Notable Deaths on May 5

Dana Wynter was a German-born British actress who was raised in the United Kingdom and southern Africa. She appeared in film and television for more than 40 years, beginning in the 1950s. One of her best-known film performances was in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). A tall, dark, elegant beauty, she played both victim and villain. Her characters both in film and on television sometimes faced horrific dangers, which they often did not survive, but she also played scheming, manipulative women on television mysteries and crime procedural dramas.

Walter Max Ulyate Sisulu was a South African anti-apartheid activist and member of the African National Congress (ANC). Between terms as ANC Secretary-General (1949–1954) and ANC Deputy President (1991–1994), he was Accused No.2 in the Rivonia Trial and was incarcerated on Robben Island where he served more than 25 years' imprisonment for his anti-Apartheid revolutionary activism. He had a close partnership with Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela, with whom he played a key role in organising the 1952 Defiance Campaign and the establishment of the ANC Youth League and Umkhonto we Sizwe. He was also on the Central Committee of the South African Communist Party.

Ludwig Wilhelm Erhard was a German politician and economist who served as the second chancellor of West Germany from 1963 until 1966. Affiliated with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), he is known for leading the West German postwar economic reforms and economic recovery in his role as Minister of Economic Affairs under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer from 1949 to 1963. During that period, he promoted the concept of the social market economy, on which Germany's economic policy in the 21st century continues to be based.

Claude Stanley Choules was a British-born military serviceman from Pershore, Worcestershire, who at the time of his death was the oldest combat veteran of the First World War. He served with the Royal Navy from 1915 until 1926. After having emigrated to Australia he served with the Royal Australian Navy, from 1926 until 1956, as a chief petty officer and was a naturalised Australian citizen. He was the last surviving military witness to the scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow in 1919 and the last surviving veteran to have served in both world wars. At the time of his death, he was the third-oldest verified military veteran in the world and the oldest known living man in Australia. He was the seventh-oldest living man in the world. Choules became the oldest man born in the United Kingdom following the death of Stanley Lucas on 21 June 2010. Choules died at the age of 110 years and 63 days. He had been the oldest British-born man; following his death, that honour went to the Reverend Reginald Dean. In December 2011, the landing ship HMAS Choules was named after him, only the second Royal Australian Navy vessel named after a sailor.

Charles II, also known as Charles the Lame, was King of Naples, Count of Provence and Forcalquier (1285–1309), Prince of Achaea (1285–1289), and Count of Anjou and Maine (1285–1290); he also was King of Albania (1285–1294), and claimed the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1285. He was the son of Charles I of Anjou—one of the most powerful European monarchs in the second half of the 13th century—and Beatrice of Provence. His father granted Charles the Principality of Salerno in the Kingdom of Sicily in 1272 and made him regent in Provence and Forcalquier in 1279.

Theodore Harold Maiman was an American engineer and physicist who is widely credited with the invention of the laser. Maiman's laser led to the subsequent development of many other types of lasers. The laser was successfully fired on May 16, 1960. In a July 7, 1960, press conference in Manhattan, Maiman and his employer, Hughes Aircraft Company, announced the laser to the world. Maiman was granted a patent for his invention, and he received many awards and honors for his work. His experiences in developing the first laser and subsequent related events are recounted in his book, The Laser Odyssey, later being republished in 2018 under a new title, The Laser Inventor: Memoirs of Theodore H. Maiman.

Sir John O'Shanassy, KCMG, was an Irish-Australian politician who served as the 2nd Premier of Victoria. O'Shanassy was born near Thurles in County Tipperary, Ireland, the son of a surveyor, and came to the Port Phillip District in 1839. He went into business in Melbourne as a draper, and by 1846 he was rich enough to be elected to the Melbourne City Council and to become the founding chairman of the Colonial Bank of Australasia. By the 1850s he was a major landowner and one of the wealthiest men in the colony. He also became a recognised leader of the large Irish Catholic community.

Jean Astruc was a professor of medicine in France at Montpellier and Paris, who wrote the first great treatise on syphilis and venereal diseases, and also, with a small anonymously published book, played a fundamental part in the origins of critical textual analysis of works of the Bible. Astruc was the first to propose and hypothesize, by using the techniques of textual analysis that were commonplace in studying the secular classics, the theory that Genesis was composed based on several sources or manuscript traditions, an approach now called the documentary hypothesis.

Rabbi Binyamin "Benny" Elon was an Israeli Orthodox rabbi and politician who served as a member of the Knesset for Moledet and the National Union between 1996 and 2009. A ninth-generation Jerusalemite, Elon lived in Beit El, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, for over twenty years, and was married to author and journalist Emuna Elon. They had six children. His father, Menachem Elon, was the former Deputy Chief Justice of Israel. His brother, disgraced Rabbi Mordechai Elon, has been a prominent controversial figure in the Religious Zionist Movement.

Byron Joseph LaForest was a Canadian professional baseball player who appeared in 52 games in the major leagues, primarily as a third baseman, for the Boston Red Sox during the latter months of the 1945 season. He was born in Edmundston, New Brunswick, and emigrated with his family to the United States in 1921. He attended Waltham High School in the Boston suburb and graduated from Dorchester High School. Listed as 5 feet 9 inches (1.75 m) tall and 165 pounds (75 kg), he threw and batted right-handed.

Carlos Saavedra Lamas was an Argentine academic and politician who served as Argentina's foreign minister from 1932 to 1938. A legal scholar specializing in labor legislation and international law, he also served as rector of the University of Buenos Aires. As foreign minister, he drafted the 1933 Treaty of Nonaggression and Conciliation and helped mediate an end to the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay, work for which he was awarded the 1936 Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first Latin American recipient of the prize.

Gino Bartali,, nicknamed Gino the Pious and Ginettaccio, was a champion road cyclist. He was the most renowned Italian cyclist before the Second World War, having won the Giro d'Italia twice, in 1936 and 1937, and the Tour de France in 1938. After the war, he added one more victory in each event: the Giro d'Italia in 1946 and the Tour de France in 1948. His second and last Tour de France victory in 1948 gave him the largest gap between victories in the race.

George Sidney was an American film director and producer who worked primarily at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. His work includes cult classics Bye Bye Birdie (1963) and Viva Las Vegas (1964). With an extensive background in acting, stage direction, film editing, and music, Sidney created many of post-war Hollywood's big budget musicals, such as Annie Get Your Gun (1950), Show Boat (1951), Kiss Me Kate (1953), Jupiter's Darling (1955), and Pal Joey (1957). He was also a president of the Screen Directors Guild for 16 years.

Napoleon Bonaparte, later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was Emperor of the French from 18 May 1804 until his first abdication in 1814, with a brief restoration during the Hundred Days in 1815. He rose to prominence as a general during the French Revolution and led a series of military campaigns across Europe and the Middle East during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. As a statesman, he implemented numerous legal and administrative reforms in France and Europe.

August Wilhelm von Hofmann was a German chemist who made considerable contributions to organic chemistry. His research on aniline helped lay the basis of the aniline-dye industry, and his research on coal tar laid the groundwork for his student Charles Mansfield's practical methods for extracting benzene and toluene and converting them into nitro compounds and amines. Hofmann's discoveries include formaldehyde, hydrazobenzene, the isonitriles, and allyl alcohol. He prepared three ethylamines and tetraethylammonium compounds and established their structural relationship to ammonia.

Robert Kenneth Ressler was an American FBI agent and author. He played a significant role in the psychological profiling of violent offenders in the 1970s and is often credited with coining the term "serial killer", though the term is a direct translation of the German term Serienmörder coined in 1930 by Berlin investigator Ernst Gennat. After retiring from the FBI, he authored a number of books on serial murders, and often gave lectures on criminology.

Millicent Dolly May Small CD was a Jamaican singer who is best known for her international hit "My Boy Lollipop" (1964). The song reached number two in both the UK and US charts and sold over seven million copies worldwide. It was also the first major hit for Island Records and helped to achieve the label its mainstream success. She was the Caribbean's first international recording star and its most successful female performer.

Frederick Augustus I of Saxony was a member of the House of Wettin who reigned as the last Elector of Saxony from 1763 to 1806 and as the first King of Saxony from 1806 to 1827. He was also Duke of Warsaw from 1807 to 1815, a legitimate candidate to the Polish throne after the Constitution of 3 May 1791 and a short-lived disputed Grand Duke of Lithuania in 1812.

Jean Luann Epper was an American stuntwoman and actress. She performed stunts in over 100 feature films and television series and is perhaps best known as Lynda Carter's stunt double on the 1970s television series Wonder Woman. She was featured in Amanda Micheli's 2004 documentary Double Dare, along with New Zealand stuntwoman and actress Zoë Bell. Entertainment Weekly noted that many consider her "the greatest stuntwoman who's ever lived."