Saul Swimmer died Saturday, March 3, in Miami of heart failure and kidney trouble. Swimmer was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and began making movies in his 20s. Throughout his life, Swimmer would make music films and documentaries, including Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter (1968) with Herman's Hermits, the Beatles' Let It Be (1970), and Queen: We Will Rock You (1982). His crowning achievement was the 1972 film The Concert for Bangladesh, a documentary film about the UNICEF benefit concert at Madison Square Garden featuring George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Ravi Shankar, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, and more. Swimmer was 70.

Sources: imdb.com, Yahoo! News

Robert E. Petersen died Friday, March 23, of complications from neuroendocrine cancer at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California. Born the son of a truck and equipment mechanic, Petersen worked as a messenger boy for MGM studios, followed by a stint in the Army Air Corps near the end of World War II. Petersen founded Hot Rod magazine in 1948 to promote a custom-designed car show at the Los Angeles Armory. He launched Motor Trend the following year. Before selling his business, the largest special-interest publishing company in America, in 1996, Petersen would launch Guns & Ammo, Sport, Motorcyclist, Hunting, Mountain Biker, Photographic, Teen, and Sassy. He was 80.

Sources: huntingmag.com, Associated Press, gunsandammomag.com

Maha Ghosananda, a Nobel Peace Prize-nominated monk, died Monday, March 12, at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in western Massachusetts. He lived in exile from 1975 through 1978, during which time the Khmer Rouge, led by the dictator Pol Pot, denounced Buddhism in Cambodia and killed nearly two million people. After the Vietnamese toppled the Khmer Rouge, Ghosananda was one of the first monks to return to Cambodia to train new Buddhist leaders. He began establishing temples in refugee camps on the Thai-Cambodia border. Later Ghosananda co-founded the inter-religious organization Mission for Peace and founded Buddhist temples in Cambodia and Cambodian resettlement communities in North America, Europe, and Australia. In 1988, he was honored for restoring Buddhism to the country by being elected a Supreme Cambodian Buddhist. In the late 1980s, Ghosananda moved to western Massachusetts, but throughout the 1990s, continued to spread his religious message in Cambodia. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times in the mid-1990s. He was 78.

Sources: Associated Press, buddhanet.net

Walter Turnbull died in a New York City hospital on Friday, March 23. He had suffered a stroke several months earlier. Turnball was born in Mississippi and studied music at Tougaloo College. He moved to New York to be an opera singer, eventually performing with the New York Philharmonic. Turnball founded the Boys Choir of Harlem in 1968 at the Ephesus Church. The choir provides music training and personal counseling to hundreds of inner-city teenagers. The choir has released over a half-dozen albums and can be heard on the soundtracks to movies including Jungle Fever, Malcolm X, Bobby, and Glory. Turnball was 62.

Sources: Associated Press, boyschoirofharlem.org

John W. Backus died in Ashland, Oregon, on Saturday, March 17. Backus, an employee of IBM, led the team that developed the Fortran programming language in 1957 that reduced the number of programming statements necessary to operate a machine by a factor of 20. The language would allow programmers to enter commands in a more intuitive system. The computer would then translate them on its own. Unix developer Ken Thompson in the New York Times: "95 percent of the people who programmed in the early years would never have done it without Fortran. It was a massive step." Backus continued breaking ground in programming languages until his retirement from IBM in 1991. He was 82.

Sources: Wikipedia, Associated Press, NYTimes.com

Wilford "Crazy Ray" Jones died at his home of complications from diabetes and cardiovascular disease on Saturday, March 17. "Crazy Ray" entertained the fans of the Dallas Cowboys from the 1960s through the 1980s as a sideline cheerleader, wearing a blue vest, white hat, chaps, and six-shooters. He would occasionally ride a stick horse or scuffle with the opposing team's mascot. Jones was even granted a special parking space at Texas Stadium and granted all-access at home games. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones: "Ray was the most dedicated, entertaining and passionate of Cowboys fans. He touched thousands of lives and generations of football fans." Wilford Jones will be buried in one of his costumes. He was 76.

Denny Sym, who had been battling kidney disease and cancer for several years, died Friday, March 16. Known as "Dolfan Denny," Sym cheered on Miami Dolphins fans for 34 years, starting with the Dolphins' first game in 1966. Sym led the crowds in cheers and chants wearing a glittering orange and aqua hat. In 1976, then-team owner Joe Robbie asked Sym to be the team's official motivator, paying him $50 a game and moving him to the field. Sym retired in 2000, his health and heckling from belligerent fans were the cited reasons. His wife Ingrid: "He did everything he could to always be with his team. He loved football until his last day." Sym was 72.

Sources: Associated Press, dallasnews.com, miamiherald.com

Dr. Peter VanVechten Hamill died Saturday, March 10, at Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis of complications from pneumonia. Hamill was a Golden Gloves boxing champion while attending Notre Dame. He also attended St. John's College in Annapolis, and graduated from the University of Michigan. He served in the Navy during World War II. In 1953, he received a medical degree from the University of Michigan, and, in 1962, received a master's degree in public health from Johns Hopkins University. In the 1960s, Hamill was scientific director and medical coordinator under U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Luther L. Terry. On January 11, 1964, Terry released the landmark study that determined smoking was a major cause of lung cancer and other diseases. One year later, Congress required tobacco companies to stamp each pack of cigarettes with the phrase "Caution: Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health," which was later revised to "Warning: The surgeon general has determined that cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health." In 1976, Hamill chaired a government study on human growth that was used to design development charts used by doctors. Dr. Peter VanVechten Hamill was 80.

Sources: Yahoo! News, surgeongeneral.gov, washingtonpost.com

Billy Walkabout died on Wednesday, March 7, of pneumonia and renal failure at a Norwich (CT) hospital. Walkabout, a Cherokee of the Blue Holley Clan, received the Distinguished Service Cross, Purple Heart, five Silver Stars and five Bronze Stars and was believed to be the most decorated Native American soldier of the Vietnam War. His exposure to the Agent Orange defoliant and wounds suffered during a 1968 assassination mission left Walkabout with disabling injuries. He spent many years suffering from suicidal thoughts and bouts of self-isolation, but would find comfort in the Native American powwows he attended. In a 1986 Associated Press interview about his 23 months of service in Vietman, Walkabout declared, "War is not hell. It's worse." Walkabout was 57.

Source: Associated Press, Wikipedia

Jean Kennedy Schmidt died Saturday, March 3, at her La Canada Flintridge, California, home from complications of a fall, her daughter, Susan Johnson of Bemidji, said last Friday. Schmidt received her nursing degree in 1941, then enlisted in the Army. She was stationed in the Philippines in 1942 when the Japanese attacked. Schmidt and other medical personnel treated the wounded in open-air field hospitals on the Bataan Peninsula. When the Philippines fell, Schmidt and 76 other nurses were held prisoner in Manila for nearly three years, treating military and civilian prisoners, sometimes eating weeds to stave off starvation. In 1945, a U.S. tank crashed through the gates freeing the prisoners. Schmidt later married a fellow prisoner, Richard Schmidt, and they settled in California. Only three "Angels of Bataan" are now believed to be living. Schmidt was 88.

Sources: worldwar2database.com, Associated Press

Andy Sidaris died Wednesday, March 7, of throat cancer. Sidaris directed the first episode of Wide World of Sports for ABC, and continued directing the popular program for the next 25 years. He's also credited with inventing the "honey shot," in which close-ups of attractive women sitting in the stands were featured on sporting event broadcasts. Sidaris directed the 1968 Summer Olympics, for which he won an Emmy Award, and was the football choreographer for the Robert Altman movie M*A*S*H. During the 1970s, he directed television episodes (Kojak, The Hardy Boys) and began producing adult action pictures with names like Hard Ticket to Hawaii, Fit to Kill, and Hard Hunted. Sidaris was 76.

Sources: Associated Press, IMDB.com, AndySidaris.com, olympic.org