A chronology of those who died in 2015

DECEMBER

Dec. 2

— Sandy Berger, 70, a former national security adviser who helped craft President Bill Clinton’s foreign policy and got in trouble over destroying classified documents, in Washington of cancer.

— John Rassias, 90, a Dartmouth College professor who created a unique method to teach languages in a rapid fire manner that was used around the world, in Norwich, Vermont.

Dec. 4

— Robert Loggia, 85, an actor who was known for gravelly voiced gangsters from “Scarface” to “The Sopranos” but who was most endearing as Tom Hanks’ kid-at-heart toy-company boss in “Big,” in Los Angeles after a five-year battle with Alzheimer’s.

— Scott Weiland, 48, the magnetic frontman of the Stone Temple Pilots whose three-decade career in music also included solo albums and a spot in the supergroup Velvet Revolver, in suburban Minneapolis. A toxic mix of drugs was later specified as the cause but he also had a history of cardiovascular disease and asthma.

Dec. 5

William McIlvanney, 79, a Scottish writer best known for his detective novel “Laidlaw” — called the first book of “Tartan Noir” by some — in Glasgow after a brief, unspecified illness.

— Timothy Seldes, 88, an editor and literary agent who worked with Anne Tyler and Richard Wright among others and was a member of a prominent journalistic and artistic family, in Washington. Hehad been in failing health and was suffering from pneumonia.

— Chuck Williams, 100, who founded the Williams-Sonoma empire and ushered in an era of aspirational culinary retailing, in San Francisco of natural causes.

Dec. 6

— Holly Woodlawn, 69, the transgender actress made famous by Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey in their 1970s films “Trash” and “Women in Revolt,” in Los Angeles after battling cancer.

Dec. 8

— Douglas Tompkins, 72, the co-founder of The North Face and Esprit clothing companies who bought up large swaths of land in South America’s Patagonia region to keep them pristine, in Coyhaique, Chile from severe hypothermia after a kayaking accident.

— Bonnie Lou, 91, a pioneering country music artist and rock ‘n’ roll singer who later became a TV host, in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Dec. 10

— Barry Schweid, 83, the longtime Associated Press diplomatic correspondent who reported and analyzed events from around the world over a career spanning 56 years, in Washington from complications of a degenerative neurological condition.

Dec. 13

— Benedict Anderson, 79, a Cornell University scholar who became one of the most influential voices in the fields of nationalism and Southeast Asian studies, in Malang, Indonesia.

Dec. 14

— Ales Vesely, 80, a Czech artist known for his monumental sculptures, in Prague.

Dec. 17

— Harold W. Andersen, 92, the former publisher of Nebraska’s largest daily newspaper and first American to be president of the International Federation of Newspaper Publishers, in Omaha of natural causes.

Dec. 19

— Kurt Masur, 88, a conductor who was credited with helping prevent violence after the collapse of communism in East Germany and later reinvigorated the New York Philharmonic during an 11-year stint as music director, in Greenwich, Connecticut of complications from Parkinson’s disease.

Dec. 20

— Patricia Elliott, 77, who won a Tony Award on her Broadway musical debut and went on to star opposite David Bowie in “The Elephant Man” and spent 23 years aboard the TV soap opera “One Life to Live,” in New York.

Dec. 23

— Don Howe, 80, a former England defender who became a key member of England coaching staff and played for the West Bromwich Albion and Arsenal football clubs, in London.

— Peggy Say, 74, spent nearly seven years on a tireless quest for the release of her brother, AP journalist Terry Anderson, and fellow hostages from kidnappers in Lebanon, of a lung illness in Cookeville, Tennessee.

— Dr. Alfred Gilman, 74, who won a Nobel Prize for his breakthrough research into the inner workings of cells and later left Texas’ much-ballyhooed $3 billion cancer-fighting initiative, citing a lack of oversight that led to a scandal.

Dec. 24

— William Guest, 74, a member of Grammy-winning Gladys Knight and the Pips, of congestive heart failure.

Dec. 25

— George Clayton Johnson, 86, the legendary science-fiction writer who co-authored the novel “Logan’s Run” and wrote the first “Star Trek” television episode and several classic stories for the popular 1960s TV show “The Twilight Zone,” of cancer in Los Angeles.

— Dr. Robert Spitzer, 83, a psychiatrist who played a leading role in establishing agreed-upon standards to describe mental disorders and eliminating homosexuality’s designation as a pathology, of heart problems in Seattle.

Dec. 27

— Dave Henderson, 57, a former Major League Baseball outfielder who as a member of the Boston Red Sox in 1986 hit one of the most famous home runs in post-season playoff history, after a massive heart attack in Seattle.

— Haskell Wexler, 91, one of Hollywood’s most famous and honoured cinematographers whose innovative approach helped him win Oscars for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and the Woody Guthrie biopic “Bound for Glory,” died peacefully in his sleep.

— Meadowlark Lemon, 83, the “clown prince” of basketball’s barnstorming Harlem Globetrotters, whose blend of hook shots and humour brought joy to millions of fans around the world, in Scottsdale, Arizona.

— Ellsworth Kelly, 92, a painter, sculptor and printmaker whose work over seven decades made him one of America’s leading abstract artists, in Spencertown, New York.

— Ruby Cavanaugh, 93, whose love for 1940s music and culture inspired her son to create a chain of diners in her name, of natural causes in Tustin, California.

Dec. 28

— Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister, 70, the singer and bassist who founded Motorhead in 1975 and performed with the band for four decades, becoming a hero for generations of hard-rockers and metal-heads with his outsized persona, of cancer in Los Angeles.

— Murray Weissman, 90, a veteran Hollywood publicist who worked on Oscar campaigns for such films as “Dances with Wolves” and “Shakespeare in Love,” of pancreatic cancer.

— John (Brad) Bradbury, 62, the Specials drummer who was for many years an integral part of the band’s unique ska and reggae sound, in England.

Dec. 29

— Kim Yang Gon, 73, North Korea’s top official in charge of relations with South Korea, in a traffic accident in North Korea.