Groundbreakers and survivors

BEEN AND GONE
By Nick Serpell
BBC Obituary Unit

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

Anne Scott-James rose through the ranks in a male-dominated world

Journalism was largely a male dominated world in the 1930s but Anne Scott-James broke through the glass ceiling to become a noted editor and columnist. She started as an assistant at Vogue in 1933 but, within five years, had become beauty editor. She was woman's editor at Picture Post before becoming editor of Harper's Bazaar where she recruited writers of the calibre of Elizabeth David & John Betjeman. In 1954 she was given her own full page column in the Daily Express, (a broadsheet at the time) and moved on to the Daily Mail in the 1960s. She became a regular panellist on the BBC Radio series, My Word, and wrote a number of gardening books in association with her third husband, the pocket cartoonist Sir Osbert Lancaster.

When the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg on 14 Apr 1912, 9 week old Millvina Dean was asleep in her parents' cabin in steerage. Her father, who with his family was emigrating to the US, told his wife Georgette, to take Millvina and her one year old brother up on deck. Amid the chaos they managed to get onto a lifeboat and were safely lowered from the stricken ship. Millvina's father remained aboard and was never seen again. After four hours floating on the icy waters the family was picked up by the liner Carpathia and taken to New York. Her mother decided to return to the UK where Millvina eventually worked as a secretary. In 2007 she became the last survivor of the Titanic disaster. "I put our survival down to the bravery of my father who was alert to the dangers and made sure we got off."

Fred Kite was perhaps Hackney's most famous creation

Alan Hackney

was responsible for more than 30 novels and screenplays but his finest creation was undoubtedly the communist shop steward, Fred Kite, who was given life by Peter Sellers in the film, I'm All Right Jack. Kite, whose mangled English seemed to epitomise a whole generation of trades union speak, dreams of reversing the tide of post war consumerism and building a socialist utopia. The film launched Sellers as a comedy actor and cemented Hackney's reputation as a screenwriter. His first big success had been Private's Progress which like I'm All Right Jack, was filmed by the Boulting brothers and starred a positive roll call of the great British character actors of the time including Richard Attenborough, Margaret Rutherford and John Le Mesurier.

Ken Gill was known for his staunch communism

The real trade union leader Ken Gill might have shared Fred Kite's adherence to Moscow based communism but his 18 years leading the technical union Tass, and its successor MSF, saw him become one of the most influential figures in industrial relations. A draughtsman by training he became a full time union official at a time when the trades' union movement wielded huge political might. He bitterly opposed any form of wage restraint and led opposition to Barbara Castle's bill, In Place of Strife, which the Labour Government hoped would end a period of constant industrial disputes. Along with other hard liners he was expelled from the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1985 after it decide to renounce Moscow and embrace Euro-Communism.

The controversial statement "all men are rapists" was coined by the feminist writer Marilyn French, in her best selling novel, The Women's Room. The book, which sold more than 20 million copies world wide, was published in 1977, at a time when the feminist movement, particularly in America, was questioning society's attitudes towards women. The tale of a loveless marriage it partly reflected French's own marital experience in a relationship she later described as "a trap". The novel was hailed by feminists such as Gloria Steinem who said "It expressed the experience of a huge number of women and let them know that they were not alone and not crazy."

Wayne Allwine was married to the voice of Minnie Mouse

Since his first talking appearance in Steamboat Willie, in 1928, Mickey Mouse has been voiced by just three men of whom Wayne Allwine was the most recent. He joined Disney studios as a post room worker in 1966 before moving on to the sound effects department. He began working with Jimmy MacDonald, who had been the voice of the ubiquitous rodent since 1947, eventually taking over from him in 1977. His voice appeared in the 1983 film, Mickey's Christmas Carol and he went on to appear in Who Framed Roger Rabbit and The Prince and the Pauper. He also worked on the sound effects of Alien Nation and Star Trek V; The Final Frontier. In 1991 he married Russi Taylor, the voice of Minnie Mouse.

Hollywood also lost Mort Abrahams who was associate producer on the first two Planet of the Apes films as well as producing episodes from the TV series The Man From UNCLE. Born in New York, he began his career on American TV in the 1950s where he was responsible, among other programmes, for GE Theatre which was introduced by an actor named Ronald Reagan. He produced the popular US TV series, Route 66, before moving into cinema where he worked on Doctor Doolittle, Goodbye Mr Chips as well as Planet of the Apes.

Among others who died in May were Dom DeLuise , actor and comedian, Velupillai Prabhakaran , Tamil Tiger leader, and Sir Clive Granger, Nobel laureate.