Died on Saturday, 10th May – Famous Deaths

10/05/2024

Sam Rubin, American journalist (born 1960)

Sam Rubin was an American journalist who served as the entertainment reporter for the KTLA Morning News and as a television host of entertainment talk shows and specials. He reported on the entertainment industry for over thirty years and interviewed many Hollywood stars. He was also the co-author of two biographies, one on the former first lady Jacqueline Onassis and another about actress Mia Farrow.

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Jim Simons, American hedge fund manager, mathematician, and philanthropist (born 1938)

James Harris Simons was an American hedge fund manager, investor, mathematician, and philanthropist. At the time of his death, Simons's net worth was estimated to be $31.4 billion, making him the 55th-richest person in the world. He was the founder of Renaissance Technologies, a quantitative hedge fund based in East Setauket, New York. He and his fund are known to be quantitative investors, using mathematical models and algorithms to make investment gains from market inefficiencies. Due to the long-term aggregate investment returns of Renaissance and its Medallion Fund, Simons was called the "greatest investor on Wall Street" and more specifically "the most successful hedge fund manager of all time".

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10/05/2022

Bob Lanier, American professional basketball player (born 1948)

Robert Jerry Lanier Jr. was an American professional basketball player. He played center for the Detroit Pistons and the Milwaukee Bucks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Lanier was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992.

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Leonid Kravchuk, Ukrainian politician (born 1934)

Leonid Makarovych Kravchuk was a Ukrainian politician who served as the first president of Ukraine from 5 December 1991 to 19 July 1994. Kravchuk's presidency was marked by Ukraine achieving independence from the Soviet Union, the handover of its post-Soviet nuclear arsenal and an economic crisis that ultimately resulted in him losing re-election. Prior to his presidency, he was Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada. After leaving office, he served as a People's Deputy of Ukraine for the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united).

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10/05/2021

Pauline Tinsley, British soprano (born 1928)

Pauline Cecilia Tinsley was a British soprano, notable for her performances for the Welsh National Opera and the English National Opera (1963–1974).

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10/05/2020

Betty Wright, American soul singer (born 1953)

Bessie Regina Norris, better known by her stage name Betty Wright, was an American soul and R&B singer, songwriter and background vocalist. Beginning her professional career in the late 1960s as a teenager, Wright rose to fame in the 1970s with hits such as "Clean Up Woman" and "Tonight Is the Night". Wright was also prominent in her use of whistle register.

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10/05/2019

Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, Spanish politician and chemist (born 1951)

Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba was a Spanish statesman, politician and chemist who served as Deputy Prime Minister of Spain from 2010 to 2011, and previously as Minister of Education from 1992 to 1993, as Minister of the Presidency from 1993 to 1996, as Minister of the Interior from 2006 to 2011 and as acting Minister of Defence between May and June 2008.

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10/05/2018

David Goodall, Australian botanist and ecologist (born 1914)

David William Goodall was an English-born Australian botanist and ecologist. He was influential in the early development of statistical methods in plant communities. He worked as researcher and professor in England, Australia, Ghana and the United States. He was editor-in-chief of the 30-volume Ecosystems of the World series of books, and author of over 100 publications. He was known as Australia's oldest working scientist, still editing ecology papers at age 103. Long an advocate of voluntary euthanasia legalisation, he ended his own life in Switzerland via physician-assisted suicide aged 104.

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10/05/2015

Chris Burden, American sculptor, illustrator, and academic (born 1946)

Christopher Lee Burden was an American artist working in performance art, sculpture, and installation art. Burden became known in the 1970s for his performance art works, including Shoot (1971), where he arranged for a friend to shoot him in the arm with a small-caliber rifle. A prolific artist, Burden created many well-known installations, public artworks, and sculptures before his death in 2015.

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10/05/2012

Horst Faas, German photographer and journalist (born 1933)

Horst Faas was a German photo-journalist and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. He is best known for his images of the Vietnam War.

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Carroll Shelby, American race car driver and designer (born 1923)

Carroll Hall Shelby was an American automotive designer, racing driver, and entrepreneur.

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Gunnar Sønsteby, Norwegian captain and author (born 1918)

Gunnar Fridtjof Thurmann Sønsteby DSO was a member of the Norwegian resistance movement during the German occupation of Norway in World War II. Known by the nickname "Kjakan" and as "Agent No. 24", he was the most highly decorated citizen in Norway, including being the only person to have been awarded the War Cross with three swords, Norway's highest military decoration.

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10/05/2010

Frank Frazetta, American illustrator and painter (born 1928)

Frank Frazetta was an American artist known for themes of fantasy and science fiction, noted for comic books, paperback book covers, paintings, posters, LP record album covers, and other media. He is often referred to as the "Godfather of fantasy art", and one of the most renowned illustrators of the 20th century. He was also the subject of a 2003 documentary Painting with Fire.

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10/05/2008

Leyla Gencer, Turkish soprano (born 1928)

Leyla Gencer also known as La Diva Turca was a Turkish operatic soprano.

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10/05/2006

Soraya, Colombian-American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (born 1969)

Soraya Raquel Lamilla Cuevas was a Colombian-American singer-songwriter, guitarist, arranger and record producer.

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10/05/2003

Milan Vukcevich, Serbian-American chemist and chess player (born 1937)

Milan R. Vukcevich was a Serbian-American chemist, a grandmaster of chess problem composition and writer.

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10/05/2002

Kaifi Azmi, Indian poet and songwriter (born 1919)

Kaifi Azmi was an Indian Urdu poet. He is remembered as the one who brought Urdu literature to Indian motion pictures. Together with Pirzada Qasim, Jaun Elia and others he participated in many memorable Mushaira gatherings of the twentieth century. He was also a communist who wanted to see India one day become a socialist state. His wife was theatre and film actress Shaukat Kaifi.

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Yves Robert, French actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1920)

Yves Robert was a French actor, screenwriter, director, and producer.

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10/05/2001

Sudhakarrao Naik, Indian politician, Governor of Himachal Pradesh (born 1934)

Sudhakarrao Rajusing Naik was an Indian politician from Indian National Congress party who served as Chief Minister of Maharashtra from 25 June 1991 until 22 February 1993 following the communal riots. He also served as Governor of Himachal Pradesh from 1994 to 1995 He had given the new shape to the Panchayat Raj, started the continuous election process in Panchayat Raj systems all over the state, as desired by the former Prime Minister Rajeev Gandhi, decentralisation of power and faster decision making process being motive of bringing back the Panchayat Raj in full-fledged functioning. He is called as the hero of Jalkranti, who started the irrigation revolution in the State of Maharashtra.

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10/05/2000

Jules Deschênes, Canadian lawyer and judge (born 1923)

Jules Deschênes, was a Canadian Quebec Superior Court judge.

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Dick Sprang, American illustrator (born 1915)

Richard W. Sprang was an American comic book artist and penciller, best known for his work on the superhero Batman during the period fans and historians call Golden Age of Comic Books. Sprang was responsible for the 1950 redesign of the Batmobile and the original design of the Riddler, who has appeared in film, television and other media adaptations. Sprang's Batman was notable for his square chin, expressive face and barrel chest.

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10/05/1999

Shel Silverstein, American poet, author, and illustrator (born 1930)

Sheldon Allan Silverstein was an American writer, cartoonist, songwriter, and musician. Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Silverstein briefly attended college before being drafted into the United States Army. During his rise to prominence in the 1950s, his illustrations were published in various newspapers and magazines, including the adult-oriented Playboy. He also wrote a satirical, adult-oriented alphabet book, Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book.

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10/05/1994

John Wayne Gacy, American serial killer (born 1942)

John Wayne Gacy was an American serial killer and sex offender who raped, tortured and murdered at least thirty-three young men and boys between 1972 and 1978 in Norwood Park Township, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. He became known as the "Killer Clown" due to his public performances as a clown prior to the discovery of his crimes.

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10/05/1990

Walker Percy, American novelist and essayist (born 1916)

Walker Percy, OblSB was an American writer whose interests included philosophy and semiotics. Percy is noted for his philosophical novels set in and around New Orleans; his first, The Moviegoer, won the National Book Award for Fiction.

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10/05/1989

Dominik Tatarka, Slovak writer (born 1913)

Dominik Tatarka was a Slovak writer famous for his 1956 satirical text The Demon of Consent condemning Stalinism.

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10/05/1988

Shen Congwen, Chinese author and academic (born 1902)

Shen Congwen, formerly romanized as Shen Ts'ung-wen, was a Chinese writer who is considered one of the greatest modern Chinese writers, on par with Lu Xun. Regional culture and identity plays a much bigger role in his writing than that of other major early modern Chinese writers. He was known for combining the vernacular style with classical Chinese writing techniques. Shen is the most important of the "native soil" writers in modern Chinese literature. Shen Congwen published many excellent compositions in his life, the most famous of which is the novella Border Town. This story is about the old ferryman and his granddaughter Cuicui's love story. Shen Congwen and his wife Zhang Zhaohe were married in 1933, Shen Congwen and Zhang Zhaohe had two sons and one daughter after their marriage.

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10/05/1982

Peter Weiss, German playwright and painter (born 1916)

Peter Ulrich Weiss was a German writer, painter, graphic artist, and experimental filmmaker of adopted Swedish nationality. He is particularly known for his plays Marat/Sade and The Investigation and his novel The Aesthetics of Resistance.

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10/05/1977

Joan Crawford, American actress (year of birth disputed)

Joan Crawford was an American actress. She began her career as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies before debuting on Broadway. Crawford was signed to a motion-picture contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1925. Initially frustrated by the size and quality of her roles, Crawford launched a publicity campaign and built an image as a nationally known flapper by the end of the 1920s. By the 1930s, Crawford's fame rivaled MGM colleagues Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo. Crawford often played hardworking young women who manage to find romance and financial success. These "rags-to-riches" stories were well received by Depression-era audiences and were popular with women. Crawford became one of Hollywood's most prominent movie stars and one of the highest paid women in the United States, but her films began losing money. By the end of the 1930s, she was labeled "box office poison".

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10/05/1974

Hal Mohr, American director and cinematographer (born 1894)

Harold Leon "Hal" Mohr, A.S.C. was a famed movie cinematographer, noted for shooting The Jazz Singer, Hollywood's landmark semi-talkie. Mohr won an Oscar for his work on the 1935 film, A Midsummer Night's Dream, another for the 1943 version of The Phantom of the Opera, and received an Oscar nomination for lensing the 1952 film of Jan de Hartog's The Fourposter.

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10/05/1968

Scotty Beckett, American actor and singer (born 1929)

Scott Hastings Beckett was an American actor. He began his career as a child actor in the Our Gang shorts and later costarred on Rocky Jones, Space Ranger.

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10/05/1965

Hubertus van Mook, Dutch politician, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (born 1894)

Hubertus Johannes "Huib" van Mook was a Dutch administrator in the East Indies. During the Indonesian National Revolution, he served as the lieutenant governor-general of the Dutch East Indies from 1942 to 1948. Van Mook also had a son named Cornelius van Mook who studied marine engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also wrote about Java - and his work on Kota Gede is a good example of a colonial bureaucrat capable of examining and writing about local folklore.

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10/05/1964

Mikhail Larionov, Russian painter, illustrator, and set designer (born 1881)

Mikhail Fyodorovich Larionov was a Russian avant-garde painter who worked with radical exhibitors and pioneered the first approach to abstract Russian art. He was founding member of two important artistic groups Knave of Diamonds and the more radical Donkey's Tail. His lifelong partner was fellow avant-garde artist, Natalia Goncharova, with whom they worked on Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in France and Switzerland.

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10/05/1960

Yury Olesha, Russian author, poet, and playwright (born 1899)

Yury Karlovich Olesha was a Russian and Soviet novelist. He is considered one of the greatest Russian novelists of the 20th century, one of the few to have succeeded in writing works of lasting artistic value despite the stifling censorship of the era. His works are delicate balancing acts that superficially send pro-Communist messages but reveal far greater subtlety and richness upon a deeper reading. Sometimes, he is grouped with his friends Ilf and Petrov, Isaac Babel, and Sigismund Krzhizhanovsky into the Odessa School of Writers.

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10/05/1950

Belle da Costa Greene, American librarian and bibliographer (born 1883)

Belle da Costa Greene was an American librarian who managed and developed the personal library of J. P. Morgan. After Morgan died in 1913, Greene continued as librarian for his son, Jack Morgan, and in 1924 was named the first director of the Pierpont Morgan Library. Despite being born to black parents, Greene spent her professional career passing for white.

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10/05/1945

Richard Glücks, German SS officer (born 1889)

Richard Glücks was a high-ranking German SS functionary during the Nazi era. From November 1939 until the end of World War II, he commanded the Concentration Camps Inspectorate, later integrated into the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office as "Amt D". Reporting first to Theodor Eicke, then to SS chief Heinrich Himmler and finally to Oswald Pohl, he became Inspector of Concentration Camps. He retained this position despite Himmler, in whose presence Glücks would panic, having little confidence in him. Glücks was responsible for the forced labour of camp inmates and was the supervisor for the medical practices in the camps, ranging from Nazi human experimentation to the implementation of the "Final Solution", in particular the mass murder of inmates with Zyklon B gas. After Germany capitulated, Glücks committed suicide by swallowing a potassium cyanide capsule.

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Konrad Henlein, Czech soldier and politician (born 1898)

Konrad Ernst Eduard Henlein was a Sudeten German politician in Czechoslovakia, before World War II. After Nazi Germany invaded and occupated Czechoslovakia he became the Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter of Reichsgau Sudetenland.

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10/05/1910

Stanislao Cannizzaro, Italian chemist and academic (born 1826)

Stanislao Cannizzaro was an Italian chemist. He is famous for the Cannizzaro reaction and for his influential role in the atomic-weight deliberations of the Karlsruhe Congress in 1860.

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10/05/1897

Andrés Bonifacio, Filipino soldier and politician, President of the Philippines (born 1863)

Andrés Bonifacio was a Filipino revolutionary leader. He is often called "The Father of the Philippine Revolution", considered a national hero of the Philippines.

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10/05/1891

Carl Nägeli, Swiss botanist and mycologist (born 1817)

Carl Wilhelm von Nägeli was a Swiss botanist. He studied cell division and pollination but became known as the man who discouraged Gregor Mendel from further work on genetics. He rejected natural selection as a mechanism of evolution, favouring orthogenesis driven by a supposed "inner perfecting principle".

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Peter Ward, New York politician (born 1827)

Peter Ward was a New York businessman and politician. From 1851–1859, Ward was the superintendent of the Newburgh Branch of the Erie Railroad. He also worked for the New York, Ontario and Western Railway and the New Jersey Southern Railroad. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the mayor of Newburgh, New York, from March 13, 1882, to March 11, 1884. In 1889, Ward was elected in a special election to represent the 13th district in the New York State Senate following the death of Senator Henry R. Low. He was sworn in on February 11, 1889, and served until the completion of the 112th New York State Legislature on December 31, 1889. Ward died on May 10, 1891, aged 63, just months after having his tongue removed in surgery.

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10/05/1889

Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Russian journalist, author, and playwright (born 1826)

Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin, born Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov and known during his lifetime by the pen name Nikolai Shchedrin, was a major Russian writer and satirist of the 19th century. He spent most of his life working as a civil servant in various capacities. After the death of poet Nikolay Nekrasov, he acted as editor of a Russian literary magazine Otechestvenniye Zapiski until the Tsarist government banned it in 1884. In his works Saltykov mastered both stark realism and satirical grotesque merged with fantasy. His most famous works, the family chronicle novel The Golovlyov Family (1880) and the novel The History of a Town (1870), also translated as Foolsburg, became important works of 19th-century fiction, and Saltykov is regarded as a major figure of Russian literary Realism.

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10/05/1868

Henry Bennett, American lawyer and politician (born 1808)

Henry Bennett was an American lawyer and politician who served five terms as a United States representative from New York from 1849 to 1859.

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10/05/1865

William Armstrong, American lawyer, civil servant, politician, and businessperson (born 1782)

William Armstrong was an American lawyer, civil servant, politician, and businessperson. He represented Hampshire County in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1818 to 1820, and Virginia's 16th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1825 to 1833.

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10/05/1863

Stonewall Jackson, American general (born 1824)

Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson was a Confederate general and military officer who served during the American Civil War. He played a prominent role in nearly all military engagements in the eastern theater of the war until his death. Military historians regard him as one of the most gifted tactical commanders in U.S. history.

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10/05/1849

Hokusai, Japanese painter and illustrator (born 1760)

Katsushika Hokusai was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period, active as a painter and printmaker. His woodblock print series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji includes the iconic print The Great Wave off Kanagawa. Hokusai was instrumental in developing ukiyo-e from a style of portraiture largely focused on courtesans and actors into a much broader style of art that focused on landscapes, plants, and animals. His works had a significant influence on Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet during the wave of Japonisme that spread across Europe in the late 19th century.

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10/05/1829

Thomas Young, English physician and linguist (born 1773)

Thomas Young FRS was a British polymath who made notable contributions to the fields of vision, light, solid mechanics, energy, physiology, language, musical harmony, and Egyptology. He was instrumental in the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs, specifically the Rosetta Stone.

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10/05/1818

Paul Revere, American engraver and soldier (born 1735)

Paul Revere was an American silversmith, military officer and industrialist who played a major role during the opening months of the American Revolutionary War in Massachusetts, engaging in a midnight ride in 1775 to alert nearby minutemen of the approach of British troops prior to the battles of Lexington and Concord.

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10/05/1807

Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, French general (born 1725)

Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau was a French Royal Army officer who played a critical role in the American victory at the siege of Yorktown in 1781 during the American Revolutionary War. He was commander-in-chief of the Expédition Particulière, the French expeditionary force sent to North America during the conflict. He worked closely and well with George Washington, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army.

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10/05/1798

George Vancouver, English navigator and explorer (born 1757)

Captain George Vancouver was a Royal Navy officer and explorer best known for leading the Vancouver Expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern Pacific Coast regions, including the coasts of what became the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. states of Alaska, Washington, Oregon and California. The expedition also explored the Hawaiian Islands and the southwest coast of Australia.

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10/05/1794

Élisabeth of France, French princess and youngest sibling of Louis XVI (born 1764)

Élisabeth of France, also known as Madame Élisabeth, was a French princess. She was the youngest child of Louis, Dauphin of France, and Duchess Maria Josepha of Saxony, and she was a sister of King Louis XVI. Élisabeth's father, the Dauphin, was the son and heir of King Louis XV and his popular wife, Queen Marie Leszczyńska. Élisabeth remained beside her brother and his family during the French Revolution, and she was executed during the Reign of Terror at the Place de la Révolution. The cause for her beatification and canonization has been introduced by the Catholic Church, and she has been declared a Servant of God by Pope Pius XII.

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10/05/1787

William Watson, English physician, physicist, and botanist (born 1715)

Sir William Watson, FRS was a British physician and scientist who was born and died in London. His early work was in botany, and he helped to introduce the work of Carl Linnaeus into England. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1741 and vice president in 1772. He was knighted in 1786.

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10/05/1774

Louis XV, King of France (born 1710)

Louis XV, known as Louis the Beloved, was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached maturity in 1723, the kingdom was ruled by his grand-uncle Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, as Regent of France. Cardinal Fleury was chief minister from 1726 until his death in 1743, at which time the king took sole control of the kingdom.

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10/05/1726

Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St Albans, English soldier and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire (born 1670)

Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St. Albans, KG was an illegitimate son of King Charles II of England by his mistress Nell Gwyn.

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10/05/1717

John Hathorne, American merchant and politician (born 1641)

John Hathorne was a merchant and magistrate of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Salem, Massachusetts. He is best known for his early and vocal role as one of the leading judges in the Salem witch trials.

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10/05/1641

Johan Banér, Swedish field marshal (born 1596)

Johan Banér was a Swedish field marshal in the Thirty Years' War.

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10/05/1569

John of Ávila, Spanish mystic and saint (born 1500)

John of Ávila was a Spanish priest, preacher, scholastic author, and religious mystic, who has been declared a saint and Doctor of the Church by the Catholic Church. He is called the "Apostle of Andalusia", for his extensive ministry in that region.

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10/05/1566

Leonhart Fuchs, German physician and botanist (born 1501)

Leonhart Fuchs, sometimes spelled Leonhard Fuchs and cited in Latin as Leonhartus Fuchsius, was a German physician and botanist. His chief notability is as the author of a large book about plants and their uses as medicines, a herbal, which was first published in 1542 in Latin. It has about 500 accurate and detailed drawings of plants, which were printed from woodcuts. The drawings are the book's most notable advance on its predecessors. Although drawings had been used in other herbal books, Fuchs's book proved and emphasized high-quality drawings as the most telling way to specify what a plant name stands for.

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10/05/1521

Sebastian Brant, German author (born 1457)

Sebastian Brant was a German humanist and satirist. He is best known for his satire Das Narrenschiff.

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10/05/1493

Colin Campbell, 1st Earl of Argyll, Scottish politician, Lord Chancellor of Scotland (born 1433)

Colin Campbell, 1st Earl of Argyll was a medieval Scottish nobleman, peer, and politician. He was the son of Archibald Campbell, Master of Campbell and Elizabeth Somerville, daughter of John Somerville, 3rd Lord Somerville. He had the sobriquet Colin Mulle, Bold Earl Colin.

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10/05/1482

Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, Italian mathematician and astronomer (born 1397)

Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli was an Italian mathematician, astronomer, and cosmographer. Born in Florence, he was a notable local Renaissance figure. Christopher Columbus carried his map on his first voyage to the New World.

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10/05/1403

Katherine Swynford, widow of John of Gaunt

Katherine, Duchess of Lancaster was the third wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the fourth son of King Edward III. From her earlier marriage, she is known as Katherine Swynford.

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10/05/1299

Theingapati, heir to the Pagan Kingdom

Theingapati was heir-apparent of the Pagan Dynasty of Burma (Myanmar) from 1289 to 1297. The crown prince is known for his mission to Beijing in which he sought and received the Mongol Empire's recognition of his father, Kyawswa, as King of Pagan in March 1297. The prince was arrested after his father was overthrown in December 1297 by the three brothers of Myinsaing. The brothers branded the father-son duo as traitors and executed them in May 1299.

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