The following is a list of notable deaths in March 1979. 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 1979
1 Mustafa Barzani, 75, Kurdish nationalist leader, he was chosen in 1946 as the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) to lead the Kurdish revolt against the Kingdom of Iraq, Barzani was the primary political and military leader of the Kurdish separatist movement until his death in March 1979, he led campaigns of armed insurgency against both the Iraqi and Iranian governments, Korn, David (1994-06). "The Last Years of Mustafa Barzani." Middle East Quarterly. Retrieved 15 November 2006.death from lung cancer, while undergoing treatment for his illness at the Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C. Dolores Costello, 75, American actress, she was named as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1926,the destructive effects of early film makeup affected her complexion too severely to camouflage, and were blamed for the early end of her film careerOlive Borden: The Life and Films of Hollywood's Joy Girl by Michelle Vogel page 89; Retrieved February 10, 2016Orson Welles: A Biography by Barbara Leaming page 222; Retrieved February 10, 2016
5 Alan Crofoot, 49, Canadian operatic heldentenor, character tenor specialist, and actor, he committed suicide by jumping from his fifth floor hotel room window in Dayton, Ohio, and he died of his fall-related injuries at the Miami Valley Hospital, according to his manager, Crofoot was suffering from recurring depression, due to the adverse effects of mixing his medication with beer
6 Wilna Hervey, 84, American actress and artist, in 1919, she was cast in the role of "The Powerful Katrinka" in The Toonerville Trolley silent film series, which was based on Fontaine Fox's Toonerville Folks comic strip, much of the slapstick comedy in the series revolves around Hervey's imposing physical stature, since she stood at the height of , in contrast with her diminutive male co-stars,Hervey was the life partner of the painter Nan Mason from the late 1910s until her death in 1979 Charles Wagenheim, 83, American actor, he was killed by his wife's nurse, after he confronted the nurse about a number of forged checks which she had signed in his name.
9 Jim Fritzell, 59, American screenwriter, he and his writing partner Everett Greenbaum wrote 35 episodes for the war comedy television series M*A*S*H, the writing duo also collaborated on the scripts of several films, including Good Neighbor Sam (1964), The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), The Reluctant Astronaut (1967), The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968), and Angel in My Pocket (1969). Quentin Lawrence, 58, English film director and television director, long-time employee of Associated Television (ATV), his works included (among others) the science fiction horror film The Trollenberg Terror (1958) which was credited as one of the inspirations for John Carpenter's 1980 horror film The Fog, Coming Soon. The Beginning of the End: John Carpenter’s Village of the Damned (2015), and the first series of the time travel-themed fantasy television show Catweazle (1970-1971) Barbara Mullen, 64, American actress,she portrayed Miss Marple in the 1949 London production of the theatrical The Murder at the Vicarage, heart attack Steve Sekely, 80, Hungarian film director,he fled the rise of fascism in the interwar period, and worked in Hollywood for much of his subsequent career, directing mostly B movies and early episodic television; in 1940, he was reportedly the first film director hired to direct television plays for American television,he directed his best-known English-language film, the cult science fiction thriller The Day of the Triffids (1963) in the United Kindom,Howard Keel recalled Sekely as "a lovely man with a thick Hungarian accent and a habit of offering a direction and walking away from you, so you caught very little of what he said. But somehow you knew what he wanted. We all loved him and his humor."Keel p 207
11 Victor Kilian, 88, American actor, he was blacklisted for his political beliefs during the McCarthyism of the 1950s,he was beaten to death in his own apartment by burglars
15 Maury M. Cohen, estimated to be about 66 at the time of death, American film producer, he founded Invincible Pictures, one of the Poverty Row studios; his company teamed with Chesterfield Pictures, headed by George R. Batcheller, and they were often referred to as "C and I" or "Chesterfield and Invincible", as the two companies shared the same personnel and equipment,in 1933, Cohen was at the forefront of a movement by independent producers to change the code of the National Recovery Administration (NRA), in order to assure the validity of theaters being able to show a second feature on a program (double feature) Léonide Massine, 82, Russian choreographer and ballet dancer, he graduated from the Moscow Imperial Theater School in 1913, and almost immediately joined the Bolshoi Ballet, he was subsequently recruited into the Ballets Russes, following the departure of Vaslav Nijinsky, the company's first male star, Massine became the preeminent male star and took over Nijinsky's roles,Lynn Garafola, Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989),he died in his home in Borken, West GermanyGarcía-Márquez, Massine (1995), p. 381.
16 Jean Monnet, 90, French civil servant, entrepreneur, diplomat, financier, and administrator, Alden Whitman, "Jean Monnet, 90, Architect of European Unity, Dies", New York Times, 17 March 1979 he was an influential supporter of European unity, and he is considered one of the founding fathers of the European Union.
18 Marjorie Daw, 77, American actress of the silent film era, she started her acting career in her teen years, Daw made her film debut in 1914 and worked steadily during the 1920s, but she retired from acting after the advent of sound film.
19 Richard Beckinsale, 31, English actor, he co-starred as the prison inmate Lennie Godber in the BBC sitcom Porridge,and as the naive medical student Alan Moore in the ITV sitcom Rising Damp,death by heart attack, caused by coronary artery disease Al Hodge, 66, American actor, real estate agent, and security guard for a bank and for the French luxury goods conglomerate Cartier,he portrayed the superhero Green Hornet in the eponymous radio series from 1936 until 1943, and again in 1945, in 1949, Hodge replaced Richard Coogan in the role of the space adventurer Captain Video in the television series Captain Video and His Video Rangers,death by heart failure while staying in the George Washington Hotel in New York City.
22 Ben Lyon, 78, American actor and studio executive for the company 20th Century-Fox,he signed the first studio contract for the aspiring actress Marilyn Monroe,he suffered a fatal heart attack while vacationing on the Queen Elizabeth 2 cruise ship near Honolulu, Hawaii
23 Philip Bourneuf, 71, American character actor and vaudevillian, he started his career in his teen years, while still a high school student,he was part of the original cast of actors of the American Repertory Theater,he was a founding member of the Actors Studio
24 John Meston, 64, American scriptwriter, he co-created the long-running Western series Gunsmoke, and he developed storylines and wrote radio scripts and teleplays for 379 episodes of this series,Barabas, SuzAnne and Barabas, Gabor (1990). Gunsmoke: A Complete History and Analysis of the Legendary Broadcast Series. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, 1990, pp. 34-35."John Meston, 64, Script Writer Who Created 'Gunsmoke' for TV", obituary, The New York Times, March 28, 1979, digitized copy of obituary. Retrieved November 6, 2018.he also served as a writer and editorial supervisor for the radio programs Escape, Suspense, Lux Radio Theater, and Fort Laramie; and in the 1970s, he served as a frequent writer for two television series, Little House on the Prairie and Hec Ramsey,Barabas, pp. 29-35, 361."John Meston" writing credits, CBS Interactive, Inc. Retrieved March 28, 2019.McLeod. Elizabeth (2016). "[Macdonnell] and Meston Redux, Radio Classics, January 22, 2016. Sirius XM Radio, Inc. Retrieved March 28, 2019.death by cerebral hemorrhage"John Meston, Creator of Radio and TV Series 'Gunsmoke' Dies", Los Angeles Times, March 27, 1979, p. D11. ProQuest Historical Newspapers. Retrieved November 8, 2018.
26 Jean Stafford, 63, American novelist and short story writer, her debut novel Boston Adventure (1944) was a best-seller, but she became better known for her short stories, many of which were published in The New Yorker, Ryan, 1994 p. 104: "Jean Stafford published her first short story in 1939, and throughout the forties and fifties her stories—punctuated by novels in 1944, '47, and '52—appeared regularly in the New Yorker and other periodicals and popular magazines."Halverson, 2016 p. 128: "For over twenty years Stafford published short fiction in the New Yorker..." And p. 142: "She published stories [at the New Yorker] throughout the 1950s and 1960s, guided by her supportive editor, Katherine S. White."she won seven O Henry Awards for her short stories, and in 1970 The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, she developed emphysema in the final years of her life and she died as a patientin a clinic
28 Ronald Adam, 82, British officer of both the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Air Force, actor on stage and screen, playwright and theatre manager,he spend several months during World War I as a prisoner-of-war in the German Empire after his military airplane was shot down by a German pilot, identified as either Hans Kirschstein or Manfred von Richthofen,he served as a wing commander during the Battle of Britain (1940), tasked with co-ordinating interceptions by the RAF Fighter Command Emmett Kelly, 80, American circus performer, he created the clown character "Weary Willie", based on the hobos of the Great Depression, he joined the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1942, after being named as "the world's funniest clown" in the publicity campaign of a rival circus,"RB Scores Straw Peek", The Billboard, April 1, 1944, p. 34.death by heart attack in the front yard of his own home"Sadsack Clown Kelly Dies", Los Angeles Times, March 29, 1979, pp. 14–15.
29 Yahya Petra of Kelantan, 61, he served as the king of Malaysia from 1975 until his death in office in 1979,death by heart attack at the National Palace(1 April 1979) New Straits Times
30 Airey Neave, 63, British politician, lawyer, and soldier, he served as the campaign manager of Margaret Thatcher during her successful attempt to become the new leader of the Conservative Party, Campbell, John Margaret Thatcher: The Grocer's Daughter (2000)he subsequently served as the Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland until his death in office in 1979, he was assassinated by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) with a car bomb fixed under his car, the bomb detonated in the car park of the Palace of Westminster in London and mortally wounded Neave, who died shortly after being admitted to hospital.