Abe Gibron, 72, former Bears head coach (1972-74) who had played for the team (1958) and was a Bears assistant coach for seven seasons; after graduating from Purdue, he started his pro career in 1949 with Buffalo in the American Football League, then played seven years with Cleveland and one with Philadelphia before joining the Bears; the 300-pound lineman played in five Pro Bowl games; Sept. 23, in Belle Air, Fla.
John H. Howe, 84, architect who penned the drawings for many famous Frank Lloyd Wright buildings, including the Guggenheim Museum in New York; he was 19 and fresh out of high school in Evanston when he became an original member of Wright’s Taliesin Fellowship, a band of apprentices formed in 1932, and he became Wright’s chief draftsman; Sept. 21, in Minneapolis.
Michael Roche, 83, a fixture in Chicago’s sailing community and a world class sailor who was part of a Chicago team that won the U.S. Women’s Sailing Championships in 1956; the Chicago native began sailing in the 1940s and took up competitive racing in the 1950s; Sept. 24, in St. Joseph Hospital.
John T. “Ted” Loughlin, 76, former partner with Bell, Boyd & Lloyd, a Chicago law firm; he had headed its antitrust and trade regulation department for 30 years and was lead counsel in many major anti-trust cases; he wrote dozens of articles, speeches and several U.S. Supreme Court briefs; Sept. 22, in his Park Ridge home.
Kathy Keeton Guccione, 58, former ballet dancer and stripper who founded Penthouse magazine in the United States (1969) with her husband, Bob, and later helped found Omni magazine (1979); she was president and chief operating officer of General Media Communications Inc., which publishes several magazines; Sept. 19, in New York, of complications following surgery.
Rich Mullins, 41, best-selling singer and songwriter of contemporary Christian music; his biggest hit was “Awesome God”; he also collaborated with Amy Grant; Sept. 19, in Lostant, Ill., in a car accident
George Thomas, 88, onetime schoolmaster who was one of the most liked and colorful speakers of Britain’s House of Commons (1976-83); he became Viscount Tonypandy (the Welsh town where he was born) after his retirement from Commons; he then remained active in the House of Lords; Sept. 22, in Cardiff, Wales.
Egon Seefehlner, 85, former director of the Vienna State Opera and Berlin’s German Opera; in 1972, he became general manager of Berlin’s German Opera and was named director of the Vienna State Opera in 1976, a position he held until 1982; he returned in 1984 for two more years; Sept. 26, in Vienna.
William Craig, 68, author of two best-selling histories of World War II: “The Fall of Japan” (1967), which featured interviews with the crew of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki and the Japanese officers who rebelled against the emperor’s order to surrender; and “Enemy at the Gates” (1973), a critically acclaimed account of the siege of Stalingrad; Sept. 21, in Norwalk, Conn.
George Hinman, 91, longtime political adviser to Nelson Rockefeller and a Republican National Committee stalwart for two decades; he remained close to Rockefeller when the latter was governor of New York (1959-73) and vice president to President Gerald Ford (1974-77); he served on the GOP national committee (1959-77); Sept. 21, in Binghamton, N.Y.
Matt Christopher, 80, whose more than 120 sports novels for children and young adults entranced two generations of American youth and sold 6 million copies worldwide; among his books were “The Lucky Baseball Bat” and “The Kid Who Only Hit Homers”; under the pseudonym of Fredric Martin, he also wrote three mysteries for young adults; Sept. 20, in Charlotte, N.C.
Nelson Gross, 65, once a bold power broker and crafty political strategist in New Jersey’s Republican Party, who helped steer the 1968 presidential nomination to Richard Nixon; his political fame and authority plummeted in 1974, when he was convicted on federal charges relating to campaign financing and he served six months in prison; abandoning politics, he managed a real estate business; found dead Sept. 24 in New York, slain during a kidnapping and robbery.
Jean-Noel de Lipkowski, 77, French war hero and Gaullist former Cabinet member who denounced his Rally for the Republic party when it dropped him from its election slate this year because of his age; born to a family of Polish aristocrats long established in France, he joined the French Resistance during the 1940-44 German occupation; later, he became a noted Gaullist parliamentarian; Sept. 20, in Paris.
William W. Pierce III, 77, who announced more than 3,000 broadcasts of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s concerts over nearly four decades (1952-91); he also was an announcer for WGBH radio and television; in addition to concerts at Symphony Hall, he announced summer concerts from the Berkshire Music Festival at Tanglewood; Sept. 20, in Weymouth, Mass.
Max Heymans, 79, prominent Dutch fashion designer who began his career during World War II, designing hats while hiding from the Nazis; the Jewish couturier was forced into hiding in World War II, making ends meet by secretly designing hats that friends sold for him at Amsterdam’s Bijenkorf department store; Sept. 20, in Amsterdam.
