Another Decade Over and a New One Just Begun

2001
Zhang Xueliang (100), Anne Morrow Lindbergh (94), Balthus (92), Stanley Kramer (87). Laurent-Désiré Kabila (61), King Birendra of Nepal (55), Queen Aiswarya (51) were all assassinated. Prince Dipendra (29) killed himself after murdering his family. Sabiha Gökçen (88) and Douglas Adams (49) had heart attacks. Aaliyah (22) died in a plane crash.

Anthony Quinn (86), Harry Secombe (79), Jack Lemmon (76), Poul Anderson (74), Donald Woods (67), George Harrison (58), Joey Ramone (49) all died of cancer.

2002
Margaret Booth (104), Billy Wilder (95), Stanley Unwin (90). Spike Milligan (83) liver failure, George Roy Hill (81) Parkinson’s disease, Ian MacNaughton (76) car accident, John Frankenheimer (74) stroke, Dudley Moore (66) progressive supranuclear palsy, Linda Lovelace (53) car accident, Nozomi Momoi (24), stabbed and immolated. Chuck Jones (89), Antonio Margheriti (72), Lonnie Donegan (71), Erachaim ben Eliyahu (59), John Entwistle (57) all had heart attacks.

Milton Berle (93), Thor Heyerdahl (87), Rosemary Clooney (74), Richard Harris (72), Stephen Jay Gould (60) all died of cancer.

2003
Bob Hope (100), Katharine Hepburn (96), Elia Kazan (94), Wendy Hiller (91), Gregory Peck (87), Art Carney (85). Leon Uris (78) and Idi Amin (78) died of kidney failure, Noel Redding (57) liver failure, Maurice Gibb (53) bowel obstruction, Howie Epstein (47) drug overdose, Carlo Urbani, the doctor who discovered SARS (46) SARS, Elliott Smith (34) stabbed, Rachel Corrie (23) crushed by a bulldozer, Dolly (6) euthanized. John Schlesinger (77) and Michael Kamen (55) had heart attacks.

Leni Riefenstahl (101), Hume Cronyn (91), Conrad Hall (76), Alan Bates (69), Gregory Hines (57) all died of cancer.

Colonel Rick Husband (45), Commander William McCool (41), Lt Colonel Michael Anderson (43), Lt Ilan Ramon (48), Captain David Brown (46), Captain Laurel Clark (41), Kalpana Chawla (40) exploded on American space shuttle Columbia.

2004
Fay Wray (96), Donald Trumbull (95), Henri Cartier-Bresson (95), Ronald Reagan (93), Julia Child (91), Uta Hagen (84). Robert Lees (91) decapitated, William Manchester (82) stroke, Peter Ustinov (82) heart attack, Marlon Brando (80) heart attack from pulmonary fibrosis and cancer, Janet Leigh (77) vasculitis and peripheral neuropathy, Hans Gmür (77) surgical complications, Yasser Arafat (75) liver failure, Spalding Gray (62) suicide, Christopher Reeve (52) heart failure from septicemia, Neal Fredericks (35) drowned in plane crash while filming.

Elmer Bernstein (82), Jerry Goldsmith (75), Naomi Shemer (73), Ray Charles (73), Jerry Orbach (69), Johnny Ramone (55) all died of cancer.

2005
Simon Wiesenthal (96), Efraim Reuytenberg (91), Geraldine Fitzgerald (91), Saul Bellow (89), Ernest Lehman (89). Peter Malkin (77) stroke, Ismail Merchant (68) surgical complications, Hunter S Thompson (67) suicide. Robert Wise (91), Arthur Miller (89), Karol Wojtyła (John Paul II) (84), Dalene Matthee (67), Richard Pryor (65) all had heart attacks.

Anne Bancroft (73), Bob Denver (70), Cyril K Harris (68), Debra Hill (54) all died of cancer.

2006
Gerald Ford (93), Augusto Pinochet (91), Glenn Ford (90), Pieter Willem Botha (90), Richard Fleischer (89), Betty Friedan (85), Shoshana Damari (82). Maureen Stapleton (80) obstructive pulmonary disease, Saddam Hussein (69) hanged. Jeane Kirkpatrick (80), James Brown (73), Slobodan Milošević (64) all had heart attacks.

Robert Altman (81), Peter Boyle (71), Masumi Okada (70), Syd Barrett (60) all died of cancer.

2007
Michelangelo Antonioni (94), Avraham Shapira (93), Ingmar Bergman (89), Kurt Waldheim (88), Fernando Fernán Gómez (86), Norman Mailer (84), Marcel Marceau (84), László Kovács (74). Deborah Kerr (86) Parkinson’s disease, Kurt Vonnegut (84) brain injuries from a fall, Benazir Bhutto (54) assassinated.

Luciano Pavarotti (71), Michael Brecker (57), Dan Fogelberg (56) died of cancer.

2008
Richard Widmark (93), Kon Ichikawa (92), Jerry Wexler (91), Arthur C Clarke (90), Mel Ferrer (90), Edmund Hillary (88), Suharto (86), Cyd Charisse (86), Charlton Heston (84). Isaac Hayes (65) stroke, Bobby Fischer (64) kidney failure. Miriam Makeba (76) and George Carlin (71) had heart attacks.

Paul Newman (83), Harold Pinter (78), Sydney Pollack (73), Neil Aspinall (66), Michael Crichton (66), Dith Pran (65), Richard Wright (65), Stan Winston (62), Anthony Minghella (54), Jeff Healey (41) all died of cancer.

2009
Karl Malden (97), Jack Cardiff (94), Les Paul (94), Walter Cronkite (92), Helen Suzman (91). Allen Klein (77) Alzheimer's disease, Claude Berri (74) stroke, David Carradine (72) autoerotic asphyxiation, John Hughes (59) heart attack, Marilyn Chambers (56) cerebral hemorrhage, Michael Jackson (50) drug overdose, Natasha Richardson (45) skiing accident, Brittany Murphy (32) pneumonia and anaemia.

James Whitmore (87), Bea Arthur (86), Ted Kennedy (77), John Updike (76), Corazon Aquino (76), Dom DeLuise (75), Farrah Fawcett (62), Ron Silver (62), Patrick Swayze (57) all died of cancer.

2010
Hizkiah ben Nachum (93), Lena Horne (92), JD Salinger (91), Dino De Laurentiis (91), Éric Rohmer (89), Luis García Berlanga (89), Arthur Penn (88), Blake Edwards (88). Tony Curtis (85) heart attack, Claude Chabrol (80) anaemia, Qian Yunhui (53) crushed by a truck.

Patricia Neal (84), Jean Simmons (80), Dennis Hopper (74), Lynn Redgrave (67), Jamie Gillis (66) all died of cancer.