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IRIS CHANG, 36, author of The Rape of Nanking, a bestselling chronicle of the atrocities committed in that Chinese city by occupying Japanese forces in 1937, committed suicide Nov. 9 near Los Gatos, Calif. She died apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, local authorities told the San Francisco Chronicle. Her book, which spent 10 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list after its publication in 1997, helped break a six-decade-long international silence on the subject.
WYETH CHANDLER, 74, who served in the 1970s and early 1980s as mayor of Memphis, Tenn., died Thursday after a heart attack. He stepped down during his third term in 1982 to accept a judicial appointment.
HERMAN POSTMA, 70, former director of the Oak Ridge (Tenn.) National Laboratory, died while traveling in Hawaii. He apparently died late Nov. 6 after a cerebral hemorrhage, according to Billy Stair, the laboratory's communications director. He was 40 when he was appointed lab director in 1974, the first director without experience on the World War II-era Manhattan Project to enrich uranium for the first atomic bombs.
PETE JOLLY, 72, a jazz pianist and accordion player whose composition Little Bird was nominated for a Grammy in 1963, died Nov. 6 in Pasadena, Calif.
PEGGY RYAN, 80, who teamed with dance partner Donald O'Connor in movie musicals such as This Is the Life and When Johnny Comes Marching Home, died Oct. 30 in Las Vegas. The duo became known for high-energy, complex routines in films like Mister Big in 1943 and 1944's Chip Off the Old Block, The Merry Monahans and Bowery to Broadway. Her final movie was All Ashore with Mickey Rooney in 1953.
PAUL F. IAMS, 89, a self-taught animal nutritionist whose pet foods bearing his name are sold in 70 countries, died Oct. 26 in Chappaqua, N.Y. He started the Iams Food Co., now a division of Procter & Gamble, in 1946, having once worked as a dog food salesman during the Depression. Not even severe economic hardship, he learned, could deter pet owners from paying the price to feed their companions.
GERTRUD BURGSTHALER-GRANZNER, 88, a regular at Vienna's State Opera in the post-World War II years, died Oct. 28 in Vienna, the Austria Press Agency reported. Her skill in drama and her versatile alto voice led her to assume important roles in operas ranging from Verdi to Wagner during her 1945-1950 tenure at Austria's premier opera house.
CHARLES F. WHEELER, 88, a cinematographer for half a century who was nominated for an Academy Award for Tora! Tora! Tora! and for an Emmy for the CBS television movie Babe, about athlete Mildred Zaharias, died Oct. 28 in Orange, Calif.
LESTER LANIN, 97, a bandleader who supplied music for presidential inaugurations, Queen Elizabeth's 60th birthday party and gatherings hosted by the Rockefellers, du Ponts and Chryslers, died Oct. 27 in New York City. He led his band in playing Dixieland, swing and light rock 'n' roll for every presidential inauguration since Eisenhower's, except two - those of Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush. He serenaded Grace Kelly at her engagement party and Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer at their wedding. In all, he played at some 20,000 wedding receptions, 7,500 parties and 4,500 proms, and recorded more than 30 albums. As many as 12 bands toured under his name at once.
SAMUEL LEE GRAVELY JR., 82, the first black naval officer to become an admiral and to command a warship and a fleet, died Oct. 22 in Bethesda, Md. He made history in the 1960s by becoming acting commanding officer of the destroyer USS Theodore E. Chandler. During the Vietnam War he commanded the destroyer USS Taussig and the guided missile frigate USS Jouett. Subsequent assignments included command of a cruiser destroyer group, the 11th Naval District and the 3rd Fleet in the Pacific.
JOHN PEEL, 65, a longtime British Broadcasting Corp. disc jockey whose enthusiasm for the offbeat, the eclectic and the obscure launched the careers of dozens of bands, died after suffering a heart attack Oct. 25 while vacationing in Peru with his wife, Sheila, the BBC said. His program on Radio 1, the BBC's flagship pop music station, exerted a huge influence for more than 30 years. He was often the first to play demo tapes by little-known bands, and his enthusiasm propelled some to fame. He championed acts ranging from Jimi Hendrix and David Bowie to The Smiths, The Fall, Pulp and The Undertones.