2003 deaths

James Thomas Flexner (January 13, 1908 – February 13, 2003) was an American historian and biographer best known for the four-volume biography of George Washington that earned him a National Book Award
in Biography and a special Pulitzer Prize. His one-volume abridgment, Washington: the Indispensable Man (1974) was the basis of two television miniseries, George Washington (1984) and George Washington II: The Forging of a Nation (1986), starring Barry Bostwick as Washington.

Paul Adriaan Jan, Baron Janssen (12 September 1926 – 11 November 2003) was a Belgian physician. He was the founder of Janssen Pharmaceutica, a pharmaceutical company with over 20,000 employees which is now a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson.

Henry Falcon Cuesta, Sr. (December 23, 1931 – December 17, 2003), was an American woodwind musician who was a cast member of The Lawrence Welk Show. His primary instrument was the clarinet, but he also played saxophone.
At an early age, Cuesta began studying classical violin and then switched to woodwinds. He proved himself gifted and was selected to play while he was still in high school with the Corpus Christi Symphony Orchestra in Corpus Christi, Texas.
Before being drafted into the United States Army in 1952, he graduated from Del Mar College, a community college in Corpus Christi, at which he majored in music. In the Army Special Services, he was involved in entertaining troops in Europe and England, which included a "Tribute to Gershwin" concert with the Stuttgart Symphony Orchestra in Germany.
After his Army duty, Cuesta toured the United States and Canada and developed his own highly personal style. While living in Toronto, Cuesta and his group became popular for visiting musicians, including Benny Goodman on one occasion. He later toured in the working band of the legendary trombonist, Jack Teagarden. Bobby Hackett advised him to get in touch with Lawrence Welk, and after listening to his recordings, Welk hired him immediately.
Cuesta made countless personal appearances performing and conducting in jazz festivals, state and county fairs, conventions, supper clubs, and symphony pops concerts. He appeared as a soloist with Jack Teagarden, Bob Crosby, Mel Tormé, in a Bobby Vinton television special, on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and ten years on The Lawrence Welk Show. He also made several appearances to the Colorado Springs Invitational Jazz Party in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and performed with numerous international jazz musicians.
Cuesta died the age of seventy-one at his home in Sherman Oaks, California, after a bout with cancer.
His only son, Henry, Jr., was shot and killed in a robbery at the age of seventeen while he was working in 1987 at a movie theater on Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica, California.

Ralph William Beard (February 11, 1929 – February 10, 2003) was an American professional baseball player, a right-handed pitcher whose ten-season (1947–56) pro career included 13 games pitched for the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball. Beard, a native of Cincinnati, attended the University of Cincinnati. He stood 6 feet 5 inches (1.96 m) tall and weighed 200 pounds (91 kg).
Beard's 13 big-league appearances included ten starting pitcher assignments, as he took a regular turn in the Cardinals' rotation during late July and August of the 1954 season. Although he lost all four decisions, he made a memorable start on July 22, 1954, against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Busch Stadium. He went 12 innings and allowed only one earned run and eight hits (including a home run by Preston Ward for the Pirates' earned run), but left the game for a pinch hitter with the score tied 2–2. He was relieved by Gerry Staley, who hurled two perfect frames and St. Louis won, 3–2, in 14 innings.As a starter, Beard gave up 29 runs in ten efforts and 492⁄3 innings pitched, but only 21 were earned (for a 3.81 earned run average in starting assignments). All told as a Major Leaguer, he surrendered 62 hits and 28 bases on balls in 58 innings pitched, with 17 strikeouts.
Beard died in West Palm Beach, Florida, on the day before his 74th birthday.

James Verlin Mertz (August 10, 1916 – February 4, 2003) was a pitcher in Major League Baseball. He played for the Washington Senators, appearing in 33 games, all during the 1943 season, making ten starts, while notching three saves.

Sophie Daumier (24 November 1934 – 31 December 2003) was a French film actress. She appeared in 28 films between 1956 and 1979. She was born as Elisabeth Hugon in Boulogne-sur-Mer, Pas-de-Calais, the daughter of composer Georges Hugon. She was married to Guy Bedos from 1965 to 1977; the marriage ended in divorce. She died from Huntington's disease on 31 December 2003 in Paris. She was 69 years old.

Daniel Ceccaldi (25 July 1927 – 27 March 2003) was a French actor.
He was born in Meaux, Seine-et-Marne, France. The mild-mannered Daniel Ceccaldi is famous as Claude Jade's father Lucien Darbon in François Truffaut's movies Stolen Kisses and Bed and Board. Note: Christine refers to him twice as "Lucien", not papa, indicating perhaps that he is not her biological father, echoing Truffaut's own experience. The American critic Bob Wade wrote about Ceccaldi in 'Stolen Kisses': "Claude Jade's parents are memorably played by Daniel Ceccaldi and Claire Duhamel. Ceccaldi’s role may represent the most pleasant and neurosis-free father in any movie of the era. He overflows with Dickensian warmth and geniality."

François Boyer (1920 – 24 May 2003) was a French screenwriter. He achieved considerable success with his first attempt at screenwriting, Forbidden Games (1952). Initially, he found no studio interested in his work, so he redesigned the screenplay as a novel and published it in 1947 under the title The Secret Game. Although the novel achieved little or no success in its native country, it became a huge commercial success in America. All of a sudden, Boyer's novel was a hot property, so director René Clément, in conjunction with two writers Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost, helped turn it into a screenplay. While Boyer receives story credit for the film, little is known of how much of his own screenplay made it to the screen. The film was a huge international success, and won an Honorary Oscar for the best foreign language film of its year.
Although Boyer remained prolific throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, little of his subsequent work had as much impact as Forbidden Games. His 1962 film La Guerre des Boutons, however, was remade by producer David Puttnam in 1994 as The War of the Buttons.

Raoul Bortoletto (Italian pronunciation: [ˈraul bortoˈletto]; 9 May 1925 – 4 January 2003) was an Italian professional footballer who played as a midfielder.

Andrea Bonomi (Italian pronunciation: [anˈdrɛːa boˈnɔːmi]; 14 February 1923 – 26 November 2003) was an Italian footballer who played as a defender.