Deaths in 2008

The following is a list of notable deaths in 2008. Names are listed by date of death, not the date it was announced. Names under each date are listed in alphabetical order by family name.

Please note that there is long-standing consensus that deaths of notable animals, i.e. those with their own Wikipedia articles, are reported here.

A typical entry appears in the following sequence:

• Name, age, country of citizenship and reason for notability, established cause of death, reference.

September 2008

28

• Malalaï Kakar, 40, Afghan senior policewoman, shot. [1]

27

• Mahendra Kapoor, 74, Indian playback singer, heart attack. [2]

26

• Marian McQuade, 91, American founder of National Grandparents Day, heart failure. [3]
• Paul Newman, 83, American Academy Award-winning actor and philanthropist, cancer. [4]
• Cirio H. Santiago, 72, Filipino filmmaker and producer, complications from lung cancer. [5]

25

• Glenn Andrews, 99, American politician, Representative (R-AL) (1965–1967), oldest surviving member of the House of Representatives. [6]
• Brian Donnelly, 59, New Zealand diplomat and politician, MP (1996–2008). [7]
• Ralph Sazio, 86, Canadian football coach (Hamilton Tiger-Cats). [8]]
• Jimmy Sirrel, 86, British football manager (Notts County), after long illness. [9]

24

• Kwadwo Baah Wiredu, 56, Ghanaian finance minister since 2005, after short illness. [10]
• Sir Peter Derham, 83, Australian businessman and philanthropist, stroke. [11]
• Dick Lynch, 72, American football player and radio announcer (New York Giants). [12]
• Maurits van Nierop, 25, Dutch international cricketer, fall. [13]
• Thiago Jotta da Silva, 24, Brazilian footballer, shot. [14]
• Mickey Vernon, 90, American baseball player, stroke. [15]
• Vice Vukov, 72, Croatian singer and politician. [16]
• Ruslan Yamadayev, 46, Chechen warlord and member of Russian State Duma, shot. [17]

23

• Maria Esther Figueiredo Ferraz, 93, Brazilian Minister of Education (1982–1985) and first female minister, stroke. [18] (Portuguese)
• Arne Haugestad, 73, Norwegian Supreme Court lawyer, Arne Treholt's defender. [19] (Norwegian)
• Richard Henyard, 34, American murderer, execution by lethal injection. [20]
• Wally Hilgenberg, 66, American football player, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. [21]
• Rudolf Illovszky, 86, Hungarian footballer and manager, pneumonia. [22]
• Peter Leonard, 66, Australian broadcaster, mesothelioma. [23]
• Brock McElheran, 90, Canadian conductor and composer. [24]
• Loren Pope, 98, American education consultant, heart failure. [25]
• Matti Juhani Saari, 22, Finnish school shooter, suicide by gunshot. [26]
• Sonja Savić, 47, Serbian actress, heroin overdose. [27]
• William Woodruff, 92, British historian and author. [28]

22

• Plato Andros, 86, American football player. [29]
• H. Dale Cook, 84, American federal judge since 1974, cancer. [30]
• Thomas Dörflein, 44, German zookeeper, surrogate parent of the polar bear Knut, heart attack. [31]
• Connie Haines, 87, American singer, myasthenia gravis. [32]
• Buddy McDonald, 85, American child actor (Our Gang), heart failure. [33]
• Petrus Schaesberg, 41, German art historian, suicide by jumping. [34]

21

• Carlos González Cruchaga, 87, Chilean bishop of the Diocese of Talca (1967–1996). [35]
• Mary Garber, 92, American sportswriter. [36]
• Nancy Hicks Maynard, 66, American journalist, advocate for diversity in journalism, organ failure. [37]
• Sir Brian Pippard, 88, British physicist, Cavendish Professor of Physics (1971–1984). [38]
• Barefoot Sanders, 83, American federal judge, natural causes. [39]
• Olov Svedelid, 76, Swedish writer. [40] (Swedish)
• Paul Tansey, 59, Irish economics editor (The Irish Times). [41]
• Dingiri Banda Wijetunga, 92, Sri Lankan prime minister (1989–1993), president (1993–1994), after long illness. [42]

20

• Nappy Brown, 78, American blues singer. [43]
• William Fox, 97, British actor. [44]
• Ken Harris, 45, American member of Baltimore City Council (1999–2007), shot. [45]
• Johnny H. Hayes, 67, American fundraiser for Al Gore's presidential campaigns, stomach cancer. [46]
• Paul Howell, 57, British member of the European Parliament (1979–1994), plane crash. [47]
• Ed Sutton, 73, American football player, complications following heart bypass surgery. [48]
• John Taylor, 87, American military archivist at National Archives and Records Administration, heart failure. [49]
• Frank Valenti, 97 American mob boss (Rochester crime family). [50]
• Ivo Žďárek, 47, Czech ambassador to Vietnam (2004-2008) and Pakistan (2008), suicide bombing. [51]

19

• Ernie Andres, 90, American college baseball coach and Major League Baseball player (Boston Red Sox). [52]
• Ned Harkness, 89, American ice hockey coach, stroke. [53]
• Jun Ichikawa, 59, Japanese film director. [54]
• David Jones, 74, British theatre and film director. [55]
• Dave Needham, 57, British bantamweight boxing champion (1974–1975). [56]
• Earl Palmer, 83, American rhythm and blues drummer, after long illness. [57].
• Robert Royston, 90, American landscape architect. [58]
• Dick Sudhalter, 69, American jazz trumpeter, pneumonia. [59]

18

• Opal Courtney, Jr., 71, American singer (The Spaniels), heart attack. [60]
• Mauricio Kagel, 76, Argentine-born German composer. [61]
• Peter Kastner, 64, Canadian actor, heart attack. [62]
• Ron Lancaster, 69, American CFL quarterback and coach, heart attack. [63]
• Sherman Parker, 37, American politician, member of Missouri House of Representatives (2003–2006), brain aneurysm. [64]
• Henry Z. Steinway, 93, American businessman (Steinway & Sons). [65]
• Lou Trebar, 88, American polka bandleader. [66]
• Don Ultang, 91, American Pulitzer Prize–winning photographer. [67]
• Florestano Vancini, 82, Italian film director and screenwriter. [68]
• John Webb, 82, American judge of the Supreme Court of North Carolina (1986–1998), Parkinson's disease. [69]

17

• Princess Luluwah bint Abdulaziz Al Saud, 80, Saudi member of the royal family, sister of King Abdullah. [70]
• James Crumley, 68, American crime writer, complications from kidney and pulmonary diseases. [71]
• Didier Dagueneau, 52, French winemaker, plane crash. [72]
• José María Cirarda Lachiondo, 91, Spanish bishop of the Archdiocese of Pamplona y Tudela (1978–1993). [73] (Spanish)
• Anna Langford, 90, American politician, first African American woman to serve on the Chicago City Council, lung cancer. [74]
• Michael Omondi, 46, Kenyan field hockey player, after short illness. [75]
• Fabiola Salazar, 42, Peruvian congresswoman, car accident. [76]
• Humberto Solás, 66, Cuban filmmaker, cancer. [77]
• Robert Steinberg, 61, American physician, co-founder of Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker, lymphoma. [78]

16

• Jack Alderman, 57, American murderer, execution by lethal injection. [79]
• Avraham Biran, 98, Israeli archaeologist, natural causes. [80]
• Elizabeth Douglas-Hamilton, Duchess of Hamilton and Brandon, 92, British peeress. [81]
• Satya Ranjan Roy, 67, Indian athletics coach, Alzheimer's disease. [82]
• Andrei Volkonsky, 75, Russian composer. [83] (Russian)
• Charles Whitebread, 65, American professor of law, cancer. [84]
• Norman Whitfield, 68, American Motown songwriter ("I Heard It Through the Grapevine") and record producer, diabetes. [85]

15

• Marion Dewar, 80, Canadian politician, mayor of Ottawa (1978–1985), fall. [86]
• Elmer Dills, 82, American food critic (KABC-TV). [87]
• Gangadhar Gadgil, 85, Indian writer, cancer. [88]
• John Matshikiza, 53, South African actor, writer and poet, heart attack. [89]
• Juraj Njavro, 70, Croatian doctor and politician, after long illness. [90]
• J. Patrick Rooney, 80, American insurance advocate. [91]
• Richard Wright, 65, British pianist and keyboardist (Pink Floyd), cancer. [92]

14

• John Burnside, 91, American inventor, brain cancer. [93]
• Steve Engel, 49, American drag racer, race accident. [94]
• Hyman Golden, 85, American co-founder of Snapple Beverage Corporation, complications from stroke. [95]
• Ştefan Iordache, 67, Romanian actor, leukemia. [96]
• Georgi Kitov, 65, Bulgarian archaeologist, heart attack. [97]
• Lynn Kohlman, 62, American model and photographer, breast and brain cancer. [98]
• Lobsang Nyima Pal Sangpo, 79, Tibetan 100th Ganden Tripa (1994–2002), head of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. [99]
• Keiko McDonald, 68, Japanese-born American professor, drowned. [100]
• Mu Tiezhu, 59, Chinese basketball player, heart attack. [101]
• Walter H. Seward, 111, American supercentenarian. [102]
• Oscar Suarez, 47, American boxing trainer, pancreatic cancer. [103]
• Gennady Troshev, 61, Russian politician and military commander (Second Chechen War), plane crash. [104]

13

• Peter Camejo, 68, American politician and activist, lymphoma. [105]
• Dean Hoge, 71, American sociologist, specialist in American Catholicism, cancer. [106]
• Oliver King-Onzila, 19, British footballer (Barnet), stabbed. [107]
• Duncan Laing, 77, New Zealand swimming coach, cancer. [108]
• James W. Snow, 79, Canadian politician, member of Legislative Assembly of Ontario (1967–1985), diabetes. [109]
• Olin Stephens, 100, American yacht designer. [110]
• Alice Van-Springsteen, 90, American stuntwoman, pneumonia. [111]
• Abdullah Wardak, Afghan governor of Lowgar Province, suicide attack. [112]

12

• Simon Hantaï, 85, Hungarian-born French abstract artist. [113] (French)
• Tomislav Ladan, 76, Croatian encyclopedist and polymath, malignant tumor. [114]
• Max Mermelstein, 65, American drug trafficker, cancer. [115]
• Siyabonga Mkhwanazi, 27, South African footballer. [116]
• George Putnam, 94, American television news reporter, heart failure. [117]
• Bob Quinn, 93, Australian footballer (Port Adelaide) and Military Medal recipient. [118]
• Marjorie Thomas, 85, British opera singer. [119]
• Paola S. Timiras, 85, American doctor, expert on the physiology of ageing, heart failure. [120]
• Charlie Walker, 81, American country music singer, colon cancer. [121]
• David Foster Wallace, 46, American author and essayist (Infinite Jest), suicide by hanging. [122]

11

• Bennett Campbell, 65, Canadian politician, premier of Prince Edward Island (1978–1979), cancer. [123]
• Florian Goebel, 35, German astrophysicist, fall. [124]
• Dave Hanner, 78, American football player and coach (Green Bay Packers), heart attack. [125]
• Klaus Johann Jacobs, 71, German-born Swiss billionaire, cancer. [126]
• Fran Reed, 65, American teacher and fish skin artist, cancer. [127]
• Nils Johan Ringdal, 56, Norwegian author and historian. [128] (Norwegian)
• Martin Tytell, 94, American manual typewriter expert, cancer. [129]
• Joan Winston, 77, American author, founder of Star Trek convention, Alzheimer's disease. [130]

10

• Saleh Aridi, 50, Lebanese pro-Syrian politician, car bomb. [131]
• Gérald Beaudoin, 79, Canadian lawyer and senator (1988–2004). [132]
• José Antonio Dammert Bellido, 91, Peruvian bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. [133] (Spanish)
• Cameron Buchanan, 80, British footballer. [134]
• David Chipp, 81, British editor-in-chief (Press Association, Reuters), first resident correspondent for Reuters in China. [135]
• Patrick Flynn, 72, American composer and conductor. [136]
• Robert Glasgow, 83, American organist and University of Michigan professor emeritus. [137]
• Vernon Handley, 77, British conductor. [138]
• Sherrill Headrick, 71, American football player, cancer. [139]
• Domagoj Kapeć, 18, Croatian ice hockey player, car accident. [140]
• Frank Mundus, 82, American shark fisherman, alleged inspiration for Quint in Jaws, heart attack. [141]
• Yuri Osipyan, 77, Russian physicist. [142]
• Reginald Shepherd, 44, American poet, complications from colon cancer. [143]
• Paul Williams, 85, British politician, MP (Sunderland South, 1953–1964). [144]

9

• Betty Constable, 83, American squash player. [145]
• Eddie Crowder, 77, American football player and coach, complications of leukemia. [146]
• A.U. Fuimaono, 85, American Samoan politician, first Delegate to the United States House of Representatives (1970–1974). [147]
• Nina Lawson, 82, British wigmaker for the Metropolitan Opera, pernicious anaemia. [148]
• Jacob Lekgetho, 34, South African footballer. [149]
• P. N. Menon, 80, Indian film director, after long illness. [150]
• Warith Deen Mohammed, 74, American Islamic leader, son of Elijah Muhammad. [151]
• Richard Monette, 64, Canadian actor and director, pulmonary embolism. [152]
• Nouhak Phoumsavanh, 98, Laotian politician, president (1992–1998), natural causes. [153]

8

• Ahn Jae-hwan, 36, South Korean actor, body found on this date after suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. [154]
• Nathan Green Gordon, 92, American politician and Medal of Honor recipient, Lt. Governor of Arkansas (1947–1967), pneumonia. [155]
• Celia Gregory, 58, British actress. [156]
• Bheki Mseleku, 53, South African-born British jazz musician, diabetes. [157]
• Ralph Plaisted, 80, American Arctic explorer, natural causes. [158]
• Evan Tanner, 37, American MMA fighter and UFC middleweight champion, body found on this date after apparent heat exposure. [159]
• Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan, 73, Indian violinist. [160]
• George Zarnecki, 92, Polish art historian and medievalist. [161]
• Hector Zazou, 60, French composer and record producer. [162]

7

• Kune Biezeveld, 60, Dutch theologian. [163]
• Ilarion Ciobanu, 76, Romanian actor. [164] (Romanian)
• Christian Dudek, 42, German drummer (Sodom). [165]
• Peter Glossop, 80, British operatic baritone. [166]
• Don Gutteridge, 96, American Major League Baseball player, coach and manager. [167]
• Don Haskins, 78, American college basketball coach, heart failure. [168]
• Georg Kahn-Ackermann, 90, German journalist and politician. [169] (German)
• Gregory Mcdonald, 71, American author (Fletch), cancer. [170]
• Nagi Noda, 35, Japanese pop star and director, injuries from traffic accident. [171]
• Steve Norbury, 37, British Superside driver, race crash. [172]
• Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler, 66, Austrian literary scholar and critic. [173] (German)
• Larry Shaben, 73, Canadian politician, member of Legislative Assembly of Alberta (1975–1989), cancer. [174]

6

• Dino Dvornik, 44, Croatian actor and pop singer. [175]
• Aril Edvardsen, 69, Norwegian evangelical preacher and missionary. [176]
• Abd al-Halim Abu Ghazala, 78, Egyptian politician, field marshal and defence minister, throat cancer. [177]
• Antonio Innocenti, 93, Italian cardinal. [178]
• Allan Lawrence, 82, Canadian politician, MP for Northumberland—Durham (1972–1988). [179]
• Sören Nordin, 91, Swedish harness racing trainer. [180]
• Anita Page, 98, American actress (The Broadway Melody), natural causes. [181]
• Bill Shorthouse, 86, British footballer. [182]
• Mike Swoboda, 69, American politician, mayor of Kirkwood, Missouri (2000–2008), complications of shooting. [183]

5

• Raymond Bernabei, 83, American soccer player, complications of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. [184]
• Robert Giroux, 94, American editor and publisher (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). [185]
• Miroslav Havel, 86, Czech-born Irish chief designer (Waterford Crystal). [186]
• Fernando Barbosa Lima, 74, Brazilian journalist and television producer, multiple organ dysfunction syndrome. [187] (Portuguese)
• Béla G. Németh, 83, Hungarian historian. [188] (Hungarian)
• Thupten Jigme Norbu, 86, Tibetan lama (Taktser Rinpoche), eldest brother of the 14th Dalai Lama. [189]
• Doyle Parrack, 86, American college basketball coach. [190]
• Lucian Pye, 86, American political scientist and sinologist, expert on Chinese politics, pneumonia. [191]
• Luis Santibáñez, 72, Chilean football team manager, complications from a kidney condition. [192]
• Mila Schön, 91, Italian fashion designer. [193]

4

• Mary Dunn, 66, American Iyengar yoga instructor, peritoneal cancer. [194]
• Colin Egar, 81, Australian test cricket umpire. [195]
• Dick Enderle, 60, American football player. [196]
• Fon Huffman, 95, American World War II veteran, last survivor of the Panay incident. [197]
• Abdul Samad Ismail, 84, Malaysian journalist, lung infection and kidney failure. [198]
• Alain Jacquet, 69, French pop artist, cancer. [199]
• Jenny, 55, American western lowland gorilla, oldest gorilla in captivity (Dallas Zoo), euthanized. [200]
• Tommy Johnston, 81, British footballer, top scorer for Leyton Orient. [201]
• Erik Nielsen, 84, Canadian deputy prime minister (1984–1986), brother of Leslie Nielsen, heart attack. [202]
• Waldick Soriano, 75, Brazilian composer and singer, prostate cancer. [203] (Portuguese)
• Fernando Torres, 80, Brazilian actor, voice-over artist, director and producer, husband of Fernanda Montenegro, emphysema. [204]

3

• Abdulla Alishayev, Russian Dagestani journalist, shot. [205]
• Lalla Bahia, Moroccan royalty, third wife of Mohammed V. [206]
• Donald Blakeslee, 89, American Air Force officer. [207]
• Françoise Demulder, 61, French war photographer, heart attack. [208]
• Michael Hammer, 60, American management theorist, cranial bleeding. [209]
• Earl Lunsford, 74, American Canadian Football League player, Hall of Famer (Calgary Stampeders, Winnipeg Blue Bombers). [210]
• Ron Rivera, 60, American public health innovator, malaria. [211]
• Géo Voumard, 87, Swiss composer and producer, founder of the Montreux Jazz Festival. [212]
• Jerome Weber, 92, Canadian abbot of St. Peter-Muenster of Saskatchewan. [213]

2

• Andreas Zeier Cappelen, 93, Norwegian politician and minister. [214] (Norwegian)
• Todd Cruz, 52, American Major League Baseball player. [215]
• Arne Domnérus, 83, Swedish jazz alto saxophonist and clarinetist. [216]
• Joey Giardello, 78, American boxer, middleweight boxing champion (1963–1965), heart failure. [217]
• Mark Guardado, 46, American president of Hells Angels San Francisco chapter, shot. [218]
• Shaykh Abdullah al-Harari, 98, Ethiopian-born Lebanese scholar, founder of the Al-Ahbash movement. [219]
• Bill Meléndez, 91, Mexican-born American animator (Peanuts). [220]
• Sir Denis Rooke, 84, British industrialist. [221]

1

• Thomas J. Bata, 93, Czech-born Canadian businessman (Bata Shoes). [222]
• Calvin Beale, 85, American demographer, colon cancer. [223]
• Ian Edward Fraser, 87, British recipient of the Victoria Cross. [224]
• Helen Galland, 83, American retail executive, president of Bonwit Teller (1980–1983), heart attack. [225]
• Kevin Heinze, 80, Australian pioneer gardening television presenter, heart attack. [226]
• Mel Ignatow, 70, American murderer, fall. [227]
• Sheldon Keller, 85, American comedy writer, complications from Alzheimer's disease. [228]
• Don LaFontaine, 68, American voice-over artist, complications from pneumothorax. [229]
• Henry Wako Muloki, 87, Ugandan Kyabazinga of Busoga since 1995, esophageal cancer. [230]
• Michael Pate, 88, Australian actor and writer, pneumonia. [231]
• Oded Schramm, 46, Israeli mathematician, fall. [232]
• Jorio Vivarelli, 86, Italian sculptor and graphic artist. [233] (Italian)

August 2008

See Deaths in August 2008.

July 2008

See Deaths in July 2008.

June 2008

See Deaths in June 2008.

May 2008

See Deaths in May 2008.

April 2008

See Deaths in April 2008.

March 2008

See Deaths in March 2008.

February 2008

See Deaths in February 2008.

January 2008

See Deaths in January 2008.

External links

• English language obituaries on the Web
  • General
    • Obituaries.com
    • Recent AP Obituaries
    • Variety Magazine Obituaries
  • US
    • The New York Times: Obituaries
    • Washington Post: Obituaries
    • The Boston Globe: Obituaries
    • Los Angeles Times: Obituaries
  • South Africa
    • Mail & Guardian (South Africa) Obituaries
  • UK
    • The Daily Telegraph: Obituaries
    • The Guardian: Obituaries
    • The Independent: Obituaries
    • The Times: Obituaries
    • The Scotsman: Obituaries
    • Lasting Tribute: Obituaries
  • Australia
    • The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia): Obituaries

• Specialized websites
  • Dead or Alive
  • Dead People Server
  • Death List
  • Died Today
  • Entertainment Insiders
  • Famous Dead Database
  • Find a Grave
  • Life In Legacy
  • Very Important Patients
  • Writers We've Lost
  • Written in Stone - Literary deaths

For earlier deaths, see Deaths in 2007, Deaths in 2006, Deaths in 2005, Deaths in 2004, Deaths in 2003, Deaths in 2002, Deaths in 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995, 1994, 1993, 1992, 1991, 1990, 1989, 1988, ...