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Wiesel Elie (b. 1926-09-30 / d. 2016-07-02)
He was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored 57 books, written mostly in French and English, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a Jewish prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps. Utah senator Orrin Hatch paid tribute to Wiesel in a speech on the Senate floor the following week, in which he said that, "With Elie's passing, we have lost a beacon of humanity and hope. We have lost a hero of human rights and a luminary of Holocaust literature.
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43
Born 1981-08-29. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Cancer
Émilie Dequenne (French: [emili dəkɛn]) was a Belgian actress. She first gained recognition for her role in the Dardenne brothers' film Rosetta (1999), which earned her the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress. The film also won the Palme d'Or at the festival. She died at the Gustave-Roussy Hospital in Villejuif, France after being diagnosed with adrenocortical carcinoma. She was 43.
103
Born 1921-04-19. Domain:TV/Radio. Cause of death:Age
Michel Klein was a Romanian-born French veterinarian. He was known for his veterinary work on zoo animals, as well as for his television awareness programs in favor of animal rights around the world. He appeared on programs such as Club Dorothée, 30 millions d'amis, Télématin, and Terre attention danger
68
Born 1954-12-09. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Unknown
Jack Sonni was an American writer, musician, and marketing executive, best known as "the other guitarist" in Dire Straits during the band's Brothers in Arms era.
22
Born 2001-07-29. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Accident
Tijl De Decker was a Belgian racing cyclist. He was the younger brother of cyclist Alfdan De Decker. He died at Antwerp University Hospital from injuries as a result of a training accident in which he collided with the rear of a car in Lier near Antwerp two days earlier. He was 22
90
Born 1932-08-30. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Age
Geneviève Suzanne Marie-Thérèse Mulmann, known professionally as Geneviève de Fontenay (French pronunciation: [ʒənvjɛv də fɔ̃tnɛ]), was a French businesswoman who served as the president of the Miss France Committee from 1981 until 2007. After leaving her position with Miss France, Fontenay created the beauty pageant Miss Prestige National in 2010, and served as its president until her retirement in 2016. On 2 August 2023, Fontenay's son announced that she had died in her sleep of cardiac arrest on the night of 1 August, at her Saint-Cloud home. She was 90. She had been growing weak in the time prior to her death, and spent her last moments with her brother and granddaughter.
96
Born 1926-07-31. Domain:Directing. Cause of death:Age
Italo Bettiol was an Italian-French film director. Bettiol left Italy in 1947 with his brother, Stefano, and emigrated to France in hopes of becoming a painter. Alongside their friend, Stefano Lonati, the trio began working in film animation, notably creating advertisements with puppets produced by "Les Cinéastes associés" in the 1950s. He became a specialist in stop motion. He gained notoriety through animated television series, working alongside Lonati in the series Pépin la bulle and Chapi Chapo. In 1968, Bettiol founded the animation studio Bélokapi alongside Lonati, Michel Karlof, and Nicole Pichon. After his retirement, he worked on gadgets in his workshop with his wife, Françoise. Italo Bettiol died in Aniane on 28 December 2022, at the age of 96. His death was announced by the Société Magic.
66
Born 1956-02-20. Domain:Art. Cause of death:Cancer
Miss.Tic (born Radhia Novat) was a French artist. She was known for her stencils of dark-haired women seen in the streets of Paris and associated with poetry. She was active as a street artist from 1985 onward. Miss.Tic was born in 1956 in Montmartre, France, to a Tunisian immigrant father and a French mother from Normandy. She spent her childhood there until 1964 when the family moved to Orly, in the southern suburbs of Paris. She lost her mother, her little brother, and her grandmother in a car accident at the age of ten; her father died six years later. She was then raised by her stepmother who was a barmaid. she escaped from that world and quickly started to work on her stencils. In the early 1980s, She spent a few years in California, among punk milieus of San Francisco and Los Angeles.
92
Born 1929-12-26. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Age
Régine Zylberberg (born Rachelle Zylberberg), often known mononymously as Régine, was a Belgian-born French singer and nightclub impresario. She dubbed herself the "Queen of the Night". On 22 April 1996, Zylberberg and her son were arrested for refusing to comply with crew requests and smoking on an American Airlines flight. It was alleged that, though she was travelling economy, Régine had demanded a first-class upgrade, which the airline declined. In June 2011, she appeared as Solange in Follies at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. She lived with her husband in Saint-Tropez. She had one son, Lionel, from her first husband Leon Rothcage, whom she married when she was 16.
74
Born 1947-05-24. Domain:Art. Cause of death:Age
Cynthia Plaster Caster (born Cynthia Dorothy Albritton) was an American visual artist and self-described "recovering groupie" who gained fame for creating plaster casts of celebrities' erect penises. Albritton began her career in 1968 by casting penises of rock musicians. She later expanded her subjects to include filmmakers and other types of artists, eventually amassing a collection of 50 plaster phalluses. In 2000, she added casting female artists' breasts. Albritton died from cerebrovascular disease at a care facility in Chicago, aged 74.
83
Born 1938-09-23. Domain:Art. Cause of death:Age
Jean-Claude Mézières was a French bandes dessinées artist and illustrator. Born in Paris and raised in Saint-Mandé, he was introduced to drawing by his older brother and influenced by comics artists such as Hergé, Andre Franquin and Morris and later by Jijé and Jack Davis. Educated at the École nationale supérieure des arts appliqués et des métiers d'art, he worked upon graduation as an illustrator for books and magazines as well as in advertising. A lifelong interest in the Wild West led him to travel to the United States in 1965 in search of adventure as a cowboy, an experience that would prove influential on his later work. Returning to France, Mézières teamed up with his childhood friend, Pierre Christin, to create Valérian and Laureline, the popular, long-running science fiction comics series for which he is best known and which has proved to be influential to many science fiction and fantasy films, including Star Wars. Mézières contributed as a conceptual designer on several motion picture projects, most notably the 1997 Luc Besson film, The Fifth Element, as well as continuing to work as an illustrator for newspapers, magazines and in advertising. He also taught courses on the production of comics at the University of Paris VIII: Vincennes—Saint-Denis. Mézières received international recognition through a number of prestigious awards, most notably the 1984 Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême.
72
Born 1949-08-29. Domain:TV/Radio. Cause of death:COVID
Igor Yourievitch Bogdanoff and Grégoire "Grichka" Yourievitch Bogdanoff were French twin brother television presenters, producers, and scientific essayists who, from the 1970s on, presented various subjects in science fiction, popular science, and cosmology. They were involved in a number of controversies, most notably the Bogdanov affair, in which it was alleged the brothers wrote nonsensical advanced physics papers that were nonetheless published in reputable scientific journals.
52
Born 1969-05-09. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Heart attack
Hugo Hernán Maradona, also known as El Turco, was an Argentine football player and coach. He was the younger brother of legendary player Diego Maradona. He played as a midfielder for clubs in South America, Europe, Japan, and Canada, and was a member of the Argentina U-16 national team. He died from a heart attack at his home in Monte di Procida, near Naples.
72
Born 1949-08-29. Domain:TV/Radio. Cause of death:COVID
Igor Yourievitch Bogdanoff and Grichka Yourievitch Bogdanoff were French twin brother television presenters, producers, and scientific essayists who, from the 1970s on, presented various subjects in science fiction, popular science, and cosmology. They were involved in a number of controversies, most notably the Bogdanov affair, in which it was alleged the brothers wrote nonsensical advanced physics papers that were nonetheless published in reputable scientific journals.
66
Born 1955-12-01. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Suicide
Verónica Forqué Vázquez-Vigo (Spanish pronunciation: [beˈɾonika foɾˈke]) was a Spanish stage, film and television actress. She was a four-time Goya Award winner, the most award-winning actress alongside Carmen Maura. She had a knack for characters "between ridiculous and tender, stunned and vehement". Forqué fell into a depression in the wake of her 2014 separation from Iborra, a situation aggravated by the death of her brother Álvaro some months later. Forqué was found dead in her Madrid residence on 13 December 2021 at the age of 66, presumably a suicide.
60
Born 1961-02-10. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Unknown
Jay Harris Pickett was an American actor. In 1997, Pickett originated the role of Frank Scanlon, a dedicated paramedic and substitute teacher and the complicated older brother of Joe Scanlon, on the ABC Daytime drama Port Charles. Pickett died unexpectedly while preparing to film a scene for the film Treasure Valley on a set near Oreana, Idaho.
76
Born 1944-09-06. Domain:Art. Cause of death:Cancer
Christian Boltanski was a French sculptor, photographer, painter, and film maker, most well known for his photography installations and contemporary French Conceptual style. He was the brother of Luc Boltanski and the partner of Annette Messager. The writer Christophe Boltanski is his nephew.
76
Born 1944-09-05. Domain:Science (Medical/Bio style). Cause of death:Cancer
Axel Kahn was a French scientist and geneticist. He was the brother of the journalist Jean-François Kahn. He was a member of the French National Consultative Ethics Committee from 1992 to 2004 and worked in gene therapy. He first entered the INSERM with a specialization in biochemistry. He was named in 2002 as a counsellor for biosciences and biotechnologies matters by the European Commission. Head of French laboratories specialized in biomedical sciences between years 1984 and 2007, he was elected President of the Paris Descartes University in December 2007, as the sole candidate. Kahn is known in France for his appearances in the media where he attempts to explain genetics and ethics to the public. As a civil servant, he was the head of the committee in charge of genetically modified crops for Europe.
70
Born 1950-08-21. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Unknown
Patrick Juvet was a model turned singer-songwriter, who had a string of hit records in France. While his early career was focused on making pop records, he found international success as a disco music performer in the latter half of the 1970s. Born in Montreux, Switzerland, Juvet grew up in nearby La Tour-de-Peilz, with his parents, Robert and Janine, his brother Daniel, and his sister Nancy. Juvet's father sold radios and televisions, which sparked an early interest in music for the young Juvet. Juvet began studying piano at age 7; later he developed an interest in the music of The Beatles. In 2005, Juvet released his autobiography Les bleus au cœur: Souvenirs ("Bruises on My Heart: Memories"), in which he talks about his career and his bisexuality. Patrick Juvet was found dead in an apartment in Barcelona, Spain.
65
Born 1955-01-26. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Cancer
Edward Lodewijk Van Halen was an American musician, songwriter, producer, and inventor. He was the main songwriter and lead guitarist of the American rock band Van Halen, which he co-founded in 1972 with his brother, drummer Alex Van Halen, bassist Mark Stone, and singer David Lee Roth. He was well known for popularizing the tapping guitar solo technique, allowing rapid arpeggios to be played with two hands on the fretboard. In 2012, he was voted number one in a Guitar World magazine reader's poll for "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". Van Halen struggled with alcoholism and drug abuse. He began smoking and drinking at the age of 12, and he stated that he eventually needed alcohol to function. He entered rehabilitation in 2007, and later shared in an interview that he had been sober since 2008. Suffering from lingering injuries from past, high-risk, acrobatic stage performances and crashes, Van Halen underwent hip replacement surgery in 1999, after his chronic avascular necrosis, with which he was diagnosed in 1995, became unbearable. He began receiving treatment for tongue cancer in 2000. The subsequent surgery removed roughly a third of his tongue. He was declared cancer-free in 2002. He blamed the tongue cancer on his habit of holding guitar picks in his mouth, stating in 2015: "I used metal picks – they're brass and copper – which I always held in my mouth, in the exact place where I got the tongue cancer. ... I mean, I was smoking and doing a lot of drugs and a lot of everything. But at the same time, my lungs are totally clear. This is just my own theory, but the doctors say it's possible." In 2012, Van Halen underwent an emergency surgery for a severe bout of diverticulitis. Recovery time required due to the surgery led to postponement of Van Halen tour dates scheduled in Japan. Van Halen was later hospitalized in 2019 after battling throat cancer over the previous five years.
78
Born 1942-04-03. Domain:Journalism. Cause of death:Age
François Debré was a French journalist and writer. Albert-Londres prize 1977. He died one day after his younger brother Bernard.
75
Born 1944-09-30. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:Cancer
Bernard Debré was a French urologist at Hôpital Cochin and a member (député) of the National Assembly of France. He was one of the representatives of the city of Paris, and was a member of the Union for a Popular Movement. He is a son of Anne-Marie Lemaresquier and politician Michel Debré, who was Prime Minister of France, and twin-brother of Jean-Louis Debré.
23
Born 1997-03-30. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Suicide
Catherine Daisy Coleman was an American sexual abuse survivors advocate, actress and producer. Her experience of sexual assault at the age of 14 was featured in the 2016 documentary film Audrie & Daisy, for which she received a Cinema Eye Honor. Coleman co-founded the non-profit organization SafeBAE, which was aimed at preventing sexual assault in schools. She took her own life at the age of 23. After the sexual assault, Coleman attempted to take her own life on multiple occasions. Coleman became the target of daily bullying, prompting the family to move from Maryville to Albany, Missouri. Their homes had suspicious fire damage in Nodaway and Gentry counties. In June 2018, her younger brother Tristan died in a car accident at the age of 19. She took her life. Daisy Coleman was found dead in Denver after her mother called police to check on her, said Shael Norris, executive director of SafeBAE, a group Daisy Coleman co-founded to help young victims of sexual assault. Norris said she heard the news from Coleman's brother.
71
Born 1948-04-18. Domain:Science (Math style). Cause of death:Age
Yasumasa Kanada was a Japanese computer scientist most known for his numerous world records over the past three decades for calculating digits of π. He set the record 11 of the past 21 times. Kanada was a professor in the Department of Information Science at the University of Tokyo in Tokyo, Japan until 2015. From 2002 until 2009, Kanada held the world record calculating the number of digits in the decimal expansion of pi – exactly 1.2411 trillion digits. The calculation took more than 600 hours on 64 nodes of a HITACHI SR8000/MPP supercomputer. Some of his competitors in recent years include Jonathan and Peter Borwein and the Chudnovsky brothers.
96
Born 1923-10-10. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
When the actor Patrick Jordan was in Star Wars he had a choice. Did he want a guaranteed fee for his part as an Imperial Officer, or a tiny share of the royalties? He got the part through his friend Alec Guinness with whom he had worked in the Old Vic theatre company in the 1940s. Jordan shared Guinness’s contempt for Star Wars, and was dubious about the film’s prospects, so he took the one-off fee. He regretted the decision ever after with rueful humour, claiming that had he chosen a cut he would never have had to work again. He was born and raised in Harrow, Middlesex, the son of Margaret, a cook, and Albert Jordan, a regimental sergeant major. An accident while playing bows and arrows with his two brothers left him with a distinctive scar on his right cheek. He made his stage debut in a 1946 Old Vic production of Richard II at the New Theatre, which was directed by Ralph Richardson and featured Harry Andrews and Alec Guinness. With Old Vic he went on to perform in other Shakespearean plays, including Coriolanus and The Taming of the Shrew, in the last of which also appeared Renée Asherson. Jordan remained friends with Asherson and Guinness.
56
Born 1963-03-12. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:cancer (colorectal)
John Andrew Andretti was an American race car driver. He won individual races in CART, IMSA GTP, Rolex Sports Car Series, and NASCAR during his career. He was the son of Aldo Andretti, older brother of racer Adam Andretti, nephew of Mario Andretti, and first cousin to IndyCar champion Michael and Jeff Andretti.
50
Born 1969-08-04. Domain:Journalism. Cause of death:Cancer
Sébastien Demorand was a French journalist and food critic. He was the brother of journalist and radio presenter Nicolas Demorand and sculptor Catherine Demorand. Since 2010, he was a member of the jury in the French version MasterChef on TF1. He was the only food critic among the chefs Frédéric Anton, Yves Camdeborde and Amandine Chaignot (since 2013). He was fluent in English and also appeared as a special guest in episode 18 of the second season of MasterChef US.
93
Born 1926-10-25. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Age
James Edward Heath nicknamed Little Bird, was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, arranger, and big band leader. He was the brother of bassist Percy Heath and drummer Albert Heath.
79
Born 1940-06-01. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Cancer (lung)
René Murat Auberjonois was an American actor, singer, voice artist, narrator and director best known for playing Odo on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993–1999). He first achieved fame as a stage actor, winning the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical in 1970 for his portrayal of Sebastian Baye opposite Katharine Hepburn in the André Previn-Alan Jay Lerner musical Coco. He went on to earn three more Tony nominations for performances in Neil Simon's The Good Doctor (1973), Roger Miller's Big River (1985), and Cy Coleman's City of Angels (1989); he won a Drama Desk Award for Big River. Auberjonois was born in New York City. His father, Swiss-born Fernand Auberjonois (1910–2004), was a Cold War-era foreign correspondent and Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer. His paternal grandfather, also named René Auberjonois, was a Swiss post-Impressionist painter. His mother, Princess Laure Louise Napoléone Eugénie Caroline Murat (1913–1986), was a great-great-granddaughter of Joachim Murat, one of Napoleon's marshals and King of Naples during the First French Empire, and his wife, Caroline Bonaparte, Napoleon's youngest sister. His maternal grandmother, Hélène Macdonald Stallo (1893–1932), was an American, from Cincinnati, Ohio; his maternal grandfather's mother was a Russian noblewoman, Eudoxia Michailovna Somova (1850–1924), and his maternal grandfather's paternal grandmother, Caroline Georgina Fraser (1810–1879), who was married to Prince Napoleon Lucien Charles Murat, was an American, from Charleston, South Carolina. Auberjonois had a sister and a brother, and two half-sisters from his mother's first marriage. His family moved to Paris after World War II. That is where, at an early age, he decided to become an actor. After a few years in France, the family moved back to the United States and joined the South Mountain Road artists' colony in Rockland County, New York, whose residents included Burgess Meredith, John Houseman, and Lotte Lenya. During this part of his youth, he performed the young boy's part 'Bert' in All My Sons with the community theatre group The Rockland Foundation Players (which later changed its name to Elmwood Playhouse). Auberjonois died from metastatic lung cancer at his home in Los Angeles at age 79.
80
Born 1939-03-25. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Age
Dorothy Catherine Fontana was an American television script writer and story editor, best known for her work on the original Star Trek franchise and several Western television series. After a short period working for Samuel A. Peeples as a secretary, she moved to work for Del Reisman, a producer on The Lieutenant, whose creator was Gene Roddenberry. Though The Lieutenant was soon cancelled, Roddenberry began working on Star Trek, and Fontana was appointed as the series' story editor, but left after the second season to pursue freelance work. She later worked with Roddenberry again on Genesis II and then as story editor and associate producer on Star Trek: The Animated Series. During the 1970s and early 1980s, she worked on Logan's Run, The Six Million Dollar Man, and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Roddenberry hired her to work on Star Trek: The Next Generation, but, while she was given an associate producer credit, the experience soured their relationship and resulted in a claim put to the Writers Guild of America. She later wrote an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and an episode of the Star Trek fan-made series Star Trek: New Voyages. She was awarded the Morgan Cox Award in 2002 by the Writers Guild of America and twice named to the American Screenwriters Association's hall of fame. Fontana married cinematographer Dennis Skotak. She died aged 80, following a short illness.
79
Born 1940-02-23. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Cancer (lung)
Peter Henry Fonda was an American actor. He was the son of Henry Fonda, younger brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget Fonda. He was a prominent figure in the counterculture of the 1960s. Fonda was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Easy Rider (1969), and the Academy Award for Best Actor for Ulee's Gold (1997). For the latter, he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama. Fonda also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film for The Passion of Ayn Rand (1999). Fonda died from respiratory failure caused by lung cancer at his home in Los Angeles, at the age of 79.