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Celebrities Who Died In 2012

We say good bye to the following celebrities who died in 2012. They helped mold our lives as we live it now. They were like our brothers and sisters who helped mold our lives as we know it.

Many of these celebrities are not know to the younger generation and they do not know them as we do. Please teach the younger one's who these great celebs are. They help grow great morals for them.

Let the younger one's get to know them as we did.

The following are the celebrity deaths in 2012:

Celebrities who died in January 2012.

Jan. 1 - Dion and the Belmonts singer Fred Milano was 72

Jan. 3 - Fleetwood Mac guitarist Bob Weston was 64

Jan. 17 - "Willie and the Hand Jive" singer Johnny Otis was 90

Etta James

 

Jan. 20 - "At Last" singer Etta James was 73

Jan. 22 - College football coach Joe Paterno was 85

Jan. 22 - "Lost in Space" robot voice artist Dick Tufeld was 85

Jan. 24 - "The Bold Ones" star James Farentino, was 73

Jan. 26 - "Welcome Back Kotter" star Robert Hegyeswas 60

Jan. 31 - "House of Carters" star Leslie Carter was 25

Celebrities who died in February 2012.

Feb. 1 - "Soul Train" host Don Cornelius was 75

Feb. 3 - "Anatomy of a Murder" star Ben Gazzara was 81

Feb. 11 - "I Will Always Love You" singer Whitney Houston was 48

Feb. 12 - Mad and Cracked magazine artist John Severin was 90

Dick Clark

 

Feb. 15 - "The Mummy's Tomb" star Elyse Knox was 94

Feb. 15 - "Women Behind Bars" star Lina Romay was  57

Feb. 29 - Monkees singer Davy Jones was 66

Feb. 29 - Batman artist Sheldon Moldoff was 91

Celebrities who died in March 2012.

March 3 - "Jump On It" guitarist Ronnie Montrose was 64

March 28 - Bluegrass legend Earl Scruggs was 88

Celebrity deaths in April 2012.
April 7 - "60 Minutes" correspondent Mike Wallace was 93

April 14 - "Dark Shadows" star Jonathan Frid was 87

April 18 - "American Bandstand" host Dick Clark was 82

April 5 - Amplifier manufacturer Jim Marshall was 88

Donna Summer

 

April 19 - The Band singer-drummer Levon Helm was 71

April 26 - New York radio DJ Pete Fornatale was 66

April 28 - "Phantom of the Rue Morgue" star Patricia Medina was 92

Celebrity deaths in May 2012:

May 4 - Beastie Boys member Adam Yauch was 47

May 6 - "Andy Griffith Show" Goober George Lindsey was 83

May 8 - "Where the Wild Things Are" writer-artist Maurice Sendak was 83

May 9 - Hairstylist Vidal Sassoon was 84

May 13 -  Booker T. & the M.G.'s bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn was 70

May 17 - "Last Dance" singer Donna Summer was 63

May 20 - Bee Gees member Robin Gibb was 62

May 29 - "Gumby" voice artist Dick Beals was 85

Celebrities who died in June 2012:

June 2 - "Hogan's Heroes" star Richard Dawson was 79

June 4 - Platters singer Herb Reed was 83

Andy Griffith

 

June 5 - "Fahrenheit 451" author Ray Bradbury was 91

June 7 - Fleetwood Mac member Bob Welch was 66

June 8: - "Green Acres" star Frank Cady was 96

June 20 - Playboy artist LeRoy Neiman was 91

June 20 - Movie critic Andrew Sarris, 83

June 26 - "Sleepless in Seattle" director Nora Ephron was 71

June 26 - "I Love Lucy" player Doris Singleton was 92

June 27 - "My Three Sons" star Don Grady was 68

Celebrities who died in July 2012:

July 3 - "The Andy Griffith Show" star Andy Griffith was 86

July 8 - "Marty" star Ernest Borgnine was 95

July 15 - "All About Eve" player Celeste Holm was 95

Ernest Borgnine

 

July 24 - "Medical Center" Chad Everett was 75

July 24 - "The Jeffersons" star Sherman Hemsley was 74

July 27 - "Keeping Up Appearances" star Geoffrey Hughes was 68

July 31 - "Myra Breckinridge" author Gore Vidal was 86

Celebrity deaths in August 2012:
Aug. 6 - "The Way We Were" composer Marvin Hamlisch was 68

Aug. 7 - Movie critic Judith Crist was 90

Aug. 12 - "Sgt. Rock" artist Joe Kubert, 85

Aug. 13 - Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown was 90

Aug. 14 - "Welcome Back Kotter" sweathog Ron Palillo,was 63

Aug. 16 - "The Farmer's Daughter" star William Windom was 88

Aug. 20 - Comedian Phyllis Diller was 95

Aug. 25 - First man on the moon Neil Armstrong was 82

Celebrities who died in September 2012:
Sept. 3 - "The Green Mile" player Michael Clarke Duncanwas 54

Sept. 25 - "Moon River" singer Andy Williams was 84

Larry Hagman

 

Sept. 27 - "Phantom of the Opera" star Herbert Lom was 95

Sept. 30 - "The Mummy's Tomb" star Turhan Bey was 90

Celebrities who died in October 2012:

Oct. 10 - "Webster" star Alex Karras was 77

Oct. 14 - Captain Marvel artist Marc Swayze was 99

Oct. 14 - Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter was 82

Oct. 24 - Our Gang member Peggy Ahern was 95

Celebrity deaths in November 2012:

Nov. 13 - 3-D historian Ray Zone was 65

Nov. 23 - "Dallas" star Larry Hagman, 81

Nov. 25 - Cadillacs singer Earl "Speedo" Carroll was 75

Nov. 28 - Underground cartoonist Spain Rodriguez was 72

Celebrities who died in December 2012:

Dec. 5 - Jazz pianist Dave Brubeck was 91

Jack Klugman

 

Dec. 6 - Spirit drummer Ed Cassidy was 89

Dec. 11 - Sitar master Ravi Shankar was 92

Dec. 13 - "Our Gang" cast member Jack Hanlon was 96

Dec. 24 - "The Odd Couple" star Jack Klugman was 90

Dec. 24 - Mothers of Invention singer Ray Collins was 73

Dec. 24 - "The Sting" player Charles Durning was 89

Dec. 26 - "Fireball XL5" creator Gerry Anderson was 83

Dec. 27 - Retired Gen. Norman H. Schwarzkopf, Jr. was 78

Dec. 27 - John Ford stock player Harry Carey, Jr. was 91

May they all rest in peace and have eternal light shine upon them.

We who know you will miss you!





You can read more on this at NJ.Com 


Other great people we lost in 2012 are:

Neil Armstrong: 1930-2012 Astronaut

Yitzhak Shamir

Yitzhak Shamir, the hawkish Israeli leader who balked at the idea of trading occupied land for peace with the Palestinians, died on June 30. He was 96. Shamir served as prime minister for seven years, from 1983-84 and 1986-92, leading his party to election victories twice despite lacking much of the outward charm and charisma that characterizes many modern politicians. Barely over 5 feet tall and built like a block of granite, Shamir projected an image of uncompromising solidity at a time when Palestinians rose up in the West Bank and Gaza, demanding an end to Israeli occupation. Born Yitzhak Jazernicki in Poland in 1915, he moved to pre-state Palestine in 1935. He joined Lehi, the most hardline of three Jewish movements resisting British authorities, taking over the Lehi leadership after the British killed its founder. After Israel was founded in 1948, Shamir was in business for a few years before entering a career in Israel's Mossad spy agency. In the mid-1960s he joined the right-wing Herut party, which evolved into the present-day Likud. Shamir, seen here in 1988, succeeded Menahem Begin as prime minister in 1983 in the aftermath of Israel's disastrous 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

Mike Wallace

Wallace, the grand inquisitor of CBS's "60 Minutes" news show who once declared there was "no such thing as an indiscreet question," died April 7. He was 93. In almost 40 years on "60 Minutes," the ground-breaking investigative journalism program, he worked on some 800 reports, won 21 Emmys and developed a relentless on-air style that was often more interrogation than interview. Wallace, seen here in his office in 2006, also drew criticism for his go-for-the-throat style and the theatrics that sometimes accompanied it. He also became caught up in a $120 million libel suit that resulted in no judgment against him or CBS but triggered a case of depression that led him to attempt suicide. Wallace, whose family's surname was originally Wallik, was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, to Russian Jewish immigrant parents. He began his broadcasting career on radio while still at the University of Michigan, moving through a series of announcer and game-show hosting jobs before landing at CBS in the early Sixties. He was one of the original correspondents on “60 Minutes,” which began in 1968 and stayed there until his retirement in 2008.

Arlen Specter

The gruff, independent-minded moderate who spent three decades in the U.S. Senate, died on October 14 of cancer. He was 82. Specter, pictured here in 1966 during his stint as district attorney of Philadelphia, played a pivotal role in many of the major issues of his time, including the investigation into the assassination of President John Kennedy, disputes over controversial Supreme Court nominees, and the Senate vote not to remove President Bill Clinton from office for perjury after an affair. Resilient, smart and aggressive, the former prosecutor frequently riled conservatives and liberals on his way to becoming Pennsylvania's longest-serving U.S. senator. He was elected to five six-year terms starting in 1980. Specter was born in Kansas in 1930 during the Great Depression. His father was a Russian Jewish immigrant who owned a junkyard. Specter moved to Philadelphia at age 17 to attend the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated in 1951, then served in the Air Force before attending Yale Law School. He was a Democrat until age 35, when the Republicans offered their nomination for district attorney of Philadelphia. He served as the city's district attorney from 1966 to 1974.

Charles W. Colson

Charles W. Colson, a man who apparently lived nine lives, including as a Marine, President Richard Nixon’s “hatchet man” and an evangelical prison minister, died on April 21. He was 80. Colson, seen here before a 1974 court appearance, helped run the Committee to Re-elect the President when it set up an effort to gather intelligence on the Democratic Party. The arrest of CREEP's security director, James W. McCord, and four other men burglarizing the Democratic National Committee offices in 1972 set off the scandal that led to Nixon's resignation in August 1974. But it was actions that preceded the actual Watergate break-in that resulted in Colson's criminal conviction and the prison that led to his life as a minister. Colson pleaded guilty to efforts to discredit Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg. Colson created the Prison Fellowship Ministries in 1976 to minister to prisoners, ex-prisoners and their families. "You can't leave a person in a steel cage and expect something good to come out of him when he is released," Colson said in 2001. Colson, a Boston native, earned degrees from Brown and George Washington universities and served as a captain in the Marine Corps from 1953 to 1955. He spent several years as an administrative assistant to Massachusetts Sen. Leverett Saltonstall. Nixon made him special counsel in November 1969.

 

Patrick Moore

The wild-haired British astronomer who inspired a love of science in many through his BBC television program "The Sky At Night," died on December 9. He was 89. Moore "passed away peacefully" at his home in West Sussex, England, according to the BBC. His show, which began airing in 1957 and ran its last episode the night he died, is one of the longest-running television programs of all time. Many scientists credit Moore, seen here in the Seventies, for inspiring them to pursue the careers they chose. "The first book on the cosmos I ever read was written by Sir Patrick Moore. May he rest in peace, somewhere in the universe," astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the New York City’s Hayden Planetarium, wrote on Twitter. The plummy-voiced Moore, who never married after his fiancee was killed by a German bomb during World War II, was born in Middlesex, England in 1923 and served in the Royal Air Force. He was largely self-taught, and turned down a chance to study at Cambridge University under a government grant.

The Rev. Sun Myung Moon

The founder and head of the controversial Unification Church died at a retreat near the South Korean capital Seoul on September 2. He was 92. Born in what is now North Korea in 1920, Moon (seen here in 1992) founded the church soon after the Korean War, rapidly expanding the ministry internationally and building a business empire at the same time that served as the backbone of the church. Critics of the church, famous for its mass weddings, have for years vilified the organization as a heretical and dangerous cult and questioned its murky finances and how it indoctrinates followers, described in derogatory terms as "Moonies." Moon, whose group runs the conservative Washington Times, is survived by his wife and 10 of their 13 children.

George McGovern

McGovern, the unabashedly liberal Democratic senator whose outsider campaign against President Richard Nixon led to a landslide defeat and the eventual reformation of the Democratic Party as a more centrist organization, died Oct. 21. He was 90. Born in a small farming town in South Dakota, McGovern was bomber pilot who flew 35 combat missions in World War II, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross. He became a history and political science professor after the war and was elected to Congress in 1958. He won the first of three Senate terms in 1962. McGovern became an early critic of the Vietnam War and a leader of the Democrats' liberal wing, propelling him to a campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968, where he was defeated by Hubert Humphrey. Four years later, McGovern emerged at the top of the heap, only to be defeated by Richard Nixon, who carried 49 out of 50 states, a record. He chose as his running mate Sen. Thomas Eagleton (seen here with McGovern), who made his own political history when he withdrew from the ticket after revelations about electric shock treatment he had received for bouts of mental illness. After his defeat, McGovern resumed his seat in the Senate, but lost to a Republican in 1980. His post-political career was multi-faceted, including ownership of a conference center and hotel in Connecticut, as an author and as an executive of several think-tanks and foundations

 

Letitia K. Baldrige

Baldrige, the White House social secretary during the Kennedy administration who came to be regarded as an authority on etiquette, died on Oct. 29. She was 86. Baldrige also served as chief of staff for first lady Jacqueline Kennedy from 1961 to 1963. She handled the first lady's schedule, mail and served as the advance scout on trips. She was also responsible for the guest list and overall coordination of events. At one point, she was tasked with finding a French chef to oversee the White House kitchen. Baldrige, seen here at first Washington news conference, in late 1960, was born in Miami Beach, Fla., the third of three children. Her father, H. Malcolm Baldrige, a lawyer, served one term as a Republican congressman from Nebraska in the early 1930s. She met the future first lady as a student a Miss Porter's School in Connecticut, and they both also attended Vassar. After leaving the White House and marrying her husband, Robert Hollensteiner, she started her own marketing and public relations agency and was the author of more than 20 books.

Oscar Niemeyer

The Brazilian architect, who helped shape the look of Brazil and influenced buildings and cities around the world died on December 5. He was 104. Neimeyer was perhaps best known for the design of much of the country's futuristic capital, Brasilia, including the Catedral Metropolitana, shown as a model on the table in front of him in this photo taken in the late Fifties. He was famous for many designs of religious buildings, despite being an atheist. Born in Rio de Janeiro, Niemeyer's career spanned nine decades. His distinctive glass and white-concrete buildings include such landmarks as the U.N. Secretariat in New York and the Communist Party headquarters in Paris, France.

Tony Blankley

Tony Blankley, a conservative author and commentator who served as press secretary to Newt Gingrich during the 1990s, died on Dec. 5. He was 63 and had had stomach cancer. Born in London, Blankley moved to California with his parents as a child and became a naturalized American citizen. He worked as a child actor in the 1950s, appearing in such TV shows as "Lassie" and "Highway Patrol" and playing Rod Steiger's son in the movie "The Harder They Fall." Before working for Gingrich, was a prosecutor in California and spent six years in the Reagan administration in a variety of positions, including speechwriter and senior policy analyst. From 2002 to 2007, Blankley, seen here in 2003, served as editorial page editor of The Washington Times. In recent years, he also wrote a syndicated newspaper column and provided political commentary for CNN, NBC and NPR. He was also a regular panelist on "The McLaughlin Group."

John Demjanjuk

Demjanjuk, a retired U.S. autoworker who was convicted of being a guard a Nazi death camp despite steadfastly maintaining over three decades of legal battles that he had been mistaken for someone else, died March 17 in Germany. He was 91. Convicted in 2011 of 28,060 counts of being an accessory to murder and sentenced to five years in prison, Demanjuk, seen here in 2011, died a free man in a nursing home in the southern Bavarian town of Bad Feilnbach. He had been released pending his appeal. Demjanjuk a Ukrainian, maintained that he was a victim of the Nazis himself -- first wounded as a Soviet soldier fighting German forces, then captured and held as a prisoner of war under brutal conditions. He came to the U.S. in 1950 and worked at Ford factory in suburban Cleveland, Ohio. Identified in the 1970s as “Ivan the Terrible,” a notorious guard at the Sobibor camp, he was extradited to Israel, where he stood trial in 1986 on charges of crimes against humanity. However, his case was overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court, which said that, although they believed he had been a guard at the camp, there was little evidence to identify him as “Ivan the Terrible.”Demjanjuk returned to his suburban Cleveland home in 1993 and his U.S. citizenship, which had been revoked in 1981, was reinstated in 1998. But he remained under investigation in the U.S., where a judge revoked his citizenship again in 2002 based on Justice Department evidence suggesting he concealed his service at Sobibor. In 2009, he was sent to Germany, where he was convicted.

 

Daniel Inouye

Inouye, a World War II combat veteran and, at his death, the most senior senator in the U.S. Senate, died Dec. 17. He was 88. His last words were "Aloha," Hawaiian for hello and goodbye. Inouye, seen here in 1973 during the Watergate hearings, had served in the Senate for 49 years. At the time of his death, he was the longest-living serving member of the Senate. The late Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia is the only senator who has served longer, for 51 years. Hawaii became a state in 1959, and Inouye was the state's first Congressman. He also became the country's first Japanese-American Congressman. Born to working class parents, Inouye dreamed of being a doctor, plans that were sidelined by the war. He was a second-generation Japanese-American, or nisei, and he wrote that it pained him that those who dropped bombs on Hawaii looked like him. Inouye was 17 when he enlisted in the U.S. Army and served with the 442 Regimental Combat Team, according to a statement on his website. He lost part of his right arm while he was charging a series of machine gun nests in San Terenzo, Italy. After the war, he was nominated for the Medal of Honor but did not receive it. President Bill Clinton later bestowed the honor on him and 21 other Japanese-Americans for their courage during World War II, according to the Star-Advertiser. He attended the University of Hawaii and received a law degree from Georgetown University. As a lawmaker in D.C. in 1973, Inouye sat on the panel that investigated the Watergate scandal. Apparently so frustrated by the testimony of a top White House aide that he whispered, “What a liar!” into a microphone that turned out to be hot.

 

Warren B. Rudman

Rudman, who co-authored a ground-breaking budget balancing law, championed ethics and led a commission that predicted the danger of homeland terrorist attacks before 9/11, died Nov. 19. He was 82. He was born May 18, 1930, in Boston, graduated from Syracuse University in 1952 and won his law degree from Boston College in 1960. The feisty New Hampshire Republican went to the Senate in 1981 with a reputation as a tough prosecutor, and was called on by Senate leaders, and later by presidents of both parties, to tackle tough assignments. He is perhaps most well-known from his Senate years as co-sponsor of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings budget-cutting law. He left the Senate in 1993, frustrated that the law never reached its potential because Congress, President Ronald Reagan and the President George H.W. Bush played politics instead of insisting on spending cuts. In 2001, before the 9/11 attacks, he co-authored a report on national security with former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart that said a major terrorist attack on American soil was likely within 25 years. "No one seemed to take it seriously, and no one in the media seemed to care," Rudman, pictured here (center), said in 2007. "The report went into a dustbin in the White House."

 

Robert Bork

Bork, the conservative judge and scholar whose 1987 nomination by President Ronald Reagan to the Supreme Court sparked an epic battle which has defined Senate judicial politics ever since, died on Dec. 19. He was age 85. The Senate voted to reject Bork’s nomination by a vote of 58 to 42, with two Democrats voting for Bork and six Republicans opposing him. His defeat -- the last time the Senate has rejected a Supreme Court nominee -- was an outcome that weakened Reagan, left conservatives bitter, and resulted ultimately in the nomination and confirmation of Judge Anthony Kennedy, whose sometimes liberal views have chagrined many Republicans. Bork, seen here being introduced to the Senate Judiciary Committee by former President Ford and Sen, Bob Dole, was born in Pittsburgh, attended prep school in Connecticut and earned bachelors and law degrees from the University of Chicago. After stints in the Marines and private practice, he become a professor at Yale Law School, where his students included Bill and Hillary Clinton. After his Supreme Court nomination was defeated, Bork resigned from his post as a federal appeals court judge and began writing books which criticized American culture and the legal profession, such as his 2003 book “Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline,” and his 2005 book Liberalism and American Decline,” and his 2005 book “A Country I Do Not Recognize: The Legal Assault on American Values.”

 

Marvin Miller

Miller, the union boss who won free agency for baseball players in 1975, ushering in an era of multimillion-dollar contracts and athletes who switch teams at the drop of a batting helmet, died November 27. He was 95. "I think he's the most important baseball figure of the last 50 years," former baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent said. "He changed not just the sport but the business of the sport permanently, and he truly emancipated the baseball player -- and in the process all professional athletes. Prior to his time, they had few rights. At the moment, they control the games." Slightly built and silver-haired with a thick, dark mustache, Miller operated with an eloquence and a soft-spoken manner that belied his toughness. He clashed repeatedly with Commissioner Bowie Kuhn. Miller, seen here talking to the New York Mets’ Tom Seaver and Ed Kranepool in 1972, was born in New York, the son of a salesman in the heavily unionized garment district. His mother was a schoolteacher. He was born with a withered right arm, which didn't prevent him from playing tennis into his 90s.

 

Sally Ride

The first American woman to go into space, died on July 23 after a 17-month battle against pancreatic cancer. Ride, pictured here as she made history in 1983 as a crew member on the space shuttle Challenger, breaking the gender barrier for U.S. spaceflight. Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space in 1963, but it took another 20 years for NASA to follow suit. In a 2008 interview timed to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the flight, Ride acknowledged that her status as the first American woman "carried huge expectations along with it." "I didn't really think about it that much at the time ... but I came to appreciate what an honor it was to be selected to be the first to get a chance to go into space," she said. Thousands of spectators wore T-shirts and buttons emblazoned with the slogan "Ride, Sally, Ride" on launch day. Ride, who was raised in the Los Angeles area, made a second space shuttle flight in 1984, also aboard Challenger, and was in training for her third mission when Challenger exploded in 1986, killing all seven crew members. She left the space agency a year later, and served for years as a physics professor and director of the California Space Institute. In 2001, she founded Sally Ride Science, which is aimed at promoting math and science for girls.

Norman Schwarzkopf

Retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, the blunt, bulldog-like commander of U.S.-led coalition forces in the first Persian Gulf War, died on Dec. 27 in Tampa, Florida. He was 78. The highly decorated Vietnam War veteran, who rose quickly through the Army's ranks during the 1970s and '80s, drew up the initial plans for the successful U.S.-led ejection of Saddam Hussein's forces from Kuwait, which Iraq invaded in 1990. Schwarzkopf described the key maneuver that led to the end of the ground war – a redeployment of forces into Iraq behind Iraqi lines – with a boxing metaphor: He called it a "left hook." He dismissed one report he disagreed with as "bovine scatology." The decision to go to war to oust Hussein was a defining moment of George H.W. Bush's presidency. In a statement from Houston, where he is being treated at Methodist Hospital for complications related to bronchitis, Bush called Schwarzkopf "one of the great military leaders of his generation." Schwarzkopf said he agreed with Bush's decision not to pursue Hussein all the way to Baghdad. At the February 1991 briefing during which he described the coalition's victorious operations, he made it clear that he could have done so, however, had he been given the order: Nevertheless, in January 2003, Schwarzkopf said on NBC's TODAY that he thought Bush's son, the 43rd president, had made a "very compelling" case for removing Hussein from power. But by December 2004, he criticizing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for his handling of the second war, telling MSNBC that war policy was being controlled by civilians in the Defense Department who "showed a total lack of understanding of the culture that we were dealing with" in Iraq. As a result, he said, "things have gone awry," especially in terms of adequate armored protection for troops on the ground. Schwarzkopf, who had been based in Tampa for many years on the way to leading U.S. Central Command in 1988, was a prominent spokesman for campaigns to promote awareness of prostate cancer, with which he was diagnosed in 1993. He is survived by his wife, Brenda, and their three adult children.

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