The following is a list of notable deaths in March 2008.
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.
March 2008
1 Haroldo de Andrade, 73, Brazilian radio presenter (Rádio Globo), multiple organ dysfunction syndrome. Dora Dolz, 66, Spanish-born Dutch artist.Dora Dolz (1941-2008) Kevin Dunn, 57, British Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle. Bhanbhagta Gurung, 86, Nepalese Gurkha soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross. Raúl Reyes, 59, Colombian FARC second-in-command, airstrike. Moustafa Soheim, 70, Egyptian Olympic fencer. Sid Spindler, 75, Polish-born Australian senator (Democrats) (1990–1996), liver cancer. Andrey Tissin, 32, Russian world and European canoeing champion, Olympian and coach, drowning. George Toley, 91, American collegiate tennis coach.
2 Sofiko Chiaureli, 70, Georgian actress. Barbara Anne Davis, 77, American baseball player (AAGPBL) Roger Gill, 35, Guyanese Olympic sprinter, car accident. Jeff Healey, 41, Canadian singer ("Angel Eyes") and actor (Road House), sarcoma. Carl Hoddle, 40, English footballer (Leyton Orient, Barnet), brain aneurysm. Paul Raymond, 82, British pornographic magazine publisher and property magnate. Ted Robinson, 84, American golf course architect, pancreatic cancer. Frederick Seitz, 96, American physicist who co-discovered the Wigner-Seitz cell.
3 Bertil Albertsson, 86, Swedish runner. Vizol Angami, 93, Indian Naga politician. Ramón Barquín, 93, Cuban army colonel and diplomat, opponent of Fulgencio Batista, led 1956 coup attempt, cancer. William Brice, 86, American painter and UCLA professor, injuries from fall. Giuseppe Di Stefano, 86, Italian operatic tenor, after long coma following assault. Donald S. Lopez Sr., 84, American deputy director of the National Air and Space Museum, heart attack. Malcolm McKenna, 77, American paleontologist. Norm O'Neill, 71, Australian cricketer, throat cancer. Annemarie Renger, 88, German politician (SPD), Speaker of Parliament (1972–1976). Iván Ríos, 45, Colombian FARC commander, shot by his Chief of Security. Norman Smith, 85, British singer, recording engineer (The Beatles, Pink Floyd) and record producer. Kenneth Woollcombe, 84, British Bishop of Oxford (1971–1978).
4 Hossein Alikhani, 63, Iranian NGO founder, political scientist and author, leukemia. Richard Davis Anderson, 86, American mathematician. Erwin Ballabio, 89, Swiss football goalkeeper. Robert Bruning, 79, Australian actor, heart attack. Gary Gygax, 69, American game designer, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons. Tina Lagostena Bassi, 82, Italian politician. Elena Nathanael, 61, Greek actress, lung cancer. Leonard Rosenman, 83, American film composer (Barry Lyndon, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Bound for Glory), Oscar winner (1977, 1978), heart attack. Semka Sokolović-Bertok, 72, Croatian actress, stroke. George Walter, 79, Antiguan Premier (1971–1976), heart attack.
5 Eve Carson, 22, American student leader (UNC Chapel Hill), shot. Derek Dooley, 78, British footballer and former chairman of Sheffield United. Elfriede Kaun, 93, German 1936 Olympic bronze medalist in the high jump. Nader Khalili, 72, Iranian architect, heart failure. John C. Mackie, 87, American Representative from Michigan (1965–1967). Richard Miles McCool, 86, American Medal of Honor recipient for actions during World War II. Don McFarlane, 81, Canadian Olympic sprinter. Stephen Oliver, 66, American actor (Peyton Place), gastric cancer. Sixty Rayburn, 91, American politician.B. B. "Sixty" Rayburn Hajibey Sultanov, 86, Azerbaijani astronomer, fire accident. Joseph Weizenbaum, 85, German-born American computer scientist, inventor of ELIZA computer program, stroke. Ihor Yemchuk, 77, Ukrainian Olympic silver (1952) and bronze (1956) medal-winning rower.
6 Gloria Shayne Baker, 84, American songwriter (Rain Rain Go Away, Do You Hear What I Hear?), lung cancer. Lili Boniche, 87, Algerian-born French singer of Andalusian Arabic songs. Don Curtis, 80, American professional wrestler, stroke. Kurt Eberling Sr., 77, German-American inventor of SpaghettiOs, cancer. Gustaw Holoubek, 84, Polish film and theatre actor and politician. Stanislav Konopásek, 84, Czech ice hockey player, Olympic silver medalist (1948). *Peter Poreku Dery, 89, Ghanaian cardinal, Archbishop of Tamale (1974–1994). Kiddinan Sivanesan, 51, Sri Lankan Tamil Parliament member (TNA), roadside bomb. Malvin Wald, 90, American screenwriter (The Naked City).
7 Ossie Álvarez, 74, American Major League Baseball player (Washington Senators, Detroit Tigers). Luisa Isabel Álvarez de Toledo, 71, Spanish noblewoman and author. Isaías Carrasco, 43, Spanish Basque politician, shot. Leonardo Costagliola, 87, Italian football goalkeeper (ACF Fiorentina). Dick Durrell, 82, American founding publisher of People magazine, lung cancer. David Gale, 86, American mathematician, heart attack. Charles A. Gillespie Jr., 72, American diplomat, Ambassador to Colombia and Chile, cancer. Leon Greenman, 97, British Holocaust survivor, only Englishman sent to Auschwitz. Julius Paltiel, 83, Norwegian Holocaust survivor. Francis Pym, 86, British Conservative Party politician, Foreign Secretary (1982–1983). Howard Wing, 92, Chinese Olympic cyclist.
8 Lucy G. Acosta, 81, Mexican-American activist. Sadun Aren, 85, Turkish academic and politician. Carol Barnes, 63, British ITN news presenter, stroke. Donald C. MacDonald, 94, Canadian politician, former leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party. Les Smith, 80, English footballer (Wolves, Aston Villa), cancer.
9 Gus Giordano, 84, American Emmy Award-winning jazz dancer, pneumonia. Edward L. Hart, American poet and Mormon hymnwriter. Florent Jodoin, 85, Canadian Olympic cyclist. Simon Reisman, 88, Canadian chief negotiator of the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement, cardiac arrest.
10 Galo Ador Jr., 39, Filipino cartoonist. Richard Biegenwald, 67, American serial killer. William Bradford, 61, American serial killer, natural causes. Hugh Brown, 88, British Labour politician, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (1974–1979). Charles Wayne Day, 65, American blues guitarist, wrote the distinctive riff in "Secret Agent Man". Robert P. Foster, 90, American academic administrator, president of Northwest Missouri State University (1964–1977). Ricardo García, 81, Mexican Olympic cyclist. Dennis Irwin, 56, American jazz double bassist, complications of cancer. Ana Kalandadze, 83, Georgian poet. Vangelis Kazan, 70, Greek actor. Lee Ho-seong, 41, South Korean baseball player, thief and murderer, suicide by drowning. Radovan Lukavský, 88, Czech actor. Sai Htee Saing, 57, Burmese singer. Otto Schnellbacher, 84, American football and basketball player, cancer.
11 J. I. Albrecht, 77, American-born Canadian manager and director in the Canadian Football League, complications from a stroke. Zakaria Deros, 62, Malaysian former politician, heart attack. John Roderick, 93, American journalist (AP) and author, extensively covered China (1930s–2000s), heart failure and pneumonia. Phyllis Spira, 64, South African prima ballerina, complications of surgery. Dave Stevens, 52, American comic book writer and artist (The Rocketeer), leukemia. Michael J. Todd, 50, British Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, exposure. Lukas Vischer, 81, Swiss theologian.
12 Alan Buckley, 66, British rugby union and rugby league player. Folke Eriksson, 82, Swedish Olympic water polo player. Erwin Geschonneck, 101, German actor. Jorge Guinzburg, 59, Argentine journalist and comedian, pulmonary infection. Alun Hoddinott, 78, Welsh composer. Cassià Maria Just, 81, Spanish cleric, former abbot of Santa Maria de Montserrat, stroke. Howard Metzenbaum, 90, American politician, Senator from Ohio (1974, 1976–1995). Ovidiu Iuliu Moldovan, 66, Romanian actor, cancer. Károly Németh, 85, Hungarian politician. Lazare Ponticelli, 110, Italian-born last official French veteran of World War I. Asesela Ravuvu, 77, Fijian politician and former University of the South Pacific academic, natural causes. Tom Tuohy, 90, British chemist, averted potential disaster at Windscale.
13 Tessa Birnie, 73, New Zealand concert pianist. Iosif Boyarsky, 90, Russian former Soyuzmultfilm director, one of the fathers of Soviet animation. Claire Brooks, 76, British politician. Louise Da-Cocodia, 73, British anti-racism campaigner. Martin Fierro, 66, American saxophonist, cancer. Scarlet Garcia, 23, Filipino model, shot. Terry Moloney, 68, Irish hurler. Chike Obi, 86, Nigerian mathematician and politician. Rafael Tufiño, 85, Puerto Rican painter and printmaker, lung cancer.
14 Taslim Arif, 53, Pakistani cricketer, lung infection. Gary Binfield, 42, British swimmer, heart attack. Mel Brandt, 88, American actor and announcer. Clyde Cameron, 95, Australian politician, MP (1949–1980), Minister in the Whitlam Government. Mike Dawson, 54, American football player, heart attack. Stig-Olof Grenner, 68, Finnish Olympic swimmer Chiara Lubich, 88, Italian Catholic activist, founder of the Focolare Movement. Ingvald Ulveseth, 83, Norwegian politician.
15 Sambhaji Angre, 87, Indian politician. Jacob DeShazer, 95, American bombardier, participant in the Doolittle Raid. Mikey Dread, 54, Jamaican singer, record producer and broadcaster, brain tumor. Vytautas Kernagis, 56, Lithuanian singer, television announcer, gastric cancer. G. David Low, 52, American astronaut, colon cancer. Benjamin Ngoubou, 82, Gabonese foreign minister. Sam C. Pointer Jr., 73, American federal judge for the District Court for the Northern District of Alabama (1970–2000). Ken Reardon, 86, Canadian ice hockey defenceman (Montreal Canadiens), Alzheimer's disease. Ross Scaife, 47, American classicist and digital humanist, cancer. Yury Tsuranov, 72, Soviet Olympic sport shooter. Vicki Van Meter, 26, American pilot, suicide by gunshot.
16 Anura Bandaranaike, 59, Sri Lankan politician, complications from cancer. Bill Brown, 95, Australian cricket captain, member of 1948 Invincibles team. Ola Brunkert, 61, Swedish session drummer for ABBA, injuries from accidental fall. Wayne Davis, 44, American football player, motor neurone disease. Ivan Dixon, 76, American actor (Hogan's Heroes, A Raisin in the Sun, Porgy and Bess), complications from kidney failure. Gary Hart, 66, American professional wrestling manager, heart attack. John Hewer, 86, British actor (Captain Birdseye), natural causes. Otto Jemelka, 93–94, Czech Olympic modern pentathlete. Daniel MacMaster, 39, Canadian rock vocalist (Bonham), group A streptococcal infection. Mary Meader, 91, American aerial photographer. Bob Purkey, 78, American baseball player (Cincinnati Reds, Pittsburgh Pirates), Alzheimer's disease. John Shedd Reed, 90, American president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (1967–1986), natural causes. Laurus Škurla, 80, Slovak-born American first hierarch of the ROCOR. Jonathan Williams, 79, American poet, photographer and publisher, founder of The Jargon Society.
17 Roland E. Arnall, 68, American owner of Ameriquest Mortgage, Ambassador to the Netherlands (2006–2008), cancer. Claude Farell, 93, Austrian actress. Kim Goetz, 50, American basketball player. Claus Luthe, 75, German automobile designer. Georges Pisani, 89, French Olympic sailor
18 Hazel Barnes, 92, American philosopher. Andrew Britton, 27, British-born spy novelist, undiagnosed heart condition. Mariano Di Gangi, 84, Canadian Presbyterian minister. Philip Jones Griffiths, 72, British photojournalist, cancer. Martin Halliday, 81, British physician. Jyrki Hämäläinen, 65, Finnish journalist, editor of Suosikki magazine. Anthony Minghella, 54, British director (The English Patient, Cold Mountain, The Talented Mr. Ripley), Oscar winner (1997), post-surgery haemorrhage.