Obituaries

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Fighter for women's rights at work

With Ged Kearney now president of the ACTU, the third woman to hold such a position, it might be said that the time of women in the trade union movement has well and truly come.

Talent for standing out paved way to an abundance of roles

The distinctive and beguiling actor David Kelly was a familiar face in British television sitcoms and on the stage in Dublin, but was perhaps best known in recent years for playing Grandpa Joe in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), an engaging performance that was honoured with a lifetime achievement award from the Irish Film and Television Academy.

From piloting bombers to airliners

Michael Collins Persse Lucius Windsor Manning was a distinguished airman in both war and peace. His lifelong nickname of Gogs, used by virtually all who knew him, came from a song during his childhood,'Barney Google with the goo-goo-googly eyes'. Notable also in yachting circles and as a devoted family man, he has died in Mansfield, aged 94.

Liberation champion rose to power through African nation's struggle

Kaye Whiteman Malam Bacai Sanha, who has died aged 64 after suffering from diabetes, was the president of Guinea-Bissau and a tenacious champion in his country's struggle for liberation. The war of independence gripped the west African country for 11 years from 1963.

Leader advocated social harmony

When Tran Van Canh was accepted into a monastery as a teenage novice, he could not have anticipated that one day he would become one of the most influential Buddhist leaders in both his country of birth and his country of resettlement.

Socialite amazed with string of lovers

Angela Culme-Seymour, with her camellia-like skin, glowing dark eyes and bewitching lashes, was a dazzling feature of smart society before and after World War II, changing husbands and lovers with bewildering regularity.

Trainer inspired mighty and meek

George Daldry chose to never return to Naoetsu on the Japanese island of Honshu, although he accepted that the horror and privation he endured there, and the life lessons he learnt as a prisoner of war, had helped to shape his future.

Long-serving on front line for women's rights

Dorothy Simons was one of a stream of highly motivated women - starting perhaps with the suffragettes, proceeding to Germaine Greer and on to women forcing their way into the military front line - who refused to remain in the stereotyped roles of wives and mothers, sidelined in society, obeying husbands and bearing children.

TV broadcaster created musical platform for black America

Don Cornelius was the smooth-voiced television host and creator of Soul Train. One of the longest-running syndicated shows in television history, it had a critical role in spreading the music of black America to the world, offering wide exposure to musicians such as James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye and Michael Jackson in the 1970s and '80s.

Designs were more than a set piece

Judith Cobb, theatre designer, painter and teacher, worked with virtually every theatre company in the country.

Leader of Hungary's nationalistic right echoed the policies of Hitler

Please place in layout for obits Isvan Czurka Geoff Strong

Douglas Martin Istvan Csurka, a leading Hungarian playwright and politician whose hypernationalistic, anti-Semitic views antagonised Communists when they ran the country, and all manner of people afterwards, has died in Budapest aged 77.

From war hero to censor, man of many hats made his mark in the Pacific

As a businessman, Dick Brewer always looked dignified and impeccably dressed, but there was another story, about him rescuing people stranded in Indonesia as the Japanese moved down the Malay Peninsula.

Nursing ideals extended to activism

Michael Longhurst was an activist for mentally ill people and a lifelong helper of the disenfranchised in society. He was a mental health nurse and, in recent years, an active member on the committee of the Endeavour Clubhouse in Port Macquarie, a vocational rehabilitation organisation dedicated to people with

Marble dust, ground chalk, sand, earth became art in Tapies' hands

WILLIAM GRIMES LARGELY self-taught Spanish abstract painter, Antoni Tapies, whose seductive, tactile surfaces were often scratched with graffiti-like marks, and made use of unconventional materials such as marble dust, ground chalk, sand and earth, has died in Barcelona at 88.

Unique, spellbinding talent addled by addiction

Whitney Houston was a willowy church singer with a towering voice who became a titan of the pop charts in the 1980s and '90s but then saw much of her success crumble away amid the fumes of addiction and reckless ego.

A unique voice for mentally ill patients

The hidden viewing compartment of the interview room at the Maudsley Hospital in London was often packed when Murray Jackson was interviewing a patient. Psychiatrists, psychotherapists and nurses watched in absorbed silence as Murray, and sometimes colleague Henri Rey, interviewed psychiatric patients at length. What would begin as seemingly chaotic miscommunication would often settle down to a serious, often moving, inquiry by two sane people into how and why the patient had apparently gone mad.

Actor brought intensity to antisocial roles

Few screen debuts have equalled the searing malevolence of Ben Gazzara's Iago-inspired Jocko De Paris in The Strange One (1957). The role, which he created on stage, became forever associated with this intense graduate of New York's method school of acting.

A woman of only the best affairs

British socialite, painter and journalist Angela Culme-Seymour cut a dazzling figure and changed husbands and lovers with bewildering regularity.

Historian supported US in Iraq but thought war was primitive

Steven Erlanger One of France's leading foreign policy analysts and intellectual historians, Therese Delpech, has died of a stroke, aged 63.

Diva's childhood call not 'nunsense'

Carmen Rupe was a leading figure of the antipodean lesbian gay bisexual and transgender community (LGBT) community, known as much for her achievements in gay rights as for her flamboyant style and, in later years, her brightly decorated sidewalk scooter.

Engineer foresaw Challenger tragedy

Six months before the space shuttle Challenger exploded over Florida on January 28, 1986, Roger Boisjoly wrote a portentous memo. He warned that if the weather was too cold, seals connecting sections of the shuttle's huge rocket boosters could fail.

Air Force volunteer was world's last veteran of World War I

Florence Green was the last veteran of World War I, though she saw no action. Instead she served with an embryonic Royal Air Force at a base which, like many military establishments, was suffering severe personnel shortages following the astonishing casualty rate on the frontline and the introduction of conscription in 1916.

Social worker helped the disabled

When the University of Sydney started training social workers in 1940, it opened the door to the women who went on to make their mark on the profession in Australia. One was Gwen Forsythe, who saw the course as a means to make a contribution and to travel.

Cardinal whose career was tainted by priest sex abuse cover-up

DOUGLAS MARTIN ANTHONY Bevilacqua, a former cardinal and archbishop of Philadelphia whose passion for Roman Catholic causes such as helping the poor and fighting abortion was eclipsed in retirement by accusations that he had covered up sexual abuse by priests, has died aged 88.

Prolific author made love and romance leap from a page

Penny Jordan worked as a secretary in a bank before she fired off a manuscript to Mills & Boon and became one of the world's biggest-selling romance authors, selling more than 90 million copies of nearly 190 titles.

Woman of style loved design

Jennie Carlborg was an elegant and sophisticated taste maker, with a sharp eye and an even sharper wit. From an early age, she was determined to have a cultured and interesting life, and she succeeded, travelling and working in Australia and France.

Investigator in O.J. Simpson case weathered criticism over probe

PHILIP Vannatter, who as a Los Angeles police detective helped lead the investigation into the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, and who was a major prosecution witness in the failed attempt to convict O. J. Simpson of the crime, has died of cancer in Los Angeles.

Free spirit had her lens on the world

Despite being from a respectable family in a grand Sydney house, Sheelagh Schneemann didn't care for convention. She hitch-hiked around Europe after the war, married a diplomat she met on the way and eventually made a name for herself as a photographer.

Life of a loyal and steadfast newspaperman told in print

David Richards devoted almost his entire working life to the production of the Sydney Morning Herald, from the hot-metal days to the offset printing era, with all the industrial woe that accompanied such a massive technological change. Rising to management level, he had to roll up his sleeves during strikes, especially the major disruption in 1977 when offset printing was introduced.