Deaths in May 1997

The following is a list of notable deaths in May 1997.

Contents
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← April	May	June →

Entries for each day are listed alphabetically by surname. A typical entry lists information in the following sequence:

• Name, age, country of citizenship at birth, subsequent country of citizenship (if applicable), reason for notability, cause of death (if known), and reference.

May 1997

1

• Elena Altieri, 80, Italian actress.
• Russell G. Cleary, 63, American brewer, complications from heart surgery.[1]
• Ernie Fields, 92, American trombonist, pianist, arranger and bandleader.
• Abe Poffenroth, 79, American football and baseball coach.
• Bo Widerberg, 66, Swedish actor and film director, stomach cancer.[2]

2

• Raymond Sarif Easmon, 84, Sierra Leonean doctor and writer.
• John Eccles, 94, Australian neurophysiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.[3]
• Paulo Freire, 75, Brazilian educator and philosopher, heart attack.[4]
• Sir Robin Kinahan, 80, Northern Irish politician and Orange Order member.[5]
• Werner Lott, 89, German U-boat commander during World War II.
• Ralph McCreath, 78, Canadian figure skater.
• Queen Mother Moore, 98, African-American civil rights leader and a black nationalist.[6]
• Keith R. Porter, 84, Canadian-American cell biologist, pneumonia.[7]
• Eugene Vale, 81, American novelist.[8]

3

• Bruce Beetham, 61, New Zealand academic and politician, heart failure.
• Gerrit den Braber, 68, Dutch songwriter and lyricist, stroke.[9]
• Sébastien Enjolras, 21, French racing driver, racing accident.
• Hughie Green, 77, English presenter, game show host and actor, cancer.[10]
• Sir John Junor, 78, British journalist and editor of the Daily Express.
• Louis, Prince Napoléon, 83, French member of the Bonaparte dynasty.
• Narciso Yepes, 69, Spanish guitarist, cancer.[11]

4

• Jerome Alden, 76, American playwright and screenwriter, kidney cancer.[12]
• Suhayr al-Qalamawi, 85, Egyptian literary figure and politician.
• Wijeyananda Dahanayake, 95, Sri Lankan politician.
• Esin Engin, 51, Turkish musician, composer, and film actor.
• Hilary Grivich, 19, American gymnast and diver, car accident.[13]
• Fernando Hernández, 52, Costa Rican footballer, cancer.
• Lee Miglin, 72, American business tycoon and philanthropist, murdered by serial killer Andrew Cunanan.[14]
• Alvy Moore, 75, American actor, heart failure.
• Lou Stathis, 44, American author, critic and editor, brain tumor.
• Gertrud Thausing, 91, Austrian egyptologist.

5

• Sir George Burns, 86, British Army officer.
• Carel Fourie, 46, South African rugby player.
• Walter Gotell, 73, German actor, cancer.
• Alan Gussow, 65, American artist, author and conservationist, cancer.[15]
• Murray Kempton, 79, American journalist and Pullitzer Prize winner.[16]
• David Scherman, 81, American photojournalist and editor, cancer.[17]

6

• Ridge Bond, 74, American actor and singer.
• Sydney Joseph Freedberg, 82, American art historian and curator.[18]
• Jorge Martínez de Hoyos, 76, Mexican actor, lung cancer.
• Günther Jerschke, 75, German actor.
• Wang You, 86, Chinese biochemist.

7

• John C. Ewers, 87, American ethnologist and museum curator.[19]
• Yip Hon, 93, Chinese gambling tycoon, heart attack.
• Fletcher Watson, American professor of science education.

8

• Ralph Wendell Burhoe, 85, American theologian.[20]
• Scott Carpenter, 22, American convicted murderer, execution by lethal injection.
• Art Hanes, 80, American politician and Klansman.
• Kai-Uwe von Hassel, 84, German politician.
• Pat Hughes, 94, English tennis player.
• Micheline Kerney Walsh, 77, Irish archivist and historian.[21]
• Sir Michael Shersby, 64, British politician.[22]
• Bob Whitcher, 80, American baseball player.

9

• Rawya Ateya, 71, Egyptian woman and first female parliamentarian in the Arab world.
• Bob Devaney, 82, American gridiron football coach, heart attack.[23]
• Marco Ferreri, 68, Italian film director, screenwriter and actor, heart attack.[24]
• Kazumi Kawai, 32, Japanese actress, suicide.
• Paul Zastupnevich, 75, American costume designer.

10

• Steve Holland (actor), 72, American actor.
• Jacinto Quincoces, 91, Spanish football player and manager.
• Silvano Tranquilli, 71, Italian actor.
• Joan Weston, 62, American Roller derby skater, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.[25]

11

• William Ragsdale Cannon, 81, American theologian and bishop of the United Methodist Church.[26]
• Genine Graham, 70, English actress.
• Dean M. Kelley, 70, American legal scholar, cancer.[27]
• Catherine McLeod, 75, American actress.[28]
• Howard Morton, 71, American actor, stroke.

12

• Sonny Avery, 82, English cricketer.
• Louis Barbarin, 94, New Orleans jazz drummer.[29]
• Avraham Stern, 61, Israeli administrator and politician.[30]
• Dimitris Vakrinos, 34/35, Greek serial killer, suicide by hanging.

13

• Laurie Lee, 82, English poet, novelist and screenwriter.[31]
• Myron Sharaf, 70, American writer and psychotherapist, heart attack.
• Zdeňka Veřmiřovská, 83, Czechoslovak/Czech gymnast and Olympian.

14

• Jambyn Batmönkh, 71, Mongolian communist politician.
• Mel Bay, 84, American musician and music publisher.
• Harry Blackstone Jr., 62, American magician and television performer, pancreatic cancer.[32]
• Thelma Carpenter, 75, American jazz singer and actress, cardiac arrest.[33]
• Samuel Hoyt Elbert, 89, American linguist.
• Alan Furlan, 77, Italian-American actor.
• Bessie Schonberg, 90, German-American dancer and choreographer.[34]
• Leo Yaffe, 80, Canadian nuclear chemistry scientist and pacifist.

15

• Oscar Berger, 96, American editorial cartoonist.
• David Martin, 89, American Republican Party politician, pneumonia.
• Margaret Peterson, 94/95, American abstract painter.
• Saadallah Wannous, Syrian playwright, cancer.[35]

16

• Donatien Mahele Lieko Bokungu, 56, Zairean general, execution by firing squad.
• Elbridge Durbrow, American diplomat[36]
• Bones McKinney, 78, American basketball player and coach.
• Giuseppe De Santis, 80, Italian film director, heart attack.
• Wang Zengqi, 77, Chinese writer.

17

• Chris Julian, 60, English motorcycle racer, gyrocopter accident.
• Durgabai Kamat, 97/98, first Indian female actress of Indian cinema
• Roscoe L. Koontz, 74, American health physicist.[37]
• Fuiono Senio, Western Samoan chief and environmentalist, cancer.

18

• Bridgette Andersen, 21, American actress.
• Horst Lippmann, 70, German concert promoter and jazz musician.[38]
• Paolo Panelli, 71, Italian comedian and film actor.
• Antonio Cornejo Polar, 60, Peruvian academic and literature and cultural critic.[39]
• Soenario, 94, Indonesian politician and Foreign Minister.

19

• Aaron Henry, 74, American civil rights leader and politician, congestive heart failure.][40]
• Sombhu Mitra, 81, Indian actor, director and playwright.
• Troy Ruttman, 67, American race car driver, lung cancer.[41]

20

• Don Parker, 88, British racing driver.
• Vasily Podshibyakin, 69, Soviet geologist.
• John Rawlins, 94, American film editor and director.[42]
• Wakafutase Tadayuki, 55, Japanese sumo wrestler.
• Virgilio Barco Vargas, 75, Colombian politician.[43]
• Gopal Yonzon, 53, Nepalese musician, complications of jaundice.

21

• William Aston, 80, Australian politician.
• Amasa Stone Bishop, American nuclear physicist, pneumonia.[44]
• Noël Browne, 81, Irish politician.
• Fiorenzo Carpi, 78, Italian composer and pianist.

22

• Myrtle Bachelder, 89, American chemist and Women's Army Corps officer.[45]
• Alziro Bergonzo, 90, Italian architect and painter.
• Klaus von Bismarck, 85, German broadcaster and cultural administrator.
• Donald Curtis, 82, American actor.
• Genildo Ferreira de França, Brazilian spree killer, suicide.[46]
• Jimmy Heale, 82, English footballer.
• Alfred Hershey, 88, American biochemist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.[47]
• Raúl Gómez Jattin, 51, Colombian poet.
• Arthur Milne, 82, Scottish football player.
• Renzo Montagnani, 66, Italian actor, lung cancer.
• Samuel DeWitt Proctor, 75, American minister, civil rights activist, and humanitarian, heart attack.[48]
• T. R. Ramanna, 74, Indian film director and producer.
• Robert D. Russ, 64, United States Air Force general and commander of the Tactical Air Command.
• Stanisław Swianiewicz, 97, Polish economist and historian.

23

• Alison Adburgham, 85, English fashion journalist and author.
• James Lee Byars, 65, American conceptual and performance artist, cancer.[49]
• Dorothy Gulliver, 88, American actress.
• Lovie Lee, 88, American electric blues pianist and singer.
• David M. Ludlum, 86, American historian, meteorologist, and author.[50]

24

• Kinpei Azusa, 66, Japanese voice actor, laryngeal cancer.
• Robbie Branscum, 62, American children's author, heart attack.[51]
• Alexandre Lippiani, 32, Brazilian actor, car accident.
• Edward Mulhare, 74, Irish actor, lung cancer.[52]
• Peter Rangmar, 40, Swedish actor, comedian and baritone, melanoma.

25

• Syd Bidwell, 80, British politician.[53]
• Jay Hebert, 74, American golfer.
• Joseph Hoffman, 88, American screenwriter.

26

• Manfred von Ardenne, 90, German physicist and inventor.
• Henry Barakat, Egyptian film director.
• Ernst Biehler, 93, German Wehrmacht general during World War II.
• Jenny Rosenthal Bramley, 87, Russian-American physicist.[54]
• Ralph Horween, 100, American football player and coach.[55]
• Bernard Jackson, 46, American football player and coach, liver cancer.
• Jack Jersey, 55, Dutch singer, composer, and producer of light music, cancer.[56]

27

• John F. Forrest, 69, United States Army officer and combat commander.
• Karl Martz, 84, American studio potter and ceramic artist.[57]
• Henry Barakat, 83, Egyptian film director.

28

• Lynn Archibald, 52, American college basketball coach.
• Sydney Guilaroff, 89, American Hollywood hairdresser, pneumonia.[58][59]
• Bernard-Claude Savy, 74, French physician and politician, cancer.
• John Sengstacke, 84, American newspaper publisher.[60]
• Tatyana Sumarokova, 74, Soviet flight navigator during World War II.
• Ronald Book, 60, American theoretical computer scientist.[61]

29

• Jeff Buckley, 30, American singer, songwriter and guitarist, accidental drowning.[62]
• George Fenneman, 77, American radio and television announcer, emphysema.[63]
• Alexander Kazhdan, 74, Soviet-American Byzantinist.[64]
• Jack Parkinson, 73, American basketball player, brain tumor.

30

• West Arkeen, 36, American musician and songwriter for Guns N' Roses, opiate overdose.[65]
• Béla Barényi, 90, Austro-Hungarian automotive engineer.
• Winsome Cripps, 66, Australian sprinter.

31

• Damião de Bozzano, 98, Italian Roman Catholic priest and missionary, stroke.
• Pat Collins, 62, American hypnotist.[66]
• James Bennett Griffin, 92, American archaeologist.
• Jewel Lafontant, 75, American lawyer and White House official, breast cancer.[67]
• Ove Ljung, 79, Swedish Army officer.[68]
• Günter Luther, 75, German admiral.
• Fazal Haq Mujahid, Afghanistan mujahideen during the Soviet–Afghan War, assassinated.
• Johnny Papalia, 73, Canadian mobster, shot.[69]

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