian actress. (Italian)
• Steven Sueppel, 42, American vice-president of Hills Bank and Trust Company, thief and murderer, suicide by car crash.
• Sam Toy, 84, British chair of Ford UK (1980–1986).
• Richard Widmark, 93, American actor (Kiss of Death, Judgment at Nuremberg), after long illness.
• Sherri Wood, 28, Canadian journalist (Toronto Sun), brain cancer.

25

• Art Aragon, 80, American boxer, stroke.
• Ben Carnevale, 92, American college basketball coach.
• Tony Church, 77, British actor.
• Jimmy Dell, 83, British Wing Commander and test pilot.
• Thierry Gilardi, 49, French journalist and TF1 sports commentator, heart attack.
• Sergey Kramarenko, 61, Russian football player.
• Abby Mann, 80, American screenwriter (Judgment at Nuremberg), heart failure.
• Herb Peterson, 89, American fast food pioneer, inventor of the McDonald's Egg McMuffin.
• Gene Puerling, 78, American vocal jazz musician, singer, musical arranger for the Hi-Los and Singers Unlimited.
• Edward Rafeedie, 79, American senior judge for the California Central District Court, cancer.
• Sérgio de Souza, 73, Brazilian journalist, co-founder and editor of Caros Amigos magazine, respiratory illness. (Portuguese)
• Ivan Toms, 55, South African physician, activist against apartheid and conscription, meningitis.

26

• Heath Benedict, 24, American football offensive lineman (Newberry College), 2008 NFL Draft prospect.
• Christian Bergelin, 62, French politician. (French)
• Robert Fagles, 74, American professor, poet and translator of ancient epics, prostate cancer.
• Donald Hunter, 81, British football player.
• Manuel Marulanda, 78, Columbian founder and commander-in-chief of terrorist organization FARC.
• Wally Phillips, 82, American radio personality, pioneer of talk radio, Alzheimer’s disease.

27

• Jean-Marie Balestre, 86, French former President of FISA and later FIA.
• Beverly Broadman, 60, American broadcaster with CNN and CBS News, cancer.
• Billy Consolo, 73, American baseball player and coach, heart attack.
• George Pruteanu, 60, Romanian literary critic and senator, heart attack.

28

• Lorne Ferguson, 77, Canadian ice hockey player.
• Kunio Lemari, 65, Marshall Islands acting President (1996–1997).
• Michael Podro, 77, British art historian.
• Herb Rich, 79, American football player.
• Ron Slinker, 62, American professional wrestler.
• Helen Yglesias, 92, American novelist.

29

• Angus Fairhurst, 41, British artist, suicide by hanging.
• Allan Ganley, 77, British jazz drummer.
• Josef Mikl, 78, Austrian painter, cancer.
• Isabella Nardoni, 5, Brazilian murder victim, thrown out of window.
• Ralph Rapson, 93, American architect, heart attack.
• Albert Stallard, Baron Stallard, 86, British Labour MP and life peer.
• Myint Thein, 62, Burmese National League for Democracy spokesman, stomach cancer.

30

• Marie-Françoise Audollent, 70, French actress, accidental fall. (French)
• Anders Göthberg, 32, Swedish guitarist (Broder Daniel). (Swedish)
• Douglas Kent Hall, 69, American writer and photographer.
• David Leslie, 54, British racing driver and commentator, Farnborough plane crash.
• Sean Levert, 39, American R&B singer.
• Richard Lloyd, 63, British racing driver and team owner, Farnborough plane crash.
• Jim Mooney, 88, American comic book artist.
• David D. Newsom, 90, American Ambassador to the Philippines (1977–1978), respiratory failure.
• Dith Pran, 65, Cambodian-born American journalist, survivor of the Killing Fields, pancreatic cancer.

31

• Nikolai Baibakov, 97, Russian economist, Gosplan head (1955–1957, 1965–1985), pneumonia. (Russian)
• Jules Dassin, 96, American film director (The Naked City, Rififi, Never on Sunday), influenza.
• William Louis Dickinson, 82, American judge and Representative from Alabama (1965–1993), colon cancer.
• Eliyahu Boruch Finkel, 60, Israeli rabbi and lecturer.
• Robert F. Goheen, 88, American President of Princeton University (1957–1972), Ambassador to India (1977–1980), heart failure.
• Bill Keightley, 81, American equipment manager for Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball since 1962, bleeding from spinal tumor.
• David Todd, 93, American architect, designed Manhattan Plaza, former chairman of NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission.