Famous People Who Died in 1980
Publish date: 2024-09-25
1980 CalendarDeaths 1 - 200 of 373
- Jan 1 Frank Wykoff, American athlete (Olympic gold 4x100m relay 1928, 32, 36), dies at 70
- Jan 1 Pietro Nenni, Italian socialist politician (Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs), dies at 88
- Jan 3 Amos Milburn, American R&B singer and pianist, dies at 52
- Jan 3 Axel Springer Jr, German photographer, commits suicide at 38
- Jan 3 Ivan Triesault [Johann Constantin Treisalt], Russian actor (Cry of the Werewolf, Black Parachute), dies at 81
- Jan 3 Lucien Buysse, Belgian cyclist (Tour de France 1926), dies at 87
- Jan 6 Georgeanna Tillman, American singer (The Marvelettes - "Please Mr. Postman"), dies from lupus and sickle cell anemia at 37
- Jan 7 Carl White, American vocalist, dies at 47
- Jan 7 Larry Williams, American R&B singer-songwriter ("Dizzy, Miss Lizzie"; "Slow Down"), dies of a gunshot wound to the head at 44
- Jan 7 Sarah Selby, American actress (Tower of London), dies at 74
- Jan 7 Simonne Mathieu, French tennis player (French C'ships 1938-39; 11 Grand Slam doubles titles), dies at 71
- Jan 8 John Mauchly, American physicist who with J. Presper Eckert, designed the first general purpose electronic digital computer (ENIAC), dies at 72
- Jan 8 Oscar Ewing, US government official (Everybody's Business), dies at 90
- Jan 10 Bo Rein, American college football coach (b. 1945)
- Jan 10 George Meany, American labor leader (AFL-CIO), dies at 86
- Jan 11 Barbara Pym, English novelist (b. 1913)
- Jan 13 Andre Kostelanetz, Russian-American orchestral-pop music conductor (Lincoln Portrarit), dies of pneumonia at 78
- Jan 14 Robert Ardrey, American author (b. 1908)
- Jan 16 Anna Maria Franciska van Wageningen-Salomons, Dutch author (Girl Student), dies at 94
- Jan 17 Barbara Britton [Brantingham], American actress (Captain Kidd; Young and Willing; Mr. and Mrs. North), dies of pancreatic cancer at 60
- Jan 18 Cecil Beaton, British photographer, dies at 76
- Jan 19 Richard Franko Goldman, American educator and composer, dies at 69
- Jan 19 William O. Douglas, American member US Supreme court (1939-75), dies at 81
- Jan 22 Iris Meredith [Shunn], American actress (Son of Davy Crockett; The Mystery of the Hooded Horsemen), dies at 64
- Jan 23 Babs Gonzales [Lee Brown], American be-bop jazz vocalist, poet, and songwriter ("Oop-Pop-A-Da"), dies of cancer at 60
- Jan 23 Lil Dagover [Marie Seubert;], German silent and sound screen actress (Destiny; Spiders), dies at 92
- Jan 25 David Newell, American actor (Runaway Bride, White Heat, Dangerous Curves), dies at 75
- Jan 25 Queenie Watts [Mary Spenton], British singer and actress (Up the Junction, Holiday on the Buses), dies at 56
- Jan 28 Franco Evangelisti, Italian avant-garde classical and electroacoustic composer, and sound theorist (From Silence to a New Sonorous World), dies at 74
- Jan 29 Antonio Molina, Filipino composer, conductor and music administrator (Ana Maria, Hatinggabi), dies at 85
- Jan 30 Professor Longhair [Henry Roeland Byrd], American boogie-woogie, New Orleans R&B, and mambo pianist and singer ("Tipitina": "Go To The Mardis Gras"), dies from a heart attack at 61
- Jan 31 Jacobus Petrus Duminy, South African cricket batsman (3 Tests; Western Province, Transvaal, Oxford University CC) and academic (principal & vice-chancellor University of Cape Town), dies at 82
- Feb 1 Gastone Nencini, Italian road cyclist (Giro d'Italia 1957, Tour de France 1960), dies at 49
- Feb 1 Jack Bailey, American actor and TV host (Queen for a Day), dies at 72
- Feb 1 Romolo Valli, Italian actor (Boom, La Viaccia), dies at 54
- Feb 2 William H. Stein, American biochemist (Nobel 1972), dies at 68
- Feb 7 Ernst Kunz, Swiss composer, dies at 88
- Feb 7 Katherine Emery, American actress (Maze, Isle of the Dead), dies at 73
- Feb 7 Secondo Campini, Italian jet engine pioneer, dies at 75
- Feb 8 Nikos Xilouris, Greek folk singer-songwriter, dies of lung and brain cancer at 43
- Feb 9 Antoine Pompe, Belgian architect, dies at 106
- Feb 9 Charlie Fowlkes, American baritone saxophonist (Count Basie Orchestra, 1953-80), dies at 63
- Feb 9 Tom Macdonald, Welsh journalist and writer (The White Lanes of Summer), dies at 79
- Feb 12 Muriel Rukeyser, American poet (The Book of the Dead), dies at 66
- Feb 12 Wally Wales [Floyd Taliaferro Alderson], American actor (Crossing Trails), dies at 84
- Feb 13 David Janssen, American actor (The Fugitive, Harry O), dies at 49
- Feb 13 Marian Rejewski, Polish mathematician and cryptologist (1st to break German Enigma code), dies at 74
- Feb 14 Luitkonwar Rudra Baruah, Assamese composer and actor
- Feb 16 Erich Hückel, German physicist and physical chemist, dies at 83
- Feb 17 Graham Sutherland, English artist (official WWII war artist), dies at 76
- Feb 17 Jerry Fielding, American jazz musician and composer (Lively Ones, Hogan's Heroes), dies at 57
- Feb 18 Gale Robbins [Betty Gale Murphy], American singer and actress (Fuller Brush Girl, Mr Hex), dies of lung cancer at 58
- Feb 19 (Clarence) "Shorty" Cherock, American swing jazz and big band trumpeter (Jimmy Dorsey; Gene Krupa; Nelson Riddle), dies at 64
- Feb 19 (Ronald) "Bon" Scott, Australian rock musician, singer, and lyricist (AC/DC -"It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)"), dies of acute alcohol poisoning at 33
- Feb 20 Alice Longworth Roosevelt, youngest daughter of Theodore, dies at 96
- Feb 20 Joseph Banks Rhine, American parapsychologist (Extra-Sensory Perception), dies at 84
- Feb 21 Chester Lauck, American actor (Dreaming Out Loud, 2 Weeks to Live), dies at 78
- Feb 21 Janet Vogel, American doo-wop soprano (Skyliners - “Since I Don’t Have You”), takes her own life at 37
- Feb 22 Alfred Andersch, German writer (Red Head), dies at 66
- Feb 22 Dick Kallman, American actor (Born to Be Loved, Verboten!), murdered in his New York apartment at 46
- Feb 22 Oskar Kokoschka, Austria-British painter and graphic artist, dies at 93
- Feb 23 Enrico Celio, Swiss lawyer and President of Switzerland (1943), dies at 90
- Feb 23 Robert Vandekerckhove, Belgian politician, dies at 62
- Feb 27 George Tobias, American actor (Bewitched), dies at 78
- Feb 28 Dinorá de Carvalho, Brazilian pianist, conductor, music educator and composer (Missa Profundis), dies at 75 (or 85, year of birth disputed)
- Feb 28 Ian Alexander Ross Peebles, cricketer (45 wkts for England), dies
- Feb 29 Gil Elvgren, American illustrator and commercial artist (Brown & Bigelow pin-up calendars), dies of cancer at 65
- Feb 29 Yigal Allon (né Peikowitz) Israeli politician (Deputy Prime Minister, 1968-74), dies of heart failure at 61
- Mar 1 Dixie Dean, English soccer striker (16 caps; Everton), dies from a heart attack at 73
- Mar 1 Emmett Ashford, American baseball umpire (first certified black umpire), dies from a heart attack at 65
- Mar 1 John Jacob Niles, American composer and singer, dies at 87
- Mar 1 Wilhelmina Cooper, Dutch-American model and founder of Wilhelmina Models, dies at 40
- Mar 5 Jay Silverheels [Harold J. Smith], Canadian actor (The Lone Ranger, Key Largo), dies from a stroke at 67
- Mar 5 Winifred Wagner, English-German daughter-in-law of Richard Wagner and friend of Adolf Hitler (ran Bayreuth Festival), dies at 82
- Mar 9 Olga Chekova, actress (Moulin Rouge, Pawns of Possession), dies at 82
- Mar 10 Herman Tarnower, American doctor (Scarsdale Diet), shot and killed by girlfriend Jean Harris at 69
- Mar 10 Melville Henry Cane, American lawyer and poet (Making a Poem), dies at 100
- Mar 12 Arthur Charles Dobson, British racing driver (b. 1914)
- Mar 13 Tauno Pylkkänen, Finnish opera composer dies at 61
- Mar 14 Allard Lowenstein, American writer (A Brutal Mandate), politician (US Representative from New York, 1969-71), and human rights activist, shot to death in his office by an associate at 51
- Mar 14 Mohammad Hatta, Indonesian politician (b. 1902)
- Mar 15 Gerald Abrahams, English author (Teach Yourself Chess), dies at 72
- Mar 16 Tamara de Lempicka, Polish-born painter (b. 1898)
- Mar 17 Rudolf George Escher, Dutch composer (Vrai Visage de la Paix), dies at 68
- Mar 18 "Grishata" Grigor Vachkov, Bulgarian actor (At Each Kilometer), dies at 47
- Mar 18 Erich Fromm, German psychologist and psychoanalyst (Sane Society), dies at 79
- Mar 18 Herman Griffith, West Indian cricket fast bowler (13 Tests; 44 wickets; best 6-103), dies at 86
- Mar 18 Ludwig Guttmann, German-British neurologist, founder of the Stoke Mandeville Games (now the Paralympics), dies at 80
- Mar 21 Gideon Fagan, South African conductor and composer, dies at 75
- Mar 21 Peter Stoner, American mathematician, astronomer and Christian apologist, dies at 92
- Mar 23 Arthur Melvin Okun, American economist (Misery Index), dies of a heart attack at 51
- Mar 24 Oscar Romero, El Salvador Roman Catholic priest, murdered during mass at 62
- Mar 25 Ioan Dumitru Chirescu, Romanian composer and conductor, dies at 91
- Mar 25 James Wright, American Pulitzer Prize-winning poet (The Branch Will Not Break), dies of cancer at 52
- Mar 25 Milton H. Erickson, American psychiatrist and psychologist, dies at 78
- Mar 25 Roland Barthes, French writer (Mythologies), literary critic (The Death of the Author), and academic theorist, dies of injuries after being struck by a vehicle while walking at 64
- Mar 25 Walter Susskind, Czech conductor and pianist, dies at 66
- Mar 26 Jon-Jon Poulos, American drummer (Buckinghams), dies at 32
- Mar 28 John Poulos, American drummer (The Buckinghams - "Kind Of A Drag"), dies of heart failure at 32
- Mar 28 Richard "Dick" Haymes, Argentine-American actor and singer (State Fair, Real Life, Betrayal), dies of lung cancer at 61
- Mar 29 Annunzio Mantovani, Italian orchestra leader (Mantovani), dies at 74
Mar 31 American athlete (4 Olympic gold 100/200m, long jump, 4x100m relay 1936), dies of lung cancer at 66
- Mar 31 Vladimír Holan, Czech poet, dies at 74
- Apr 2 Dick Howorth, English cricket all-rounder (5 Tests, 19 wickets; Worcestershire CCC), dies at 70
- Apr 2 Pascual de Rogatis, Argentine composer (Huemac; Estampas Argentinas), dies at 99
- Apr 3 Luella Gear, American actress (Joe & Mabel), dies at 82
- Apr 4 Woodrow Wilson "Red" Sovine, American country music singer, dies following a heart attack leading to a car crash at 62
- Apr 9 Kathleen Burke, American actress (Island of Lost Souls), dies at 66
- Apr 10 Kay Medford [Margaret Kathleen Regan], American actress (Dean Martin Show: To Rome With Love), dies of cancer at 60
- Apr 11 Charlotte Henry, American actress (Alice in Wonderland; Babes In Toyland; Jungle Menace), dies of cancer at 66
- Apr 11 Florence Lake, American comic actress (leading lady in many of Edgar Kennedy comedy shorts; Lassie), dies at 75
- Apr 12 Clark McConachy, New Zealand billiards player (World Professional C'ships 1951), dies at 84
- Apr 12 William Tolbert, Liberian President (1971-80), killed with 27 others in a coup at 66
- Apr 13 Markus Höttinger, Austrian racing driver, dies at 23
- Apr 14 Tom Fadden, American stage and screen character actor (It's a Wonderful Life; Broken Arrow; Cimarron City), dies at 85
Apr 15 French existentialist philosopher and writer (Le Mur, Nobel 1964; declined), dies at 74
- Apr 15 Marshall Reed, American actor (The Madmen of Mandoras, Mysterious Island), dies from a massive hemorrhage at 62
- Apr 15 Paul Langton, American actor (Till the Clouds Roll By, Peyton Place), dies from a heart attack at 66
- Apr 15 Raymond Bailey, American actor (Vertigo, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Incredible Shrinking Man), dies at 75
- Apr 16 Morris Stoloff, American violinist, Academy Award-winning composer, music director (Columbia Pictures, 1938-62), and orchestra leader (Moonglow/Theme from Picnic), dies at 81
- Apr 19 Ethel Wilson, actress (Aunt Harriet-Aldrich Family), dies at 88
- Apr 19 Tony Beckley, actor (Assault, When a Stranger Calls), dies at 51
- Apr 21 Aleksandr Oparin, Russian biochemist (b. 1894)
- Apr 21 Sohrab Sepehri, Persian poet and painter (b. 1928)
Apr 22 American singer (Jane Froman's USA Canteen), dies at 72
- Apr 24 Alenjo Carpentier, Cuban-French writer (Guerra del Tiempo), dies at 75
- Apr 25 Katia Mann, German actress and wife of German writer Thomas Mann, dies at 96
- Apr 26 Cicely Courtneidge, Australian-born British actress (Double Exposure), dies at 87
- Apr 28 (Francisco) "Chino" Pozo, Cuban-American latin jazz and Afro-Cuban drummer, bongosero and conguero, dies at 64
- Apr 28 Dee Carroll [Betty Jean Marsh], American actress (Mad Bomber, Split), dies at 54
- Apr 28 Tommy Caldwell, American rock bass player (Marshall Tucker Band), dies in a jeep crash at 30
- Apr 30 Luis Muñoz Marín, Puerto Rican poet, journalist, and politician (b. 1898)
- Apr 30 Mary McCarty, American singer, dancer, stage and screen actress (Babes in Toyland; All That Jazz;, Trapper John, M.D.), dies of a heart attack at 56
- May 2 Alioune Diop, Senegalese writer and editor (Présence africaine), dies at 70
- May 2 Clarrie Grimmett, Australian cricket spin bowler (37 Tests; 216 wickets @ 24.21; ICC Cricket Hall of Fame), dies at 88
- May 2 George Pál, Hungarian-American film director (When Worlds Collide, Puppetoons), dies at 72
- May 4 Kay Hammond, British actress (Blithe Spirit, 5 Golden Hours), dies at 71
- May 5 Edmond Vandercammen, French-Belgian painter and poet (Grand Combat), dies at 79
- May 12 Lillian Roth [Rutstein], American singer and actress (Animal Crackers; Alice Sweet Alice), dies at 69
- May 14 Hugh Griffith, Welsh actor (Ben-Hur, Mutiny on the Bounty, Oliver!), dies from a heart attack at 67
- May 14 Wilhelm Weismann, German composer, dies at 79
- May 18 David A. Johnston, American volcanologist, dies in Mount St. Helens eruption at 30
- May 18 Harry Truman, American victim of Mount St. Helens eruption, dies at 83
- May 18 Ian Curtis, English rock singer-songwriter (Joy Division - "Love Will Tear Us Apart"). commits suicide at 23
- May 18 Reid Blackburn, American photojournalist for National Geographic & victim of Mount St. Helens eruption, dies at 28
- May 21 Ida Kamińska, Polish stage and screen actress, director, and writer (The Shop on Main Street; Mother Courage and Her Children), dies at 80
- May 28 Rolf Nevanlinna, Finnish mathematician (b. 1895)
- May 30 Carl Radle, American bass guitarist (Derek and the Dominoes), dies of a kidney infection at 37
- Jun 1 Arthur Nielsen, American market analyst (b. 1897)
Jun 1 American Baseball HOF pitcher (NL wins leader 1912; NL strikeout leader 1911; no-hitter 1915; NY Giants), dies at 93
- Jun 4 Charles Miller, American rock-funk flutist, saxophonist, and singer (War - "Why Can't We Be Friends?"; "Low Rider"), stabbed to death during a mugging in Los Angeles at 41
- Jun 5 Lauritz Lauritzen, German politician, dies at 70
- Jun 7 Elizabeth Craig, British writer (b. 1883)
Jun 7 American writer (Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn), dies of circulatory complications at 88
- Jun 7 Philip Guston, Canadian-American abstract painter, muralist, and printmaker (To Fellini), dies of a heart attack at 66
- Jun 7 Richard Bonnelli, actor (Enter Madame), dies
- Jun 8 Ernst Busch, German singer and actor, dies at 80
- Jun 9 Leonhard Huizinga, Dutch journalist and writer (Olivier & Adrian), dies at 73
- Jun 10 Denys Morkel, South African cricketer (batsman scored 663 runs 1927-32), dies
- Jun 12 Billy Butlin, South African-born British founder of Butlins holiday camps, dies at 80
- Jun 12 Milburn Stone, American actor (Gunsmoke, Pickup on South Street), dies from a heart attack at 75
- Jun 18 André Leducq, French cyclist (Tour de France 1930, 32; Olympic gold road race 1924), dies at 76
- Jun 18 Terence Fisher, English film director (Hammer Films), dies at 76
- Jun 19 Karl Bjarnhof, Danish blind journalist and writer (The Stars Grow Pale), dies at 82
- Jun 20 Allan Pettersson, Swedish violist and composer (Symphony No. 7), dies at 68
- Jun 21 Bert Kaempfert, German orchestra leader, songwriter ("Strangers in the Night"; "Danke Schoen"), and record producer (The Beatles first recordings), dies of a stroke at 56
- Jun 23 Clyfford Still, American abstract painter and leading figure of the Abstract Expressionists, dies at 75
- Jun 23 John Laurie, Scottish actor (Hamlet, The 39 Steps, Jericho, Island of Desire), dies at 83
- Jun 23 Odile Versois, actress (Nude in a White Car, Young Lovers), dies
- Jun 23 Sanjay Gandhi, Indian politician, dies in a plane crash at 33
- Jun 23 V.V. [Varahagiri Venkata] Giri, Fourth President of India (1969-74), dies at 85
- Jun 23 Walter Rodney, Guyanese historian (bomanslag), dies
- Jun 27 Albany "Barney" Bigard, Creole-American jazz clarinetist (Duke Ellington Orchestra, 1927-42 - "Mood Indigo"), dies at 74
- Jun 28 Helen Gahagan Douglas, American actress and politician (Nixon's 1st opponent for the United States Senate in 1950), dies at 79
- Jun 28 Herbie Faye, comedian (Doc, Phil Silvers Show), dies at 81
- Jun 28 José Iturbi, Spanish concert pianist and conductor who appeared in nearly a dozen 1940s MGM musicals, dies at 84
- Jun 28 Yoshiro Irino, Japanese composer, dies at 58
- Jun 30 Virginia Brown Faire, American silent film actress (Lonesome Trail, Temptress), dies at 76
- Jul 1 Charles P. Snow, English novelist (Death Under Sail, Strangers and Brothers) and physical chemist, dies at 74
- Jul 3 James "Buster" Bennett, American blues saxophonist and blues shouter, dies at 66
- Jul 4 Maurice Grevisse, Belgian grammarian (b. 1895)
- Jul 5 Archibald James Potter, Irish composer, dies at 61
- Jul 6 Gail Patrick [Margaret Fitzpatrick], American actress (My Man Godfrey, Love Crazy), dies of leukemia at 69
- Jul 7 Reginald Gardiner, British actor (The Flying Deuces; The Great Dictator), dies at 77
- Jul 9 Vinicius de Moraes, Brazilian poet and lyricist, dies at 66
- Jul 10 Komako Kimura, Japanese suffragette, actress and editor, dies at 92
- Jul 11 Bolesław Woytowicz, Polish pianist and composer, dies at 80
- Jul 11 Peggy Knudson, actress (April-So This is Hollywood), dies at 57
- Jul 12 John W Davis, President (WV State college), dies at 92
- Jul 13 Seretse Khama, 1st President of Botswana (1966-80), dies of pancreatic cancer at 59
- Jul 14 Felix Berezin, Russian physicist and mathematician (Berezin integral), dies at 49
- Jul 15 Eddie Jackson, comedian (Jimmy Durante Show), dies at 84
- Jul 15 Henri Martelli, French composer, dies at 85
- Jul 16 Robert Brackman, American artist, dies at 81
- Jul 17 Boris Delaunay, Russian mathematician (b. 1890)
- Jul 17 Donald "Red" Barry, American actor (Adventures of Red Ryder, Jesse James' Women), commits suicide at 68
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