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Notable deaths last week

• Oscar de la Renta, the worldly gentleman designer who shaped the wardrobe of socialites and Hollywood stars for more than four decades, has died. He was 82.

De la Renta died at home in Connecticut surrounded by family and friends and "more than a few dogs," according to a handwritten statement signed by two of his company's executives, Alex Bolen and Eliza Bolen.

The late '60s and early '70s were a defining moment in U.S. fashion as New York-based designers finally carved a look of their own that was finally taken seriously by Europeans. De la Renta and his peers, including the late Bill Blass, Roy Halston and Geoffrey Beene, defined American style and their influence is still spotted today.

De la Renta's specialty was eveningwear, though he also was known for chic daytime suits favored by the women who would gather at the Four Seasons or Le Cirque at lunchtime. His signature looks were voluminous skirts, exquisite embroideries and rich colors.

First lady Laura Bush wore an icy blue gown by de la Renta to the 2005 inaugural ball and Hillary Clinton wore a gold de la Renta in 1997. On the red carpet at the Academy Awards, Penelope Cruz and Sandra Bullock were among the celebrities to don his feminine and opulent gowns. His clothes even were woven into episodes of "Sex and the City" with style icon character Carrie Bradshaw dropping his name and comparing his designs to poetry.

• Jack Bruce was part Mississippi Delta and part Carnaby Street. In his glorious heyday as bassist and lead vocalist of 1960s power trio Cream he helped create a sound that combined American blues and psychedelia to thrill audiences throughout the world.

Bruce, who died Saturday of liver disease at age 71, enjoyed a long, respected solo career after the band's acrimonious breakup, but will be best remembered for his stint with Cream and for classics like "Sunshine of Your Love" and "I Feel Free."

Much of the attention was focused on guitar wizard Eric Clapton, but Bruce wrote many of the band's signature tunes and served as lead vocalist. He also provided the intense bass guitar that, with Ginger Baker's explosive drums, underpinned Cream's rhythmic, driving sound.

They had it all - commercial and critical success - until individual egos intervened and they disbanded, entering rock and roll mythology as the original supergroup: super-talented, and super-troubled.

Bruce went on to record the first of his solo albums, "Songs For a Tailor." He also fronted many of his own bands.

• Le Minh Thai, a photojournalist who covered the Vietnam War for The Associated Press and Time Life, has died. He was 93.

Early in his career, Thai covered events for the French weekly, Paris Match. He was at the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and attended the subsequent Geneva Peace Accords, which ended French colonial rule in Vietnam, according to his family.

Thai and his family went to the United States on April 23, 1975, after months of working behind the scenes to help evacuate the Time Life staff, his family said. He settled in Los Angeles, where he continued working for Time and ran a side business photographing thousands of Vietnamese refugees.

• The father of country music star Reba McEntire has died in Oklahoma.

A post on the singer's verified Twitter account Friday says Clark McEntire passed away Thursday night. He was 86.

• Former 800-meter world champion Mbulaeni Mulaudzi was killed in a car crash on Friday while traveling to an athletics meet, the spokesman for South African President Jacob Zuma said. He was 34.

• Joan Quigley, the astrologer who helped determine President Ronald Reagan's schedule and claimed to have convinced him to soften his stance toward the Soviet Union, has died.

The San Francisco Chronicle, quoting Quigley's sister, Ruth, said Quigley died Oct. 21 at her San Francisco home at the age of 87.

• A former Bangladeshi Islamist party leader, whose imprisonment on war crimes charges triggered violent protests last year, has died of a heart attack in a prison cell of a government hospital.

Ghulam Azam, 91, died late after life support was removed at the Bangabandhu Sehikh Mujib Medical University in the capital, Dhaka, said hospital spokesman Abdul Majid Bhuiyan.

A special tribunal last year sentenced Azam, a former chief of Jamaat-e-Islami party, to 90 years in prison on 61 charges of war crimes during the Bangladesh 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.

Bangladesh accuses the Pakistani army and local collaborators for the deaths of 3 million people and the rape of 200,000 women during the nine-month war.

• Frank Mankiewicz, the press secretary who went before television cameras to announce the death of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and later served as political director for presidential candidate George McGovern, has died. He was 90.

• John "Bull" Bramlett, a former professional football and baseball player who was nicknamed the "Meanest Man in Football," has died. He was 73.

Memphis mayor's office spokesman Steve Shular said Mayor Mark H. Luttrell was close to Bramlett, who had been in declining health. Bramlett was a star baseball and football player at Memphis State University, now the University of Memphis.

He was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals out of college and played minor league baseball for three years before changing to pro football. He signed in 1965 with the Denver Broncos, which at that time were part of the American Football League.

He also played for the Miami Dolphins (1967-68), Boston (now New England) Patriots (1969-70) and Atlanta Falcons (1971) and, according to the website of a ministry he later founded, was a two-time all-pro linebacker. He was runner-up to Joe Namath for American Football League rookie of the year in 1965, the ministry said.

• Jean Sawyer Hayes, the 94-year-old mother of ABC journalist Diane Sawyer, has died.

• In a charmed life of newspapering, Ben Bradlee seemed always to be in just the right place.

The raspy-voiced, hard-charging editor who invigorated The Washington Post got an early break as a journalist thanks to his friendship with one president, John F. Kennedy, and became famous for his role in toppling another, Richard Nixon, in the Watergate scandal.

Bradlee, 93, died at home of natural causes, the Post reported. A service open to the public was scheduled Oct. 29 at Washington National Cathedral.

Ever the newsman and ever one to challenge conventional wisdom, Bradlee imagined his own obituary years earlier and found something within it to quibble over.

"Bet me that when I die," he wrote in his 1995 memoir, "there will be something in my obit about how The Washington Post 'won' 18 Pulitzer prizes while Bradlee was editor." That, he said, would be bunk. The prizes are overrated and suspect, he wrote, and it's largely reporters, not newspapers or their editors, who deserve the credit.

• Musician Raphael Ravenscroft, who played one of the most famous saxophone solos of all time on Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street," has died. He was 60.

The BBC said a heart attack was the suspected cause of death.

The bluesy eight-bar sax riff helped make "Baker Street" a soft-rock hit. It reached No. 3 in Britain and No. 2 in the U.S in 1978, and still receives considerable airplay.

Ravenscroft received a flat fee - often reported to be 27 pounds (around $43 today) - for his work on the song, which made Rafferty a fortune. But the hit kick-started Ravenscroft's career, and he went on to work with big names including Pink Floyd, ABBA and Marvin Gaye.

• Nelson Bunker Hunt, a Texas oilman who once tried to corner the silver market with one of his brothers only to see the move end in financial disaster, has died. He was 88.

Hunt was among the world's wealthiest men. His father was legendary Texas oilman H.L. Hunt, who left behind a multibillion-dollar fortune and Placid Oil Co., once one of the biggest independent oil companies.

Nelson Bunker Hunt built on his father's oil and gas holdings, finding a rich Libyan oil field only to have it nationalized later by Moammar Gadhafi. He owned millions of acres of farm and ranch land in Australia, race horses and an ancient coin collection.

But a huge, soured bet on the silver market by Hunt and his brother, Herbert, led to legal problems and bankruptcy. The holdings grew to nearly $4.5 billion by January 1980, and he and Herbert Hunt lost more than $1 billion in March 1980 when the price of silver collapsed.

• Peter Daland, who coached the University of Southern California swim team to nine NCAA championships and mentored Olympic gold medal winners, has died. He was 93.

• Former Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, whose government was credited with instituting lasting social reforms during a short tenure that ended in a bitter constitutional crisis, has died at the age of 98.

• A leading Iranian cleric, Ayatollah Mohammadreza Mahdavi Kani, who headed the country's most influential clerical body charged with choosing or dismissing the nation's supreme leader, has died. He was 83.

Raymond Beadle, a three-time NHRA Funny Car world champion and a championship NASCAR team owner, has died. He was 70.

• Tom Slade, who led the Republican Party of Florida as Jeb Bush and the GOP rose to power, has died at age 78.

• Rene Burri, a Swiss photographer best known for his iconic black and white portraits of Communist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara and painter Pablo Picasso, has died. He was 81.

"Not only was he one of the great post-war photographers, he was also one of the most generous people I have had the privilege to meet," Martin Parr, the president of Magnum Photos, said in a statement. "His contribution to Magnum and his unrivalled ability to tell stories and entertain us over this time will be part of his enormous legacy."

• Lou Lucier, who was the oldest surviving former Boston Red Sox player, has died at the age of 96.

• Miloslava Rezkova-Hubnerova, who won the Olympic gold in women's high jump for Czechoslovakia in 1968 aged 18, has died at age 64.

British Musician Jack Bruce talks to the media after collecting the Best Album Award given to Cream at the Classic Rock awards in central London. Associated Press/Nov. 3, 2008
Ben Bradlee, former executive editor of The Washington Post, listens during an event sponsored by The Washington Post in 2012 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Watergate. Associated Press
Swiss photographer Rene Burri. Associated Press/2004
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