Notable Deaths on September 26

Alberto Pincherle, known by his pseudonym Alberto Moravia, was an Italian novelist and journalist. His novels explored matters of modern sexuality, social alienation and existentialism. Moravia is best known for his debut novel Gli indifferenti and for the anti-fascist novel Il conformista, the basis for the film The Conformist (1970) directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. Other novels of his adapted for the cinema are Agostino, filmed with the same title by Mauro Bolognini in 1962; Il disprezzo, filmed by Jean-Luc Godard as Le Mépris ; La noia (Boredom), filmed with that title by Damiano Damiani in 1963 and released in the US as The Empty Canvas in 1964 and La ciociara, filmed by Vittorio De Sica as Two Women (1960). Cédric Kahn's L'Ennui (1998) is another version of La noia.

Robert Allen Palmer was an English singer and songwriter. He was known for his powerful and soulful voice, sartorial elegance and stylistic explorations, combining soul, funk, jazz, rock, pop, reggae and blues. His 1986 single "Addicted to Love" and its accompanying video came to "epitomise the glamour and excesses of the 1980s".

Daniel Boone was an American pioneer and frontiersman whose adventures made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. He became famous for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky, which was then beyond the western borders of the Thirteen Colonies. In 1775, under commission from Judge Richard Henderson's Transylvania Company, Boone blazed the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap and into Kentucky in the face of resistance from nearby Native American tribes. He founded Boonesborough, one of the first English-speaking settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains. By the end of the 18th century, more than 200,000 people had entered Kentucky by following the route marked by Boone.

Jacques René Chirac was President of France from 1995 to 2007. He was previously Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and 1986 to 1988, as well as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.

Gloria Frances Stuart was an American actress, visual artist and activist. She was known for her roles in pre-code films, and garnered renewed fame late in life for her portrayal of Rose Dawson Calvert in James Cameron's epic romance Titanic (1997), one of the highest-grossing films of all time. Her performance in the film won her a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role and earned her nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture.

Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hungary's greatest composers. Among his notable works are the opera Bluebeard's Castle, the ballet The Miraculous Mandarin, Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, the Concerto for Orchestra and six string quartets. Through his collection and analytical study of folk music, he was one of the founders of comparative musicology, which later became known as ethnomusicology. Per Anthony Tommasini, Bartók "has empowered generations of subsequent composers to incorporate folk music and classical traditions from whatever culture into their works," and was "a formidable modernist who in the face of Schoenberg’s breathtaking formulations showed another way, forging a language that was an amalgam of tonality, unorthodox scales and atonal wanderings." His work is often described as being a combination of traditional peasants' folk music and avant-garde music.

Richard Mulligan was an American character actor. He was known for his roles in the sitcoms Soap (1977–1981) and Empty Nest (1988–1995). Mulligan was the winner of two Emmy Awards and one Golden Globe Award (1989). He was the younger brother of film director Robert Mulligan.

Bessie Smith was an American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. Nicknamed the "Empress of the Blues" and formerly Queen of the Blues, she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1930s. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, she is often regarded as one of the greatest singers of her era and was a major influence on fellow blues singers, as well as jazz vocalists.

Levi Strauss was a German-born American businessman who founded the first company to manufacture blue jeans. His firm of Levi Strauss & Co. (Levi's) began in 1853 in San Francisco, California.

Patrick Lafcadio Hearn was a Greek and Irish writer, translator, and teacher whose work played a significant role in the introduction of the culture and literature of Japan to the mainstream Western world.

George Santayana was a Spanish American philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. Born in Spain, he moved to the United States at the age of eight.

Sidney Clarke Phillips, Jr. was a United States Marine, family practice physician, and author from Mobile, Alabama. He provided source material and interviews for the making of Ken Burns' PBS documentary film The War and the HBO miniseries The Pacific. His recollections revolve around his time as a young man fighting in the Pacific War.

Hemanta Mukhopadhyay, known professionally as Hemanta Mukherjee and Hemant Kumar, was an Indian music director and a playback singer who primarily sang in Bengali and Hindi, along with several other Indian languages, including Marathi, Gujarati, Odia, Assamese, Tamil, Punjabi, Bhojpuri, Konkani, Sanskrit and Urdu. He was an artist in Bengali and Hindi film music, Rabindra Sangeet, and various other genres. He was the recipient of two National Awards for Best Male Playback Singer and was popularly known as the "Voice of God".

Nicu Ceaușescu was a Romanian physicist and communist politician who was the youngest child of Romanian leaders Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu. He was a close associate of his father's political regime and considered the President's heir presumptive.

Iva Ikuko Toguri D'Aquino was an American citizen visiting Japan when World War II began. Unable to return to the United States, she risked her life smuggling food to American service men held in prisoner of war camps.

Uday Shankar was an Indian dancer and choreographer, best known for creating a fusion style of dance, adapting European theatrical techniques to Indian classical dance, imbued with elements of Indian classical, folk, and tribal dance, which he later popularised in India, Europe, and the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. He was a pioneer of modern dance in India.

Arthur Lee Hunnicutt was an American actor known for his portrayal of old, wise, grizzled rural characters. He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Big Sky (1952). He was also known for his role in the Western television series Sugarfoot (1957–1961).

Shawn Lane was an American musician who released two studio albums and collaborated with a variety of musicians including Ringo Starr, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Reggie Young, Joe Walsh, Jonas Hellborg, Anders Johansson, Jens Johansson and many others. After studying the piano, he learned to play the guitar, which he played with exceptional speed.

Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike, also known as "The Silver Bell of Asia", was a Ceylonese statesman who served as the fourth Prime Minister of the Dominion of Ceylon, from 1956 until his assassination in 1959. The founder of the left-wing and Sinhalese nationalist Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), he was elected the fourth Prime Minister of Ceylon after creating a powerful coalition called the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna and contesting on the lines of Sinhalese nationalism and democratic socialism. He achieved a landslide victory over the ruling United National Party in the general elections in 1956.

The Taichang Emperor, personal name Zhu Changluo, was the 15th emperor of the Ming dynasty of China. He was the eldest son of the Wanli Emperor and succeeded his father as emperor in 1620. His reign came to an abrupt end less than one month after his enthronement when he was found dead one morning in the palace following a bout of diarrhea. His reign was the shortest in Ming history.

Thomas Clarkson was an English abolitionist, and a leading campaigner against the slave trade in the British Empire. He helped found the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade and helped achieve passage of the Slave Trade Act 1807, which ended British trade in slaves.

Baden Powell de Aquino, known professionally as Baden Powell, was a Brazilian virtuoso guitarist and composer. He combined classical techniques with popular harmony and swing. He performed in many styles, including bossa nova, samba, Brazilian jazz, Latin jazz and MPB. He performed on stage during most of his lifetime. Powell composed many pieces for guitar, some of them now considered guitar standards, such as Abração em Madrid, Braziliense, Canto de Ossanha, Casa Velha, Consolação, Horizon, Imagem, Lotus, Samba, Samba em Prelúdio, Samba Triste, Simplesmente, Tristeza e Solidão, and Samba da Benção. He released Os Afro-sambas, a watershed album in MPB, with Vinicius de Moraes in 1966. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest Brazilian guitar players of all time.

Ralph Lee Earnhardt was an American stock car racer and patriarch of the Earnhardt racing family. He was the father of seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Dale Earnhardt, grandfather of Kerry Earnhardt, Kelley Earnhardt Miller, and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Betty Carter was an American jazz singer known for her improvisational technique, scatting, and other complex musical abilities that demonstrated her vocal talent and imaginative interpretation of lyrics and melodies. Vocalist Carmen McRae once remarked, "There's really only one jazz singer—only one: Betty Carter."

Hugh John Lofting was an English-American writer, trained as a civil engineer, who created the classic children's literature character Doctor Dolittle. The fictional physician talking to animals, based in an English village, first appeared in illustrated letters to his children which Lofting sent from British Army trenches in the First World War. Lofting settled in the United States soon after the war and before his first book was published.

Hermann Günther Grassmann was a German polymath known in his day as a linguist and now also as a mathematician. He was also a physicist, general scholar, and publisher. His mathematical work was little noted until he was in his sixties. His work preceded and exceeded the concept which is now known as a vector space. He introduced the Grassmannian, the space which parameterizes all k-dimensional linear subspaces of an n-dimensional vector space V. In linguistics he helped free language history and structure from each other.

John Thomas Ralph Augustine James Facenda was an American broadcaster and sports announcer. He was a fixture on Philadelphia radio and television for decades, and achieved national fame as a narrator for NFL Films and Football Follies. Through his work with NFL Films, Facenda was known by many National Football League fans as "The Voice of God".

Charles Erwin Wilson was an American engineer and businessman who served as United States Secretary of Defense from 1953 to 1957 under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Known as "Engine Charlie", he was previously the president and chief executive officer of General Motors. In the wake of the Korean War, he cut the defense budget significantly.

Lieutenant General Sir Leslie James Morshead, was an Australian soldier, teacher, businessman, and farmer, whose military career spanned both world wars. During the Second World War, he led the Australian and British troops at the Siege of Tobruk (1941) and at the Second Battle of El Alamein, achieving decisive victories over Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps. His soldiers nicknamed him "Ming the Merciless", later simply "Ming", after the villain in the Flash Gordon comics.

William Wadsworth Wirtz was the chief executive officer and controlling shareholder of the family-owned Wirtz Corporation. He was best known as the owner of the Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League, who are part of Wirtz Corp's holdings. Wirtz also served as the Blackhawks' team president for over four decades.

Terry Newton was an English professional rugby league footballer who played as a hooker. He began his professional career with Leeds Rhinos in 1996, before joining his hometown club Wigan Warriors in 2000. He later also played for Bradford Bulls and Wakefield Trinity Wildcats. During his career, he won two Challenge Cup medals and was a runner-up in four Super League Grand Finals. He was one of a handful of players to feature in each of the first 15 seasons of the Super League. At international level, he was capped 15 times by Great Britain between 1998 and 2007, and also represented England and Lancashire.

Samuel Steiger was an American politician, journalist, political pundit. He served five terms as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, two terms in the Arizona State Senate, and one term as mayor of Prescott, Arizona. Steiger also made an unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate, served as a special assistant to Arizona Governor Evan Mecham, and hosted political talk shows on both radio and television. Despite these accomplishments, Steiger is best known for two incidents: one, while he was a sitting congressman, was the 1975 killing of two burros; the second was painting a crosswalk between Prescott's courthouse and nearby Whiskey Row.

John Oliver Curran MRIA was an Irish physician, medical writer and reviewer. He studied at the University of Glasgow and Trinity College Dublin, trained at the Meath Hospital, Jervis Street Hospital and St Vincent's Hospital, and later taught medicine at the Apothecaries' Hall School, Dublin. He was also a physician to the Dublin General Dispensary. He was a lifelong vegetarian, having abstained from meat from early childhood, and also avoided eggs, cheese, tea and coffee. During the 1847 fever epidemic in Dublin, he criticised conditions in fever hospitals. He died of typhus after nursing the French medical commissioner Henri Gueneau de Mussy.

Francisco Rivera Pérez, better known as Paquirri, was a Spanish bullfighter. He died after being gored by a bull named Avispado at the Pozoblanco bullring. During his career, he was six times borne shoulder-high out through the Great Gate at Las Ventas.

René Rivera, known professionally as Mario Montez, was one of the Warhol superstars, appearing in thirteen of Andy Warhol's underground films from 1964 to 1966. He took his name as a male homage to the actress Maria Montez, an important gay icon in the 1950s and 1960s. Before appearing in Warhol's films, he appeared in Jack Smith's underground films Flaming Creatures and Normal Love. Montez also stars in the Ron Rice film Chumlum, made in 1964. Mario Montez, was "a staple in the New York underground scene of the 1960s and '70s."

Azizan bin Abdul Razak was a Malaysian politician who served as the 10th Menteri Besar of the state of Kedah from 2008 to 2013. A member of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), he was the first Chief Minister of Kedah from a party other than the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). He held the seat of Sungai Limau in the Kedah state assembly from 2004 until his death in 2013. He was also the state commissioner for PAS in Kedah and a member of the central committee of the national party.

Eugene Dominic Genovese was an American historian of the American South and American slavery. He was noted for bringing a Marxist perspective to the study of power, class and relations between planters and slaves in the South. His book Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made won the Bancroft Prize. He wrote during the Cold War; his political beliefs were viewed by some as highly controversial at the time. He later abandoned the left and Marxism and embraced traditionalist conservatism.

Toughie was the last known living Rabbs' fringe-limbed treefrog. The species, scientifically known as Ecnomiohyla rabborum, is thought to be extinct, as the last specimen—Toughie—died in captivity on September 26, 2016.

Leopold Ružička was a Croatian-Swiss scientist and joint winner of the 1939 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his work on polymethylenes and higher terpenes" "including the first chemical synthesis of male sex hormones." He worked most of his life in Switzerland, and received eight doctorates honoris causa in science, medicine, and law; seven prizes and medals; and twenty-four honorary memberships in chemical, biochemical, and other scientific societies.

Henri Claude Fertet was a French schoolboy and Resistance fighter who was executed by the German occupying forces at the Citadel of Besançon at age 16 during World War II. He was posthumously awarded several national honours. He is known for the letter he wrote to his parents on the morning of his execution, and he has become one of those who symbolise the French Resistance.

Claude Le Jeune was a Franco-Flemish composer of the late Renaissance. He was the primary representative of the musical movement known as musique mesurée, and a significant composer of the "Parisian" chanson, the predominant secular form in France in the latter half of the 16th century. His fame was widespread in Europe, and he ranks as one of the most influential composers of the time.

Tamir Sapir was a Georgian-born, Georgian-American businessman, real estate developer and investor. He was the founder of the Sapir Organization, a real estate investment firm based in New York City. Sapir originally made his fortune trading oil and fertilizers with the Soviet Union during the 1980s. He became a billionaire in 2002, with his wealth peaking in 2007 at US$2 billion, according to Forbes.

Fujiwara no Sadaie or Teika was a Japanese anthologist, calligrapher, literary critic, novelist, poet, and scribe of the late Heian and early Kamakura periods. His influence was enormous, and he is counted as among the greatest of Japanese poets, and perhaps the greatest master of the waka form – an ancient poetic form consisting of five lines with a total of 31 syllables.

Mary Ellen Dowd was an American stage, musical theatre and film actress, and singer, whose career spanned half a century. Beginning in Shakespeare roles and films in the 1950s, Dowd continued to perform on stage, film and television into the 21st century. A frequent performer on Broadway in the 1960s, Dowd originated the role of Morgan le Fay in the musical Camelot.

Charles James Correll was an American radio comedian, actor and writer who was best known for his work in the radio Amos 'n' Andy radio series with Freeman Gosden. Correll voiced the main character, Andy Brown, along with various lesser characters.

Robert James Cassilly Jr. was an American sculptor, entrepreneur, and creative director based in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1997, Cassilly founded the idiosyncratic City Museum, which draws over 700,000 visitors a year and is one of the city's leading tourist attractions.

Marc Moulin was a Belgian musician and journalist. In the early-mid seventies, he was the leader of the jazz-rock group Placebo. He went on to become a member of the avant-rock band Aksak Maboul in 1977 and also formed the pop group Telex in 1978. Moulin was one of Belgium's jazz legends, making jazz-influenced records for over 30 years.

William II was Count of Hainaut from 1337 until his death. He was also Count of Holland and Count of Zeeland. He succeeded his father, Count William I of Hainaut. While away fighting in Prussia, the Frisians revolted. William returned home and was killed at the Battle of Warns.

John Fitzwilliam Stairs, also known as John Fitz William Stairs was an entrepreneur and statesman, born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a member of the prominent Stairs family of merchants and shippers founded by William Machin Stairs (1789–1865) that included the Victorian era explorer, William Grant Stairs.

José Bernardo de Tagle y Portocarrero, 4th Marquess of Torre Tagle, was a Peruvian soldier and politician who served as the Interim President of Peru in 1823 as well as the second President of Peru from 1823 to 1824. He was a supporter of liberalism.

Musa ibn Musa al-Qasawi (Arabic: موسى بن موسى القسوي) also nicknamed the Great ; died 26 September 862) was leader of the Muwallad Banu Qasi clan and ruler of a semi-autonomous principality in the upper Ebro valley in northern Iberia in the 9th century.

Jovan Uglješa was a Serbian medieval nobleman of the Mrnjavčević family and one of the most prominent magnates of the Serbian Empire. He held the title of despot, received from Serbian Emperor Stefan Uroš V, whose co-ruler - Serbian King Vukašin was Uglješa's brother.

Ellen Crosby Roosevelt was an American tennis player. Roosevelt was a daughter of John Aspinwall Roosevelt, an estate proprietor, and Ellen Murray Crosby. She started playing tennis with her sister Grace in 1879 when her father installed a tennis court at their mansion.

Ganegoda Appuhamelage Don Edmund Ananda Seneviratne was a Sri Lankan police officer. He was the former Inspector-General of Police, Sri Lankan High Commissioner to Malaysia, former adviser to Cabinet Minister of National Security and ex member Public Service Commission of Sri Lanka.

Teresa Casati Confalonieri was an Italian noblewoman and revolutionist. She is known as the wife of revolutionist Federico Confalonieri, sister of former Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Sardinia, Gabrio Casati, and as an important figure in the Risorgimento.

Juan de Torquemada O.P., was a Spanish Thomistic Theologian, polemicist, and Cardinal. He has been described as the most articulate papal apologist of the fifteenth century, and a defender of Jewish converts to the Catholic Church (conversos).

Friar Benito Jerónimo Feijóo y Montenegro was a Spanish monk and scholar who led the Spanish Enlightenment. He was an energetic popularizer noted for encouraging scientific and empirical thought in an effort to debunk myths and superstitions.

James Michael Christopher Fitzmaurice DFC was an Irish aviation pioneer. He was a member of the crew of the Bremen, which made the first successful trans-Atlantic aircraft flight from East to West on 12–13 April 1928.

Francesco degli Stabili, popularly called Cecco d'Ascoli, was an Italian encyclopaedist, physician and poet. Cecco is the diminutive of Francesco. Ascoli was the place of his birth. The lunar crater Cichus is named after him.

Wakisaka Yasuharu , sometimes referred to as Wakizaka Yasuharu, was a daimyō of Awaji Island who fought under a number of warlords over the course of Japan's Sengoku period.

Karl Manne Georg Siegbahn was a Swedish physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1924 "for his discoveries and research in the field of X-ray spectroscopy."

Stephen III, called the Magnificent or the Fop, was the Duke of Bavaria-Ingolstadt from 1375. He was the eldest son of Stephen II and Elizabeth of Sicily.

Sir Amias Paulet of Hinton St. George, Somerset, was an English diplomat, Governor of Jersey, and the gaoler for a period of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Gottfried von Hagenau was a medieval priest, physician, theologian and poet from Alsace. As his name suggests, he was probably born in Haguenau, before 1275.

Francesco Zabarella was an Italian cardinal and canonist.

Fra' Didier de Saint-Jaille was the 46th Grand Master of the Order of Saint John between 1535 and 1536.

Charles Grey was the 7th Earl of Kent from 1615 to his death.

William Billings was an American composer and is regarded as the first American choral composer and leading member of the First New England School.

Baron Jurij Bartolomej Vega was a Slovene mathematician, physicist, and artillery commissioned officer.

August Ferdinand Möbius was a German mathematician and theoretical astronomer.

Sir Charles Gregory Wade KCMG, KC, JP was Premier of New South Wales 2 October 1907 – 21 October 1910.

Andy Adams was an American writer of Western fiction.

Iván Persa was a Hungarian Slovene Roman Catholic priest and writer.

Hans Cloos was a prominent German structural geologist.

Xu Beihong, also known as Ju Péon, was a Chinese painter.

Teodor Ussisoo was an Estonian pedagogue, furniture designer, and interior architect.

Ben Shlomo Lipman-Heilprin was an Israeli physician and director of the Neurology Department of Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem.

Francis Daniel Johnson Sr. was a Canadian politician and the 20th premier of Quebec from 1966 until his death in 1968.

Anna Maria Magnani was an Italian actress. She was the first Italian woman to win an Academy Award.

Alexander Hurwood, was an Australian cricketer who played in two Tests in the 1930–31 season.

Herbert Tichy was an Austrian writer, geologist, journalist and climber.

Branislav "Branko" Zebec was a Croatian footballer and manager who played for Yugoslavia.

William Vaughn, popularly known as Billy Vaughn was an American musician, singer, multi-instrumentalist, orchestra leader, and A&R man for Dot Records.

Dorothy Kingsley was an American screenwriter, who worked extensively in film, radio, and television.

Oseola McCarty was a local washerwoman in Hattiesburg, Mississippi who became The University of Southern Mississippi's (USM) most famous benefactor.

John Byron Nelson Jr. was an American professional golfer between 1935 and 1946, widely considered one of the greatest golfers of all time.

Sylvia Olga Fedoruk was a Canadian physicist, medical physicist, curler and the 17th lieutenant governor of Saskatchewan, from 1988 to 1994.

Sos Artashesi Sargsyan was a prominent Armenian actor, director and writer.

Eudóxia Maria Froehlich was a Brazilian zoologist.

John David Ashton was an American actor, known for his roles in the Beverly Hills Cop films, Some Kind of Wonderful, and Midnight Run.