Deaths in April 1987

The following is a list of notable deaths in April 1987.

Entries for each day are listed alphabetically by surname. A typical entry lists information in the following sequence:

• Name, age, country of citizenship at birth, subsequent country of citizenship (if applicable), reason for notability, cause of death (if known), and reference.

April 1987

1

• Zdeněk Bárta, 95, Czech Olympic fencer (1912).
• Henri Cochet, 85, French tennis player, world number one player.
• Victor D'Amico, 82, American teaching artist, Director of the Department of Education of the Museum of Modern Art.
• James Edward Doyle, 71, American lawyer, United States district judge.
• Oscar Ellis, 77, Chilean footballer.
• Niels Peder Hansen, 85, Danish footballer.
• Vladimir Popov, 56, Soviet animator and art director.

2

• Hans Cattini, 73, Swiss Olympic ice hockey player (1936, 1948)
• Tommy Davis, 52, American NFL footballer (San Francisco 49ers), lung cancer.
• Trevor Hockey, 43, British footballer and Welsh international (Birmingham City, Wales), heart attack.
• Eleanor Leacock, 64, American anthropologist and social theorist, stroke.
• Larry Marley, 41–42, Irish member of the IRA, shot.
• Wang Renmei, 72, Chinese actress and singer, cerebral hemorrhage.
• Buddy Rich, 69, American jazz drummer, songwriter and bandleader, cardiac failure
• Harry Watt, 80, Scottish documentary and feature film director (The Siege of Pinchgut).
• Kansuke Yamamoto, 73, Japanese photographer and poet.

3

• Joe Casey, 86, American baseball player.
• Robert Dalban, 83, French actor.
• Aksel Duun, 66, Danish Olympic sprint canoeist (1956).
• Philip Edwards, 80, English cricketer.
• Anne Grey, 80, English actress.
• Lynda Heaven, 84, Australian politician, member of the Tasmanian House of Assembly (1962-1964).
• Tom Sestak, 51, American AFL footballer (Buffalo Bills), heart attack.

4

• Gordon Bennetts, 78, Australian cricketer.
• Agyeya, 76, Indian poet, novelist and revolutionary.
• C. L. Moore, 76, American science fiction and fantasy writer.
• Michael Redstone, 84, American entrepreneur, founder of the Northeast Theater Corporation.
• Osman Saleh Sabbe, 54–55, Eritrean-born writer and political activist.
• Le Tari, 40, American film and television actor, heart attack.
• Chögyam Trungpa, 48, Tibetan Buddhist meditation master, cardiac arrest.

5

• George William Bulmer, 88, American-born Canadian WWI flying ace.
• Jack Howe, 71, English international footballer (Derby County, England).
• Leabua Jonathan, 72, Prime Minister of Lesotho, heart attack.
• Jan Lindblad, 54, Swedish naturalist, writer and film maker, kidney failure.
• Tsuneko Nakazato, 77, Japanese novelist, colon cancer.
• Jim White, 67, American NFL footballer (New York Giants).

6

• Vicente Cañas, 47, Spanish Christian missionary, assassinated.
• James G. Donovan, 88, American lawyer and politician, member of U.S. House of Representatives (1951-1957).
• Jean-Baptiste Doumeng, 67, French businessman and communist politician.
• Philip M. Jefferies, 61, American set decorator (Tom Sawyer).
• Henry Lucien de Vries, 77, Surinamese politician and entrepreneur, Governor General of Suriname.

7

• Terry Carr, 50, American science fiction fan, author and editor, heart failure.
• Pick Dehner, 72, American basketball player and coach.
• Will Hindle, 57, American filmmaker of personal 16mm movies, heart attack.
• Charles Hope, 75, British peer and businessman, director of Eagle Star Insurance.
• John Lehmann, 79, English publisher and poet.
• John P. Livadary, American sound designer, three time Academy Award for Best Sound Mixing recipient.
• Nick De Noia, 45, American director, screenwriter and choreographer, murdered.
• Noel F. Parrish, 77, American brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force, cardiac arrest.
• Paul Peek, 82, American attorney and politician, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of California.
• Walter H. Reynolds, 86, American politician, mayor of Providence, Rhode Island.
• Maxine Sullivan, 75, American jazz vocalist, seizure.

8

• Tommy Abbott, 52, American actor, dancer and choreographer (West Side Story).
• Terry Allen, 62, English flyweight boxer and World Champion.
• Anni Frind, 87, German lyric soprano.
• Andrei Getman, 83, Soviet military commander, Red Army general.
• Kevin McNamara, 60, Irish Catholic academic, Archbishop of Dublin, cancer.
• Ervin Nyiregyházi, 84, Hungarian-born American pianist and composer, colon cancer.

9

• James Leroy Bondsteel, 39, American soldier in the U.S. Army, Medal of Honor recipient.
• James Bush, 79, American actor.
• Al Dodd, 41, American NFL footballer (New Orleans Saints).
• Doug Jennings, 57, Australian politician.
• Emil M. Mrak, 85, American food scientist and microbiologist, chancellor of the University of California, Davis, heart attack.

10

• Horst Dassler, 51, German businessman, chairman of Adidas, cancer.
• Reg Davies, 77, Australian rules footballer.
• Birgit Dressel, 26. West German heptathlete and Olympian, organ failure.
• Berta Drews, 85, German actress.
• Susy Garland, 20, British Olympic figure skater (1980, 1984).
• Jean Jonlet, 80, Belgian Olympic rower (1928).

11

• Manny S. Brown, 69, American politician, member of the Wisconsin State Assembly (1965-1973).
• Carleton F. Bryant, 94, American Vice Admiral in the U.S. Navy.
• Erskine Caldwell, 83, American novelist and short story writer (Tobacco Road), emphysema and lung cancer.
• Netania Davrath, 55, Ukrainian-born Israeli soprano opera and concert singer.
• George Hart, 85, English cricketer.
• Vasili Kartsev, 67, Soviet Russian football player and coach.
• Rudolf Krause, 80, East German racing driver.
• Primo Levi, 67, Italian chemist, writer and Jewish Holocaust survivor, suicide.
• Frederick Joseph Loftus-Tottenham, 88, Irish-born general in the British Indian Army.
• Kent Taylor, 79, American film and television actor.
• Hédi Váradi, 57, Hungarian actress.

12

• Mike Von Erich, (Michael Adkisson), 23, American professional wrestler, suicide.
• Jean Hansen, 55, Danish Olympic cyclist (1952).
• René Hardy, 76, French citizen, member of the French Resistance during World War II.
• Clarence Isreal, 69, American baseball player.
• Nick Knott, 66, Canadian ice hockey player.
• Akram Pahalwan, 57, Pakistani wrestler.
• Hertha von Walther, 83, German film actress.

13

• Dennis Allen, 35, Australian drug dealer, accused murderer, heart failure.
• Herbert Blumer, 87, American sociologist and NFL footballer (Chicago Cardinals).
• Joe Colquhoun, 60, British comics artist (Charley's War), heart attack.
• Jim Considine, 84, Australian rules footballer.
• Daniel E. Conway, 75, American labor union leader.
• Alfred Evans, 73, Welsh politician, Member of Parliament (1968-1979).
• Simha Flapan, 76, Israeli historian and politician.
• Malcolm Ford, 50, Scottish cricketer.
• Jørgen Jensen, 67, Danish trade unionist and politician.
• Gerry McAloon, 70, Scottish footballer (Brentford), hypothermia.
• Guido Sala, 58, Italian Grand Prix motorcycle road racer and world champion kart racer.

14

• Brian Carlson, 54, Australian international rugby league footballer (North Sydney, Australia).
• Olaf Devik, 100, Norwegian physicist and civil servant.
• Bill Hardman, 86, Australian rugby league footballer.
• Karl Höller, 79, German composer.
• Julius Sumner Miller, 77, American physicist and television personality, leukemia.

15

• Orland K. Armstrong, 93, American journalist and politician, member of the U.S. House of Representatives (1951-1953).
• Hans-Joachim Born, 77, German radiochemist.
• Rachel Burrows, 74, Irish actress and broadcaster.
• Andrée Feix, 75, French film editor and director.
• Mickey Finn, 35, Irish fiddler.
• Peter Benjamin Graham, 61, Australian visual artist, printer and art theorist.
• John Hoffman, 61, American NFL player (Chicago Bears).
• Adolphe Lefkowitch, 84, American Olympic boxer (1924).
• Louis R. Lowery, 70, American U.S. Marine Corps officer and combat photographer, aplastic anemia.
• Press Maravich, 71, American college and professional basketball coach, prostate cancer.
• Masatoshi Nakayama, 74, Japanese karate master.
• Samuel Rothschild, 87, Canadian NHL ice hockey player (Montreal Maroons).

16

• Charlotte Curtis, 58, American journalist, columnist and editor at The New York Times, cancer.
• Fateh Muhammad Panipati, 82, Pakistani Islamic scholar.
• Bikash Roy, 70, Indian actor and filmmaker.
• Juan Evangelista Venegas, 58, Puerto Rican boxer and Olympic medalist, fall.

17

• Carlton Barrett, 36, Jamaican reggae drummer, murdered.
• Arthur Delaney, 59, English painter.
• Ryosuke Kagawa, 90, Japanese actor.
• Cecil Harmsworth King, 86, English chairman of International Publishing Corporation, director of the Bank of England.
• Hena Rodríguez, 81, Colombian painter, educator, and first female Colombian sculptor.
• Dick Shawn, 63, American actor and comedian, heart attack.
• Willi Smith, 39, American fashion designer, pneumonia.
• Cornelius Van Til, 91, Dutch-born American Christian philosopher.

18

• Eduardo Alcaraz, 72, Chilean-Mexican actor.
• Vincent Aspey, 78, New Zealand violinist.
• Carlos Baker, 77, American writer, biographer and professor of literature.
• Heinie Beau, 76, American jazz composer, saxophonist and clarinetist, cancer.
• Kenneth Cook, 57, Australian journalist, television documentary maker and novelist (Wake in Fright), heart attack.
• Hugh B. Cott, 86, British zoologist.
• Vincent Hanley, 33, Irish radio DJ and television presenter, AIDS.
• Jack Humphrey, 54, Canadian television producer and writer.
• Jim Langton, 69, Irish hurler.
• Joe Robb, 50, American NFL footballer (St. Louis Cardinals).

19

• Hugh Brannum, 77, American vocalist, composer and actor, cancer.
• Stole Janković, 62, Yugoslavian film director and screenwriter.
• Milt Kahl, 78, American animator for the Disney Studio, pneumonia.
• David G. Mandelbaum, 75, American anthropologist, cancer.
• Maxwell D. Taylor, 85, American army general and diplomat, Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, ambassador to South Vietnam.
• Antony Tudor, 79, English dancer and choreographer, founded London Ballet, heart attack.

20

• Nicholas Acquavella, 88, American art dealer and gallerist, founder of Acquavella Galleries.
• Antonino Catalano, 54, Italian racing cyclist.
• Con Cremin, 78, Irish diplomat, U.N. representative.

21

• Joseph Alcazar, 77, Spanish-born French international footballer (Marseille, France).
• José Bañón, 65, Spanish footballer and coach.
• Gustav Bergmann, 80, Austrian-born American philosopher.
• Wenike Opurum Briggs, 69, Nigerian lawyer, journalist and politician.
• Aleksey Burdeyny, 78, Soviet Ukrainian general.
• Edith Green, 77, American politician, member of U.S. House of Representatives (1955-1974), cancer.
• Moosa AbdulRahman Hassan, Omani businessman, tribal leader and landlord.
• Haruyasu Nakajima, 77, Japanese baseballer (Yomiuri Giants).
• Hildrus Poindexter, 85, American bacteriologist (tropical diseases).

22

• Irving Ashby, 66, American jazz guitarist, heart attack.
• Margaret Ponce Israel, 57, American painter and ceramicist, traffic accident.
• Masumi Mitsui, 99, Japanese-born Canadian World War I veteran.
• J. Edwin Orr, 75, Irish-born American Baptist minister, professor and author.

24

• Josephine Bell, 89, English physician and writer.
• Larry Bethea, 30, American NFL footballer (Dallas Cowboys), suicide.
• Hubert Davison, 82, South African cricketer.
• Henry Murdoch, 66, Aboriginal Australian actor and stockman.
• Pablo Acosta Villarreal, 50, Mexican narcotics smuggler and crime boss, gunned down by Mexican Federal Police.
• Berhanu Zerihun, 53–54, Ethiopian writer and journalist.

25

• Blas Roca Calderio, 78, Cuban politician and Marxist theorist, President of the National Assembly of People's Power.
• Pētõr Damberg, 78, Latvian Livonian linguist and poet.
• Maurice Gibson, 73, Northern Irish High Court judge, car bomb.
• Charlotte May Pierstorff, 78, American girl who was shipped alive through the U.S. postal system by parcel post.

26

• Bill Amos, 88, American college football player and coach.
• Oliver J. Flanagan, 66, Irish Fine Gael politician, Minister for Defence.
• Archie M. Gubbrud, 76, American politician, Governor of South Dakota, lung cancer.
• Frederick N. Howser, 82, American politician, Attorney General of California.
• Dudley Mason, 85, British master of the tanker SS Ohio in World War II, George Cross recipient.
• John Silkin, 64, British politician and solicitor, Shadow Leader of the House of Commons.
• Frank Szymanski, 63, American NFL footballer (Philadelphia Eagles).
• Amelita Ward, 63, American film actress.

27

• John Burrows, 73, American Major League baseballer (Chicago Cubs), house fire.
• Attila Hörbiger, 91, Austrian stage and movie actor, stroke.
• Alice Nāmakelua, 94, Hawaiian composer and performer.

28

• Hannelore Baron, 60, German-born American artist, cancer.
• Bonny Campbell, 89, Australian rules footballer.
• Xavier Fourcade, 60, French-born American contemporary art dealer, pneumonia.
• Paidi Lakshmayya, 83, Indian actor, writer and politician, member of parliament.
• Arthur Lane, 76, British actor.
• William Marchant, appr. 38, Northern Irish loyalist, shot by IRA gunmen.
• Emil Staiger, 79, Swiss historian, writer and professor of German studies.

29

• Bud Bates, 75, American MLB player (Philadelphia Phillies).
• Ludvig Olai Botnen, 77, Norwegian politician, newspaper editor, and journalist.
• Héctor Carmona, 61, Chilean modern pentathlete and Olympian (1956).
• Frank W. Crowe, 67, American physician.
• Gus Johnson, 48, American NBA basketballer (Baltimore Bullets), brain cancer.
• Helmut Laux, 70, Nazi German photographer.
• Philip Lombardo, 78, American boss of the Genovese crime family.
• Russ Saunders, 81, American NFL footballer (Green Bay Packers).
• Thomas Trenchard, 63, British hereditary peer, Minister of State for Defence Procurement.
• Zachari Zachariev, 83, Bulgarian military pilot and commander.

30

• Marc Aaronson, 36, American astronomer, observatory accident.
• Maurice Degrelle, 85, French Olympic sprinter (1924, 1928).
• Hugh Dempster, 86, British theatre and film actor, heart failure.

Unknown date

• Arthur Lane, 76, British actor.

References