Notable deaths last week

• Will Holt, a 1950s folk singer who wrote the popular song "Lemon Tree" and later composed lyrics and music for several Broadway musicals, has died in Los Angeles at age 86.

Holt composed "Lemon Tree" in the late 1950s, based on a Brazilian melody, and the catchy tune soon became popular among folk singers. It was recorded by the Kingston Trio in 1961 and appeared on the debut album of the folk trio Peter, Paul & Mary in 1962.

• Ludvik Vaculik, an author, journalist and anti-communist dissident whose "Two Thousand Words" manifesto became a key document of the 1968 Prague Spring reform movement that contributed to the Kremlin's decision to invade Czechoslovakia, has died. He was 88.

• Tariq Aziz, the debonair Iraqi diplomat who made his name by staunchly defending Saddam Hussein to the world during three wars and was later sentenced to death as part of the regime that killed hundreds of thousands of its own people, has died in a hospital in southern Iraq, officials said. He was 79.

Aziz had been in custody in a prison in the south, awaiting execution.

Aziz, the highest-ranking Christian in Saddam's regime, was its international face for years. He was sentenced in 2010 to hang for persecuting members of the Shiite Muslim religious parties that now dominate Iraq.

The only Christian among Saddam's inner circle, Aziz's religion rescued him from the hangman's noose that was the fate of other members of the top regime leadership.

After he was sentenced to death, the Vatican asked for mercy for him as a Christian. Iraq's president at the time, Jalal Talabani, then refused to give the death sentence his required signature, citing Aziz's age and religion.

Even before he was sentenced, the ailing Aziz appeared to know that he would die in custody. He had had several strokes while in custody undergoing trial multiple times for various regime crimes.

"I have no future. I have no future," Aziz told The AP, looking frail and speaking with difficulty because of a recent stroke, in a jailhouse interview in September 2010. At that stage, he had been sentenced to more than two decades in prison.

"I'm sick and tired but I wish Iraq and Iraqis well," he said.

• Alan Bond, the polarizing global entrepreneur who became an Australian hero by bankrolling a historic America's Cup yacht race victory before going to prison over the nation's biggest corporate fraud, has died at age 77.

The flamboyant, London-born former sign writer divided Australians. Some remember him as a national sporting hero who transformed his once-sleepy adopted home of Perth into a global business center. To others, he will always be an audacious corporate criminal who was only exposed when his global business empire crashed in the early 1990s.

Perhaps Bond's proudest moment came in 1983 when he headed the Australia II syndicate that won the America's Cup from the New York Yacht Club that had held it since 1851. Australia II's then-revolutionary winged keel had ended the longest winning streak in the history of sport.

Bond had already been honored as Australian of the Year in 1978 for sponsoring earlier unsuccessful America's Cup challenges.

• Wayne Harris, the former University of Arkansas and Calgary Stampeders linebacker known as "Thumper" for his hard hits, has died. He was 77.

Harris played his entire CFL career with Calgary from 1961-72. The Hampton, Arkansas, native was the MVP in Calgary's 1971 Grey Cup victory over Toronto.

• Clarence "Bevo" Francis, who had 113 points for Rio Grande College in a 1954 game and was one of college basketball's great scorers, has died. He was 82.

Francis' landmark game came against Michigan's Hillsdale College on Feb. 2, 1954 and put his small Ohio college on the map.

• Irwin A. Rose, the Brooklyn-born biochemist who shared a 2004 Nobel Prize for explaining how living cells recycle and dispose of unneeded molecules, a discovery that opened the way for new medical therapies, has died at age 88.

In the cellular process discovered by Rose and two Israeli scientists, a molecule called ubiquitin marks unwanted molecules for destruction by latching onto them in what has been described as a molecular "kiss of death."

Ubiquitin, as its name suggests, comes from the same root as ubiquitous, in recognition of its virtual omnipresence within cells.

Specialists in the field have said that a cell's inability to eliminate unwanted proteins may lead to illness, including types of cancer. Specialists in the field have said that understanding the process by which cells destroy proteins may aid in developing treatments for cystic fibrosis, forms of cancer and other ailments.

At the time the Nobel Prize was awarded, Harvard cell biologist Alfred Goldberg lauded it as a "particularly insightful" choice. Rose and the two Israelis, he wrote, were scientists "whose seminal work has altered modern biology."

• Margaret Juntwait, an American radio broadcaster whose mellifluous voice reached more than 8 million fans worldwide in live Saturday broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera stage, has died at age 58.

Juntwait died in New York City after a decade-long battle with ovarian cancer, said Met spokesman Sam Neuman.

Until Dec. 31, her last broadcast, her home studio was nestled behind the Met's Family Circle seats under the golden ceiling, in a space the size of an average walk-in closet. A large monitor beamed in the stage action, replaced during intermission by patrons' chatter and the clanging of glasses in the nearby bar.

Since 2004, Juntwait was the familiar voice of more than 200 broadcasts heard on New York's WQXR-FM - among 570 stations in the United States plus others in 39 countries. She also hosted about 900 live broadcasts on the Met's Sirius XM channel, heard three or four times a week during the opera season. In previous years, she worked at New York's classical radio station WNYC-FM.

"Margaret Juntwait was the soul of the Met's radio broadcasts," said Met General Manager Peter Gelb. "She will be sorely missed by her loving colleagues here at the Met, as well as the countless opera stars who she so deftly interviewed over the years, and by the millions of devoted fans who listened to her mellifluous hosting of our broadcasts three or four times a week, season after season."

• A singer-actor who transformed himself into such show biz legends as Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand and Peggy Lee during a career that spanned decades has died. Jim Bailey was 77.

Bailey was a Philadelphia native. He performed at New York's Carnegie Hall, at London's Palladium and in numerous showrooms in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, New Jersey. In one notable engagement he impersonated Garland alongside her daughter Liza Minnelli.

He appeared on variety shows including those of Ed Sullivan and Carol Burnett and was a guest 14 times on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson."

He had guest-starring roles on TV series including "Ally McBeal," "The Rockford Files" and "Here's Lucy" with Lucille Ball.

• Jean Ritchie, the Kentucky-born folksinger who brought the centuries-old ballads she grew up with to a wide audience from the 1950s onward, has died at 92.

The tall, red-haired Ritchie, who grew up in Kentucky's Cumberland mountains, sang ballads with a clear soprano voice. She accompanied herself on the guitar, autoharp or the mountain dulcimer, a string instrument played while placed on the performer's lap that Ritchie helped rescue from obscurity.

Among the hundreds of songs she performed were "Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair," "Old Virginny," "One Morning in May" and "Aunt Sal's Song."

As part of the folk music boom of the 1950s and '60s, she was a contemporary of such giants as Pete Seeger, Odetta and Doc Watson. She influenced a generation of younger singers such as Judy Collins and Emmylou Harris.

"I see folk music as a river that never stopped flowing," she told The New York Times in 1980. "Sometimes a few people go to it and sometimes a lot of people do. But it's always there."

Johnny Cash recorded her "The L. & N. Don't Stop Here Anymore" and Harris performed "Sweet Sorrow in the Wind." In a 1978 Rolling Stone interview, Bob Dylan cited her as one of the folksingers he listened to, along with Woody Guthrie, Big Bill Broonzy and Leadbelly.

Last fall, Ritchie appeared on her last CD, "Dear Jean: Artists Celebrate Jean Ritchie," a two CD tribute that featured an old recording of Ritchie's and another track that included a recording of her leading an audience before her stroke.

Her own composition "Black Waters" took aim at what strip mining had done to her native region, a relatively rare foray into topical songs. Her 1977 album "None But One" received a Rolling Stone Critics Award.

She combined her authentic mountain musical background with a scholarly touch, even traveling overseas on a Fulbright scholarship in the early 1950s to trace the roots of her traditional music.

Her 1955 book, "They Sang the Moon Up: Singing Family of the Cumberlands," traced her family's roots from the time James Ritchie came from England in 1768, fought in the Revolutionary War and migrated west to Kentucky. It was illustrated by Maurice Sendak and included 42 of the songs her family members liked to sing.

Along with Loretta Lynn, Rosemary Clooney and the Everly Brothers, she was one of 12 musicians and groups chosen for the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame's first inductees in 2001.

• Richard A. "Dick" O'Regan, who covered some of the biggest stories of the Cold War in a 39-year career as a reporter and executive for The Associated Press, has died. He was 95.

• John Petersen, a retired insurance executive whose gifts to the University of Pittsburgh included $10 million for a basketball arena named for himself and his wife, has died. He was 86.

• Karl Wlaschek, a former barroom pianist whose ventures in discount retailing and real estate, combined with longevity, made him the world's third-oldest billionaire and one of the richest Austrians, has died. He was 97.

• Betsy Palmer, the veteran character actress who achieved lasting, though not necessarily sought-after, fame as the murderous camp cook in the cheesy horror film "Friday the 13th," has died at age 88.

Palmer had appeared in films, on Broadway and in TV shows for decades before she took the role of Mrs. Voorhees in the campy 1980 movie in which young camp counselors suddenly begin meeting their bloody demise. The back story was that she was the mother of Jason Voorhees, who had died at the camp years before. He would come to life in several sequels that Palmer passed on.

Palmer had appeared in numerous TV shows dating to the early 1950s Golden Age of Television. Among them were such classic dramas as "Kraft Theatre," "Playhouse 90" and "Studio One."

Her film credits included "Mr. Roberts" with Henry Fonda, "The Long Gray Line" with Tyrone Power and Maureen O'Hara, "Queen Bee" with Joan Crawford, and "The Tin Star" with Fonda and Anthony Perkins.

Other TV credits included "Knot's Landing," "The Love Boat," "Newhart," "Just Shoot Me" and "Murder, She Wrote." She also appeared in several Broadway plays, including "Same Time, Next Year" and "Cactus Flower."

• Julie Harris, an Academy Award-winning costume designer who outfitted James Bond and The Beatles, has died at 94.

Harris played a major role in capturing the look of 1960s "Swinging London" on film. She dressed The Beatles for both "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!" - saying later, "I must be one of the few people who can claim they have seen John, Paul, George and Ringo naked."

She won an Oscar for "Darling," a style-setting film about London models and media types starring Dirk Bogarde and Julie Christie, and a British film award, the BAFTA, for the 1966 Michael Caine comedy "The Wrong Box."

• Lennie Merullo, the oldest former member of the Chicago Cubs and the last living person to play for them in the World Series, has died at 98.

Merullo was a major league shortstop from 1941-47, all with the Cubs. He hit .240 with six home runs and 152 RBIs.