/ 22 December 2014

RIP: Those who died in 2014

Bafana Bafana and Orlando Pirates football player Senzo Meyiwa.
Bafana Bafana and Orlando Pirates football player Senzo Meyiwa.

Dannie Abse (91), Welsh-Jewish medical doctor and poet; his White Coat, Purple Coat: Collected Poems 1948-88 was published in 1989.

JF (Jacob) Ade Ajayi (85), Nigerian historian and pioneer in the study of indigenous history; he taught at the University of Ibadan from 1958 to 1989.

Maya Angelou (86), probably the most famous American poet of her time; hailed especially for I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

Mario Oriani-Ambrosini (53), Italian-American-South African constitutional lawyer, government adviser and later MP for the Inkatha Freedom Party. 

Richard Attenborough (90), British actor, director and political activist; he was famous for Cry Freedom and the multi-Oscar-winning Gandhi.

Lauren Bacall (89), American actor who hit fame young with her husband-to-be, Humphrey Bogart, in To Have and Have Not in 1944. 

Marion Barry (78), controversial Washington, DC, mayor caught in an FBI crack-cocaine sting in 1990.

Simin Behbahani (87), Iran’s most famous female poet; she fought for human rights under both the shah and the ayatollahs.

Acker Bilk (85), British jazz clarinettist who had a string of hits in the 1960s.

Charles Bowden (69), American writer who probed the borderlands and drug wars in a series of books, including Murder City.

Ben Bradlee (93), Washington Post editor for 26 years; he broke the Watergate scandal and published the Pentagon Papers.

Jack Bruce (71), Scottish singer-songwriter and bass player who found fame with Cream in the late 1960s.

Thomas Berger (89), American novelist; his Little Big Man was both critically acclaimed and a bestseller in the mid-1960s.

Peter Clarke (84), beloved Cape artist. Best known for his many woodcut prints, he also worked in paint, collage and words. His first solo show was in 1957; he received the national Order of Ikhamanga in 2005.

Joe Cocker (70), the raspy-voiced British blues and soul singer whose hits include You Are So Beautiful and the duet with Jennifer Warnes Up Where We Belong, died on Monday after a battle with lung cancer.

Mandy Rice-Davies (70), a model and dancer in the early 1060s, she was tangled in the Profumo scandal that rocked Britain’s then government. 

Chris de Broglio (84), Mauritian-born weightlifting champion and anti-apartheid activist; he campaigned for the sports boycott of South Africa in the 1970s.

Oscar de la Renta (82), Dominican-born fashion designer who achieved fame when he dressed Jacqueline Kennedy in the 1960s.

Lulu Dikana (35), jazz singer from the Eastern Cape; she died just after the release of her third album, I Came to Love You(Photo: Veli Nhlapo, Gallo)

Efua Dorkenoo (65), Ghanaian campaigner against female genital mutilation.

Robert Drew (90), American filmmaker who led the cinéma vérité or “direct cinema” documentary movement in the 1960s.

Marie Dubois (77), French actor; she starred in François Truffaut’s Shoot the Pianist and Alain Resnais’s My American Uncle.

Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier (63), Haitian dictator from age 19 until 1986, when he was overthrown and fled the country.

James Garner (86), American actor known for the television series Maverick and The Rockford Files. His movie career began in 1955.

Gerry Goffin (75), half of a hit-making songwriting partnership with his then-wife Carole King.

Nadine Gordimer (90), winner of the Nobel prize in literature in 1991; she was seen as the conscience of South Africa for her series of novels and short stories about life under apartheid. 

Werner Groenewald (46), South African aid worker based in Afghanistan; he was slain by Taliban-linked fighters with his two children, Jean-Pierre (17) and Rodé (15).

Jeff Guy (74), leading South African historian; famed for his work on the Zulu kingdom of the 1800s.

Mafika Gwala (78), powerful South African poet whose work came out of Black Consciousness; his best-known work, No More Lullabies, was published in 1982.

Charlie Haden (76), American jazz bassist and bandleader who played bass with Ornette Coleman’s ground-breaking band of the early 1960s; he led the politically conscious Liberation Music Orchestra, whose works included The Ballad of the Fallen

George Hamilton IV (77), American singer of country and gospel who had a hugely popular television show in the late 1970s.

Michael Harari (87), Israeli spy and head of Mossad’s special operations division; he was involved in assassinating Palestinian militants after the Black September attack.

John Holt (67), honey-voiced Jamaican singer-songwriter with a 50-year career and a huge 1973 hit, 1?000 Volts of Holt.

Phillip Hughes (25), Australian cricketer who died a few days after being hit on the neck by a ball during a domestic match.

Brian G Hutton (79), American movie director; his Where Eagles Dare and Kelly’s Heroes were hits.

BKS Iyengar (95), guru who brought yoga to the West after he met and helped violinist Yehudi Menuhin in 1952.

Dan Jacobson (85), South African-born novelist and critic; his early work such as A Dance in the Sun was set here, but later he moved further afield – into ancient history and fantasy.

PD James (94), British crime novelist whose books were more than murder mysteries; among her works was the dystopian thriller The Children of Men.

Jimi Jamison (63), lead singer of American rock band Survivor.

Graham Joyce (59), British author of many big-selling fantasy novels and six-times winner of the British Fantasy Award.

On Kawara (81), Japanese conceptual artist; his Today series of “date paintings” was begun in 1966 and continued until his death.

Richard Kiel (74), tall actor known chiefly for his role as Jaws in two James Bond films.

Pierre Korkie (56), South African teacher working in Yemen, kidnapped with his wife, Yolande, in May 2013 by al-Qaeda in that country; she was released in January 2014. He died during a botched United States attack on the militant group. 

Lorin Maazel (84), American conductor, violinist, opera director and filmmaker; he began his conducting career at age 11.

Senzo Meyiwa (27), South African footballer who played as a goalkeeper for Orlando Pirates in the Premier Soccer League and for Bafana Bafana.

Mbulaeni Mulaudzi (34), South African runner; he won an Olympic silver medal in 2004 and was 2009 800m world champion. (Photo: Michael Steele, Getty)

Ali Mazrui (81), Zanzibar-born scholar of African history; he made the ground-breaking television series The Africans (1983). 

Paul Mazursky (84), American actor, director and screenwriter; his biggest success was Down and Out in Beverly Hills.

Sam Mbah (51), Nigerian author, lawyer, activist and anarchist.

Karl Miller (83), founding editor of the London Review of Books and a major influence on the literature of his age.

Igor Mitoraj (70), Polish sculptor famed for his monumental but fractured forms.

Mike Nichols (83), American stage and film director; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Graduate and Working Girl were among his works.

Ian Paisley (88), clergyman and unionist leader of Northern Ireland, who eventually agreed to a deal with republicans Sinn Fein after decades of war.

Otto Piene (86), German artist; he co-founded the influential Zero movement of the late 1950s.

Ian Player (87), South Africa’s most famous conservationist; he saved the white rhino from extinction in the 1960s, founded wilderness leadership schools and co-founded the World Wilderness Congress and Cape Town’s Jungian centre.

Tommy Ramone (65) (born Erdelyi Tamas), Budapest-born drummer and producer of New York punk rockers The Ramones. 

Dieter Reible (85), visionary German theatre director who moved to South Africa in the 1970s and made a considerable impact.

Albert Reynolds (81), Irish leader who played a key role in peacemaking in Northern Ireland in the 1990s.

Joan Rivers (81), acerbic American comedian who became addicted to plastic surgery.

Michael Sata (77), fifth president of Zambia since independence; he was known as “King Cobra” for his ruthlessness towards opponents.

Zohra Sehgal (102), Indian-born actor who found fame in the West with The Jewel in the Crown and Bend It like Beckham; her Bollywood career stretched back to the 1940s.

Style Scott (58), Jamaican drummer and record producer; he was a member of Dub Syndicate and Roots Radics.

Peter Sculthorpe (85), Australia’s foremost contemporary composer; he was the author of more than 250 works, including the Sun Music series (begun in 1965).

Philip Seymour Hoffman (46), was found dead in his home in Manhattan in February. He died from an overdose of a cocktail of heroin, cocaine, benzodiazepines and amphetamine.

Eduard Shevardnadze (86), former Georgian president and Soviet foreign minister who promoted perestroika.

Horace Silver (85), American jazz pianist whose craft and energy were vital in the emergence of hard bop in the 1950s; his Song for My Father was a hit.

Alvin Stardust (72), British glam rocker turned television presenter.

Elaine Stritch (89), American actor and singer with a seven-decade career; she was known as the “first lady of Broadway”.

Chris van Wyk (57), poet and memoirist; his 1979 poem In Detention was one of the first to tackle apartheid repression, and later memoirs such as Shirley, Goodness and Mercy reached a large readership. He was, said David Medalie in the Mail & Guardian, “the least detached and most inviting of writers”. (Photo: Supplied)

Eli Wallach (98), American character actor with memorable roles in The Magnificent Seven and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Kenny Wheeler (84), Canadian-born jazz trumpeter and prolific composer. 

Robin Williams (63), much-loved American comic and actor, famous for Good Morning, Vietnam, Mrs Doubtfire and Dead Poets Society.

Gerald Wilson (96), American trumpeter, band leader and composer; he developed eight-part harmony for big bands.

Sandy Wilson (90), composer and lyricist best known for the hit musical The Boy Friend.

Lorna Wing (85), British psychiatrist who did key work on the autism spectrum and Asperger’s syndrome.

Johnny Winter (70), American blues and rock guitarist who made waves in the 1960s and 1970s.

Bobby Womack (70), soul-singing great and funky guitar player who had a 60-year recording career.

Frank Yablans (79), Hollywood producer and writer; he did both for Mommie Dearest, a camp hit.