Notable deaths of 2017 in pictures: From Chuck Berry to Jonathan Demme

2016 was a year that saw a long list of high profile celebrity deaths, from David Bowie to Carrie Fisher, Alan Rickman and Leonard Cohen. In this gallery, IBTimesUK remembers some of the famous faces who have died in 2017:

Jonathan Demme, the American filmmaker behind acclaimed films such as Philadelphia and The Silence of the Lambs, has died. The Oscar-winning director and producer was 73 and passed away in New York on the morning of 26 April. According to IndieWire, a source confirmed that the cause of Demme's death was esophageal cancer and complications from heart disease. Back in 2010, he had received treatment for the latter, but suffered from a recurrence five years later.

Actor Erin Moran, best known for playing Joanie Cunningham on the television sitcom Happy Days, died 22 April aged 56. An autopsy report from the Harrison County coroner indicated the likely cause of death to be complications of stage four squamous cell carcinoma of the throat.

Actor Tim Pigott-Smith died aged 70 on 7 April. Born in Rugby, Pigott-Smith graduated from the University of Bristol in 1967. Beginning his career on stage he made his debut at the Bristol Old Vic. An acclaimed Shakespearean actor, he shared the stage with Dame Judi Dench, Dame Helen Mirren and Sir Patrick Stewart among others.

MTV reality star and actor Clay Adler died on 26 March 2017 aged 27, after taking his own life. According to TMZ, the Newport Harbor: The Real Orange County died of a self inflicted gunshot wound while on a shooting trip with friends to the desert in Southern California on 25 March. He died the following day in hospital. No drugs or alcohol was found in his system. Multiple reports claim that Adler suffered from mental illness.

Former Liverpool captain and coach Ronnie Moran died aged 83 on 22 March. His son Paul confirmed his death on social media, writing "I am devastated to tell everyone on behalf of the family that my dad passed away this morning after a short illness". Moran made 379 appearances for Liverpool and twice served as caretaker manager in the early 1990s.

Inspector Morse's creator, Colin Dexter, died at the age of 86 on 21 March. His series of 14 novels about the cynical crosssword-loving detective and his loyal sidekick Sergeant Lewis received critical acclaim and was adapted into long-running ITV series starring John Thaw as Morse. In a statement his publisher said: "With immense sadness, MacMillan announces the death of Colin Dexter who died peacefully at his home in Oxford this morning."

Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness died at the age of 66 on 21 March. Northern Ireland's former deputy first minister died after a short illness in Derry's Altnagelvin Hospital surrounded by his family members. The former IRA leader turned peacemaker, had been at the centre of the power-sharing government following the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, becoming the deputy first minister in 2007. It is believed that the Irish republican had a rare genetic disease caused by abnormal protein - amyloid - in tissues andorgans.

American former banker David Rockefeller died in his sleep at home in Pocantico Hills, New York, on 20 March aged 101. The businessman, who had an estimated fortune of $3 billion, retired as head of Chase Manhattan in 1981 after a 35-year career.

Rock 'n' roll legend Chuck Berry died aged 90 on 18 March 2017. Born Charles Edward Anderson Berry in St. Louis on October 18th, 1926, Berry first learned to play blues guitar as a teenager and first performed at his high school talent show. Dubbed "the father of rock 'n' roll' Berry had an illustrious career spanning seven-decades, and was famed for rock 'n' roll classics such as Roll Over Beethoven, Maybellene and Johnny B. Goode. He received a lifetime achievement Grammy in 1984 and was among the first inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.

Nobel laureate poet Derek Walcott died on 17 March 2017 age 87. The St Lucian poet and playwright's collections include A Green Night: Poems 1948 - 1960 and his epic work, Omeros, a Caribbean reimagining of The Odyssey. He regarded by critics as one of the greatest Caribbean poets. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992, the TS Eliot Prize for Poetry in 2011 and many literary awards over the course of his career.

Sir Howard Hodgkin died age 84 on 9 March 2017. He was regarded as one of Britain's greatest contemporary painters, . Tate director Sir Nicholas Serota said that Hodgkin was "one of the great artists and colourists of his generation". Hodgkin's work is held by major galleries and museums around the world including the Tate, British Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Singer-songwriter Tommy Page died age 46 on 3 March 2017. Best known for his 1990 hit 'I'll Be Your Everything', the New Kids On The Block songwriter is survived by his husband Charlie and their three children.

American actor Bill Paxton died on 25 February 2017 following surgical complications. The Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning actor, who is starred in films including Terminator, Aliens, True Lies, Titanic, Weird Science, Tombstone, Apollo 13, and Mighty Joe Young, is survived by his wife of 30 years, Louise Newbury, and their two children.

Neil Fingleton, Britain's tallest man, who stood at 7 ft 7 died age 36 on 25 February 2017. The basketball player-turned-actor who most famously played the giant Mag The Mighty in Game of Thrones, was born in County Durham, England. He moved to the US aged 16 to attend Holy Name Central Catholic High School in Massachusetts. He then attended the University of North Carolina on a basketball scholarship, before entering the sport professionally.

Actor Warren Frost died age 91 on 17 February 2017. Frost appeared in dozens of iconic TV shows including 'Twin Peaks' 'Matlock' and 'Seinfeld'. Frost died at his home in Middlebury, Vermont, after a long illness, according to a statement from his son, 'Twin Peaks' co-creator Mark Frost.

Dutch writer and illustrator and children's author Dick Bruna died in his sleep on 16 February 2017. Bruna was known for his iconic creation of the cartoon rabbit Miffy. Bruna won global recognition with his simple illustrations and lovable characters. He sold 85 million books during his lifetime and his work was translated into more than 50 languages. He published more than 120 different stories with many popular cartoon characters, but his most well-known and well-loved creation by far was the little white rabbit known as Miffy (Nijntje in Dutch). She was given her English name by Olive Jones, the story's first translator. Bruna's drawings were particular popular in Japan because of their minimalist style.

Actor Sara Coward died of cancer aged 69 on 12 February 2017. Coward played Caroline Sterling for almost 40 years on the BBC radio show The Archers.

Al Jarreau, the seven-time Grammy Award-winning jazz and pop singer, died at the age of 76 on 12 February 2017. Jarreau won Grammys in different categories — jazz, pop and R&B. His first album, We Got By, was released in 1975. The album won him a German Grammy. A year later he released Glow, which also scooped a German Grammy. In 1977, his live album Look to the Rainbow earned him his first US Grammy for best jazz singer. The following year, he took home another Grammy, this time for the album All Fly Home. In 1981, his pop album Breakin Away, which included the popular We're In Love Together, was released and he clinched a Grammy for best pop singer. In 1992 the Heaven and Earth album saw him winning yet another, this time for best R&B vocal performance.

Socialite Tara Palmer-Tomkinson was found dead aged 45, on 8 February 2017, three months after she revealed she was suffering from a brain tumour. The former I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! contestant was found at an address in South London and pronounced dead at the scene. Arguably the quintessential 90s 'It girl', Palmer-Tomkinson was known for her party lifestyle as much as her aristocratic ties.

Battlestar Galactica actor Richard Hatch died, aged 71 on 7 February 2017. Having begun his career Off Broadway, Hatch's first small screen acting jobs were in mini-series After Hell, and shortly after, All My Children, when he was 26-years-old. He went on to appear in popular shows such as Hawaii Five-O, The Waltons and The Streets Of San Francisco alongside Michael Douglas.

Swedish medical doctor, academic and statistician Hans Rosling died aged 68 on 7 February 2017 in Uppsala, Sweden, after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a year ago. Rosling was the co-founder and chairman of the Gapminder Foundation, which developed the Trendalyzer software system. He held presentations around the world, including several TED Talks in which he promoted the use of data to explore development issues. He was also the Professor of International Health at Karolinska Institutet in Solna, Sweden.

Joost van der Westhuizen died at the age of 45 following a six-year battle with motor neurone disease (MND). The former South Africa scrum-half had been in critical condition at hospital over the weekend and passed away on 6 February. Van der Westhuizen was one of the finest scrum-halves ever to play the game and was part of the Springboks side that won the historic World Cup in 1995. He represented his country on 89 occasions, scoring 38 tries, and changed the role of scrum-half forever with his blend of searing pace and raw power.

Sir Ken Morrison, former chairman of British supermarket Morrisons, died on 1 February 2017, aged 85. The Bradford-born businessman joined the family business in 1956 and was the longest-serving chairman of a top 100 public company in the UK when he announced his decision to leave the company in 2006. Morrison eventually left the retailer in 2008, when he took the honorary post of life president and was succeeded as chief executive by Marc Bolland, who then moved to Marks & Spencer two years later. Morrison played a pivotal role in developing the retail chain that carried his father's name into one of the UK's largest retailers.

British actor John Hurt, whose career spanned over six decades, died aged 77 on 25 January 2017. He was best known for his roles in The Elephant Man, the 1979 sci-fi classic Alien, and Harry Potter. He recently starred as a priest in the biopic of president John F Kennedy's widow, Jackie. The film has been nominated for this year's Academy awards. The veteran actor has been nominated for two Oscars, for the Elephant Man and Midnight Express.

Actor Mary Tyler Moore began her career in the 1950s appearing in TV commercials and as a background dancer, later winning her first television role as a secretary in 1959 in Richard Diamond, Private Detective. She went onto play Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show and won two Emmys for her work. By 1970, she landed her own show, playing Mary Richards on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. She was also nominated for a best actress Oscar in 1980 for the film Ordinary People. She died age 80 on 25 January 2017 in the company of friends and her husband, Dr S Robert Levine.

Gorden Kaye, the BAFTA-nominated English comic actor best known for starring in 'Allo 'Allo!, died at the age of 75 on 23 January 2017. Kaye was best known for playing Rene Artois in the iconic British TV comedy series 'Allo 'Allo!, Kaye had rarely been seen onscreen following the end of the long-running show, in which he first starred in 1982. He also appeared in Last of the Summer Wine, Are You Being Served?, Emmerdale and Coronation Street.

Miguel Ferrer, who was a beloved character actor on both the small and silver screens, passed away on 19 January 2017, following a battle with throat cancer. The Robocop star was born into Hollywood royalty, the son of Academy Award winner José Ferrer and singing superstar Rosemary Clooney. His cousin, George Clooney led tributes to the Ferrer following his death. "Today history will mark giant changes in our world, and lost to most will be that on the same day Miguel Ferrer lost his battle to throat cancer. But not lost to his family," Clooney said.

English photographer and film maker Antony Charles Robert Armstrong-Jones, who was married to Princess Margaret from 1960 until 1978, died on 13 January 2017. He was given the title Earl of Snowdon and Viscount Linley, of Nymans in the County of Sussex on 6 October 1961. This was due to concerns over the prospect of a British princess giving birth to a child without a title. Lord Snowdon and Princess Margaret went on to have two children, David Armstrong-Jones, Viscount Linley and Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones, but the marriage collapsed very early and publicly.

Clare Hollingworth, the veteran war correspondent who announced the start of the Second World War, died at the age of 105 on 10 January 2017. The journalist who spent most of her career working abroad for publications such as the BBC and NBC was responsible for breaking the "scoop of the century" that Germany had invaded Poland in August 1939 while working for the Daily Telegraph. She told the Telegraph in 2011: "I was driving back along a valley and there was a hessian screen up so you couldn't look down into the valley. Suddenly, there was a great gust of wind which blew the sacking from its moorings, and I looked into the valley and saw scores, if not hundreds, of tanks." The front page of the paper ran with the headline '1,000 tanks massed on Polish border' three days before Germany invaded Poland and war was declared.

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was an influential Iranian politicians He was one of the founding fathers of the Islamic Republic and was was the fourth President of Iran from 3 August 1989 until 3 August 1997. Known at the time for his ruthlessness, suspected of sponsoring killings of political dissidents abroad and accused of human rights abuses, he also helped fund the country's controversial nuclear programme. In recent years he reportedly backed the nuclear disarmament deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which was implemented in January 2016 in what was hailed as a victory of diplomacy in containing Iran's nuclear threat. Rafsanjani died on 8 January 2017 at the age of 82.

Singer-songwriter Peter Sarstedt died age 75 on 8 January 2017. Sarstedt was best known for his song 'Where do you go to my Lovely?' which reached number one in the UK singles charts in February 1969 and stayed there for four weeks.He was described in the New Musical Express the "Most original talent to emerge in decades... intense... sincere... top British singer... lyrical quality of his compositions coupled with the hypnotic spell he casts on his audiences have ensured a long run of success for this engaging man. You can be assured of non-stop dynamic entertainment... make sure you are there".

Veteran Indian actor Om Puri died at his Mumbai home at the age of 66 on 6 January 2017. Puri was considered one of the Indian film industry's more versatile actors and he performed in a variety of roles — from drama to comedy — over a career spanning 40 years. Born in the central Indian state of Haryana in 1950, Puri made his film debut with the 1976 Marathi film Ghashiram Kotwal. He went on to work in movies in a number of Indian languages. His acting career transcended the Indian film industry, and Puri is known for his roles in a number of British and Hollywood films and TV shows.

Visionary writer, art critic and poet John Berger had a huge effect on the way visual art was appreciated in society. Known for his books G and A Painter of our Time and Ways of Seeing, which was 1972 BBC television series on which it was based. He died age 90 on 2 January 2017.

Radio and television presenter Brian Widlake, who conducted the first televised interview of Nelson Mandela, died in Wilshire, England at the age of 85 on 1 January 2017. Widlake went on to be a regular present of BBC Radio 4's The World At One, and co-presented BBC Two's Money Programme.