Notable deaths of 2007: Newsmakers

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Notable deaths of 2007: Newsmakers

Notable deaths of 2007: Newsmakers

Benazir Bhutto, 54: The Pakistani opposition leader was assassinated Dec. 27 in a suicide attack during her last election compaign rally in Rawalpindi just two months after she returned from exile.

Tom Murphy, 83: Georgia Rep. Tom Murphy employed humor, sarcasm and fear as the House Speaker to keep sometimes rowdy legislators in line during his long tenure. He died Dec. 17.

Tammy Faye Messner, 65: The former wife of televangelist, and later convicted felon, Jim Bakker, died July 20 of cancer. She co-hosted with Bakker on 'The PTL Club' from 1976-1987.

Michael Deaver, 69: President Ronald Reagan (right) waves to photographers as he and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Michael Deaver walk toward Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington in this Aug. 30, 1984 file photo. Deaver, one Ronald Reagan's closest advisers during in the White House and the director of the president's picturesque and symbolic public appearances, died on Aug. 18.

Columnist Art Buchwald died Jan. 17, nearly one year after deciding to check into a hospice with kidney failure and stopping his dialysis. He was 81. Buchwald, a columnist for the Washington Post, received the Pulitizer Prize in 1982 and 1986.

Syndicated columnist Molly Ivins poses for a portrait at her home in this Friday, Sept. 22, 2006 file photo, in Austin, Texas. Best-selling author and columnist Ivins, the sharp-witted liberal who skewered the political establishment and referred to President Bush as "Shrub, " died Jan. 31, after a long battle with breast cancer. She was 62.

Author Sidney Sheldon, 80, is photographed at New York's Waldorf Astoria in this October 1997 file photo. Sheldon, who won awards in three careers- Broadway theater, movies and television- before turning to writing best-selling novels, died Tuesday, Jan. 30. He was 89.

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., 89: A provocative liberal and a historian who wrote more than 20 books, including "A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House" died Feb. 28 from cardiac arrest in New York City. He won two Pulitzer Prizes and was one of two advisers who opposed Kennedy's plan to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.

Boris Yeltsin, 76: Russia's first post-Communist president engineered the final collapse of the Soviet Union and pushed Russia to embrace democracy and a market economy died April 23.

Astronaut Walter M. "Wally" Schirra, 84: Commander of the first manned Apollo mission, and one of the original Project Mercury astronauts, died May 3. He was also the only astronaut to fly in the first three U.S. space programs: Apollo, Gemini and Mercury.

The Rev. Jerry Falwell, 73: Founded the Moral Majority and built the religious right into a political force. He died May 15 shortly after being found unconscious in his office at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va.

Yolanda Denise King, 51: Eldest daughter of civil right leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King died May 15 in Santa Monica, Calif.

Lady Bird Johnson, 94: Former First Lady at her first visit to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Trail at Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain in 2001. The Trail was dedicated in honor of the former first lady. Johnson died from natural causes July 11 at her home in Austin, Texas.

Liz Claiborne, 78: A fashion designer best known for founding Liz Claiborne Inc. which in 1986 became the first company founded by a woman to make the Fortune 500. Claiborne's styles became an important influence for career women in the 1970s and 1980s, She died June 26 following a long battle with cancer.

Richard Jewell, 44: The former Olympic security guard hugs his mother Barbara in August 2006 after he received a commendation from Gov. Sonny Perdue for his service during the Olympics. Jewell died Aug. 29 from natural causes.

Ruth Bell Graham, 87: The Grahams walk in front of Ruth birthplace in Huaiyin, Jiangsu province, China, in 1988. The wife of evangelist Billy Graham died at her home in Montreat, N.C., on June 14.

Kurt Vonnegut, 84: The author, whose dark comic talent and urgent moral vision in novels like "Slaughterhouse-Five, " "Cat's Cradle" and "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" caught the temper of his times and the imagination of a generation, died April 11 in New York City. A fall at his Manhattan home several weeks prior resulted in irreversible brain injuries.

Norman Mailer, 84: The combative, controversial novelist who loomed over American letters longer and larger than any writer of his generation, died of acute renal failure Nov. 10 in New York City.

Col. Paul Tibbets, 92: The pilot of the B-29 Superfortress that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945 died Nov. 1 in Columbus, Ohio, from heart failure. "I sleep clearly every night," he said during 1975 interview.

Evel Knievel is shown in his rocket before a failed attempt at a highly promoted 3/4-mile leap across Snake River Canyon in Twin Falls, Idaho, in 1974. He failed spectacularly, but the fanfare surrounding the jump was so great that Knievel's star-spangled image became indelible.

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Benazir Bhutto, 54: The Pakistani opposition leader was assassinated Dec. 27 in a suicide attack during her last election compaign rally in Rawalpindi just two months after she returned from exile.

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