April 28, 2007

2007Dabbs Greer, American actor (born 1917)^[†]

Robert William "Dabbs" Greer was an American character actor in film and television for over 60 years. Greer appeared in nearly 100 film roles and in nearly 600 television episodes of various series. He played Mr. Jonas in Gunsmoke, Coach Ossie Weiss in the sitcom Hank, and Reverend Robert Alden in Little House on the Prairie. Greer's final film role was as the 108-year-old Paul Edgecomb, the character played by Tom Hanks in 1999's The Green Mile.

2007René Mailhot, Canadian journalist (born 1942)^[†]

René Mailhot was a Canadian journalist from the province of Quebec. He began his career at the age of twenty with the French-language newspaper Le Droit, published in Ottawa. Afterwards, Mailhot went into public television in Moncton, New Brunswick.

2007Tommy Newsom, American saxophonist and bandleader (born 1929)^[†]

Thomas Penn Newsom was a saxophone player in the NBC Orchestra on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, for which he later became assistant director. Newsom was frequently the band's substitute director, whenever music director Doc Severinsen was away from the show or filling in for announcer Ed McMahon. Nicknamed "Mr. Excitement" by Johnny Carson as an ironic take on his low-keyed, reserved persona, he was often a foil for Carson's humor. His conservative brown or blue suits were a marked contrast to Severinsen's flashy stage clothing.

2007Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, German physicist and philosopher (born 1912)^[†]

Carl Friedrich Freiherr von Weizsäcker was a German physicist and philosopher. He was the longest-living member of the team which performed nuclear research in Nazi Germany during the Second World War, under Werner Heisenberg's leadership. There is ongoing debate as to whether or not he and the other members of the team actively and willingly pursued the development of a nuclear bomb for Germany during this time.