Passages this week

Ruth Precht, 87, who ran a funeral home in Everett with her husband and later became one of the city's quiet but effective philanthropists, died July 8 in Everett, several days after suffering a stroke.

George Bell, 89, a housing developer who over three decades left a legacy of 15,000 mostly single-family houses on the Eastside and South King County, as well as golf-course developments, died July 17 in Renton.

Mickey Spillane, 88, the macho mystery writer who wowed millions of readers with the shoot-'em-up sex and violence of gumshoe Mike Hammer, died of cancer Monday in his hometown of Murrells Inlet, S.C.

Win Rockefeller, 57, the lieutenant governor of Arkansas and the billionaire great-grandson of Standard Oil founder John Rockefeller, died last Sunday in Little Rock after unsuccessful treatments for a blood disorder, including two bone-marrow transplants through the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.

Robert Brooks, 69, the chairman of Hooters, who made his fortune selling chicken wings served by scantily clad waitresses, was found dead of unspecified natural causes last Sunday at his home in Myrtle Beach, S.C., officials said.

Ta Mok, believed to be 80, known as "The Butcher" for his brutality as military chief of the communist Khmer Rouge, died July 14 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where he was hospitalized for high blood pressure, tuberculosis and respiratory complications.

Harry Olivieri, 90, who was running a Depression-era hot-dog stand with his brother Pat when, tired of eating wieners for lunch, they invented the Philadelphia cheesesteak sandwich, died Thursday of a heart attack in Pomona, N.J.

Robert Mardian, 82, the attorney for President Nixon's Committee to Re-Elect the President whose conviction of conspiracy to obstruct justice in the Watergate scandal was overturned on appeal, died of lung cancer Monday in San Clemente, Calif.

Carrie Nye , 69, a Tony Award-nominated actress who occasionally appeared on television and in films but remained best-known for her stage work, died of lung cancer July 14 in Manhattan. She was the wife of comedian and TV talk-show host Dick Cavett.

David Skramstad, 74, mayor of Olympia for two terms in the 1980s, who turned from careers in the military, politics and business to a retirement passion for mystery writing, died of heart failure Monday in Arizona.

Madeline Brunoe McInturff, 91, one of the last three fluent speakers of the Wasco tribal language in the Northwest, died of cancer July 11 in Oregon.

Sam Myers, 70, a Mississippi blues singer and harmonica ace, died of throat cancer Monday in Dallas.

Robert E. Guilford, 73, a California lawyer who specialized in aviation-disaster cases, died last Sunday when the vintage fighter jet he was flying crashed in Hillsboro, Ore., where he was taking part in an air show.

Ray Manley, 84, a photographer whose color-drenched landscape portraits of Arizona lured untold numbers of travelers to the state, died July 15 in Tucson.

Ted Stone, 72, a North Carolina minister who turned his drug addiction into a mission of preaching the Gospel through walking tours across the country, died last Sunday after collapsing on his way to a speaking engagement in Tennessee.

Elmer Heindl, 96, a Roman Catholic priest who was one of the most highly decorated chaplains in World War II, died Monday in Rochester, N.Y.

Raja Rao, 97, considered one of the great novelists of modern India for his highly metaphysical writings exploring the collision points between East and West, died of heart failure July 8 in Austin, where he was an emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Texas.

James Nicholas, 85, a physician whose work on sports injuries included four operations on Joe Namath's knees, died of colon cancer July 15 in Scarsdale, N.Y.

Aleksander Wojtkiewicz, 43, an internationally ranked chess player and a native of Latvia, died of an intestinal hemorrhage July 14 in Baltimore.

Raul Cortez, 73, one of Brazil's most renowned stage, screen and television actors, died of stomach cancer Tuesday in São Paulo.

Dorothy Clark Blackmun, 95, whose late husband, Justice Harry Blackmun, wrote the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide, died July 13 in Washington, D.C.

Kurt Kreuger, 89, a German-born actor whose sinister blond handsomeness made him one of Hollywood's reigning onscreen Nazis during World War II and a popular male pinup, died July 12 in Los Angeles after a stroke.