Morris B. Abram, 81, chairman of U.N. Watch, former president of Brandeis University, a civil rights activist in Georgia who served on numerous government commissions and a leader in the American Jewish community; of a viral infection; March 16, Geneva, Switzerland.

Carl Albert, 91, diminutive Oklahoman who was a centrist in the Democratic Party and speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives in early 1970s; February 4, McAlester, Oklahoma.

Steve Allen, 78, consummate entertainer who in 1953 founded NBC's "Tonight" show, spawning an American institution: the late night talk program; a comedian, actor and social activist, he composed more than 5,000 songs and wrote more 50 books; of a heart attack, October 30, Los Angeles, California. See obituary.

Arthur Anders, 96, U.S. Navy officer who was the hero of the Panay incident when Japanese planes attacked the American gunboat on the Yangtze River on Sunday, December 12, 1937, as it maintained U.S. neutrality during Japan's invasion of China; August 27, Rancho Bernardo, California.

Hafez Assad, 69, president of Syria, steadfast champion of Arab nationalism and anti-Zionism who ruled his country as a dictator for three decades while transforming it into a regional power; of a heart attack, June 10, Damascus, Syria. See obituary.

C.D. Atkins, 86, who in the 1940s co-invented frozen concentrated orange juice with a process that retained its flavor and Vitamin C level, thus revolutionizing the Florida citrus industry; June 3, Winter Haven, Florida.

Vera Atkins, 92, World War II spymaster who recruited, trained and supervised the 400 British saboteurs who parachuted into France to disrupt Nazi occupation forces and was believed to have inspired the unflappable Miss Moneypenny of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels; June 24, Hastings, Sussex, England.

Henry Wilfred "Bunny" Austin, 94, one of the world's highest ranking tennis players before World War II and the first to wear short pants on the court; August 26, Couldson, England.

Claude Autant-Lara, 98, prolific French movie director who rose to fame with such classics as "Devil in the Flesh" and "The Red and the Black" and who late in life made a foray into far-right politics; February 5, Antibes, France.

Sirimavo Bandaranaike, 84, world's first female prime minister and three times Sri Lanka's leader who retired last August suffering from diabetes and other ailments; of a heart attack; October 10, near Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Carl Barks, 99, draftsman and writer who gained cult status as author of Donald Duck comic books and creator of Scrooge McDuck; August 25, Grants Pass, Oregon.

Bart the Bear, 23, 1,500-pound, 9.5-foot Kodiak grizzly who appeared in more than a dozen movies, notably "The Edge," "Legends of the Fall," "Clan of the Cave Bear," "The Great Outdoors," and Jean-Jacques Annaud's famous nature story, "The Bear"; of cancer, May 10, near Heber City, Utah.

Laurie C. Battle, 87, four-term Democratic congressman from Alabama who during the early years of the Cold War in the 1950s sponsored landmark legislation preventing the United States from trading with nations that traded with the Soviet Union and Eastern European nations; May 2, in Bethesda, Maryland.

Gordon "Tex" Beneke, 86, singer, saxophonist and bandleader who made hits of such songs as "Chattanooga Choo Choo," "I Got A Gal in Kalamazoo" and "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree" for the Glenn Miller Orchestra in "the Swing Era" of the 1930s and 1940s; and took over the band after Miller's death in World War II; May 30, Costa Mesa, California.

Jack Best, 87, one of a group of British prisoners who built a glider in a Nazi prison camp that, though never actually flown, became a World War II legend for the daring and secrecy of the plan; April 22, Herefordshire, England.

Konrad E. Bloch, 88, German-born Harvard biochemistry professor who won a Nobel Prize in 1964 for explaining how cholesterol is formed by a series of 36 chemical reactions in the body; October 15, Burlington, Massachusetts.

Victor Borge, 91, daffy classical pianist whose pratfalls and goofy routines in television appearances, concerts and best-selling record albums earned him the title "clown prince" of Denmark; December 23, Greenwich, Connecticut.

Habib Bourguiba, 96, moderate Tunisian leader known as the Supreme Combatant who led his country to independence and was its president from 1957 to 1987; April 6, Monastir, Tunisia. See obituary.

William J. Boyle, 88, banker who helped devise the first credit card that let customers make partial payments rather than pay the full amount they owed; fuel oil dealers were the first beneficiaries of the plan; April 30, Garden City, New York.

Gwendolyn Brooks, 83, who in 1950 became the first African-American to win a Pulitzer Prize with her book of poetry, "Annie Allen," and later became a major literary figure and an admired teacher; December 3, Chicago, Illinois. See obituary.

David Brower, 88, militant environmentalist whose more than 50 years of unwavering, articulate indignation over uncontrolled growth and degradation of natural areas made him an enemy of developers and state and federal agencies and a hero to members of the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth, among others, which he led at various times; November 5, Berkeley, California. See obituary.

Don Budge, 84, legendary tennis player who in 1938 was the first to win all four Grand Slam titles in a calendar year; of injuries in a traffic accident, January 26, Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Pavle Bulatovic, 52, Montenegrin-born, pro-Serb Yugoslavian defense minister and close ally of now former President Slobodan Milosevic; assassinated by gunmen; February 7, Belgrade, Yugoslavia. See story.

William Bundy, 83, "the other Bundy" who, with his more famous brother McGeorge, was among "the best and the brightest" of the JFK and LBJ administrations -- the advisers who among other things helped plan the Vietnam War; Bundy also played an important role in the U.S.-British Ultra project that broke the German military codes in World War II; of heart ailments, October 6, Princeton, New Jersey

Tommaso Buscetta, 71, Sicilian mobster who broke the oath of silence and helped convict hundreds of Italian and American Mafia leaders; April 2, at an undisclosed location under the American witness protection program.

Vincent Canby, 76, for 35 years a wry and sophisticated film and theater critic for The New York Times whose tastes embraced filmmakers from Spike Lee to Woody Allen to Rainer Werner Fassbinder; of cancer; October 15, New York.

Mel Carnahan, 66, low-key, straight-arrow Democratic governor of Missouri and longtime politician who was once described as "like meeting your pastor"; in the crash of a private plane; October 16, near St. Louis, Missouri. See obituary.

Dame Barbara Cartland, 98, queen of the romance novelists whose 723 books made her possibly the world's most prolific author, selling 1 billion copies over seven decades; May 21, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England. See obituary.

Bonnie Cashin, 84, whose loose-fitting fashions were among the first American sportswear designs; after heart surgery; February 3, New York.

Ellery J. Chun, 91, Honolulu clothing store owner who made the Hawaiian aloha shirt an icon of American culture worn by entertainers, presidents and ordinary folks, spawning an industry of colorful copycats; May 16, Honolulu, Hawaii.

Craig Claiborne, 79, longtime New York Times food critic and cookbook writer who elevated restaurant reviews and cooking stories to new heights of journalistic excellence; January 22, New York.

Jerry Claiborne, 72, old-fashioned Southern football coach who preached academics first and produced four Academic All-Americans, a host of other scholar-athletes, and winning teams at Virginia Tech, Maryland and Kentucky; of a heart attack, September 24, Nashville, Tennessee.

Albert Cleage Jr., 88, influential black Detroit clergyman who helped elect the city's first black mayor, Coleman Young, founded the Shrine of the Black Madonna and preached that Jesus was a black revolutionary descended from a dark-skinned tribe of Israelites; February 20, Calhoun Falls, South Carolina.

Alex Comfort, 80, British physician, poet, novelist, anarchist and pacifist whose several "Joy of Sex" books became standard operating guides for the baby-boom generation; March 26, Banbury, England.

Robert E. Cormier, 75, author of a series of provocative and highly regarded books for teenagers including "The Chocolate War"; of complications from a blood clot; November 2, Leominster, Massachusetts.

Sen. Paul Coverdell, 61, influential Republican leader from Georgia, friend and ally of former President George Bush and liaison between now President-elect George W. Bush and the Senate; of a cerebral hemorrhage; July 18, Atlanta, Georgia. See obituary.

Alan Cranston, 86, former Democratic senator from California who ended a 24-year Senate career in 1993 following a formal reprimand for intervening with federal regulators on behalf of indicted savings and loan mogul Charles Keating; December 31, Los Altos, California. See obituary.

Alonzo Crim, 71, noted educator who presided over Atlanta public schools during tumultuous period following desegregation in 1973; in a traffic accident, May 3, Atlanta, Georgia.

Clifton Daniel, 87, courtly New York Times war correspondent who as managing editor in the 1960s helped modernize the paper; husband of Margaret Truman, the president's daughter and novelist; of heart disease, February 21, New York.

Dean Davenport, 81, U.S. Army aviator who co-piloted one of the most famous planes in military history, the "Ruptured Duck," a B-25 bomber in the famous Doolittle raid on Japan in 1942 whose story was told by the pilot, Ted Lawson, in the book "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo," later a movie; of congestive heart failure and pneumonia, February 14, Panama City, Florida.

Donald W. Davies, 75, British security expert who in 1965 proposed the concept of "packet switching," or sending data bits over telephone lines, which the U.S. government used to create the Arpranet, the predecessor to the Internet; of cancer, May 28, Esher, England.

Jimmie H. Davis, 101, beloved two-term "Singing Governor" of Louisiana and troubadour who composed one of America's best-loved songs, "You Are My Sunshine," among many other hits; November 5, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Sir Robin Day, BBC broadcaster whose intense and relentless interviewing style and frowning visage earned him the nickname "the grand inquisitor"; of heart problems; August 6, London, England.

Rep. Julian C. Dixon, 66, senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus from California; of an apparent heart attack, December 8, Los Angeles, California.

Pham Van Dong, 94, tough but charming leader of the Vietnamese Communist delegation to the Geneva peace talks in 1954 who became prime minister of North Vietnam and reunified Vietnam, serving until 1987; May 1, Hanoi, Vietnam.

Julius J. Epstein, 91, Hollywood screenwriter whose sardonic dialogue enlivened more than 50 movies but none better known than 1942's classic "Casablanca," for which he shared Oscar-winning credits with his twin brother Philip and Howard Koch; December 30, Los Angeles, California.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr., 90, debonair scion of legendary acting family, accomplished actor and producer in his own right, World War II hero, and renowned international humanitarian; May 7, New York.

Richard Farnsworth, 80, former stuntman who had terminal cancer during the filming of "The Straight Story" that won him his second Oscar nomination; of a self-inflicted gunshot wound; October 6, at his ranch near Ruidoso, New Mexico.

Sir John Gielgud, 96, legend of the English theater whose stage presence and intelligent voice captivated audiences for more than 70 years and won him an Oscar for best supporting actor as the sharp-witted butler in the 1981 Dudley Moore comedy "Arthur"; May 21, Aylesbury, England. See obituary.

Joe Gilliam, 49, one of the first blacks to start at quarterback in the National Football League as a player on the Pittsburgh Steelers teams that won the 1974 and 1975 Super Bowls, but who later skidded into drug addiction and homelessness; of an apparent heart attack, December 25, Nashville, Tennessee.

Henry B. Gonzalez, 84, feisty Texas Democrat who spent 37 years in Congress where he championed public housing and control of the savings and loan industry; November 28, San Antonio, Texas.

Al Gross, 82, master tinkerer who invented the high-frequency "walkie-talkie" wireless radio used in World War II and other electronic gadgets that evolved into CB radios, cell phones, pagers and garage-door openers; after a brief illness, December 21, Sun City, Arizona.

Lou Groza, 76, one of professional football's greatest place kickers (he was called "The Toe"), six times an All-Pro tackle with the Cleveland Browns and the National Football League's player of the year in 1954; of an apparent heart attack; November 29, Middleburgh Heights, Ohio.

Sir Alec Guinness, 86, consummate actor of film and stage who won an Oscar for best actor as the priggish British colonel in 1957's "Bridge on the River Kwai"; he was perhaps better known to later generations as Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi in "Star Wars"; August 5, West Sussex, England. See obituary.

Gus Hall, 90, longtime U.S. Communist boss who spent eight years in prison for subversion, ran for president four times, and remained unwavering in his beliefs even as Communist regimes collapsed around the world; of diabetes, October 13, New York.

Frieda Mae Hardin, 103, one of the first women to serve in the U.S. armed forces in a role other than nurse, joining the Navy as a "Yeomanette" in World War I; August 9, Livermore, California.

Ofra Haza, 41, Israel's first international pop music star whose cover-up of the AIDS-generated illness that killed her provoked a furious public debate about the stigma some in the country still attach to AIDS; of massive organ failure, February 23, Tel Aviv, Israel.

Randolph A. Hearst, 85, last surviving son of the legendary yellow journalist William Randolph Hearst and father of 1970s kidnap victim Patty Hearst who oversaw the dismantling of his father's newspaper chain and its rebuilding as a media empire; of a stroke, December 18, New York.

Jack Hemingway, 77, conservationist and fisherman who was perhaps better known for being the oldest son of writer Ernest Hemingway and the father of models and actresses Margaux and Mariel Hemingway; of complications after heart surgery; December 1, New York.

Doug Henning, 52, ebullient, shaggy-headed master of illusion, magic and showmanship whose tricks were inspired by the legendary Harry Houdini; of cancer, February 7, Los Angeles, California.

Milt Hinton, 90, dean of American jazz bass players who worked with a pantheon of music greats from Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington to Frank Sinatra and Barbra Streisand, and whose work can be found on as many as 1,000 albums, making him one of the most recorded musicians of all time; December 19, Queens, New York.

Ivan Hirst, 84, British army major who saved the German Volkswagen factory from being dismantled after World War II and got it running again, ironically turning Hitler's prewar dream of a "people's car" into a symbol of German postwar economic prowess, the Beetle; March 10, Marsden, Yorkshire, England.

Fred Hooper, 102, wealthy up-from-dirt building contractor who was among the giants of horse racing for more than a half-century, starting in 1945 when his first thoroughbred, Hoop Jr., won the Kentucky Derby; August 4, Ocala, Florida.

Mark Hughes, 44, multimillionaire founder of Herbalife International, among world's leading distributors of herbal products controversial for both its products and sales methods; of an accidental drug overdose, May 21, Malibu, California. See obituary.

Arnold A. Hutschnecker, 102, psychiatrist who was Richard Nixon's therapist from 1951 through his presidency and after, and who later reported that Nixon "didn't have a serious psychiatric diagnosis" but had "a good portion of neurotic symptoms"; December 28, Sherman, Connecticut.

William Dale Jennings, 82, novelist, playwright and a founder of the Mattachine Society in 1950, one of the first American gay rights organizations; of respiratory failure; May 11, in Los Angeles.

Thomas W. Kelly, 67, general whose face and voice became familiar to Americans during the U.S. Army's daily news briefings from the Persian Gulf War; of liver cancer; June 6, Clifton, Virginia.

Flo Kennedy, 84, civil rights activist and lawyer whose flamboyant attire and often rude public outbursts made her a darling of feminists, black power leaders and abortion rights advocates in the 1960s and 1970s; December 21, New York.

Doris Kenner-Jackson, 58, one of the original four Shirelles, whose hits such as "I Met Him on a Sunday," "Baby It's You" and "Boys" became rock classics; of breast cancer, February 4, Sacramento, California.

W.C. Killgallon, 87, whose Ohio toy company introduced the enduring Etch A Sketch to American kids in 1960, based on a prototype by a French inventor; June 13, Sea Island, Georgia.

Pee Wee King, 86, innovative country music performer and writer or co-writer of more than 400 songs, including the pop hit "Tennessee Waltz"; March 7, Louisville, Kentucky.

Durward Kirby, 88, radio announcer who started in the Midwest and became household name in the 1950s as second banana on television's "The Garry Moore Show" and later as host of "Candid Camera"; March 15, Fort Myers, Florida.

Richard Kleindienst, 76, Nixon attorney general whose actions probably thwarted efforts by presidential aides to cover up the Watergate break-in and ensuing scandal; he served only 11 months and later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for his role in a peripheral scandal; of lung cancer, February 3, Phoenix, Arizona.

Werner Klemperer, 80, refugee from Nazi Germany who became a stage, film and television actor whose most famous role was Col. Klink, the bumbling German prison camp commander on TV's "Hogan's Heroes"; of cancer, December 6, New York.

Cardinal Ignatius Kung, 98, who spent more than 30 years in prison in China for practicing his Roman Catholic faith; of stomach cancer; March 12, Stamford, Connecticut.

Hedy Lamarr, 86, Austrian-born Hollywood glamour queen of the 1930s and 1940s whose other claim to fame was as co-inventor in 1942 of a synchronized radio signaling device based on a concept called "spread spectrum" that is used today in military communication and cell phone security; January 19, Orlando, Florida. See obituary.

Alice Lord Landon, 98, who at age 13 swam nine miles across Long Island Sound, and after winning a place on the U.S. Olympic diving team at 18 became a presence in the American Olympic movement for eight decades; July 13, Ormond Beach, Florida.

Tom Landry, 75, legendary football coach famous for his taciturn demeanor and defensive innovations who led the Dallas Cowboys to five Super Bowls in the team's first 29 seasons, winning two; of acute myelogenous leukemia, February 12, Dallas, Texas.

Ring Lardner Jr., 85, last surviving member of the Hollywood 10, writers, directors and producers blacklisted and imprisoned in the late 1940s for refusing to tell Congress about their alleged Communist Party affiliations; although it took him 20 years to recover, he triumphed with an Oscar for best screenplay for 1970's "M*A*S*H"; October 31, New York.

Lucien Laurin, 88, horse racing Hall of Fame trainer and former jockey whose record included 36 stakes winners, but none better than Secretariat, the 1973 Triple Crown winner, perhaps the fastest thoroughbred that ever raced; June 26, Miami, Florida.

Tanaquil Le Clercq, 71, elegant long-legged ballerina who dazzled the world in the 1940s and '50s as a protégé (and wife) of George Ballanchine before her career was cut short in 1956 by paralytic polio; of pneumonia, December 31, New York.

Edward H. Levi, 88, prominent legal educator and former president of the University of Chicago who as President Ford's attorney general is credited with restoring credibility and order to a Justice Department in disarray after the Watergate scandal; March 7, Chicago, Illinois.

Robert I. Levy, 63, onetime director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and one of the researchers who separated cholesterol into high- and low-density lipoproteins; of pancreatic cancer; October 28, New York.

John Lindsay, 79, four-term congressman and two-term mayor of New York City in late 1960s and early '70s who was famous as much for his shirt-sleeved activism as for his patrician origins, and whose opposition to the Vietnam War led him to switch parties and make a short-lived run for president as a Democrat in 1972; December 20, Hilton Head, South Carolina. See obituary.

Petter Lindstrom, 93, Swedish-born neurosurgeon who pioneered so-called bloodless brain surgery using ultrasound, but who was better known as the husband actress Ingrid Bergman deserted in 1950 for director Roberto Rossellini; May 24, Sonoma, California.

Larry Linville, 60, actor who played the whiny, hypocritical tattletale Maj. Frank Burns in the immensely popular TV show "M*A*S*H"; of cancer; April 10, New York. See obituary.

Julie London, sultry torch singer who became a star with the release of "Cry Me a River" in 1956 and later played the head nurse on the 1970s TV show "Emergency"; of complications from a stroke; October 18, Los Angeles, California.

Frederic Lord, 87, mathematician who devised the scoring model for rating the difficulty of questions on the SAT and other tests that are the bane of college-bound students in the United States; February 5, Naples, Florida.

Jean MacArthur, 101, wife of the late Gen. Douglas MacArthur who was at her husband's side in war and peace, notably during their 1942 escape by PT boat from Japanese invaders in the Philippines and his stint as Allied occupation commander of Japan after World War II; January 22, New York.

Jeff MacNelly, 52, three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist who lampooned politicians and the pompous and still found time to create and draw the syndicated comic strip "Shoe"; of lymphoma, June 8, Baltimore, Maryland. See obituary.

Rolf Magener, 89, German businessman whose escape from a British internment camp in India during World War II was the subject of a book; later he was a leading executive with BASF; June 3, Heidelberg, Germany.

Nancy Marchand, 71, stage and television actress noted for playing imperious authority figures such as newspaper publishers and queens and recently acclaimed as the mother of a mob boss on the cable TV series "The Sopranos"; of lung cancer and emphysema; June 18, Stratford, Connecticut. See obituary and story.

Sir Stanley Matthews, 85, British legend who played professional soccer until he was 50; the first professional soccer player to be knighted, he was called the First Gentleman of Soccer for his sportsmanship; February 23, Newcastle-Under-Lyme, England. England.

Eugene A. Marino, 66, first black American Roman Catholic archbishop who resigned from the Atlanta archdiocese in 1990 after admitting an affair with a woman; of a heart attack, November 12, Manhasset, New York.

Alice Sheets Marriott, 92, who together with her husband J. Willard Marriott started out in 1927 with a root beer stand and built one of the world's largest hotel chains that is still family controlled; April 17, Washington.

Walter Matthau, 79, comic actor who brought to life such memorable characters as sloppy Oscar Madison in "The Odd Couple" on Broadway and in the movie, and Jack Lemmon's shyster brother-in-law in 1966's "The Fortune Cookie," for which he won an Oscar for best supporting actor; of a heart attack, July 1, Santa Monica, California. See obituary.

William Maxwell, 91, novelist, short story writer and renowned editor for 40 years at The New Yorker magazine who edited some of the greats of 20th century literature, among them John Updike, John Cheever, J.D. Salinger, Vladimir Nabokov and Eudora Welty; July 31, New York.

Meredith McRae, 56, actress who played Billie Jo Bradley in the 1960s sitcom "Petticoat Junction" and was the daughter of actor-singer Gordon McRae and actress-comedian Sheila McRae; of brain cancer; July 14, Manhattan Beach, California.

David Merrick, 88, Broadway producer whose hits such as "Gypsy," "Hello, Dolly!" "Promises, Promises" and "42nd Street" made him dominant impresario in the New York theater from the mid-1950s until 1980, winning him many enemies and the cover of TIME magazine in 1966; April 26, London, England.

Erich Mielke, 92, for many years head of the security agency known as the Stasi and the second most powerful person in East Germany; May 22, Berlin, Germany.

William R. Mote, 93, millionaire former transportation mogul who turned his love of the sea into the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, world acclaimed for its research on sharks and snook; July 18, Longboat Key, Florida.

Richard Mulligan, 67, versatile film, stage and television actor whose work ranged from Blake Edwards' 1981 movie farce "S.O.B." to situation comedies "Soap" and "Empty Nest," for which he won Emmy awards; of cancer, September 26, Los Angeles, California. See obituary.

Dowager Empress Nagako of Japan, 97, widow of Emperor Hirohito and mother of the current emperor, Akihito, who saw her nation devastated for its aggression in World War II, then reborn as an economic dynamo, June 16, Tokyo, Japan. See obituary.

James V. Neel, 84, University of Michigan professor considered one of the fathers of human genetics and the first to discover the hereditary basis for many diseases; of cancer, February 1, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Keizo Obuchi, 62, former Japanese prime minister whose self-effacing demeanor belied an inner toughness that helped him lead the country out of economic crisis from 1998 until he left office in April due to illness; of complications from a stroke, May 14, Tokyo, Japan.

Cardinal John O'Connor, 80, revered Catholic archbishop of New York and the Vatican's most prominent spokesman in the United States; of cancer, May 3, New York. See obituary.

Harry F. Oppenheimer, 91, businessman whose empire ranged from Alaska to South Africa and included diamonds, gold, potash and beer, and who used his wealth and influence to fight apartheid in South Africa; August 18, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Benjamin Orr, 53, bass guitarist, vocalist and founding member of the musical group the Cars; of pancreatic cancer; October 3, Atlanta, Georgia.

Abraham Pais, 82, innovative theoretical physicist who became a science historian famous for writing the most acclaimed of all biographies of Albert Einstein; of heart failure, July 28, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Bruce Palmer Jr., 87, a top U.S. general in Vietnam and later Army vice chief of staff who in retirement wrote a controversial 1984 book that blamed military leaders, not politicians, for failure in the war; of a stroke, October 10, Alexandria, Virginia.

John O. Pastore, 93, first Italian-American to be elected governor and to the U.S. Senate and later a key backer of the 1963 treaty with the Soviet Union barring nuclear tests in the atmosphere; of Parkinson's disease; July 15, North Kingstown, Rhode Island.

Rudolph Patzert, 88, U.S. Merchant Marine veteran who captained the Paducah, a former sub-chasing gunboat involved in a harrowing incident with British authorities while carrying 1,380 Jewish refugees from Europe to Palestine after World War II; of cancer, January 21, Encinitas, California.

Allen Paulson, 78, record-setting test pilot, founder of Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., owner of renowned race horse Cigar; of cancer, July 19, La Jolla, California.

Jean Peters, 73, 20th Century Fox contract actress whose beauty won her leading roles in top movies as soon as she arrived in Hollywood from Ohio in the late 1940s, but who gave up her career in 1957 to marry eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes; of leukemia, October 13, Carlsbad, California.

Lee Petty, 86, champion stock car racer of the 1950s and patriarch of famous racing family that included his son, Richard Petty, grandson Kyle, a current NASCAR driver; and his great-grandson, Adam Petty, 19, who died after crashing during practice in Loudon, New Hampshire, May 12; of a stomach aneurysm, April 5, Greensboro, North Carolina.

Lynden O. Pindling, 70, prime minister of the Bahamas whose sometimes turbulent 25-year tenure from 1967 to 1992, second in the Americas only to Fidel Castro's, was marked by unresolved allegations he took bribes from drug smugglers in return for protection; of prostate cancer, August 26, Nassau, Bahamas.

Raymond Portwood Jr., 66, former Disney animator who co-invented the now classic Carmen Sandiego computer games that help children learn academic subjects, and that have sold 6.5 million copies and spawned three TV series; of a heart attack, July 17, Windsor, California.

Laurie Pritchett, 74, who as police chief of Albany, Georgia, in 1962 was one of the first white police officers to arrest the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. for leading a peaceful protest during the civil rights movement; November 13, High Point, North Carolina.

Tito Puente, 77, bandleader and percussionist who was the original "Mambo King" of the 1950s and for five decades helped define Latin jazz, recording more than 100 albums and winning five Grammys; of complications after open heart surgery, May 31, New York. See obituary.

Leah Rabin, 72, the wife of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and later a powerful advocate for peace after his assassination by a Jewish militant; of cancer; November 13, Tel Aviv, Israel. See obituary.

Jean-Pierre Rampal, 78, French-born superstar flutist whose more than 300 albums made him one of the most-recorded classical musicians of all time; in his prime he gave more than 100 concerts a year, usually sold out; of heart disease, May 20, Paris, France.

Gad Rausing, 77, Swedish-born billionaire ranked 31st on the 1999 Forbes list of wealthiest people who helped develop a variety of tetrahedron-shaped paper milk and juice cartons used around the world; January 28, Montreux, Switzerland.

Zeljko Raznatovic, 47, better known as Arkan, longtime ally of now former Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic who was indicted in 1997 for war crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia (which he denied); by gunmen as he was leaving a hotel restaurant, January 15, Belgrade, Yugoslavia. See story.

Steve Reeves, 74, two-time Mr. Universe whose muscular physique made him a star in a string of European-made sword-and-sandal action flicks beginning with "Hercules" in 1959; of complications from lymphoma, May 1, Escondido, California.

Jacquelyn Reinach, 70, multitalented composer who wrote the feminist anthem "Liberation, Now!" and co-created the "Sweet Pickles" children's books that have sold more than 50 million copies worldwide since 1977, conveying moral lessons and how to cope with everyday crises; of lung cancer, September 30, Los Angeles, California.

Marc Reisner, 51, environmentalist whose 1986 book "Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water" about government waste of taxpayer dollars and natural resources was 61st on Modern Library's list of the 100 best nonfiction English-language books of the 20th century; of cancer, July 21, San Anselmo, California.

Harold B. Rhodes, 89, former piano teacher who rose to fame as the inventor of an electric piano, the Fender Rhodes, whose clear, crisp tones became distinctive signatures of such musicians as Herbie Hancock, the Doors, Steely Dan and Stevie Wonder; December 17, Los Angeles, California.

Maurice Richard, 78, revered star of the Montreal Canadiens hockey team in the 1940s and 1950s who was known as "The Rocket" for his electrifying rushes up the ice and was the first NHL player to score 50 goals in a season; of stomach cancer and Parkinson's disease, May 27, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Jason Robards, 78, gifted theater-trained actor who won back-to-back Oscars for 1976's "All the President's Men" and 1977's "Julia," but who rose to fame on the Broadway stage in the 1950s interpreting the works of playwright Eugene O'Neill; of cancer, December 26, Bridgeport, Connecticut. See obituary.

Carl T. Rowan, 75, crusading journalist who as a syndicated columnist and best-selling author was a prominent voice for African Americans; of heart and liver ailments, September 23, Washington.

Robert Runcie, 78, who as Archbishop of Canterbury from 1980 to 1991 presided at the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana Spencer but later stirred controversy by criticizing the marriage and the government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; July 11, St. Albans, Hertfordshire, England.

Charles Ruff, 61, wheelchair-bound Washington lawyer and former Watergate prosecutor who as White House counsel helped win acquittal for President Bill Clinton in his 1999 Senate impeachment trial; in an accident at his home, November 19, Washington. See obituary.

Sir Robert Sainsbury, 93, scion of a famous British merchant family who, along with his brother Alan, turned a collection of groceries into one of the country's largest supermarket chains and then became a noted patron of the arts (for which he was knighted); April 2, London, England.

John C. Sawhill, 63, president of The Nature Conservancy, the world's largest private conservation organization, and formerly the administrator of the Federal Energy Administration; of diabetes; May 18, Richmond, Virginia.

Charles M. Schulz, 77, creator of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus and the rest of the "Peanuts" cartoon characters beloved by millions around the world; of colon cancer, February 12, Santa Rosa, California. See obituary.

C.A. Scott, 92, pioneering black journalist who published Atlanta Daily World, first U.S. black daily newspaper that once anchored chain of papers across the country; of pneumonia, May 7, Atlanta, Georgia.

Karl Shapiro, 86, poet who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1945 for poems written while a soldier in New Guinea during World War II; May 14, New York.

Sandra Schmirler, 36, star of the Canadian women's curling team that won the gold medal at the winter Olympics in 1998 -- she was six months pregnant at the time -- and one of Canada's most popular athletes; of cancer; March 2, Regina, Saskatchewan.

William E. Simon, 72, wealthy investor, philanthropist and conservative Republican who was federal "energy czar" during the Arab oil embargo of the mid-1970s and treasury secretary under President Ford; of complications from pulmonary fibrosis, June 3, Santa Barbara, California. See obituary.

Michael Smith, 68, co-recipient of the 1993 Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing techniques that led to breakthroughs in genetic engineering; of cancer, October 4, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Anatoly A. Sobchak, law professor and democratic reformer who as mayor of St. Petersburg in the early 1990s gave Russian President Vladimir Putin his start in politics; of heart attack, February 21, Kaliningrad (while on a mission for Putin).

Roebuck "Pops" Staples, 84, Mississippi farm boy who became patriarch of the gospel and rhythm-and-blues group the Staple Singers that rose to fame in the 1960s by singing songs such as "I'll Take You There" that urged social and religious change; of a concussion, December 19, Dolton, Illinois.

Craig Stevens, 81, actor who portrayed a smooth private investigator in the jazzy 1950s TV series "Peter Gunn"; of cancer; May 10, Los Angeles, California.

Nick Stewart, 90, actor who played Lightnin' the janitor on the "Amos 'n' Andy" TV show in the early 1950s and was the voice of Br'er Bear in Disney's 1946 animated film "Song of the South" that endures in Disneyland's Splash Mountain ride; December 18, Los Angeles, California.

Chidambaram Subramaniam, 90, scientist, lawyer, politician and government minister who won India's highest civilian honor for persuading Indian farmers and leaders to try a new variety of wheat that made the country self-sufficient in wheat production; November 7, in Madras, India.

Noboru Takeshita, 76, former Japanese prime minister who resigned in 1989 in stocks-for-favors scandal that swept through his Cabinet but who continued to influence political decisions as a "shadow shogun" until shortly before his death; after a long illness, June 19, Tokyo, Japan. See obituary.

Gherman Stepanovich Titov, 65, Soviet fighter pilot, later a general, whose 25-hour, 11-minute, 17-orbit flight around the Earth in August 1961 made him the second Russian to fly in space (and fourth man), the first to sleep there and the first to get sick there; September 20, Moscow, Russia.

Malcolm C. Todd, 87, former AMA president and onetime personal physician to Richard Nixon who developed medical program for Navy dependents in the late 1940s that became the model for Medicare; of a stroke, October 2, Long Beach, California.

Claire Trevor, 90, who won an Oscar in 1948 as best supporting actress for her performance as an alcoholic, down-on-her-luck torch singer in "Key Largo"; April 8, Newport Beach, California.

Robert Trout, 91, pioneer CBS journalist and protege of Edward R. Murrow whose extemporaneous broadcasts of some of the 20th century's most important breaking news events were legendary; November 15, New York.

Pierre Trudeau, 80, celebrity-dating, sports-car driving, disco-dancing prime minister of Canada for nearly 16 years who united the country against Quebec separatists and led Canada toward a nationalism distinct from British influence; of various ailments; September 28, Montreal, Canada. See obituary.

Cal Turner Sr., 85, who founded his Dollar department store chain on the premise that no item should cost more than a dollar and saw it grow to more than 4,800 stores in 25 states; November 14, Scottsville, Kentucky.

John Wilder Tukey, 85, influential theoretical statistician and wide-ranging thinker who coined two key words of the computer era lexicon, "bit" (an abbreviation of "binary digit") in 1946 and "software" in 1958 to describe programs running on electronic calculators; of a heart attack, July 26, Brunswick, New Jersey.

Roger Vadim, 72, French film director known for his liaisons with beautiful actresses; he made 25 movies, none more famous than his first, in 1956, "And God Created Woman," which made Brigitte Bardot a sex symbol; another was the avant-garde science-fiction "Barbarella," starring Jane Fonda, his third wife; of cancer, February 11, Paris, France.

Jim Varney, 50, rubbernecked comic who became a cult figure in the 1980s portraying his good ol' boy character "Ernest" in hundreds of television commercials and movies; of lung cancer, February 10, White House, Tennessee.

Gwen Verdon, 75, voluptuous Tony Award-winning Broadway hoofer who helped make hits out of such musicals as "Can-Can," "Damn Yankees," "Sweet Charity" and "Chicago"; October 18, Woodstock, Vermont.

Edward C. Walker, 82, British nudist filmmaker and designer of the Lava lamp, a fixture of the psychedelic 1960s that featured multicolored ooze sloshing inside a hurricane lamp; August 15, Ringwood, England.

Joseph Weber, 81, theoretical physicist who discovered the principle of masers and lasers but never received credit, and whose research on gravitational waves was groundbreaking yet inconclusive; of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, September 30, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Rudolph A. Wendelin, 90, U.S. Forest Service artist who transformed the image of Smokey Bear into a national icon for preventing forest fires by giving him anthropomorphic features, a ranger's hat, blue jeans and a middle name, "the"; of injuries suffered in a traffic accident, August 31, Falls Church, Virginia.

Ruth Werner, 93, legendary Soviet spy, known by the code name Sonja, who helped transmit atomic bomb secrets from the West to Moscow during and after World War II, among her other exploits; July 7, Berlin, Germany.

Hosea Williams, 74, headstrong, often raucous Atlanta politician whose passion to overcome injustice was born when he was beaten by whites on his return to the segregated South from Europe where he was wounded during World War II; he became a field general for Martin Luther King Jr. in the civil rights movement of the 1960s; of cancer, November 16, Atlanta, Georgia. See obituary.

Willie B., famous silverback gorilla at Zoo Atlanta that was reintroduced to gorilla society after 27 years in near isolation and fathered five offspring; of pneumonia, February 2, Atlanta, Georgia. See story.

Frank Wills, 52, security guard who discovered the June 17, 1972, break-in at Washington's Watergate complex where police arrested five men for burglarizing Democratic National Committee offices, spawning a scandal that led to President Nixon's resignation in 1974; of a brain tumor, September 27, Augusta, Georgia.

Sidney Woloshin, 72, Madison Avenue adman who co-wrote the famous jingle for McDonald's restaurants, "You Deserve a Break Today," which Advertising Age declared the top jingle of the century; of pneumonia, November 5, White Plains, New York.

Paula Yates, 40, British television personality known for her made-for-the-tabloids relationships with rock stars Bob Geldof and Michael Hutchence and for her shamelessly flirtatious interviewing style; of a drug overdose, September 17, London, England.

Thomas G. Yohe, 63, creative force behind television's four-time Emmy-winning "Schoolhouse Rock" cartoons that set educational messages to catchy music; of cancer, December 21, Norwalk, Connecticut.

Loretta Young, 87, elegant beauty whose acting career started as silent screen star and ended as long-running television hostess; she played opposite nearly every leading man of her day and won an Oscar for best actress as country girl-turned-politician in 1947's "The Farmer's Daughter"; of ovarian cancer, August 12, Los Angeles, California.

Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr., 79, admiral who as Navy boss in early 1970s made headlines for trying to end racial and gender discrimination; later his son died from cancer possibly caused by Agent Orange, a defoliant whose use the admiral ordered while both served in Vietnam; of chest tumor, January 2, Durham, North Carolina. See obituary.