Deaths In February 1997

The following is a list of notable deaths in February 1997.

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.

1

• Simion Bughici, 82, Romanian politician.
• Herb Caen, 80, American journalist and columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, lung cancer.
• Heiner Carow, 67, German film director and screenwriter.
• Ed Danowski, 85, American football player.
• Mitchell Goodman, 73, American writer, teacher, and activist.
• William Kintner, 81, American soldier, foreign policy analyst, and diplomat.
• Kiki Kogelnik, 62, Austrian painter, sculptor and printmaker, cancer.
• Thelma Moss, 79, American actress, psychologist and parapsychologist.
• Lillian Porter, 79, American film and television actress.
• Marjorie Reynolds, 79, American actress and dancer, heart failure.
• Bo Russell, 81, American gridiron football player.
• Francisco Tobar García, 68, Ecuadorian poet, playwright, journalist, and diplomat, lung cancer.
• Wilcomb E. Washburn, American historian, prostate cancer.

2

• Godfrey Baseley, 92, British radio executive.
• Raúl de Anda, 88, Mexican actor, screenwriter, film producer and director.
• Erich Eliskases, 83, Austrian-Argentinian chess grandmaster.
• Qin Jiwei, 82, Chinese general and member of the Politburo.
• Sanford Meisner, 91, American actor and acting teacher.
• Art Merewether, 94, American baseball player.
• Martin Mussgnug, 60, German politician.
• Raimundo Saporta, 70, Spanish club basketball administrator.
• Chico Science, 30, Brazilian singer and composer, car accident.
• Theodoros Stamos, 74, Greek-American painter.
• Seán Ó Síocháin, 82, Irish Gaelic footballer, hurler, and broadcaster.

3

• Boris de Rachewiltz, 70, Italian-Russian egyptologist and writer.
• Jerry Beit haLevi, 84, Israeli football player and manager.
• Bohumil Hrabal, 82, Czech writer, fall.
• Agi Jambor, 87, Hungarian-American pianist.
• Stan Kostka, 84, American football player and coach.
• Harry H. Wachtel, 79, American lawyer and civil rights activist, Parkinson's disease.
• Mikhail Yakushin, 86, Russian football player and manager.

4

• Henry H. Barschall, 81, German-American physicist.
• Robert Clouse, 68, American film director and producer (Enter the Dragon), kidney failure.
• Benjamin David de Jesus, 56, Philippine prelate of the Catholic Church, murdered.
• Ross Lee Finney, 90, American composer.
• Paulo Francis, 66, Brazilian journalist, novelist and critic, heart attack.
• Robi Ghosh, 65, Indian actor.
• A R Mallick, 78, Bangladeshi historian and educationist.
• Alek Rapoport, 63, Russian nonconformist artist.
• James Tattersall, 56, British tennis player.
• Cyril Toumanoff, 83, Russian-American historian.
• Darrell Tully, 79, American football player and coach.

5

• Frederick J. Almgren, Jr., 63, American mathematician, complication following surgery.
• Bob Brown, 58, Canadian professional wrestler ("Bulldog" Bob Brown).
• Robert Elem, 69, American blues guitarist and singer.
• Dorothy Fosdick, 83, American foreign policy expert.
• Pamela Harriman, 76, English-American political activist, diplomat, and socialite, cerebral hemorrhage.
• René Huyghe, 90, French art historian.
• Jürgen Neukirch, 59, German mathematician.
• Harry Trotsek, 84, American Thoroughbred racehorses trainer and owner.

6

• Ernie Anderson, 73, American disc jockey, and television and radio announcer, cancer.
• Harry Essex, 86, American screenwriter and director.
• Roger Laurent, 83, Belgian racing driver.
• Riza Lushta, 81, Kosovar Albanian football striker.

7

• Nina Albright, 89, American comic book artist.
• Owen Aspinall, 69, American politician and Governor of American Samoa.
• John Baker, 59, British musician and composer.
• Sam DeCavalcante, 84, American mobster, heart attack.
• Allan Edwall, 72, Swedish actor, author, composer and singer, prostate cancer.
• Maynard Pirsig, 95, American legal scholar.
• Daniil Shafran, 74, Soviet/Russian cellist.
• Rösli Streiff, 96, Swiss alpine skier and world champion.
• Jose Garcia Villa, 88, Filipino poet, novelist, and painter.
• Mary Wills, 82, American costume designer, kidney failure.

8

• Nathan Lerner, 83, American photographer.
• Henry Margenau, 95, German-American physicist and philosopher of science.
• Robert Ridgely, 65, American actor (Philadelphia, Beverly Hills Cop II, Blazing Saddles), cancer.
• Corey Scott, 28, American motorcycle stunt rider, motorcycle accident.
• Michael Voslenski, 76, Soviet and Russian writer, scientist, diplomat and dissident.
• Walter Wiora, 90, German musicologist and music historian.

9

• David Austick, 76, British politician and bookshop owner.
• Brian Connolly, 51, Scottish singer-songwriter, musician and actor.
• Taylor Drysdale, 83, American swimmer and swimming coach.
• Barry Evans, 53, English actor.
• Fritz Grasshoff, 83, German painter, poet and songwriter.
• Leni Junker, 91, German sprint runner and Olympian.
• Jack Owens, 92, American blues singer and guitarist.
• Williams Sassine, 53, Guinean novelist.
• Max Tetley, 87, Australian rules footballer.
• Luis Velásquez, 77, Guatemalan long-distance runner and Olympian.

10

• Harriet Andreassen, 71, Norwegian labour activist and politician.
• Conrad M. Arensberg, 86, American anthropologist and scholar, respiratory failure.
• Lou Bennett, 70, American jazz organist.
• Milton Cato, 81, Saint Vincentian politician and first Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
• Robert Mallary, 79, American sculptor and computer art pioneer, leukemia.
• Jerome Namias, 86, American meteorologist.

11

• Nalanda Ellawala, 29, Sri Lankan politician, shot.
• Robert A. Graham, 84, American Jesuit priest and historian.
• Lewis Jacobs, 92, American screenwriter, film director and critic.
• Don Porter, 84, American actor.
• Ray Terrell, 77, American gridiron football player.

12

• Nora Beloff, 78, English journalist and political writer.
• James Cossins, 63, English actor, heart disease.
• Francis Healy, 86, American Major League Baseball player.
• Ruth Winifred Howard, 96, American psychologist.
• Federico Pisani, 22, Italian footballer, car crash.

13

• Bobby Adams, 75, American baseball player.
• Thies Christophersen, 79, German neo-nazi and Holocaust denier.
• Robert Klark Graham, 90, American eugenicist and businessman.
• Robert Herman, 82, American scientist.
• Don Jordan, 62, American boxer, complications following robbery.
• Ernő Rubik, 86, Hungarian aircraft designer.
• Reg Ryan, 71, Irish football player.
• Atta Shad, 57, Pakistani poet, playwright, and intellectual.

14

• Lélia Gousseau, 88, 20th-century French classical pianist.
• Jack Matheson, 76, American gridiron football player.
• Charles Moffett, 67, American free jazz drummer.
• Miguel Rodriguez, 35, Filipino actor and model, pancreatitis.
• William L. Scott, 81, American politician, Alzheimer's disease.
• Chōbyō Yara, 94, Japanese politician and teacher.
• Mohammed Yousuf, 57, Pakistani singer.

15

• Oscar Adams, 72, American lawyer and first African-American Alabama Supreme Court justice.
• Arne Berg, 87, Swedish road racing cyclist.
• Philip Hershkovitz, 87, American mammalogist.
• Paul Page, 69, American gridiron football player.
• Frode Rinnan, 91, Norwegian architect and politician.
• Jack Sparling, 80, Canadian comic book artist (Claire Voyant, Strange Adventures, Ghost Rider).

16

• Abd al-Fattah Abu Ghudda, 79, Syrian leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.
• Ethel Owen, 103, American actress.
• Alvis Vītoliņš, 50, Latvian chess master, suicide.
• Jack Wilson, 82, British rower and Olympic champion.
• Chien-Shiung Wu, 84, Chinese-American experimental physicist, watershed stroke.

17

• Spartaco Bandinelli, 75, Italian boxer and Olympian.
• Kenny Graham, 72, British jazz saxophonist, arranger and composer.
• Leonard Ho, 72, Hong Kong film producer.
• Ichimaru, 90, Japanese recording artist and geisha.
• Bärbel Inhelder, 83, Swiss psychologist.
• Joe Kieyoomia, 77, American Navajo prisoner of war during World War II.
• Darcy Ribeiro, 74, Brazilian anthropologist, historian, sociologist, author and politician, cancer.
• Georg L. Samuelsen, 87, Faroese editor and voice actor.

18

• Bozorg Alavi, 93, Iranian writer, novelist, and intellectual, heart attack.
• Enrique Peralta Azurdia, 88, President of Guatemala.
• Antonio de Almeida, 69, French conductor and musicologist, lung cancer, liver cancer.
• Gerd Domhardt, 51, German composer.
• Eric Fenby, 90, English composer, conductor, pianist and organist.
• Reggie Forte, 47, American activist and founding member of the Black Panther Party.
• Jnan Prakash Ghosh, 87, Indian harmonium and tabla player and musicologist.
• Emily Hahn, 92, American journalist and author.
• Austin Knickerbocker, 78, American baseball player.
• Geoffrey Swaebe, 86, American diplomat and ambassador, complications of pneumonia.

19

• David Ashkenazi, 81, Russian pianist, accompanist and composer.
• Jarmil Burghauser, 75, Czech composer, conductor, and musicologist.
• Frank Delfino, 86, American actor, bone marrow cancer.
• Buddy Edelen, 59, American marathon runner.
• António Gedeão, 90, Portuguese poet, essayist, writer and playwright.
• Yutaka Haniya, 87, Japanese writer and critic.
• Karin Magnussen, 89, German nazi eugenicist, biologist, and researcher during World War II.
• Lois Marshall, 73, Canadian soprano.
• Leo Rosten, 78, American humorist.
• Edsall Walker, 86, American Negro league baseball player.
• Deng Xiaoping, 92, Chinese politician leader of the People's Republic of China, complications of lung infections.

20

• Ruth Clark (pollster), American pollster and researcher.
• Afonsinho, 82, Brazilian football player.
• Paul Anxionnaz, 94, French politician.
• Zachary Breaux, 36, American jazz guitarist, drowned.
• Pierre Gascar, 80, French journalist, literary critic, writer, and screenwriter.
• Thomas G. Kavanagh, 79, American judge, Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court (1975–1979).
• Arthur Machado, 88, Brazilian football player and manager.
• Stan Pearson, 78, English footballer.

21

• Ziya Bunyadov, 73, Azerbaijani historian and scientist, murdered.
• Luitgard Im, 67, German actress.
• Choe Kwang, 78, North Korean army general and politician, heart attack.
• Mohamed Nasir, 81, Malaysian politician.
• Merle Pertile, 55, American model and actress.
• Josef Posipal, 69, Romanian-German footballer, heart failure.
• Kenneth Rowntree, 81, British artist.
• Leo Sjogren, 82, American racewalker and Olympian.
• Eleanor Butler, Lady Wicklow, 82, Irish politician and architect.

22

• Joseph Aiuppa, 89, American mobster.
• Urmila Bhatt, 62/63, Indian actress, murdered.
• William Karush, 79, American mathematician.
• James A. Lewis, 63, American Libertarian Party politician.
• Harold Nichols, 79, American wrestler and wrestling coach.
• Albert Shanker, 68, American labor leader, bladder cancer.
• Charlie Toogood, 69, American gridiron football player.

23

• Abdelkader Ben Bouali, 84, French football player.
• Gordon Glisson, 66, American jockey.
• Ephraim P. Holmes, 88, United States Navy admiral.
• Frank Launder, 91, British writer, film director and producer.
• Oscar Lewenstein, 80, British theatre and film producer.
• Olivier Masson, 74, French linguist.
• Jack Slater, 69, Australian politician.
• Tony Williams, 51, American jazz drummer, heart attack.

24

• Astrid Fagraeus, 83, Swedish immunologist.
• Nils-Olof Franzén, 80, Swedish writer.
• Wolfgang Heinrich Johannes Fuchs, 81, British mathematician.
• Raymond Lambert, 72, Swiss mountaineer, complications of a lung disorder.
• Isabelle Lucas, 69, Canadian-British actress and singer, heart attack.
• Ernest C. Pollard, 90, British professor of physics and biophysics, stroke.
• Len Vlahov, 56, Australian discus thrower, cancer.
• Ion Voicu, 73, Romanian violinist and orchestral conductor.

25

• Cal Abrams, 72, American baseball player, heart attack.
• Hoss Allen, 74, American radio disc jockey.
• Louis Auslander, 68, American mathematician.
• Earle Edwards, 88, American football player and coach.
• Scott Forbes, 76, British actor and screenwriter.
• Yi Han-yong, 36, North Korean defector, murdered.
• Arthur Hewlett, 89, British actor.
• Danielle de St. Jorre, 55, Seychelles politician.
• Ugo Poletti, 82, Italian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, heart attack.
• Ted Roach, 87, Australian trade unionist and member of the Communist Party of Australia.
• Andrei Sinyavsky, 71, Russian writer and Soviet dissident.
• John Williams, 70, Australian politician.

26

• Nuccio Bertone, 82, Italian automobile designer and constructor.
• Mildred Clingerman, 78, American science fiction author.
• David Doyle, 67, American actor (Charlie's Angels, Capricorn One, Rugrats), heart attack.
• Vincent Gaddis, 83, American author.
• Giovanni Ghiselli, 62, Italian sprinter and Olympian.
• Joseph Anthony Lefante, 68, American politician.
• Tom O'Connor, 78, Irish Gaelic footballer.
• Ben Raleigh, 83, American lyricist and composer.
• Wende Wagner, 55, American actress (The Green Hornet, Rosemary's Baby, Destination Inner Space), cancer.

27

• Kingsley Davis, 88, American sociologist and demographer.
• Patricia Felicien, 30, Saint Lucian cricket player.
• William Gear, 81, Scottish painter.
• Indeevar, 73, Indian film lyricist.
• Alpo Jaakola, 67, Finnish painter and sculptor.
• Mieczysław Jagielski, 73, Polish politician and economist, heart attack.
• Kim Kwang-jin, 69, North Korean general and politician.
• Harry Love, 85, American animator, effects animator, and writer, heart attack.
• William R. Maples, 59, American forensic anthropologist, brain cancer.
• Edward J. McCormack, Jr., 73, American lawyer and politician, complications from lung cancer.

28

• Osvaldo Bailo, 84, Italian road cyclist.
• Donald Carrick, 90, Canadian lawyer, politician, sportsman and Olympian.
• Harold Dean, 84, Australian politician.
• Mohammad Moustafa Haddara, 67, Arabic scholar and writer.
• Örjan Martinsson, 60, Swedish football player.
• Giuseppe Migneco, 89, Italian painter.
• Larry Tillman, 88, American professional wrestler and promoter.
• Hal Turpin, 93, American baseball player.