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Trevor Bolder: Bass guitarist with David Bowie’s Spiders from Mars and heavy rockers Uriah Heep

Fri, 24 May 2013 23:55:35 GMT

The bassist Trevor Bolder backed David Bowie in the early 1970s during the most important and productive chapter of his career, when he created his alien alter-ego Ziggy Stardust and changed the face of popular music with his 1972 album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars.

Zahra Shahid Hussain: Politician who worked for a better Pakistan

Fri, 24 May 2013 23:55:12 GMT

The politician Zahra Shahid Hussain, who was shot dead outside her home in Karachi, spent much of her life trying to help the less fortunate people of Pakistan.

Boruch Spiegel: Survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto

Fri, 24 May 2013 23:50:22 GMT

Boruch Spiegel, who died on 9 May at the age of 93, was one of the last remaining survivors of the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising by poorly armed Jewish insurgents against the Nazis. With Spiegel’s death, the group of survivors of the revolt that was crushed 70 years ago grows smaller.

Richard Thorp: Actor best known as reformed character Alan Turner in 'Emmerdale'

Thu, 23 May 2013 19:00:00 GMT

When Richard Thorp joined Emmerdale Farm in 1982 as Alan Turner, manager of NY Estates, he quickly gained an onscreen reputation as a boozer and womaniser. Off screen the actor found himself treated on a par with "nasty" JR Ewing of Dallas, taxi drivers refused to pick him up and he once managed to empty a tea room in Harrogate simply by walking in. Nine years later, the Yorkshire soap opera's baddie had mellowed and become the genial landlord of The Woolpack pub – and a bit of a buffoon. The serial itself changed, too, when its title was shortened to Emmerdale and the stories become more raunchy.

Brian Greenhoff: Dynamic heart of Tommy Docherty's 1970s Manchester United team

Thu, 23 May 2013 19:00:00 GMT

Brian Greenhoff, who has died suddenly at the age of 60, was a dynamic presence at the core of Tommy Docherty's swashbuckling Manchester United side which briefly illuminated the top flight of English football in the mid-1970s after bouncing back from the hitherto unthinkable – relegation to the Second Division – at the first attempt. The sturdy, blond Yorkshireman, who flourished initially for the Red Devils as an industrious holding midfielder and then as a ball-playing central defender, filled both roles for England, too, collecting 18 caps during the managerial reigns of Don Revie and Ron Greenwood.

Mack Emerman: Recording studio mogul

Thu, 23 May 2013 19:00:00 GMT

Mack Emerman, who has died at the age of 89, was the founder of Criteria Recording Studios, where acts such as Eric Clapton, James Brown and the Bee Gees made some of their most famous records.

Mick McManus: Wrestler who revelled in his status as the man the British public loved to hate

Wed, 22 May 2013 18:00:00 GMT

Mick McManus was one of the greatest British wrestlers. An enormously popular figure who delighted in the nicknames of "The Man You Love to Hate" and "The Dulwich Destroyer", he was renowned for pushing the rules of the sport to their limits and for deliberately turning the crowds against him for theatrical effect.

Alfredo Landa: Actor who gave his name to a genre of Spanish film

Wed, 22 May 2013 18:00:00 GMT

Alfredo Landa was unique among Spanish actors to have lent his name to a national film genre. Landismo was the label coined to describe the Carry On style of hugely popular Spanish comedies of the early 1970s that made Landa a household name.

Billie Sol Estes: Businessman and notorious conman

Wed, 22 May 2013 18:00:00 GMT

Billie Sol Estes was a flamboyant Texan huckster who became one of the most notorious men in America in 1962 when he was accused of looting a federal crop subsidy programme. His name synonymous with Texas-sized schemes, greed and corruption, he reigned in the state as king of conmen for nearly 50 years. Time put him on its cover, calling him "a welfare-state Ponzi ... a bundle of contradictions and paradoxes who makes Dr Jekyll seem almost wholesome."

Ken Venturi: Champion golfer and respected broadcaster

Tue, 21 May 2013 23:00:00 GMT

The golfer Ken Venturi, who died in hospital in Rancho Mirage, California on 10 May at the age of 82, was a former US Open champion who went on to become an admired broadcaster. He won 14 times on the PGA Tour and had ben inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame only 11 days ago.

Ray Manzarek: Keyboard player at the heart of the dark, brooding sound of The Doors

Tue, 21 May 2013 23:00:00 GMT

The keyboard player and songwriter Ray Manzarek was a founder-member of the Doors, the Los Angeles group who seemed to embody the possibilities, contradictions and limitations of the rock medium more than any other in the late Sixties. The tall, professorial-looking musician exuded a gravitas commensurate with the dark, questing nature of the band's tours de force "The End", "When The Music's Over" and "Riders On The Storm" and with the fate that befell their shamanic frontman Jim Morrison, who died in mysterious circumstances in Paris in July 1971. This added to the mystique around the group, who have sold over 100m albums and been the subject of several documentaries, and Oliver Stone's biopic (Kyle MacLachlan portrayed Manzarek).

Eddie Braben: Morecambe and Wise's scriptwriter

Tue, 21 May 2013 23:00:00 GMT

When Morecambe and Wise garnered around 28 million viewers on Christmas Night 1977 it proved to be the zenith of television light entertainment. A decade earlier the duo had been a solid but not sensational success for ITV. More than anyone else it was their writer, Eddie Braben, who had changed their fortunes. BBC's Head of Light Entertainment Bill Cotton had had the idea of placing Braben with them, and turned a success into a legend.

Brigadier-General Zdenek Skarvada: Spitfire pilot who later underwent forced labour

Mon, 20 May 2013 23:00:00 GMT

Zdenek Skarvada, who has died aged 95, was one of the last surviving Czech or Slovak pilots who flew fighters or bombers in the RAF during the Second World War. They took heavy casualties: 32 Czech fighter pilots were killed in his 310 Squadron alone and 480 overall in RAF fighters or bombers. After the engine of his Spitfire failed while on patrol on 4 February 1942, he baled out into the sea near the Isles of Scilly, and was picked up, unconscious but afloat in his life jacket, by a German torpedo boat.

Cynthia Brown: Human rights activist

Mon, 20 May 2013 23:00:00 GMT

Cynthia Brown, who died of cancer in New York on 12 May at the age of 60, was one of the guiding forces of the international advocacy group Human Rights Watch. She started with Human Rights Watch as a researcher in 1982, focusing on the Americas. In 1990, she went to Chile for two years for the organisation and in 1993 she became its first programme director, overseeing every report it published.

Joe Farman: Scientist who first uncovered the hole in the ozone layer

Mon, 20 May 2013 23:00:00 GMT

Joe Farman was a British physicist who came to prominence when he alerted the world to the man-made hole in the ozone layer. It became widely accepted as one of the biggest environmental and scientific discoveries of the 20th century.

Cedric ‘Im’ Brooks Saxophonist who played ska, reggae and rocksteady

Sun, 19 May 2013 23:01:41 GMT

In 1973, the Jamaican saxophonist and composer Cedric “Im” Brooks issued a wonderful album entitled From Mento to Reggae to Third World Music.

Virginia Gibson: Singer, actress and dancer who starred in hit musicals of the 1940s and ’50s

Sun, 19 May 2013 23:01:40 GMT

The pert dancer, singer and actress Virginia Gibson brightened several film musicals of the 1950s, notably the classic Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), in which, as one of the brides, she danced in the barn-raising sequence, one of the most exhilarating numbers in movie history, and led the rest of the girls in the song “June Bride”.

Taylor Mead: Member of Andy Warhol’s Factory

Sun, 19 May 2013 23:01:27 GMT

The actor and poet Taylor Mead was an instinctive and natural performer who became associated with the New American Cinema movement and was the first “superstar” of Andy Warhol’s Factory. His acting break came in 1959, when the experimental filmmaker Ron Rice cast him in The Flower Thief.

Paul Shane: Actor who mined a seam of comedy nostalgia in 'Hi-De-Hi!' and 'Oh Mr Beeching!'

Fri, 17 May 2013 20:50:08 GMT

Pug-faced and cheery-eyed, Paul Shane was the face of a particular strain of nostalgic comedy on BBC television for nearly two decades. Instantly recognisable as the face (and voice) of the ’50s-set holiday-camp sitcom Hi-De-Hi!, Shane relished the role of resident comedian and shyster Ted Bovis. The series won a Bafta in 1984, and while the camp performances and larky plots may seem as quaintly antiquated now as the 1950s themselves did in the 1980s, the series was a Sunday-night hit for the BBC and worked well as a knockabout family romp alongside the decade’s more ground-breaking sitcoms.

General Jorge Rafael Videla: Dictator who brought terror to Argentina in the 'dirty war'

Fri, 17 May 2013 20:42:35 GMT

General Jorge Rafael Videla was the dictator who brought terror to his country in the second half of the 1970s, plunging it into a “dirty war” against subversion. At least 9,000 people were killed by armed forces under his direct command as president of the military junta which had seized power in March 1976. Videla always argued that he had merely been doing his duty. He claimed not only to have saved Argentina from political chaos, but to have defended “Western Christian civilisation” in its fight against communism. He remained unrepentant to his dying day, declaring in 1998 that “ I reject the accusations made against me and on the contrary call on behalf of the Argentine nation and its armed forces in particular, for the honour due to victory.”

Michael Grigsby: Film-maker whose work gave a voice to the voiceless

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Over half a century of film-making, the documentary director Michael Grigsby gave a voice to the voiceless, in their own environment. "I always believed that we don't listen enough to the ordinary people," he once said. "We don't give them enough time and space to be themselves."

Sir Terence Beckett: Head of Ford and the CBI who attacked the Conservatives over austerity

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Sir Terence Beckett, who has died at the age of 89, had a career which included six years as chairman of Ford in Britain and several years as director general of the CBI. But despite his successes, the industrial and political problems of Britain in the 1970s and 1980s prevented him from achieving as much as this model of a modern manager could have done a few years later. As he himself put it, "We have had an inheritance of inertia in this country which has been disguised by the industrial revolution, the empire and North Sea oil."

Alan Wood: Naval officer at Iwo Jima

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Alan Wood, who died on 18 April at the age of 90, was a Second World War veteran who was credited with providing the flag in the famous flag-raising on Iwo Jima. Others have claimed they provided the flag, but retired Marine Colonel Dave Severance, who commanded the company that took Mount Suribachi that day, confirmed recently that it was Wood. "I have a file of more than 60 people who claim to have had something to do with the flags," he said.

Valtr Komarek: One of the velvet revolutionaries

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:30:00 GMT

Valtr Komarek, who died yesterday at the age of 82, was a left-wing Czech politician and economist who helped overthrow the country's communist regime. He briefly served as deputy premier of the first post-communist government.

Mark Kamins: DJ and producer who helped launch Madonna's career

Wed, 15 May 2013 18:00:00 GMT

In the late 1970s and early '80s the DJ Mark Kamins was making a name for himself, spinning "Motown, James Brown, hardcore R&B and beyond" at downtown New York clubs like Trax, the Mudd Club, Peppermint Lounge and Danceteria.