2000 deaths

Michel Demaret (18 January 1940 – 9 November 2000) was a Belgian politician.

Louis Leprince-Ringuet (27 March 1901, in Alès – 23 December 2000, in Paris) was a French physicist, telecommunications engineer, essayist and historian of science.Leprince-Ringuet advocated strongly for the creation of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and remained its indefatigable supporter. He was vice chair (1956–69) and chair (1964–66) of CERN’s scientific policy committee. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society.He is known for early discovery of the kaon. He also coined the term hyperon in 1953.

Jens Jørgen Thorsen (2 February 1932 Holstebro – 15 November 2000) was a Danish artist, director, and jazz musician whose works sometimes created controversy.
Thorsen began his artistic career attending periodically the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. Jens Jørgen Thorsen was part of the Situationist International Movement, in particular his happenings and collaboration with Jørgen Nash are well documented.
Thorsen also wrote, directed, and starred in a number of films, the most notable of them being Quiet Days in Clichy (Stille dage i Clichy,1970), based on the Henry Miller novel.
In painting, Thorsen painted a number of abstract works, which have become increasingly collectible. He also stirred up controversy with a work depicting Jesus in a manner some considered pornographic. Thorsen planned a film called The Many Faces of Jesus, later The Sex Life of Jesus, and was to have involved both heterosexual and homosexual acts. The film plans met with strong national and international protests and accusations of blasphemy resulting in the Danish Film Academy withdrawing its financial support. The film was to have been made in Britain, but it faced intense opposition from Christian morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse, pressure groups, as well as from the Queen, then Prime Minister James Callaghan, the Archbishop of Canterbury Donald Coggan, and Pope Paul VI, who called the film "an insult ... which transforms Christ into sacrilegious bait for filthy falseness". The Return of Jesus (1992) (a completely different project) was made after the ban on the original project was rescinded in 1990. The controversy, and particularly Thorsen's reported interest in producing the film in the United States, led to a decades-long hoax that the release of such a film was imminent.Thorsen was also a jazz musician and co-founder of the group Papa Bue's Viking Jazzband.

Kenneth Waller (5 November 1927 – 28 January 2000) was an English actor. He was known for portraying Grandad in Bread and Old Mr. Grace in Are You Being Served?

Gérard Blain (23 October 1930 – 17 December 2000) was a French actor and film director.

Alexander John ("Jack") Mackenzie Stuart, Baron Mackenzie-Stuart (18 November 1924 – 1 April 2000) was a Scottish advocate and judge. He was the first judge from a United Kingdom jurisdiction to sit on the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, later becoming its president.

Sandro Paternostro (9 August 1922 – 23 July 2000) was an Italian journalist and television presenter.

Antonio Ruberti (24 January 1927 – 4 September 2000) was an Italian politician and engineer. He was a member of the Italian Government and a European Commissioner as well as a professor of engineering at La Sapienza University.

José Greco (né Costanzo Greco; December 23, 1918 – December 31, 2000) was an Italian-born American flamenco dancer and choreographer known for popularizing Spanish dance on the stage and screen in America mostly in the 1950s and 1960s.

Suzanne Danco (22 January 1911 – 10 August 2000) was a Belgian international soprano whose career encompassed the opera stages of Europe from Mozart to 20th century roles, recitals, recordings of opera and songs, and later teaching.