DEATHS Pop singer Melanie Thornton, 34, half of the mid-'90s dance duo La Bouche ("Be My Lover," "Sweet Dreams"), in a Crossair plane crash, Nov. 24, outside Zurich, Switzerland. Twenty-three others were killed in the accident, which occurred in bad weather as the plane approached a runway. Thornton was touring to promote the European release of her first solo album, Ready to Fly.... Drummer Juan Hinojosa, 51, a founding member of the Tejano band Los Fabulosos Cuatro, of injuries sustained in a Nov. 23 car accident near Driscoll, Tex. Hinojosa's drummer son, Michael, 28, was also killed....Singer O.C. Smith, 65, whose "Little Green Apples" won a Song of the Year Grammy in 1968, of undisclosed causes, Nov. 23, in L.A. He was a member of Count Basie's jazz band in the '60s....Jazz impresario Norman Granz, 83, who recorded such artists as Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong on his five record labels, of cancer, Nov. 22, in Geneva, Switzerland. He helped end racially discriminatory practices in the music industry by refusing to book artists in segregated halls and by demanding equal pay for black performers....Actor-writer Gardner McKay, 69, who became a national sex symbol as Capt. Adam Troy in the '60s series Adventures in Paradise, of prostate cancer, Nov. 21, in Honolulu. After his TV run, he turned his back on Hollywood; he wrote the 1998 suspense novel Toyer and the popular regional- theater play Sea Marks....Big-band-era saxophonist Jerry Jerome, 89, who later scored ad jingles (including the one for the "Winston tastes good—like a cigarette should" campaign), of leukemia, Nov. 17, in Sarasota, Fla.

Originally posted Dec 07, 2001 Published in issue #629 Dec 07, 2001 Order article reprints
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