Last Word

Julian Worricker on:

Lillian Ross, who wrote for the New Yorker, and created a new form of journalism....

The Iraqi president after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Jalal Talabani - a prominent Kurdish politician....

The boxer Terry Downes, who held the world middleweight title in the 1960s....

Sybil Flory, a seamstress who evaded the Japanese in 1941, and found her sister six decades later....

Hedley Jones, a Jamaican musician who designed and built the country's first sound systems....and traffic lights....

Matthew Bannister on

The actor Tony Booth, best known for playing Alf Garnett's left wing son-in-law in the TV comedy Till Death Us Do Part - and notorious for his womanising and heavy drinking. His daughter Cherie Blair shares her memories.

Lillian Bettencourt who was the richest woman in the world - as heiress to the L'Oreal cosmetics group. She was also

William G. Stewart, best known as the host of the long running TV quiz "Fifteen to One", He was also a respected producer and director.

And the rock star Tom Petty - best known for hits like "Free Fallin'" and "I Won't Back Down".

Matthew Bannister on

Hugh Hefner who built the Playboy empire on a best selling magazine. Was he a libertarian who changed attitudes to sex or a sleazy pornographer?

Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov who is credited with averting a nuclear disaster during the Cold War.

The right wing Conservative M.P. Teddy Taylor best known for his outspoken opposition to the European Union.

And actress Liz Dawn who played Vera Duckworth in Coronation Street for nearly thirty years.

Matthew Bannister on

David Shepherd, the artist who painted trains, aeroplanes and elephants and worked tirelessly to conserve wild animals.

Nancy Hatch Dupree, the American born adventurer and writer who devoted her life to creating an archive of Afghan culture and history.

Gordon Williams, the Booker prize shortlisted author whose novel The Siege of Trencher's farm became the controversial film Straw Dogs.

Pat Albeck the designer known as "the queen of the tea towel" who produced popular fabric designs for John Lewis and the National Trust.

Harry Dean Stanton, the gaunt, hollow-eyed actor best known for films like "Paris, Texas" and "Repo Man".

Image of David Shepherd courtesy of the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation.

Matthew Bannister on

Sir Peter Hall, the director who founded the Royal Shakespeare Company, ran the National Theatre and created many acclaimed theatrical and operatic productions.

Kate Millett, the radical feminist whose 1970 book Sexual Politics suggested that men's institutionalised power over women is a social construct, rather than innate or biological.

Sir Edward Du Cann, the Tory MP and businessman who chaired the 1922 backbench committee, fell out with Edward Heath, and went bankrupt in the 1990s.

J.P. Donleavy, the US-born Irish writer whose bawdy tale of Dublin Life - The Ginger Man - sold fifty million copies.

Matthew Bannister on:

The flamboyant businessman Sir David Tang who founded the fashion label Shanghai Tang and collected celebrity friends. Tracey Emin pays tribute.

Professor Dame Margaret Turner-Warwick who became one of the world's leading authorities on thoracic medicine after suffering from tuberculosis as a child.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the genial head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales.

And Walter Becker - who teamed up with Donald Fagen to create the sophisticated music and lyrics of Steely Dan.

Matthew Bannister on

Dick Gregory, the African American comedian and civil rights activist who was also a dietician to stars like John Lennon and Mohammed Ali.

Jeannie Rousseau who spied on the Nazis' secret weapons programme.

Wayne Lotter, the South African elephant conservationist who has been shot dead in Tanzania.

Sean O'Callaghan, the leading IRA member who turned informer. He helped to stop a bomb attack which would have killed the Prince and Princess of Wales.

And the jazz guitarist John Abercrombie.

Brian Aldiss - the gifted science fiction author who inspired the Hollywood movie AI artificial intelligence. Jerry Lewis the American comic who - with Dean Martin found fame as one of the most successful double acts of all time. Blanche Blackwell - the Jamaican society hostess who became Ian Fleming's lover and some believe - the inspiration for the Bond movie character Pussy Galore. Abu Kifah, the Syrian rescue worker who made headlines around the world after pulling a baby alive from the wreckage of a bombed out building - and Sir Bruce Forsyth whose death a week ago today has seen him fondly remembered for his contribution to British entertainment in a career spanning more than seven decades.

Kate Silverton on the "Broadway Diva" Barbara Cook, the American singer and actress who first came to prominence in the 1950s as the lead in the original Broadway musicals Plain and Fancy and Candide; Sister Ruth Pfau 'Mother Teresa' of Pakistan for her work in combating the spread of leprosy; Richard Gordon the anesthetist,whose medical work inspired him to write Dr in The House novels which were made into films and a TV series; Prof. U.R. Rao, Pioneer of India's Space Programme, who brought knowledge to millions of people through digital communications via the many satellites he launched into space.

Matthew Bannister on

Glen Campbell - the singer and guitarist best known for hits like Galveston and Witchita Lineman. We talk to the man who wrote them - Jimmy Webb.

Dame Helen Alexander, former Chief Executive of the Economist Group and the first woman to head the C.B.I.

Clancy Sigal the American writer and activist who was blacklisted during the Communist witch hunts of the 1950s.

Prunella Briance who founded the National Childbirth Trust after two traumatic experiences of giving birth.