MAY

May 1

— Chris Kelly, 34, half of the 1990s kid rap duo Kris Kross who made one of the decade's most memorable songs with the frenetic "Jump," in Atlanta of an apparent drug overdose.

May 2

— Jeff Hanneman, 49, a founding member of heavy metal bank Slayer whose career was irrevocably changed after a spider bite, in Los Angeles of liver failure.

May 3

— Cedric Brooks, 70, a Jamaican saxophone player and influential roots reggae musician, in New York of cardiac arrest.

— David Morse Kern, 103 an American who created Orajel, a medicine aimed at fighting toothaches that was later also used for mouth sores, in Paradise Valley, Arizona. No cause of death was given.

May 4

— Frederic Franklin, 98, a British-born dancer who helped popularize modern ballet in the United States and performed until his mid-90s, in New York of complications from pneumonia.

Christian de Duve, 95, a Belgian biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1974, in Louvain-la-Neuvae, in an act of euthanasia.

May 6

— Giulio Andreotti, 94, one of Italy's most important postwar figures who helped draft the country's constitution after World War II, served seven times as premier and spent 60 years in Parliament, in Rome. He had been in poor health and treatment included hospitalization for a heart ailment.

May 7

— Ray Harryhausen, 92, who thrilled movie audiences with special effects such as skeletons in a sword fight, a gigantic octopus destroying the Golden Gate Bridge, and a six-armed dancing goddess, in London. No cause of death was given.

May 8

— Geza Vermes, 88, a translator of the Dead Sea scrolls and renowned for his books about the Jewish background of Jesus, in Oxford, England. No cause of death was given.

May 9

- Octavio Missoni, 92, the patriarch of the zigzagged brand of patterned knitwear that helped launch Italian ready-to-wear and turn Milan into a fashion mecca, in Sumirago, northern Italy. No cause of death was given but the family announcement indicated it was from natural causes.

— Malcolm Shabazz, 29, grandson of civil rights activist Malcolm X, in Mexico City of blunt trauma injuries sustained in a bar dispute.

May 12

— Kenneth Batelle, 86, the hairdresser who gave Jacqueline Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe their calling-card hairdos in the 1950s and 1960s, in Wappingers Falls, New York. No cause of death was given.

— Cynthia Brown, 60, an activist who was one of the guiding forces at the international advocacy group Human Rights Watch, in New York. She had cancer.

May 13

— Joyce Brothers, 85, the pop psychologist who pioneered the American television advice show in the 1950s and enjoyed a long and prolific career as a syndicated columnist, author and television and film personality, in New York of respiratory failure.

May 14

— Billie Sol Estes, 88, a flamboyant Texas huckster who became one of the most notorious men in America in 1962 when he was accused of looting a federal crop subsidy program, in DeCordova Bend, Texas, of apparent natural causes.

May 16

—Valtr Komarek, 82, a left-wing Czech politician and economist who helped overthrow the country's communist regime as one of the most visible faces of the so-called "Velvet Revolution," in Prague. No cause of death was given.

Bernard Waber, 91, author of such children's books as "The House on 88th Street" and "Lyle, the Crocodile," in Long Island, New York after a long illness.

May 17

Jorge Rafael Videla, 87, the former dictator who took power in Argentina in a 1976 coup and led a military junta that killed thousands of his fellow citizens citing a dirty war to eliminate so-called "subversives," in Buenos Aires while serving life in prison for crimes against humanity of apparent natural causes.

May 20

— Ray Manzarek, 74, a founding member of the 1960s rock group the Doors whose versatile and often haunting keyboards complemented Jim Morrison's gloomy baritone and set the mood for some of rock's most enduring songs, in Rosenheim, Germany. He had bile duct cancer.

May 21

— Mack Emerman, 89, the founder of Criteria Recording Studios where acts including Eric Clapton, James Brown and the Bee Gees made some of their most famous recordings, in Miami of complications from pneumonia.

May 22

— Wayne F. Miller, 94, a photographer who created a groundbreaking series of portraits chronicling the lives of black Americans in Chicago after serving with an elite Navy unit that produced some of the most indelible images of World War II, in Orin, California . No cause of death was given.

May 23

Georges Mistaki, 79, an Egyptian-born composer, singer and poet who wrote songs for Edith Piaf and other French stars, in Nice after a long illness.

May 25

— Marshall Lytle, 79, the original bass player for Bill Haley & His Comets, one of the first bands to make rock 'n' roll music popular with a mainstream audience, in New Port Richey, Florida. No cause of death was given.

May 26

— Jack Vance, 96, an award-winning mystery, fantasy and science fiction author who wrote more than 60 books and was described as one of the most distinctive and undervalued voices in American literature, in Oakland, California. No cause of death was given.

Otto Muehl, 87, an Austrian artist whose radical notions of art were only exceeded by the excesses of his lifestyle, in Portugal. No cause of death was given.

May 29

— Andrew Greely, 85, an outspoken Roman Catholic priest, bestselling author and longtime newspaper columnist who criticized the hierarchy of his church over the child sex abuse scandal, in Chicago. No cause of death was given.

May 30

- Rituparno Ghosh, 49, an Indian director whose work included award-winning films in the Bengali language, in Kolkata of cardiac arrest.

News from © The Associated Press, 2013