/ Stars that died in 2023

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Thomas Dillon, American serial killer, died he was 61.

Thomas Lee Dillon  was a serial killer who shot and killed five men in southeastern Ohio, beginning April 1, 1989 and continuing until April 1992.[3]

(July 9, 1950[1][2] – October 21, 2011)

Dillon was born in Canton, Ohio. He was captured in 1992 when a friend recognized a behavioral profile compiled by the FBI. Dillon was incarcerated at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility for five consecutive sentences of thirty years to life for aggravated murder.[1] In 1998, his crimes were featured in an episode ("Human Prey") of the Discovery Channel's The FBI Files.
Dillon’s shooting victims were:[4]
  • Donald Welling, 35, of Strasburg, Ohio on April 1, 1989, while walking or jogging on Tuscarawas County Road 94.
  • Jamie Paxton, 21, of Bannock, Ohio while deer hunting Nov. 10, 1990, in Belmont County.
  • Kevin Loring, 30, of Duxbury, Mass., on Nov. 28, 1990, while deer hunting in Muskingum County.
  • Claude Hawkins, 48, of Mansfield, Ohio on March 14, 1992, while fishing at Wills Creek in Coshocton County.
  • Gary Bradley, 44, of Williamstown, W.Va, on April 5, 1992, while fishing near Caldwell in Noble County.

Death

On October 21, 2011, Dillon died in the prison wing at Corrections Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio, aged 61, after being ill for nearly three weeks due to Hepatitis C [5]


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Monday, May 20, 2013

Gale Gillingham, American football player (Green Bay Packers), died he was 67.

Gale Herbert Gillingham was an American guard who spent his entire ten-year professional football career in the National Football League (NFL) with the Green Bay Packers (19661974, 1976).[1]

(February 3, 1944 – October 20, 2011)

Born in Madison, Wisconsin, Gillingham grew up on a farm in nearby Stoughton.[2] He attended the University of Minnesota, where he was a classmate of future Kansas City Chiefs defensive end Aaron Brown, whom he faced in Super Bowl I.
In his rookie season, he alternated as the starter at left guard with veteran Fuzzy Thurston. During the 1967 season, he took Thurston's spot full-time, opposite perennial All-Pro Jerry Kramer. He started the Ice Bowl and Super Bowl II, coach Vince Lombardi's final games after nine seasons with the team.
Gillingham was the last member of the Lombardi-era Packers to be active with the franchise. By time he retired, Bart Starr, whom he blocked for when Starr was leading the Packers to victories in the first two Super Bowls, was the team's coach. Gillingham was a five-time Pro Bowler (1969, '70, '71, 73 and '74), six-time All Pro, and a two-time NFL First Team All Pro (1969 and '70). He was inducted into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame in 1982.[2]
The only season he wasn't on offense was 1972 when head coach Dan Devine inexplicably shifted him to the defensive line even though Gillingham was the team's best offensive lineman. During that campaign, the success of the Packers' offense heavily depended on a strong running attack led by MacArthur Lane and John Brockington. Devine's move, which failed when Gillingham sustained a season-ending knee injury two games into the regular season, was criticized for eventually being a factor in diminishing the team's playoff run.[2]
Gillingham died in Little Falls, Minnesota, age 67, survived by his three sons and one daughter. Noted for his brute strength, he was one of the first players in the NFL to use weight training to stay in playing shape during the offseason.[2] His oldest son, Karl, is a Professional Strongman and has competed in two Worlds Strongest Man competitions. Middle son, Brad, is a 5 time World Champion powerlifter with several National and World Records. Youngest son, Wade, is a former Professional Strongman and is widely regarded as having one of the best grips in the world.


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Mutassim Gaddafi, Libyan Army officer, fifth son of Muammar Gaddafi, died froma shot he was 34.

Mutassim Billah Gaddafi was a Libyan Army officer, and the National Security Advisor of Libya from 2008 until 2011.[1] He was the fifth son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and a member of his father's inner circle.[2][3][4][5] His mother was Safia Farkash. He was captured during the Battle of Sirte by anti-Gaddafi forces, and later killed along with his father.

(1977 – 20 October 2011)

Negotiations with the US

In April 2009, Mutassim Gaddafi met with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the highest-level diplomatic exchange between the two countries since they resumed diplomatic relations several years earlier.[6] For Gaddafi, it was a serious display of his new responsibilities as the National Security Advisor. He was considered a womanizer and described by Libyan officials as "not intellectually curious", who struggled to get him to read custom-made abstracts on current events and national security. He overreached his role as NSA in 2008 by requesting $1.2 billion from the National Oil Corporation to form his own special forces brigade.[7]
Mutassim Gaddafi met with U.S. Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman in 2009, expressing a strong need for military support in Libya. Gaddafi warned, "There are 60 million Algerians to the West, 80 million Egyptians to the East, we have Europe in front of us, and we face Sub-Saharan Africa with its problems to the South." He was concerned about upgrading Libya's military equipment, and said he could purchase arms from Russia and China, but wanted to buy materiel from the United States.[8]

Possible successor

Gaddafi lived in Egypt for several years after allegedly attempting to take control of Libya from his father. His return led to a reconciliation with his father and a high-ranking position as National Security Advisor of Libya. In 2009, a story linking Mutassim Gaddafi to the death of Ibn Al Sheikh Al Libi was published in Libyan newspaper Oea with permission from his brother Saif al-Islam.[1]

Role in the Libyan civil war

During the Libyan civil war, Gaddafi commanded the units in the Brega region notably during the Battle of Brega–Ajdabiya road and the skirmishes in the area. He had been subject to a travel ban and an asset freeze over his close links and membership of his father's inner circle.[9]
Gaddafi was allegedly in Tripoli in the Bab al-Azizia compound, and assisting in commanding what remained of pro-Gaddafi forces in the city during the Battle of Tripoli. However, no evidence of his presence was found by rebels when they captured the compound, nor was there evidence of a presence of any of his sons.
He commanded the loyalist forces in their unsuccessful defense of Sirte, Muammar Gaddafi's hometown,[10] until the city fell.

Death

Mutassim Gaddafi was captured when Sirte fell on 20 October 2011. NTC commanders at the front in Sirte and officials in Tripoli claimed that he was captured as he was trying to leave the city in a family car, and sent off to Benghazi.[11]
Film and photographs of Mutassim Gaddafi alive after being captured has been published.[12][13] Later photographs released by Saudi TV channel Al Arabiya show Mutassim Gaddafi bearded and lying dead on a hospital bed, with a gaping wound in his throat.[14][15]


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Barry Feinstein, American photographer and photojournalist, died he was 80.


Barry Feinstein  was an American photographer who was reputed to have produced over 500 album covers.[1][2] [3]

(February 4, 1931 – October 20, 2011)

Barry Feinstein began in his youth as a photographer. In 1955 he was engaged as an assistant at Life magazine. He subsequently became a sought-after photographer in Hollywood, where he worked with Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, Charlton Heston, Jayne Mansfield, and Steve McQueen. His works, as well as pictures of John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, appeared in magazines such as Time, Esquire, and Newsweek.
In the 1960s, Feinstein became known as a photographer in the music scene. He accompanied Bob Dylan on his 1966 tour of England and shot the cover photos of numerous albums, including from Janis Joplin, George Harrison, and the Rolling Stones. In 1974 he again went on tour with Bob Dylan, this time with The Band, around the United States.
An accident in 1993 affected Feinstein's ability to operate cameras. In 2008 he published two books: one contained 23 of his early Hollywood works together with Bob Dylan poems written in 1964, the second showed photos of Dylan's tours. Feinstein's photographs of the 1966 Bob Dylan Tour were exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery in London in 2009.[4]
Barry Feinstein died on October 20, 2011, at the age of 80 in Woodstock, New York.


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Jerzy Bielecki, Polish social worker, survivor of Auschwitz concentration camp, Polish Righteous among the Nations recipient, died he was 90.


Jerzy Bielecki was a Polish social worker, best known as one of the rare inmates of the Auschwitz concentration camp who managed to survive the ordeal for several years and who escaped from the camp successfully in 1944. After the war he received the Righteous Among the Nations award.[1] He also co-founded and headed the postwar Christian Association of the Auschwitz Families.[2]

(28 March 1921 – 20 October 2011, Nowy Targ)

Biography

Bielecki was born in 1921 in Słaboszów, Poland. A pupil at a gymnasium in Kraków, at the outbreak of World War II he decided to join the Polish Army in the West. Caught at the border with Hungary on 7 May 1940, he was arrested by the Gestapo. A month later, on 14 June 1940 he was sent to the newly-created Auschwitz concentration camp with the first transport of 728 Polish political prisoners (his camp number was 243). His decent knowledge of the German language allowed him to work at a mill in Babice, where he came in contact with the Polish anti-Nazi resistance, the Home Army.[1]
Assigned to an Arbeitskommando at Auschwitz, Bielecki met Cyla Cybulska, a Polish-Jewish inmate of Auschwitz-Birkenau (Auschwitz II) while serving at a grain warehouse. Despite the fact that men and women were not allowed to talk to each other, they managed to exchange a few words every day and they fell in love. Cyla's family had already been murdered. Bielecki promised that they both would survive the ordeal. With time, he secretly collected the necessary supplies for an escape. On 21 July 1944 they managed to cross the camp-gate together using a fake order-form prepared by Bielecki. He was dressed in an SS uniform stolen from the laundry room where she worked.[3] They walked through the fields for ten days. Cybulska was initially hidden at Bielecki's uncle's house at Przemęczany, and later by the Czernik family in a nearby village.[4] Bielecki himself joined the Home Army.[5] However, towards the end of the war they became separated as Cyla Cybulska was informed that he had been killed during Operation Tempest, while he was told she left the country and died in Sweden. It was not until May 1983 in New York that Cybulska accidentally learned that he was alive and well, when a Polish woman cleaning her family's apartment mentioned a documentary with him which she saw. Cyla acquired his phone number, and the couple met the following month in Poland, on 8 June 1983, for the first time since the war ended.[1][4]
After the war, Bielecki co-founded and became the honorary chairman of the Christian Association of the Auschwitz Families. He was also inscribed on the list of the Righteous Among the Nations (in 1985),[4] and became an honorary citizen of Israel. He died in Nowy Targ on 20 October 2011.[1] His escape from the camp with Cybulska was described in a number of documentaries and books, including Bielecki's own autobiography, Kto ratuje jedno życie... (He who saves one life...); published in 1990.[1][6]


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James Yannatos, American composer and conductor, died he was 82.


James Yannatos  was a composer,[1] conductor, violinist and teacher. He was a senior lecturer at Harvard University until his retirement in the spring of 2009.[2]

(March 13, 1929 – October 19, 2011)

Yannatos was born and educated in New York City, In 1943, he was invited to attend Camp Rising Sun, a tuition-free, international summer camp in upstate New York. He attended the High School of Music and Art and the Manhattan School of Music. Subsequent studies with Nadia Boulanger, Luigi Dallapiccola, Darius Milhaud, Paul Hindemith, and Philip Bezanson in composition, William Steinberg and Leonard Bernstein in conducting, and Hugo Kortschak and Ivan Galamian on violin took Yannatos to Yale University (B.M., M.M.), the University of Iowa (Ph.D.), Aspen, Tanglewood, and Paris. As a young violinist, he performed at the Casals Festival and elsewhere in various professional ensembles, including a piano trio, a string quartet, and early music groups with Hindemith and Boulanger.
In 1964, he was appointed music director of the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, and led that group on tours to Europe, Russia, South America, and Asia. He organized and co-directed the New England Composers Orchestra and the Tanglewood Young Artists Orchestra, and taught conducting at Tanglewood. He appeared as guest conductor-composer at the Aspen, Banff, Tanglewood, Chautauqua, and Saratoga Festivals, and with the Boston Pops, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Baltimore, and San Antonio Symphonies and the Sverdlovsk, Leningrad, Cleveland, and American Symphony Chamber Orchestras.
Yannatos composed music for both stage and television in addition to a number of chamber music pieces, choral works, and art songs. Many of his compositions are for children. His only opera, Rockets' Red Blare, to a libretto he wrote himself, premiered in 1971 in a student performance at Harvard University's Loeb Drama Center.
On October 1 and 2, 2011, a completely rewritten score to Rocket's Red Blare received its professional premiere by Intermezzo, The New England Chamber Opera Series at the Agassiz Theater in Radcliffe Yard, Cambridge, MA. In pre-performance talks, Yannatos revealed his dissatisfaction with virtually every element of the 1971 premiere, especially the stage direction, as well as his own music. After that production closed, he shelved the score until 2008, when he revised the libretto (mostly making cuts), and with the exception of a few vocal moments he liked, wrote an entirely new score. Intermezzo's production was directed Kirsten Z. Cairns, with Edward Jones conducting the Juventas New Music Ensemble; designers William Fregosi (scenery), Rebecca Butler (costumes), and Winston Limauge (lights); and Singers David Kravitz (King), D'Anna Fortunato (Queen), Gregory Zavracky (Prince), Natalie Polito (The Girl), and Charles Blandy (Jester).
James Yannatos succumbed to cancer on October 19, 2011, not quite three weeks after having seen his only opera finally produced successfully.


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Jon Weaving, Australian operatic tenor, died from pancreatic cancer he was 80.


Jon Weaving  was an Australian opera singer.[1][2]

(23 February 1931 - 19 October 2011, Sweden)

Early life and career

He was born on 23 February 1931 in the Melbourne suburb of Kew.[3] His maternal cousin was the tenor Ken Neate. He studied singing with Jessye Schmidt and Browning Mummery[3] before leaving for further studies in London with Dino Borgioli, Joan Cross, Herman Simberg, Audrey Langford,[3] Andrew Field and Glyndebourne's Jani Strasser. During this time he also worked as a rehearsal singer with Sir Thomas Beecham for two years before his friend, Richard Bonynge assisted enormously in developing a tenor voice from his former bass - baritone. After a further two years with Bonynge, Jon was engaged by the Sadler's Wells Opera and made his debut as Danilo in The Merry Widow opposite June Bronhill at the London Coliseum, the first of many hundreds of performances of the role.
At Sadler's Wells Weaving also sang Lensky in Eugene Onegin, Alfredo in La traviata, and Roméo et Juliette opposite Elsie Morrison as well as other operetta appearances including Pluto in Orpheus in the Underworld, Raoul de Gardefeu in La Vie Parisienne and Danilo, all of which were recorded by HMV at the famous Abbey Road studios. In this time he made various recordings with the BBC, the first of which was as Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus direct from a stage performance at the Wells. He also sang again with June Bronhill when he appeared as Sir Walter Raleigh in Merrie England. In 1962, Jon began a tour of Australia and New Zealand for Sadler's Wells which had become the English National Opera Company. During this time he starred in a weekly television series with Suzanne Steele which ran on the ABC for three years. He sang with the All-State Symphony Orchestra during this period and on his third tour of New Zealand, directed and sang Frederick in The Pirates of Penzance at Her Majesty's Theatre in Auckland.

Biography

Returning to Europe in 1966 he was engaged by Benjamin Britten after many Covent Garden auditions for the role of MacHeath in Britten's adaptation of The Beggar's Opera and sang this role under the baton of Norman del Mar in London, France and in Montreal at the World Expo in 1967. After study with Modesti in Paris he was engaged for his first Wagnerian role, Lohengrin, which he sang first at the Kiel Opera House in 1967. In Kiel, he went on to sing Herman in Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades, Otello, Andrier Chenier, Hoffman, Canio, Gounod's Faust, Don Jose, Florestan, MacDuff in Macbeth etc., as well as singing classical operetta roles such as Sou Chong in The Land of Smiles, Danilo in The Merry Widow, The Count of Luxembourg and The Gypsy Baron. He also created roles in four world premieres during this time and later Rashomon for the Olympic Games in Munich. He was constantly offered Wagnerian roles and finally agreed to sing Siegmund under the baton of Hans Zender and Klaus Tennstedt. This was a success and was followed by Loge in Das Rheingold and Erik in The Flying Dutchman. During this time in Kiel he guested all over Europe and returned to London for performances of Pluto in Orpheus in the Underworld and Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos under Sir Charles Mackerras. He made numerous television appearances during this time also e.g. The Phil Silvers Show where he sang arias and appeared in a duet with his former idol, Sergeant Bilko. He made his debut at the Bavarian State Opera, Munich as Dimitri in Boris Godunov under Rafael Kubelík and then returned to Australia for concerts and a recording of Malcolm Williamson's Violins of St.Jacques with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra which was also released on video. Returning to Europe he finally decided to accept offers to sing both Siegfrieds and sang his first Ring in London under the batons of Sir Charles Mackerras and Sir Reginald Goodall. His first German Ring was in Wiesbaden and he was offered numerous contracts to sing the two roles in Italy, Germany, Switzerland and France. He continued every year to sing the Siegfrieds and Siegmund in the famous English Ring in London and went on to create the Siegfrieds in the Herz Ring in Wagner's birthplace, Leipzig. He sang in this famous production for several seasons before deciding to take his family back to Australia where he was to sing a recital tour with Geoffrey Parsons, record two albums and sing numerous concerts for the ABC throughout Australia. He sang Siegmund and Siegfried for the Australian Opera, again under Sir Charles Mackerras and performed Die Walküre with both Hiroyuki Iwaki and Leif Segerstam. With his wife, the Swedish soprano Monique Brynnel he made a television series and appeared in numerous concerts and sung with her in seasons with the Victorian and Queensland Opera companies. He lived in Kew in Melbourne and made a career teaching singing privately, having numerous successful students enter the opera world. He had two sons; Jon (b.1955 to first wife soprano Margaret Nisbett) and Jack b.1974.
Jon was offered numerous film roles, the highlight of which was to be invited to Rome by Federico Fellini to screen test for the lead in Casanova. This he declined in order to continue his operatic career. He had many very successful singing students.
In May 2011, Jon and Monique emigrated from Australia to Sweden. They established a singing school in their new home town.


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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...