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Millar William (b. 1955-00-00 / d. 2008-07-30)
A Renault Formula One engineer is believed to have shot himself at the team's headquarters.
Thames Valley Police said they are not treating the death of William Millar as suspicious, after he was found on a footpath within the grounds of the Whiteways Research Centre, near Enstone, Oxfordshire.
A police spokeswoman today confirmed that the body was identified by the Oxfordshire coroner as that of the 53-year-old research and development engineer, of Minster Lovell, Oxfordshire.
His body was discovered shortly after 11am on Wednesday after staff heard a gunshot. Mr Millar was found with a single head wound.
The apparent suicide came days before the Hungarian Grand Prix in Budapest, where Renault drivers Fernando Alonso and Nelson Piquet Jr will take to the track.
Renault issued a tribute to Mr Millar following his death.
'Everyone at the team is deeply shocked to lose such a valued member of staff who had been with the team for 27 years.
'Before the team was taken over by Renault, he worked for Benetton Formula One. We have a very large site but it happened within the premises on a footpath.
'Known as Bill, he was involved in designing anything that can improve the car.'
Local reports said Mr Millar was a married father of two.
Renault stressed yesterday they did not believe the suicide was work-related.
Neighbours of Bill, who lived with bed-ridden wife Valerie in the Cotswolds village of Minster Lovell said he had personal problems.
One added:"Sadly, it seems it all got to much. It's a tragedy. He was a lovely man."
Daughter Lawrie Millar, who answered the door at the family home, said: "We have nothing to say. "
A Thames Valley Police spokeswoman confirmed that the death was not being treated as suspicious. She said: "We were called just after 11am after staff at Renault witnessed a man walking to the bridleway near to the headquarters.
"A gunshot was heard and then the body of a man was discovered on the path."
Renault said the centre's 500 staff had been offered counselling in the wake of Wednesday's tragedy.
A spokeswoman said Mr Millar was popular with his colleagues. She added: "We are all very sad and shocked. William was very well liked. He'll be greatly missed."
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95
Born 1930-01-30. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
Eugene Allen Hackman (January 30, 1930 – c. February 18, 2025) was an American actor. Considered one of the greatest actors of his generation and a paragon of the New Hollywood movement, Hackman's acting career spanned over four decades. He received several accolades, including two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards. Hackman was found dead along with his wife, Betsy Arakawa, and one of their three dogs, at their home in Santa Fe on February 26, 2025. He is presumed to have died of heart disease complicated by advanced Alzheimer's disease around February 18, about a week after Arakawa died from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. In 1990, Hackman underwent an angioplasty. In 2012, Hackman was struck by a pickup truck while he was cycling in the Florida Keys. It was initially reported that he had suffered serious head trauma; however, his publicist stated that his injury was nothing more than "bumps and bruises". Hackman attended an event in Santa Fe in late 2022. He was last seen in public in March 2024. After his death, autopsy reports revealed Hackman had Alzheimer's disease, which contributed to his death. Hackman's will, created in 1995, lists Arakawa as his sole inheritor; Arakawa's will states that if they die within 90 days of each other, the proceeds go to charity.
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.
90
Born 1927-05-30. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
Norman Eugene "Clint" Walker was an American actor and singer. He played cowboy Cheyenne Bodie in the ABC/Warner Bros. western series Cheyenne from 1955-63. Walker died of congestive heart failure in Grass Valley, California nine days before his 91st birthday.
87
Born 1930-06-07. Domain:Philosophy. Cause of death:Age
Gérard Genette was a French literary theorist, associated in particular with the structuralist movement and such figures as Roland Barthes and Claude Lévi-Strauss, from whom he adapted the concept of bricolage.
70
Born 1947-10-09. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Cancer
She was a French yé-yé singer. In 1965, aged 17, she won the Eurovision Song Contest. Between 1973 and 1992, she collaborated with singer-songwriter Michel Berger. A long-term breast cancer survivor, Gall died, aged 70, of an infection after a two-year battle with a cancer of undisclosed primary origin, at the American Hospital of Paris in Neuilly-sur-Seine.
82
Born 1934-03-14. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Age
He was an American astronaut, naval aviator, electrical engineer, aeronautical engineer, and fighter pilot. During the Apollo 17 mission, Cernan became the eleventh person to walk on the Moon. As he re-entered the Apollo Lunar Module after Harrison Schmitt on their third and final lunar excursion, he was the last person to walk on the Moon. Cernan died in a hospital in Houston on January 16, 2017, at the age of 82.
83
Born 1933-06-11. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
He was an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, singer-songwriter and author. Wilder died at the age of 83 at home in Stamford, Connecticut, from complications of Alzheimer's disease. He had kept knowledge of his condition private, but had been diagnosed three years prior to his death.
96
Born 1919-10-08. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
He was born André Antoine Marius Dugenet in the 14th arrondissement of Paris. He appeared in 66 films between 1940 and 2001. He is also known in France to be the dubbed voice of Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw and George Kennedy.
86
Born 1925-10-03. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Pneumonia
He was an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar (1948), outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality. Vidal was born Eugene Louis Vidal in West Point, New York, the only child of 1st Lieutenant Eugene Luther Vidal (1895–1969) and Nina Gore (1903–1978). The middle name, Louis, was a mistake on the part of his father, "who could not remember for certain whether his own name was Eugene Louis or Eugene Luther." As Vidal explained in his memoir Palimpsest (Deutsch, 1995), "... my birth certificate says 'Eugene Louis Vidal': this was changed to Eugene Luther Vidal, Jr.; then Gore was added at my christening; then at fourteen I got rid of the first two names."
32
Born 1980-00-00. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Murder
He was an American man who gained worldwide attention when he was fatally shot as he cannibalized the face of a homeless man, Ronald Poppo, while nude on a causeway in Miami, Florida. As a result of the incident's graphic nature and the subsequent media attention, Eugene came to be known as the "Miami Zombie". Eugene was arrested eight times when he was 16, with the first arrest being for an assault. Eugene encountered a homeless man, Ronald Poppo (born May 17, 1947), lying underneath an elevated Metromover railway and started to consume his face. The attack unfolded at the west end of the MacArthur Causeway, near The Miami Herald headquarters in the Omni neighborhood of Downtown Miami. It is believed that both Eugene and Poppo, who were naked at the time of the attack, were unknown to each other. A passing cyclist, Larry Vega, came across the incident and alerted authorities. A few minutes later, Miami Police Department officer Jose Rivera arrived and, after doing a double take at the spectacle, warned Eugene to desist from attacking Poppo. Eugene ignored Rivera's warnings and, instead, reportedly growled at the officer. The attack ended at 2:13 PM with Rivera shooting Eugene once, and then an additional four times. The ordeal had been captured by a security camera on The Miami Herald building. The surveillance video shows that the attack went on for 18 minutes before help arrived.
93
Born 1918-07-22. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Age
« La Dame Blanche de Saint-Germain-des-Prés » She was Michel Vaucaire's wife, the song writer of "non je ne regrette rien"
57
Born 1953-04-10. Domain:Other. Cause of death:Accident
He was an American guitarist, harmonica player and singer-songwriter, based in Houston, Texas. Kelton was killed when his SUV collided head-on with a school bus in Crosby, Texas, two days before he was due to perform on New Years Eve at Rooster's Steak House in Baytown, Texas.
90
Born 1919-06-14. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
In the 1973, Barry starred in the ITV television series The Adventurer, with Barry Morse and Catherine Schell. Also in the 1970s, Barry was cast as a murdering psychiatrist in the two-hour Columbo pilot episode.
80
Born 1925-12-15. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:cancer (throat)
In 1964, she landed a starring spot on Peyton Place as "Julie Anderson". She left the role in 1966 to replace Irene Vernon in the role of "Louise Tate" on the popular sitcom Bewitched in a same character, different actor situation.
After battling throat cancer for many years, Rogers went into cardiac arrest and suffered a severe stroke. She died of complications from the stroke.
41
Born 1962-05-24. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:AIDS
He was an American actor, dancer, and choreographer who is best known for his portrayal of the street smart dancer Leroy in the 1980 film Fame in addition to the television spin-off which aired from 1982 until 1987.
70
Born 1932-09-07. Domain:Society. Cause of death:alcohol, other drugs
He was a wealthy American-born British philanthropist and book collector. He was the son of Jean Paul Getty, Sr. (1892–1976), one of the richest men in the world at the time, and his wife Anne Rork. Paul Getty initially became reclusive after the death of his second wife in 1971. He moved to Rome as head of Getty Oil Italiana. In 1973, his eldest child and son, Paul III, was kidnapped in Rome by Calabrian mobsters and held in the Calabrian Mountains, chained to a stake in a cave. Getty did not have enough money to pay the $17 million ransom demand, and his father refused to help, saying "I have 14 other grandchildren, and if I pay one penny now, then I will have 14 kidnapped grandchildren." However, when one of his son's ears was delivered by mail to a newspaper in Rome (delivery had been delayed by three weeks because of a postal strike), his father finally agreed to help out with the ransom payment by making the ransom payment a loan to his son. In 1976, Paul Getty's father died. Getty's money came from a family trust and his grandmother. After his father's death, he was able to stop using drugs. Getty's daughter Aileen was married to Elizabeth Taylor's son, Christopher Wilding (son of actor Michael Wilding). Aileen recently married Bartolomeo Ruspoli (son of European playboy Dado Ruspoli and actress Debra Berger). Over the next decade Getty suffered from depression and, in 1984 in a final attempt to end his drug addiction, checked himself into a London clinic. Whilst there he received a visit from the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher to thank him for large donations to the National Gallery. She reportedly helped speed his recovery by telling him, "My dear Mr. Getty, we mustn't let things get us down, must we? We'll have you out of here as soon as possible." During a low period in the 1970s Getty had been cheered up by the former England cricketer and later President of the M.C.C., Gubby Allen, having previously been introduced to the game by Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones.
91
Born 1907-05-23. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Age
Geneviève Mathiot dite Ginette Mathiot, Officier de la Légion d'Honneur was a French food writer and home economist. Mathiot wrote over 30 books including the famous Je sais cuisiner which sold over 6 million copies; she also wrote the famous *Je sais faire la pâtisserie (The Art of French Baking), which has been updated and published by Phaidon in 2011. She never married and used traditional cooking methods to design cookbooks which the young wife caring for a young family could read and understand with ease. She is well known in France and her recipes are still used today by some of the most celebrated chefs, and millions of copies of her recipe books have been sold. She pursued a long career in education, first as a home economics teacher, and later as the Inspectrice générale de l'enseignement ménager de la Ville de Paris then finally as the Inspector General overseeing the teaching of Home Economics in France.
69
Born 1928-04-28. Domain:Science (Physics style). Cause of death:Accident
Eugene Merle (Gene) Shoemaker was an American geologist and one of the founders of the field of planetary science. He co-discovered Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 with his wife Carolyn S. Shoemaker and David H. Levy. This comet hit Jupiter in July 1994: the impact was televised around the world. Shoemaker also studied terrestrial craters, such as Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona, and along with Edward Chao provided the first conclusive evidence of its origin as an impact crater. He was also the first director of the United States Geological Survey's Astrogeology Research Program. He was killed in a car accident while visiting an impact crater site in Australia. After his death, some of his ashes were carried to the Moon with the Lunar Prospector mission.
83
Born 1912-08-23. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
Eugene Curran Kelly was an American actor, dancer, singer, filmmaker, and choreographer. He was known for his energetic and athletic dancing style, his good looks, and the likable characters that he played on screen. He starred in, choreographed, or co-directed some of the most well-regarded musical films of the 1940s and 1950s, until they fell out of fashion in the late 1950s. Kelly's health declined steadily in the late 1980s. In July 1994, he suffered a stroke and stayed in a hospital for seven weeks. In early 1995, he had another stroke in Beverly Hills. Kelly died at the age of 83. His body was cremated, without a funeral or memorial service.
58
Born 1936-11-18. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Hepathitis B
Don (Donald Eugene) Cherry was an innovative African-American jazz trumpeter whose career began with a long association with saxophonist Ornette Coleman, and who would go on to live and work with a wide variety of musicians in many parts of the world. Don Cherry was only 58 when he died in Málaga, Spain in 1995 due to liver failure brought about by hepatitis.
79
Born 1912-02-09. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Cancer
70
Born 1920-11-19. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Other
Emphysema. Buried in the Glenwood cimetery at Houston, Texas.
70
Born 1921-08-19. Domain:TV/Radio. Cause of death:Age
He was an American television screenwriter, producer, and futurist. He is best known for creating the original Star Trek television series and thus the Star Trek science fiction franchise. Following a September 1989 stroke at a family reunion in Tallahassee, Florida, Roddenberry's health declined, ultimately leaving him confined to a wheelchair by 1991. By the fourth season of The Next Generation, he seldom appeared at the show's offices. He died from cardiopulmonary arrest.
54
Born 1936-10-31. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:cancer (pancreas)
Charles Ingalls.
75
Born 1910-12-19. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:cancer (throat)
Genet's mother was a young prostitute who raised him for the first year of his life before putting him up for adoption.
His dates of birth and death coincidate with the last two appearing of the Halley comet.
64
Born 1909-01-15. Domain:Music. Cause of death:cancer (blood)
He was an American jazz and big band drummer, actor and composer, known for his highly energetic and flamboyant style. In 1943, Krupa was arrested for possession of two marijuana cigarettes and was given a three-month jail sentence which he served even though he was, soon after, acquitted of all charges and completely exonerated. Krupa died of leukemia and heart failure in Yonkers, New York, aged 64.