List of Famous people who died in 2002

Richard Henry Bolt Ph.D., better known as Richard Bolt or Dick Bolt, was an American physics professor at MIT with an interest in acoustics. He was one of the founders of the company Bolt, Beranek and Newman, which built the ARPANET, a forerunner of the Internet.

Harry W. Gerstad was an American film editor who sometimes directed films. The Academy Award-winning editor also worked on television. He edited as well as directed for the 1950s program Adventures of Superman. In the 1960s he worked for Bing Crosby Productions and Batjac Productions. Gerstad retired to Palm Springs, California in 1973 and lived there until his death in 2002.

Keith A. Wester was an American sound engineer. He was nominated for six Academy Awards in the category Best Sound. He worked on nearly 60 films between 1966 and 2002.

Alexander Murray Hannum was a professional basketball player and coach. Hannum coached two National Basketball Association (NBA) teams and one American Basketball Association (ABA) team to championships. In 1998 Hannum was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach.

Herbert Ritts Jr. was an American fashion photographer and director known for his photographs of celebrities, models, and other cultural figures throughout the 1980s and 1990s. His work concentrated on black and white photography and portraits, often in the style of classical Greek sculpture, which emphasized the human shape.

Roberto Vidal Bolaño was a Galician playwright and actor. Galician Literature Day is dedicated to him in 2013.

Susie Garrett was an American actress of theatre and television, jazz vocalist, and acting teacher. She is best known for playing Cherie's grandmother Betty Johnson on the NBC series Punky Brewster.

Koreyoshi Kurahara was a Japanese screenwriter and director. He is perhaps best known for directing Antarctica (1983), which won several awards and was entered into the 34th Berlin International Film Festival. He also co-directed Hiroshima (1995) with Roger Spottiswoode, which was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries.

F.X. Toole is the pen name of boxing trainer Jerry Boyd. Toole is most noted for writing the collection of short stories Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner, which were adapted into the Oscar-winning movie Million Dollar Baby in 2004. F.X. Toole's posthumous novel Pound for Pound was released in 2006 to rave reviews. Cutman, a one-hour dramatic series set in the world of boxing, drawn from short stories by F.X. Toole, is in development by AMC Television.