Recent necrology, April 2014

Some well-known people who have died recently:

• Rubin Carter, 1937-2014
  Boxer wrongly convicted of murder who found Bob Marley fighting his corner

• Alan Davie, 1920-2014
  Artist who won the admiration of Rothko and Pollock and later embraced ‘magic symbolism’

• Bob Hoskins, 1942-2014
  Actor who excelled as the tough but engaging anti-hero of Mona Lisa and The long good Friday

• Richard Hoggart, 1918-2014
  Commentator and academic whose Uses of Literacy lamented the impact of mass culture on traditional working-class life

• Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1937-2014
  Master of ‘Magic Realism’ whose bestsellers included One hundred years of solitude, and Love in the time of cholera

• Anthony Marriott, 1931-2014
  Co-author of No sex please, we’re British, the West End’s longest-running comedy

• Doris Pilkington, 1937-2014
  Aboriginal author whose story of Australia’s stolen generation inspired a film starring Kenneth Branagh

• Mickey Rooney, 1920-2014
  Icon of American youth and energy who was as prolific in his marriages as he was on screen

• Patrick Seale, 1930-2014
  Author who deputised for Kim Philby in Beirut and became the pre-eminent expert on Syria

• John Shirley-Quirk, 1931-2014
  Former science teacher turned bass-baritone whose talents proved an inspiration to Benjamin Britten

• Sue Townsend, 1946-2014
  Writer whose diaries of spotty teenager Adrian Mole became a publishing sensation

• Owen Woodhouse, 1916-2014
  NZ jurist and chair of government commissions, notably workers’ accident compensation