G. Gordon Liddy was the man who masterminded the break in at the Watergate Building in 1972 and was sentenced to 20 years in a high-security jail. The sentence was later commuted to four and a half years by President Jimmy Carter. The Watergate cover-up eventually resulted in President Nixon’s resignation in 1974. Freed from jail, Liddy reinvented himself as a novelist, actor and most famously in a provocative radio show which has been running for 14 years across hundreds of US stations. Liddy thinks global warming is a good thing: “It would quintuple the yields of US crops and double life expectancy. Bring it on.” This autumn he was seen performing stunts on his motorcycle for a celebrity TV show. He won the first two contests, but crashed before the final. G. Gordon Liddy is 76 today. RGT
Richard Bacon, TV and radio presenter, 31; George Duffield, jockey, 60; Lord Evans of Watford, chairman of Centurion Press, 1971-2002, 64; Gary Lineker, footballer, commentator and broadcaster, 46; Radu Lupu, pianist, 61; David Mamet, writer, stage and film director, 59; Marguerite Porter, senior principal dancer, Royal Ballet, 1976-85, 58; Sir Ridley Scott, film director, 69; Lord Tope, Liberal MP for Sutton and Cheam, 1972-74, 63.