From the woman with the longest showbiz legs to a gunslinger who parted the Red Sea, the late and great of 2008


It was a year that saw Hollywood and the fashion business mourn some of its greatest names; literature said goodbye to two Nobel laureates; and the Palace of Westminster lost that rare thing - a conviction politician admired by her opponents as well as her own side. GLENYS ROBERTS salutes those who passed away in 2008.

The year started with a tragedy. Having made his name in Brokeback Mountain, actor Heath Ledger, 28, had just played the leering Joker in the latest, bleakest Batman film, The Dark Knight, but succumbed to an overdose of prescription drugs following a custody battle for his two-year-old daughter.

There was a blessed release, perhaps, for the ill-fated Christian Brando, 49. Eldest of the arrogant actor Marlon's 11 acknowledged children, he was notorious for having shot his pregnant sister Cheyenne's fiance. Christian was sentenced to ten years, then Cheyenne hanged herself in Tahiti. Released from prison, he died of pneumonia, possibly complicated by Aids.

Heath Ledger
Jeremy Beadle

Brokeback Mountain actor Heath Ledger (left), 28, and TV prankster Jeremy Beadle, 59

It was goodbye in January, too, to Bobby Fischer, 65 - the unbalanced U.S. chess genius, who put the game on the front pages when he beat Russian Boris Spassky in 1972 at the height of the Cold War - and Sir Edmund Hillary, 88, whose first ascent of Everest with the Sherpa Tenzing Norgay made history just in time for the Queen's Coronation in 1953.

TV prankster Jeremy Beadle, 59, whom millions watched in the Eighties and Nineties as he humiliated unsuspecting victims with his trademark practical jokes, succumbed to pneumonia after a battle with leukaemia.

In February, it was farewell to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the guru who inspired The Beatles with his message of love and peace. He died in Holland at the grand old age of 91, having amassed a £600 million fortune - some said by fraudulent means.

Roy Scheider, the lean-faced U.S. actor best-known for the film Jaws, died aged 75 without winning the Oscar many of his contemporaries thought he deserved.

Britain said a sad goodbye in March to Anthony Minghella, 54, who never recovered after an operation for throat cancer. Having written for TV soaps Grange Hill and EastEnders, he became the highly acclaimed director of The English Patient, a film described by one critic as 'awfully close to a masterpiece'.

Paul Raymond
Charlton Heston

Porn barron Paul Raymond (left), 82, and Actor Charlton Henson, 84

Minghella was followed to the grave only a day later by the 86-year-old Shakespearean actor Paul Scofield. Nicknamed St Paul for his towering stage presence, he won an Oscar for his portrayal of Sir Thomas More in the 1966 film A Man For All Seasons.

It was goodbye in March, too, to Arthur C. Clarke, 90, author of the science fiction story 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was made into a cult film by Stanley Kubrick.

A scandalous accusation that he took a predatory interest in small boys deprived him of an expected knighthood in 1998. After a retraction, the honour was conferred in 2000.

Scandal also surrounded the life of porn baron Paul Raymond, 82. After years as a recluse after his daughter's death from drugs, he went to the top shelf in the sky.

In the political world, Lord Pym - who held three posts in Margaret Thatcher's first government and irritated her so much he was sacked from all of them - also died in March.

He had one of the most illustrious names in political history: his 17thcentury forebear defended Parliamentary rights against Charles I.

Humphrey Lyttelton
Beryl Cook

Jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton (left), 86, and popular artist Beryl Cook, 81

His death was followed in April by that of Gwyneth Dunwoody, 77, feisty Labour MP and Parliament's longestserving woman member.

She was loved for her directness and fearless manner. Daughter of a general secretary of the Labour Party and grand-daughter of two women activists, Dunwoody was fond of saying she went to her first party conference as a babe in swaddling clothes.

Her death caused a by-election at Crewe and Nantwich that Labour memorably lost - even though her daughter stood for the seat.

That month also saw the death of Albert Hoffman, the Swiss chemist who managed to survive until 102 despite discovering the hallucinatory properties of LSD - by accident.

Kathy Staff
Cyd Charisse

Nora Batty actor Kathy Staff (left), 80, and dancer Cyd Charisse, 86

In 1943 in his laboratory in Basel, he swallowed a fungus extract which he thought would cure breathing difficulties. Riding home on his bicycle, he thought he had gone insane, until he realised the weird images inside his brain were produced by the substance with which he had been experimenting.

April was also the time for chisel-faced Charlton Heston, 84, to meet his maker after a career in which he played all the truly great parts, including Moses, Ben-Hur and Michelangelo. Married for 64 years to childhood sweetheart Lydia, prominent gun lobbyist Chuck died six years after revealing he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

The art world reeled at the macabre hanging of painter Angus Fairhurst, 41, former flatmate of Damien Hirst and the brains behind the Young British Artists. He strung himself up with a woven silk noose from a tree on top of Scotland's Black Mount.

Yves Saint Laurent
Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Fashion guru Yves Saint Laurent (left), 71, and Nobel Prize-winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 89

It was farewell, too, to the much-loved Humphrey Lyttelton, 86-year-old cartoonist, humorist, jazz trumpeter and master of the double entendre as compere of Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue.

There was much sadness at the passing of celebrity tailor Doug Hayward, 73, whose Mayfair shop was the gathering place for well-dressed famous men of all walks of life in the Sixties and was still making Roger Moore, Michael Caine and Michael Parkinson look good.

Beryl Cook, 81, the former seaside landlady who became a celebrated popular artist, passed away in May. With her fat ladies and bar scenes reminiscent of Donald McGill's saucy postcards, she was adored by Britons of all shapes and sizes.

There were tears in May for Sydney Pollack, 73, Oscar-winning director of Tootsie and Out Of Africa, who worked with the biggest names in Hollywood including Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman and sometimes acted himself, before succumbing to cancer.

Dancer Cyd Charisse, 86, who high-kicked in such classics as Silk Stockings, Brigadoon and Singin' In The Rain, took her final curtain call in June. A childhood polio victim from small-town Texas, she overcame her disabilities to dance with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly.

Isaac Hayes
Paul Newman

Soul singer Isaac Hayes (left), 65, and three-time Oscar winner Paul Newman, 83

The fashion world mourned the death of Algerian-born Yves Saint Laurent, 71, who made it acceptable for women to wear trouser suits and designed Bianca Jagger's slashed-to-the-waist, white tux jacket for her 1971 wedding to pop star Mick.

Despite a troubled personal life and a history of drink and drug abuse, Saint Laurent's sublime feeling for colour, texture and shape made him the modern woman's favourite couturier.

Sir Charles Wheeler, 85, the veteran broadcaster known for his laconic style, passed away in July, surviving long enough to see his son-in-law, Boris Johnson, elected Mayor of London.

Crowds gathered in August at the lying-in-state of Russian dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 89. Accepting the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970, he quoted the Russian proverb: 'One truth shall outweigh the whole world.'

The music world lost soul singer Isaac Hayes, 65, the first Oscar-winning black composer, for the 1971 film Shaft, and the stage said goodbye to Simon Gray, 71, lugubrious and prolific playwright of black comedies.

September saw the passing of three-time Oscar-winning actor Paul Newman, 83, who had been suffering from cancer. He was famed as much for his twinkling blue eyes and smile as his performances in Cool Hand Luke and Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid.

Roy Scheider
Eartha Kitt

Jaws actor Roy Scheider (left), 75, and cabaret chanteuse Eartha Kitt, 81

After his son died of a drug overdose in 1978, Newman started a foundation against substance abuse, contributing profits from his £ 140million salad dressing business.

Across the Channel, Jorg Haider, 58, the controversial Austrian Far-Right leader, was killed in a car crash in October. The married father of two grown-up daughters spent his last hours drinking vodka in a seedy gay bar before losing control of his car at 90mph.

This month, U.S. heiress Sunny von Bulow, 76, in a coma for nearly 30 years, faded away without regaining consciousness.

Kathy Staff, who played Nora Batty in 243 episodes of Last Of The Summer Wine, died at the age of 80.

Christmas Eve saw the death of Harold Pinter, 78, who some said was awarded the Nobel Prize as much for his intransigent Leftie views as his pause-laden plays.

And sex kitten and world-famous cabaret chanteuse Eartha Kitt took her final curtain call aged 81 on Christmas Day.

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