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AALIYAH, 22, R&B star who had two…

AALIYAH, 22, R&B star who had two Grammy nominations, a platinum album and a rising movie career; she made her film debut in “Romeo Must Die” (2000) and was signed to appear in two sequels to the thriller “The Matrix”; she sold a million copies of her debut album, “Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number” (1994); she was born Aaliyah Haughton in Brooklyn and grew up in Detroit; Aug. 25 in the crash of a small plane in the Bahamas that took nine lives.

JANE GREER, 76, film noir star who was married, as a teenager, to bandleader Rudy Vallee for six months; as a sultry brunet, she bested Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas in “Out of the Past” (1947); she was a child model but suffered facial paralysis after contracting Bell’s palsy at 15; overcoming the disorder, she caught the eye of Hollywood after appearing in Life magazine and was signed to an RKO contract and made 24 films; Aug. 24, in Los Angeles.

GOVAN MBEKI, 91, father of South African President Thabo Mbeki and a revered leader of the nation’s struggle against apartheid; an intellectual and former newspaper editor, he was forced underground and later spent 23 years in jail with former President Nelson Mandela under the apartheid regime; Aug. 27, in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

BOB MARTWICK, 75, who discovered television advertising star Morris the Cat in a Hinsdale humane society in the 1960s; a handler and trainer, he traveled the world with Morris and a second Morris, advertising cat food for 27 years; he also discovered Spuds MacKenzie, the party-loving pitch dog for a national brewery; Aug. 26, in Good Samaritan Hospital, Downers Grove.

RAYMOND WILDING-WHITE, 78, British-born composer and conceptual musician who taught music at DePaul University for more than 18 years before retiring in the late 1980s; his compositions, numbering roughly 100, range from operas and symphonies to experimental works incorporating electronic and taped sounds; Aug. 24, in Kewaunee, Wis.

MICHAEL L. DERTOUZOS, 64, influential computer pioneer whose belief that machines could improve the human condition helped shape the modern technological era; since 1964, he was director of the computer science laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Aug. 27, in Boston.

FRED HOYLE, 86, British astronomer who coined the term Big Bang in the 1950s but never accepted that theory for the origin of the universe; working with two colleagues in the 1940s, he proposed a steady-state theory that argued the universe developed in a process of continuous growth; he also was a popular science-fiction novelist; Aug. 20, in London.

DR. JARL DYRUD, 79, University of Chicago professor and authority on the teaching and practice of psychoanalysis; he was known for a common-sense approach to therapy; Aug. 26, in his Hyde Park home.

IRWIN E. KLASS, 91, longtime public-relations director and union newspaper editor for the Chicago Federation of Labor and a CFL delegate for more than 60 years; Aug. 29, in the Self Help Home in Chicago.

E.T. HALL, 77, Oxford University archeology professor who in 1953 exposed the hoax of Piltdown Man, found in southern England in 1912 and once thought to be a missing evolutionary link; he showed that the skeleton was stained to appear fossilized; Aug. 11, in London.

DR. HARRY M. MEYER JR., 72, co-developer of the German measles vaccine that has helped save millions of children from birth defects since 1966; he and Dr. Paul Parkman worked five years to develop the vaccine for rubella, 12.5 million cases of which left 20,000 children with birth defects after an outbreak in 1964-66; since then, there has been no major epidemic of it; Aug. 19, in Kenmore, Wash.

CAL COLLINS, 68, jazz guitarist who was featured with Benny Goodman’s band in the late 1970s; he also released internationally acclaimed albums in the 1980s but was best known as a fixture in the Cincinnati jazz scene; Aug. 26, in Dillsboro, Ind., of liver failure.

DIANA GOLDEN BROSNIHAN, 38, who lost a leg to cancer at 12, won a gold medal in disabled skiing at the 1988 Calgary Olympics and played a major role in public appreciation of disabled athletes; in 1997, she was inducted into the Women’s Sports Foundation International Hall of Fame and, as the first disabled skier, into the National Ski Hall of Fame; she retired from skiing in 1990 and turned to motivational speaking despite the return of cancer; Aug. 25, in Providence., R.I.

PETER SAECKER, 66, editor and co-author of the Everyday Mathematics program used by nearly 2 million U.S. elementary school pupils; Aug. 27, in Berwyn.

D. JOSEPH CORR, 60, chairman and president of Continental Airlines for 11 months in the late 1980s and a business troubleshooter in the airline industry hailed by executives for his ability to improve failing companies; Aug. 21, in Houston, of cancer.