December 18, 2006. Copyright 2006, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Review 2006: Last Farewells
By Julie Mullins

LONDON, December 18, Graphic News:  Captions accompany photomontage GN20446


1. Actress Shelley Winters died at a nursing home in Beverly Hills, California, on January 14. She was 85. Her career spanned six decades and included two Oscar wins, for The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) and A Patch of Blue (1965), but she was best known for her role in the 1972 disaster movie, The Poseidon Adventure. She was also famous for a number of romantic flings with some of HollywoodÕs leading men, including Errol Flynn and Clark Gable.

2. Former Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit died on November 5, aged 81. The veteran politician, who served five terms in office between 1974 and 2002, is best remembered for ordering the 1974 invasion of Cyprus which led to the division of the island that still exists today. More recently, the former Socialist prime minister was responsible for pushing Turkey closer to the West and towards candidacy for EU membership. He also strongly opposed the countryÕs Islamists and championed the secular state.

3. French actor Philippe Noiret died in Paris from cancer, aged 76, on November 23. One of European cinemaÕs most familiar faces, Noiret appeared in more than 140 films in a career of over 50 years. He shot to international fame in Cinema Paradiso (1988), and received wide acclaim for his portrayal of the exiled Chilean poet Pablo Neruda in Il Postino (1994). Noiret won two Cesar Awards, and was awarded the Legion dÕHonneur in 2005.

4. Australian naturalist and TV showman Steve Irwin died on September 4 after being pierced in the heart by a stingray barb while filming a documentary on the Great Barrier Reef. Irwin, 44, achieved worldwide fame for his interaction with crocodiles, snakes and spiders, and built up an initially small reptile park in Queensland into Australia Zoo, a major centre for Australian wildlife. More than 5,000 people attended a public memorial service at his Crocoseum stadium, where IrwinÕs eight-year-old daughter, Bindi, paid a touching tribute to her father.

5. Coretta Scott King, widow of assassinated U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King, died from cancer on January 30, aged 78. Mrs King carried on her husbandÕs work for racial equality after he was shot dead in 1968, campaigning successfully for a national holiday in his memory and founding The King Centre in Atlanta, Georgia, to preserve his legacy.

6. Actor Jack Wild, best-known as the Artful Dodger in the 1968 film Oliver!, died on March 1 at the age of 53. The role of the cheeky street urchin gained Wild an Oscar nomination when he was just 16, and also led to a starring role in a U.S. childrenÕs TV series, H.R. Pufnstuf, but his career declined rapidly due to heavy drinking and smoking and he was diagnosed with mouth cancer in 2000. His voice box and tongue had to be removed, leaving him unable to speak, eat or drink.

7. Hungarian footballer Ferenc Puskas, widely regarded as soccerÕs first international superstar, died in Budapest on November 17, aged 79. He was the mainstay of HungaryÕs national team in the years after World War II and extended his career for another decade with Spanish giants Real Madrid.

8. Former South African President P.W. Botha died on October 31 at his home in the Cape, aged 90. Pieter Willem Botha, known generally as ÒP.W.Ó and by Afrikaners as the ÒGreat CrocodileÓ, led white minority rule for 11 years at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle. As prime minister from 1978-84, and president from 1984-89, Botha was a staunch advocate of racial segregation. Despite great domestic and international pressure in his later years in power, he only minimally loosened some of the governmentÕs most stringent racial policies directed towards the majority black population and remained unrepentant till his death.

9. ChileÕs former military leader Augusto Pinochet died in hospital in Santiago on December 10, following a heart attack. He was 91. General Pinochet seized power in a 1973 coup, and more than 3,000 people were killed or ÒdisappearedÓ during his 17-year rule. His regime was accused of systematic and widespread human rights violations at home and abroad, and he was also personally accused of using his position to enrich himself and his family.

10. Veteran movie actor Jack Palance died aged 87 at his home in Montecito, California, on November 10. Born in Pennsylvania of Ukrainian descent, Palance won fame as a hard man in films such as Sudden Fear (1952), and Shane (1953), for both of which he was Oscar-nominated. Four decades later he finally won an Oscar, for the 1991 cowboy comedy City Slickers, in which he parodied his tough guy image.

11. Hollywood veteran Glenn Ford died on August 30 at his Beverly Hills home, aged 90. Born in Canada, Ford moved to California as a child and was hired by Columbia Pictures in 1939, turning out a film every five days from ColumbiaÕs B-unit in the early years of his career. He achieved stardom opposite Rita Hayworth in Gilda (1946), and later hits included The Big Heat (1953) and Midway (1976). He appeared in more than 100 films during a 53-year career.

12. Dana Reeve, actress and widow of Superman actor Christopher Reeve, died from lung cancer on March 6 at the age of 44. Reeve won worldwide admiration for her support of her husband, giving up her career to care for him after a horse-riding accident left him paralysed in 1995. After his death in October 2004 she took over the running of the Christopher Reeve Foundation, set up by her husband to campaign for spinal cord research.

13. Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was found dead in his cell at the UN war crimes tribunalÕs detention centre in The Hague on March 11. An autopsy established that the cause of death was a heart attack, despite assertions by his lawyer that he was poisoned. Milosevic, 64, had been held at the tribunal for genocide and other war crimes since 2001.

14. U.S. keyboard legend Billy Preston died on June 6 in Scottsdale, Arizona, aged 59. He played on The BeatlesÕ Let it Be and Abbey Road, and is credited as co-writer on their hit single Get Back. He also contributed to the Rolling StonesÕ Exile on Main Street and landmark albums by Bob Dylan, Sly & the Family Stone and Aretha Franklin. Preston enjoyed a number of solo hits in the 1970s, including Will It Go Round In Circles, With You IÕm Born Again and Nothing From Nothing.

15. Robert Altman, acclaimed director of MASH, Nashville, Gosford Park and The Player, died in a Los Angeles hospital on November 21 at the age of 81. The Hollywood maverick, renowned for his improvisational style, large ensemble casts and frequent use of overlapping dialogue, was nominated five times for an Academy Award as best director. At this yearÕs ceremony he was presented with an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement.