Obituaries - Oct. 8, 1999

Claude Bessy; Punk Rock Writer

Claude Bessy, 54, a colorful and influential figure in Los Angeles’ late 1970s punk rock world. A native of France, Bessy moved to Los Angeles in 1973 and created a reggae fan magazine. In 1977 he co-founded Slash magazine with a group of fellow artists in the Venice area, and the monthly publication became the unofficial organ of the city’s thriving punk rock scene. Writing under the name Kickboy Face, Bessy unleashed torrents of irreverent musical and social criticism that reflected the anarchic spirit of the times and championed such uncommercial but influential acts as X and the Germs. In 1978 the magazine released a record by the Germs called “Lexicon Devil,” launching a record label that in later years would sign such bands as Los Lobos and Violent Femmes. Bessy moved to England in 1980, where he worked as a writer, disc jockey and music video producer and served as a consultant to such acts as the Fall, Nick Cave and Sonic Youth. In 1987 he moved to Barcelona, where he died Oct. 2 of lung cancer.

Panos Koulermos; Prominent Architect

Panos Koulermos, 66, an architect who designed award-winning buildings in Europe while serving as a longtime professor of architecture at USC. Koulermos was chairman of the school’s graduate program in architecture from 1973 to 1977 and served as interim dean from 1978 to 1981. He led seminars on architectural theory and history, urban planning and design, the growth and development of Los Angeles, and other topics. He founded and directed USC’s study abroad program in Como, Italy. Koulermos, who was born in Cyprus and held British citizenship, graduated from London’s Polytechnic School of Architecture and Planning in 1957 and completed postgraduate studies in urbanism at the Politecnico di Milano in 1963. In addition to practicing architecture in Athens, London, Los Angeles and Milan, Koulermos was founder and director of an international workshop in environmental design held in Greece in 1972, 1973 and 1974. He also worked as a correspondent and critic in Milan and Greece for the British periodical Architectural Design. He was the author of “20th Century European Rationalism” in 1995. A memorial service will be held at USC. Please call (213) 740-2083 for details. On Sept. 26 in Raleigh, N.C. of a stroke.

Emil Schumacher; German Artist

Emil Schumacher, 87, one of postwar Germany’s leading abstract Expressionist artists. Growing up in Hagen, Germany, he began drawing and sketching his surroundings and family members. During World War II he worked as a technical draftsman at a battery works. Later resuming his painting, he founded the group “The Young West” with Gustav Deppe, Thomas Grochowiak, Ernst Hermanns, Heinrich Siepmann and Hans Werdehausen. In the early 1950s, Schumacher broke with tradition and adopted a completely abstract style that became known as “informal art” in which the workmanship and application of paint and other materials becomes the image. He received the French Order of Merit, and Paris’ Jeu de Paume staged a retrospective for his 85th birthday. Schumacher’s paintings also hang in the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Tate Gallery in London. On Monday while vacationing on the island of Ibiza in Spain.

Dimitri Tsafendas; S. African Assassin

Dimitri Tsafendas, 81, who assassinated South African Prime Minister Hendrik F. Verwoerd in 1966. Tsafendas was born in Mozambique to a Greek father and a mother who was a house servant of mixed race. A bright man with an I.Q. of 125, Tsafendas did poorly in school before joining the South Africa Merchant Navy. His mental instability became noticeable during his foreign travels. At one point, he walked across the frozen St. Croix River from Canada into the United States. At another time he presented himself at the Mandelbaum Gate, demanding entry to Israel from Jordan. According to a story in The Guardian, Tsafendas was “given shock treatment in Portugal, certified insane in England, given more shock treatment in Germany and baptized on a beach in Greece before returning to South Africa in 1964.” Despite his curious past, Tsafendas got a job as a messenger in the South African Parliament in Cape Town. On Sept. 6, 1966, Tsafendas walked up to the 64-year-old Verwoerd and plunged a knife into his heart four times. The assassin claimed that a giant “tapeworm” in his stomach had forced him to kill Verwoerd, who was widely considered the architect of Apartheid. Despite opposition from human rights activists, Tsafendas was imprisoned in 1966 and remained there until 1991, when he was sent to a mental hospital. On Thursday at Sterkfontein Mental Hospital near Johannesburg. No cause of death was given.