Deaths in May 1998

The following is a list of notable deaths in May 1998.

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.

• Eldridge Cleaver, 62, American writer and political activist, prostate cancer.
• Heinie Heltzel, 84, American baseball player.
• Brian Kendall, 51, New Zealand boxer, cancer.
• J. S. Roskell, 84, English historian of the Middle Ages.

• Clyde Connell, 96, American abstract expressionist sculptor.
• Justin Fashanu, 37, English footballer, suicide.
• Johnny Grodzicki, 81, American baseball player.
• Hide, 33, Japanese musician, suicide by hanging.
• Kevin Lloyd, 49, English actor (The Bill), alcoholism.^[1]
• Maidie Norman, 85, American actress and literature and theater teacher, lung cancer.
• Carey Wilber, 81, American journalist and television writer.

• Jesse Alto, 71, American poker player.
• Erich Bergel, 67, German flutist and conductor.
• Louis Berry, 83, African American civil rights attorney.
• Erika Cheetham, 58, English writer.
• Johannes Driessler, 77, German composer, organist, and lecturer.
• Tom Elliot, 72, Scottish rugby player.
• Jean-Baptiste Hachème, 68, Beninese military officer and politician.
• Raimund Harmstorf, 58, German actor, suicide by hanging.
• David Vincent Hooper, 82, British chess player and writer.
• Venkatesh Kulkarni, Indian-American novelist and academic, leukemia.
• Loren MacIver, 89, American painter.
• René Mugica, 88, Argentine actor, film director and screenwriter.
• Gene Raymond, 89, American actor, pneumonia.
• Les Samuels, 69, English footballer.
• Xue Yue, 101, Chinese Nationalist military general.
• Gojko Šušak, 53, Croatian politician, lung cancer.

• Gordon Beningfield, 61, English wildlife artist, broadcaster and naturalist.
• Alois Estermann, 43, Swiss officer of the Pontifical Swiss Guard, murdered.
• Albert Glasser, 82, American composer, conductor and arranger of B-movie music.
• Theodor Oberländer, 93, German Ostforschung scientist and politician.
• Nicolò Rode, 86, Italian sailor and Olympic champion.

• Juan Gimeno, 84, Spanish road cyclist.
• Alan Glyn, 79, British politician.
• Tommy McCook, 71, Jamaican saxophonist, pneumonia and heart failure.
• Eleanor Ragsdale, 72, American civil rights activist.
• Frithjof Schuon, 90, Swiss author, poet and painter.
• Paul Seymour, 70, American basketball player and coach.

• Chatchai Chunhawan, 78, Thai army officer, diplomat and politician, liver cancer.
• Sybil Connolly, 77, Irish fashion designer.
• Juan Antonio García Díez, 57, American politician, liver cancer.
• Aleksei Gritsai, 84, Soviet and Russian artist.
• John Joseph, 65, Pakistani Roman Catholic bishop, suicide.
• Arvid Laurin, 96, Swedish sailor and Olympic medalist.
• Erich Mende, 81, German politician, Vice-Chancellor of West Germany.

• Blue Lu Barker, 84, American jazz and blues singer.
• Allan McLeod Cormack, 74, South African American physicist, cancer.
• István Hasznos, 73, Hungarian water polo player and Olympic champion (1952).
• Jack Heslop-Harrison, 78, British soldier and botanist, heart attack.
• John Meyers, 58, American football player, heart problems.
• Eddie Rabbitt, 56, American singer and songwriter, lung cancer.
• Allen Wikgren, 91, American theologian and New Testament scholar.

• Donald Stephen Lowell Cardwell, 78, British historian of science and technology.
• Jacques Dumesnil, 94, French film and television actor.
• Johannes Kotkas, 83, Estonian Greco-Roman wrestler and Olympic champion (1952).
• Raymond Premru, 63, American trombonist and compose, esophageal cancer.
• Jennings Randolph, 96, American politician.
• Charles Rebozo, 85, American banker and businessman.

• Lester Butler, 38, American blues harmonica player and singer, drug overdose.
• Donald Conroy, 77, United States Marine Corps colonel.
• Bernard Dwork, 74, American mathematician.
• Alice Faye, 83, American actress and singer, stomach cancer.
• Rudolf Ismayr, 89, German weightlifter and Olympic champion.
• Rommie Loudd, 64, American gridiron football player, coach, and executive, diabetes.
• Talat Mahmood, 74, Indian playback singer, heart attack.
• Bob Mellish, Baron Mellish, 85, British politician.
• Earl R. Parker, 85, American engineer and professor.
• Nat Perrin, 93, American comedy screenwriter, producer and director.
• R. J. G. Savage, 70, British palaeontologist, pancreatic cancer.
• Gerhard Siedl, 69, German football player.
• Marianne Strengell, 88, Finnish-American modernist textile designer.

• Lajos Czinege, 74, Hungarian military officer and politician.
• José Francisco Antonio Peña Gómez, 61, Dominican Republic politician, pulmonary edema.
• Robert Jewell, 78, Australian actor (Doctor Who).
• Oreste Kirkop, 74, Maltese singer.
• Cesare Perdisa, 65, Italian racing driver.
• Ronald Ridenhour, 52, American soldier during the Vietnam War, heart attack.
• Clara Rockmore, 87, American classical violin prodigy and theremin performer.
• Sumitro, 71, Indonesian general.
• George Wright, 77, American organist.

• Willy Corsari, 100, Dutch actor, author and composer.
• Gene Fowler Jr., 80, American film editor (It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Hang 'Em High).
• Ernst Ising, 98, German physicist.
• John Morrison, 94, Australian novelist and short story writer.
• Hans van Zon, 57, Dutch serial killer, alcohol poisoning.

• Myoung Hwa Cho, 44, American murder victim, homicide by asphyxiation.
• Hermann Lenz, 85, German writer, poet, and novelist.
• John McCarthy, 81, American gridiron football player.
• Graham Shaw, 63, English football player.

• Gunnar Jansson, 90, Swedish football player.
• Oscar G. Johnson, 77, United States Army soldier and recipient of the Medal of Honor.
• Chantal Mauduit, 34, French alpinist, climbing accident.
• Frank Ragano, 75, American mafia lawyer.

• Mabel Esther Allan, 83, British children's author.
• Bill Bishop, 67, American gridiron football player.^[2]
• Garth Boesch, 77, American ice hockey player.
• Tom D'Andrea, 88, American actor.
• Marjory Stoneman Douglas, 108, American journalist, writer and conservationist.
• Charlie Hall, 50, American gridiron football player.
• Geoffrey Kendal, 88, English actor.
• Floyd Lounsbury, 84, American linguist, anthropologist and epigrapher.
• Yitzhak Moda'i, 72, Israeli politician.
• Shawkat Osman, 81, Bangladeshi novelist and short story writer.
• Karl Schmid, 87, Swiss rower and Olympic medalist.
• Frank Sinatra, 82, American singer ("My Way", "That's Life") and actor (From Here to Eternity), Oscar winner (1954), heart attack.
• Mahmud of Terengganu, 68, Malaysian sultan.
• Jade Wilson, 21, New Zealand squash player, suicide.

• Joe Cibulas, 77, American football player.
• Gunter d'Alquen, 87, German nazi correspondent.
• John Hawkes, 72, American novelist.
• Richard Jaeger, 85, German politician.
• Earl Manigault, 53, American basketball player, congestive heart failure.
• Packy Rogers, 85, American baseball player, manager and scout.
• Naim Talu, 78, Turkish politician and former Prime Minister of Turkey.
• Patrick Wall, 81, British commando during World War II and later a politician.

• Pierre Cardinal, 73, French screenwriter and director.
• Idov Cohen, 88, Romanian-Israeli politician and journalist.
• Milan Creighton, 90, American football player and coach.
• William Alexander Hewitt, 83, American diplomat and businessman.
• Rufino Linares, 47, American baseball player, traffic collision.

• Genie Chance, 71, American journalist, radio broadcaster and politician.
• Hugh Cudlipp, 84, British journalist and newspaper editor.
• Nina Dorliak, 89, Russian soprano and a voice teacher.
• Gasper Urban, 75, American gridiron football player.
• Sarojini Yogeswaran, 97, Sri Lankan politician.

• Obaidullah Aleem, Indian poet, heart failure.
• Odd Engström, 56, Swedish politician, heart attack.
• Roy Evans, 88, Welsh table tennis player.
• Enid Marx, 95, English painter and designer.

• Edwin Astley, 76, British composer.
• Hank Earl Carr, 30, American murderer and spree killer, suicide by gunshot.
• Leela Devi, 66, Indian writer, translator, and teacher.
• Dorothy Donegan, 76, American jazz pianist and vocalist, cancer.
• Teresa Prekerowa, 76, Polish historian and author.
• Sōsuke Uno, 75, Japanese politician and Prime Minister of Japan, lung cancer.

• Chuck Bloedorn, 85, American basketball player.
• Tom Bolack, 80, American businessman and politician.
• Linwood G. Dunn, 93, American visual effects artist (West Side Story, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Mighty Joe Young).
• Ricardo Franco, 48, Spanish screenwriter and film director, heart attack.
• Jacob Katz, 93, Israeli historian and educator.
• Wolf Mankowitz, 73, English writer, playwright and screenwriter, cancer.
• Walter McKinnon, 87, New Zealand Army officer.
• Robert Normann, 81, Norwegian jazz guitarist.
• Alfredo Yabrán, 53, Argentine businessman and associate of Carlos Menem, suicide.
• Santiago Álvarez, 79, Cuban filmmaker, Parkinson's disease.

• Erik Bladström, 80, Swedish sprint canoeist and Olympic champion.
• Li Bo, 69, Chinese ecologist, traffic collision.
• Pedro Escartín, 95, Spanish football player, referee, coach, and author.
• Douglas Fowley, 86, American actor (Singin' in the Rain, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Mighty Joe Young).
• Robert Gist, 80, American actor and film director.
• Jan Gullberg, 62, Swedish surgeon and science writer, stroke.
• Jim Power, 102, Irish hurler.
• Rajanala Kaleswara Rao, 73, Indian film actor.
• Torgny Säve-Söderbergh, 83, Swedish writer and professor of Egyptology.

• Domenico Cantatore, 82, Italian painter.
• John Derek, 71, American actor and film director, heart failure.
• Arthur R. Gralla, 85, United States Navy Vice Admiral, pneumonia.
• Fred Hatfield, 73, American baseball player.
• Eddie MacCabe, 71, Canadian sports journalist and writer.
• Robert W. Morgan, 60, American radio personality, lung cancer.
• José Enrique Moyal, 87, Australian mathematical physicist.
• Francisco Lucas Pires, 53, Portuguese lawyer, and politician.

• Tony Halik, 77, Polish documentary film maker, author of travel books, and explorer.
• Grace Hartman, Canadian social activist and politician.
• Vic Kulbitski, 76, American gridiron football player.
• Andreas Liebenberg, 60, South African military commander.
• Ebbe Rode, 88, Danish stage and film actor, pneumonia.
• Monroe K. Spears, American university professor and literary critic.
• Telford Taylor, 90, American lawyer.

• Francys Arsentiev, 40, American mountaineer, hypothermia and/or cerebral edema.
• George Kelly, 82, American jazz tenor saxophonist.
• Tommy Moore, 35, American golfer, primary amyloidosis.
• Premnath Moraes, 75, Sri Lankan actor, film director and scriptwriter.
• Lucio Muñoz, 68, Spanish painter and engraver.
• Charles Rycroft, 83, British psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.

• Steve Michael, 42, American HIV/AIDS activist, complications from AIDS.
• Gary Thomas Row, 64, American informant for the FBI, heart attack.
• Claude Stubbs, 93, Australian politician.
• Todd Witsken, 34, American tennis player, brain cancer.

• Emil Braginsky, 76, Soviet and Russian screenwriter.
• Linda Hayes, 74, American rhythm and blues singer.
• Edgar A. Silinsh, 71, Soviet and Latvian scientist.
• Charlie White, 70, American baseball player.
• Sergey Yablonsky, 73, Soviet and Russian mathematician.

• Minoo Masani, 92, Indian politician.
• Robert Muller, 72, German-British journalist and screenwriter.
• Ghazaros Saryan, 77, Armenian composer.
• Shu Tong, 92, Chinese politician.

• Chung-Yao Chao, 95, Chinese theoretical physicist.
• Ragnar Fjørtoft, 84, Norwegian meteorologist.
• Bill Giles, 66, American football player and coach.
• Phil Hartman, 49, Canadian-American comedian and actor (Saturday Night Live, NewsRadio, The Simpsons), Emmy winner (1989), shot.^[3]
• Anatoliy Kabayda, 85, Ukrainian community and political activist.
• Bill Meek, 77, American football player and coach.
• Lana Morris, 68, British actress, heart attack.
• George T. Oubre, 80, American politician.
• Dieter Renner, 48, German football player and coach.
• Giovanni Valetti, 84, Italian road racing cyclist.
• Bill Williams, 37, American game designer, programmer and author, cystic fibrosis.

• Orlando Anderson, 23, American gangster and suspected murderer of rapper Tupac Shakur, gunshot wound.
• Eric Atkinson, 70, Barbados cricket player..
• Ted Dunbar, 61, American jazz guitarist and composer, stroke.
• Barry Goldwater, 89, American politician and author, complications from a stroke.
• Hazel P. Heath, 88, American politician and entrepreneur.
• Marion Milner, 98, British author and psychoanalyst.
• Philip O'Connor, 81, British writer and surrealist poet.

• Sam Aaronovitch, 78, British economist, academic and communist.
• Jozef Baláži, 78, Slovak football player and manager.
• Leon Bender, 22, American football player, epilepsy.
• Walter Carr, 73, Scottish actor and comedian.
• William Moreton Condry, 80, English naturalist, kidney failure.
• Robin Jackson, 49, Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary, lung cancer.
• Jan Pickard, 70, South African rugby player.
• Max Prieto, 79, Mexican football player.
• Wolfram Röhrig, 81, German pianist, composer and conductor.

• Sammy Collins, 75, English football player.
• Lotti Huber, 85, German actress.
• Valeriy Hubulov, 31, South Ossetian politician, murdered.
• Michio Suzuki, 71, Japanese mathematician.
• Charles Van Acker, 86, Belgian-American racecar driver.
• Stanisław Wisłocki, 76, Polish conductor of classical music.

Preceded by Deaths in 1997

Deaths by year

Succeeded by Deaths in 1999