January
Jack Haldeman (writer, geek) -- Dead. Cancer. Died Jan 1, 2002. Born Dec 11, 1941. Perry's Planet

Julia Phillips (producer) -- Dead. Cancer. Died Jan 1, 2002. Born Apr 7, 1944. Produced The Sting, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Taxi Driver, after recovering from cocaine addiction, wrote the tell-all You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again

Avery Schreiber (comic) -- Dead. Heart attack. Died Jan 7, 2002. Born Apr 9, 1935. Burns and Schreiber comedy team, many Doritos commercials.

Dave Thomas (commercial icon/businessman) -- Dead. Cancer. Died Jan 8, 2002. Born Born July 2, 1932. Started the Wendy's fast food chain, appeared in hundreds of commercials, promoted adoptions

Ted Demme (director) -- Dead. Heart attack/cocaine. Died Jan 14, 2002. Born Oct 26, 1963. Beautiful Girls and Blow, nephew of Jonathan Demme

Carrie Hamilton (actress/writer) -- Dead. Cancer. Died Jan 21, 2002. Born Dec 5, 1963. Co-wrote the play Hollywood Arms with her mother Carol Burnett

Peggy Lee (singer) -- Dead. Heart attack. Died Jan 21, 2002. Born May 26, 1920. Famous for "Is That All There Is?", suffered a stroke on Oct 27, 1998

Harold Russell (Oscar winner) -- Dead. Heart attack. Died Jan 29, 2002. Born Jan 14, 1914. A double-amputee due to injures in WWII, he won an Oscar for The Best Years of Our Lives

Astrid Lindgren (writer) -- Dead. Died Jan 28, 2002. Born Nov 14, 1907. Wrote Pippi Longstocking and other books for children

Robert L. Chapman (lexicographer) -- Dead. Died Jan 27, 2002. Born 1920. Lexicographer for Roget's Thesaurus

Daniel Pearl (journalist) -- Dead. Murdered by terrorists. Died 2002. Born 1963. Wall Street Journal bureau chief kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan

February
Princess Margaret of England (royalty) -- Dead. Strokes/heart trouble. Died Feb 9, 2002. Born Aug 21, 1930. First divorced "high level" royal since the days of Henry VIII, she died during her sister's jubilee and before her legendary mother

Waylon Jennings (singer/songwriter) -- Dead. Diabetes. Died Feb 13, 2002. Born Jun 15, 1937.

Howard K. Smith (TV journalist) -- Dead. Pneumonia. Died Feb 15, 2002. Born May 12, 1914.

Kevin Smith (actor) -- Dead. Fall during a stunt causing a skull fracture. Died Feb 15, 2002. Born Mar 16, 1963. Ares on Xena (not to be confused with the American director Kevin Smith, who is alive and well)

John Thaw (actor) -- Dead. Esophageal cancer. Died Feb 21, 2002. Born Jan 3, 1942. Inspector Morse

Chuck Jones (animator) -- Dead. Congestive heart failure. Died Feb 22, 2002. Born Sep 21, 1911. Director of many classic Daffy Duck cartoons, creator of Wyle E. Coyote and the Road Runner

Gordon Matthews (engineer) -- Dead. Stroke. Died Feb 23, 2002. Born 1936. Inventor of voice mail

Spike Milligan (comic, writer) -- Dead. Died Feb 27, 2002. Born Apr 16, 1918. The last surviving member of The Goon Show, Gormenghast

March
Irene Worth (actress) -- Dead. Died Mar 10, 2002. Born Jun 23, 1916. Lost in Yonkers

Pat Weaver (TV innovator) -- Dead. Pneumonia. Died Mar 15, 2002. Born Dec 21, 1908. Created the Today Show and the Tonight Show at a time when no early morning news or late night talk shows existed, father of Sigourney Weaver

R. A. Lafferty (writer) -- Dead. Died March 18, 2002. Born July 14, 1914. Nine Hundred Grandmothers

Eileen Farrell (singer) -- Dead. Died March 22, 2002. Born February 13, 1920. Great soprano who both sang with the Met and recorded pop albums Can't Help Singing : The Life of Eileen Farrell

Milton "Mr. Television" Berle (comedian) -- Dead. Cancer. Died March 27, 2002. Born July 12, 1908. The first TV star

Dudley Moore (actor) -- Dead. Pneumonia/progressive supranuclear palsy. Died March 27, 2002. Born April 19, 1935. Starred in 10 and Arthur

Billy Wilder (director) -- Dead. Pneumonia. Died March 27, 2002. Born June 22, 1906. Great director, especially Some Like it Hot and The Lost Weekend

Queen Elizabeth (Queen Mum) -- Dead. Old age. Died March 30, 2002. Born August 4, 1900. Queen Elizabeth II's mother was hale and hardy throughout most of her life, with two replacement hips and an indomitable spirit

April
John Agar (actor) -- Dead. Emphysema. Died April 7, 2002. Born January 31, 1921. First husband of Shirley Temple Black, in dozens of monster movies

Damon Knight (writer/editor/teacher) -- Dead. Died April 14, 2002. Born September 19, 1922. Founded the Science Fiction Writers of America, workshops, and the excellent anthology series, Orbit Make memorial contributions to: Knight-Wilhelm Endowed Scholarship Fund (for Clarion attendees)

Robert Urich (actor) -- Dead. Synovial cell carconoma. Died April 16, 2002. Born December 19, 1946. Spenser for Hire, Soap

Thor Heyerdahl (anthropologist/adventurer) -- Dead. Cancer. Died April 18, 2002. Born October 6, 1914. Led a trip on the Kon-Tiki in 1947 to see if people from South America could have sailed to Polynesia

Linda Lovelace ('70s icon) -- Dead. After a traffic accident. Died April 22, 2002. Born January 10, 1949. Starred in Deep Throat, a very famous early '70s porn movie but escaped from the biz and became an anti-porn activist

George Alec Effinger (writer) -- Dead. Bleeding ulcers. Died April 27, 2002. Born January 10, 1947. Amusing SF writer, Maureen Birnbaum, Barbarian Swordsperson: The Complete Stories

Ruth Handler (inventor) -- Dead. Cancer. Died April 27, 2002. Born 1916. Invented Barbie, co-founded Mattel, and later helped to develop a prosthetic breast

May
Judy Toll (comic/writer) -- Dead. Melanoma. Died May 2, 2002. Born 1957. Writer for Sex and the City, stand-up comic, regular on Curb Your Enthusiasm, did voices for The Brave Little Toaster

Kevyn Aucoin (make-up artist/writer) -- Dead. Pituitary tumor. Died May 7, 2002. Born February 14, 1962. Make-up artist for many actresses and many magazine covers, especially Vanity Fair wrote books like Making Face

Stephen Jay Gould (educator, writer) -- Dead. Cancer. Died May 20, 2002. Born September 10, 1941. Harvard professor who champion evolution and baseball in dozens of book, finished and published his magnum opus The Structure of Evolutionary Theory before he lost a 20-year-long battle against cancer

Sam Snead (golfer) -- Dead. Died May 23, 2002. Born May 27, 1912. Won more PGA tour events than anyone else

Mildred Wirt Benson (journalist/the first Carolyn Keene) -- Dead. Died May 28, 2002. Born July 10, 1905. While not strictly the creator of Nancy Drew, Benson wrote 50 of the early books, wrote newspaper columns for 58 years and was at work the day she died

June
Signe Hasso (actress) -- Dead. Died June 7, 2002. Born August 15, 1910. Starred in the original Heaven Can Wait