January

George MacDonald Fraser, 82, former journalist and author of the Flashman series of historical adventure novels.

George Moore, 84, former top Australian jockey.

Philip Agee, 72, former CIA agent turned defector who betrayed US and British secret service agents.

Sir Edmund Hillary, 88, New Zealander who climbed Mount Everest in 1953 with Sherpa Tenzing.

Sir John Harvey-Jones, 83, former ICI chairman, Chancellor of Bradford University and television presenter.

Rod Allen, 63, lead singer of The Fortunes.

Claude Whatham, 84, television and movie director (Play For Today, Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em, and That’ll Be The Day).

Johnny Steele, 91, former Barnsley FC footballer who later managed the club and served as club secretary for nine years.

Jason Macintyre, 34, Scottish road cycling champion with three British titles.

Bobby Beasley, 72, former National Hunt jockey and winner of the 1974 Cheltenham Gold Cup.

Brad Renfro, 25, US actor who specialised in troubled and manipulative characters in movies such as An Apt Pupil.

Bobby Fischer, 64, US chess genius who defeated Boris Spassky in 1972 to win the World Chess Championship.

John Stewart, 68, US singer-songwriter, former Kingston Trio member, wrote Daydream Believer for The Monkees.

Heath Ledger, 28, Australian movie actor who starred in Brokeback Mountain and The Dark Knight.

Billy Elliott, 82, former Bradford Park Avenue and England international whose goal against Arsenal in 1948 knocked The Gunners out of the FA Cup.

General Suharto, 86, President of Indonesia for 32 years until 1998.

Jeremy Beadle, 59, television’s Game For A Laugh prankster.

February

Verita Thompson, 92, Hollywood starlet said to have been Humphrey Bogart’s mistress for 20 years.

Barry Morse, 89, British actor best known for his role as the pursuer of Dr Richard Kimble (David Janssen) in The Fugitive.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 92 perhaps, Transcendental Meditation flower power guru.

Roy Scheider, 75, US movie actor.

Steve Fossett, 63, US millionaire and sporting record-breaker, declared dead after prolonged disappearance.

Alain Robbe-Grillet, 85, avant-garde French writer, critic and film director who emphasised form over content.

Emily Perry, 101, British actress who found fame as Madge Alsop, the silent stooge for Barry Humphries’s Dame Edna Everage.

Jack Lyons, 92, businessman and philanthropist.

David Watkin, 82, innovative British cinematographer (Chariots Of Fire, A Hard Day’s Night, Out Of Africa).

Sir Maurice Laing, 90, chairman of John Laing plc and first president of the Confederation of British Industry.

Mike Smith, 64, lead singer and keyboard player with hit Sixties group The Dave Clark Five.

March

Giuseppe di Stefano, 86, distinguished Italian operatic tenor.

Norman O’Neill, 71, Australian Test cricketer and Test Match commentator.

Derek Dooley, 78, former Sheffield Wednesday striker whose career ended in 1953 after a broken leg had to be amputated.

Carol Barnes, 63, ITN newscaster, 1979-1998.

Dan Shomron, 70, commander of the 1976 Israeli force which rescued more than 100 hostages held prisoner at Entebbe Airport, Uganda, by Arab and German terrorists.

Anthony Minghella, 54, movie director (multi-Oscar winning The English Patient).

Arthur C Clarke, 90, British science fiction author (2001: A Space Odyssey).

Brian Wilde, 80, ‘Foggy Dewhirst’ in Last of the Summer Wine and Mr Barraclough in Porridge.

Paul Schofield, 86, classic British actor famous for the King Lear he did with director Peter Brook.

Neil Aspinall, 66, The Beatles’ road manager and later boss of Apple Corps for nearly 40 years.

Richard Widmark, 93, US movie star – The Alamo, Judgement At Nuremberg.

Dith Pran, 65, New York Post photographer whose escape from Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge featured in the movie The Killing Fields.

April

Charlton Heston, 84, US Oscar winning-actor whose movies included The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, El Cid, The War Lord, Major Dundee, The Planet Of The Apes and Solyent Green.

Steve Sinnott, 56, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers.

Mark Speight, 42, TV presenter.

Gwyneth Dunwoody, 77, veteran Labour MP.

Anne Rogulskyj, 75, believed to be the Yorkshire Ripper’s first attack victim in Keighley, in July, 1975.

Humphrey Lyttleton, 86, jazz trumpeter and witty host of the BBC radio comedy quiz I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue.

John Patterson, 56, former head of Bingley Grammar School, 1997-2006.

Michael Reynolds, 74, outspoken British painter at odds with conceptual art.

Joy Page, 83, US actress who played a young Bulgarian bride in the 1942 movie Casablanca.

Yossi Harel, 90, commander of the converted steamer Exodus that tried to ship 4,500 Holocaust survivors to Israel in July, 1947, but was blocked by the British.

May

Bernard Archard, 91, British actor – Spycatcher, Danger Man, Bergerac.

Irena Sendler, 98, Polish social worker who organised the rescue of 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942.

Danny Mangham, 79, former textile worker, Bradford Labour councillor, Lord Mayor and chairman of the Labour Party Conference.

Robert Rauschenberg, 82, iconoclastic US artist.

Albert Herbert, 82, British painter of religious imagery.

Margot Boyd, 94, British actress who played Mrs Antrobus for 20 years in BBC Radio 4’s serial The Archers.

Wilfrid Mellers, 94, musicologist who likened the songwriting output of Lennon and McCartney to that of Schubert.

Julie Ege, 64, Norwegian-born movie actress.

Brian Keenan, 66, Provisional IRA commander.

Sydney Pollack, 73, Oscar-winning US movie director (Out Of Africa) and actor.

Alan Brien, 83, British journalist and critic.

Dick Martin, 86, US comedian who formed a hugely successful TV partnership with Dan Rowan for Rowan And Martin’s Laugh-In (1968-73).

Harvey Korman, 81, US actor who played the crooked land developer Hedley Lamarr in Blazing Saddles.

Boris Shakhlin, 76, Soviet gymnast, ‘The Man of Iron’ who won four golds and two silvers in the 1960 Rome Olympics and six individual titles in the World Championships.

Beryl Cook, 81, British artist.

June

Bo Diddley, 79, pioneering electric guitarist and singer-songwriter.

Pat Regan, 53, Leeds mother-of-six and Mothers Against Violence campaigner, stabbed to death.

Yves Saint Laurent, 71, trendsetting French fashion designer.

Jonathan Routh, 80, inventor of TV series Candid Camera and author of The Good Loo Guide.

Doris Birdsall, 92, former Lord Mayor of Bradford and Labour Group Education chairman.

David Topliss, 58, former Wakefield and England rugby league star.

Terry Fields, 71, Left-wing Merseyside Labour MP 1983-1991, a supporter of Militant Tendency.

Derek Franks, 57, Bradford-born impresario, and former manager of Gerry and the Pacemakers.

July

Elizabeth Spriggs, 78, versatile character actress of stage and screen who worked for both the RSC and the National Theatre.

Clive Hornby, 63, actor who played Jack Sugden in television soap Emmerdale.

Sir Charles Wheeler, 85, veteran BBC foreign correspondent who also worked for Newsnight and Panorama.

Senator Jesse Helms, 86, South Carolina Republican who said foreign aid and military intervention abroad were a waste of money.

Sir John Templeton, 95, Wall Street multi-millionaire who founded the Templeton Prize For Progress and religion, now worth £1m.

Hugh Lloyd, 85, comic actor (Hancock’s Half-Hour, Hugh And I).

Bobby Durham, 71, drummer for Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald and Lionel Hampton, among others.

Charles Joffe, 78, Oscar and Bafta-winning producer of Woody Allen’s films including Annie Hall and Manhattan.

Bryan Cowgill, 81, former controller of BBC1 and managing director of Thames Television.

Philip Lewis, 85, founder of Bradford’s Mayflower Club.

Jo Stafford, 90, American singer (Hey, Good Lookin, In the Cool, Cool Of The Evening).

Lord Eric Varley, 73, former Labour Government Secretary of State for Energy and then Industry between 1974 and 1979.

Bud Browne, 96, surfer and film-maker who originated surf movies such as Point Break and Endless Summer.

Tony Melody, 85, comic actor well known on radio for shows such as The Clitheroe Kid.

August

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 89, Russian mathematics teacher, Second World War veteran, wrongfully jailed for eight years by Stalin, Nobel Prize-winning novelist and author.

Butch White, 72, Hampshire fast bowler who averaged 101 wickets a season from 1960 to 1969. In 1965 he took 6-10 against Yorkshire who were all out for 23.

Eric Dowling, 92, one of the tunnel diggers in Stalag Luft III, subject of the movie The Great Escape.

Simon Gray, 71, British playwright and university teacher.

Isaac Hayes, 65, US singer and Oscar-winning songwriter for the theme from the movie Shaft.

Terence Rigby, 71, British character actor.

Sir Bill Cotton, 80, former managing director of BBC Television.

Peter Coke, 95, British actor best known for playing Francis Durbridge’s private eye Paul Temple on the radio.

Mahmoud Darwish, 67, Palestinian poet, jailed five times by Israelis.

John Esmonde, 71, TV sitcom writer with Bob Larbey (Please Sir! The Good Life and Brush Strokes).

Lita Roza, 82, British singer who had hits with How Much Is That Doggie In The Window and Hey There.

Lord Bruce-Lockhart, 66, chairman of English Heritage and former head of the Local Government Association.

Ronnie Drew, 73, lead singer of The Dubliners.

Levy Mwanawasa, 59, President of Zambia, a critic of Robert Mugabe.

Adrian Sudbury, 27, Huddersfield Examiner journalist who campaigned for bone marrow treatment awareness.

Leo Abse, 91, former Labour MP who pioneered the Parliamentary Bill legalising homosexuality.

Ken Campbell, 66, versatile British actor and writer.

September

Lieutenant-Commander Ian Fraser VC, 87, leader of a midget-submarine attack on Japanese warships in 1945.

Don LaFontaine, 68, known as ‘Thunder Throat’ and ‘King of the Voiceovers’ who recorded more than 5,000 film trailers and TV commercials.

Peter Glossop, 80, baritone who was the only English opera singer to perform Verdi’s great tragic roles at Milan’s La Scala.

John Dunworth, 68, actor and stage manager at Ilkley Playhouse.

Richard Wright, 65, founder member of and keyboard player with Pink Floyd.

Norman Whitfield, 67, Motown producer, responsible for hits such as Ain’t Too Proud To Beg, I Heard It Through The Grapevine, Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone and later Love Don’t Live Here Anymore, for Rose Royce.

Paul Newman, 83, US Oscar-winning movie actor.

October

Adam Watene, 31, Wakefield Wildcats’ rugby league international.

Peter Avery, 85, Cambridge University scholar who translated Omar Khayyam and other works from the Persian.

Levi Stubbs, 72, lead singer of the Four Tops (Reach Out, I’ll Be There).

Neal Hefti, 85, US composer and arranger who worked with Woody Herman, Count Basie and Frank Sinatra, and wrote scores for movies such as How To Murder Your Wife.

Edie Adams, 81, US actress and singer who appeared in movies such as The Apartment and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

David Myers, 37, Bradford Northern player in the mid-1990s.

November

Michael Crichton, 66, US writer of Jurassic Park and the TV medical series ER.

Jimmy Carl Black, 70, drummer with the late Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention.

Studs Terkel, 96, US broadcaster and writer who recorded the reflections of ordinary people for his books.

Erik Darling, 74, American singer-composer who wrote Walk Right In and The Banana Boat Song.

Sir John Hermon, 79, former chief constable of the Royal Irish Constabulary (1980-89).

Mitch Mitchell, 61, former drummer with the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Reg Varney, 92, British comic actor who made his name in the TV series On the Buses.

Derrick Scampion, 80, veteran actor with Ilkley Players and author of two plays about Charles Darwin.

John Morrison, 88, former Scotland Yard deputy assistant commissioner and detective who investigated the kidnap and murder of heiress Lesley Whittle by Bradford’s Donald Neilson, better known as the Black Panther.

Richard Hickox, 60, British conductor.

Richey Edwards, 27, Manic Street Preachers guitarist and co-lyricist, declared dead following his disappearance in 1995.

Stella Hillier, 93, BBC radio producer who persuaded Dylan Thomas to finish his radio script of Under Milk Wood.

Jorn Utzon, 90, Danish architect who designed the Sydney Opera House.

Andreas Liveras, 73, food tycoon murdered in Mumbai.

December

Odetta, 77, US folk-blues singer and Civil Rights campaigner.

Harry Franz MBE, 96, former T&A journalist, former prisoner of war and active Church of England member.

Eric Northrop, 88, former chairman of Bradford Magistrates from 1984 to 1990.

Oliver Postgate, 83, creator of Bagpuss, The Clangers, Noggin The Nog and Ivor The Engine for BBC television.

Kathy Staff, 80, Nora Batty in Last Of The Summer Wine.

Harold Pinter, 78, playwright (The Birthday Party, The Caretaker) who won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Eartha Kitt, 81, actress and singer.