2008 deaths

Davey Lee (December 29, 1924 – June 17, 2008) was an American child actor. He was born in Hollywood, California, United States. He appeared in six feature films between 1928 and 1930.

Dorothy Green (born Dorothy Jeanette Hufford; January 12, 1920 – May 8, 2008) was an American stage, film, and television actress. Her career spanned more than four decades, with her work principally being in supporting roles on many popular television series from the early 1950s into the 1980s.

George Shirley Switzer (June 11, 1915 – March 23, 2008) was an American mineralogist who is credited with starting the Smithsonian Institution's famed National Gem and Mineral Collection by acquiring the Hope Diamond for the museum in 1958. Switzer made the arrangements when renowned New York City jeweler Harry Winston decided to donate the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian.Switzer was also known for his analysis of Moon rocks which were brought back by NASA missions to the Moon.Today, the National Gem and Mineral Collection at the National Museum of Natural History currently contains more than 15,000 individual gems in the collection, as well as 350,000 minerals and 300,000 samples of rock and ore specimens. Additionally, the Smithsonian's National Gem and Mineral Collection houses approximately 35,000 meteorites, constituting what is considered to be one of the most comprehensive collections of its kind in the world.

Jad Paul (June 16, 1916 – December 29, 2008) was an American musician, most noted for being one of the original members of Spike Jones' band "The City Slickers". He was also noted for his banjo playing.

Rita Allene Quigley (March 31, 1923 – August 25, 2008) was an American actress.

Bernard Hamilton (June 12, 1928 – December 30, 2008) was an American actor. He is best known as Captain Dobey in Starsky & Hutch (1975–1979).

Franklin Otis Booth Jr. (September 28, 1923 – June 15, 2008) was an American billionaire newspaper executive and investor. He was a Los Angeles Times executive and early investor in Berkshire Hathaway, which made him a billionaire. Booth was also a philanthropist and a great-grandson of Gen. Harrison Gray Otis, founder of the Times.

William James Claxton (October 12, 1927 – October 11, 2008) was an American photographer and author.

Theodore G. Robinson (May 17, 1923 – March 2, 2008) was an American golf course architect.Born in Long Beach, California, Robinson was an undergraduate at the University of California in Berkeley and received a master's degree in planning from the University of Southern California in 1948. He established his golf course architecture practice in 1954 and continued working there for over fifty years. Robinson joined the American Society of Golf Course Architects (ASGCA) in 1973, served as president from 1983 to 1984, and ascended to ASGCA Fellow in 1995.
Robinson designed over 160 golf courses in his career, mostly in the western United States (including Hawaii), Mexico, Japan, South Korea, and Indonesia. He was one of the first golf course architects to promote the use of water as a significant hazard, incorporating waterfalls and other large green-side water features in his designs. This work led to his nickname of "King of Waterscapes."Robinson died at age 84 in Laguna Beach after battling pancreatic cancer. His son, Ted Jr., continues to run his father's golf design firm.

John William Powell (July 3, 1919 – December 15, 2008) was a journalist and small business proprietor who edited the China Weekly Review, an English-language journal first published by his father, John B. Powell in Shanghai.
John W. Powell was tried for sedition in 1959 after publishing an article that reported on allegations made by Mainland Chinese officials that the United States and Japan were carrying out germ warfare in the Korean War. In 1956, the Eisenhower Administration's Department of Justice pressed sedition charges against Powell, his wife Sylvia, and Julian Schuman, after federal prosecutors secured grand jury indictments against them for publishing allegations of bacteriological warfare. However, the prosecutors failed to get any convictions. The defendants invoked their Constitutional right to refuse to reveal self-incriminating evidence, and U.S. Department of Defense officials also refused to provide any incriminating archives or witnesses. This information was not revealed until decades later as a result of Freedom of Information Act requests.
All three of the defendants were acquitted of all charges over the next six years, after a Federal judge dismissed the core aspects of the case against them in 1959, due to obviously insufficient evidence against them.