DANCING WITH WOLVES NO MORE!

BEEN AND GONE - By Nick Serpell.
BBC News Profiles Unit.

Our regular column covering the passing of significant - but lesser-reported - characters of the past month.

• Floyd Red Crow Westerman was a singer, actor and campaigner for Native American rights. Born on a reservation in Dakota, he became a noted country and western singer working with artists such as Joni Mitchell and Willie Nelson. He later began acting, his best-known role being Ten Bears in the Kevin Costner epic Dances with Wolves. He also appeared in a number of TV advertisements for Lakota brand pain reliever, usually wearing traditional dress.

• Acting also lost Patricia Kirkwood, the first woman to be given her own TV show by the BBC. She started off in music hall before her big break in Black Velvet at the London Hippodrome in 1940, when she was dubbed Britain's first war-time star. She was offered a contract with MGM but suffered a nervous breakdown in the United States. On returning to the UK she began a series of TV performances culminating in The Patricia Kirkwood Show in 1954.

• A more controversial performer was Ruth Wallis whose songs, full of double entendres and references to sex, scandalised American audiences in the 40s and 50s. Many of her songs, which dealt with themes such as homosexuality, were banned on US radio stations. Some of her most famous numbers were combined into a production entitled Boobs, which ran for 300 performances in New York where it opened in 2003.

• Less controversial, but no less endearing, was Irish singer Joe Dolan. He held the distinction of being the first western pop singer to perform in the Soviet Union where he gave a concert in 1978. A former newspaper compositor he began singing in Irish show bands in the 60s. His biggest hit was the Albert Hammond penned single Make Me An Island, which reached number three in the UK in 1969.

• A singer from a different genre was Paul Imbaya, a Kenyan reggae singer better known as The Mighty King Kong. He contracted polio as a child and was begging on the streets of Kisumu when he began singing. He recorded three albums between 1999 and 2004 and was a fervent supporter of Raila Odinga's opposition Orange Democratic Movement. He died on Christmas Day with one local newspaper alleging he had been poisoned.

• From King Kong to another primate, Nonja was alleged to be the world's oldest orang-utan when she died in a Miami zoo at the age of 55. She was born in the wild in Sumatra in 1952 and was shipped to Miami from Holland in 1983. During her lifetime Nonja gave birth to five offspring. Orang-utans rarely live beyond their mid-40s and are now classed as a critically endangered species.

Among others who died in December were: Benazir Bhutto, former prime minister of Pakistan; Ike Turner, musician and former husband of Tina; Oscar Peterson, jazz pianist; and Kevin Greening, former Radio One DJ.
BBC NEWS MAGAZINE.