In Passing

Yangon, Myanmar

Gen. Soe Win, prime minister

Prime Minister Gen. Soe Win, reviled for his role in a bloody attack on Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her followers in 2003, died Friday after a long illness, relatives and state media said. He was 59 and was said to have been suffering from leukemia.

The fourth-ranking member of the military junta, Soe Win was largely considered a figurehead, and his death was unlikely to cause a change in the regime’s grip on power.

His death was reported as the junta continued its crackdown on democracy advocates that followed weeks of protests in the tightly controlled country.

Waitsfield, Vt.

Werner von Trapp, musician

Werner von Trapp, a member of the musical family made famous by the 1965 movie “The Sound of Music,” has died.

Von Trapp, 91, died Thursday at his home in Waitsfield. The cause of death was not announced.

“The Sound of Music” was based loosely on a 1949 book by his stepmother, Maria von Trapp, who died in 1987. It tells the story of an Austrian woman who married a widower with seven children and taught them music.

Werner von Trapp was the fourth child and second son of Captain Georg von Trapp and his first wife, Agathe Whitehead. In the movie “The Sound of Music,” Werner von Trapp was depicted by the character named Kurt.

During the 1930s, von Trapp studied cello and became proficient on several other instruments. He sang tenor with his family’s choir, The Trapp Family Singers, who won great acclaim throughout Europe after their debut in 1935.

Los Angeles

Bud Ekins, biker, stuntman

Bud Ekins, a pioneering champion off-road motorcyclist and veteran stuntman who doubled for Steve McQueen on the famous motorcycle jump in “The Great Escape,” has died. He was 77.

Ekins died Oct. 6 of natural causes at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles

A 1999 inductee of the Motorcycle Hall of Fame, Ekins was one of the first Americans to compete in the World Championship Motocross Grand Prix circuit in Europe during the 1950s. By the mid-‘50s, he was the top scrambles and desert rider in Southern California.

His friendship with fellow motorcyclist McQueen, whom he helped teach off-road racing, launched Ekins’ career as a movie stuntman.

He amassed numerous stunt credits, including the TV series “CHiPs” and films such as “Diamonds Are Forever,” “Earthquake,” “The Towering Inferno,” “Animal House” and “The Blues Brothers.”

Ekins’ most famous stunt work was on his first job: doubling for McQueen in the climactic motorcycle jump over a high, barbed-wire fence in the 1963 World War II prisoner-of-war movie “The Great Escape.”