List of Famous people who died in 2008

Donald Lee Haskins, nicknamed "The Bear", was an American basketball player and coach. He played college basketball for three years under coach Henry Iba at Oklahoma A&M. He was the head coach at Texas Western College from 1961 to 1999. His greatest triumph occurred in 1966, when his team won the NCAA Tournament over the Wildcats of the University of Kentucky, coached by Adolph Rupp. The watershed game initiated the end of racial segregation in college basketball.

Sophia Chiaureli, professionally known as Sofiko Chiaureli, was a Soviet Georgian actress. Thought to be the muse of filmmaker Sergei Parajanov, she played a significant role in the 20th century Georgian theater and was associated with the country's two most prominent theaters, the Rustaveli Theatre (1964–1968) and Marjanishvili Theatre.

Stanley Kamel was an American actor, best known for his role as Dr. Charles Kroger on the American television series Monk.

Wolfgang Vogel was a German lawyer active in East Germany at the time of the Cold War who had brokered some of the most famous swaps of spies or exchanges against ransom of political prisoners between the Soviet bloc and the West. A bridge between two worlds during three decades, he came to symbolize the ambiguity of his time and environment, and his career was cited as material worthy of Len Deighton and John le Carré.

Joseph Tyree Sneed III was formerly a Republican United States Deputy Attorney General and then a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for nearly 35 years until his death. He was the father of Carly Fiorina, a former CEO of Hewlett-Packard.

Richard Edward Arnold was an American country music singer who performed for six decades. He was a Nashville sound innovator of the late 1950s, and scored 147 songs on the Billboard country music charts, second only to George Jones. He sold more than 85 million records. A member of the Grand Ole Opry and the Country Music Hall of Fame, Arnold ranked 22nd on Country Music Television's 2003 list of "The 40 Greatest Men of Country Music."

Peter Bela Neubauer was an Austrian-born American child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.

Frank Lawrence Rosenthal, also known as "Lefty" Rosenthal, was an American professional sports bettor, former Las Vegas casino executive, and organized crime associate. Sam "Ace" Rothstein, the protagonist of Martin Scorsese's film Casino (1995), is based on Rosenthal.

Richard William Wright was an English musician who was a co-founder of the progressive rock band Pink Floyd. He played keyboards and sang, performing on almost every Pink Floyd album and playing on all their tours.

Baldev Raj Chopra was an Indian director and producer of Bollywood movies and television serials. Best known for directing Hindi films like Naya Daur (1957), Sadhna (1958), Kanoon (1961), Gumrah (1963), Humraaz (1967), Insaaf Ka Tarazu (1980), Nikaah (1982), Awam (1987), and the producer of TV series, Mahabharat in 1988, he was awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1998.