Category: Famous Deaths

1684 – Pierre Corneille, French poet and dramatist (El Cid, Horace), dies at 42
1704 – Cornelis Dusart, Dutch painter and engraver, dies at 44
1837 – Robert Clark, American politician, U.S. House of Representatives from New York (1819-21), dies at 60
1936 – Oscar Da Costa, West Indian cricket all-rounder (5 Tests), dies at 29
1961 – Donald Cook, American actor (Too Young To Go Steady), dies at 60
1988 – Sacheverell Sitwell, English writer (People’s Palace), dies at 90
1992 – Petra Kelly, German politician (co-founder of German Green Party), activist, and writer (Nonviolence Speaks to Power), killed by her lover in murder-suicide at 44 (date approximate)
2004 – Richard Avedon, American photographer (Harper’s Bazaar, The New Yorker), dies at 81
2007 – Ned Sherrin, English broadcaster, author and stage director (b. 1931)
2017 – Arthur “Art” Janov, American psychologist and psychotherapist notable for creating primal therapy (The Primal Scream), dies of natural causes at 93

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1612 – Ercole Bottrigari, Italian composer, dies at 81
1770 – George Whitefield, English-born Methodist leader and preacher, dies in Newburyport, Massachusetts, at age 55
1862 – Isaac Peace Rodman, American banker and Brigadier General (Union Army), dies of injury at about 40
1963 – Arnold Foster, English composer, dies at 66
1978 – Beryl Booker, American swing and cool jazz pianist (Dinah Washington), dies at 56
1984 – Ellsworth Bunker, US ambassador (South-Vietnam, dies at 90)
1985 – Herbert Bayer, Austrian-American Bauhaus trained graphic artist (invented Universal typeface), photographer and designer, dies at 85
1991 – Frank Ervin, American harness racer (Hambletonian 1959, 66), dies at 87
2021 – John J. Rigas, American entrepreneur and founder of Adelphia Communications Corporation, dies at 96
2024 – Dikembe Mutombo, Congolese Basketball HOF center (8 x NBA All-Star; 4 × NBA Defensive Player of the Year; Atlanta Hawks, Denver Nuggets), dies of brain cancer at 58

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855 – Lotharius I, Romanian-French emperor (signed Treaty of Verdun), dies
1902 – William McGonagall, Scottish-Irish poet infamous as an extremely bad poet and considered the worst in British history (The Tay Bridge Disaster, The Famous Tay Whale), dies at 77
1951 – Thomas Cahill, American soccer coach and administrator (first coach US men’s national team), dies at 86
1973 – W. H. Auden [Wystan Hugh Auden], British-American Pulitzer Prize-winning poet (The Age of Anxiety; Funeral Blues), dies of heart failure at 66
1995 – Gerd Bucerius, German lawyer, newspaper publisher (Die Zeit, 1946-95), and politician, dies at 89
2002 – Edmund Trebus, British hoader, (A Life of Grime), dies at 83
2006 – Louis-Albert Cardinal Vachon, Canadian Catholic Archbishop of Quebec, dies at 94
2010 – Georges Charpak, Polish-French physicist who invented and developed subatomic particle detectors (Nobel 1992), dies at 86
2020 – Doyle Royal, American collegiate soccer coach (NCAA C’ship 1968; University of Maryland 1946-73) and tennis coach (U of Maryland 1954-80), dies at 101
2021 – Heiko Salzwedel, German cycling coach (est. Australian Institute of Sport Road Cycling/MTB program; German, Danish, British Cycling), dies at 64

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1582 – George Buchanan, Scottish historian (b. 1506)
1881 – John Milton Bernhisel, American physician, politician and Latter Day Saints figure, dies at 82
1915 – Saitou Hajime, 3rd squad leader of the Shinsengumi died under name of Goro Fujita (b. 1844)
1917 – T. E. Hulme, English writer and poet, dies at 34
1959 – Vincent Richards, American tennis player (US Pro C’ships 1927-28, 30, 33), dies of a heart attack at 56
1964 – Nacio Herb Brown, American composer (Singin’ In The Rain), dies at 68
1982 – Larry Breeding, American actor (Who’s Watching the Kids), dies in a car crash on his 36th birthday
1992 – William Douglas-Home, British playwright (Now .. Barabbas), dies at 80
2010 – Dolores Wilson, American opera singer (b. 1928)
2024 – Jacques Teugels, Belgian soccer defender (13 caps; RSC Anderlecht, RWD Molenbeek), dies at 78

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1674 – Thomas Traherne, English poet and mystic (Roman Forgeries), dies
1876 – Braxton Bragg, American General (Confederate Army), dies at 59
1899 – Henry Heth, American Major General in the Confederate Army (accidently started Battle of Gettysburg), dies at 73
1915 – Kaspar C E Ritter von Zumbusch, German/Austrian sculptor, dies at 84
1921 – Engelbert Humperdinck, German opera composer (Hansel and Gretel), dies at 67
1960 – Sylvia Pankhurst, English feminist and suffragette, dies at 78
1982 – Ralph Baldwin, Canadian harness driver and trainer (11 major world records; Hambletonian Stakes 1963, 73), dies at 66
1994 – Gerald Bledsoe, American broadcaster (Soul Alive, WWRL), dies of a heart attack at 51
1995 – Alison Steele [Ceil Loman], American radio DJ known as “The Nightbird” (WNEW-FM; WXRK-FM), dies of stomach cancer at 58
2024 – Maggie Smith, British Tony, Emmy, Oscar, and BAFTA Award-winning stage and screen actress (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie; A Room with a View; Downton Abbey; Harry Potter films), dies at 89

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1866 – Danville Leadbetter, American Brigadier General (Confederate Army), dies at 55
1902 – Levi Strauss, German-born American clothing designer who founded the 1st company to manufacture blue jeans (Levi Strauss and Co.), dies at 73
1973 – Ralph Earnhardt, American stock car racer, dies of a heart attack at 45
1973 – Anton Schnack, German writer, war poet (Nocturnal Landscape), and editor, dies at 81
1976 – Leopold Ružička, Croatian-Swiss chemist (Nobel 1939), dies at 89
1977 – Ernie Lombardi, American Baseball HOF catcher (8 × MLB All-Star; World Series 1940; NL MVP 1938; Cincinnati Reds, Boston Braves, NY Giants), dies at 69
1997 – Dorothy Kingsley, American screenwriter (Seven Brides for Seven Brothers), dies at 87
1998 – Betty Carter [Lillie Mae Jones], American jazz singer and scat vocalist, dies of pancreatic cancer at 69
2019 – Martin Wesley-Smith, Australian composer, dies at 74
2022 – Ronney Pettersson, Swedish soccer goalkeeper (17 caps; IFK Skövde, Djurgårdens IF, Hudiksvalls ABK), dies at 82

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1602 – Caspar Peucer, German reformer (b. 1525)
1914 – Alfred Lichtenstein, German writer, dies at 25
1929 – Miller Huggins, American Baseball Hall of Fame manager (World Series 1923, 27, 28; 6 x AL pennants NY Yankees), dies of pyaemia at 51
1933 – Paul Ehrenfest, Austrian-Dutch theoretical physicist (phase transition, Ehrenfest theorem), dies at 53
1959 – Ennio Porrino, Italian composer, dies at 49
1971 – T. C. Jones, American female impersonator, dies of cancer at 50
1983 – Leopold III, King of the Belgians (from 1934, abdicated 1951), dies at 81
1987 – Mary Astor, American Academy Award-winning actress (The Great Lie; Meet Me In St Louis; The Maltese Falcon), dies of emphysema at 81
1996 – Betty Gathergood, British curator (Dr. Johnson’s House), dies at 80
2006 – Jeff Cooper, American firearms expert (b. 1920)

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1541 – Paracelsus, Swiss physician and alchemist (Zinc, Laudanum), dies at 47
1848 – Branwell Brontë [Patrick Branwell Brontë], English painter and writer and brother of the writers Charlotte, Emily and Anne, dies at 31
1896 – Louis Gerhard De Geer, 1st Swedish Prime Minister (1876-80), dies at 78
1938 – Lev Schnirelmann, Soviet-Russian mathematician (number theory, topology and differential geometry), commits suicide at 33
2003 – Rosalie Allen, American country singer, yodeler, and disc jockey, dies of congestive heart failure at 79
2004 – Joep Straesser, Dutch composer (Blossom songs, Ramasasiri), dies at 70
2005 – Thomas “Tommy” Bond, American actor (Butch-Our Gang, Superman), dies at 79
2008 – Vinko “Vice” Vukov, Croatian singer (Eurovision Song Contest 1963 and 1965), dies from head injury at 72
2009 – Susan Atkins, American murderer (b. 1948)
2025 – Claudia Cardinale, Italian-Tunisian actress (The Pink Panther; 8½; Once Upon a Time in the West), dies at 87

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1830 – Elizabeth Kortright Monroe, First Lady of the United States (1817-25) as the wife of the fifth President James Monroe, dies at 62
1836 – María Malibran (née García) Spanish operatic contralto and soprano, dies from head injuries several months after falling from a horse at 28
1896 – Ivar A Aasen, Norwegian linguistic/poet, dies at 83
1968 – Padre Pio [Francesco Forgione], Italian priest, Capuchin friar, and dies at 81
1975 – Constant Stotijn, Dutch cellist (Residence Orchestra), oboe player, and timpanist, dies at 62
1987 – Louis Kentner, Hungarian-British pianist and composer, dies at 87
1994 – Georgi, Tsar Nicholas II’s brother, buried
2001 – Ron Hewitt, Welsh footballer (b. 1928)
2008 – Peter Leonard, Australian journalist and newsreader, dies of cancer at 66
2010 – Bob Shaw, American baseball player (Chicago White Sox), dies at 77

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1411 – Anne de Mortimer, British noblewoman and ancestor to the royal House of York (Grandmother of kings Edward IV and Richard III), dies at 22 [approximate death date]
1702 – Hoessein Koprulu, Turkish great vizer (peace of Karlowitz), dies
1712 – José Solana, Spanish composer and organist, dies at 69
1777 – John Bartram, American naturalist and explorer, father of American botany, dies at 77
1995 – (Dorothy) “Dolly” Collins, British folk songwriter, arranger, piano player, and composer, dies at 62
1997 – Shōichi Yokoi, Imperial Japanese Army sergeant, World War II (surrendered in 1972), dies from heart attack at 82
2004 – Big Boss Man [Ray Washington Traylor Jr.], American professional wrestler, dies at 41
2006 – Carla Benschop, Dutch basketball player (b. 1950)
2022 – Brother Andrew [Andrew van der Bijl], Dutch Christian missionary (Open Doors), dies at 94
2023 – Giovanni Lodetti, Italian soccer midfielder (17 caps; AC Milan, Sampdoria, Foggia, Novara), dies at 81

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