Feb. 1

— Ed Koch, 88, a mayor who with a combination of boldness and humour steered New York back from the brink of financial ruin and infused the city with a new energy and optimism in the 1970s and '80s, in New York of congestive heart failure.

Feb. 4

— Reg Presley, 71, lead singer for the Troogs on "Wild Thing," a paean to teenage lust that became a rock classic 45 years after its release, in Andover, England, after suffering a number of strokes.

— Donald Byrd, 80, a jazz musician who was a hard-bop trumpeter of the 1950s and collaborated on dozens of albums with top artists of his time and later enjoyed commercial success with hit jazz-funk fusion records such as "Black Byrd," in Delaware. No cause of death was given.

Feb. 5

— Stuart Freeborn, 98, a pioneering movie makeup artist behind creatures such as Yoda and Chewbacca in the "Star Wars" films, in London. No cause of death was given.

Feb. 9

— John Kerr, 81, the stage and film actor whose credits include the movie "South Pacific," the thriller "The Pit and the Pendulum" and a Tony Award-winning turn in "Tea and Sympathy," in Pasadena, California, of heart failure.

Feb. 10

— Rabbi David Hartman, 81, one of the world's leading Jewish philosophers who promoted both Jewish pluralism and interfaith dialogue, in Jerusalem after a long illness.

— Petro Vlahos, 96, a two-time Academy Award winner whose blue- and green-screen technique on movies like "Mary Poppins" and "Ben Hur" made the modern blockbuster possible, in California. No cause of death was given.

Feb. 11

— Rem Vyakhirev, 78, the man who helped create Russia's state-run Gazprom natural gas giant and led it for nearly a decade, outside of Moscow. No cause of death was given.

— Rick Huxley, 72 a bass player and one of the founding members of the Dave Clark Five, in England. He had emphysema.

Feb. 14

— Robert Dworkin, 81, an American philosopher and constitutional law expert who was a liberal scholar and argued that the law should be founded on moral integrity, in London. He had leukemia.

— Shadow Morton, 71, a 1960s pop-song writer and producer whose biggest credits include "Leader of the Pack" and "Remember (Walking in the Sand)," in Ventura, California. No cause of death was given.

Feb. 16

— Tony Sheridan, 72, a British singer who performed with the Beatles during their early years in Hamburg, in Germany. No cause of death was given.

Feb. 17

— Mindy McCready, 37, who hit the top of U.S. country music charts before personal problems sidetracked her career, in Heber Springs, Arkansas, in an apparent suicide.

Feb. 18

— Otfried Preussler, 89, a bestselling German children's author who created "The Robber Hotzenplotz" and "The Little Witch" books, in Prien am Chiemsee, Germany. No cause of death was given.

— Kevin Ayers, 68, an influential British singer-songwriter who co-founded the band Soft Machine, in Montolieu, France, apparently of natural causes.

— Otis "Damon" Harris, 62, a former member of the Motown group The Temptations who performed on many of their 1970s hits, in Baltimore. He had prostate cancer.

Feb. 19

— Donald Richie, 88, a Tokyo-based expert on Japanese cinema who wrote dozens of books and articles about the country's people and culture,in Tokyo. No cause of death was given.

— Robert C. Richardson, 75, a Cornell University professor who shared a Nobel Prize for a key discovery in experimental physics, in Ithaca, New York from complications of a heart attack.

— Gerhard Frey, 80, the former head of the nationalist German People's Union party who financed a range of far-right groups and publications, in Germany after a brief illness.

Feb. 21

— Alexei German, 74, a Russian film director best known for his works offering a bitter view of life in the Soviet Union under dictator Josef Stalin, in St. Petersburg of heart failure.

— Cleotha Staples, 78, whose smooth and velvety voice helped set apart the sound of the influential and bestselling American gospel group The Staple Singers, in Chicago. She had Alzheimer's disease.

Feb. 22

— Wolfgang Sawallisch, 89, a German conductor acclaimed for his musical brilliance and unpretentious leadership of the Bavarian State Opera and the Philadelphia Orchestra, in Grassau, Germany. No cause of death was given.

— Diane Charlotte Lampert, 88, an accomplished songwriter of the 1950s and 1960s who wrote lyrics to title songs for more than 20 movies, in New York of heart failure.

Feb. 23

— Wojciech Inglot, 57, a Polish chemist and businessman who founded and ran a cosmetics company, Inglot, that grew into an international success with nearly 400 stores in 50 countries, in Przemysl, Poland after suffering internal hemorrhaging.

— Paul C.P. McIlhenny, 68, chief executive and chairman of the board of the McIlhenny Co. that makes the trademarked line of Tabasco hot pepper sauces sold the world over, in Louisiana. No cause of death was given.

Feb. 25

— C. Everett Koop, 96, who raised the profile of the surgeon general by riveting America's attention on the then-emerging disease known as AIDS and by railing against smoking, in Hanover, New Hampshire. No cause of death was given.

Feb. 27

— Van Cliburn, 78, the internationally celebrated pianist whose triumph at a 1958 Moscow competition helped thaw the Cold War and launched a spectacular career that made him the rare classical musician to enjoy rock star status, in Fort Worth, Texas. He had bone cancer.

— Stephane Hessel 93, a French intellectual superstar whose 32-page "Time for Outrage" sold millions of copies, tapping into a vein of popular discontent with capitalism, in Paris. He was also a spy for the French resistance who survived the Nazi death camp at Buchenwald and as a diplomat helped write the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. No cause of death was given.

News from © The Associated Press, 2013