2000 deaths

Henry Alexander Ruszkowski (November 10, 1925 – May 31, 2000) was an American professional baseball player. A catcher, he appeared in 40 Major League games over parts of three seasons for the Cleveland Indians (1944–1945; 1947). Listed at 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m), 190 pounds (86 kg), Ruszkowski batted and threw right-handed. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio.During his Major League career, Ruszkowski was a .238 hitter (20-for-84) with three home runs, two doubles and a .310 on-base percentage. He also played seven minor league seasons between 1944 and 1954, appearing in 298 games.Ruszkowski died in his native Cleveland at the age of 74.

Franck Pourcel (14 August 1913 – 12 November 2000) was a French composer, arranger, and conductor of popular and classical music.

Michel Dens (22 June 1911 in Roubaix – 19 December 2000 in Paris) was a French baritone, particularly associated with the French repertory, both opera and operetta.
Born Maurice Marcel, the son of a journalist, he studied at the Academy of Music in Roubaix. He made his debut at the Opéra de Lille, as Wagner in Gounod's Faust, in 1934, and remained there as a member until 1936. Thereafter he sang at the Opera Houses of Bordeaux, Grenoble, Toulouse and Marseille. In 1943, he was heard at the Monte Carlo Opera as Escamillo, Valentin, and the Count in Le nozze di Figaro.
After the Second World War, he began a very successful career at the Opéra-Comique and the Palais Garnier in Paris. His roles at the Opéra-Comique included; Figaro, Lescaut, Zurga, Frédéric, Ourrias, Dapertutto, Alfio, Marcello, Scarpia, et al., he took part there in the creation of Emmanuel Bondeville's Madame Bovary, on 1 June 1951.
His debut role at the Opéra in 1947 was in the title role of Rigoletto, he also sang there as Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor, Hérode in Hérodiade, Athanaël in Thais, et al. He appeared with success at the Aix-en-Provence Festival and at most of the great Opera Houses of France.
He also appeared in Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, and North Africa.
He enjoyed a remarkably long and successful career, singing in opera as late as 1979, and also attaining magnificent success in French and Viennese operettas, notably in Lehár's The Land of Smiles and The Merry Widow. He also sang in works by Louis Varney, Robert Planquette, Charles Lecocq, André Messager, and others. As late as 1992, he gave concerts in Paris and Marseille. He was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur.
Dens sang an estimated 10,000 performances during his long career.

Jacqueline Auriol (French pronunciation: [ʒaklin oʁjɔl]; 5 November 1917, Challans, Vendée – 11 February 2000) was a French aviator who set several world speed records.

Frédéric Dard (Frédéric Charles Antoine Dard; 29 June 1921, in Bourgoin-Jallieu, Isère, France – 6 June 2000, in Bonnefontaine, Fribourg, Switzerland) was a French crime writer. He wrote more than three hundred novels, plays and screenplays, under his own name and a variety of pseudonyms, including the San-Antonio book series.

Heinz Harmel (29 June 1906 – 2 September 2000) was a German SS commander during the Nazi era. He commanded the 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg during World War II. Harmel was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords of Nazi Germany.

Joseph Cornelis (17 November 1917 – 2000) was a Belgian boxer who competed in the 1936 Summer Olympics. He was eliminated in a quarterfinal bout of the bantamweight class after losing his fight to the eventual gold medalist Ulderico Sergo.

John Crittenden Sawhill (June 12, 1936 – May 18, 2000) was president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy and the 12th President of New York University (NYU).
Born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1936, Sawhill graduated from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 1958. He earned a PhD in economics in 1963 from New York University, where he served as professor of economics. He was named president of New York University in 1975, serving until 1979. At a trying time in NYU's history, he received widespread acclaim for bringing about an academic and financial turnaround at the country's largest private university.
His research focused on the nonprofit sector, and he joined the Harvard Business School faculty in 1997 as part of the School's Initiative on Social Enterprise. His seminar Effective Leadership of Social Enterprises prepared students for leadership roles in nonprofit management.
Earlier he held several government positions during the Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations. Those included being Deputy Secretary of Energy; Chairman of the U.S. Synthetic Fuels Corporation; Administrator of the Federal Energy Administration (appointed by President Nixon, he resigned that position in October, 1974), and Associate Director for Natural Resources, Energy, Science and Environment in the Office of Management and Budget. In 1977, he was elected to the Common Cause National Governing Board.
During his ten-year tenure, The Nature Conservancy became the world's largest private conservation group and protected more than 7 million acres (28,000 km²) in the United States alone.
Sawhill, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School and president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy, died of complications from diabetes May 18, 2000 at the age of 63. His wife was Isabel Sawhill and his son was James W. Sawhill.

Logan Carlisle Ramsey Jr. (March 21, 1921 – June 26, 2000) was an American character actor of television and film for nearly 50 years.

Robert Hugo Dunlap (October 19, 1920 – March 24, 2000) was a United States Marine Corps major who received the Medal of Honor for heroism above and beyond the call of duty as a captain of a rifle company during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.