Cesar Chavez, 66, son of a migrant farm worker who organized itinerant laborers into the nation’s first successful union for farm laborers; he led a nationwide grape boycott in the 1960s as president of the California-based United Farm Workers, which gave voice to immigrant farm laborers, many of them poor and Hispanic; blending non-violent resistance with organizational skills, he captured worldwide attention as he led an initially lonely battle to unionize the workers in the fields and orchards of California; found dead April 23, in San Luis, Ariz., apparently of natural causes.
Dr. Theodore Cooper, 64, who guided Upjohn Co. through restructurings, increased drug development and a controversy over its sleeping aid Halcion; he was named chairman and CEO in 1987, becoming the first chief of the pharmaceutical company to be unrelated to the firm’s founding family; known for his easy-going manner and 12-hour workdays, he steered Upjohn through the early stages of a difficult transition in which the company prepared to lose patent protection on several of its best-selling drugs and worked to develop new drugs to fill the revenue gap; April 22, in Kalamazoo, Mich., of complications from bone marrow cancer.
Gov. George S. Mickelson, 52, South Dakota’s Republican chief executive since 1986 won a second four-year term in 1990; previously, he had served six years in the South Dakota House; his father, George T., was governor of South Dakota in 1947-51; like his father’s, his career began as a rural lawyer; April 19, near Dubuque, Iowa, in the crash of a state-owned, twin-engine Mitsubishi turboprop plane en route from Cincinnati. Also killed were seven other men, including five who were state officials or businessmen.
Cantinflas, 81, Mexico’s most famous comic actor; born Mario Moreno Reyes, he started out as a prize fighter as a teenager, but went on to make 49 films over a half-century; he was best-known abroad for his role as the devoted servant opposite David Niven in “Around the World in 80 Days” (1956); Cantinflas is a meaningless name that he invented when he was young to keep his parents from knowing he was in show business, then considered a shameful occupation; April 20, in Mexico City, of lung cancer.
Bernie Wayne, 74, who composed the music for the enduring hit “Blue Velvet” and wrote “There She Is,” the crowning theme of the Miss America Pageant; his “Laughing on the Outside, Crying on the Inside,” “You Walk By” and “Sentimental Music” were recorded by Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Tony Bennett, Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald and others; April 18, in his home in Marina del Rey, Calif.
Andries P. Treurnicht, 72, founder and leader of South Africa’s pro-apartheid Conservative Party whose opposition to reform earned him the nickname “Dr. No”; he was a former fire-and-brimstone preacher in the Dutch Reformed Church and a newspaper editor; as a member of the National Party, he had risen to prominence and became a Cabinet member; in 1982, alarmed by proposed concessions to citizens of color, he quit the party and formed a new one; April 22, in Cape Town, following heart-bypass surgery.
Mary Conrad, 49, associate judge of the Cook County Circuit Court who also wrote and lectured extensively on legal ethics; she had been confined to a wheelchair since suffering a spinal injury at age 12; April 20, in Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Emil Synek, 89, Czech author and playwright who opposed Hitler and communism; he wrote more than 20 plays and won a national literary prize in 1934; he also wrote novels and biographies and directed films in Prague; he turned to political journalism and opposed Hitler’s regime, then fled to France and fought with the Czech militia until he was evacuated at Dunkirk; in London, he joined the Czech exile government; from exile in France, he wrote Cold War analyses of Soviet affairs until retiring in 1973; April 12 (announced Friday), in Paris.
Turgut Ozal, 66, Turkey’s president whose pro-Western policies helped modernize the country and gave the U.S.-led coalition a strategic ally during the Persion Gulf war, when warplanes used Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey for bombing runs over Iraq; he became prime minister after his Motherland Party won 1983 elections and was named president in 1989; April 17, in Ankara, Turkey, of a heart ailment.
Harold E. White, 79, editor emeritus of the Naperville Sun; he had been the west suburban newspaper’s editor and publisher from 1936 until he sold it in March 1991 to Copley Press; as editor emeritus, he also wrote a weekly column, Dear Arch; he was born in India, where his parents had been sent by the Methodist Church Board to teach English in an Indian school; April 19, in Delnor Community Hospital, Geneva.
Robert Westall, 63, British author whose more than two dozen books for young people won awards at home and abroad; his youth during the German air blitz of Britain provided inspiration for much of his fiction, as did his love for cats and the supernatural; his first novel, “The Machine-Gunners” (1975), depicted five English boys who find and hide a machine gun during World War II; April 15 (announced Tuesday), in Cheshire.
Steve Douglas, 55, musician who played the saxophone with performers such as Sam Cooke, Elvis Presley, Barbra Streisand and Frank Sinatra; he was one of high school friend Phil Spector’s “Phil’s Regulars” that included percussionist Sonny Bono, guitarist Glen Campbell and keyboardist Leon Russell; he played sax solos on Beach Boys and Jan & Dean albums, and he toured with Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton; April 19, in Los Angeles, of heart failure.
Howard Young, 81, Chicago-born producer of plays and musicals for Broadway, national tours and the Sacramento, Calif., Music Circus, of which he was a founder in the early 1950s; with partner Russell Lewis, he produced eight shows on Broadway and 27 for national tours from 1945 to 1951; among their Broadway productions were revivals of Noel Coward’s “Tonight at 8:30,” with Gertrude Lawrence; Oscar Wilde’s “Lady Windermere’s Fan,” with Cornelia Otis Skinner, and “The Desert Song”; April 19, in Santa Barbara, Calif.
Andre Oliver, 61, main assistant to designer Pierre Cardin; he specialized in soft, ruffly looks and always appeared with Cardin onstage after couture shows; born in Toulouse, he studied at the Beaux-Arts academy in Paris and joined Cardin in 1951; he created several men’s wear collections, but was best known for his participation in Cardin’s couture lines; April 22, in his Paris home.
Max W. Matz, 85, award-winning landscape architect who headed the landscape department of the Chicago Park District in the late 1960s and early ’70s; in 1973 he was one of two representatives of the Chicago Park District to be honored at a White House ceremony recognizing two park district landscaping projects; April 19, in Glenbrook Hospital, Glenview.
Edmund C. Horman, 87, whose crusade in investigating the disappearance of his son, Charles, a 31-year-old filmmaker and writer, during a 1973 Chilean military coup was portrayed in the 1982 movie “Missing”; he flew to Chile to seek his son, whom he knew had been seized by soldiers; only later did he learn Charles had been shot to death; April 16, in New York.
Arthur J. Costello, 76, retired union organizer who served 40 years as an official and business agent for the Chicago Truck Drivers, Helpers & Warehouse Workers Union and is credited with helping to keep it free of corruption and independent; April 19, in Our Lady of Resurrection Hospital.
Conrad A. Miller Jr., 58, director of Northern Illinois University’s physical plant and the first recipient, last year, of a new anti-cancer drug, fostriecin; April 17, in his De Kalb home.
Alice Raleigh, 80, whose sauteed frog legs and pan-fried chicken drew thousands of inner-tube riders to her River’s Edge restaurant on northwestern Wisconsin’s Apple River, near Somerset; until she collapsed at her home in January, she had worked daily in her restaurant, where she was affectionately known as the “first lady of the Apple River”; her late husband, Jack, had been a boxing promoter in St. Paul; April 15, in a St. Paul hospital, of diabetes.
Dame Elisabeth Frink, 62, whose powerful sculptures made her one of Britain’s most celebrated artists; her massive male figures and naturalistic sculptures of horses and dogs brought her early fame, and she was made a member of the Royal Academy in 1977; April 18, in her home in Woolland, Dorset County, England.
