Deaths in August 2012

1st
Don Erickson, 80, American baseball player (Philadelphia Phillies).
Douglas Townsend, 90, American composer and musicologist.
Keiko Tsushima, 86, Japanese actress (Seven Samurai), stomach cancer.

2nd
Jimmy Jones, 82, American pop singer ("Handy Man", "Good Timin'").
Jean Merrill, 89, American children's author (The Pushcart War), cancer.

4th
Johnnie Bassett, 76, American blues musician, cancer.
John J. Phelan, Jr., 81, American financier and chief executive (New York Stock Exchange).
Bud Riley, 86, American CFL coach (Winnipeg Blue Bombers, Hamilton Tiger-cats).
Arnie Risen, 87, American Hall of Fame basketball player (Boston Celtics, Rochester Royals), complications from COPD and lung cancer.

5th
Fred Matua, 28, American football player, heart failure.
Martin E. Segal, 96, Russian-born American entrepreneur (Film Society of Lincoln Center).
Sister Boom Boom, 57, American gay rights activist, member of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, liver cancer.

6th
Marvin Hamlisch, 68, American composer (The Way We Were, A Chorus Line) and arranger (The Sting), EGOT winner.
Mark O'Donnell, 58, American playwright (Hairspray, Cry-Baby) and author, respiratory arrest.
Dan Roundfield, 59, American basketball player (Atlanta Hawks), drowning.

7th
Judith Crist, 90, American film critic.

9th
Carl Davis, 77, American record producer ("Duke of Earl", "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher"), lung disease.
Al Freeman, Jr., 78, American actor (Malcolm X, My Sweet Charlie, One Life to Live) and professor.
Mel Stuart, 83, American film director (If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium; Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory), cancer.

10th
Irving Fein, 101, American film and television producer, manager of Jack Benny and George Burns.
Carlo Rambaldi, 86, Italian special effects artist (Alien, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial).

11th
Bill Rafferty, 68, American comedian and television host (Blockbusters, Card Sharks, Real People).

12th
Dominic Hibberd, 71, English biographer.
Joe Kubert, 85, Polish-born American comic book artist (Sgt. Rock, Hawkman).

13th
Helen Gurley Brown, 90, American author, publisher, and businesswoman; editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine (1965–1997).
Johnny Pesky, 92, American baseball player, manager, and coach (Boston Red Sox).
Joan Roberts, 95, American musical theatre actress (Oklahoma!), heart failure.

14th
Ron Palillo, 63, American actor (Welcome Back, Kotter), apparent heart attack.
Al Rabin, 76, American producer and director (Days of our Lives).
Rosemary Rice, 87, American radio and television actress (Archie Andrews, Mama).
Phyllis Thaxter, 92, American actress (Superman, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo), Alzheimer's disease.

15th
Bob Birch, 56, American musician (Elton John), apparent suicide by gunshot.
Biff Elliot, 89, American actor (Alfred Hitchcock Presents, I, the Jury, The Enemy Below).

16th
William Windom, 88, American actor (Murder She Wrote, My World and Welcome to It, The Farmer's Daughter, Star Trek), heart failure.

17th
Joey Kovar, 29, American reality TV star (The Real World: Hollywood, Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew), opiate intoxication.
Veronique Peck, 80, French-born American arts patron, widow of Gregory Peck.
Victor Poor, 79, American engineer, co-developer of the microchip and various radio developments, cancer.

18th
George Bowers, 68, American film editor (A League of Their Own, The Country Bears, Harlem Nights).
John Kovatch, 92, American football player (Washington Redskins).
Scott McKenzie, 73, American singer ("San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)") and songwriter ("Kokomo"), Guillain–Barré syndrome.

19th
Samia Yusuf Omar, 21, Somali runner, drowning.[224] (death announced on this date)
Tony Scott, 68, British film director (Top Gun, Unstoppable) and producer (Numb3rs), suicide by jumping.

20th
Phyllis Diller, 95, American comedienne and actress (The Pruitts of Southampton), natural causes.
Virginia Dwyer, 92, American actress (Another World, As the World Turns, Guiding Light).

21st
Tissa David, 91, Hungarian-born American animator (Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure), cancer.
Roy Speer, 80, American businessman (Home Shopping Network).

22nd
Jeffrey Stone, 85, American actor, model for Prince Charming in Cinderella.

23rd
James Fogle, 75, American author (Drugstore Cowboy), mesothelioma.
Byard Lancaster, 70, American jazz multi-instrumentalist, pancreatic cancer.
Bob Myrick, 59, American baseball player (New York Mets), heart attack.
Jerry Nelson, 78, American puppeteer (The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock), prostate cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Josepha Sherman, 65, American science fiction author.
Steve Van Buren, 91, American Hall of Fame football player (Philadelphia Eagles), pneumonia.

24th
Steve Franken, 80, American actor (Bewitched, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis), cancer.
Claire Malis, 69, American actress (One Life to Live, From Here to Eternity, The Facts of Life), heart failure and pneumonia.

25th
Neil Armstrong, 82, American astronaut, first person to walk on the Moon, complications from coronary artery bypass surgery.
R. Palmer Beasley, 76, American physician, public health educator, and epidemiologist, pancreatic cancer.
Stanley Crooks, 70, American tribal leader, Chairman of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community (1992–2012), respiratory ailment.

27th
Malcolm Browne, 81, American journalist and photographer (1964 Pulitzer Prize), complications of Parkinson's disease.
Art Heyman, 71, American basketball player (New York Knicks, Philadelphia 76ers).
Russell Scott, 91, American clown and television host (Blinky's Fun Club), pneumonia.

29th
Les Moss, 87, American baseball player (St. Louis Browns).
Dan O'Keefe, 84, American author and editor (Reader's Digest), inventor of Festivus.

31st
Tom Keating, 69, American football player (Oakland Raiders), prostate cancer.
Alan M. Kriegsman, 84, American dance critic (1976 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism), heart disease.