/ Stars that died in 2023

Friday, July 13, 2012

Ramaz Chkhikvadze, Georgian-born English stage actor, died he was 83.


Ramaz Chkhikvadze  was a Georgian film and theater actor. First appearing in the 1954 film "The Dragonfly" (Chrichina), he starred in over 60 films during his career.[1][2]
Honoring him posthumously, Georgian President Saakashvili issued a statement in which he said "Mr. Ramaz was a distinguished star of Georgian film and theatre and a creator of an entire epoch. The cultural heritage expressed by his unique talent and originality, on which generations have been brought up, will forever stay in the memories of his audience."[3]

(1928- October 17, 2011)


Selected filmography

  • "A Necklace for My Beloved" (Samkauli satrfosatvis) - 1971
  • "The Dragonfly" (Chrichina) - 1954

Awards



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Monday, July 9, 2012

Hans Apel, German politician, Finance Minister (1974–1978) and Defence Minister (1978–1982), died he was 79.

Hans Eberhard Apel was a German politician and a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). From 1972 to 1974 he was Parliamentary State Secretary to the Foreign Minister died he was 79.. From 1974 to 1978 he was the Minister of Finance and from 1978 to 1982 he was the Minister of Defence.

(25 February 1932 – 6 September 2011) 

Education and career

After completing his Abitur (roughly equivalent to graduating high school, A-Level exam) in 1954 in Hamburg, he served an apprenticeship as an import and export businessman, in Hamburg. After completing his apprenticeship he went to university, where he studied Economics. In 1960 he was awarded a doctorate in Political Science. From 1958 to 1961 he was the Secretary of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament.
In 1962 he became a civil servant at the European Parliament, where he served as Department Head responsible for Economics, Finance and Transport. In 1993 he was appointed an honorary professor of Economics at the University of Rostock.

Family

Hans and Ingrid Apel wed in 1956; they had two children.

Politics

Apel joined the SPD in 1955. From 1970 to 1988 he was a member of the National Executive (Bundesvorstand) of the SPD, and from 1986 to 1988 he was also a member of the Executive Board (Präsidium). From 1965 to 1990, Dr. Apel was a member of the German Bundestag. In 1969 he was deputy chairman of the SPD parliamentary group and again in 1983, after the new elections, until 1988.[citation needed]

Government positions

In 1972, Dr. Apel was appointed Parliamentary State Secretary for European Questions at the German Foreign Office. In 1974, he was appointed Finance Minister in the government of Helmut Schmidt. After the cabinet reshuffle of 1978, he was put in charge of the Ministry of Defense.
He left government on 1 October 1982, after Helmut Kohl became Chancellor. In 1985, he ran as the top candidate for the SPD in Berlin, which implied standing as Mayor of Berlin, but lost to the CDU candidate.

Religion

Dr. Apel spent his later years speaking about religion. In 2004 he was awarded the Walter Künneth Prize by the "Kirchliche Sammlung um Bibel und Bekenntnis in Bayern" (the Ecclesiastical Assembly for the Bible and Commitment in Bavaria), a conservative Lutheran organization. The prize, named after the German theologian, Walter Künneth, was awarded principally for Apel's book Volkskirche ohne Volk (People's Church without a People), in which he criticizes the "rampant modernism" of the Evangelical Church; he left the North Elbian Evangelical Church and joined the Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church.



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Dan David, Romanian-born Israeli businessman and philanthropist, died from a brain hemorrhage he was 82.

Dan David was a Romanian-born Israeli businessman and philanthropist died from a brain hemorrhage he was 82..

(23 May 1929 – 6 September 2011)

Biography

Dan David was born to a Jewish family in Bucharest, Romania. He joined a Zionist youth movement at the age of 16. After studying economics at university, he worked for Romanian television and became a press photographer. In 1958, his newspaper asked him to travel to West Germany on an assignment. When he requested an exit permit, he was accused of being a Zionist activist and was fired from his job.[1]
He left Romania for Paris in August 1960, later settling in Israel. The following year, he traveled to Europe. With a $200,000 loan from a cousin, he won the franchise for Photo-Me International automated photography booths in certain countries. He opened branches in Israel, Spain, Romania and Italy, eventually taking over the company.[2] When David was chairman[3] of Photo-Me in 1999, his and board-member Serge Crasnianski's shares were valued at 210 and 200 million pounds, respectively.[4]
David died in London on September 6, 2011.[5]

Dan David Prize

In 2000, David founded the Dan David Foundation with a $100 million endowment. The First Director of the Dan David Prize was Professor Gad Barzilai. The Foundation, together with Tel Aviv University, awards the Dan David Prize (first awarded in 2002), which consists of annual awards of three prizes of $1 million each awarded to individuals who have made an outstanding contribution in the fields of science, technology, culture or social welfare.[
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Archduke Felix of Austria, Austrian royal, last surviving child of Charles I of Austria, died he was 95..

Archduke Felix of Austria given names: Felix Friedrich August Maria vom Siege Franz Joseph Peter Karl Anton Robert Otto Pius Michael Benedikt Sebastian Ignatius Marcus d'Aviano;  was the last surviving child of the last Austrian Emperor Charles I and a member of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine died he was 95... He was a younger brother of the late Crown Prince Otto of Austria.

(31 May 1916 – 6 September 2011)

Early life and exile

Archduke Felix was born in the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna the third son of the then heir presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary the Archduke Charles and his wife Zita of Bourbon-Parma.[2] He was christened at Schönbrunn on 8 June 1916 in the presence of his great-grand uncle Emperor Franz Joseph while his godfather was his great-uncle King Frederick Augustus III of Saxony, brother of his grandmother Princess Maria Josepha of Saxony.[3] On 21 November 1916 the Emperor Franz Joseph died and Felix's father succeeded as the new Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary.
Archduke Felix was less than three years old when Austria-Hungary collapsed following its defeat in the First World War. As a result, republics were declared in the now-separate countries Austria and Hungary which led to exile of the Imperial Family. Originally exiled in Switzerland the Imperial Family were taken to Portuguese island of Madeira in 1921 after Archduke Felix's father's failed attempts to claim the throne in the Kingdom of Hungary from the regent Miklós Horthy. On 1 April 1922 his father Emperor Charles died in Madeira.
In the autumn of 1937 Archduke Felix was permitted to return to Austria, entering the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt. He became the first Habsburg since the abolition of the monarchy to pursue a career as an officer in the Austrian Army.[4] With the Anschluss approaching Archduke Felix, his sister Archduchess Adelheid and Archduke Eugen fled Austria crossing the border to Czechoslovakia.[5][6]
During the Second World War while in the United States, Felix and his brother Karl Ludwig volunteered to serve in the 101st Infantry Battalion known as the "Free Austria Battalion". However the battalion was disbanded when a number of exiled Jewish volunteers who made up the majority of force ultimately declined to confirm their enlistment.[7]

Return to Austria

Felix, unlike his brother Otto, always refused to renounce his rights to the Austrian throne and membership of the Habsburg family, saying that doing so would violate his human rights. As a result he was banned from entering Austria except for a brief three-day stay in 1989 in order to attend his mother's funeral.[8] On 10 March 1996, after Austria had joined the European Union and the concurrent dropping of staffed border checkpoints between Austria and other EU countries, he crossed into the country from Germany and held a press conference the next day to announce his illegal arrival.[9] After his presence became known, he was warned by the Austrian government that he would face prosecution if he ever tried to enter the country illegally again.[10] Ultimately, a deal was reached between Felix, his brother Karl Ludwig and the Austrian government whereby they declared their allegiance to the republic without any reference being made to their rights to the throne or to their membership in the Imperial Family.[9]
In June 1998, in a joint action with his brother Karl Ludwig, Felix attempted to have the properties which were given to their ancestor Maria Theresa of Austria by her husband Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor restored to them after the properties had been taken from the Habsburg family by Adolf Hitler during the Anschluss.[11]
Felix built up a number of successful businesses in Mexico and Brussels[9] and worked as a marketing consultant.[12]
During his time in exile Archduke Felix lived in Portugal, Belgium, Mexico and the United States.[8] He lived in the colonia of San Ángel in Mexico City where he died 6 September 2011.[13] He was interred in the family crypt in Muri Abbey, near Zurich. The abbey is a favoured burial place of the Habsburg dynasty, and also contains the remains of his wife and the hearts of his parents.[14]

Marriage and children

Felix was married civilly on 18 November 1952 at Beaulieu[disambiguation needed ], France, and religiously a day later, to Princess and Duchess Anna-Eugénie of Arenberg (1925–1997).[2] They had seven children.
  • Archduchess María del Pilar of Austria (born 1953) married Vollrad-Joachim Edler von Poschinger (born 1952)
  • Archduke Carl Philipp (Carlos Felipe) of Austria (born 1954) married first (separated 1997) Martina Donath. Married second Annie-Claire Christine Lacrambe (born 1959)
  • Archduchess Kinga of Austria (born 1955) married Baron Wolfgang von Erffa (born 1948)
  • Archduke Raimund (Ramón) of Austria (1958–2008) married Bettina Götz (born 1969)
  • Archduchess Myriam of Austria (born 1959) married Jaime Corcuera Acheson (born 1955), a Mexican descendant of the Earls of Gosford.
  • Archduke István (Esteban) of Austria (born 1961) married Paola de Temesváry (born 1971)
  • Archduchess Viridis of Austria (born 1961, twin of Archduke Istvan) married The Honorable Carl Dunning-Gribble, Lord of Marnhull (born 1961)
As they all lived in Mexico, and some still do, they are called by the Spanish equivalent to their names.

Honours and patronages

Along with his brothers Otto and Rudolf, Archduke Felix was a patron for the revived Almanach de Gotha.[15]

Titles and styles


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Michael S. Hart, American author, inventor of the e-book and founder of Project Gutenberg, died from a heart attack he was 64..

Michael Stern Hart was an American author, best known as the inventor of the electronic book (or ebook) and the founder of Project Gutenberg, a project to make ebooks freely available via the Internet died from a heart attack he was 64... Most of the early postings were typed in by Hart himself.

(March 8, 1947 – September 6, 2011)

Early life

Michael Hart's father was an accountant and his mother, a former cryptanalyst during World War II, was a business manager at a retail store. In 1958 his family relocated to Urbana, Illinois, and his father and mother became college professors in Shakespearean studies and mathematics education, respectively. Hart attended the University of Illinois, graduating in just two years.[4] He then attended but did not complete graduate school. He was also, briefly, a street musician.[5]

Project Gutenberg

During Hart's time there, the University of Illinois computer center gave Hart a user's account on its computer system: Hart's brother's best friend was the mainframe operator.[6] Although the focus of computer use there tended to be data processing, Hart was aware that it was connected to a network (part of what would become the Internet) and chose to use his computer time for information distribution. Hart related that after his account was created on July 4, 1971, he had been trying to think of what to do with it and had seized upon a copy of the United States Declaration of Independence, which he had been given at a grocery store on his way home from watching fireworks that evening. He typed the text into the computer but was told that it would be unacceptable to transmit it to numerous people at once via e-mail.[6] Thus, to avoid crashing the system, he made the text available for people to download instead.
This was the beginning of Project Gutenberg. Hart began posting text copies of such classics as the Bible and the works of Homer, Shakespeare, and Mark Twain. As of 1987 he had typed in a total of 313 books in this fashion. Then, through being involved in the University of Illinois PC User Group and with assistance from Mark Zinzow, a programmer at the school, Hart was able to recruit volunteers and set up an infrastructure of mirror sites and mailing lists for the project. With this the project was able to grow much more rapidly.
The mission statements for the project were:
"Encourage the Creation and Distribution of eBooks"
"Help Break Down the Bars of Ignorance and Illiteracy"
"Give As Many eBooks to As Many People As Possible"[6]
His overall outlook in the project was to develop in the least demanding format possible: as worded in The Chronicle of Higher Education, to him, open access meant " open access without proprietary displays, without the need for special software, without the requirement for anything but the simplest of connections. " [7]

Other activities

Hart was an author and his works are available free of charge on the Project Gutenberg server. He was also a member of the RepRap Project, which aims at creating a self-replicating machine.[8]

Personal life

He supported himself by doing odd jobs and used an unpaid appointment at Illinois Benedictine College to solicit donations for the project. "I know that sounds odd to most people, but I just never bought into the money system all that much. I never spent it when I got it. It's all a matter of perspective".[9]
Hart glided through life with many possessions and friends, but very few expenses. He used home remedies rather than seeing doctors, fixed his own house and car. He built many computers, stereos, and other gear, often from discarded components sacrificing personal luxury to fight for literacy, and for preservation of public domain rights and resources, towards the greater good.[1]
The man who spent a lifetime digitizing literature lived amidst the hard copies in his house in Urbana stacked, floor to eye-height, with pillars of books. Mr. Hart led a life of near poverty, and “basically lived off of cans of beans.” Mr. Hart cobbled together a living with the money he earned as an adjunct professor and with grants and donations to Project Gutenberg.[10]

Death

Hart died on September 6, 2011 of a heart attack at his home in Urbana, Illinois. He was 64.

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George Kuchar, American film director, died from prostate cancer he was 69.


George Kuchar  was an American underground film director, known for his "low-fi" aesthetic.

(August 31, 1942 – September 6, 2011)

Early life and career

Kuchar trained as a commercial artist at the School of Industrial Art, now known as the High School of Art and Design, a vocational school in New York City. He graduated in 1960 and drew weather maps for a local news show. During this period, he and his twin brother Mike Kuchar were making 8mm movies, which were showcased in the then-burgeoning underground film scene alongside films by Andy Warhol, Kenneth Anger, and Stan Brakhage.
After being laid off from a commercial art job in New York City, Kuchar was offered a teaching job in the film department of the San Francisco Art Institute, where he taught from 1971 until early 2011. [2]
In San Francisco, Kuchar became involved with underground comics via his neighbors Art Spiegelman and Bill Griffith. They both wound up in his movies and George wound up in their publications.

Films

George Kuchar directed over 200 films and videos (including over 15 with his twin brother Mike), many of them short films by students in his courses at the San Francisco Art Institute. His video work is archived at the Video Data Bank and Electronic Arts Intermix.[3] In the Critics' Poll of the 100 best films of the 20th century, appearing originally in The Village Voice (4 January 2000), Hold Me While I'm Naked was ranked 52nd.[4]

Films featuring George Kuchar

Planet Kuchar, a biopic of the life of George Kuchar, is being developed by Los Angeles production company Automat Pictures and producer Jeffrey Schwarz.
It Came From Kuchar, a documentary film of the life of George and Mike Kuchar by Jennifer Kroot, premiered at the South by Southwest film festival on 14 March 2009.[5]
In 1997, the Kuchar brothers collaborated on a book Reflections from a Cinematic Cesspool, a memoir discussing four decades of filmmaking with an introduction by director John Waters.

Death

George Kuchar died on 6 September 2011 in San Francisco, just past his 69th birthday on August 31st, of complications related to prostate cancer.[6][7]

Filmography

(The Kuchar brothers, in British punctuation tradition, capitalize articles, prepositional phrases, and contractions in their movie titles, when working together or independently)
  • The Wet Destruction Of The Atlantic Empire (1954)
  • Screwball (1957)
  • The Naked And The Nude (1957)
  • The Slasher (1958)
  • The Thief And The Stripper (1959)
  • A Tub Named Desire (1960)
  • I Was A Teenage Rumpot (1960)
  • Pussy On A Hot Tin Roof (1961)
  • Born Of The Wind (1961)
  • A Woman Distressed (1962)
  • A Town Called Tempest (1962)
  • Night Of The Bomb (1962)
  • Lust For Ectsasy (1963)
  • The Confessions Of Babette (1963)
  • Tootsies In Autumn (1963)
  • Anita Needs Me (1963)
  • The Lovers Of Eternity (1963)
  • Corruption Of The Damned (1965)
  • Hold Me While I'm Naked (1966)
  • Leisure (1966)
  • Mosholu Holiday (1966)
  • Color Me Shameless (1967)
  • Eclipse Of The Sun Virgin (1967)
  • The Lady From Sands Point (1967)
  • Knocturne (1968)
  • Unstrap Me (1968)
  • House Of The White People (1968)
  • Encyclopedia Of The Blessed (1968)
  • The Mammal Palace (1969)
  • Pagan Rhapsody (1970)
  • Portrait Of Ramona (1971)
  • The Sunshine Sisters (1972)
  • The Devil's Cleavage (1973)
  • Thundercrack! (1975)(screenplay)
  • Back To Nature (1976)
  • A Reason To Live (1976)
  • La Casa De Chorizo (1977)
  • KY Kapers (1977)
  • Wild Night In El Reno (1977)
  • Forever And Always (1978)
  • Mongreloid (1978)
  • Blips (1979)
  • Aqueerius (1980)
  • The Nocturnal Immaculation (1980)
  • Yolando (1980)
  • Cattle Mutilations (1983)
  • Mom (1983)
  • Untitled Musical (1984)
  • The X-People (1984)
  • Ascension Of The Demonoids (1985)
Produced at the San Francisco Art Institute:
  • Destination Damnation (1972)
  • Carnal Bipeds (1973)
  • I Married A Heathen (1974)
  • The Desperate And The Deep (1975)
  • I, An Actress (1977)
  • The Asphalt Ribbon (1977)
  • One Night A Week (1978)
  • Prescrition [sic] In Blue (1978)
  • The Power Of The Press (1979)
  • Remember Tomorrow (1979)
  • Symphony For A Sinner (1979)
  • How To Chose [sic] A Wife (1980)
  • The Woman And The Dress (1980)
  • Ochokpug (1980)
  • Boulevard Kishka (1981)
  • The Oneers (1982)
  • Ms. Hyde (1983)
  • Club Vatican (1984)
  • The Legend Of Thelma White (1985)
  • Motel Capri (1986)
  • La Noche D'Amour (1986)
  • PRC Musical (1986)
  • Insanitorium (1987)
  • Summer Of No Return (1988)
  • La Verbotene Voyage (1989)
  • A Fatal Desire (2004)
  • The Crypt of Frankenstein (2008)
  • Zombies of Zanzibar (2010)

Videography



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Janusz Morgenstern, Polish filmmaker, died he was 88.

Janusz "Kuba" Morgenstern  was a Polish film director and producer died he was 88..
 
(16 November 1922 – 6 September 2011)

Janusz Morgenstern was born in 1922 to a Jewish family in the village of Mikulińce near Tarnopol (then Poland, now Ukraine), to Dawid Morgenstern and Estera (née Druks).
He debuted as a director with the film Goodbye, See You Tomorrow (1960). His other films include Jowita (1967), We Have to Kill this Love (1972), W-Hour (1979), Lesser of Two Evils (2009). TV series directed by Morgenstern included: Stake Larger than Life (1967–1968), Columbuses (1970) and Polish Roads (1976).[1] He died in Warsaw, Poland.


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Dickey Betts died he was 80

Early Career Forrest Richard Betts was also known as Dickey Betts Betts collaborated with  Duane Allman , introducing melodic twin guitar ha...