The following is a list of notable deaths in February 2002.
Entries for each day are listed alphabetically by surname. A typical entry lists information in the following sequence:
- Name, age, country of citizenship at birth, subsequent country of citizenship (if applicable), reason for notability, cause of death (if known), and reference.
1
- Aykut Barka, 50, Turkish earth scientist, traffic collision.
- Streamline Ewing, 85, American jazz trombonist, worked with Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, Jimmie Lunceford, Cab Calloway.[1]
- Hildegard Knef, 76, German actress and singer, pneumonia.[2]
- Irish McCalla, 73, American actress (Sheena, Queen of the Jungle) and artist, stroke and complications from brain tumor.[3]
- Daniel Pearl, 38, American journalist, decapitation.[4]
2
- Paul Baloff, 41, American vocalist (Exodus) , heart failure.
- Claude Brown, 64, American author (Manchild in the Promised Land).[5]
- Andy Hansen, 77, American baseball player (New York Giants, Philadelphia Phillies).[6]
- Ed Jucker, 85, American basketball coach (1961 and 1962 NCAA titles at Cincinnati) and baseball coach, prostate cancer.[7]
- Ani Pachen, 68, Tibetan freedom fighter, activist and author, known as Tibet's "warrior nun".[8]
- Remo Palmier, 78, American jazz guitarist (Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday).[9]
- Oscar Reutersvärd, 86, Swedish graphic artist.
3
- James Blackwood, 82, American Gospel singer (The Blackwood Brothers).[10]
- Kay Brownbill, 87, Australian media personality and politician.
- K. Chakravarthy, 65, Indian music director.
- Edward Thomas Chapman, 82, Welsh World War II British Army corporal and recipient of the Victoria Cross.[11]
- Rudolf Fleischmann, 98, German nuclear physicist.[12]
- Raymond Gérôme, 81, Belgian-French stage and screen actor.[13]
- Bill Harvey, 82, English football player.
- Mel McGaha, 75, American baseball coach and manager.
- Hans Paetsch, 92, German actor.
- Julien Rassam, 33, French actor, suicide.[14]
- Nelson Royal, 66, American professional wrestler, trainer and promoter, heart attack.
- Aglaja Veteranyi, 39, Romanian-Swiss writer, suicide by drowning.
4
- Agatha Barbara, 78, Maltese politician.[15]
- Sigvard Bernadotte, 94, Swedish prince.[16]
- Frederick J. Clarke, 86, US Army lieutenant General as Chief of Engineers.[17]
- Sarah Clarke, 82, Irish nun and civil rights campaigner.
- Bhagwan Dada, 88, Indian actor and film director, heart attack.
- Ralph Fritz, 84, American gridiron football player (University of Michigan, Philadelphia Eagles).[18]
- Wiesław Gąsiorek, 66, Polish tennis player.
- Miloslav Hamr, 85, Czechoslovak table tennis player.
- Bert Head, 85, English football player and manager.
- Inge Konradi, 77, Austrian stage and film actress, cancer.
- George Nader, 80, American actor (Six Bridges to Cross, Lady Godiva of Coventry, Sins of Jezebel), cardiopulmonary failure.[19]
- Helen Dodson Prince, 96, American astronomer.
- Broderick Thompson, 41, American gridiron football player (Kansas, San Diego Chargers), traffic collision.[20]
- Eve Titus, 79, American children's writer.
- Baxter Ward, 82, American television news anchor and two-term member of Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.[21]
5
- Angela du Maurier, 97, English actress and novelist.[22]
- Yasutake Funakoshi, 89, Japanese sculptor and painter.
- Raymond Martorano, 74, Italian-American mobster (Philadelphia crime family), shot.
- Robert Mather, 87, Australian politician.
- Annalee Whitmore Fadiman, 85, American screenwriter (Andy Hardy Meets Debutante, Babes in Arms) and World War II foreign correspondent, euthanasia.[23]
6
- Osman Bölükbaşı, Turkish politician and political party leader, respiratory failure.
- Grietje de Jongh, 77, Dutch Olympic sprinter.[24]
- Wendell Marshall, 81, American jazz double-bassist.[25]
- Eken Mine, 66, Japanese voice actor.
- Max Perutz, 87, Austrian-born British molecular biologist, and co-winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, cancer.[26]
- Yehoshua Rozin, 83, Israeli basketball coach.
- Guy Stockwell, 68, American actor (Adventures in Paradise, Beau Geste, The Richard Boone Show), complications from diabetes.[27]
7
- Elisa Bridges, 28, American actress and model, Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Month for December 1994, drug overdose.[28]
- Jack Fairman, 88, British Formula One driver.[29]
- David Gibson-Watt, Baron Gibson-Watt, 83, British politician.
- Diane Hart, 75, English actress and political campaigner.
- Lorne Henderson, 81, Canadian politician.
- Wilhelm Johnen, 80, German Luftwaffe night fighter ace during World War II.
- Jerrold Katz, 69, American philosopher and linguist.[30]
- Tony Pond, 56, British rally driver, pancreatic cancer.[31]
8
- Elisabeth Mann Borgese, 83, German-Canadian environmentalist, political scientist and writer, pneumonia.[32]
- Nick Brignola, 65, American jazz saxophonist.[33]
- Ong Teng Cheong, 66, Singaporean politician and fifth President of Singapore (1993-1999), lymphoma.[34]
- William T. Dillard, 87, American retailer (Dillard's Department Stores).[35]
- Maurice Foley, 76, British politician (Member of Parliament for West Bromwich).[36]
- Joachim Hoffmann, 71, German historian.[37]
- John Mark Inienger, 56, Nigerian Army major general, traffic collision.
- Lloyd Kiva New, 85, American Cherokee artist and designer.[38]
- Esther Afua Ocloo, 82, Ghanaian entrepreneur and pioneer of microlending, pneumonia.[39]
- Grigory Okhay, 85, Soviet MiG-15 flying ace during the Korean War.
- Giannis Pathiakakis, 48, Greek football player, heart attack.
- Duggie Reid, 84, Scottish football player.[40]
- Eldon Rudd, 81, American politician.
- Bob Wooler, 76, British disc jockey, known for introducing The Beatles to future manager, Brian Epstein.[41]
- Zizinho, 80, Brazilian football player, heart attack.[42]
9
- Miroslav Adlešič, 94, Slovene physicist.
- Michael Joseph Begley, 92, American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church.
- Richard Herbert Foote, 83, American entomologist.
- Fred Gehrke, 83, American football player (Los Angeles Rams) and executive (Denver Broncos).[43]
- Isabelle Holland, 81, American children's author.[44]
- Bill McElhiney, 87, American musician, band leader, and musical director, Alzheimer's disease.
- Judson Pratt, 85, American character actor.[45]
- Vesta M. Roy, 76, American politician.
- Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, 71, British royal and sister of Queen Elizabeth II, stroke.[46]
- Ale Ahmad Suroor, 90, Indian poet and critic.
10
- Jack Abbott, 58, American criminal and author (In the Belly of the Beast), suicide by hanging.[47]
- Chet Clemens, 84, American baseball player (Boston Bees/Braves).[48]
- Gonzalo Fernández de la Mora, 77, Spanish essayist and politician.[49]
- John Erickson, 72, British historian, a leading authority on the Soviet Union and Russia.[50]
- Ramón Arellano Félix, 37, Mexican drug lord, shot.
- Traudl Junge, 81, German secretary who took Adolf Hitler's last will and testament (Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary), lung cancer.[51]
- Syed Ali Akhtar Rizvi, 53, Indian Shī'ah scholar, historian, author and poet.
- Jim Spencer, 54, American baseball player (Chicago White Sox, New York Yankees, Oakland Athletics), heart attack.[52]
- Dan R. Tonkovich, 55, American politician. (body discovered on this date)
- Dave Van Ronk, 65, American folk singer, and an important figure in New York City's Greenwich Village scene in the 1960s, colorectal cancer.[53]
- Vernon A. Walters, 85, American U.S. Army officer and diplomat (Deputy Director of the C.I.A., U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations).[54]
11
- Mary Brooks, 94, American director of the United States Mint from 1969 to 1977.[55]
- Ralph Buchsbaum, 95, American zoologist, ecologist and author (Animals Without Backbones).[56]
- Frankie Crosetti, 91, American baseball player (New York Yankees) and coach (New York Yankees, Seattle Pilots, Minnesota Twins).[57]
- Barry Foster, 74, British actor, heart attack.[58]
- George A. Kasem, 82, American politician (U.S. Representative for California's 25th congressional district), pneumonia.[59]
- Les Peden, 78, American baseball player (Washington Senators).[60]
- Victor Posner, 83, American businessman, tycoon and corporate raider, pneumonia.[61]
- Gaetano Stammati, 93, Italian politician.
12
- Theresa Bernstein, 111, Polish-American artist and writer.[62]
- Barbara May Cameron, 47, American human rights activist.[63]
- William Lee Dwyer, 72, American federal judge (U.S. District Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington).[64]
- George Eiferman, 76, American bodybuilder, won Mr.Universe in 1962.[65]
- John Eriksen, 44, Danish footballer, fall.[66]
- Idé Oumarou, 65, Nigerien diplomat, government minister, and journalist, heart attack.[67]
- José Travassos, 75, Portuguese football player.
13
- George Bray, 83, English footballer.[68]
- Ramón Grosso, 58, Spanish footballer, cancer.
- Carlos Aboim Inglez, 72, Portuguese communist intellectual, militant and politician.
- Waylon Jennings, 64, American country music performer, actor, and disc jockey, diabetes.[69]
- Dick Kleiner, 80, American entertainment columnist and journalist.[70]
- Manfred Kuschmann, 51, East German long-distance runner.
- Edmar Mednis, 64, American chess grandmaster, complications from pneumonia.[71]
- Thomas J. H. Trapnell, 99, American U.S. Army lieutenant general.[72]
- Pauline Trigère, 93, French-American fashion designer.[73]
- Sidney Weighell, 79, British footballer, trade unionist and the General Secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen.[74]
14
- Domènec Balmanya, 87, Spanish football midfielder and manager.
- J. Desmond Clark, 85, British-American archeologist, anthropologist and author, pneumonia.[75]
- Gene Cook, 70, American professional football player (Detroit Lions), minor league baseball executive and elected official in Toledo, Ohio.[76]
- Norman Davidson, 85, American molecular biologist, a major figure in advancing genome research.[77]
- Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz, 81, French member of the resistance during WW II.[78]
- Nándor Hidegkuti, 79, Hungarian football player and manager (gold medal winner in Football at the 1952 Summer Olympics).[79]
- A. J. Kardar, 75, Pakistani film director, producer and screenwriter.
- Grover Krantz, 70, American anthropologist and cryptozoologist, known as a Bigfoot researcher, pancreatic cancer.[80]
- Bud Olson, 76, Canadian politician, Lieutenant Governor of Alberta.[81]
- John Stevens, 80, English musicologist, literary scholar and historian.[82]
- Mick Tucker, 54, English drummer for the glam rock band Sweet, leukemia.
- Günter Wand, 90, German orchestra conductor.[83]
15
- Doug Cash, 82, Australian politician.
- Mike Darr, 25, American baseball player (San Diego Padres), traffic collision.[84]
- Munro S. Edmonson, 77, American linguist and anthropologist.
- Lucille Lund, 88, American film actress (The Black Cat).[85]
- Ke Pauk, 68, Cambodian leaderof the Khmer Rouge.
- Jacques Roulot, 68, French fencer.[86]
- Howard K. Smith, 87, American television anchorman and political commentator, pneumonia.[87]
- Kevin Smith, 38, New Zealand actor, (Xena: Warrior Princess, Young Hercules), fall.[88]
- Garry Weston, 74, Canadian businessman (Associated British Foods).[89]
16
- Tommy Crutcher, 60, American professional football player (TCU, Green Bay Packers).[90]
- John W. Gardner, 89, American public servant, U.S. Secretary of H.E.W., cancer.[91]
- Peter Voulkos, 78, American ceramist, heart attack.[92]
- Walter Winterbottom, 88, British football manager, first full-time manager of the England football team, surgical complications.[93]
17
- Anthony Benjamin, 70, English painter and sculptor.[94]
- Ross Dowson, 84, Canadian Trotskyist politician.[95]
- Ehtesham, 74, Bangladeshi and Pakistani film director.
- Paterson Ewen, 76, Canadian painter and sculptor, known for his cosmological images.[96]
- Lev Kulidzhanov, 77, Soviet film director and screenwriter, stroke.
18
- Giustino Durano, 78, Italian actor (Life Is Beautiful).[97]
- Jack Lambert, 81, American actor.[98]
- Mohammed Dabo Lere, Nigerian politician.
- Gabriel Mariano, 73, Cape Verdean writer.[99]
- Byrne Piven, 72, American actor (Being John Malkovich, Miracle on 34th Street, Very Bad Things), lung cancer.[100]
- José Ortega Spottorno, 85, Spanish journalist and publisher.[101]
19
- Sal Bartolo, 84, American boxer and WBA featherweight champion.[102]
- Lila De Nobili, 85, Italian stage designer, costume designer, and fashion illustrator.[103]
- Otto Eisenmann, 88, German politician and member of the Bundestag.
- Virginia Hamilton, 67, American children's book author, breast cancer.[104]
- Swede Hanson, 68, American professional wrestler, sepsis.
- Rashid Ahmad Ludhianvi, 79, Pakistani Islamic scholar and faqīh.
- Sylvia Rivera, 50, American gay liberation and transgender activist, liver cancer.[105]
- Gene Ruggiero, 91, American film editor.
- Arne Selmosson, 70, Swedish football player and manager.[106]
- William Davis Taylor, 93, American newspaper executive and publisher of The Boston Globe.[107]
20
- Laura duPont, 52, American tennis player, 1977 U.S. Clay Court Champion, breast cancer.[108]
- Dennis Kelleher, 83, Irish football player.
- Stephen Longstreet, 94, American writer and artist.[109]
- Edwin H. May, Jr., 77, American businessman and politician.
- Jean Oser, 94, German-American film editor.
- Branko Stanković, 80, Bosnian Serb footballer and manager.[110]
- Fredric Steinkamp, 73, American film editor (Grand Prix, Tootsie, Out of Africa), Oscar winner (1967).
- Willie Thrower, 71, American gridiron football player (Michigan State, Chicago Bears), heart attack.[111]
21
- A. L. Barker, 83, British author.[112]
- Laudomia Bonanni, 94, Italian writer and journalist.[113]
- Roden Cutler, 85, Australian diplomat and Governor of New South Wales.[114]
- Bill Faul, 61, American baseball player (Detroit Tigers, Chicago Cubs, San Francisco Giants).[115]
- Harold Furth, 72, Austrian-American physicist and a leader in controlled fusion research, heart attack.[116]
- Pietro Grossi, 84, Italian computer music pioneer, visual artist and hacker.[117]
- Trevor Hampton, 89, British diver.
- Leroy Milton Kelly, 87, American mathematician.[118]
- Harold Pruett, 32, American actor (The Outsiders), accidental drug overdose.
- John Thaw, 60, British actor (Inspector Morse, The Sweeney, Kavanagh QC), cancer.[119]
- Georges Vedel, 91, French public law professor.[120]
- Harold Weisberg, 88, American civil servant, investigative reporter and author.[121]
22
- Paddy Ambrose, 73, football player and coach from Dublin, Ireland.
- Maria Corti, 86, Italian philologist, literary critic, and novelist.[122]
- Vyacheslav Dryagin, 61, Soviet Olympic skier (Winter Olympics men's Nordic combined: 1964, 1968, 1972).[123]
- Raymond Firth, 100, British anthropologist.[124]
- Chuck Jones, 89, American animator, creator of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, heart failure.[125]
- Francisco Mora, 79, Mexican artist of the "Mexican School" of mural painters.
- Joaquim Olmos, 86, Spanish racing cyclist.[126]
- Poncke Princen, 76, Dutch anti-Nazi fighter during World War II and activist.[127]
- Jonas Malheiro Savimbi, 67, Angolan revolutionary, leader of UNITA, shot.[128]
- Barbara Valentin, 61, Austrian actress, cerebral hemorrhage.[129]
- Ronnie Verrell, 76, English jazz drummer.[130]
23
- Franz Elbern, 91, German footballer.[131]
- Bernd Hartstein, 54, German Olympic sport shooter and trainer, leukemia.[132]
- Peaches Jackson, 88, American film actress.
- Gordon Matthews, 65, American inventor and businessman, considered the father of "voice mail", stroke.[133]
- Prathyusha, 20, Indian actress, suicide by poisoning.[134]
- Ryszard Przybysz, 52, Polish Olympic handball player.[135]
24
- Martin Esslin, 83, Hungarian-British producer, dramatist, and journalist, Parkinson's disease.[136]
- David Hawkins, 88, American philosopher and historian of the Manhattan Project.[137]
- Stanislav Libenský, 80, Czech contemporary artist.[138]
- Arthur Lyman, 70, American jazz vibraphone and marimba player ("Yellow Bird"), esophageal cancer.[139]
- Leo Ornstein, 106, Russian-born American experimental composer and pianist.[140]
- Mel Stewart, 72, American actor, television director, and musician, Alzheimer's disease.[141]
- Robert Strausz-Hupé, 98, American diplomat (U.S. Ambassador to: Sri Lanka, Belgium, Sweden, NATO, Turkey).[142]
- Hela Yungst, 52, Israeli-American actress (Guiding Light, All My Children) and beauty pageant winner, cancer.[143]
25
- Clint Alberta, 32, Canadian filmmaker, suicide by jumping.[144]
- Claire Davenport, 68, English actress, kidney failure.
- António Dembo, 57, Angolan anti-communist revolutionary, leader of UNITA, killed in action.[145]
- Clive L. DuVal II, 89, American politician and lawyer, cancer.
- Afaq Hussain, 62, Pakistani cricketer.[146]
26
- L. Balaraman, 70, Indian politician, MP (1984–1991, 1996–1998).[147]
- Werner Grothmann, 86, German Waffen-SS officer during World War II and aide-de-camp to Heinrich Himmler.
- Helen Megaw, 94, Irish crystallographer.
- Oskar Sala, 91, German physicist, composer and a pioneer of electronic music (The Birds).[148]
- Lawrence Tierney, 82, American actor (Dillinger, The Greatest Show on Earth, Reservoir Dogs), pneumonia.[149]
- Tony Young, 64, American actor (Gunslinger, General Hospital, Star Trek), lung cancer.[150]
27
- Georges Beaucourt, 89, French football player.[151]
- Tord Godal, 92, Norwegian theologian and bishop for the Diocese of Nidaros.
- Warren Harding, 77, American rock climber.[152]
- Spike Milligan, 83, Irish actor, comedian and writer (The Goon Show), kidney failure.[153]
- Dykes Potter, 91, American baseball player (Brooklyn Dodgers).[154]
- Kosta Angeli Radovani, 85, Croatian sculptor and member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
- Surajit Chandra Sinha, Indian anthropologist.[155]
28
- Janice Cooper, 62, Australian Olympic high jumper (women's high jump at the 1956 Summer Olympics).[156]
- Ehsan Jafri, Indian politician, killed by a mob.
- Mary Stuart, 75, American actress (Search for Tomorrow), bone cancer, stroke.[157]
- Helmut Zacharias, 82, German violinist and composer, Alzheimer's disease.[158]
"Joachim Hoffmann". catalogue.bnf.fr (in French). Bibliothèque nationale de France. Retrieved October 9, 2023. "Zizinho". worldfootball.net. Retrieved October 9, 2023. "Idé Oumarou". catalogue.bnf.fr (in French). Bibliothèque nationale de France. Retrieved October 9, 2023. "Pietro Grossi". catalogue.bnf.fr (in French). Bibliothèque nationale de France. Retrieved October 10, 2023. "Leroy Milton Kelly". catalogue.bnf.fr (in French). Bibliothèque nationale de France. Retrieved October 10, 2023. "Georges Vedel". data.bnf.fr (in French). Bibliothèque nationale de France. Retrieved October 10, 2023. "Maria Corti". data.bnf.fr (in French). Bibliothèque nationale de France. Retrieved October 10, 2023. "Poncke Princen". catalogue.bnf.fr (in French). Bibliothèque nationale de France. Retrieved October 10, 2023. "Barbara Valentin". data.bnf.fr (in French). Bibliothèque nationale de France. Retrieved October 10, 2023. "Ronnie Verrell". catalogue.bnf.fr (in French). Bibliothèque nationale de France. Retrieved October 10, 2023.