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MOVING ON
These were some of the political, music, sports and pop culture icons to pass away in 2011.
Mark Ryan, 51, British musician (Adam and the Ants).
Bernard O'Brien, 96, American politician, member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives (1965–1980).
Charlie Callas, 83, American comedian and actor (Silent Movie, Switch).
Jack LaLanne, 96, American fitness and nutritional expert, pneumonia.
Sexy Cora, 23, German pornographic actress, complications from breast enlargement surgery.
Gus Zernial, 87, American baseball player (Oakland Athletics, Detroit Tigers, Chicago White Sox), heart failure
Sargent Shriver, 95, American diplomat and politician, Ambassador to France (1968–1970), Vice Presidential nominee (1972), complications from Alzheimer's disease
Roy Hartsfield, 85, American baseball player (Boston Braves) and first manager of Toronto Blue Jays, complications of liver cancer.
Georgia Carroll, 91, American fashion model and actress (Yankee Doodle Dandy). In 1943, Carroll joined Kay Kyser's band, known as the "Kollege of Musical Knowledge", as a featured vocalist. Capitalizing on her good looks, she was given the nickname "Gorgeous Georgia Carroll", probably as a joking reference to the professional wrestler George Wagner, who used the name "Gorgeous George". As a member of Kyser's band, Carroll appeared in three films: Around the World, Carolina Blues, and most notably the Second World War-era "morale booster" Thousands Cheer which gave fans a chance to see Kyser and his band in Technicolor. Kyser's band has a featured performance near the end of the film, with Carroll delivering a key solo interlude of the Arthur Freed/Nacio Herb Brown standard, "Should I?" In 1945, Carroll married Kyser and made no further film appearances, retiring from performing in 1946.
Cookie Gilchrist, 75, American football player (Buffalo Bills, Denver Broncos), cancer.
Margaret Whiting, 86, American pop singer ("A Tree in the Meadow", "Moonlight in Vermont"), natural causes.
Howard Wallace Pollock, 90, American politician, U.S. Representative from Alaska (1967–1971).
Dave Sisler, 79, American baseball player (Boston Red Sox, Cincinnati Reds), prostate cancer.
Tom Cavanagh, 28, American ice hockey player (San Jose Sharks), blunt force trauma.
Ryne Duren, 81, American baseball player (Philadelphia Phillies, New York Yankees).
Anne Francis, 80, American actress (Honey West, Forbidden Planet, The Twilight Zone), pancreatic cancer.
Jane Russell, 89, American actress (The Outlaw, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes), respiratory illness.
Duke Snider, 84, American Baseball Hall of Famer (New York Mets, San Francisco Giants).
Rick Coonce, 64, American drummer (The Grass Roots).
Ollie Matson, 80, American Hall of Fame football player (St. Louis Rams, Philadelphia Eagles), complications from dementia.
Joe Frazier, 88, American baseball player (St. Louis Cardinals) and manager (New York Mets).
Gino Cimoli, 81, American baseball player (Brooklyn Dodgers, Pittsburgh Pirates), heart and kidney complications.
Betty Garrett, 91, American actress (On the Town, All in the Family, Laverne & Shirley), aortic aneurysm.
Kenneth Mars, 75, American actor (Young Frankenstein, The Producers, The Little Mermaid), pancreatic cancer.
Joanne Siegel, 93, American widow of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel, model for Lois Lane.
Chuck Tanner, 82, American baseball manager (Pittsburgh Pirates) and player (Los Angeles Dodgers), after long illness.
John Paul Getty III, 54, American heir and kidnapping victim, grandson of J. Paul Getty and father of Balthazar Getty, after long illness.
Woodie Fryman, 70, American baseball player (Detroit Tigers, Montreal Expos).
René Verdon, 86, French-born American White House Executive Chef, leukemia.
Elizabeth Taylor, 79, British-American actress (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Cleopatra, Butterflied 8), heart failure.
Dorothy Young, 103, American actress, assistant to Harry Houdini.
Warren Christopher, 85, American diplomat, Secretary of State (1993–1997), complications from kidney and bladder cancer.
Ferlin Husky, 85, American country music singer, heart failure.
Jean Smith, 82, American baseball player (All-American Girls Professional Baseball League).
Hugh Martin, 96, American songwriter ("Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas") and film composer (Meet Me in St. Louis), natural causes.
David S. Broder, 81, American journalist (The Washington Post), complications from diabetes.
Patricia Brennan, 66, Australian feminist and clinician, advocate of women priests, cancer.
Phoebe Snow, 60, American singer-songwriter ("Poetry Man"), brain hemorrhage,
Hubert Schlafly, 91, American engineer, co-inventor of the TelePrompter.
Madelyn Pugh, 90, American screenwriter (I Love Lucy, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy, The Mothers-in-Law) and producer (Alice).
William A. Rusher, 87, American columnist, publisher of National Review (1957–1988).
Sidney Harman, 92, American businessman and publisher (Newsweek), acute myeloid leukemia.
Eddie Joost, 94, American baseball player and manager (Philadelphia Athletics, Cincinnati Reds).
Gil Robbins, 80, American folk singer (The Highwaymen) and actor, father of Tim Robbins, prostate cancer.
Larry Shepard, 92, American baseball manager (Pittsburgh Pirates) and coach (Cincinnati Reds).
Andy Robustelli, 85, American Hall of Fame football player (Los Angeles Rams, New York Giants).
Jeff Conaway, 60, American actor (Grease, Taxi, Babylon 5.
Harmon Killebrew, 74, American Hall of Fame baseball player (Minnesota Twins, Kansas City Royals), esophageal cancer.
Barbara Stuart, 81, American actress (Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.).
Mel Queen, 69, American baseball player (Cincinnati Reds, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim) and pitching coach (Blue Jays).
Jack Richardson, 81, Canadian record producer (The Guess Who).
J. Donald Crump, 78, Canadian commissioner of the Canadian Football League (1990–1991).
Odell Brown, 70, American jazz organist and songwriter ("Sexual Healing").
Jackie Cooper, 88, American actor (Skippy, Our Gang, Superman) and director.
Sada Thompson, 83, American actress (Family), lung disease.
Ruth Roberts, 84, American songwriter ("Meet the Mets"), lung cancer.
Gaye Delorme, 64, Canadian musician, heart attack.
Peter Falk, 83, American actor (Columbo, Murder, Inc., Pocketful of Miracles, The Princess Bride).
Fred Steiner, 88, American television composer (Perry Mason, Star Trek, The Twilight Zone).
Mike Mitchell, 55, American basketball player (Cleveland Cavaliers, San Antonio Spurs), cancer.
José Pagán, 76, Puerto Rican baseball player (San Francisco Giants, Pittsburgh Pirates), Alzheimer's disease.
Eleanor Dapkus, 87, American baseball player (All-American Girls Professional Baseball League), breast cancer.
Papa Joe Chevalier, 62, American sports talk radio host, stroke. The talk show host came to Lackawanna County Stadium and did his show live when Bob Cordaro owned an FM all sports radio station in the 90s.
John Henry Johnson, 81, American football player (San Francisco 49ers, Pittsburgh Steelers) and Hall of Famer.
Elmer B. Staats, 97, American public servant, Comptroller General of the United States (1966–1981).
Amy Winehouse, 27, British singer-songwriter ("Rehab"), accidental alcohol poisoning.
Tom Aldredge, 83, American actor (The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire), lymphoma.
Lil Greenwood, 86, American vocalist (Duke Ellington Orchestra).
Edson Stroll, 82, American actor (McHale's Navy), cancer. Stroll played Virgil, he’s the sailor on the right in this video.
Dick Williams, 82, American baseball player and manager (Oakland Athletics), Hall of Famer, ruptured aortic aneurysm.
Wes Covington, 79, American baseball player (Milwaukee Braves, Kansas City Athletics, Philadelphia Phillies), cancer. In an 11-year career, Covington was a .279 hitter with 131 homers and 499 runs batted in, with a .337 on base percentage and a .466 slugging percentage in 1,075 games. His best season came in 1958, when he posted career numbers in average (.330), home runs (24) and RBI (74) [1]Covington also was one of a handful of major leaguers to have played for four different teams in one season, after he played for the Braves, White Sox, Athletics and Phillies in the 1961 season. Following his baseball career, Covington moved to Western Canada and operated a sporting goods business. He later became an advertising manager for the Edmonton Sun newspaper, a position he held for nearly 20 years. In addition to his duties with the Sun, he was involved in youth charity work in the Alberta capital. [2]When the Edmonton Trappers joined the Pacific Coast League in the early 1980s, Covington returned to baseball as a promotions consultant and special ambassador for the club. In 2003, at the invitation of the Braves Historical Association, Covington returned to Milwaukee for the first time in 40 years. Covington was regarded as something of a recluse but came back to Milwaukee for this reunion.
Jack Layton, 61, Canadian politician, Leader of the Official Opposition (2011) and New Democratic Party (2003–2011), cancer.
Jerry Leiber, 78, American songwriter ("Stand By Me", "Hound Dog", "Jailhouse Rock", "Kansas City"), cardiopulmonary failure.
Don Chandler, 76, American football player (New York Giants, Green Bay Packers).
Hugh Carey, 92, American politician, Governor of New York (1975–1982) and U.S. Representative (1961–1974).
Peter Gent, 69, American football player (Dallas Cowboys) and author (North Dallas Forty).
Dolores Hope, 102, American philanthropist, widow of Bob Hope, natural causes.
Norma Holloway Johnson, 79, American federal judge, first African American woman to serve as a district court chief judge, stroke.
Eleanor Mondale, 51, American television personality, daughter of Walter Mondale, brain cancer.
Charles H. Percy, 91, American politician, Senator from Illinois (1967–1985), Alzheimer's disease.
Frances Bay, 92, Canadian character actress (Happy Gilmore, Blue Velvet, The Middle).
Kara Kennedy, 51, American television producer, daughter of Ted Kennedy, heart attack.
Malcolm Wallop, 78, American politician, United States Senator from Wyoming
Mickey Scott, 64, German-born American baseball player (Orioles, Expos, Angels).
David Utz, 87, American surgeon, removed Ronald Reagan's prostate, heart failure.
Robert Pierpoint, 86, American broadcast journalist, complications from surgery.
Roy Smalley, Jr., 85, American baseball player (Chicago Cubs, Milwaukee Braves, Philadelphia Phillies).
Roger Williams, 87, American pianist (Autumn Leaves), pancreatic cancer.
Ingvar Wixell, 80, Swedish opera singer.
Tom Wicker, 85, American journalist, heart attack.
Karl Slover, 93, Slovak-born American actor (The Wizard of Oz). Diagnosed at an early age with pituitary dwarfism, Slover was barely two feet tall by his eighth birthday. Dwarfism was not a family trait; his father stood six feet six inches, and his mother was just a few inches shorter. Slover's father went to great lengths to make Slover taller, including taking him to Hungary where doctors fixed stretchers to his arms and legs. When Slover was just nine years old, his father sent him to work for a traveling midget show based out of Berlin, Germany. After working with the show for several years, Slover moved to the United States where he joined another traveling show. It wasn't long before Slover began appearing as midgets in films like The Terror of Tiny Town, Block-Heads, Bringing Up Baby, and They Gave Him a Gun. Slover was working in Hawaii when his circus manager sent him to Hollywood, where 'little people' were needed for an upcoming film called The Wizard of Oz. At the age of 21 and standing just 4 feet 4 inches, Slover played the parts of four munchkins in the movie; the first trumpeter, a soldier, one of the sleepy heads, and was among those who sang "Follow the Yellow Brick Road.
William Aramony, 84, American charity executive. Was head of United Way of America in the 80s.
Joe Frazier, 67, American boxer, World Heavyweight Champion (1970–1973), liver cancer.
Václav Havel was a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician.
A Nobel Peace Prize nominee, he was the ninth and last president of Czechoslovakia (1989–1992) and the first President of the Czech Republic (1993–2003). He wrote more than 20 plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally.
Andrea True, 68, American adult film star and disco singer, heart failure.
Hal Kanter, 92, American screenwriter, director and producer (Julia), complications from pneumonia.
Matty Alou, 72, Dominican Republic-born American baseball player (Pittsburgh Pirates, San Francisco Giants, St. Louis Cardinals), diabetes.
Bob Forsch, 61, American baseball player (St. Louis Cardinals), aneurysm.
Christiane Legrand, 81, French jazz singer.
Dan Frazer, 90, American actor (Kojak, As The World Turns), cardiac arrest.
Patrick V. Murphy, 91, American police chief, New York City Police Commissioner (1970–1973), heart attack.
Slim Dunkin, 24, American rapper (1017 Brick Squad), shot.
Harry Morgan, 96, American actor (M*A*S*H, Dragnet), pneumonia.
Dobie Gray, 71, American singer ("The 'In' Crowd", "Drift Away").
Barbara Orbison, 61, German-born American record producer and music publisher, widow of Roy Orbison, pancreatic cancer.
Al Davis, owner of the Oakland Raiders and the first Commissioner of the American Football League. He was 81.
Margo Dydek, a 7’2 center for women’s basketball, she was nicknamed Ppynch after a cake from her native Poland. She was 37 and had a heart attack giving birth to her third child.
Randy Savage, WWF Wrester, he was 58. Known as “The Macho Man”.
John Mackey, 69 Baltimore Colts wide receiver. He made 5 pro bowls and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1992.
Dan Weldon, 31, 2 time Indy 500 winner was killed in Las Vegas at the racing season finale.
Marty Marion, 93, St. Louis Browns infielder. Won the MVP for the ’44 season where the Browns won their only championship.
Bubba Smith, 66, TV star, and Baltimore Colt icon.
Paul Splitdorf, 64, won 166 games in 15 seasons with Kansas City Royals.
Clifford Parker "Cliff" Robertson III (September 9, 1923 – September 10, 2011) had a film and television career that spanned half of a century. Robertson portrayed a young John F. Kennedy in the 1963 film PT 109, and won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the movie Charly. On television, he portrayed retired astronaut Buzz Aldrin in the 1976 adaptation of Aldrin's autobiographic Return to Earth, played a fictional character based on Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms in the 1977 adaptation of John Ehrlichman's Watergate novel The Company, and portrayed Henry Ford in the 1987 Ford: The Man and the Machine.
G.D. Spradlin one of Hollywood's most prolific character actors, Spradlin has portrayed presidents (Andrew Jackson and Lyndon Johnson) and senators, as well as preachers, doctors, major generals, naval commanders, colonels, an admiral, a sheriff, a police chief, a CEO, and Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee.
Didn't begin acting until his 40s, after serving in World War II in China with the Army Air Force. He worked as an attorney for Phillips Petroleum, then made his fortune as an independent oil producer. Served as director of John F. Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign in Oklahoma, and also ran, unsuccessfully, for mayor of Oklahoma City in 1965. He started acting after taking his daughter Wendy to audition for a production of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof". He ended up taking a role in the play himself. Spradin played the sexually active Senator Geary in Godfather 2.
Nick Ashford, 70, was one-half of the legendary Motown songwriting duo Ashford & Simpson that penned elegant, soulful classics for the likes of Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye and funk hits for Chaka Khan and others. One of his biggest hits was with his co wroiter and co star, wife Valerie called “Solid”.
Dorothy Rodham: 92, Dorothy Rodham made occasional campaign appearances with her daughter during Clinton's unsuccessful Democratic presidential bid in 2008, and she helped the former first lady raise money to retire her campaign debt. She also made trips with the Clintons during their years in the White House, including a 2000 visit to India and a 1998 trip to China.
Vasil Alexyev, 69, world class weightlifter who was featured on the opening of ABC’s Wide World of Sports.
Nick Charles, CNN’s first sports anchor, his coupling with Fred Hickman made CNN number 1 in Cable Sports until ESPN came along. He died of bladder cancer.
Kim Jong-il, 69, funny looking dictator who loved movies, sports and atomic weaponry.
Andy Rooney, CBS News icon. Rooney was a war correspondent, transitioned from writing for the camera to being in front of it. He was a wild man in an age where conformity ruled.
James Arness, you grew up with Jim Arness. His Gunsmoke shows were a staple of our youth. Gunsmoke lasted twenty yesars on CBS.
David Nelson, Ricky’s older brother, he had an acting career, managed the Nelson family affairs after everyone died, was the last surviving member of the Ozzie clan.
Clarence Clemmons: Sax player for the E Street Band, he could’ve been a football plsayer but chose music. He had only one chart hit but it typified how we feel about those passing away in 2011, one way or another, you were a friend of mine.