1969 deaths

John Altoon (November 5, 1925 – February 8, 1969) was an American artist. Born in Los Angeles to immigrant Armenian parents, from 1947 to 1949 he attended the Otis Art Institute, from 1947 to 1950 he also attended the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, and in 1950 the Chouinard Art Institute. Altoon was a prominent figure in the LA art scene in the 1950s and 1960s. Exhibitions of his work have been held at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Corcoran Gallery, Washington D.C, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, The Baxter Museum, Pasadena, and The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (opened June 2014).

Charles W. Thayer (February 9, 1910 – August 27, 1969) was an American diplomat and author. He was an expert on Soviet-American relations and headed the Voice of America.

Ernest Witebsky, also Ernest Witebsky (3 September 1901 in Frankfurt am Main – 7 December 1969) was a German-American immunologist.

Karl Hagedorn (11 September 1889 – 1969), who signed himself Hagedorn, was a painter and illustrator. He was born in Berlin in 1889 but settled in Manchester, England, in 1905.

Charlotte Ander (born Charlotte Andersch, 14 August 1902 – 5 August 1969) was a German actress.
She was born in Berlin, the daughter of German stage/film couple Rudolf Andersch and Ida Perry. Ander was trained at the Berliner Staatstheater. Ander was a star in the silent era before making the transition to sound. Her film career started in 1920 with the film Die letzte Stunde and Danton (1921). Innumerable starring roles in silent movies and early talkies with super-stars Emil Jannings, Marlene Dietrich, and Hans Albers followed.
On 21 February 1927, she created the role of Mascha in the world premiere of Der Zarewitsch by Franz Lehar at the Deutsche Künstler Theater in Berlin, alongside Rita Georg and Richard Tauber, with the composer conducting.
She celebrated her greatest success in 1933 with the role of the record shop assistant Nina in Ein Lied geht um die Welt aka A Song Goes Around the World in which she starred with then popular singer Joseph Schmidt and her mother, Ida Perry. In 1933, after the Nazis came to power, because she was not reinrassig or pure-blood, it became difficult for Ander to find work. She went to England and made at least two films including Maid Happy (1933), but soon found roles as hard, or harder, to find in England than they had been in Germany.
Despite the difficult conditions for her in Nazi Germany, Ander returned. She could make a living although not often in front of the cameras. Her only two Nazi era German films were Wie einst im Mai (1938) and Anton the Last (1939). Here fortunes were somewhat better on the stage where she worked until 1950 before returning to the screen in The Benthin Family. Her final film was Das tanzende Herz (1953). She died in West Berlin.

Erich Franz Eugen Bracht (5 June 1882 – 1969) was a German pathologist and gynaecologist born in Berlin.
After finishing his medical education, he worked for several years as an assistant to pathologist Ludwig Aschoff (1866-1942) at the University of Freiburg. Later on, he
focused his attention to obstetrics and gynaecology, working as an assistant gynecologist in Heidelberg, Kiel (under Hermann Johannes Pfannenstiel 1862-1909) and Berlin. In 1922 he became an associate professor at the University of Berlin and eventually director of the Charité Frauenklinik. Following World War II he served as a consultant of gynaecology and obstetrics during the American occupation of Berlin.While at Freiburg, Bracht made important contributions involving the pathological study of rheumatic myocarditis. With Hermann Julius Gustav Wächter, he described the eponymous "Bracht-Wachter bodies", defined as myocardial microabscesses seen in the presence of bacterial endocarditis.He is also remembered for the "Bracht manoeuvre" (first described in 1935), a breech delivery that allows for delivery of the infant with minimum interference.

Hermann Werner Siemens (August 20, 1891 (Charlottenberg) -1969) was a German dermatologist who first described multiple skin diseases and was one of the inventors of the twin study. Siemens' work in twin studies is influential in modern genetics and is used to address the environmental and genetic impacts upon traits. Siemens was involved in racial hygiene and affiliated with the Nazi Party.

José Elías Moreno (12 November 1910 – 15 July 1969) was a Mexican character actor. He appeared in more than 180 films between 1937 and 1969. He was from the state of Jalisco. His son of the same name, born in 1956, is also a successful actor in television, cinema, and stage.

Richard Nott Antrim (December 17, 1907 – March 7, 1969) was an officer in the United States Navy who received the United States' highest military decoration—the Medal of Honor—for his actions as a prisoner of war during World War II. He retired in 1954 as a rear admiral.

Richard L. Farley (April 13, 1932 – October 2, 1969) was an American professional basketball player.
A 6'4" (1.93 m) guard/forward from Winslow, Indiana, Farley played for the 1953 Indiana University national championship team. He also played three seasons (1954–1956; 1958–1959) in the National Basketball Association as a member of the Syracuse Nationals and Detroit Pistons. He averaged 6.5 points per game in his career and won a league title with Syracuse in 1955.
Farley previously held the NBA record for the shortest amount of time on the floor before fouling out in a game, with five minutes' playing time, set on March 12, 1956. The record stood for 41 years until the Dallas Mavericks' Bubba Wells broke it by getting himself disqualified in just 3 minutes on December 29, 1997.Farley died of cancer on October 2, 1969.