Notable Deaths on December 2

Philip Arthur Larkin was an English poet, novelist, and librarian. His first book of poetry, The North Ship, was published in 1945, followed by two novels, Jill (1946) and A Girl in Winter (1947). He came to prominence in 1955 with the publication of his second collection of poems, The Less Deceived, followed by The Whitsun Weddings (1964) and High Windows (1974). He contributed to The Daily Telegraph as its jazz critic from 1961 to 1971, with his articles gathered in All What Jazz: A Record Diary 1961–71 (1985), and edited The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse (1973). His many honours include the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. He was offered, but declined, the position of Poet Laureate in 1984, following the death of Sir John Betjeman.

Charles Clarence Robert Orville Cummings was an American film and television actor who appeared in roles in comedy films such as The Devil and Miss Jones (1941) and Princess O'Rourke (1943), and in dramatic films, especially two of Alfred Hitchcock's thrillers, Saboteur (1942) and Dial M for Murder (1954). He received five Primetime Emmy Award nominations, and won the Primetime Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Single Performance in 1955. On February 8, 1960, he received two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the motion picture and television industries, at 6816 Hollywood Boulevard and 1718 Vine Street. He used the stage name Robert Cummings from mid-1935 until the end of 1954 and was credited as Bob Cummings from 1955 until his death.

Joseph Arthur Jean Béliveau was a Canadian professional ice hockey player who played parts of 20 seasons with the National Hockey League's (NHL) Montreal Canadiens from 1950 to 1971. Inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1972, "Le Gros Bill" Béliveau is widely regarded as one of the ten greatest NHL players of all time. Born in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Béliveau first played professionally in the Quebec Major Hockey League (QMHL). He made his NHL debut with the Canadiens in 1950, but chose to remain in the QMHL full-time until 1953. From 1950 to 1971, he spent his entire NHL career with the Canadiens.

Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, KG, PC,, known by the epithet "The Proud Duke", was an English aristocrat and courtier. He rebuilt Petworth House in Sussex, the ancient Percy seat inherited from his wife, in the palatial form which survives today. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, he was a remarkably handsome man, and inordinately fond of taking a conspicuous part in court ceremonial. His vanity, which earned him the sobriquet of "the proud duke", was a byword among his contemporaries and was the subject of numerous anecdotes; Macaulay described him as "a man in whom the pride of birth and rank amounted almost to a disease".

Reginald Leslie "Snowy" Baker was an Australian athlete, sports promoter, and actor. Born in Surry Hills, an inner-city suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Baker excelled at a number of sports, winning New South Wales swimming and boxing championships while still a teenager. Playing rugby union for Eastern Suburbs, he played several games for New South Wales against Queensland, and in 1904 represented Australia in two Test matches against Great Britain. At the 1908 London Olympics, Baker represented Australasia in swimming and diving, as well as taking part in the middleweight boxing event, in which he won a silver medal. He also excelled in horsemanship, water polo, running, rowing and cricket. However, "His stature as an athlete depends largely upon the enormous range rather than the outstanding excellence of his activities; it was as an entrepreneur-showman, publicist and businessman that he seems in retrospect to have been most important."

Dame Alicia Markova DBE was a British ballerina and a choreographer, director and teacher of classical ballet. Most noted for her career with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and touring internationally, she was widely considered to be one of the greatest classical ballet dancers of the twentieth century. She was the first British dancer to become the principal dancer of a ballet company and, with Dame Margot Fonteyn, is one of only two English dancers to be recognised as a prima ballerina assoluta. Markova was a founder dancer of the Rambert Dance Company, The Royal Ballet and American Ballet Theatre, and was co-founder and director of the English National Ballet.

Namık Kemal was an Ottoman writer, poet, democrat, intellectual, reformer, journalist, playwright, and political activist who was influential in the formation of the Young Ottomans and their struggle for governmental reform in the Ottoman Empire during the late Tanzimat period, which led to the First Constitutional Era in the Empire in 1876. Kemal championed notions of freedom and fatherland in his plays and poems, and his works had a significant impact on the establishment of and future reform movements in Turkey, as well as other former Ottoman territories. He is often regarded as being instrumental in redefining Western concepts like natural rights and constitutional government.

John of Ruusbroec or Jan van Ruusbroec, sometimes modernized Ruysbroeck, was an Augustinian canon and one of the most important of the medieval mystics of the Low Countries. Some of his main literary works include The Kingdom of the Divine Lovers, The Twelve Beguines, The Spiritual Espousals, A Mirror of Eternal Blessedness, The Little Book of Enlightenment, and The Sparkling Stone. Some of his letters also survive, as well as several short sayings. He wrote in the Middle Dutch vernacular, the language of the common people of the Low Countries, rather than in Latin, the language of the Catholic Church liturgy and official texts, in order to reach a wider audience.

ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad III, more commonly known as ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn, son of Jalāl al-Dīn Ḥasan III, was the 26th Nizāri Isma'ilism Imām. He ruled the Nizari Ismaili state from 1221 to 1255. By some accounts, he was considered a respected scholar and the spiritual and worldly leader of the Nisari Ismailis. The intellectual life of Persia has been described as having flourished during his 34-year reign. Allegedly, he was known for his tolerance and pluralism. His reign witnessed the beginnings of the Mongol conquests of Persia and the eastern Muslim world. He was assassinated by an unknown perpetrator on 1 December 1255, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Rukn al-Din Khurshah, in 1255.

Luis Federico Leloir was an Argentine physician and biochemist who received the 1970 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of the metabolic pathways by which carbohydrates are synthesized and converted into energy in the body. Although born in France, Leloir received the majority of his education at the University of Buenos Aires and was director of the private research group Fundación Instituto Campomar until his death in 1987. His research into sugar nucleotides, carbohydrate metabolism, and renal hypertension garnered international attention and led to significant progress in understanding, diagnosing and treating the congenital disease galactosemia. Leloir is buried in La Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires.

William Porter "Bill" Lawrence was a decorated United States Navy vice admiral and Naval Aviator who served as Superintendent of the United States Naval Academy from 1978 to 1981. Lawrence was a noted pilot, the first Naval Aviator to fly twice the speed of sound in a naval aircraft, and one of the final candidates for the Mercury space program. During the Vietnam War, Lawrence was shot down while on a combat mission and spent six years as a prisoner of war, from 1967 to 1973. During this time, he became noted for his resistance to his captors.

Marshall Bruce Mathers III, known professionally as Eminem, is an American rapper, songwriter, record producer, and record executive. Known for his rap flow and conscious rap, which includes political criticism and social commentary, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential rappers of all time, often credited with popularizing hip-hop in Middle America and the acceptance of white rappers. While much of his transgressive art during the late 1990s and early 2000s made him a controversial figure, Eminem has become a representation of popular angst in lower-income America.

Gail Fisher was an American actress who was one of the first Black women to play substantive roles in American television. She was best known for playing the role of secretary Peggy Fair on the television detective series Mannix from 1968 through 1975, a role for which she won two Golden Globe Awards and an Emmy Award; she was the first African-American woman to win those prestigious awards. She also won an NAACP Image Award in 1969. In addition to her acting career, Fisher was a successful jazz lyricist.

Ivan Dominic Illich was an Austrian Catholic priest, theologian, philosopher, and social critic. His 1971 book Deschooling Society criticises modern society's institutional approach to education, an approach that he argued demotivates and alienates individuals from the process of learning. His 1975 book Medical Nemesis, importing to the sociology of medicine the concept of medical harm, in which he argues that industrialised society impairs quality of life through processes such as overmedicalisation, the pathologisation of normal conditions, and increased dependency on medical institutions. Illich called himself "an errant pilgrim."

John Nicholas Ringling was an American entrepreneur who is the best known of the seven Ringling brothers, five of whom merged the Barnum & Bailey Circus with their own Ringling Bros. World's Greatest Shows to create a virtual monopoly of traveling circuses and helped shape the modern circus. In addition to owning and managing many of the largest circuses in the United States, he was also a rancher, a real estate developer and art collector. He was inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame in 1987.

Trần Trọng Kim (Vietnamese: [t͡ɕən˨˩ t͡ɕawŋ͡m˧˨ʔ kim˧˧]; chữ Hán: 陳仲金, Kanji pronunciation: Chin Jūkin; Japanese: チャン・チョン・キム, romanized: Chan Chon Kimu; 1883 – December 2, 1953; courtesy name Lệ Thần was a Vietnamese scholar and politician who served as the Prime Minister of the short-lived Empire of Vietnam, a state established with the support of Imperial Japan in 1945 after Japan had seized direct control of Vietnam from Vichy France toward the end of World War II. He was an uncle of Bùi Diễm.

John Brown was an American abolitionist in the decades preceding the American Civil War. An evangelical Christian of strong religious convictions, Brown was profoundly influenced by the Puritan faith of his upbringing. He believed that he was "an instrument of God", raised to strike the "death blow" to slavery in the United States, a "sacred obligation". Brown was the leading exponent of violence in the American abolitionist movement, believing it was necessary to end slavery after decades of peaceful efforts had failed.

José María Arguedas Altamirano was a Peruvian novelist, poet, and anthropologist. Arguedas was an author of mestizo descent who was fluent in the Quechua language. That fluency was gained by Arguedas's living in two Quechua households from the age of 7 to 11. First, he lived in the Indigenous servant quarters of his stepmother's home, then, escaping her "perverse and cruel" son, with an Indigenous family approved by his father. Arguedas wrote novels, short stories, and poems in both Spanish and Quechua.

Albert VI, a member of the House of Habsburg, was Duke of Austria from 1424, elevated to Archduke in 1453. As a scion of the Leopoldian line, he ruled over the Inner Austrian duchies of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola from 1424, from 1457 also over the Archduchy of Austria until his death, rivalling with his elder brother Emperor Frederick III. According to tradition, Albert, later known as the Prodigal, was the exact opposite of Frederick: energetic and inclined to thoughtlessness.