December 22, 2009. Copyright 2009, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Review 2009: Last Farewells
By Julie Mullins

LONDON, December 22, Graphic News:  Captions accompany photomontage GN25441

1. Pop superstar Michael Jackson, aged 50, died in June from cardiac arrest, brought on by a cocktail of powerful sleeping drugs administered by his personal physician. His death triggered an outpouring of grief around the world, creating surges of internet traffic and a massive boost to his album sales. At the time of his death the “King of Pop” was rehearsing for a series of 50 sold-out concerts to over one million people at London’s O2 arena, his first performances since his 2005 trial and acquittal on child molestation charges, and which he said would be the final concerts of his career.

2. Veteran U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy, younger brother of assassinated President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, died in August after a year-long battle with brain cancer. He was 77. Ted Kennedy, a dominant force in the Senate for almost half a century, became a Democratic senator for Massachusetts in 1962, replacing his brother John when he resigned to become president. His death, two weeks after that of his sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver, left Jean Kennedy Smith as the sole survivor of the nine children of Joe and Rose Kennedy, a dynasty that defined American liberal politics for a generation.

3. U.S. actor Patrick Swayze died from pancreatic cancer in September at age 57. His breakthrough role came with his performance as dance instructor Johnny Castle in the 1987 film Dirty Dancing, with Jennifer Grey, which became a surprise hit worldwide. Swayze co-wrote and sang one of the songs on the soundtrack, “She’s Like the Wind”, which made the top 10. He scored another major success in 1990, when he starred in Ghost with Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg.

4. Eunice Kennedy Shriver, sister of President John F. Kennedy and founder of the Special Olympics, died in August at the age of 88. She organised the first Special Olympic Games in 1968, partly inspired by her mentally disabled elder sister, Rosemary Kennedy, and is credited with helping to transform views of the mentally disabled through her campaigns. Eunice was the fifth of nine children of Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, the mother of TV journalist Maria Shriver, and mother-in-law of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

5. Eminent French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss died in October at the age of 100. One of the dominating postwar influences in French intellectual life, his studies of indigenous peoples in Brazil and North America transformed Western understanding of the nature of culture, custom and civilisation.

6. Former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, who pioneered his country’s “Sunshine Policy” of engagement with North Korea, died in August from heart failure while being treated for pneumonia. The former leader, who survived several attempts on his life, spent his life pursuing democracy and reunification with the North, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000.

7. German football goalkeeper Robert Enke committed suicide in October by leaping in front of a train. He was 32. During his career Enke played at Barcelona, Benfica and Fenerbahce, but made the majority of his appearances for Bundesliga side Hannover. He won eight full international caps for the German national team between 2007-09, and was widely considered to be a leading contender for the team’s number one spot at the 2010 World Cup.

8. Former Philippine leader Corazon Aquino, Asia’s first female president, died from cancer in August at the age of 76. She was catapulted into politics after her husband, prominent Senator Benigno Aquino, was assassinated upon his return from exile in August 1983, and swiftly became a focal point and unifying force of the opposition against dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Aquino was installed as President in 1986 when Marcos was deposed by the peaceful People Power Revolution.

9. Les Paul, whose pioneering electric guitars were used by a legion of rock stars, died in August at the age of 94. He was credited with developing one of the first solid-body electric guitars, which went on sale in 1952 and contributed to the birth of rock. He also developed other influential recording innovations such as multi-track recording and overdubbing, and was credited with inventing the eight-track tape recorder.

10. Former England football manager Sir Bobby Robson died in July at the age of 76, having battled cancer five times over 17 years. Best known on the international stage for leading England to the 1990 World Cup semi-final, he cut his managerial teeth at club level with Fulham before establishing his credentials at Ipswich where he won the FA Cup and Uefa Cup in a 13-year stay. Successful spells at PSV Eindhoven, Sporting Lisbon, Porto and Barcelona followed before he took over at Newcastle United, the team he had watched from the terraces as a boy.

11. Irish pop star Stephen Gately died from pulmonary oedema while holidaying at his apartment in Majorca in October. He was just 33. He gained fame as a member of Boyzone, one of the most successful bands of the 1990s, and in 1999, became the first ever boyband member to come out as gay. Following the band’s breakup in 2000, he released a solo album and appeared in a number of stage musicals and TV shows before rejoining Boyzone when the band reformed in 2008.

12. Award-winning British actress Natasha Richardson died from head injuries sustained in a skiing accident in Canada in March. Richardson, 45, the wife of Irish actor Liam Neeson and daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave, fell on a beginners’ slope at a resort in Quebec and although initially she showed no sign of injury, her condition deteriorated rapidly. She was flown with Neeson to a New York hospital, to allow close family members to visit her before she died.

13. U.S. actor David Carradine was found dead in a Bangkok hotel room in June. The 72-year-old star of popular 1970s TV series Kung Fu, who later starred as the title character in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill movies, was found naked and hanging in a closet. Autopsy and toxicology results indicated he died accidentally while engaging in auto-erotic asphyxiation.

14. Actress Farrah Fawcett, a TV icon in the 1970s, died of cancer in June, aged 62. She shot to stardom in the series Charlie's Angels, in which her role as vivacious private eye Jill Munroe made her an international pin-up. However, her work was regularly eclipsed by her off-screen life. Having separated from her husband, Lee Majors, in 1979, Fawcett began a high-profile affair with Ryan O'Neal, with whom she had a son, Redmond, born in 1985.

15. Harry Patch, the last surviving soldier to have fought in the trenches of the First World War, died in July, aged 111. At 18, he was conscripted into the British Army, and fought at the 1917 Battle of Passchendaele, which claimed the lives of more than 70,000 men. Badly wounded by a shell which killed three of his comrades, Patch never spoke of his part in the war until he turned 100. The death of “The Last Fighting Tommy” came just a week after that of fellow British veteran Henry Allingham, 113, the last survivor of the naval Battle of Jutland and founder member of the Royal Air Force.

16. Argentine singer Mercedes Sosa died in October, aged 74. Popular throughout Latin America, she became one of the pre-eminent exponents of nueva cancion. Politically she favoured leftist causes and was best known as the “voice of the voiceless ones”.

17. John Updike, regarded as one of America’s most prominent contemporary novelists, died from lung cancer in January. Renowned for his careful craftsmanship and highly stylistic writing, his best known work was his Rabbit series, two of which, Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest, received the Pulitzer Prize. His prolific output included 25 novels and more than a dozen short story collections, as well as poetry, art criticism, literary criticism and children’s books.