17 – Janet Margolin, American actress (b. 1943) December 18 – Sam Wanamaker, American film director and actor (b. 1919) December 19 – Michael Clarke, American musician (b. 1946) December 20 – W. Edwards Deming, American engineer, professor, author, lecturer, and management consultant (b. 1900) December 21 – Gussie Nell Davis, American educator and founder of the Kilgore College Rangerettes (b. 1906) December 22 Don DeFore, American actor (b. 1913) Alexander Mackendrick, British-American film director (b. 1912) December 23 – James Ellison, American actor (b. 1910) December 24 Norman Vincent Peale, American preacher and writer (b. 1898) Yen Chia-kan, Taiwanese politician and 2nd President of the Republic of China (b. 1905) Pierre Victor Auger, French physicist (b. 1899) December 25 – Princess Marie Adelheid of Lippe-Biesterfeld (b. 1895) December 28 William L. Shirer, American journalist and historian (b. 1904) Howard Caine, American actor (b. 1926) December 29 – Frunzik Mkrtchyan, Armenian stage and film actor (b. 1930) December 31 İhsan Sabri Çağlayangil, Turkish diplomat and politician (b. 1908) Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Georgian politician, 1st President of Georgia (b. 1939) Brandon Teena, American murder victim (b. 1972) Thomas Watson Jr., American businessman, political figure, and philanthropist (b. 1914) Nobel Prizes Chemistry – Kary Mullis, Michael Smith Economics – Robert W. Fogel, Douglass North Literature – Toni Morrison Peace – Nelson Mandela and F. W. de Klerk Physics – Russell Alan Hulse, Joseph Hooton Taylor, Jr. Physiology or Medicine – Richard J. Roberts, Phillip Allen Sharp References Sources