Famous People Who Died in 2005 a to z

American actor and comedian Don Adams is best known for his role as secret agent Maxwell Smart on NBC's hit 1960s sitcom Get Smart.

Actor Eddie Albert starred in films like The Sun Also Rises and Roman Holiday as well as the TV show Green Acres.

British photographer Patrick Anson, 5th Earl of Lichfield achieved success in personal royal portraits, and created the well-known Unipart calendar.

Anne Bancroft was an Oscar Tony and Emmy Award-winning actress famous for her roles in The Miracle Worker and The Graduate. She was married to comedian and film director Mel Brooks.

Saul Bellow was a celebrated novelist who won the Pulitzer, the Nobel Prize for Literature and the National Book Award for Fiction three times.

Athlete George Best played for Manchester United and was named European Footballer of the Year in 1968. His brief career ended by the time he was 25.

One of television's best known personalities, Johnny Carson hosted "The Tonight Show" for 30 years. His farewell show in 1992 drew 50 million viewers.

Shirley Chisholm was the first black congresswoman, and the first African-American woman to make a bid for the U.S. Presidency.

Cicely Saunders was a nurse, social worker who founded the first modern hospice, St. Christopher's Hospice, in 1967 to provide palliative care to those in need.

Psychologist and educator Kenneth Bancroft Clark was the first black president of the American Psychological Association.

Robin Cook was a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Livingston from 1983 until his death.

Glenn Woodward Davis won the 1946 Heisman Trophy as a halfback at Army, setting single season records for average yards per carry, 11.5 in 1945.

Ossie Davis was an American actor, writer, social activist and humanitarian. He often performed with wife Ruby Dee in plays, in film and on television.

Sandra Dee became the “Queen of Teens” in 1950s Hollywood, appearing in such films as Gidget and A Summer Place.

Bob Denver played the title role on the goofy 1960s TV sitcom Gilligan's Island.

Actor James Doohan will forever be remembered as the Scottish chief engineer Scotty in the popular science fiction television and film series Star Trek.

Andrea Dworkin was an American feminist and author, an outspoken critic of sexual politics, particularly of the victimizing effects of pornography on women.

Ibrahim Ferrer was a singer and Cuban musician who performed as part of the Grammy Award-winning Buena Vista Social Club.

Shelby Foote was an American historian and novelist who wrote The Civil War: A Narrative. He was also a significant contributor to the Ken Burns series The Civil War.

Writer John Fowles's works include The French Lieutenant's Woman and combine a respect for the Victorian novel and an interest in contemporary French novels.

Playwright Christopher Fry wrote a series of major plays in free verse, with undertones of religion and mysticism, including A Phoenix Too Frequent (1946).

Vincent Gigante was an Italian-American mobster, known as "The Enigma in the Bathrobe," who led the Genovese crime family of New York City.

Walter Haut is best known for drafting a 1947 press release for the U.S. Army that claimed a "flying disc" had landed in Roswell, New Mexico.

Painter, Al Held was know for his painting complex cube-like structures in the 1960s, and his precise and brightly colored geometric forms in the 1980s.

Cuban born writer Guillermo Infante was a success for many works, including Tres tristes tigres, winning the Miguel Cervantes literary prize in 1997.

A respected television journalist, Peter Jennings served as ABC's nightly news anchor from 1983 to 2005.

Philip Johnson was an American architect best known for the design for his own home, the Glass House, in New Canaan, CT.

Jack Kilby was an American physicist and electrical engineer who co-created the integrated circuit.

Sol Myron Linowitz was an American diplomat, lawyer and businessman known as a presidential adviser and as a co-founder of Xerox.

Ornithologist Ernst Mayr demonstrated that the development of separate species in higher animals depends on the geographical isolation of precursor populations.

American politician Eugene J. McCarthy challenged Lyndon B. Johnson in the race for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination, which led to Johnson's withdrawal.

Basketball player George Mikan won five NBA championships with Minneapolis. He was one of the tallest players and increased modern height expectations.

Arthur Miller was an American playwright whose bitting criticism of societal problems defined his genius. His best known play is Death of a Salesman.

John Mills was an award-winning actor, dancer and producer whose career spanned eight decades with works like Great Expectations and Ryan’s Daughter.

Japanese-American actor Pat Morita became a beloved pop culture figure with his turn as Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid movies.

Constance Baker Motley was a legal advocate in the Civil Rights Movement. She became the first female African-American federal judge in 1966.

Opera singer Birgit Nilsson was the leading Wagnerian soprano of her time. She sang at most of the great houses and festivals of the world.

Ugandan statesman, prime minister and president Apollo Milton Obote founded the Uganda People's Congress.

Sculptor Eduardo Paolozzi's collage work combining surrealism with elements of popular culture and technology led him to be credited as the inventor of Pop Art.

Pope John Paul II made history in 1978 by becoming the first non-Italian pope in more than four hundred years.

Richard Pryor was a groundbreaking African-American comedian and one of the top entertainers of the 1970s and '80s.

William Rehnquist was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Richard Nixon in 1971. He was elevated to the post of chief justice by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. He remained chief justice until his death in 2005.

Paraguayan author Augusto Roa Bastos received the Premio Cervantes prize in 1989 for books like I, the Supreme (1947).

Civil rights activist Rosa Parks refused to surrender her bus seat to a white passenger, spurring the Montgomery boycott and other efforts to end segregation.

Nipsey Russell was best known for his comic rhymes and his appearances on TV game shows.

French novelist Claude Simon’s novels include The Wind; The Grass; and The Flanders Road. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1985.

Architect Kenzo Tange's best-known early work is the Hiroshima Peace Center. His later work includes the dramatic National Gymnasium for the 1964 Olympic Games.

A counterculture icon, Hunter S. Thompson was an American journalist best known for writing 1971's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and creating "Gonzo journalism."

William Westmoreland was a U.S. Army general who made a name for himself as commander of American troops in Vietnam.

Simon Wiesenthal was a survivor of the Holocaust who worked as an author and Nazi hunter, wishing to ensure that what befell his community would be remembered.

Stanley Tookie Williams is best known for founding the Crips gang.

Playwright August Wilson won two Pulitzer Prizes for his plays Fences (1987) and The Piano Lesson (1990).