2023 deaths

Leo_Sterckx

Leo Sterckx (16 July 1936 – 4 March 2023) was a Belgian cyclist. He competed for Belgium at the 1960 Summer Olympics held in Rome, Italy in the individual sprint event where he finished in second place.Sterckx died on 4 March 2023, at the age of 86.

Donn_Cambern

Donn Cambern (October 9, 1929 – January 18, 2023) was an American film editor with more than three dozen feature film credits. His editing of Romancing the Stone (1984) was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Film Editing along with fellow editor Frank Morriss, and his editing of Easy Rider (1969) has been noted as particularly innovative and influential. He was awarded the American Cinema Editors Career Achievement Award in 2004.Cambern was born in Los Angeles, California, and obtained a B.A. in music from UCLA. Cambern began his career as a music editor for The Andy Griffith Show before moving into film editing.
Officially credited with editing The Last Picture Show (1971), Cambern's involvement was called into question in the 1999 documentary, The Last Picture Show: A Look Back. In the documentary, Peter Bogdanovich said that after shooting the film, he went back to Los Angeles to edit it on a Moviola. When finished editing the entire picture, he refused to credit himself as editor, reasoning that credits beyond that of director and co-writer would look 'ridiculous'. After being informed that the Motion Picture Editors Guild required crediting an editor, he suggested Donn Cambern who had been editing another film in the next office over and had helped Bogdanovich with some purchasing paperwork. In the documentary, Cybill Shepherd said that when she went to stay with Bogdanovich during that time, it was disappointing because he was too busy editing the film. Cambern disputes this, stating that Bogdanovich did do an edit of the film, which he screened for a selection of guests, including Jack Nicholson, Bob Rafelson and himself. The consensus was the film was going to be great, but needed further editing to achieve its full potential. Bogdanovich invited Cambern to edit the film further and Cambern made significant contributions to the film's final form.
One of Cambern's favorite stories and something for which he is often remembered is the editing of the final sequence of the Robert Wise film The Hindenburg (1975), in which Cambern manages to keep the Hindenburg blowing up for almost 10 minutes when the actual event lasted little more than 37 seconds.In 2007, Cambern was senior filmmaker-in-residence at the American Film Institute Conservatory. Cambern had been elected as a member of the American Cinema Editors. Cambern had served twice (1990–94, 1997–99) as Vice-President of the Board of Governors for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. From 1991-2002, he was President of the Motion Picture Editors Guild.Cambern was the inaugural recipient of the Guild's Fellowship and Service Award in 2007.Cambern died of complications from a fall on January 18, 2023, at the Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California. He was 93.

Simone_Segouin

Simone Segouin (French: [simɔn səɡwɛ̃]; 3 October 1925 – 21 February 2023), also known by her nom de guerre Nicole Minet (French: [nikɔl minɛ]), was a French Resistance fighter who served in the Francs-tireurs et partisans group during World War II. Among her first acts of resistance was stealing a bicycle from a German patrol, which she then used to help carry messages. She went on to take part in large-scale or otherwise dangerous missions, such as capturing German troops, derailing trains, and acts of sabotage.

Francisco_Luna_Kan

Francisco Epigmenio Luna Kan (3 December 1925 – 23 November 2023) was a Mexican politician who served as the Governor of Yucatán from 1976 to 1982.
Luna Kan was born on 3 December 1925 in the town of Noc Ac in the municipality of Mérida. He earned his medical degree from the National Polytechnic Institute's Higher School of Rural Medicine, writing his thesis on epidemiology and social characteristics of tubercular patients, before earning a master's degree in health sciences. Luna Kan was a practicing doctor of medicine then taught as a Professor of Medicine before first obtaining political office, at first being overseer of the state's rural medical system.Luna Kan was the first person of pure Maya ancestry to govern the state since the Spanish conquest of Yucatán. (In the early 1920s, Felipe Carrillo Puerto, who was partly Maya, had been governor.) For centuries the political elite had been Criollos (Yucatecans of pure Spanish ancestry). It was widely said that party officials of Mexico's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) took the unusual step of selecting a person of Maya descent as their candidate in 1975 because the opposition National Action Party (PAN) had been getting many votes in Yucatán, and PRI candidates had been getting a poor showing in the state's predominantly Maya towns and villages. It was said that PAN got the majority of votes in the previous governor's race, and the PRI managed to maintain control of the state only through fraud in counting votes.After his term as governor Luna Kan resigned from the PRI and joined the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). He unsuccessfully ran as that party's candidate for municipal president of Mérida in 1998. Francisco Luna Kan held a seat in the federal Chamber of Deputies as a PRD deputy for Yucatán.Francisco Luna Kan died on 23 November 2023, at the age of 97.

James_Alexander_Thom

James Alexander Craig Thom (May 26, 1933 – January 30, 2023) was an American author, best known for his works in the Western genre and colonial American history which are noted for their historical accuracy borne of his painstaking research. Thom graduated from Butler University in 1961 with a BA in Journalism after serving in the United States Marine Corps in the Korean War. He taught a course in journalism at Indiana University, and was a contributor to The Saturday Evening Post.

Peterson_Zah

Peterson Zah (December 2, 1937 – March 7, 2023) was an American politician who held several offices with the Navajo Nation. From 1983 to 1987, he was chairman of the Navajo Nation, its then head of government. At its 1991 restructuring, he became the first president of the Navajo Nation, until 1995. He then worked at Arizona State University as special adviser to the president on American Indian Affairs and consulted companies willing to work with his nation.