Departures

June Allyson, 88, July 8-sunny, raspy-voiced actress who played the "perfect wife" of James Stewart, Van Johnson, and other movie heroes in 1940s and '50s films (including The Bride Goes Wild, The Stratton Story, and The Glenn Miller Story).

Robert Altman, 81, Nov. 20-iconoclastic Oscar-winning movie director best known for his 1970s films, including M.A.S.H.

Ken Anderson, 88, March 12-Gospel Films founder and maker of more than 200 films with Christian themes; his 1977 film Pilgrim's Progress featured Liam Neeson in his first screen role.

James E. Andrews, 77, March 7-minister and top executive of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for 23 years who had a key role in its creation in 1983 from two Presbyterian denominations separated since the Civil War.

R.W. Apple Jr., 71, Oct. 4-New York Times writer and editor who charted the fall of Richard Nixon and covered 10 presidential elections and wars from Vietnam to the Persian Gulf, while writing about good food and wine on the side.

Lillian Gertrud Asplund, 99, May 6-last American survivor of the Titanic.

Arnold "Red" Auerbach, 89, Oct. 28-one of the greatest basketball coaches in NBA history, who led the Boston Celtics to nine championships.

Joe Barbera, 95, Dec. 18-half of the Hanna-Barbera animation team that produced such beloved cartoons as Tom and Jerry, Yogi Bear, and The Flintstones.

Peter Benchley, 65, Feb. 12-novelist who authored Jaws (1974), the bestseller about a great white shark that preyed on a New England coastal town.

Lloyd Bentsen, 85, May 23-pro-business Democrat who served in Congress for 28 years and as President Clinton's treasury secretary, and who as vice presidential nominee in 1988 famously told rival Dan Quayle he was "no Jack Kennedy."

Pieter Willem Botha, 90, Oct. 31-South African leader who tried to preserve apartheid, finally resigning as president in 1989.

Ed Bradley, 65, Nov. 9-award-winning television journalist who broke racial barriers at CBS News and created an impressive body of work during his 26 years on 60 Minutes.

William Lee Brent, 75, Nov. 4-Black Panther who hijacked a passenger jet to communist Cuba in 1969 and spent 37 years in exile.

Ruth Brown, 78, Nov. 17-soulful singer and actress whose dozens of 1950 R&B hits included "Teardrops from My Eyes," "5-10-15 Hours," and "(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean."

Susan Butcher, 51, Aug. 5-sled-dog racer who won Alaska's grueling 1,152-mile Iditarod from Anchorage to Nome four times, more than any other woman.

Red Buttons, 87, July 13-carrot-topped comedian who started out in burlesque and became a top star in early television and then movies, winning a 1957 Oscar as Sgt. Joe Kelly in Sayonara.

Otis Chandler, 78, Feb. 27-publisher of the Los Angeles Times during the 1960s and '70s who turned the conservative publication into one of the nation's most influential and profitable newspapers.

William Sloane Coffin, 81, April 12-Presbyterian minister and activist who, while he was chaplain at Yale University, was convicted of conspiracy to encourage draft evasion in the Vietnam War, a verdict overturned on appeal.

Iva Toguri D'Aquino, 94, Sept. 26-Japanese-American woman and UCLA grad who returned to Japan in 1941 to care for a sick relative, got stranded there after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, went to work as an announcer and DJ for Radio Tokyo, playing American music during the station's propaganda broadcasts-and became known as "Tokyo Rose"; she was arrested by U.S. occupation officials, convicted of treason, and later pardoned by President Ford.

Mike Douglas, 81, Aug. 11-TV host who interviewed celebrities and presidents alike on his daytime talk show, The Mike Douglas Show (1961-1982).

Theodore Draper, 93, Feb. 21-historian and social critic with a liberal bent whose scholarly research covered a broad range of topics, including American communism, Cuba, and Vietnam.

Katherine Dunham, 96, May 21-pioneering dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist who in the 1930s established the first self-supporting black modern-dance troupe, which performed all over the world, introducing audiences to Caribbean and African culture.

Ted W. Engstrom, 90, July 14-nonprofit management expert and former head of Youth for Christ International and World Vision International who was a founding architect of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.

Barbara Epstein, 77, June 16-founder and co-editor of the influential journal The New York Review of Books from its 1962 inception until her death.

Fred Epstein, 68, July 9-renowned pediatric neurosurgeon who pioneered the development of techniques that saved thousands of children threatened by brain and spinal-cord tumors.

Leslie B. Flynn, 87, Aug. 11-evangelical pastor, broadcaster, seminary teacher, editor, and prolific author (including What the Church Owes the Jew).

Glenn Ford, 90, Aug. 30-leading-role actor in dozens of films, including Blackboard Jungle, Pocketful of Miracles, and The Big Heat.

Henderson Forsythe, 88, April 17-Tony Award--winning actor who played Dr. David Stewart for 31 years on As the World Turns and Col. Harlan Sanders in commercials for KFC restaurants.

Betty Friedan, 85, Feb. 4-activist whose manifesto The Feminine Mystique became a bestseller in the 1960s and laid the groundwork for the modern feminist movement; she was cofounder of the National Organization for Women (1966) and its first president.

Milton Friedman, 94, Nov. 16-Nobel Prize-winning libertarian economist who championed individual freedom and free-market theory, and advised three presidents; he predicted long in advance and accounted for the "stagflation" of the late 1970s.

John Kenneth Galbraith, 97, April 29-liberal Harvard economist and best-selling author (The Affluent Society) who advised presidents Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Johnson, championing use of government money to reduce unemployment and fund public services.

Pierre Gemayel, 34, Nov. 21-prominent member of Lebanon's cabinet, Christian Maronite leader, and son of former president Amin Gemayel, gunned down in a spray of bullets in Beirut.

Curt Gowdy, 86, Feb. 20-smooth voice of sports history and Emmy Award--winning TV sportscaster who called many Super Bowls (including the first one), World Series, Rose Bowls, Olympics, and NCAA basketball championships.

Arthur Hertzberg, 84, April 17-rabbi, scholar, civil-rights activist, and former president of the American Jewish Congress.

Lamar Hunt, 74, Dec. 13-owner of the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs; he coined the term Super Bowl.

Steve Irwin, 44, Sept. 4-Australian TV personality and animal conservationist, known to fans worldwide as the "Crocodile Hunter," whose stunts with crocodiles, alligators, and snakes brought him fame-and ultimately death.

Coretta Scott King, 78, Jan. 30-widow of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who assumed with grace and serenity her husband's campaign for racial equality after his assassination in 1968, becoming known as "the first lady of the civil-rights movement."

Jeane Kirkpatrick, 80, Dec. 7-Democrat-turned-Republican who became a heroine of the Reagan Revolution, an architect of its Cold War hard line, and the first female to serve as U.S. ambassador to the UN.

Don Knotts, 81, Feb. 24-skinny, bug-eyed, lovable nerd who kept generations of TV audiences laughing with his portrayal of the bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show.

Kenneth Lay, 64, July 5-founder and former CEO of Enron, the bankrupt energy trading company at the center of one of the biggest business frauds in history, who was convicted of fraud and conspiracy last May.

Al Lewis, 82, Feb. 3-actor who played Grandpa, the cigar-chomping vampire on TV's The Munsters.

Robert McCullough, 64, Aug. 7-led a group of black students in a landmark civil-rights protest in 1961, choosing to serve jail time on a chain gang for the crime of sitting at a whites-only lunch counter in South Carolina.

Darren McGavin, 83, Feb. 25-Actor who starred in such TV series as Mike Hammer and cult favorite Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and played the grouchy dad in A Christmas Story.

Bob Mathias, 75, Sept. 2-two-time Olympic champion in the decathlon and considered one of the greatest all-around athletes in track and field history; also served four terms in the U.S. House.

Slobodan Milosevic, 64, March 11-power-hungry former president of Serbia and former Yugoslavia whose fervent Serbian nationalism led to four wars in the Balkans and the deaths of more than 200,000 people; he died of a heart attack awaiting an international war crimes trial.

Henry M. Morris, 87, Feb. 25-soft-spoken scholarly father of the modern creationist movement, who founded the Institute for Creation Research; his co-authored 1961 book, The Genesis Flood, argued for a "young earth" and defended the biblical account of creation to become the movement's launchpad.

Ronald Nash, 69, March 10-influential evangelical scholar, author, and apologist who taught theology and philosophy for nearly three decades at Western Kentucky University, then completed his career at two seminaries.

Byron Nelson, 94, Sept. 26-form-perfect smooth-swinging pro golfer who won both the Masters and the PGA Championship twice and who had the greatest year in the history of professional golf when he won 18 tournaments in 1945, including a record 11 in a row.

Franklyn "Lyn" Nofziger, 81, March 27-the rumpled and irreverent conservative who served Ronald Reagan as political advisor and press secretary.

Anita O'Day, 87, Nov. 23-singer whose sassy renditions of "Honeysuckle Rose," "Sweet Georgia Brown," "Let Me Off Uptown," and others made her perhaps the only white woman to be classed among the great big-band and jazz vocalists of the 1940s and '50s.

Buck Owens, 76, March 25-flashy rhinestone cowboy who shaped the sound of country music with hits like "Act Naturally" and brought the genre to TV on the long-running Hee Haw country variety show he hosted for 16 years.

Nam June Paik, 73, Jan. 29-Korean-born artist known as "the father of video art," who created the video synthesizer, which can paint screens, produce images, and reverse images on a video monitor.

Jack Palance, 87, Nov. 10-craggy-faced menace in Shane, Sudden Fear, and other films who turned successfully to comedy in his 70s with his Oscar-winning self-parody in City Slickers.

Floyd Patterson, 71, May 11-legendary boxer who won the middleweight gold medal at the 1952 Olympics and in 1956 knocked out Archie Moore to became the youngest heavyweight champ.

Willie Pep, 84, Nov. 23-nimble boxer who was the featherweight champion for most of the 1940s, with a lifetime record of 230-11-1.

John W. Peterson, 84, Sept. 20-songwriter who had a major influence on evangelical Christian music in the 1950s through the 1970s; he wrote more than 1,000 songs and headed the Singspiration music publishing firm; his best-known songs include "It Took a Miracle" and "Springs of Living Water."

Augusto Pinochet, 91, Dec. 10-army commander who overthrew Chile's democratically elected Marxist president Salvadore Allende in a bloody coup in 1973 and ruled the country for 17 years, during which nearly 3,200 people were killed for political reasons, the current government alleged.

Kirby Puckett, 45, March 6-Hall of Fame and 10-time All Star outfielder who led the Minnesota Twins to World Series titles in 1987 and 1991.

Lou Rawls, 72, Jan. 6-singer whose glorious voice soon rocketed him into chart-topping territory with classic hits like "Lady Love," "Tobacco Road," and "You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine."

Dana Reeve, 44, March 6-actress, singer, devoted caregiver of her "Superman" husband, Christopher Reeve, through his decade of near-total paralysis until his death in 2004.

Ann Richards, 73, Sept. 13-quick-witted and silver-tongued grandma politician and former Texas governor who became a star in 1988 when she delivered a memorable keynote address to the Democratic National Convention, poking fun at the 1988 GOP nominee George H.W. Bush: "He can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth."

A.M. "Abe" Rosenthal, 84, May 10-demanding journalist who started out as a stringer for The New York Times and rose to managing editor and executive editor; on his watch the paper won 23 Pulitzer Prizes and published articles about the Pentagon Papers, the government's leaked classified assessment of its involvement in Vietnam; he also took up the cause of Christian persecution around the world.

Joe Rosenthal, 94, Aug. 20-combat photographer who captured on film one of the most enduring images of World War II: the picture of five U.S. soldiers raising an American flag at the summit of Mount Suribachi on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima.

Louis Rukeyser, 73, May 2-broadcaster who for 32 years hosted PBS' Wall Street Week.

Johnny Sain, 89, Sept. 25-right-handed pitching ace for the Boston Braves 1946-1951.

Bo Schembechler, 77, Nov. 17-University of Michigan head coach 1969-89, who won a record 234 games, taking 13 Big Ten championships and guiding 17 teams to post-season bowl games in 21 years, including 10 Rose Bowls.

Norman Shumway, 83, Feb. 10-surgeon who in 1968 performed the first successful heart transplant in the United States.

Silas Simmons, 111, Oct. 29-Negro leagues pitcher, believed to have been the longest-living professional baseball player in history.

Louise Smith, 89, April 15-race-car driver on the NASCAR circuit from 1945 to 1956, winning 38 events, and the first woman inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame.

Mickey Spillane, 88, July 17-macho mystery writer whose shoot-'em-up violence of private-eye Mike Hammer detective novels sold more than 100 million copies.

Maureen Stapleton, 81, Mar. 13-screen and stage actress whose career spanned six decades and included Bye Bye Birdie, Summer of '42, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and whose 1981 Oscar win made her the 10th actress to win an Oscar, a Tony, and an Emmy.

Gerry Studds, 69, Oct. 14-12-term Democratic representative from Massachusetts who was the first openly gay member of Congress; he was censured, but not ousted, in 1983 for earlier having had an affair with a 17-year-old congressional page.

Ta Mok, 80, July 21-known as "The Butcher" for his brutality as military chief of the communist Khmer Rouge, whose rein of terror in Cambodia claimed about 1.7 million victims from 1975 to 1979; died while awaiting trial on genocide charges.

James Van Allen, 91, Aug. 9-physicist who made the first major discovery of the Space Age-two radiation belts that circle Earth, later named in his honor.

Jack Warden, 85, July 19-boxer turned tough-guy actor, who appeared in almost 100 films (Heaven Can Wait) and as Chicago Bears coach George Halas in the television movie Brian's Song.

Dennis Weaver, 81, Feb. 24-actor who played Deputy Chester Goode on television's popular western Gunsmoke, later starring in McCloud as a western deputy transferred to New York City.

Caspar Weinberger, 88, March 28-conservative Republican and consummate Cold Warrior who served in the cabinets of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan and got ensnared in the Iran-Contra scandal.

Wenzao Han, 83, Feb. 3-Christian who held top positions in the Three-Self Movement and China Christian Council, overseeing the government-recognized church in China, and took a leading role in helping the church to recover from the Cultural Revolution, when every church in the country was closed.

Arthur Winston, 100, April 13-legendary Los Angeles transportation worker who missed only one day in a 72-year career-the day his wife died in 1988; he retired the day after he turned 100, three weeks before his death.

Shelley Winters, 85, Jan. 14-forceful, outspoken star who graduated from blond bombshell parts to dramas, winning Academy Awards as supporting actress in The Diary of Anne Frank and A Patch of Blue.

Marcus Wolf, 83, Nov. 9-German spy known as "the man without a face" for much of the Cold War, head of East German foreign intelligence service.

Jane Wyatt, 96, Oct. 20, 2006-actress who for six years as Robert Young's TV wife on Father Knows Best was one of TV's favorite moms.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, 39, June 7-Jordanian-born terrorist who led al-Qaeda in Iraq, claimed to have beheaded American Nicholas Berg, was behind the 2004 Madrid bombings and sentenced in absentia for 2002 assassination of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley.

-compiled by Edward E. Plowman