1985 deaths

Robert Charles Nieman (January 26, 1927 – March 10, 1985) was an American professional baseball player and scout. An outfielder, he spent all or parts of a dozen Major League Baseball seasons with the St. Louis Browns (1951–52), Detroit Tigers (1953–54), Chicago White Sox (1955–56), Baltimore Orioles (1956–59), St. Louis Cardinals (1960–61), Cleveland Indians (1961–62) and San Francisco Giants (1962). He also played one season in Japan for the Chunichi Dragons (1963). He threw and batted right-handed, stood 5 feet 11 inches (1.80 m) tall and weighed 195 pounds (88 kg).

Marc-Gilbert Sauvajon (25 September 1909, Valence, Drôme – 15 April 1985, Montpellier) was a French film director, script-writer, playwright and author.After studying law, he was made chief editor of the daily newspaper Sud-Est. He founded the journal Valence-Républicain.
His play "All in the Family", adapted by Victor Wolfson, was given its first performance at the Strand Theatre, London on 17 June 1959. It was directed by Norman Marshall and designed by Paul Mayo. The cast consisted of Maxine Audley, Donald Sinden, Andre Morell, Brian Oulton, Peggy Thorpe-Bates, Michael Logan, Vanda Godsell, Pauline Knight, Virginia Maskell, Mary Powell, Douglas Malcom and Philip Ashley.

Joel Anthony Crothers (January 28, 1941 – November 6, 1985) was an American actor. His credits primarily included stage and television work, including a number of soap opera roles, the best known being Miles Cavanaugh on The Edge of Night, whom he played for eight years. He was also known for his roles as Joe Haskell and Lt. Nathan Forbes on Dark Shadows, Ken Stevens #2 on The Secret Storm, and pianist/newspaper editor Julian Cannell on Somerset.

René Barjavel (24 January 1911 – 24 November 1985) was a French author, journalist and critic who may have been the first to think of the grandfather paradox in time travel. He was born in Nyons, a town in the Drôme department in southeastern France. He is best known as a science fiction author, whose work often involved the fall of civilisation due to technocratic hubris and the madness of war, but who also favoured themes emphasising the durability of love.René Barjavel wrote several novels with these themes, such as Ravage (translated as Ashes, ashes), Le Grand Secret, La Nuit des temps (translated as The Ice People), and Une rose au paradis. His writing is poetic, dreamy and sometimes philosophical. Some of his works have their roots in an empirical and poetic questioning of the existence of God (notably La Faim du tigre). He was also interested in the environmental heritage which we leave to future generations. Whilst his works are rarely taught in French schools, his books are very popular in France.
Barjavel wrote Le Voyageur imprudent (1943), the first novel to present the famous Grandfather paradox of time travel: if one goes backwards in time and kills one of their ancestors before he had children, the traveller cannot exist and therefore cannot kill the ancestor.
Barjavel died in 1985 and was buried with his ancestors in Tarendol (commune) cemetery, opposite Mount Ventoux in Provence. He used these place names in his books; Mount Ventoux appears as the site of the space base in Colomb de la lune, for example, and Tarendol is the name of the hero in the eponymous novel.

Marie Bell (23 December 1900 – 14 August 1985), born Marie-Jeanne Bellon-Downey, was a French tragedian, comic actor and stage director. She was the director of the Théâtre du Gymnase in Paris from 1962 onwards, and this theatre now bears her name.

Dennes Dale Boon (April 1, 1958 – December 22, 1985), also known as D. Boon, was an American musician, best as the guitarist, singer and songwriter of the punk rock trio Minutemen (formed by previous members of The Reactionaries).
He was born on April 1, 1958, in San Pedro, California, and formed Minutemen in 1980 with bassist Mike Watt and drummer George Hurley. Minutemen were known for their politically-charged lyrics and energetic, fast-paced music, and they released several influential records during their career.
Boon died in an automobile accident on December 22, 1985, at the age of 27. Despite his early death, Boon's contributions to punk rock and independent music have been widely-recognized. He is remembered as an important figure in the history of these genres.

Marianne Oswald (January 9, 1901 – February 25, 1985) was the stage name of Sarah Alice Bloch, a French singer and actress born in Sarreguemines in Alsace-Lorraine. She took this stage name from a character she much admired, the unhappy Oswald in the Ibsen play Ghosts. She was noted for her hoarse voice, heavy half-Lorraine, half-German accent, and for singing about unrequited love, despair, sadness, and death. She sang the songs of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht. She was friends with Jean Cocteau, Jacques Prévert, François Mauriac, and Albert Camus. In fact, the text for one of her album covers was written by Camus. She was an inspiration for the composers Francis Poulenc and Arthur Honegger.

John Ringling North (August 14, 1903 – June 4, 1985) was the president and director of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus from 1937 to 1943 and again from 1947 to 1967.

Helen Clark MacInnes (October 7, 1907 – September 30, 1985) was a Scottish-American writer of espionage novels.

Charles Anthoine Gonnet (November 3, 1897 – September 26, 1985) was a French poet. He was born in Laon. In 1924 he won a bronze medal in the art competitions of the Olympic Games for his "Vers le Dieu d'Olympie" ("Face to Face with Olympia's God").