Notable Deaths on June 2

Sir Reginald Carey Harrison was an English actor. Harrison began his career on the stage at the Liverpool Playhouse in 1924. He made his West End debut in 1936 appearing in the Terence Rattigan play French Without Tears, in what was his breakthrough role. He won his first Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his performance as Henry VIII in the Broadway play Anne of the Thousand Days in 1949. He returned to Broadway portraying Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady (1956) where he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical.

Larry Christopher Allen Jr. was an American professional football player who was a guard in the National Football League (NFL) for 14 seasons, primarily with the Dallas Cowboys. He played college football for the Butte Roadrunners and the Sonoma State Cossacks, and was selected by the Cowboys in the second round of the 1994 NFL draft. A player capable of using his speed against defenders, Allen was regarded as one of the strongest players to ever play in the NFL, and has been ranked as the best offensive lineman of all-time by Fox Sports.

Karl Brandt was a German physician and Schutzstaffel (SS) officer in Nazi Germany. Trained in surgery, Brandt joined the Nazi Party in 1932 and became Adolf Hitler's "escort doctor" (Begleitarzt) in August 1934. A member of Hitler's inner circle at the Berghof, he was selected by Philipp Bouhler, the head of Hitler's Chancellery, to administer the Aktion T4 euthanasia program. Brandt was later appointed the Reich Commissioner of Health and Emergency Services. Accused of involvement in human experimentation and other war crimes, Brandt was indicted in late 1946 and faced trial before a U.S. military tribunal along with 22 others in the Doctors' Trial. He was found guilty, sentenced to death, and executed on 2 June 1948.

Viktor Hermann Brack was a member of the Schutzstaffel (SS), a convicted war criminal and one of the prominent organisers of the involuntary euthanasia programme Aktion T4; this Nazi initiative resulted in the systematic murder of 275,000 to 300,000 disabled people. He held various positions of responsibility in Hitler's Chancellery in Berlin. Following his role in the T4 programme, Brack was one of the men identified as responsible for the gassing of Jews in extermination camps, having conferred with Odilo Globočnik about its use in the practical implementation of the Final Solution. Brack was sentenced to death in 1947 during the Doctors' Trial and executed by hanging in 1948.

Shane O'Neill was an Irish chieftain of the O'Neill dynasty of Ulster in the mid-16th century. Shane O'Neill's career was marked by his ambition to be the O'Neill—sovereign of the dominant O'Neill family of Tír Eoghain. This brought him into conflict with competing branches of the O'Neill family and with the English government in Ireland, who recognised a rival claim. Shane's support was considered worth gaining by the English even during the lifetime of his father Conn O'Neill, 1st Earl of Tyrone. But rejecting overtures from the 3rd Earl of Sussex, the lord deputy from 1556, Shane refused to help the English against the Scottish settlers on the coast of Antrim, allying himself for a short time instead with the MacDonnells, the most powerful of these settlers. Shane viewed the Scottish settlers as invaders, but decided to stay his hand against them with hopes of using them to strengthen his position with the English. However, tensions quickly boiled over and he declared war on the Scottish MacDonnell's defeating them at the Battle of Glentaisie despite the MacDonnells calling for reinforcements from Scotland. The Scottish MacDonnells would later assassinate Shane O'Neill and collect the bounty on his head.

James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton was a Scottish nobleman. He played a leading role in the murders of Queen Mary's confidant, David Rizzio, and king consort Henry Darnley. He was the last of the four regents of Scotland during the minority of James VI. He was in some ways the most successful of the four since he won the civil war that had been dragging on with the supporters of the exiled Mary, Queen of Scots. However, he came to an unfortunate end, executed by means of the Maiden, a predecessor of the guillotine.

Roland Bernard "Bunny" Berigan was an American jazz trumpeter and bandleader who rose to fame during the swing era. Although he composed some jazz instrumentals such as "Chicken and Waffles" and "Blues", Berigan was best known for his virtuoso jazz trumpeting. His 1937 classic recording "I Can't Get Started" on RCA Victor was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1975. His career and influence were shortened by alcoholism which ended with his early death at the age of 33 from cirrhosis. His recordings of "I Can't Get Started" on Vocalion and "Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love" were re-released in 1976 as part of the Columbia Records Hall of Fame series.

David Levy was an Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset between 1969 and 2006. Levy's ascent to political prominence demonstrated the growing influence of Mizrahi Jews in Israel. He played a crucial role in changing the political power structure in Israel by motivating hundreds of thousands of Mizrahi voters to cast their ballots for Menachem Begin. To quote Benjamin Netanyahu, "David, born in Morocco, forged his way through life with his own two hands... On the national level, he made a personal mark on the political world, while taking care of weak populations that knew adversity."

Sammy Kaye was an American bandleader and songwriter, whose tag line, "Swing and Sway with Sammy Kaye", became one of the most famous of the Big Band Era. The expression springs from his first hit single in 1937, "Swing and Sway". He was the first to record and release the standard "Blueberry Hill" in 1940. During World War II, he co-wrote and recorded the anthemic "Remember Pearl Harbor". He was the first to record and release the #1 song "Daddy" in 1941. His final #1 hit was "Harbor Lights" in 1950.

John Alton was an American cinematographer of Hungarian-Austrian origin. Alton photographed some of the most famous films noir of the classic period and won an Academy Award for the cinematography of An American in Paris (1951), becoming the first Hungarian-born person to do so in the cinematography category. He also worked as a director during the Golden Age of Argentine cinema. His work has been honored at film festivals in Vienna, Japan, Argentina, Telluride, and San Francisco, as well as in retrospectives at the American Museum of the Moving Image and the Pacific Film Archives.

Juan José Torres González was a Bolivian socialist politician and military leader who served as the 50th president of Bolivia from 1970 to 1971, when he was ousted in a coup that resulted in the dictatorship of Hugo Banzer. He was popularly known as "J.J." (Jota-Jota). He went into exile in Argentina. Torres was assassinated in 1976 in Buenos Aires, likely by agents associated with the Argentine regime of Jorge Rafael Videla. It has also been alleged that it was done with acquiescence of Hugo Banzer as part of Operation Condor.

Philip Ives Dunne was an American screenwriter, film director, and producer, who worked prolifically from 1932 until 1965. He spent the majority of his career at 20th Century Fox. He crafted well regarded romantic and historical dramas, usually adapted from another medium. Dunne was a leading Screen Writers Guild organizer and was politically active during the "Hollywood Blacklist" episode of the 1940s–1950s. He is best known for the films How Green Was My Valley (1941), The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), The Robe (1953) and The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965).

Jean Pierre Carl Buron, known professionally as Jean Hersholt, was a Danish-American actor. He is most famous for starring on the CBS radio series Dr. Christian from 1937–1954, reprising the role in a film series from 1939-1941. He also co-starred with Shirley Temple in the film Heidi (1937). When asked how to pronounce his name, he told The Literary Digest, "in English her'sholt; in Danish, hairs'hult." From 1924 to 1955, he had 140 motion picture credits: 75 silent film and 65 "talkies"; he directed four.

Giuseppe Ungaretti was an Italian modernist poet, journalist, essayist, critic, academic, and recipient of the inaugural 1970 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. A leading representative of the experimental trend known as Ermetismo ("Hermeticism"), he was one of the most prominent contributors to 20th-century Italian literature. Influenced by symbolism, he was briefly aligned with futurism. Like many futurists, he took an irredentist position during World War I. Ungaretti debuted as a poet while fighting in the trenches, publishing one of his best-known pieces, L'allegria.

George Simon Kaufman was an American playwright, theater director and producer, humorist, and drama critic. In addition to comedies and political satire, he wrote several musicals for the Marx Brothers and others. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the musical Of Thee I Sing in 1932, and won again in 1937 for the play You Can't Take It with You. He also won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical in 1951 for Guys and Dolls.

Imogene Coca was an American comic actress best known for her role opposite Sid Caesar on Your Show of Shows. Starting out in vaudeville as a child acrobat, she studied ballet and pursued a serious career in music and dance, graduating to decades of stage musical revues, cabaret, and summer stock. In her 40s, she began a celebrated career as a comedian on television, starring in six series and guest-starring on successful television programs from the 1940s to the '90s.

Raymond Neil Combs Jr. was an American stand-up comedian, actor, and game show host. He began his professional career in the late 1970s. His popularity on the stand-up circuit led to him being signed as the second host of the game show Family Feud in its second run and first revival. The show aired on CBS from 1988 to 1993 and was in syndication from 1988 to 1994. From 1995 to 1996, Combs hosted another game show, Family Challenge.

Frederick Kenneth Blassie was an American professional wrestler and manager, known by the ring name "Classy" Freddie Blassie. His achievements in the ring included holding the Los Angeles-based World Wrestling Associates (WWA) world title four times. Renowned as "The Hollywood Fashion Plate", he was a one-time NWA World Junior Heavyweight Champion and was inducted into the WWF Hall of Fame in 1994. He is regarded as one of the greatest wrestling heels, or villains, of all time.

Alexander Theodore "Sasha" Shulgin was an American biochemist who synthesized and tested over 200 psychedelic and related chemical compounds. Among the most notable psychedelic and related drugs that Shulgin developed include 2C-B, DOM (STP), and Ariadne. In addition, he is known for discovering and describing the unique effects of the entactogen MDMA (ecstasy), which led to its use in MDMA-assisted psychotherapy and to its widespread use as a recreational drug, for instance in the rave scene.