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April 27, 2024

R I P of the day

Leonard Joe (b. 1932-08-04 / d. 2017-04-27)

He was an American professional motorcycle racer and racecar driver.

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Le Roy Ladurie
Emmanuel Bernard. 2023-11-22

94

Born 1929-07-19. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Age

Emmanuel Bernard Le Roy Ladurie was a French historian whose work was mainly focused upon Languedoc in the Ancien Régime, particularly the history of the peasantry. One of the leading historians of France, Le Roy Ladurie has been called the "standard-bearer" of the third generation of the Annales school and the "rock star of the medievalists", noted for his work in social history.

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Bulloc
Anna Mae (alias: Tina Turner). 2023-05-24

83

Born 1939-11-26. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Age

Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bulloc) was an American-born and naturalized Swiss singer. Known as the "Queen of Rock 'n' Roll", she rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue before launching a successful career as a solo performer. Turner revealed in her 2018 memoir My Love Story that she had suffered multiple life-threatening illnesses. In 2013, three weeks after her wedding to Erwin Bach, she suffered a stroke and had to learn to walk again. In 2016, she was diagnosed with intestinal cancer. Turner opted for homeopathic remedies for her high blood pressure. This untreated high blood pressure resulted in damage to her kidneys and eventual kidney failure. Her chances of receiving a kidney were low, and she was urged to start dialysis. She considered euthanasia and signed up to be a member of Exit, but Bach offered to donate a kidney for her transplant. Turner had kidney transplant surgery on April 7, 2017.

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Newton-John
Olivia. 2022-08-08

73

Born 1948-09-26. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Cancer (breast)

Dame Olivia Newton-John AC DBE was an Australian singer, actress and activist. She was a four-time Grammy Award winner whose music career included five number-one hits and another ten top-ten hits on the Billboard Hot 100, and two number-one albums on the Billboard 200; If You Love Me, Let Me Know (1974) and Have You Never Been Mellow (1975). Eleven of her singles (including two Platinum) and 14 of her albums (including two Platinum and four 2× Platinum) have been certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). With global sales of more than 100 million records, Newton-John is one of the best-selling music artists from the second half of the 20th century to the present. In 1978, Newton-John starred in the musical film Grease, whose soundtrack remains one of the world's best-selling albums of all time. In May 2017, it was announced that Newton-John's breast cancer had returned and metastasised to her lower back. Her back pains had initially been diagnosed as sciatica. She subsequently revealed this was actually her third bout with breast cancer, as she had a recurrence of the disease in 2013 in addition to her initial 1992 diagnosis. With the 2017 recurrence, the cancer had spread to her bones and progressed to stage IV. Newton-John experienced significant pain from the metastatic bone lesions and had spoken of using cannabis oil to ease her pain. She was an advocate for the use of medical cannabis; her daughter Chloe owns a cannabis farm in Oregon.

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Senioutovitch
Anna (alias: Anna Gaylor). 2021-09-20

89

Born 1932-05-13. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age

Anna Senioutovitch, known as Anna Gaylor, was a French actress. She is particularly known for her roles in La Vie Upside Down (1964) by Alain Jessua and in the soap opera Les Oiseaux Rare (1969) by Jean Dewever. She married Jessua in 1961.

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Ferro
Marc. 2021-04-21

96

Born 1924-12-24. Domain:Other. Cause of death:COVID

Marc Ferro was a French historian. Ferro worked on early twentieth-century European history, specialising in the history of Russia and the USSR, as well as the history of cinema. His Ukrainian-Jewish mother died during the Holocaust. He was Director of Studies in Social Sciences at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales. He was a co-director of the French review Annales and co-editor of the Journal of Contemporary History. He also directed and presented television documentaries on the rise of the Nazis, Lenin and the Russian revolution and on the representation of history in cinema. Ferro died in Saint-Germain-en-Laye from complications of COVID-19.

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Nicolodi
Daria. 2020-11-26

70

Born 1950-06-19. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age

Daria Nicolodi was an Italian actress and screenwriter. In the early 1970s, she had a relationship with the sculptor Mario Ceroli; they had a daughter, Anna, who was born in 1973 and died in a 1994 car accident. Nicolodi had a professional and romantic relationship with director Dario Argento; they met in 1974 during casting for the film Deep Red, and their daughter Asia was born in 1975. They separated in 1985. Asia had a daughter of her own; she named her Anna after her half-sister.

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Bryant
Kobe Bean. 2020-01-26

41

Born 1978-08-23. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Accident

Kobe Bean Bryant was an American professional basketball player. As a shooting guard, Bryant entered the National Basketball Association (NBA) directly from high school, and played his entire 20-season professional career in the league with the Los Angeles Lakers. Bryant won many accolades: five NBA championships, 18-time All-Star, 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, 12-time member of the All-Defensive Team, 2008 NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), two-time NBA Finals MVP winner. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, he led the NBA in scoring during two seasons, ranks fourth on the league's all-time regular season scoring and all-time postseason scoring lists. Bryant died at age 41, along with his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others, due to blunt force trauma sustained from a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California.

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Bayer
Hanne Karin (alias: Anna Karina). 2019-12-14

79

Born 1940-09-22. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age

Anna Karina (born Hanne Karin Bayer) was a Danish-French film avant garde actress, director, writer, and singer. She was French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard's muse in the 1960s, performing in several of his films, including The Little Soldier, A Woman Is a Woman, My Life to Live, Bande à part (Band of Outsiders), Pierrot le Fou (Crazy Pete) and Alphaville. For her performance in A Woman Is a Woman, Karina won the Silver Bear Award for Best Actress at the Berlin Film Festival. In 1972, Karina set up a production company for her directorial debut, Vivre ensemble (1973), which screened in the Critics' Week lineup at the 26th Cannes Film Festival. She also directed the French-Canadian film Victoria (2008). In addition to her work in cinema, she worked as a singer, and wrote several novels. Karina was an icon of 1960s cinema, and referred to as the "effervescent free spirit of the French New Wave, with all of the scars that the position entails". The New York Times described her as "one of the screen's great beauties and an enduring symbol of the French New Wave." Karina died at the age of 79 at a hospital in Paris. According to her agent, Laurent Balandras, the cause of death was cancer. However, her husband, Dennis Berry, told that the cause was not cancer, but a complication following a muscular rupture.

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Manna
Zohar. 2018-08-30

79

Born 1939-01-17. Domain:Science (Math style). Cause of death:Age

Zohar Manna was an Israeli-American computer scientist who was a professor of computer science at Stanford University. He was born in Haifa, Israel. He earned his undergraduate degree as well as his master's degrees from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. He attended Carnegie Mellon University and earned his PhD in computer science in 1968. Manna returned to Israel in 1972 as a professor of applied mathematics at the Weizmann Institute of Science. He became a full professor at Stanford in 1978. He remained affiliated with the Weizmann Institute of Science until 1995. He continued to work as a Stanford professor until retirement in 2010. He authored nine books. The Mathematical Theory of Computation (McGraw Hill, 1974; reprinted Dover, 2003) is one of the first texts to provide extensive coverage of the mathematical concepts behind computer programming.

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Shachko
Oksana. 2018-07-23

31

Born 1987-01-31. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Suicide

Oksana Shachko was a Ukrainian artist and activist. Along with Anna Hutsol and Alexandra Shevchenko, she was one of the founders of the feminist activist group FEMEN, which publicly demonstrates in various countries against sexual exploitation, income inequality, and policies of the Roman Catholic Church, among other causes. Shachko was found dead in her apartment in Paris, France, on 23 July 2018. She was 31. Anna Hutsol told Ukrayinska Pravda that friends were awaiting an official report. It was reported that she hanged herself. Elle profiled Shachko on 1 February 2019. In that profile, they reported that she had made an earlier attempt to hang herself, several years earlier.

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Michaels
Jeanna. 2018-05-23

62

Born 1956-05-09. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:cancer (blood)

Jeanna Michaels was an American actress, known for her soap opera roles as Lydia Saunders on Santa Barbara (1988–89), Constance Townley on General Hospital (1983) and Karen Richards on The Young and the Restless (1981–82). Between 1979–81, she portrayed Bobby Ewing's first secretary, Connie Brasher, on Dallas. She died from Lymphoma.

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Santoni
Joël. 2018-04-18

74

Born 1943-11-05. Domain:Directing. Cause of death:Age

Joël Santoni was a French film director and screenwriter. He directed the 1976 film Scrambled Eggs, which starred Jean Carmet and Anna Karina.

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Labarthe
André Sylvain. 2018-03-05

86

Born 1931-12-18. Domain:Journalism. Cause of death:Age

André S. Labarthe was a French actor, film producer and director. He starred alongside Anna Karina in the 1962 film Vivre sa vie. He was the director of many television documentaries that profile specific individuals, beginning with Cinéastes de notre temps.

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Gaspard-Huit
Pierre. 2017-05-01

99

Born 1917-11-29. Domain:Directing. Cause of death:Age

He was a French film director and screenwriter. He directed the 1963 film Shéhérazade, which starred Anna Karina. He was once married to actress Claudine Auger when she was 18, and he was 41 years old. She acted in several of his films.

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Fisher
Carrie Frances. 2016-12-27

60

Born 1956-10-21. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:alcohol, other drugs

She was an American actress, writer, and comedian. Fisher is known for playing Princess Leia in the Star Wars films, a role for which she was nominated for four Saturn Awards. Her other film credits include Shampoo (1975), The Blues Brothers (1980), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), The 'Burbs (1989), When Harry Met Sally... (1989), Soapdish (1991), and The Women (2008). Fisher was nominated twice for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her performances on the television series 30 Rock and Catastrophe. She was posthumously made a Disney Legend in 2017, and in 2018 she was awarded a posthumous Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album. Fisher was on a commercial flight on December 23, 2016, from London to Los Angeles when she suffered a medical emergency around fifteen minutes before the aircraft landed. A passenger seated near Fisher reported that she had stopped breathing; another passenger performed CPR on Fisher until paramedics arrived at the scene. Emergency services in Los Angeles were contacted when the flight crew reported a passenger unresponsive prior to landing. Fisher was taken by ambulance to the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, where she was placed on a ventilator. In a June 16, 2017, news release, the Los Angeles County coroner's office said that the exact cause of death could not be determined, but sleep apnea and the buildup of fatty tissue on the walls of arteries were among the contributing factors. A full report from June 19, 2017, stated that Fisher had cocaine in her system, as well as traces of heroin, other opiates, and MDMA. The report also stated that the investigation was unable to determine when she had taken the drugs, and whether they contributed to her death. Her daughter Billie Lourd stated that Fisher "battled drug addiction and mental illness her entire life [and] ultimately died of it. She was purposefully open in all of her work about the social stigmas surrounding these diseases... I know my Mom, she'd want her death to encourage people to be open about their struggles."

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Parfitt
Richard John. 2016-12-24

68

Born 1948-10-12. Domain:Music. Cause of death:alcohol, other drugs

He was an English musician, best known as a singer, songwriter and rhythm guitarist with rock band Status Quo. Parfitt began his career in the early 1960s, playing in pubs and holiday camps. He joined Status Quo in 1967 when they were looking for an additional singer. He wrote songs for the band and remained with them for 49 years. He occasionally guested with other bands, and recorded an unreleased solo album in 1985. In 2016, Parfitt temporarily retired from touring with the band due to ill health, and died in December of that year. His only solo album, Over and Out, was released posthumously in 2018. Following a heart attack, Parfitt had a quadruple heart bypass in 1997 at the age of 48, when he was told by doctors that he could die "at any time" unless he changed his lifestyle of drugs, smoking and heavy drinking. At the height of the band's fame, Parfitt and his long-time Status Quo partner Francis Rossi were notorious for drinking and drug use, with Parfitt claiming to have been spending up to £1,000 a week on cocaine, and up to £500 a week on vodka. In his later life, following several health issues, Parfitt led a more sober life, stating in a 2014 interview that he had not smoked cannabis for 27 years and had not used cocaine for 10 years. He had a throat cancer scare in December 2005.[29] He suffered a heart attack in December 2011 and underwent surgery on the following day.[30] On 1 August 2014, while on a European tour with Status Quo, Parfitt was hospitalised in Pula, Croatia, forcing the cancellation of six shows on the tour. He had suffered a heart attack while on his tour bus after performing a concert in Austria, and had a stent inserted. He later told the Daily Mail he was pleased to have suffered another heart attack as it had forced him to stop smoking and drinking after 50 years. On 14 June 2016, after playing with the band in Antalya, Turkey, he suffered another heart attack and was hospitalised again. His management described his condition as serious. Parfitt was clinically dead for several minutes, resulting in mild cognitive impairments. The band announced that their ongoing tour would continue with Freddie Edwards, son of bassist John "Rhino" Edwards, as a temporary replacement. On 22 June it was announced that Parfitt had been flown home to the UK and was described as "comfortable" in hospital in London, where he was undergoing more tests. He had a defibrillator fitted into his chest. In September 2016 it was announced that he would not be well enough to tour in the autumn, and he did not intend to tour with the band for the foreseeable future. Parfitt died in a Marbella hospital from sepsis, after being admitted on Thursday evening, 22 December, following an infection of a pre-existing shoulder injury.

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Jayalalithaa
Jayaram. 2016-12-05

68

Born 1948-02-24. Domain:Politics. Cause of death:Infection

She was an Indian politician and film actress who served six times as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for over fourteen years between 1991 and 2016. From 1989 she was the general secretary of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), a Dravidian party whose cadre revered her as their Amma (mother) and Puratchi Thalaivi (revolutionary leader). Her critics in the media and the opposition accused her of fostering a personality cult and of demanding absolute loyalty from AIADMK legislators and ministers, who often publicly prostrated themselves before her. On 22 September 2016, Jayalalithaa was admitted to Apollo Hospitals in Chennai, as she was suffering from an infection and acute dehydration. Her official duties were handed over to her aide O. Panneerselvam on 12 October 2016, though she continued to remain as the chief minister of the state She was also said to be suffering from a severe pulmonary infection and septicaemia, which were cured. On 4 December 2016, she was re-admitted to the intensive care unit after suffering a cardiac arrest around 16:45. The hospital released a press statement stating that her condition was "very critical" and that she was on life support. On 5 December 2016, the hospital announced her death.

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Arquette
Alexis. 2016-09-11

47

Born 1969-07-28. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:AIDS

She was an American actress, cabaret performer, underground cartoonist, and activist. Arquette was born Robert Arquette in Los Angeles, the fourth of five children of Brenda Olivia "Mardi" (née Nowak), an actress, poet, theater operator, activist, acting teacher, and therapist; and Lewis Arquette, an actor and director. Lewis's family's surname was originally "Arcouet"; Lewis's father was comedian Cliff Arquette, who went by the stage name of Charley Weaver. Arquette was distantly related to American explorer Meriwether Lewis. Actors Rosanna, Richmond, Patricia, and David Arquette are her siblings. In 2004, Arquette expressed an interest in undergoing gender-affirming medical treatment in the form of hormone therapy and, ultimately, sex reassignment surgery, which she realized in 2006, in her late 30s. Those experiences were documented in the film Alexis Arquette: She's My Brother, which debuted at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. Arquette was a vocal supporter of other transgender people, including Chaz Bono, who transitioned shortly after her. Arquette contracted HIV in 1987. In her later life, she suffered from health issues as a result of her HIV-positive status. Amid these increasing complications, Alexis began presenting herself again as a man in 2013. Her brother David Arquette said that she told him she was "gender suspicious", and alternately felt like a man or a woman at different times. Arquette was placed in a medically induced coma and died on September 11, 2016, surrounded by close family, at the age of 47. Arquette was serenaded with David Bowie's "Starman". The cause of death was cardiac arrest caused by myocarditis stemming from HIV.

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Akane
Hotaru (alias: Anna Akizuki). 2016-08-15

32

Born 1983-10-25. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Other

She was a Japanese actress, HIV/AIDS activist, and AV idol. She was active in many media formats in Japan including mainstream theatrical film, and was a popular blogger. Her adeptness at female ejaculation in adult videos (AV) earned Akane the title, "Shiofuki Queen". She retired from AV work in 2008. Akane was discovered collapsed at home on August 15, 2016. Suicide and foul play have been ruled out as causes. Her manager wrote that she had been suffering from a severe cough, and there was evidence of her smoking a cigarette shortly before her death. Her death is believed to be caused by suffocation stemming from an acute asthma attack.

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Horner
James Roy. 2015-06-22

61

Born 1953-08-14. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Accident

He was an American composer, conductor, and orchestrator of film scores. He was known for the integration of choral and electronic elements in many of his film scores, and for frequent use of Celtic musical elements. Horner collaborated multiple times with directors Jean-Jacques Annaud, Mel Gibson, Walter Hill, Ron Howard, and Joe Johnston. Horner composed music for over 100 films, and won two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, three Satellite Awards, three Saturn Awards, and was nominated for three British Academy Film Awards. Horner was killed at the age of 61 when his Embraer EMB 312 Tucano turboprop aircraft crashed into the Los Padres National Forest in southern California. He was the sole occupant of the aircraft. Though the pilot was not immediately identified, Horner's attorney said, "We know it's his plane, and we know we haven't heard from him." Variety later confirmed Horner's death. His assistant wrote on her Facebook page, "We have lost an amazing person with a huge heart and unbelievable talent who died doing what he loved.

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Cavanna
François. 2014-01-29

90

Born 1923-02-22. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Age

He was a French author and satirical newspaper editor. He contributed to the creation and success of Hari Kiri and Charlie Hebdo. He wrote in a variety of genres including reportage, satire, essays, novels, autobiography and humor. He also translated six books about famous cartoonists. In his final book, Lune de miel, Cavannas deals with Parkinson disease.

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Bergé
Georges René (alias: Georges Descrières). 2013-10-19

83

Born 1930-04-15. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Cancer

He was a French actor. He appeared in 52 films and television shows between 1954 and 1996. He starred alongside Anna Karina in the 1962 film Sun in Your Eyes and portrayed the gentleman-burglar titular character in the internationally successful TV series Arsène Lupin.

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Wanjiru
Samuel Kamau. 2011-05-15

24

Born 1986-11-10. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Murder

Samuel Kamau Wanjiru was a Kenyan long-distance runner who won the 2008 Beijing Olympics Marathon in an Olympic record time of 2:06:32; becoming the first Kenyan to win the Olympic gold in the marathon. He became the youngest gold medallist in the marathon since 1932. He set the current (as of 2020) 10,000m World Junior Record in 2005 and set the half marathon world record 3 times. In 2009, he won both the London Marathon and Chicago Marathon, running the fastest marathons ever recorded in the United Kingdom and United States, respectively. He retained his Chicago title in 2010 in a season fraught with injury. On 15 May 2011, Wanjiru died from a fall off a balcony at his home in Nyahururu. Wanjiru appeared to have suffered internal injuries after the fall and was confirmed dead by doctors at a nearby hospital after attempts to revive him failed. Police said Wanjiru's wife, Triza Njeri, had come home to find him in bed with another woman. She locked the couple in the bedroom and ran outside. Wanjiru then died after falling from the balcony. Police are unsure if Wanjiru intended suicide or jumped out of rage, and were investigating the circumstances related to Njeri and his female companion that led to his death. In May 2017, while testifying during an inquest into Wanjiru's death, his mother Hannah Wanjiru said at the Milimani law court that she believes her son was murdered. His mother claimed at an inquest into his death that her son was murdered by six men who had conspired with his widow Trizah Njeri.[36] During the inquest at the Milimani court that sought to establish whether Wanjiru was murdered or jumped to his death, a former chief government pathologist said he was convinced that Wanjiru was hit by a blunt object after he had jumped from the balcony of his home, landing on his legs, or possibly he was pushed then struck.

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Chandavarkar
Bhaskar. 2009-07-26

73

Born 1936-03-16. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Age

He was an Indian sitar player, academic and film and theatre composer who worked with directors of Indian cinema, in various languages including Marathi, Hindi, Kannada and Malayalam, Mrinal Sen, Girish Karnad, Aparna Sen and Amol Palekar and was known for his blending of Indian classical and western music.
He died in Pune, after a prolonged illness.

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Annakin
Ken. 2009-04-22

94

Born 1914-08-10. Domain:Directing. Cause of death:Age

He was an English film director.
Annakin's last completed film was The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking (1988), Ghenghis Khan (1992) was not completed. He died on 22 April 2009, the same day as Jack Cardiff, who had been his cinematographer on the 1979 film The Fifth Musketeer.
Despite claims that George Lucas took the name for Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars from his friend and fellow film director, Lucas denied this via his publicist following Annakin's death in 2009.

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Cardiff
Jack. 2009-04-22

94

Born 1914-09-18. Domain:Directing. Cause of death:Age

He was a British cinematographer, director and photographer.
His career spanned the development of cinema, from silent film, through early experiments in Technicolor (and, less successfully, Smell-o-vision), to filmmaking in the 21st century. He was best known for his influential cinematography for directors such as Powell, Huston and Hitchcock.
Cardiff died of natural causes, the same day as Ken Annakin, with whom he had worked on The Fifth Musketeer (1979).

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Richardson
Natasha. 2009-03-18

45

Born 1963-05-11. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Accident

She was an English stage and screen actress. A member of the Redgrave family, she was the daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and director/producer Tony Richardson and the granddaughter of Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson. Early in her career she portrayed Mary Shelley and Patty Hearst in feature films, and she received critical acclaim and a Theatre World Award for her Broadway debut in the 1993 revival of Anna Christie. She won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical, and the Outer Critics Circle Award for her performance as Sally Bowles in the 1998 Broadway revival of Cabaret. Some of her notable films included Nell (1994), The Parent Trap (1998) and Maid in Manhattan (2002).
Richardson's father died of AIDS-related causes in 1991. She helped raise millions of dollars in the fight against AIDS through the charity amfAR, the American Foundation for AIDS Research. The actress died in 2009 following a head injury sustained when she fell during a skiing lesson in the Canadian province of Quebec.

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Pressly
Anne. 2008-10-25

26

Born 1982-00-00. Domain:Journalism. Cause of death:Murder

Anne Pressly was found at 4:30 a.m. on Monday, October 20, 2008, a half-hour before she was due to to appear on the station's Daybreak program. Little Rock police were alerted by her mother, Patricia Cannady, when Pressly failed to answer her wake-up call. Cannady found Pressly unresponsive in her bed with injuries sustained to her head and upper body consistent with a beating.
She was hospitalized at St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center, where she died five days later. Hospital spokeswoman Margaret Preston was quoted as saying "It was our hope, as was yours, that Anne would overcome the injuries inflicted upon her in the brutal attack at her home. ... We were with her in her last moments, and although our hearts are broken, we are at the same time comforted by our faith knowing that Anne is now with our heavenly father."

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Litvinenko
Alexander. 2006-11-23

44

Born 1962-08-30. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Murder

On 1 November 2006, Litvinenko suddenly fell ill and became hospitalised. His illness was later attributed to poisoning with radionuclide polonium-210 after the Health Protection Agency found significant amounts of the rare and highly toxic element in his body. In interviews, Litvinenko stated that he met with two former KGB agents early on the day he fell ill - Dmitry Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoi, though they deny any wrongdoing. The men also introduced Litvinenko to a tall, thin man of central Asian appearance called 'Vladislav Sokolenko' whom Lugovoi said was a business partner. Lugovoi is also a former bodyguard of Russian ex-prime minister Yegor Gaidar (who also suffered from a mysterious illness in November 2006). Later, he had lunch at Itsu, a sushi restaurant on Piccadilly in London, with an Italian acquaintance, Mario Scaramella, to whom he made the allegations regarding Italy's Prime Minister Romano Prodi. Scaramella, attached to the Mitrokhin Commission investigating KGB penetration of Italian politics, claimed to have information on the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya, 48, a journalist who was killed at her Moscow apartment in October 2006.

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Huillet
Daniele. 2006-10-09

70

Born 1936-05-01. Domain:Directing. Cause of death:Cancer

Jean-Marie Straub met Danièle Huillet as a student in 1954. Straub was involved in Paris' cinephile community at the time, and was a friend of Francois Truffaut. They made their first film, an 18-minute short called Manchorka-Muff in 1963; it was based on a story by Heinrich Böll. Their next film, the 55-minute Not Reconciled, was also a Böll adaptation. They did not make a full-length feature until 1968's Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach, after which they made films at a fairly even rate, completing a feature every 2-3 years. In 1968, they also made a short film starring Rainer Werner Fassbinder and his theatre troupe called The Bridegroom, the Actress and the Pimp. During their career, they adapted two Arnold Schoenberg operas, as well as Franz Kafka's first novel, Amerika.
Though they were never married, the two lived together for most of their lives. They had no children.

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