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Portas Miguel (b. 1958-05-01 / d. 2012-04-24)
He was a Portuguese politician and a Member of the European Parliament for the Left Bloc, part of the European United Left–Nordic Green Left group. He was a member of the Committee on Culture and Education of the European Parliament and a member of the Delegation for relations with the Mashreq countries. He died of lung cancer in April 2012. The disease was diagnosed in 2010.
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66
Born 1899-03-25. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Age
Jacques Séraphin Marie Audiberti was a French playwright, poet and novelist and exponent of the Theatre of the Absurd. Audiberti was born in Antibes, France, the son of Louis Audiberti, a master mason, and his wife, Victorine. He began his writing career as a journalist, moving to Paris in 1925 to write for Le Journal and Le Petit Parisien. Later, he wrote more than 20 plays on the theme of conflicting good and evil. He married Élisabeth-Cécile-Amélie Savane in 1926.[1] They had two daughters, Jacqueline (born 1926) and Marie-Louise (born 1928).[2] He died in Paris in 1965, aged 66,[3] and is interred in the Cimetière de Pantin, Pantin, Ile-de-France Region, France
63
Born 1902-05-10. Domain:Business. Cause of death:Heart attack
He was one of the iconic Hollywood producers of the Golden Age. He is best known for producing the epic blockbuster Gone with the Wind (1939) which earned him an Oscar for Best Picture.
Selznick died in 1965 following several heart attacks, and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
48
Born 1917-05-25. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Infection
One of his most memorable roles was as psychotic mobster James Cagney’s deceitful, power-hungry henchman, Big Ed Somers, in the gangster classic White Heat (1949).
Cochran was a notorious womanizer and attracted tabloid attention for his tumultuous private life, which included well-documented affairs with actresses such as Mae West, Jayne Mansfield, Barbara Payton, Joan Crawford, Sabrina, Merle Oberon, Kay Kendall, Virginia Lord, and Ida Lupino.
Cochran died on his yacht off the coast of Guatemala due to an acute lung infection. His body, along with three alive but upset female assistants, remained onboard for ten days since the three women didn't know how to operate the boat. The boat drifted to shore in Port Champerico, Guatemala and was found by authorities. There were various rumors of foul play and poisoning, and Merle Oberon tried to use her influence to push for further police investigations. No new evidence was found.
71
Born 1894-04-21. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
Nous sommes tous des assassins (1952)
73
Born 1892-03-11. Domain:Science (Physics style). Cause of death:Age
He was a French engineer. He invented the heterodyn principle.
41
Born 1923-10-16. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Accident
Born Monetta Eloyse Darnell in Dallas, Texas.
Darnell's last work as an actress was in a stage production in Atlanta in early 1965. A few weeks later she died at age 41, from burns she received in a house fire in Glenview, Illinois. She had been staying there with friends while preparing for a stage role in the Chicago area. Her 1940 film Star Dust had played on television the night of the fire, and it was widely reported that Darnell had fallen asleep with a lit cigarette while watching it. But biographer Ronald L. Davis, in his book "Hollywood Beauty," says there was no evidence this was true or that Darnell was in any way responsible for the blaze. By his account, Darnell was burned over 80 percent of her body because she ran into a burning area trying to save her friend's child, not knowing that the young girl had already escaped. Darnell died the next day.
97
Born 1868-11-04. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Age
Carolina Otero, La Belle Otero born Agustina Otero Iglesias was a famous Spanish born dancer, actress and courtesan.
Otero retired after World War I, purchasing a mansion and property at a cost of the equivalent of 15 million modern day US dollars. She had accumulated a massive fortune over the years, about twenty-five million dollars, but she gambled much of it away over the remainder of her lifetime, enjoying a lavish lifestyle, and visiting the casinos of Monte Carlo often. She lived out her life in a more and more pronounced state of poverty until she died in 1965 in Nice, France.
69
Born 1896-03-25. Domain:Directing. Cause of death:Heart attack
He was an American film director. He directed 73 films between 1927–53, many of them for Warner Bros. He oversaw comedy films like Joe E. Brown vehicles, and five of the six informal pairings of Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell. Enright was born in Anderson, Indiana, and died in Hollywood, California, from a heart attack.
83
Born 1882-08-08. Domain:Art. Cause of death:Age
Born Władysław Starewicz, he was a Polish, Russian and French stop-motion animator who used insects and animals as his protagonists. (His name can also be spelled Starevitch, Starewich and Starewitch.)
75
Born 1890-06-16. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Unknown
39
Born 1925-05-19. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:Murder
In Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom, Malcolm had just begun delivering a speech when a disturbance broke out in the crowd of 400. A man yelled, "Get your hand outta my pocket! Don't be messin' with my pockets!" As Malcolm and his bodyguards moved to quiet the disturbance, a man rushed forward and shot Malcolm in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun. Two other men charged the stage and fired handguns at Malcolm, who was shot 16 times. Angry onlookers in the crowd caught and beat the assassins as they attempted to flee the ballroom. Malcolm was pronounced dead on arrival at New York's Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.
78
Born 1887-10-04. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
She made her stage debut in 1912 in Marseille after studying at the Nice Conservatoire. She devoted herself to the stage for more than a decade, then entered into an active film career in 1930. She played in scores of films over the next two-and-a-half decades, specializing in long-suffering mother roles. She was particularly memorable as Sancho Panza's wife in 'Don Quichotte (1933)', for director Georg Wilhelm Pabst.
33
Born 1931-01-22. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Murder
Sam Cook was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi. He added an "e" onto the end of his name because he thought it added a touch of class.
The details of the case involving Sam Cooke's death are still in dispute. The official police record states that Cooke was shot dead by Bertha Franklin, the manager of the Hacienda Motel, where Cooke had checked in earlier that evening. Franklin claimed that Cooke had broken into the manager's office/apartment in a rage, wearing nothing but a shoe and an overcoat (and nothing beneath it) demanding to know the whereabouts of a woman who had accompanied him to the motel. Franklin said that the woman was not in the office and that she told Cooke this, but the enraged Cooke did not believe her and violently grabbed her, demanding again to know the woman's whereabouts. According to Franklin, she grappled with Cooke, the two of them fell to the floor, and she then got up and ran to retrieve her gun. She said that she then fired at Cooke in self-defense because she feared for her life. According to Franklin, Cooke exclaimed, "Lady, you shot me", before finally falling, mortally wounded.
According to Franklin and to the motel's owner, Evelyn Carr, they had been on the phone together at the time of the incident. Thus, Carr claimed to have overheard Cooke's intrusion and the ensuing conflict and gunshots. Carr called the police to request that they go to the motel, informing them that she believed a shooting had occurred.
A coroner's inquest was convened to investigate the incident. The woman who had accompanied Cooke to the motel was identified as Elisa Boyer, who had also called the police that night shortly before Carr did. Boyer had called the police from a phone booth near the motel, telling them she had just escaped from being kidnapped.
Boyer told the police that she had first met Cooke earlier that night and had spent the evening in his company. She claimed that after they left a local nightclub together, she had repeatedly requested that he take her home, but that he instead took her against her will to the Hacienda Motel. She claimed that once in one of the motel's rooms, Cooke physically forced her onto the bed and that she was certain he was going to rape her. According to Boyer, when Cooke stepped into the bathroom for a moment, she quickly grabbed her clothes and ran from the room. She claimed that in her haste, she had also scooped up most of Cooke's clothing by mistake. She said that she ran first to the manager's office and knocked on the door seeking help. However, she said that the manager took too long in responding, so, fearing Cooke would soon be coming after her, she fled the motel altogether before the manager ever opened the door. She claimed she then put her own clothing back on, stashed Cooke's clothing away and went to the phone booth from which she called police.
Boyer's story is the only account of what happened between the two that night. However, her story has long been called into question. Because of inconsistencies between her version of events and details reported by other witnesses as well as circumstantial evidence (e.g., cash that Cooke was reportedly carrying was never recovered, and Boyer was soon after arrested for prostitution), many people feel it is more likely that Boyer went willingly to the motel with Cooke and then slipped out of the room with Cooke's clothing in order to rob him rather than to escape an attempted rape.
Ultimately, though, such questions were beyond the scope of the inquest, whose purpose was simply to establish the circumstances of Franklin's role in the shooting, not to determine exactly what had happened between Cooke and Boyer preceding that. Boyer's leaving the motel room with almost all of Cooke's clothing in tow, regardless of exactly why she did so, combined with the fact that tests showed Cooke was inebriated at the time seemed to provide a plausible explanation for Cooke's bizarre behavior and state of dress, as reported by Franklin and Carr. This explanation, together with the fact that Carr, from what she said she had overheard, corroborated Franklin's version of events, was enough to convince the coroner's jury to accept Franklin's explanation that it was a case of justifiable homicide. And with that verdict, authorities officially closed the case on Cooke's death.
However, some of Cooke's family and supporters have rejected not only Boyer's version of events but also Franklin's and Carr's. They believe that there was a conspiracy from the start to murder Cooke, that this murder took place in some manner entirely different from the official account of Cooke's intrusion into Franklin's office/apartment, and that Franklin, Boyer and Carr were all lying to provide a cover story for this murder. None have been able to provide any evidence of this, however.
My brother was first class all the way. He would not check into a $3-a-night motel; that wasn't his style.
30
Born 1934-04-03. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Suicide
Josefina Yolanda Pellicer López de Llergo, (professionally known as Pina Pellicer, was a Mexican actress, best known for her role as Louisa alongside Marlon Brando in the Brando-directed movie One Eyed Jacks.
Pina Pellicer committed suicide on December 4, 1964, aged 30. The presumed cause was depression.
39
Born 1925-03-21. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Accident
Six years after his retirement from a cycling career, Koblet died at the age of 39 in a car crash, under circumstances that caused speculation that his death may have been a suicide rather than an accident. Eye witnesses to the incident saw Koblet driving his white Alfa Romeo at high speed on the highway between Zürich and Esslingen. Weather and road conditions were ideal, but the vehicle reportedly drove straight into a tree without any attempt by the driver to avert the crash.
34
Born 1930-02-18. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Accident
He was a NASA astronaut and a captain in the United States Air Force. He was killed in the crash of a T-38 jet.
Theodore Freeman was killed when a goose smashed through the cockpit canopy of his T-38 Talon jet trainer. Flying shards of Plexiglas entered the jet engine intake and caused the engine to flameout. Freeman ejected from the stricken aircraft, but was too close to the ground for his parachute to open properly. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart.
90
Born 1874-08-10. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:Age
He was the 31st President of the United States (1929–1933). Hoover died following massive internal bleeding at the age of 90.
73
Born 1891-06-09. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Kidney failure
Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Many of his songs became standards noted for their witty, urbane lyrics, and many of his scores found success on Broadway and in film. Porter's mother died in 1952, and his wife died of emphysema in 1954. By 1958, Porter's injuries caused a series of ulcers on his right leg. After 34 operations, it had to be amputated and replaced with an artificial limb. His friend Noël Coward visited him in the hospital and wrote in his diary, "The lines of ceaseless pain have been wiped from his face...I am convinced that his whole life will cheer up and that his work will profit accordingly." In fact, Porter never wrote another song after the amputation and spent the remaining six years of his life in relative seclusion, seeing only intimate friends. He continued to live in the Waldorf Towers in New York in his memorabilia-filled apartment. On weekends, he often visited an estate in the Berkshires, and he stayed in California during the summers. Porter died of kidney failure in Santa Monica, California, at the age of 73. He is interred in Mount Hope Cemetery in his native Peru, Indiana, between his wife and father.
76
Born 1888-11-23. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Heart
Harpo Marx died on after undergoing open heart surgery. His remains were reportedly sprinkled into the sand trap off the seventh fairway of his favorite golf course.
According to family and friends, he often sent gag telegrams on occasion that kept with his silent persona on screen. They reportedly read, "NO MESSAGE - HARPO".
56
Born 1907-12-22. Domain:Directing. Cause of death:Unknown
He was an American motion picture director. He worked for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for many years, directed the science fiction classic Forbidden Planet (1956) as well as the classic family film Lassie Come Home which was enshrined on the National Film Preservation Board's National Film Registry in 1993. He was the brother of actress Ruth Selwyn, who was married to producer/director/writer Edgar Selwyn.
68
Born 1896-07-01. Domain:Science (Math style). Cause of death:Age
He was a computer scientist for IBM, and creator of the Luhn algorithm and KWIC (Key Words In Context) indexing. He was awarded over 80 patents.
56
Born 1908-05-28. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Heart attack
In observance of what would have been Fleming's 100th birthday in 2008, Ian Fleming Publications commissioned Sebastian Faulks to write a new Bond novel entitled Devil May Care. The book, released in May 2008, is credited to "Sebastian Faulks, writing as Ian Fleming".
41
Born 1923-01-20. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Suicide
Georges' son.
Author of "The Other Side Of The Mountain".
64
Born 1900-04-28. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:Stroke
He proved to be the most Stalinist of all communist leaders in Western Europe, blocking the evolution of his party.
In 1950, at the height of his popularity among party members, Thorez suffered a stroke and remained in the Soviet Union for medical care until 1953. During his absence, the party was de facto controlled by his ally Jacques Duclos, who expelled Thorez's rival André Marty. Thorez resumed his duties upon returning to France. Although his health deteriorated, Thorez remained party leader, until shortly before his death in 1964 on a Black Sea cruise.
The city of Torez in Ukraine is named after him. The Maurice Thorez Moscow Institute of Foreign Languages (Московский институт иностранных языков имени Мориса Тореза) was named in his honor in the Soviet Union.
His grand-son François Thorez fled in Mexico with his two children in 1999. He was eventually retrieved and jailed in 2007.
71
Born 1893-06-08. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
66
Born 1898-02-11. Domain:Science (Physics style). Cause of death:Age
Leo Szilard (/ˈsɪlɑːrd/; Hungarian: Szilárd Leó [ˈsilaːrd ˈlɛoː]; born Leó Spitz) was a Hungarian-American physicist and inventor. He conceived the nuclear chain reaction in 1933, patented the idea of a nuclear fission reactor in 1934, and in late 1939 wrote the letter for Albert Einstein's signature that resulted in the Manhattan Project that built the atomic bomb. According to György Marx he was one of the Hungarian scientists known as The Martians. In 1960, Szilard was diagnosed with bladder cancer. He underwent cobalt therapy at New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital using a cobalt 60 treatment regimen that his doctors gave him a high degree of control over. A second round of treatment with an increased dose followed in 1962. The higher dose did its job and his cancer never returned. Szilard spent his last years as a fellow of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in the La Jolla community of San Diego, California, which he had helped to create. Szilard founded Council for a Livable World in 1962 to deliver "the sweet voice of reason" about nuclear weapons to Congress, the White House, and the American public. He was appointed a non-resident fellow there in July 1963, and became a resident fellow on April 1, 1964, after moving to San Diego in February. With his wife Trude, he lived in a bungalow on the property of the Hotel del Charro. He died there in his sleep of a heart attack; when Trude awoke, she was unable to revive him. His remains were cremated.