Deaths in December 2000
The following is a list of notable deaths in December 2000.
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.
December 2000
1
- Moses Abramovitz, 88, American economist.
- Robert V. Barron, 67, American TV and film director.
- Neal Creque, 60, American organist and jazz composer.
- Jack Hemingway, 77, Canadian-American fly fisherman, writer and son of novelist Ernest Hemingway.
- Elmer E. Rasmuson, 91, American banker, philanthropist and politician, heart failure.
- Terry Wilshusen, 51, American baseball player.
2
- Chris Antley, 34, American jockey (Racing Hall of Fame) (winner of Kentucky Derby 1991, 1999), drug overdose.
- Gail Fisher, 65, American actress (Mannix), renal failure.
- Rosemarie Frankland, 57, Welsh actress, model and beauty queen, drug overdose.
- Alfonso Barrantes Lingán, 73, Peruvian politician.
- Pete "El Conde" Rodríguez, 67, American salsa singer, heart attack.
- Theodore Ropp, 89, American historian.
- Kurt Schmid, 68, Swiss rower and Olympic medalist.
- Michael Schumann, 54, (East) German philosophy professor and politician, traffic accident.
- Daniel Singer, 74, Polish-American socialist writer and journalist, lung cancer.
- Emily Wilkens, 83, American fashion designer.
- Ray Young, 62, Australian politician.
- Bibiano Zapirain, 81, Uruguayan football player.
- Bian Zhilin, 89, Chinese poet and literature researcher.
3
- Gwendolyn Brooks, 83, American poet, cancer.
- Hoyt Curtin, 78, American composer and music producer.
- Peter Denton, 74, Australian pole vaulter and Olympian.
- Cletus Fischer, 75, American gridiron football player.
- Jun Fukuda, 77, Japanese film director, cancer.
- Bobby Kottarakkara, 48, Indian actor, heart attack.
- Red Nonnenkamp, 89, American baseball player.
- Hugh Edward Richardson, 94, British diplomat and Tibetologist.
- Miklós Szabó, 91, Hungarian middle-distance runner and Olympian.
4
- Henck Arron, 64, Suriname politician and Prime Minister, cardiac arrest.
- H. C. Artmann, 79, Austrian poet and writer, heart attack.
- Tito Arévalo, 89, Filipino actor and musician.
- Horia Bernea, 62, Romanian painter.
- Ram Bahadur Chettri, 63, Indian football player.
- Colin Cowdrey, 67, English cricket player.
- Vincent M. Fennelly, 80, American film and television producer.
- Gisela Kahn Gresser, 94, American chess player.
- Manuel Licea, 79, Cuban singer, diabetes.
- Joe Nanini, 45, American rock drummer, intracranial aneurysm.
5
- Ahmad Zaidi Adruce, 74, Malaysian governor.
- Ghulam Dastagir Alam, Pakistani theoretical physicist.
- Rupert Charles Barneby, 89, American botanist.
- Árpád Glatz, 61, Hungarian basketball player.
- Matthew Lukwiya, 43, Ugandan physician, ebola virus disease.
- O. W. Wolters, 85, British academic, historian and author.
6
- Thomas Babe, 59, American playwright, lung cancer.
- Daniel Hittle, 50, American serial killer and mass murderer, execution by lethal injection.
- Enrique Anderson Imbert, 90, Argentine novelist and short-story writer.
- Werner Klemperer, 80, German actor, singer and musician, cancer.
- Chrystabel Leighton-Porter, 87, British model.
- Aziz Mian, 58, Pakistani qawwali, complications of hepatitis.
- Umasashi, 85, Indian Bengali film actress.
- Svetozar Vukmanović, 88, Yugosla and Montenegrin communist politician.
7
- Toby Low, 1st Baron Aldington, 86, British politician.
- Edward Castro, 50, American convicted murderer, execution by lethal injection.
- Vlado Gotovac, 70, Croatian poet and politician, liver cancer.
- Levi Jackson, 74, American football player, first African-American to captain Yale University.
- Leszek Podhorodecki, Polish historian.
8
- Gary Bergman, 62, Canadian ice hockey player.
- Ann T. Bowling, 57, American geneticist, stroke.
- Julian C. Dixon, 66, American politician, heart attack.
- Ionatana Ionatana, 62, Prime Minister of Tuvalu (1999 – 2000), heart attack.
- Charles Issawi, 84, Egyptian-American economist and historian.
- Marvin Leath, 69, American politician.
- Milić od Mačve, 66, Serbian painter and artist.
- Lionel Rogosin, 76, American filmmaker.
- Neil Staebler, 95, American politician, Alzheimer's disease.
9
- Eugenio Galvalisi, 85, Uruguayan football player.
- John Hock, 72, American football player, lung cancer.
- Marina Koshetz, 88, American opera singer and actress.
- Tyrone McGriff, 42, American football player, heart attack.
- Sachindra Lal Singh, 93, Indian politician, Chief Minister of Tripura.
- Billie Yorke, 89, British tennis player.
10
- Paul Avery, 66, American journalist, pulmonary emphysema.
- Jack Cowan, 73, Canadian football player.
- Dick Healey, 77, Australian politician and sports broadcaster.
- Marius B. Jansen, 78, American academic and historian.
- James T. McHugh, 68, American Roman Catholic prelate.
- Andreas Mouratis, 74, Greek football player.
- Tony Mulvihill, 83, Australian politician.
- Willard Nixon, 72, American baseball player.
- Teresa Sterne, 73, American concert pianist and record producer, Lou Gehrig’s disease.
- Marie Windsor, 80, American actress.
- José Águas, 70, Portuguese football player.
11
- Pauline Curley, 96, American vaudeville and silent film actress, pneumonia.
- Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah, 85, Pakistani politician, diplomat and author.
- David Lewis, 84, American actor.
- Jack Liebowitz, 100, American book publisher (DC Comics).
- N. Richard Nash, 87, American dramatist.
- Johannes Virolainen, 86, Finnish politician.
- René Wheeler, 88, French screenwriter and film director.
12
- Red Barkley, 88, American baseball player.
- Götz Friedrich, 70, German opera and theatre director.
- Knud W. Jensen, 84, Danish businessman and art collector.
- Rosa King, 61, American jazz and blues musician.
- Dorothy Kirby, 80, American golfer.
- Libertad Lamarque, 92, Argentine-Mexican actress and singer, pneumonia.
- George Montgomery, 84, American actor, heart attack.
- J. H. Patel, 70, Indian politician and Chief Minister of Karnataka.
- Jimmy Scarth, 74, English football player.
- Ndabaningi Sithole, 80, Zimbabwean politician and rival of Robert Mugabe.
13
- Pierre Demargne, 97, French historian and archaeologist.
- Aharon Harel, 68, Israeli politician.
- Jake Jones, 80, American baseball player.
- Erhard Krack, 69, German politician and mayor of East Berlin.
- Chen Zhen, 45, Chinese-French conceptual artist, cancer.
14
- Enoch Dumbutshena, 80, Zimbabwean judge, liver cancer.
- Allan Howe, 73, American politician.
- Roger Judrin, 91, French writer and literary critic.
- Myroslav Ivan Lubachivsky, 82, Ukrainian Catholic bishop.
- John Mahnken, 78, American basketball player.
- Pavel Plotnikov, 80, Soviet air force general.
- Uldis Pūcītis, 63, Latvian actor, scriptwriter and film director, pulmonary embolism.
- Princess Marie Alexandra of Schleswig-Holstein, 73, German noble.
- Al Vincent, 93, American baseball player, manager, coach and scout.
15
- George Alcock, 88, English astronomer.
- Z. W. Birnbaum, 97, Polish-American mathematician and statistician.
- Jozef Boons, 57, Belgian racing cyclist, traffic accident.
- Haris Brkić, 26, Yugoslav basketball player, shot.
- Bubba Floyd, 83, American baseball player.
- Inigo Gallo, 68, Swiss comedian, radio personality, and actor, liver cancer.
- Gour Kishore Ghosh, 77, Bengali writer and journalist.
- Jacques Goddet, 95, French sports journalist and director of the Tour de France.
- Chiang Peng-chien, 60, Taiwanese politician, pancreatic cancer.
16
- Saad Dahlab, Algerian politician.
- Blue Demon, 78, Mexican masked wrestler and actor, myocardial infarction.
- Heinz Maier-Leibnitz, 89, German physicist.
- Alain-Philippe Malagnac, 49, French actor, smoke inhalation.
- Victor Owusu, 76, Ghanaian politician and lawyer.
- Hugh W. Pinnock, 66, American Mormon leader, pulmonary fibrosis.
- Chuck Pratt, 61, American rock climber, heart attack.
- Theo Saevecke, 89, Nazi German SS officer and holocaust perpetrator.
17
- Gerald Aylmer, 74, British historian.
- Peter Barrett, 65, American sailor and Olympic champion.
- Gérard Blain, 70, French actor and film director, cancer.
- Harold Rhodes, 89, American music inventor, pneumonia.
- Erich Schmid, 93, Swiss conductor.
18
- Paddy Barry, 72, Irish hurler.
- Hal Call, 83, American LGBT rights activist, and U.S. Army veteran, congestive heart failure.
- Harry DeWolf, 97, Canadian naval officer during World War II.
- Lajos Dunai, 58, Hungarian football player.
- Stan Fox, 48, American race car driver, traffic collision.
- Randolph Apperson Hearst, 85, American newspaper publisher (Hearst Corporation).
- Norman Humphries, 83, English cricket player.
- Kirsty MacColl, 41, British singer-songwriter, accidental death.
- Madhavapeddi Satyam, 78, Indian actor and singer.
- Giorgio Saviane, 84, Italian author.
- Nick Stewart, 90, American television and film actor.
19
- Pierre Allain, 96, French alpinist.
- Mahmud Baksi, 56, Kurdish writer and journalist, kidney failure.
- Reginald Bennett, 89, English politician, psychiatrist and painter.
- Rob Buck, 42, American musician (10,000 Maniacs), liver disease.
- Michel Dens, 89, French baritone.
- György Györffy, 83, Hungarian historian.
- Milt Hinton, 90, American double bassist and photographer.
- John Lindsay, 79, 103rd Mayor of New York City, Parkinson's disease.
- William L. Moran, 79, American assyriologist.
- Lou Polli, 99, Italian-American baseball player.
- Son Sann, 89, Cambodian politician and resistance leader.
- Pops Staples, 85, patriarch of The Staple Singers, fall.
- Laurence Whistler, 88, British poet and artist.
20
- Bill Clarke, 68, Canadian football player, Parkinson's disease.
- Mirza Ghulam Hafiz, 80, Bangladeshi statesman, politician, and philanthropist.
- Richard Hazard, 79, American television composer, conductor and songwriter, cancer.
- Adrian Henri, 68, British poet and painter (Liverpool Poets).
- Patriarch Diodoros of Jerusalem, 77, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem (1980-2000), diabetes.
- Syed Abdul Malik, 81, Indian Assamese writer.
- Alexander Ramsay of Mar, 80, British aristocrat.
21
- Rober Eryol, 70, Turkish football player.
- Alfred J. Gross, 82, American inventor and a pioneer in mobile wireless communication.
- Florynce Kennedy, 84, American lawyer, feminist, civil rights advocate, and activist.
- John Lee, 72, Australian actor.
- Edward Miller, 85, British historian (Master of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge).
- Stephen A. Mitchell, 54, American clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst.
- Gord Reay, 57, Canadian Army officer, road accident.
- Derek Trevis, 58, English football player.
- Renaat Van Elslande, 84, Belgian politician.
22
- Lianella Carell, 73, Italian film actress and screenwriter.
- Giuseppe Colnago, 77, Italian Grand Prix motorcycle road racer.
- Herman Feshbach, 83, American physicist.
- Vytautas Kulakauskas, 80, Lithuanian basketball player, and coach.
- Stuart Lancaster, 80, American actor.
- Connie McCready, 79, American journalist and politician, complications from a stroke.
- Allan Smethurst, 73, English folk singer, heart attack.
23
- Wilfred Arthur, 81, Australian fighter ace of the RAAF during World War II.
- Larry Baker, 63, American gridiron football player.
- Billy Barty, 76, American actor (Willow, Legend, Masters of the Universe), heart failure.
- Susan Berman, 55, American journalist and author, homicide.
- Victor Borge, 91, Danish-American comedian and pianist.
- Vinal G. Good, 94, American politician and lawyer from Maine.
- Aage Haugland, 56, Danish operatic bass, cancer.
- Noor Jehan, 74, Pakistani actress and singer, heart failure.
- Louis Leprince-Ringuet, 99, French physicist, essayist and historian of science.
- Jimmy Shand, 92, Scottish musician.
24
- Horace Barker, 93, American biochemist and microbiologist.
- John Cooper, 77, British automobile designer (Cooper Car Company).
- Sadek Hilal, 70, Egyptian-American radiologist.
- Seo Jeong-ju, 85, Korean poet and academic.
- Sadik Kaceli, 86, Albanian artist.
- Nick Massi, 73, bass singer and bass guitarist for The Four Seasons, cancer.
- Helena Pajović, 21, Serb figure skater, traffic collision.
- Dan Turk, 38, American football player (Pittsburgh Steelers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Oakland Raiders), testicular cancer.
- Howard Yerges, 75, American gridiron football player.
- Laurence Chisholm Young, 95, American mathematician.
25
- Truus Baumeister, 93, Dutch freestyle swimmer and Olympian.
- Décio Esteves, 73, Brazilian football player and coach.
- George Feigenbaum, 71, American basketball player.
- Robert Francis Garner, 80, American Roman Catholic prelate.
- Joe Gilliam, 49, American gridiron football player (Pittsburgh Steelers), cocaine overdose.
- Dheerendra Gopal, 60, Indian film and stage actor, jaundice attack.
- Neil Hawke, 61, Australian cricket player.
- Willard Van Orman Quine, 92, American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition.
- Sam Savitt, 83, American equine artist, author, and book illustrator.
- Vibhuti Narayan Singh, 73, Indian sanskrit scholar and maharaja of Benares.
- Peter W. Staub, 90, Swish actor and singer.
- Ignacy Tłoczyński, 89, Polish tennis player and coach.
26
- John Coatta, 71, American football player and coach.
- José Hernández Delgadillo, 73, Mexican painter and muralist.
- Mirra Ginsburg, 91, Russian-American translator of Russian literature and children's writer.
- Leo Gordon, 78, American character actor, cardiac failure.
- Alan Harris, 84, British engineer.
- Walter Hayes, British journalist and business executive, lung cancer.
- Magik, 22, Polish rapper, suicide by jumping.
- John McLeay, Jr., 78, Australian politician.
- Herman Nickerson Jr., 87, United States Marine Corps lieutenant general.
- Jason Robards, 78, American actor (All the President's Men, Julia, Once Upon a Time in the West), Oscar winner (1977, 1978), lung cancer.
- Gust Zarnas, 87, American gridiron football player.
27
- William Hanes Ayres, 84, American politician, heart and kidney ailments.
- Marc Boileau, 68, Canadian ice hockey coach and player.
- Walter Stanley Keane, 85, American plagiarist.
- Jack McVea, 86, American woodwind player and bandleader.
- Francis Sumner Merritt, 87, American painter, and art teacher.
- Roy Partee, 83, American baseball player.
28
- Eduard Adorno, 80, German politician and member of the Bundestag.
- Aminuddin Dagar, 77, Indian Dhrupad singer.
- Sergey Grishchenko, 53, Soviet alpine skier and Olympian.
- Arnold Hutschnecker, 102, Austrian-American medical doctor.
- William X. Kienzle, 72, American priest and author (The Rosary Murders, Death Wears a Red Hat), heart attack.
29
- Renata Carraretto, 77, Italian alpine skier and Olympian.
- Herbert Halpert, 89, American anthropologist and folklorist.
- Jacques Laurent, 81, French writer and journalist, suicide.
- Woodley Lewis, 75, American football player, heart and kidney problems.
30
- Tom Blohm, 80, Norwegian football player.
- James C. Corman, 80, American politician (U.S. Representative for California's 21st and 22nd congressional districts).
- Julius J. Epstein, 91, American screenwriter (Casablanca, Arsenic and Old Lace, Reuben, Reuben), Oscar winner (1944).
- John Hardon, 86, American Jesuit priest, writer, and theologian.
- Lionel Hebert, 72, American professional golfer.
- Rudolf Schnyder, 71, Swiss sport shooter and Olympic silver medalist.
- Walter Tomsen, 88, American sport shooter and Olympic silver medalist.
- Isakas Vistaneckis, 90, Lithuanian chess player.
- Bohdan Warchal, 70, Slovak violinist.
31
- Alan Cranston, 86, American politician, U.S. Senator from California (1969-1993).
- Sebastian de Grazia, 83, American philosopher.
- Louis-René des Forêts, 82, French writer.
- Harry Dorish, 79, American baseball player (Boston Red Sox, St. Louis Browns, Chicago White Sox, Baltimore Orioles).
- Wayne Glasgow, 74, American basketball player.
- José Greco, 82, Italian-American flamenco dancer and choreographer.
- Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane, 34, Israeli rabbi and settler, shot.
- Anne Macnaghten, 92, British violinist.
- Tanaquil Le Clercq, 71, French ballet dancer (New York City Ballet), pneumonia.
- Kenneth Lee Pike, 88, American linguist and anthropologist.
- Bekzat Sattarkhanov, 20, Kazakh boxer and Olympian, traffic collision.
- Edna Savage, 64, British pop singer.
- Eddy Shaver, 38, American country-rock musician, heroin overdose.
- V. V. K. Valath, 82, Indian writer, poet, and historian of Malayalam language.