Late-blooming lady of the killer line

BEEN AND GONE By Nick Serpell BBC Obituary Unit

Estelle Reiner delivered one of cinema's killer lines

Our regular column covering the passing of significant - but lesser-reported - people of the past month.

One of the best known lines in modern cinema was uttered by Estelle Reiner in the film When Harry Met Sally, when she topped Meg Ryan's fake orgasm scene in a New York restaurant with "I'll have what she's having". Estelle was not an experienced actress and owed her part to the fact that she was the mother of the film's director, Rob Reiner. That one line allowed her, at the age of 75, to launch a career as a jazz singer, recording no fewer than six albums and performing live at various night clubs where she had a firm way with hecklers.

The rather more serious film, Mississippi Burning, was based on a real life FBI investigation which was led by Special Agent Roy K Moore. Moore was sent to Mississippi in 1963, to investigate the disappearance of three civil rights campaigners. Their bodies were eventually found buried in an earth dam and his team of agents set out to break down a wall of silence imposed by the Ku Klux Klan. Eventually seven men were convicted and jailed, although none of them served more than six years. Moore received a number of death threats but, it was said, he was only ever afraid of two people - his FBI boss, J Edgar Hoover and his wife, Lucille.

Only three men survived the sinking of the HMS Hood

Ted Briggs was a man who overcame fear, as one of the three sailors who survived the sinking of the battle cruiser HMS Hood in May 1941. Under attack from the German battleship Bismarck, the 45,000 ton Hood sustained a direct hit on her magazine and sank in minutes. Over 1,400 of her crew went down with the ship. Briggs, who was just 18, was sucked under the water but struggled back to the surface just in time to see his ship disappear. He survived for three hours in the freezing ocean before being picked up. Briggs stayed in the Royal Navy until the 1970s. He always brushed off suggestions that he was a hero, preferring to describe himself as a survivor.

If anyone had music in her blood it was singer Dee Dee Warwick. The sister of Dionne Warwick, and cousin of Whitney Houston, she sang backing vocals for Aretha Franklin as well as performing with her sister as The Gospelaires. She launched her solo career in the 1960s and had a number of soul and R 'n' B hits including "Foolish Fool", "She Didn't Know (She Kept on Talking)" and a version of "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me" that was later covered by Diana Ross and The Supremes. Latterly she sang on sister Dionne's 2008 gospel album Why We Sing.

Pat Moss-Carlsson found success with horses, then with horsepower

It must have been oil, rather than music which ran in the blood of Pat Moss-Carlsson, who was first taught to drive by her elder brother Stirling. She began her sporting career as a successful international show jumper before switching to horsepower of a different kind. She was one of the most successful women rally drivers of all time, winning the European Ladies' Rally Championship five times between 1958 and 1965. Most of her early successes were in British cars like the Austin Healy 3000, Lotus Cortina and the all-conquering Mini Cooper. She switched to the Saab works team after marrying Swedish rally ace Erik Carlsson in 1963.

David Evans was the archetypal self-made man

David Evans was the archetypal working class boy made good. Born in North London he set up his own cleaning company in 1960 which he turned into a multimillion pound organisation. A promising footballer in his youth, he became chairman of Luton Town in 1984, where he introduced a controversial members-only scheme designed to prevent soccer violence by keeping out visiting fans. He was elected as Conservative MP for Welwyn and Hatfield in 1987, a seat he held for 10 years. A staunch Thatcherite he was frequently lampooned in the more liberal newspapers who often described him as a car salesman, which he wasn't.

Among others who died in October were former BBC correspondent and Sky News presenter Bob Friend, right wing Austrian politician Joerg Haider and Four Tops vocalist Levi Stubbs.