Bobby Fischer "Chestmaster " died he was 64,

Robert James "Bobby" Fischer was an American-born chess Grandmaster, and the eleventh World Chess Champion.

As a teenager, Fischer became famous as a chess prodigy. In 1972, he became the first, and so far the only, American to win the official World Chess Championship (though Wilhelm Steinitz, the first official world champion, became an American citizen while he was champion) defeating defending champion Boris Spassky, of the Soviet Union, in a match held in Reykjavík, Iceland. The match was widely publicized as a Cold War battle. He is often referred to as one of the greatest chess players of all time.

In 1975, Fischer failed to defend his title when he could not come to agreement with the international chess federation FIDE over the conditions for the match. He became more reclusive and played no more competitive chess until 1992, when he had a rematch with Spassky, in which he won again. The competition was held in Yugoslavia, which was then under a strict United Nations embargo. This led to a conflict with the US government, and he never returned to his native country.

(March 9, 1943 – January 17, 2008)

Bobby Fischer was born at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, Illinois on March 9, 1943. His mother, Regina Wender, was a naturalized American citizen of Polish Jewish descent, born in Switzerland but raised in St. Louis, Missouri. She later became a teacher, a registered nurse, and a physician. Fischer's birth certificate listed Wender's husband, Hans-Gerhardt Fischer, a German biophysicist, as Fischer's father. The couple married in 1933 in Moscow, USSR, where Wender was studying medicine at the First Moscow Medical Institute. They divorced in 1945 when Bobby was two years old, and he grew up with his mother and older sister, Joan. In 1948, the family moved to Mobile, Arizona, where Regina taught in an elementary school. The following year they moved to Brooklyn, New York, where Regina worked as an elementary school teacher and nurse.
A 2002 article by Peter Nicholas and Clea Benson of The Philadelphia Inquirer suggests that Paul Nemenyi, a Hungarian Jewish physicist, may have been Fischer's biological father. The article quotes an FBI report that states that Regina Fischer returned to the United States in 1939, while Hans-Gerhardt Fischer never entered the United States, having been refused admission by US immigration officials because of alleged Communist sympathies. Regina and Nemenyi had an affair in 1942, and he made monthly child support payments to Regina. Nemenyi died in March, 1952.
In May 1949, the six-year-old Fischer learned how to play chess along with his sister in instructions found in a chess set that was bought at a candy store below their Brooklyn apartment. He saw his first chess book a month later. For over a year he played chess on his own. At age seven, he began to play chess seriously, joining the Brooklyn Chess Club and receiving instruction from its president, Carmine Nigro. He later joined the Manhattan Chess Club, one of the strongest in the world, in June, 1955. Other important early influences were provided by Master and chess journalist Hermann Helms and Grandmaster Arnold Denker. Denker served as a mentor to young Bobby, often taking him to watch professional hockey games at Madison Square Garden, to cheer the New York Rangers. Denker wrote that Bobby enjoyed those treats and never forgot them; the two became lifelong friends. When Fischer was thirteen, his mother asked the Master John W. Collins to be his chess tutor. Collins had coached several top players, including future grandmasters Robert Byrne and William Lombardy. Fischer spent much time at Collins' house, and some have described Collins as a father figure for Fischer. The Hawthorne Chess Club was the name for the group which Collins coached. Fischer also was involved with the Log Cabin Chess Club. Another mentor and friend during those years was the broadcaster and author Dick Schaap, who often took Fischer to basketball games of the New York Knicks.
Bobby Fischer attended Erasmus Hall High School at the same time as Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond. The student council of Erasmus Hall awarded him a gold medal for his chess achievements. Fischer dropped out of Erasmus in 1959 at age 16, the minimum age for doing so, saying that school had little more to offer him.
When Fischer was 16, his mother moved out of their apartment to pursue medical training. Her friend Joan Rodker, who had met Regina when the two were "idealistic communists" living in Moscow in the 1930s, believes that Fischer resented his mother for being mostly absent as a mother, a communist activist and an admirer of the Soviet Union, and that this led to his hatred for the Soviet Union. In letters to Rodker, Fischer's mother states her desire to pursue her own "obsession" of training in medicine and writes that her son would have to live in their Brooklyn apartment without her: "It sounds terrible to leave a 16-year-old to his own devices, but he is probably happier that way."


Fischer's first real triumph was winning the United States Junior Chess Championship in July 1956. He scored 8.5/10 at Philadelphia to become the youngest-ever junior champion at age 13, a record that stands to this day. In the 1956 U.S. Open Chess Championship at Oklahoma City, Fischer scored 8.5/12 to tie for 4-8th places, with Arthur Bisguier winning. He then played in the first Canadian Open Chess Championship at Montreal 1956, scoring 7/10 to tie for 8-12th places, with Larry Evans winning. Fischer's famous game from the 3rd Rosenwald Trophy tournament at New York 1956, against Donald Byrne, who later became an International Master, was called "The Game of the Century" by Hans Kmoch. At the age of 13, he was awarded the US title of National Master, then the youngest ever.
In 1957, Fischer played a two-game match against former World Champion Max Euwe at New York, losing 0.5-1.5. He then successfully defended his US Junior title, scoring 8.5/9 at San Francisco. Next, he won the U.S. Open Chess Championship at Cleveland on tie-breaking points over Arthur Bisguier, scoring 10/12. Fischer defeated the young Filipino Master Rodolfo Tan Cardoso by 6-2 in a match in New York. He next won the New Jersey Open Championship. From these triumphs, Fischer was given entry into the invitational U.S. Chess Championship at New York. He won, with 10.5/13, becoming in January 1958, at age 14, the youngest US champion ever (this record still stands).

In his later years, Fischer lived in Hungary, Germany, the Philippines, and Japan. During this time he made increasingly anti-American and anti-Semitic statements. During the 2004–2005 time period, after his U.S. passport was revoked, he was detained by Japanese authorities for nine months under threat of extradition. After Iceland granted him citizenship, the Japanese authorities released him to that country, where he lived until his death in 2008.



Fischer was suffering from degenerative renal failure. This had been a problem for some years, but became acute in October 2007, when Fischer was admitted to a Reykjavík Landspítali hospital for stationary treatment. He stayed there for about seven weeks, being released in a somewhat improved condition in the middle of November. He returned home gravely ill in December apparently rejecting any further Western medicine.
Fischer stayed in an apartment in the same building as his closest friend and spokesman, Garðar Sverrisson, whose wife Kristín Þórarinsdóttir happens to be a nurse and looked after the terminally ill patient. Garðar's two children, especially his son, were very close to Fischer. They were his only close friends and contacts during the last two years of his life.
Fischer did not believe in prolonging life at any cost – such as by the use of large amounts of pain killers or permanent dependence on a dialysis machine. When he was released from the hospital his doctors gave him a few months to live. His wife Miyoko Watai flew in from Japan to spend the Christmas season with him. She returned on January 10, 2008, just before Fischer's death, and so had to make another trip almost immediately after.
In the middle of January his condition deteriorated and he was returned to the hospital, where elevated levels of serum creatinine were found in his blood. He died on January 17, 2008, at home in his apartment in Reykjavík. Like his great predecessors Howard Staunton and Wilhelm Steinitz, he died at the age of . Magnús Skúlason, who stayed with Fischer until he died, said that his last words were, "Nothing soothes pain like the touch of a person." more

Ann Savage died she was 87

Ann Savage died she was 87. Savage was a motion picture actress for over sixty years. She is mainly remembered as the cigarette-puffing femme fatale in Detour (1945) and other Hollywood B-movies and film noirs of the 1940s. Savage and Detour co-star Tom Neal made four movies (Klondike Kate, Two Man Submarine, Unwritten Code, and Detour) and one television show (Gangbusters) together.

(born February 19, 1921 in Columbia, South Carolina as Bernice Maxine Lyon, died December 25, 2008)

Savage temporarily left the entertainment business in the early 1950s though she made occasional appearances on television and worked for industrial and inspirational film producers during the 1950s - 70s. In the 1980s, Ann returned to theatrical motion pictures in the 1986 film Fire with Fire and made a guest appearance on the television show Saved By The Bell. She also made live appearances at film festivals, especially for screenings of Detour.

When it became public domain, Detour was often run on syndicated television and several versions were released on VHS home video. This exposure, combined with her film festival appearances, earned Savage the respect of several generations of independent film directors and actors. Director Wim Wenders called her work in Detour "at least 15 years ahead of its time". The London Guardian termed Ann "a Garbo for our times". Savage most recently earned rave reviews in all media for her performance as Canadian director Guy Maddin's mother in his most acclaimed film My Winnipeg (2008).

Savage was married three times, the third time to her former, long-time manager turned financial manager, Bert D'Armand, in 1942 or 1945, depending on the source. He died suddenly in 1969. Savage died in her sleep on Christmas Day, December 25, 2008, from complications following a series of strokes. She is buried next to D'Armand at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, in Los Angeles, California.
In 2005, Savage was elevated to the status of, "icon and legend," by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. more

Claiborne Pell Creator of Pell Died he was 90

Claiborne de Borda Pell was a former United States Senator from Rhode Island, serving six terms from 1961 to 1997, and was best known as the sponsor of the Pell Grant, which provides financial aid funding to U.S. college students.[ A Democrat, he was that state's longest serving senator.

(November 22, 1918–January 1, 2009)

Claiborne de Borda Pell was born in New York City, the son of former United States Representative Herbert Claiborne Pell, Jr.. He was the great-great-grandson of former Congressman John Francis Hamtramck Claiborne, great-great-grandnephew of former Senator and Vice President of the United States George Mifflin Dallas and great-great-great-grandnephew of former Senator and Representative William Charles Cole Claiborne and of former Congressman Nathaniel Herbert Claiborne. He was also a direct descendant of mathematician John Pell. Pell was one of the heirs to what started out as the Lorillard tobacco fortune, although the family has been out of the Lorillard firm for generations.Pell attended St. George's School in Newport, Rhode Island, then received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Princeton University in 1940, and a Master of Arts degree from Columbia University in 1946. While in Princeton, he was a member of Colonial Club.Pell was married to the former Nuala O'Donnell, a descendant of the Hartford family and, as such, one of the heirs to the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company fortune.In his later years, Pell suffered from Parkinson's Disease.

Claiborne Pell, the quirky blueblood who represented blue-collar Rhode Island in the U.S. Senate for 36 years and was the force behind a grant program that has helped tens of millions of Americans attend college, died Thursday after a long battle with Parkinson's disease. He was 90.
Pell, a Democrat, died at his Newport home just after midnight, according to his former assistant, Jan Demers

Pell was first elected to the Senate in 1960. The skinny son of a New York congressman, Pell spoke with an aristocratic tone but was an unabashed liberal who spent his political career championing causes to help the less fortunate.
He disclosed he had Parkinson's in 1995 and left office in January 1997 after his sixth term.
Members of Rhode Island's all-Democratic congressional delegation lauded Pell's legacy.
"Senator Pell was a remarkable statesman and legislator who worked tirelessly to promote peace and expand opportunity through education," Sen. Jack Reed said in a written statement.
"We will all miss him deeply, and long benefit from the works of his farseeing soul," Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said. And Rep. Jim Langevin called Pell a "gentleman and champion for those who needed their voices heard."
When asked his greatest achievement, Pell always was quick to answer, "Pell Grants."

He sponsored legislation creating the Basic Educational Opportunity Grants, which passed in 1972 and provided direct aid to college students. The awards were renamed "Pell Grants" in 1980. By the time Pell retired, they had aided more than 54 million low- and middle-income Americans.
"He believed strongly that a good education could open infinite doors of opportunity, and he has transformed the lives of millions of young people who have been able to go to college because of the grant that rightly bears his name," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
Thomas Hughes, Pell's chief of staff from 1975 until his retirement, said Pell believed financial aid should be given directly to students rather than distributed by colleges and universities.
"He always had this view that the federal government should help young people be able to have an education beyond high school," Hughes said.
Quiet, thoughtful and polite to a fault, Pell seemed out of place in an era of in-your-face, made-for-television politicians. A multimillionaire, he often wore old, ill-fitting suits and sometimes jogged in a tweed coat.
Though criticized by some for his fascination with UFOs and extra sensory perception, he was best remembered for his devotion to education, maritime and foreign affairs issues.
Pell also shared a strong interest in the arts, and was chief Senate sponsor of a 1965 law establishing the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Pell was well-liked among peers from both political parties, who respected his non-confrontational style. "I believe in letting the other fellow have my way" was a favorite refrain Pell used to refer to his negotiating skills.
Born in 1918, Pell came from a political family and was a descendant of early New York landowners who lived among the old-money families in Newport. Five family members served in the House or Senate, including great-great-granduncle George M. Dallas, who was a senator from Pennsylvania in the 1830s and vice president under President James K. Polk in the 1840s. His father, Herbert Claiborne Pell, was a one-term representative from New York.
Pell graduated from Princeton in 1940, and served in the Coast Guard during World War II. He remained in the Coast Guard Reserve until retiring as a captain in 1978.
He participated in the 1945 San Francisco conference that drafted the United Nations charter and was a staunch defender of the institution throughout his life.
He served in the foreign service for seven years, holding diplomatic posts in Czechoslovakia and Italy, then returned to Rhode Island in the 1950s. He was elected to the Senate in 1960 after defeating two former governors in the Democratic primary.
Despite his peculiarities, he became the most formidable political force in Rhode Island. In his six statewide elections, he received an average 64 percent of the votes.
"I attribute (my popularity) to one reason, and that is I have never critically mentioned my adversary," Pell would say.
The late Republican Sen. John Chafee of Rhode Island once said Pell's popularity was due to the state's overwhelmingly Democratic leanings and Pell's honesty and integrity. Voters embraced Pell's quirkiness and, to a certain extent, his distance from common people.
A story from Pell's 1972 Senate campaign was a favorite in Rhode Island and was told often to illustrate his isolation from the average Joe.
Pell was campaigning in Providence when it began raining. Pell, who had a formal evening engagement, had forgotten his galoshes. An aide was dispatched and returned with a pair.
In his very formal manner of speech, Pell asked the aide, "To whom am I indebted for these fine rubbers?"
"I got them at Thom McAn, senator," the aide answered, referring to the budget shoe store chain.
"Well, do tell Mr. McAn that I am much obliged to him," Pell said.
A dove who vigorously opposed the Vietnam War, Pell in 1987 became chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. He was considered a weak chairman, and he lost the job to Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina when Republicans gained a majority in 1994.
Pell considered retiring in 1990, but was persuaded by party leaders to run. He easily defeated then-U.S. Rep. Claudine Schneider despite making a monumental gaffe during a televised debate in which he was asked to identify a piece of recent legislation he had sponsored to help Rhode Islanders.
"I couldn't give you a specific answer," Pell said. "My memory's not as good as it should be."
Pell was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in December 1994 and disclosed the condition the following spring. He insisted the disease had nothing to do with his retirement.
"There is a natural time for all life's adventures to come to an end and this period of 36 years would seem to me about the right time for my service in the Senate to end," he said in September 1995.
When attending a July 2006 ceremony in his honor in Newport, Pell did not talk, letting his wife, Nuala, speak on his behalf.
He and his wife, who married in 1944, had four children. Their daughter Julia died of lung cancer in 2006 at age 52.

Paul Hoffman died he was , 49, an Author And Former Reporter at Post - New York ...

Paul Hoffman, an author and former newspaper reporter, died Monday of injuries suffered in a fire in his Greenwich Village apartment on Saturday.
He was 49 years old.
Mr. Hoffman worked for The New York Post from 1962 to 1969, covering courts and politics and serving as the newspaper's Albany correspondent. He went on to write several nonfiction books.
Before working for The Post, Mr. Hoffman was employed by the City News Bureau in Chicago from 1958 to 1960, United Press International in Detroit from 1960 to 1961, and Stars and Stripes in New York City in 1962.
He is survived by his parents, William and Miriam Hoffman of Chicago, and a sister, Nancy Levant of Rochester.

George Rene Francis died he was 112

After a life that touched three centuries, the oldest man in the United States has died in California at the age of 112, the Sacramento Bee newspaper reports.
George Rene Francis, who was listed as America's oldest man by the Gerontology Research Group in Los Angeles, died of congestive heart failure at a nursing home in Sacramento, the newspaper said in a story on its website.
The Bee reported that Francis, a black man who was born in New Orleans on June 6, 1896 and grew up in the South, told the newspaper in a recent interview that he had voted with pride for Barack Obama in the November presidential election. Obama will be the first black US president when he takes office on January 20.
"I think he's great because he's black," Francis told the Bee. "Because the white people thought the Negro would never be promoted. I think it's beautiful."
Francis, who left school after sixth grade and briefly had a career as a boxer, moved to California in 1949 and found work as a chauffeur, auto mechanic and barber.
His wife, Josephine, died in 1963 after 46 years of marriage.
The Bee reported that Francis was survived by four children, 19 grandchildren and more than 30 great-grandchildren.

With the death of Francis, Montana resident Walter Breuning becomes the country's oldest man at 112 years and 98 days old. America's oldest woman is 114-year-old Gertrude Baines of Los Angeles.
The oldest living person is 115-year-old Maria de Jesus of Portugal, who was born on September 10, 1893, according to the Gerontology Research Group.

Freddie Hubbard (Jazz Great) Died he was 70

Freddie Hubbard (Jazz Great) Died he was 70. Hubbard was an American jazz trumpeter. He was known primarily for playing in the bebop, hard bop and post bop styles from the early 60s and on. His unmistakable and influential tone contributed to new perspectives for modern jazz and bebop.

(7 April 1938 – 29 December 2008)

Hubbard started playing the mellophone and trumpet in his school band, studying at the Jordan Conservatory with the principal trumpeter of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. In his teens Hubbard worked locally with brothers Wes and Monk Montgomery and worked with bassist Larry Ridley and saxophonist James Spaulding. In 1958, at the age of 20, he moved to New York, and began playing with some of the best jazz players of the era, including Philly Joe Jones, Sonny Rollins, Slide Hampton, Eric Dolphy , J. J. Johnson, and Quincy Jones. In June 1960 Hubbard made his first record as a leader, Open Sesame, with saxophonist Tina Brooks, pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Sam Jones, and drummer Clifford Jarvis.

Then in May 1961, Hubbard played on Ole Coltrane, John Coltrane's final recording session with Atlantic Records. Together with Eric Dolphy, Hubbard was the only 'session' musician who appeared on both Ole and Africa Brass, Coltrane's first album with ABC/Impulse! Later, in August 1961, Hubbard made one of his most famous records, Ready for Freddie, which was also his first collaboration with saxophonist Wayne Shorter. Hubbard would join Shorter later in 1961 when he replaced Lee Morgan in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. He played on several Blakey recordings, including Caravan, Ugetsu, Mosaic, and Free For All. Hubbard remained with Blakey until 1966, leaving to form the first of several small groups of his own, which featured, among others, pianist Kenny Barron and drummer Louis Hayes.
It was during this time that he began to develop his own sound, distancing himself from the early influences of Clifford Brown and Morgan, and won the Downbeat jazz magazine "New Star" award on trumpet.
Throughout the 1960s Hubbard played as a sideman on some of the most important albums from that era, including, Oliver Nelson's The Blues and the Abstract Truth, Herbie Hancock's Maiden Voyage, and Wayne Shorter's Speak No Evil. He recorded extensively for Blue Note Records in the 1960s: eight albums as a bandleader, and twenty-eight as a sideman. Though Hubbard never fully embraced the free jazz of the '60s, he appeared on several landmark albums in the genre: Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz, Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch, and John Coltrane's Ascension.
Hubbard achieved his greatest popular success in the 1970s with a series of albums for Creed Taylor and his record label CTI Records. Although his early 1970s jazz albums Red Clay, First Light, Straight Life, and Sky Dive were particularly well received and considered among his best work, the albums he recorded later in the decade were attacked by critics for their commercialism. First Light won a 1972 Grammy Award and included pianists Herbie Hancock and Richard Wyands, guitarists Eric Gale and George Benson, bassist Ron Carter, drummer Jack DeJohnette, and percussionist Airto Moreira. In 1994, Freddie, collaborating with Chicago jazz vocalist/co-writer Catherine Whitney, had lyrics set to the music of First Light.


During 1970-1974 Hubbard was the biggest star of the CTI label, overshadowing Stanley Turrentine, Hubert Laws, and George Benson.[8] Columbia's VSOP: The Quintet, album was recorded from two live performances, one at the Hearst Greek Theatre, University of California, Berkeley, on July 16, 1977, the other at the San Diego Civic Theatre, July 18, 1977. Musicians joining the trumpeter for this landmark performance were the members of the mid-sixties line-up of the Miles Davis Quintet (except the leader): Herbie Hancock on keyboards, Tony Williams on drums, Ron Carter on bass, and Wayne Shorter on tenor and soprano saxophones.
In the 1980s Hubbard was again leading his own jazz group, attracting very favorable notices for his playing at concerts and festivals in the USA and Europe, often in the company of Joe Henderson, playing a repertory of hard-bop and modal-jazz pieces. Hubbard played at the legendary Monterey Jazz Festival in 1980 and in 1989 (with Bobby Hutcherson). He played with Woody Shaw, recording with him in 1985, and two years later recorded Stardust with Benny Golson. In 1988 he teamed up once more with Blakey at an engagement in Holland, from which came Feel the Wind. In 1990 he appeared in Japan headlining an American-Japanese concert package which also featured Elvin Jones, Sonny Fortune, pianists George Duke and Benny Green, bass players Ron Carter, and Rufus Reid, with jazz and popular music singer Salena Jones. He also performed at the Warsaw Jazz Festival at which Live at the Warsaw Jazz Festival (Jazzmen 1992) was recorded.
Following a long setback of health problems and a serious lip injury in 1992 where he ruptured his upper lip and subsequently developed an infection, Hubbard was again playing and recording occasionally, even if not at the high level that he set for himself during his earlier career. His best records ranked with the finest in his field.
In 2006, The National Endowment for the Arts honored Hubbard with its highest honor in jazz, the NEA Jazz Masters Award.
On December 29, 2008, Hubbard's hometown newspaper, The Indianapolis Star reported that Hubbard died from complications from a heart attack suffered on November 26 of the same year. Billboard magazine reported that Hubbard died in Sherman Oaks, California. more

Sir Edmund Hillary died he was 88

Sir Edmund Percival Hillary died he was 88. He was a New Zealand mountaineer and explorer. On 29 May 1953 at the age of 33, he and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers known to have reached the summit of Mount Everest. They were part of the ninth British expedition to Everest, led by John Hunt.

(20 July 1919 – 11 January 2008)

Hillary became interested in mountaineering while in high school, making his first major climb in 1939, reaching the summit of Mount Ollivier. He served in the RNZAF as a navigator during World War II. Before the successful expedition in 1953 to Everest, he had been part of a reconnaissance expedition to the mountain in 1951 and an unsuccessful attempt to climb Cho Oyu in 1952. As part of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition he reached the South Pole overland in 1958. He would later also travel to the North Pole.

Following his ascent of Everest he devoted much of his life to helping the Sherpa people of Nepal through the Himalayan Trust, which he founded. Through his efforts many schools and hospitals were built in this remote region of the Himalayas.



Hillary was born to Percival Augustus Hillary and Gertrude Hillary, née Clark, in Auckland, New Zealand, on 20 July 1919. His family moved to Tuakau (south of Auckland) in 1920, after his father (who served at Gallipoli) was allocated land there. His grandparents were early settlers in northern Wairoa in the mid 19th century after emigrating from Yorkshire, England.

Hillary was educated at Tuakau Primary School and then Auckland Grammar School.He finished primary school two years early, but struggled at high school, achieving only average marks. He was initially smaller than his peers there and very shy so he took refuge in his books and daydreams of a life filled with adventure. His daily train journey to and from high school was over two hours each way, during which he regularly used the time to read. He gained confidence after he learnt to box. At 16 his interest in climbing was sparked during a school trip to Mount Ruapehu. Though gangly at 6 ft 5 in (195cm) and uncoordinated, he found that he was physically strong and had greater endurance than many of his tramping companions. He studied mathematics and science at The University of Auckland, and in 1939 completed his first major climb, reaching the summit of Mount Ollivier, near Mt. Cook in the Southern Alps. With his brother Rex, Hillary became a beekeeper, a summer occupation that allowed him to pursue climbing in the winter. His interest in beekeeping later led Hillary to commission Michael Ayrton to cast a golden sculpture in the shape of honeycomb in imitation of Daedalus's lost-wax process. This was placed in his New Zealand garden, where his bees took it over as a hive and "filled it with honey and their young".

Hillary married Louise Mary Rose on 3 September 1953, soon after the ascent of Everest. A shy man, he relied on his future mother-in-law to propose on his behalf. They had three children: Peter (1954), Sarah (1955) and Belinda (1959-1975).[ In 1975 while en route to join Hillary in the village of Phaphlu, where he was helping to build a hospital, Louise and Belinda were killed in a plane crash near Kathmandu airport shortly after take-off. Hillary married June Mulgrew, the widow of his close friend Peter Mulgrew, on 21 December 1989. His son Peter Hillary has also become a climber, conquering Everest in 1990. In April 2003 Peter and Jamling Tenzing Norgay (son of Tenzing; Tenzing himself had died in 1986) climbed Everest as part of a 50th anniversary celebration. Hillary had six grandchildren, altogether.

People draped in the Flag of New Zealand at the Auckland Domain as the hearse drives past at Sir Edmund Hillary's state funeral.
On 11 January 2008, Hillary died of heart failure at the Auckland City Hospital at around 9 am NZDT (10 January at 20:00 UTC) at the age of 88. Hillary's death was announced by New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark at around 11:20 am. She stated that his passing was a "profound loss to New Zealand". His death was recognised by the lowering of flags to half-mast on all Government and public buildings and at Scott Base in Antarctica. Actor and adventurer Brian Blessed, who attempted to climb Everest three times, described Sir Edmund as a "kind of titan". He was in hospital at the time of his death but was expected to come home that day according to his family. The local press emphasized Hillary's humble and congenial personality and his life of hard work.
In tribute Claire Harvey wrote in the 12 January 2008 New Zealand Herald "And for New Zealanders, Sir Ed was everything a good bastard [sic] ought to be - modest and humorous, brave and compassionate, and just grouchy enough to remind us he never sought, nor particularly enjoyed, adulation."
After Hillary's death the Green Party proposed a new public holiday for 20 July or the Monday nearest to it. Renaming mountains after Hillary was also proposed. The Mt Cook Village's Hermitage Hotel, the Sir Edmund Hillary Alpine Centre and Alpine Guides, proposed a renaming of Mount Ollivier, the first mountain climbed by Hillary. The family of Arthur Ollivier, for whom the mountain is named, are against such a renaming. more