#black musicians in Georgian England

[theory-of-music]

Bath Assembly Rooms: Music in the Georgian Period

[horsegirl]

The men referred to here as "black" were white men with black hair and/or tanner skin. Notice that the Duke of Richmond is described as having a "Black Complexion much like King Charles." Of course King Charles II was not Black and nor was his mistress, the Duke's mother, the Duchess of Portsmouth. For one, the portraits of all the above men still exist and it is easy to tell they were not Black. Another clue is that Black people in the early modern period were more often denoted by racial terms like negro, mulatto (if mixed), moor, and blackamoor.

Occasionally the word black could refer to the skin-colour of someone with African heritage. That is likely where the name of Reasonable Blackman, also known as John Reason, came from. He was an independent silk weaver in 17th century England.

There were a few titled Black people in the early modern period (about 1600-1800) but they mainly existed in Europe (e.g. Abram Petrovich Gannibal). Non-titled high society positions were slightly more common, like Dido Belle who was an 18th century British heiress from the West Indies. Even more common was being common. Thousands of Black men and women lived in Britain throughout this era; they went to work, to church, to the tavern. They were sailors, servants, landowners, musicians, business owners--the list of occupations and hobbies is long and varied and certainly does not begin and end with "slave" as some might imagine.

There are many books on early Black British history for those interested. Here are a few:

Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain by Peter Fryer

Black Tudors: the Untold Story by Miranda Kaufmann

Black England: A Forgotten Georgian History by Gretchen Gerzina

African Europeans: An Untold History by Olivette Otele

Henry Redhead Yorke, Colonial Radical Politics and Identity in the Atlantic World, 1772-1813 by Amanda Goodrich

Lastly, the above artwork is a 15th century piece from the church of St. Moritz in Halle, Germany. I'm not sure who is shown in that particular painting but St. Moritz or St. Maurice was an Egyptian military leader from the 3rd century and was typically depicted as Black in the middle ages.

Descriptions of Black Nobility in the English/ Scottish Courts.

"From the Characters of the Men of the Nobility and Courts of England/Scotland."

[notasapleasure]

WIP Wednesday

HI Lymond fandom. This one’s for you 🙃

By which I mean it’s set in the Band AU, and it’s a crossover with the other stuff I’ve been writing recently (which I’m not tagging in this right now).

Niche WIP is extremely niche.

@erinaceina-blog‘s demented and brilliant prompt was that the guys from That Dance Movie I keep posting about should end up in London and encounter Lymond and his friends in a Georgian restaurant. Intergenerational, international bonding! Activism and art!

Here’s a snippet of the crossover.

---

A thought occurred to Merab, and he rummaged in his memory for the name the sous chef had given him. "Hey, do you know the rock star Lemon?"

Mary's aunt peered at him over the rim of her spectacles. "Lemmy?"

"No, I think it was like..." Merab waved a hand for inspiration. "Lomont?"

"Oh!" Mary's aunt blushed girlishly and she laughed. "Lymond. Oh, I had his posters all over my wall when I first moved to England."

"Seriously?" Merab grinned.

Mary's aunt took her glasses off, and the topic animated her. "Oh he was amazing - he still is, though he doesn't release much himself these days. Political and outspoken, and music you could - well, music you could really live to. Music for all moments in life. He was the best thing to come out of that decade."

Merab smiled at the evident pleasure she took in the memories. "Political? How?"

"Oh," she gave him a strange, sideways look. "There was a lot to be political about then, and musicians were not afraid to speak on it. He wanted to stand up for the oppressed, wherever they were. He tried to bring a musical revolution behind the Iron Curtain, he sang about injustices and environmental damage. I'm not surprised he's making a comeback now, actually."

"I don't know about that," Merab shrugged. "He's booked a room at the restaurant apparently. The owner asked me and Irakli to put together a routine to dance to so our special guests don't get bored between courses."

Mary's aunt raised her brows, her eyes round. "Well, you'll be dancing for cultural royalty."

"Want me to get his autograph for you? If he doesn't hate the dance?" Merab grinned playfully.

She blushed again, and he thought it was sweet, and she managed to say, graciously, that she did not need him to do that, though Merab could tell that this was not the same as an outright 'no thank you'.

"He will love to see you dance, I'm sure," she added.

She put her glasses back on and tapped something into her phone. "You should look up some of his videos, he's always supported and worked with artists of all kinds. There are some where he just uses dancers to tell the story of the song, he's not in the video himself at all."

She turned the screen to face him and tapped at the corner until the video went fullscreen. Merab leaned his elbows on the table to watch as the distinctive, warm sound of old synths emerged from the speakers.

Dancers in red or black outfits filled what appeared to be a blank grey space - but the empty areas resolved themselves into more figures through some outdated video trickery, and the red and black dancers tussled over these new participants. The lyrics were about war.

Merab glanced at Mary's aunt, who shrugged. "It was the eighties, this is about as subtle as it got."

"No, I like it," Merab reassured her. He looked more closely at the choreography of the dancers and admired the eye that had guided their movement.

Behind him, he sensed more than heard Irakli wander into the kitchen. The back of Merab's chair creaked as Irakli leaned a hand on it and bent to peer at the video. He kept his distance, but Merab closed his eyes briefly at the scent of him: it had been made into something concentrated by sleep and the memories of last night's dancing.

"Huh, what's that?" Irakli asked in his drawling voice.

"That's the guy who's coming to the restaurant this week," Merab explained.

"What, that guy?" Irakli laughed, pointing one elegant finger at a grey-clad dancer being pulled in two directions by a red dancer and a black dancer.

Merab slapped his finger away. "Shh, no! He just did the music, right?" He looked up at Mary's aunt for confirmation.

She nodded. "He's got a pretty impressive back catalogue. There's enough that I'm sure anyone could find something to like."

Irakli had gone over to the kitchen counter to pour himself tea. He shimmied his hips and Merab had to twist his mouth and look away to stop his delighted grin from showing.

"It's got a good beat," Irakli conceded, continuing to move idly to the song as he arranged his breakfast.

[bbclesmis]

TV Is Unwhitewashing History One Character, Period, and Genre at a Time

From “Les Miserables” and “Harlots” to “The Spanish Princess” and “The Terror,” TV producers are restoring the historical narratives of people of color.

Black characters on a show set in Tudor England would be a “stark anachronism” one consultant told “The Spanish Princess” co-showrunner Emma Frost in no uncertain terms. “Even I knew just from basic research that that wasn’t true,” she said in an interview with IndieWire during a set visit last year.

As TV shows seek out more inclusive storytelling, many producers are looking to the past to find new ways to freshen old stories. And while historical records and artwork have shown plenty of black, brown, and Asian faces through centuries of Western history, that same diversity has been largely absent in history class and on the screen unless it takes place after the 1950s. This dearth has affected the types of roles offered and even considered by actors of color.

Mandip Gill, who plays a British police officer of South Asian descent on “Doctor Who,” has only performed in contemporary projects. “I have always said I won’t be in a period drama. I just don’t see it happening,” she said. “I can’t even imagine it. When I’ve written down what types I like to play or where I would like to push the boundaries, it’s not with period dramas. I don’t watch them because I can’t relate to them.”

Danny Sapiani has had a better track record for landing period roles — such as Will North in “Harlots” and Sambene in “Penny Dreadful” — but that wasn’t always the case. “Period drama on screen was not a consideration when I began my professional career. Most film and tv roles were confined to the modern era, post-1950s, ghetto-ized in nature or victims of oppression,” he said.

David Oyelowo, who stars as Inspector Javert in the upcoming PBS-BBC adaptation of “Les Miserables,” agrees. “That was the case for me. And having grown up in the UK, and more specifically, on period drama, I had just resigned myself to the fact that, ‘Okay, those amazing shows are going to be shows I love, but they’re never going to have folks like me in it.’”

Sites like The Public Medievalist and historians like Onyeka have worked to challenge the narrative of the pure-white Western history that’s been widely accepted, even by people of color. Now actors and producers are following their example to restore the place of marginalized people on screen and into the public consciousness.

“The excuse has been used that it’s not historically accurate, and that’s just not true,” said Oyelowo. “If you are an actual genuine student of history — and not just coming from an ignorant kind of purely white lens in relation to European history — you’d know that people of color have been in France, in the UK, all over Europe, for centuries, and not just as slaves.”

Sapiani points to the discoveries and documentation available for anyone to research about the existence of people of color in Europe for centuries.

“As evidenced by the discovery of Cheddar Man, the first complete skeleton found in a gorge in Somerset, the first modern Britons who arrived on the island 10,000 years ago had black to brown skin, blue eyes and dark wavy hair. It is from these earliest arrivals that the inhabitants of Britain derive their origins,” he said.

“In fact, there are very few periods in history where people of color do not feature, not only in Britain — the setting of most costume dramas — but across the entire European continent. The census notes 20,000 blacks living in Britain in 1780, the century we focus on in ‘Harlots,’ more than half that number living in London, which is where ‘Harlots’ is set. Even though this was during the height of the slave trade, not all those people were slaves or victims of white racism. Fascinating characters like Will North, spanned social and class boundaries, often, though not always, against incredible odds.”

Hulu’s “Harlots,” about the war between two brothels in Georgian London, not only features the free man Will North, but also several black harlots, one of whom ran her own brothel.

“There were tens of thousands of people of color living in London in the 1760s. We have found stories of musicians, estate managers, fencing masters, actresses, grocers, prize fighters, haberdashers, soldiers, poets, activists, librarians and clerks,” said “Harlots” co-creator Moira Buffini.

“Some were clearly people of means, like the ‘black lady covered in finery,’ spotted by Hester Thrale at the opera. ‘Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies’ has entries for several women of color who were making their living in the sex trade and The Nocturnal Revels tells us of ‘Black Harriot,’ a very successful courtesan who ran a popular ‘house of exotics.’ All our stories are about people trying to find agency when society gives them none — and this seems in especially sharp relief for our characters of color. Violet is a street whore and pickpocket but from her perspective, society is the thief. Her mother was stolen. Violet, in her own eyes, is neither victim nor criminal. She has a raw integrity and a personal truth that others find both intimidating and irresistible.”

For “The Spanish Princess,” an adaptation of two Philippa Gregory historical novels set in Tudor England about Catherine of Aragon, Frost and co-showrunner Matthew Graham turned to books by Onyeka to develop characters of color who would have fit in during that time. In particular, they discovered the story of the real-life Lina de Cardonnes (played by Stephanie Levi-John in the series), a high-ranking noble woman who acted as Catherine’s lady-in-waiting and companion.

“There was a character that was referenced in Phillipa’s books who was what they call a dueñas or a lady-in-waiting to Catherine. Her name was Catalina de Cardonnes and she was just this larger than life character who was depicted as white Spanish,” said Graham. “Then we just did a bit of cursory research and discovered that it was based on Lina de Cardonnes and that she was African Iberian. She was a black lady. So, we were certainly like, ‘Wow, this is a bigger story and a more interesting story than we can possibly imagine.’”

This discovery of the larger part that people of color have played throughout history has been increasing the more people look into telling marginalized stories. The author of “The Miniaturist” Jessie Burton and Netflix’s “Anne With an E” creator Moira Walley-Beckett had similar epiphanies and added black characters in significant roles to their stories set in the Dutch Golden Age and Edwardian Canada, respectively.

In many of these cases, ignorance or acceptance of the dominant narrative could explain the lack of representation in these TV shows. The absence of photographic or film evidence made it easier to whitewash the presence of people of color.

But there’s really no excuse with period dramas set in the 20th century and beyond, when plenty of visual records show the diversity present. As with the #OscarsSoWhite campaign started by activist April Reign, the biggest problems facing more inclusive TV lay in challenging the mindset at the studio level and changing who’s behind the camera.

As seen with many of the shows that are including people of color in historical narratives, the show’s creators are often women, people of color themselves, or part of the LGBTQ community. When marginalized groups help each other, this can address intersectionality.

For example, Carol Hay and Michelle Ricci co-created the Jazz Age mystery adventure show “Frankie Drake Mysteries” coming to Ovation on June 15. Not only did they make a show about Toronto’s first female private detective, but they also cast Chantel Riley as Trudy, Frankie’s partner who happens to also be a black woman.

“When Shaftesbury [Films] came up with this idea and decided to have a black female lead, it was mind-blowing to me because you never really hear about black folk or Asian folk, in that time,” Riley said. “We touch on the Asian community, the black community, even the Indian community as well. That’s why I was really attracted to this particular show, because no one’s really doing that in this particular era.”

In some cases, actors have had to step behind the cameras themselves to increase the opportunities for people of color. Daniel Dae Kim left “Hawaii Five-0,” and the first series that he produced afterward is ABC’s “The Good Doctor,” which has provided numerous on-screen opportunities for actors from marginalized groups.

Similarly, Oyelowo became an executive producer on “Les Miserables” to take control of how his role of Javert and the other people of color were portrayed. Oyelowo also co-produced and starred in the period film “A United Kingdom.”

“I wanted to make sure that me being in [‘Les Miserables’] wasn’t going to be a token thing. I wanted to make sure that people of color were integrated through the story in an organic way that didn’t feel imposed,” he said.

“But also, something very important to me was the American distribution. I wanted it to be on a channel that was worthy of the work that everyone was putting into it. And so, I had a hand in it going to PBS Masterpiece. Anything that takes me away from my kids for any period of time better be worth it. And so, some of the times I produce in order to develop. Some of the times I produce in order to be able to have a say in how things are cast, how they are marketed, how they are distributed. And that’s basically been the case with this.”

Currently, there aren’t many period shows by people of color about people of color on TV. John Singleton’s “Snowfall” on FX is set in Los Angeles during the 1980s crack epidemic and was renewed for a third season.

Over on broadcast, the late 1990s-set comedy “Fresh Off the Boat,” based on the memoir of Eddie Huang and created by Nahnatchka Khan, a queer woman of Iranian descent, is currently in its fifth season. It’s the first TV show with an Asian cast in over 20 years — since Margaret Cho’s short-lived “All American Girl” — and stars Randall Park and Constance Wu as the Huangs, who had relocated to the Florida suburbs with their family. Khan had to make a case for why the show had to remain in the ‘90s to replicate the real-life Huangs’ feelings of alienation.

“I remember having a creative discussion with 20th [Century Fox] at the very beginning about them asking me, ‘Why does it have to be set in the ‘90s?’” she said. “For me it was creating a sense of isolation with the family. They moved to Orlando in the middle of the white suburbs and they don’t know anybody. But in the present day, you can get online and talk to your friends and you can text people. You have a connection outside of your everyday life, even if it’s virtual.”

Other than those, “Underground” was the last period show about people of color by a creator of color, Misha Green. WGN’s critically acclaimed slavery-era period drama lasted two seasons and was canceled shortly after Sinclair Media Group announced it would purchase Tribune Media, which owns WGN.

Fortunately, this scarcity won’t last for long. Many period shows that feature significant narratives for people of color are on the horizon. Green has teamed up with Jordan Peele for the HBO drama horror “Lovecraft Country,” which takes place on a road trip during 1950s Jim Crow America. Barry Jenkins executive produces and directs the upcoming Amazon series “The Underground Railroad,” an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s book. Justin Lin and Jonathan Tropper’s “Warrior” premieres April 5 on Cinemax and is based on Bruce Lee’s original concept about a Chinese immigrant who becomes a hatchet man for the most powerful tong in late 1800s Chinatown in San Francisco.

One other upcoming series explores a new genre for the period TV show that adds a provocative take on a historical event. In its second season, AMC’s anthology series “The Terror” explores the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II through the lens of Japanese horror. Actor George Takei, who experienced internment, acts as a consultant and series regular.

“We’re telling the story of a very underserved piece of American history using the vocabulary of Japanese-style horror as an analog for the terror of the actual historical event,” said co-creator and showrunner Alexander Woo.

“I don’t want the audience to feel removed from the events that are happening on screen. What a horror movie or horror series does is it makes you feel viscerally in the shoes of the person who’s trapped in the house or the person who’s running away from the monster or whatever it is. So we’re using that style, that language, to make you really feel how terrifying the experience of the Japanese Americans who lived through this terrible experience.”

While the Japanese ghost story trappings fits the tone of the narrative in “The Terror: Infamy,” Woo acknowledges that the genre twist might have helped pitching the show.

“We’re in an era of so much content and a period of such creative power, we have more sophisticated viewers that will hopefully appreciate a period drama told in a specific style,” he said. “Those two things used to not mix. That was not something that you would want to try because it might seem complicated or it might seem challenging, which I think now, in this time, that sounds very appealing… It’s also a terrific lens for us to understand things that are happening in the present. The story of internment is obviously relevant in a host of ways to the present day, so I think it’s a valuable story and has to be told now.”

While these more inclusive narratives continue to be discovered and told, inevitably people used to the status quo will resist and deny those stories. It’s the very reason that these stories haven’t been told in the first place.

“The more recent phenomenon of whitewashing, a political tool of the imperialists, dates back only a few hundred years,” said Sapiani. “I am so proud to see, and be a part of this change towards a more accurate and frankly more interesting dramatized interpretation of our world history. Needless to say, there is so much further to go.”

https://www.indiewire.com/2019/03/tv-unwhitewashing-history-period-dramas-hbo-hulu-pbs-abc-1202049639/

[lesliewofford83-blog]

BOF NEVER GABRIEL AND NEVER WAS MADE A BIRD A NEWBEC OR ANYTHING SHORTER THAN LESLIE AT 5′5 AND 3 QUARTERS INCHES TALL! AND FOR PEOPLE TRYIN TO BE ME AND INVADE ME THESE PEOPLE DIED, EVERY YEAR MORE AND MORE WILL DIE FOR TRYING TO STEAL MY STUFF OR HURT MY FAMILY OR KIDNAP MY KID(S) EVER OR HAVE ME LIVING MORE THAN ONE LIFE.

March 2002[edit source]

1 – David Mann, 85, American songwriter.

1 – Roger Plumpton Wilson, 96, British Anglican prelate.

3 – G. M. C. Balayogi, 61, Indian lawyer and politician.

3 – Calvin Carrière, 80, American fiddler.

3 – Harlan Howard, 74, American country music songwriter.

3 – Al Pollard, 73, NFL player and broadcaster, lymphoma. [1]

3 – Roy Porter, 55, British historian.

6 – Bryan Fogarty, 32, Canadian ice hockey player.

6 – David Jenkins, 89, Welsh librarian.

6 – Donald Wilson, 91, British television writer and producer.

7 – Franziska Rochat-Moser, 35, Swiss marathon runner.

8 – Bill Johnson, 85, American football player.

8 – Ellert Sölvason, 84, Icelandic football player.

9 – Jack Baer, 87, American baseball coach.

9 – Irene Worth, 85, American actress.

11 – Al Cowens, 50, American baseball player.

11 – Rudolf Hell, 100, German inventor and manufacturer.

12 – Steve Gromek, 82, American baseball player.

13 – Hans-Georg Gadamer, 102, German philosopher.

14 – Cherry Wilder, 71, New Zealand writer.

14 – Tan Yu, 75, Filipino entrepreneur.

15 – Sylvester Weaver, 93, American advertising executive, father of Sigourney Weaver.

16 – Sir Marcus Fox, 74, British politician.

17 – Rosetta LeNoire, 90, African-American stage and television actress.

17 – Bill Davis, 60, American football coach.

18 – Reginald Covill, 96, British cricketer.

18 – Maude Farris-Luse, 115, supercentenarian and one-time "Oldest Recognized Person in the World".

18 – Gösta Winbergh, 58, Swedish operatic tenor.

20 – John E. Gray, 95, American educational administrator, President of Lamar University.

20 – Ivan Novikoff, 102, Russian premier ballet master.

20 – Richard Robinson, 51, English cricketer.

21 – James F. Blake, 89, American bus driver, antagonist for the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

21 – Thomas Flanagan, 78, American novelist and academic.

22 – Sir Kingsford Dibela, 70, Governor-General of Papua New Guinea.

22 – Hugh R. Stephen, 88, Canadian politician.

23 – Ben Hollioake, 24, English cricketer.

24 – Dorothy DeLay, 84, American violin instructor.

24 – César Milstein, 74, Argentinian biochemist.

24 – Frank G. White, 92, American army general.

25 – Ken Traill, 75, British rugby league player.

25 – Kenneth Wolstenholme, 81, British football commentator.

26 – Roy Calvert, 88, New Zealand World War II air force officer.

27 – Milton Berle, 93, American comedian dubbed "Mr. Television".

27 – Sir Louis Matheson, 90, British university administrator, Vice Chancellor of Monash University.

27 – Dudley Moore, 66, British actor and writer.

27 – Billy Wilder, 95, Austrian-born American film director (Double Indemnity).

28 – Tikka Khan, 86, Pakistani army general.

29 – Rico Yan, 27, Filipino movie & TV actor.

30 – Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, 101, British consort of King George VI.

31 – Lady Anne Brewis, 91, English botanist.

31 – Barry Took, 73, British comedian and writer.

April 2002[edit source]

1 – Umer Rashid, 26, English cricketer, drowning.

1 – John S. Samuel, 88, American Air Force general.

2 – John R. Pierce, 92, American engineer and author.

2 – Robert Lawson Vaught, 75, American mathematician.

3 – Frank Tovey, aka Fad Gadget, 45, English singer-songwriter.

4 – Don Allard, 66, American football player (New York Titans, New England Patriots) and coach.

5 – Arthur Ponsonby, 11th Earl of Bessborough, 89, British aristocrat.

5 – Layne Staley, 34, former Alice in Chains lead singer.

6 – Nobu McCarthy, 67, Canadian actress.

6 – William Patterson, 71, British Anglican priest, Dean of Ely.

6 – Margaret Wingfield, 90, British political activist.

7 – John Agar, 82, American actor.

8 – Sir Nigel Bagnell, 75, British field marshal.

8 – María Félix, 88, Mexican film star.

8 – Helen Gilbert, 80 American artist.

8 – Giacomo Mancini, 85, Italian politician.

9 – Leopold Vietoris, 110, Austrian mathematician.

10 – Géza Hofi, 75 Hungarian humorist.

11 – J. William Stanton, 78, American politician.

14 – Buck Baker, 83, American member of the NASCAR Hall of Fame

14 – John Boda, 79, American composer and music professor.

14 – Sir Michael Kerr, 81, British jurist.

15 – Will Reed, 91, British composer.

15 – Byron White, 84, United States Supreme Court justice.

16 – Billy Ayre, 49, English footballer.

16 – Franz Krienbühl, 73, Swiss speed skater.

16 – Robert Urich, 55, American TV actor.

18 – Thor Heyerdahl, 87, Norwegian anthropologist.

18 – Cy Laurie, 75, British musician.

18 – Sir Peter Proby, 90, British landowner, Lord-Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire.

20 – Vlastimil Brodský, 81, Czech actor.

21 – Sebastian Menke, 91, American Roman Catholic priest.

21 – Red O'Quinn, 76, American football player.

21 – Terry Walsh, 62, British stuntman.

22 – Albrecht Becker, 95, German production designer and actor.

22 – Allen Morris, 92, American historian.

23 – Linda Lovelace, 53, former porn star turned political activist, car crash.

23 – Ted Kroll, 82, American golfer.

25 – Michael Bryant, 74, British actor.

25 – Indra Devi, 102, Russian "yoga teacher to the stars".

25 – Lisa Lopes, 30, American singer, car crash.

26 – Alton Coleman, 46, convicted spree killer, execution by lethal injection.

27 – Ruth Handler, 85, inventor of the Barbie doll.

27 – Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, 81, German Industrialist and art collector.

28 – Alexander Lebed, Russian general and politician.

28 – Sir Peter Parker, 77, British businessman.

28 – Lou Thesz, American professional wrestler.

28 – John Wilkinson, 82, American sound engineer.

29 – Liam O'Sullivan, Scottish footballer, drugs overdose. [2]

29 – Lor Tok, 88, Thai, comedian and actor Thailand National Artist.

May 2002[edit source]

1 – John Nathan-Turner, 54, British television producer.

2 – William Thomas Tutte, 84, Bletchley Park cryptographer and British, later Canadian, mathematician.

3 – Barbara Castle, Baroness Castle of Blackburn, 91, British Labour politician and female life peer.

3 – Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal, 73, president of Somaliland and formerly prime minister of Somalia and British Somaliland.

3 – Mohan Singh Oberoi, 103, Indian hotelier and retailer.

4 – Abu Turab al-Zahiri, 79, Saudi Arabian writer of Arab Indian descent

5 – Sir Clarence Seignoret 83, president of Dominica (1983–1993).

5 – Hugo Banzer Suárez, 75, president of Bolivia, as dictator 1971–1978 and democratic president 1997–2001.

5 – Mike Todd, Jr., 72, American film producer.

6 – Otis Blackwell, 71, American singer-songwriter and pianist.

6 – Harry George Drickamer, 83, American chemical engineer.

6 – Pim Fortuyn, 54, assassinated Dutch politician.

7 – Sir Bernard Burrows, 91, British diplomat.

7 – Sir Ewart Jones, 91, Welsh chemist.

7 – Seattle Slew, 28, last living triple crown winner on 25th anniversary of winning Kentucky Derby.

8 – Sir Edward Jackson, 76, English diplomat.

9 – Robert Layton, 76, Canadian politician.

9 – James Simpson, 90, British explorer.

10 – Lynda Lyon Block, 54, convicted murderer, executed by electric chair in Alabama.

10 – John Cunniff, 57, American hockey player and coach.

10 – Henry W. Hofstetter, 87, American optometrist.

10 – Leslie Dale Martin, 35, convicted murderer, executed by lethal injection in Louisiana.

10 – Tom Moore, 88, American athletics promoter.

11 – Joseph Bonanno, 97, Sicilian former Mafia boss.

12 – Richard Chorley, 74, English geographer.

13 – Morihiro Saito, 74, a teacher of the Japanese martial art of aikido.

13 – Ruth Cracknell, 76, redoubtable Australian actress most famous for the long-running role of Maggie Beare in the series "Mother and Son".

13 – Valery Lobanovsky, 63, former Ukrainian coach.

14 – Sir Derek Birley, 75, British educationist and writer.

15 – Bernard Benjamin, 92, British statistician.

15 – Bryan Pringle, 67, British actor.

15 – Nellie Shabalala, 49, South African singer and wife of leader/founder of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Joseph Shabalala.

15 – Esko Tie, 73, Finnish ice hockey player.

16 – Edwin Alonzo Boyd, 88, Canadian bank-robber and prison escapee of the 1950s.

16 – Alec Campbell, 103, Australia's last surviving ANZAC died in a nursing home.

16 – Dorothy Van, 74, American actress.

17 – Peter Beck, 92, British schoolmaster.

17 – Joe Black, 78, American first Black baseball pitcher to win a World Series game.

17 – Earl Hammond, 80, American voice actor best known for voicing Mumm Ra and Jaga in the television series Thundercats.

17 – Bobby Robinson, 98, American baseball player.

17 – Little Johnny Taylor, 59, American singer.

18 – Davey Boy Smith, 39, 'British Bulldog' professional wrestler.

18 – Gordon Wharmby, 68, British actor (Last of the Summer Wine)

19 – John Gorton, 90, 19th Prime Minister of Australia.

19 – Otar Lordkipanidze, 72, Georgian archaeologist.

20 – Stephen Jay Gould, 60, paleontologist and popular science author.

21 – Niki de Saint Phalle, 71, French artist.

21 – Roy Paul, 82, Welsh footballer.

22 – Paul Giel, 69, American football player.

22 – Dick Hern, 81, British racehorse trainer.

22 – (remains discovered; actual death probably took place on or around May 1, 2001), Chandra Levy, 24, U.S. Congressional intern.

22 – Creighton Miller, 79, American football player and attorney.

23 – Sam Snead, 89, golfer.

25 – Pat Coombs, 75, English actress.

25 – Jack Pollard, 75, Australian sports journalist.

26 – John Alexander Moore, 86, American biologist.

26 – Mamo Wolde, 69, Ethiopian marathon runner.

28 – Napoleon Beazley, 25, convicted juvenile offender, executed by lethal injection in Texas.

28 – Mildred Benson, 96, American children's author.

June 2002[edit source]

1 – Hansie Cronje, 32, South African cricketer, air crash.

4 – Fernando Belaúnde Terry, 89, democratic president of Peru, 1963–1968 and 1980–1985.

4 – John W. Cunningham, 86, American author.

4 – Caroline Knapp, 42, author of Drinking: A Love Story.

5 – Dee Dee Ramone, 50, founding member of The Ramones.

5 – Alex Watson, 70, Australian rugby league player.

6 – Peter Cowan, 87, Australian writer.

6 – Hans Janmaat, 67, controversial far-right politician in the Netherlands.

7 – Rodney Hilton, 85, British historian.

7 – Lilian, Princess of Réthy, 85, British-born Belgian royal.

8 – George Mudie, 86, Jamaican cricketer.

9 – Paul Chubb, 53, Australian actor.

9 – Bryan Martyn, 71, Australian rules footballer.

10 – John Gotti, 61, imprisoned mobster.

11 – Robbin Crosby, 42, American guitarist of rock band Ratt.

11 – Margaret E. Lynn, 78, American theater director.

11 – Robert Roswell Palmer, 93, American historian and writer.

11 – Peter John Stephens, 89, British children's author.

12 – Bill Blass, 79, American fashion designer.

12 – George Shevelov, 93, Ukrainian scholar.

13 – John Hope, 83, American meteorologist.

14 – Jose Bonilla, 34, boxing former world champion, of asthma.

14 – June Jordan, 65, American writer and teacher, of breast cancer.

15 – Said Belqola, 45, Moroccan referee of the 1998 FIFA World Cup final.

17 – Willie Davenport, 59, American gold medal-winning Olympic hurdler.

17 – John C. Davies II, 82, American politician.

17 – Fritz Walter, 81, German football player, captain of 1954 World Cup winners.

18 – Nancy Addison, 54, soap actress, cancer.

18 – Jack Buck, 77, Major League Baseball announcer.

18 – Michael Coulson, 74, British lawyer and politician.

19 – Count Flemming Valdemar of Rosenborg, 80, Danish prince.

20 – Enrique Regüeiferos, 53, Cuban Olympic boxer.

21 – Henry Keith, Baron Keith of Kinkel, 80, British jurist.

21 – Patrick Kelly, 73, English cricketer.

22 – David O. Cooke, 81, American Department of Defense official.

22 – Darryl Kile, 33, Major League Baseball player.

22 – Ann Landers, 83, author & syndicated newspaper columnist.

23 – Pedro "El Rockero" Alcazar, 26, Panamanian boxer; died after losing his world Flyweight championship to Fernando Montiel in Las Vegas the night before.

23 – Arnold Weinstock, 77, British businessman.

24 – Lorna Lloyd-Green, 92, Australian gynaecologist.

24 – Miles Francis Stapleton Fitzalan-Howard, 86, 17th Duke of Norfolk.

24 – Pierre Werner, 88, former Prime Minister of Luxembourg, "father of the Euro".

25 – Gordon Park Baker, 64, Anglo-American philosopher.

25 – Jean Corbeil, 68, Canadian politician.

26 – Barbara G. Adams, 57, British Egyptologist.

26 – Clarence D. Bell, 88, American politician, member of the Pennsylvania State Senate.

26 – Jay Berwanger, 88, college football player, first winner of the Heisman Trophy.

26 – Arnold Brown, 88, British General of the Salvation Army.

26 – James Morgan, 63, British journalist.

27 – Sir Charles Carter, 82, British economist and academic administrator.

27 – John Entwistle, 57, English bassist (The Who), heart attack.

27 – Russ Freeman, 76, American pianist.

27 – Robert L. J. Long, 82, American admiral.

27 – Jack Webster, 78, Canadian police officer.

28 – Arthur "Spud" Melin, responsible for marketing hula-hoop and frisbee.

29 – Rosemary Clooney, 74, singer.

29 – Jan Tomasz Zamoyski, 90, Polish politician.

30 – Pete Gray, 87, American one-armed baseball player.

30 – Dave Wilson, 70, American television director.