Celebrity Deaths

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William Norris "Billy" Powell (June 3, 1952 – January 28, 2009) was the longtime keyboardist of Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd.

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Norman Antony Hart (15 October 1925 – 18 January 2009) was an English artist and children's television presenter.

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Dock Phillip Ellis, Jr. (March 11, 1945 – December 19, 2008) was a Major League Baseball player who pitched for the Pittsburgh Pirates, among other teams. His best season was 1971, when he won 19 games for the World Series champion Pirates and was the starting pitcher for the National League in the All-Star Game.

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John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic. Updike's most famous work is his Rabbit series (Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; Rabbit At Rest; and Rabbit Remembered). Both Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest received the Pulitzer Prize. Describing his subject as "the American small town, Protestant middle class," Updike was widely recognized for his careful craftsmanship, his highly stylistic writing, and his prolific output, having published more than twenty-five novels and more than a dozen short story collections, as well as poetry, art criticism, literary criticism and children's books. Hundreds of his stories, reviews, and poems appeared in The New Yorker, starting in 1954. He also wrote regularly for The New York Review of Books. His work attracted a significant amount of critical attention and he was considered one of the most prominent contemporary American novelists. Updike died of lung cancer on January 27, 2009.

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The following is a list of notable deaths in December 2008.

31

* Premjit Lall, 68, Indian tennis player, after long illness. [1]
* Kazbek Pagiyev, 49, Russian Mayor of Vladikavkaz, shot. [2]
* Brad Sullivan, 77, American actor (Slap Shot). [3]
* Vic Washington, 62, American football player (San Francisco 49ers). [4]
* Donald E. Westlake, 75, American mystery writer, heart attack. [5]
* Christian Martin Wölffer, 70, German-born American winery owner, boating accident. [6]

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Ronald Frank Asheton (July 17, 1948 – c. January 6, 2009) was an American guitarist and co-songwriter with Iggy Pop for the rock band The Stooges.

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