Deaths in December 1988

The following is a list of notable deaths in December 1988.

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 1988

1

• Martin Hinds, 47, British scholar of the Middle East and historiographer of early Islamic history.
• Włodzimierz Mazur, 34, Polish international footballer.
• J. Vernon McGee, 84, American Presbyterian minister and radio minister, heart failure.

2

• V. R. Amberkar, 81, Indian painter, art educator and art critic.
• Armand Niccolai, 77, American NFL footballer.
• Lloyd Rees, 93, Australian landscape painter.
• Zofia Szczęśniewska, 45, Polish international volleyball player and Olympic medalist.

3

• Károly Lakat, 68, Hungarian international footballer and Olympic coach.
• Florence Senanayake, 85, Sri Lankan politician, first female member of the Ceylon Parliament.
• Thawan Thamrongnawasawat, 87, Thai politician and Prime Minister of Thailand.

4

• Rafi Muhammad Chaudhry, 85, Pakistani nuclear physicist.
• Sir David Trench, 73, British Army officer, Governor of Hong Kong and the Solomon Islands.

5

• August Lenz, 78, German international footballer.
• Alan Lind, 75, Australian politician, member of Victorian Legislative Assembly.
• Erik Lundin, 84, Swedish chess master.
• Subodh Oraon, 35, Indian politician, member of the Vidhan Sabha of West Bengal.
• William Everett Potter, 83, American engineer and military officer, Governor of the Panama Canal Zone.
• Dave Ryan, 65, American NFL footballer.

6

• Roy Orbison, 52, American singer, songwriter and musician, heart attack.
• George Shaw, 57, American triple jumper and Olympian.

7

• Christopher Connelly, 47, American actor, lung cancer.
• Ted Voigtlander, 75, American cinematographer, cancer.

8

• John Joe McGirl, 67, Irish republican, Sinn Féin politician and Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army.
• Gene Quill, 60, American jazz alto saxophonist.
• Anne Seymour, 79, American film and television actress, heart failure.
• Ulanhu, 80, Chinese founding Chairman of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Vice President of People's Republic of China.

9

• Maria De Matteis, 90, Italian costume designer.
• Kainikkara Kumara Pillai, 88, Indian teacher, actor, short story writer, essayist and playwright.
• Ludmila Polesná, 54, Czechoslovakian slalom canoeist and Olympian.

10

• Dennis Arundell, 90, British actor, producer, director, conductor and composer of incidental music.
• Richard S. Castellano, 55, American actor, heart attack.
• Dorothy de Rothschild, 93, English philanthropist and activist for Jewish affairs.
• Lawrence Wien, 83, American lawyer, philanthropist and real estate investor, prostate cancer.

11

• Kari Kairamo, 55, Finnish chairman and CEO of Nokia Corporation, suicide by hanging.
• Marcus Knight, 85, English Anglican priest.
• Frank S. Pepper, 78, British writer of comics.
• Nagendra Singh, 74, Indian lawyer, President of the International Court of Justice.

12

• Dick Clair, 57, American television producer, actor and television and film writer, AIDS.
• Anthony Provenzano, 71, American mobster of the Genovese crime family, heart attack.
• Joe Reichler, 73, American sports writer.
• Rudolf Schündler, 82, German actor and director, heart attack.
• Loudon Wainwright Jr., 63, American writer, colon cancer.

13

• Brynmor John, 54, British politician, Shadow Secretary of State for Defence.
• María Teresa León, 85, Spanish writer, activist and cultural ambassador.
• Muhammad Mangundiprojo, 83, Indonesian soldier, revolutionary and civil servant.
• Bill Nichols, 70, American politician, member of U.S. House of Representatives, heart attack.
• Brian Sinclair, 73, British veterinary surgeon and novelist, heart attack.
• Betty Snowball, 80, English women's test cricketer, international squash and lacrosse player for Scotland.
• Roy Urquhart, 87, British Army Major General.

14

• Narciso Busquets, 58, Mexican actor of theatre, film, television and radio.
• Win Oo, 53, Burmese actor, singer, director, writer and publisher, colorectal cancer.
• Evald Schorm, 56, Czechoslovakian film and stage director, screenwriter and actor.
• Jean Schramme, 59, Belgian planter, mercenary in Belgian Congo.
• Stuart Symington, 57, American businessman and politician, U.S. Secretary of the Air Force.

15

• Harry Hunter, 64, British sailor and Olympian.

16

• Anna Jean Ayres, 68, American occupational therapist and educational psychologist, complications of breast cancer.
• Cyril Easthaugh, 90, British Anglican bishop.
• Tom Eastick, 88, Australian Army artillery officer during World War II.
• Joe Hatten, 72, American Major League baseballer.
• Hunter "Stork" Hendry, 93, Australian test cricketer.
• Babe Pratt, 72, Canadian NHL ice hockey player, heart attack.
• Sylvester, 41, American singer-songwriter, AIDS.

17

• Jerry Hopper, 81, American film and television director, heart disease.
• Ursula Krone-Appuhn, 52, German politician, member of the Bundestag.
• Gisella Perl, 81, Hungarian-American gynecologist, providing assistance to prisoners at Auschwitz.

18

• R. Arumugam, 35, Malaysian international footballer, car accident.
• Ottó Boros, 59, Hungarian water polo player and dual Olympic gold medalist.
• Milt Gantenbein, 78, American NFL football player.
• Ka. Naa. Subramanyam, 76. Indian writer and literary critic.

19

• Robert Bernstein, 69, American comic book writer, playwright and concert impresario, heart failure.
• Lotta Dempsey, 83, Canadian journalist, editor and television personality, cancer.
• Umashankar Joshi, 77, Indian poet and writer, lung cancer.
• Seánie O'Brien, 69, Irish hurler.

20

• B. Jayamma, 73, Indian actress and singer.
• György Marik, 64, Hungarian international footballer.
• Alphonse Ouimet, 80, Canadian television pioneer, president of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
• Max Robinson, 49, American broadcast journalist, co-anchor on ABC World News Tonight, complications of AIDS.

21

• Bernt Carlsson, 60, Swedish diplomat, Assistant-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Lockerbie aeroplane disaster.
• Paul Jeffreys, 36, English rock musician, Lockerbie aeroplane disaster.
• Willie Kamm, 88, American Major League baseballer.
• Dave Ruhl, 68, Canadian professional wrestler.
• Bob Steele, 81, American actor.
• Nikolaas Tinbergen, 81, Dutch biologist and ornithologist, Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, stroke.
• Bill Townsend, 65, English footballer and manager.
• Venus Xtravaganza, 23, American transgender performer, strangled.

22

• Chico Mendes, 44, Brazilian trade union member and environmental activist, murdered.
• Tucker Smith, 52, American actor, dancer and singer, cancer.

23

• János Boldóczki, 76, Hungarian politician, Minister of Foreign Affairs.
• Carlo Scorza, 91, Italian Secretary of the National Fascist Party.
• Walt Uzdavinis, 77, American NFL football player.

24

• Blanche Barrow, 77, American wife of Buck Barrow, associates of Bonnie and Clyde, lung cancer.
• Leif Cassel, 82, Swedish politician and lawyer, Member of Parliament.
• Mary Cavendish, 93, Mistress of the Robes to Queen Elizabeth II.
• Joe Kresky, 82, American NFL football player.
• Jainendra Kumar, 83, Indian writer.
• Evelyn Pinching, 73, British world champion alpine skier and Olympian.
• Alfred M. Pride, 91, American admiral of the U.S. Navy.
• Noel Willman, 70, Irish actor and theatre director.

25

• Bunny Bell, 77, English footballer.
• Jan Białostocki, 67, Polish art historian.
• Terence Dudley, 69, British television director, producer and screenwriter for the BBC, cancer.
• Evgeny Golubev, 78, Soviet composer.
• W. F. Grimes, 83, Welsh archaeologist.
• Denis Matthews, 69, English pianist and musicologist, suicide.
• John Ulric Nef, 89, American economic historian.
• Shōhei Ōoka, 79, Japanese novelist, literary critic, lecturer and translator of French literature.
• Edward Pelham-Clinton, 68, English lepidopterist and military officer, Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne.
• Frank Thomas, 58, English Roman Catholic bishop.
• Napoleon Andrew Tuiteleleapaga, 84, Samoan lawyer, author, amateur poet and musician, myocardial infarction.

26

• Alex Hastings, 76, Scottish international footballer.
• Julanne Johnston, 88, American silent-screen actress.
• John Loder, 90, English-American film actor.
• Glenn McCarthy, 81, American oil tycoon.
• Vangaveeti Mohana Ranga, 41, Indian politician, member of the Indian National Congress, assassinated.
• Charles Smith, 68, American actor.
• Pablo Sorozábal, 91, Spanish composer.
• Tao Zhiyue, 95–96, Chinese military officer and politician, lieutenant general of the National Revolutionary Army of China.

27

• Hal Ashby, 59, American film director, pancreatic cancer.
• Walter Crook, 76, English international footballer and manager.
• Ken Hoole, 71–72, English railway historian.
• Freda James, 77, British tennis player and Wimbledon Doubles champion.
• Khin Kyi, 76, Burmese politician and diplomat, Burmese Ambassador to India, stroke.
• Donald Laycock, 51–52, Australian linguist and anthropologist.
• Henry de Menten de Horne, 92, Belgian equestrian and Olympian.
• Jess Oppenheimer, 75, American radio and television writer, producer and director, heart failure.

28

• Karlfried Graf Dürckheim, 92, German diplomat, psychotherapist.
• Björn Kurtén, 64, Finnish vertebrate paleontologist.

29

• Mike Beuttler, 48, British Formula One driver, complications from AIDS.
• Peter Nellen, 56, German politician, member of the German Bundestag.

30

• Jan Baalsrud, 71, Norwegian Resistance commando.
• Yuli Daniel, 63, Soviet writer and dissident.
• Takeo Fujisawa, 78, Japanese businessman, co-founder of Honda Motor Co., heart attack.
• André Germain, 85, French cinematographer.
• Lyle H. Lanier, 85, American experimental psychologist and writer.
• Ernesto Lazzatti, 73, Argentinian international footballer.
• Isamu Noguchi, 84, American artist and landscape architect, heart failure.

31

• Yara Amaral, 52, Brazilian actress, heart attack from drowning.
• Christopher Andrewes, 92, British virologist who discovered the human influenza A virus.
• Oliver L. Austin, 85, American ornithologist.
• Nicolas Calas, 81, Greek-American poet and art critic.
• Wes Flowers, 75, American baseballer, Major League pitcher.

Unknown date

• Johann Kupferburger, 55, South African tennis player.