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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.
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.
78
Born 1946-12-29. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Age
Marianne Evelyn Gabriel Faithfull was an English singer and actress who achieved popularity in the 1960s with the release of her UK top 10 single "As Tears Go By". She became one of the leading female artists of the British Invasion in the United States. On 4 April 2020, it was announced that Faithfull was hospitalised in London for pneumonia following a positive COVID-19 test. Her management company reported that she was "stable and responding to treatment." On 21 April, following a three-week stay, she was discharged from the hospitalisation. In a brief statement, she publicly thanked the hospital staff for, "without a doubt," saving her life. She initially thought she would be unable to sing again after the effects of the coronavirus on her lungs, and she continued to suffer memory loss because of it. She worked on her breathing and undertook singing practice as a part of her recovery. Faithfull died in London at the age of 78
79
Born 1945-09-07. Domain:Society. Cause of death:Pneumonia
Jocelyn Alice Wildenstein (née Jocelyne Périsset; 1940 or 7 September 1945 – 31 December 2024) was a Swiss socialite known for her extensive cosmetic surgery, which created a cat-like facial appearance; her 1999 high-profile divorce from billionaire art dealer and businessman Alec Wildenstein; and her extravagant lifestyle and subsequent bankruptcy filing. Jocelyn Wildenstein died from a pulmonary embolism at a hotel in Paris.
82
Born 1942-05-10. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:Age
Pascal Lainé was a French academic, novelist and writer. He was born in Anet, Eure-et-Loir. He was awarded both the Prix Médicis (1971 for l'Irrévolution) and the Goncourt (1974 for La Dentellière), Pascal Lainé has published over 20 novels and has written for television, theatre, and film.
91
Born 1933-03-14. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Age
Quincy Delight Jones Jr. was an American record producer, composer, arranger, conductor, trumpeter, and bandleader. Over the course of his seven-decade career, he received many accolades including 28 Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Tony Award as well as nominations for seven Academy Awards and four Golden Globe Awards.
68
Born 1956-04-08. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
Christine Boisson was a French actress. Boisson died from lung disease at a care home in Paris.
88
Born 1935-12-11. Domain:Science (Math style). Cause of death:Age
Neil R. Grabois was an American mathematician and university administrator. He held positions as the dean, provost, and chair of the department of mathematical sciences of Williams College; as the thirteenth President of Colgate University, from 1988 to 1999; as Vice President at the Carnegie Corporation in New York; and as the dean of the Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy at The New School, where he served from 2010 until his departure in 2013. He died in his sleep.
82
Born 1941-09-22. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Age
Catherine Ribeiro was a French singer. Ribeiro was an experimental folk and avant-garde performer whose work has attained a cult following. With her band Catherine Ribeiro + Alpes, she released several albums in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including Catherine Ribeiro & 2Bis in 1969, No.2 in 1970, and Paix in 1972. From the late 1970s, Ribeiro also released music as a solo artist. Public figures who have expressed appreciation for her work include the musicians Kim Gordon and Julian Cope, as well as the French mathematician Cédric Villani. Ribeiro died at the age of 82.
80
Born 1944-01-17. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Cancer
Françoise Madeleine Hardy was a French singer-songwriter who was known for singing melancholic, sentimental ballads. Hardy rose to prominence in the early 1960s as a leading figure in French yé-yé music and became a cultural icon in France and internationally. In addition to her native French, she also sang in English, Italian, and German. Her musical career spanned more than 50 years, with over 30 studio albums released. She almost never performed on scene.
53
Born 1970-11-07. Domain:Directing. Cause of death:Cancer
Morgan Valentine Spurlock was an American documentary filmmaker, writer, and television producer. He directed 23 films and was the producer of nearly 70 films throughout his career. Spurlock received acclaim for directing the documentary Super Size Me (2004), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film.[4] He produced What Would Jesus Buy? (2007) and directed Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden? (2008), POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (2011), Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope (2011), and One Direction: This Is Us (2013). Spurlock died from complications of cancer.
101
Born 1922-08-22. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Age
Micheline Presle (French pronunciation: [miʃlin pʁɛːl]; born Micheline Nicole Julia Émilienne Chassagne) was a French actress. She was sometimes billed as Micheline Prelle. Starting her career in 1937, she starred or appeared in over 150 films appearing first in productions in her native France and also in Hollywood during the era of Classical Hollywood Cinema, before returning again to Europe, especially French films from the mid-1960s until 2014.
65
Born 1957-12-25. Domain:Music. Cause of death:alcohol, other drugs
Shane Patrick Lysaght MacGowan was a British-born Irish singer-songwriter and musician best known as the lead vocalist and primary lyricist of Celtic punk band the Pogues. He also produced solo material and collaborated with artists including Joe Strummer, Nick Cave, Steve Earle, Sinéad O'Connor, Ronnie Drew, and Cruachan. Frequently noted for his exceptional songwriting ability as well as his heavy alcohol and drug use, MacGowan was described by The New York Times as "a titanically destructive personality and a master songsmith whose lyrics painted vivid portraits of the underbelly of Irish immigrant life". MacGowan was long known for having very bad teeth. He lost the last of his natural teeth sometime around 2008. In 2015, he had a new set of teeth—including one gold tooth—fitted in a nine-hour procedure. The new set of teeth was secured by eight titanium implants in his jaws. The procedure was the subject of the hour-long television programme Shane MacGowan: A Wreck Reborn. It was reported in July 2023 that MacGowan was hospitalised in an intensive care unit. Following treatment for an infection, he was discharged from St. Vincent's University Hospital in November 2023. On 30 November 2023, after receiving last rites, MacGowan died from pneumonia at his home in Dublin with his wife by his side; he was 65.
50
Born 1973-03-09. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Cancer (lung)
Rona Hartner was a German-Romanian actress, painter and singer who was born in Bucharest. As an actress, she was best known for her role in Tony Gatlif's film Gadjo dilo. Hartner focused on her music career, specializing in Gypsy music. After a battle with lung and brain cancer, she died in Toulon at the age of 50. She had lived in France for over two decades at the time of her death.
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.
56
Born 1966-12-08. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Suicide
Shuhada' Sadaqat (born Sinead Marie Bernadette O'Connor), known professionally as Sinéad O'Connor, was an Irish singer, songwriter and political activist. Her debut studio album, The Lion and the Cobra, was released in 1987 and charted internationally. Her 1990 album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, was her biggest success, selling more than seven million copies worldwide. Its lead single, "Nothing Compares 2 U", was named the year's top world single at the Billboard Music Awards. O'Connor had chart success with Am I Not Your Girl? (1992) and Universal Mother (1994), both certified gold in the UK, Faith and Courage (2000) certified gold in Australia, and Throw Down Your Arms (2005) went gold in Ireland. Her career included songs for films, collaborations with many other artists and appearances at charity fundraising concerts. O'Connor's 2021 memoir, Rememberings, was a bestseller. On 26 July 2023, O'Connor was found unresponsive at her flat in Herne Hill, South London, and later confirmed dead at the age of 56. Her family issued a statement later the same day, without indicating the cause of her death. The following day, the Metropolitan Police reported that O'Connor's death was not being treated as suspicious. On 28 July, the coroner in London said that the date of her death was still unknown.
96
Born 1926-08-03. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Age
Anthony Dominick Benedetto, known professionally as Tony Bennett, was an American jazz and traditional pop singer. He received many accolades, including 20 Grammy Awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award, and two Primetime Emmy Awards. Bennett was named an NEA Jazz Master and a Kennedy Center Honoree and founded the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Astoria, Queens, New York. He sold more than 50 million records worldwide and earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
76
Born 1946-12-14. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Age
Jane Mallory Birkin OBE was a British and French actress and singer. She attained international fame and notability for her decade-long musical and romantic partnership with Serge Gainsbourg. She also had a prolific career as an actress, mostly in French cinema. In 2002, she was diagnosed with leukaemia and underwent rounds of treatment. Birkin often spent time with her grandchildren. Her daughter, Kate Barry, died in December 2013 after falling from a fourth floor apartment in Paris. On 6 September 2021, it was reported that Birkin was doing well after having a stroke. On 16 July 2023, Birkin was found dead at home in Paris. She was 76. No cause of death was given. The premier of the documentary Jane by Charlotte, about Birkin's relationship with her daughter Charlotte, on 8 July 2021, was one of her last public appearances.
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.
89
Born 1933-08-18. Domain:Sport. Cause of death:Age
Just Louis Fontaine (French pronunciation: [ʒyst lwi fɔ̃tɛn]) was a French professional footballer. A forward, he scored the most goals in a single edition of the FIFA World Cup, with thirteen in six matches in 1958. In March 2004, Pelé named him one of the 125 Greatest Living Footballers at a FIFA Awards Ceremony.
95
Born 1927-04-16. Domain:Religious. Cause of death:Age
Pope Benedict XVI (Latin: Benedictus XVI; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 19 April 2005 until his resignation on 28 February 2013. Benedict's election as pope occurred in the 2005 papal conclave that followed the death of Pope John Paul II. Benedict chose to be known as "Pope emeritus" upon his resignation, and he retained this title until his death in 2022.
81
Born 1941-04-08. Domain:Art. Cause of death:Age
Dame Vivienne Isabel Westwood DBE RDI (née Swire) was an English fashion designer and businesswoman, largely responsible for bringing modern punk and new wave fashions into the mainstream. Westwood came to public notice when she made clothes for the boutique that she and Malcolm McLaren ran on King's Road, which became known as SEX. Their ability to synthesise clothing and music shaped the 1970s UK punk scene, which was dominated by McLaren's band, the Sex Pistols. She viewed punk as a way of "seeing if one could put a spoke in the system". Westwood opened four shops in London and eventually expanded throughout Britain and the world, selling an increasingly varied range of merchandise, some of which promoted her many political causes such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, climate change and civil rights groups.
87
Born 1935-09-29. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:Cancer
Mylène Demongeot (born Marie-Hélène Demongeot) was a French film, television and theatre actress and author with a career spanning seven decades and more than 100 credits in French, Italian, English and Japanese speaking productions. Demongeot became a star at age 21 with her portrayal of Abigail Williams in The Crucible (1957) which garnered her a BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles nomination and the best actress prize at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Some other notable film roles include Elsa in Otto Preminger's Bonjour Tristesse (1958) alongside Deborah Kerr and David Niven or Milady de Winter in The Three Musketeers (1961). A "veteran of cinema" who started as one of the blond sex symbols of the 1950s and 1960s, she managed to avoid typecasting by exploring many film genres including thrillers, westerns, comedies, swashbucklers, period films and even pepla, such as Romulus and the Sabines (1961) opposite Roger Moore or Gold for the Caesars (1963). Demongeot also has a cult following based on the Fantomas trilogy, as Hélène Gurn opposite Louis de Funès and Jean Marais: Fantômas (1964), Fantômas Unleashed (1965) and Fantômas Against Scotland Yard (1967). Thirty years later, she starred again in another one of France's most successful comedy trilogies as Madame Pic in Fabien Onteniente's Camping (2006), Camping 2 (2010) and Camping 3 (2016). She was twice nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the César Awards for 36 Quai des Orfèvres (2004) and French California (2006). In 2017, she was made Knight of the Légion d'Honneur by ethologist and neurologist Boris Cyrulnik and Commander of the Ordre des Arts et de Lettres in 2007 under the French Republic She remained popular until her passing from peritoneal cancer as she was starring in Thomas Gilou's film Maison de retraite (2022) alongside Gérard Depardieu, one of the biggest box office hits of 2022 in France. Through an Élysée Palace official tribune, President Emmanuel Macron paid a long tribute to her which included : "we salute the career of a great figure in the French Seventh Art, who knew how to shine in all its genres to move all French people".
63
Born 1959-03-18. Domain:Music. Cause of death:Unknown
Irene Cara Escalera was an American singer, songwriter and actress of black, Puerto Rican, and Cuban descent. Cara rose to prominence for her role as Coco Hernandez in the 1980 musical film Fame, and for recording the film's title song "Fame", which reached No. 1 in several countries. In 1983, Cara sang and co-wrote the song "Flashdance... What a Feeling" (from the film Flashdance), for which she shared an Academy Award for Best Original Song and won a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1984. Prior to her success with Fame, Cara portrayed the title character Sparkle Williams in the original 1976 musical drama film Sparkle. Cara died at her home in Largo, Florida at the age of 63. As of November 26, 2022, the cause of her death is unknown.
85
Born 1937-03-02. Domain:Journalism. Cause of death:Age
Martine Allain-Regnault was a French scientific journalist and television presenter.
92
Born 1929-12-06. Domain:Directing. Cause of death:Age
Alain Tanner was a Swiss film director.
53
Born 1969-05-25. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:alcohol, other drugs
Anne Celeste Heche was an American actress who came to recognition portraying twins Vicky Hudson and Marley Love on the soap opera Another World (1987–1991), winning her a Daytime Emmy Award and two Soap Opera Digest Awards. She achieved greater prominence in the late 1990s with roles in the crime drama film Donnie Brasco (1997), the disaster film Volcano (1997), the slasher film I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), the action comedy film Six Days, Seven Nights (1998), and the drama-thriller film Return to Paradise (1998).
On August 5, 2022, Heche was involved in a sequence of two car crashes in the Mar Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles, first when the Mini Cooper she was driving hit a garage at an apartment complex, and second when she crashed into a house, resulting in a fire that left her severely burned. A video recorded in the moments before the final crash shows Heche's vehicle navigating a neighborhood street at a very high speed, followed a few seconds later by the sound of a crash. The vehicle collision and resulting house fire required 59 firefighters to handle, who took 65 minutes to fully extinguish the fire and rescue Heche from the vehicle. The house was left structurally compromised and uninhabitable. The tenant of the house sustained minor injuries, but said that she and her pets were almost killed and that she had lost all of her personal property to the fire.
Law enforcement officials said that Heche was "deemed to be under the influence and acting erratically" at the time of the crashes. The Los Angeles Police Department said that a preliminary blood analysis confirmed the presence of narcotics in Heche's system, although more comprehensive toxicology tests that could take weeks are required to identify specific drugs.
Heche was removed from the crash scene on a stretcher, and was transported to a hospital. She was filmed sitting up on the stretcher and struggling with paramedics as she was being wheeled into the ambulance; however, she lost consciousness soon afterward. On August 8, a representative for Heche said she was in a coma in extremely critical condition, with medical ventilation required for a pulmonary injury. On August 11, the representative said that Heche was not expected to survive due to an anoxic brain injury, and that she was being kept on life support to determine if her organs were viable for donation, in accordance with her expressed wish to be an organ donor. Heche was declared brain dead a few hours later on August 11, but remained on life support to assess organ donor viability and locate recipients. Her family released a statement saying they "lost a bright light, a kind and most joyful soul".
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.
53
Born 1968-11-29. Domain:Performing. Cause of death:AIDS
Charlotte Valandrey was a French actress and author. After early success she was widely tipped for stardom, but her career took a more modest course until the release of her autobiography in 2005. After being revealed, at the age of sixteen, by the film Red Kiss, she lives alone in a studio that her parents bought for her. Carefree and uninformed about the dangers involved, she had affairs with “a drug-addicted musician, and other boys at risk”. In 1986, a few days before her eighteenth birthday, she learned that she was HIV-positive. In 1999, she met Arthur Lecaisne with whom she married on 17 July 1999 at Pléneuf-Val-André. At the beginning of 2000, they had a daughter, Tara who is HIV-negative. While separating from Arthur in 2002 and following a triple therapy which damaged her heart and caused her two heart attacks, her heart broke down, necrotic, and left her with only 10% heart capacity. On 4 November 2003, she received a transplant. In her book L'Amour dans le sang (published in 2005), she recounts her other love stories, with her cardiologist or Yann, an architect whom she intimately believes to be the husband of her late donor. In March 2007, after selling over 280,000 copies of her book, Charlotte gave approval for its adaptation in the TV movie, L'Amour dans le sang. Produced by Dominique Besnehard for Mon Voisin Productions, it was first broadcast on 23 November 2008 on France 3. On 8 June 2022, she announced that she was waiting for a second heart transplant because of new health problems. She received it on 14 June at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital but the transplant did not take. Charlotte Valandrey died on 13 July 2022, at the age of 53. Charlotte was a patron of the Greffe de vie ("Foundation of Life Registry") and was committed to the cause of organ donation and transplantation.
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.