- Jan 1 William H. Lewis, American College football center and coach (first African-American selected as an All-American; Harvard), dies of heart failure at 80
Victor Fleming (1889-1949)
Jan 6 American film director (The Wizard of Oz; Gone With The Wind), dies at 65
- Jan 9 Amilcare Zanella, Italian composer and conductor, dies at 75
- Jan 9 Tom Longboat, Canadian athlete (Boston Marathon 1907 record time 2:24:24), dies at 61
- Jan 10 Erich von Drygalski, German geographer, geophysicist, and polar scientist, dies at 83
- Jan 11 Nelson Doubleday, American publisher (Doubleday), dies at 49
- Jan 14 Joaquín Turina, Spanish pianist and composer (Rima), dies at 66
- Jan 15 Pompeo Aloisi, Italian baron, diplomat and senator, dies at 63
- Jan 18 Charles Ponzi [Carlo], Italian con-man (Ponzi scheme in the US), dies at 66
- Jan 20 Joseph Cuypers, architect Dutch (Amsterdam Stock Exchange), dies at 87
- Jan 22 Henry Slocum, American tennis player (US Nationals 1888-89), dies at 86
- Jan 22 William Thomas Walsh, American author (Isabella of Spain), dies at 57
- Jan 25 Emil Axman, Czech composer and musicologist (Moravian folk songs), dies at 61
- Jan 25 Makino Nobuaki, Japanese statesman and court official, dies at 87
- Jan 27 Boris Asafiev, Russian composer and music critic, dies at 64
- Jan 28 Gustaf Lazarus Nordqvist, Swedish organist and composer, dies at 62
- Jan 28 Jean-Pierre Wimille, French auto racer (24 Hours of Le Mans 1937, 39 Bugatti T57), dies in practice accident for Buenos Aires GP at 40
- Jan 31 Henri de Vries [Hendricus Van Walterop], Dutch actor (Cleopatra, White Cargo), dies at 84
- Feb 1 Herbert Stothart, American theater (Rose-Marie) and film score composer (The Wizard of Oz; Mutiny on the Bounty; A Night at the Opera), dies at 63
- Feb 5 Juozas Tallat-Kelpsa, Lithuanian composer and conductor, dies at 50
- Feb 8 Franco Leoni, Italian composer, dies at 81
- Feb 8 Leonid Polovinkin, Russian conductor, and composer (Night Dreams), dies at 54
- Feb 9 Poul Schierbeck, Danish organist and composer, dies at 60
- Feb 12 Hassan al Banna, Egyptian founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, dies at 42
- Feb 14 Yusuf Salman Yusuf, Iraqi-Assyrian communist leader (b. 1901)
- Feb 18 Niceto Alcalá-Zamora, 1st Prime Minister of the Second Spanish Republic and President of Spain (1931-36), dies at 71
- Feb 19 Auguste Serieyx, French pedagogue and composer, dies at 83
- Feb 21 Ernest Walker, British composer, dies at 78
- Feb 21 Tan Malaka, Indonesian philosopher and founder (Indonesian Communist), executed at 49
- Feb 22 Russell W. Porter, American artist and explorer (Alaska), dies at 77
- Feb 28 Stanley Marchant, English composer, dies at 65
- Mar 2 Sarojini Naidu, Indian freedom fighter and poet, dies at 70
- Mar 7 Bradbury Robinson Jr., American football pioneer (threw first legal forward pass at a game at Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin 1906), dies from complications following routine surgery at 65
- Mar 7 Francis Dodd, English artist (official war artist WWI), commits suicide at 74
- Mar 11 Juan Lamote de Grignon, Catalan pianist, composer (La nit de Nadal (Christmas Night); Hespèria), and orchestra leader (Cobla Barcelona; València Municipal Orchestra), dies at 76
- Mar 12 Maria "Beppie" Bakker, Dutch actress abd wife of Piet Vink Sr, dies at 95
- Mar 13 Henri Giraud, French general (b. 1879)
- Mar 14 John Callan O'Laughlin, American political and military figure and journalist (b. 1873)
- Mar 17 Aleksandra Ekster, Russian painter (b. 1882)
- Mar 17 Felix Bressart, German actor (Ninotchka, Escape, Crossroads), dies from Leukemia at 57
- Mar 21 Samuel Sidney McClure, Irish-American newspaper editor, publisher and muckracker (McClure's Magazine), dies at 92
- Mar 24 [Johann Baptist] Hanns Albin Rauter, German SS and Police leader in the occupied Netherlands, executed by firing squad at 54
- Mar 25 Hanns A Rauter, German SS-commandant in Netherland, executed at 54
- Mar 28 Grigoras Dinicu, Romanian violin virtuoso and composer, dies at 59
- Mar 29 Helen Homans, American tennis player (US Nat C'ship 1906), dies at 72
- Mar 30 Dattaram Hindlekar, Indian cricket wicketkeeper (4 Tests, 3 dismissals; Bombay), dies at 40
- Mar 30 Friedrich Bergius, German chemist (benzine from brown coal, Nobel Prize 1931), dies at 64
- Apr 3 Basil Harwood, English composer, dies at 89
- Apr 6 Seymour Hicks, British actor and theatrical impresario (Scrooge), dies at 78
- Apr 6 Stanley Christopherson, cricketer (1884, MCC President during WWII), dies
- Apr 13 C. V. France, British actor (The Skin Game, Adventure in Blackmail), dies at 80
- Apr 14 Joseph Augustine Cushman, American paleontologist, dies at 68
Wallace Beery (1886-1949)
Apr 15 American circus performer (Ringling Brothers Circus) and actor (Alias a Gentleman, Dinner at 8), dies from a heart attack at 64
- Apr 18 Leonard Bloomfield, American linguist (Structural Linguistics), dies at 62
- Apr 18 Will Hay [William Thomson Hay], British comedian, actor and amateur astronomer, dies from a stroke at 60
- Apr 19 Stephen Samuel Wise, American Rabbi and President of Zionist Org of America, dies at 75
- Apr 19 Ulrich Salchow, Swedish figure skater (Olympic gold men's singles 1908; 10 x World C'ship gold), dies at 71
- Apr 25 Jankel Adler, Polish painter and printmaker, dies at 53
- Apr 28 Aurora Quezon, First Lady of the Philippines, assassinated at 61
- May 6 Arthur L Ochse, South African cricket fast bowler (3 Tests, 10 wickets, BB 4–79; Eastern Province), dies at 49
- May 6 Kunihiko Hashimoto, Japanese composer, violinist, conductor, and musical educator, dies of gastric cancer at 44
Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949)
May 6 Belgian playwright, poet and author (Blue Bird, Nobel 1911), dies at 86
- May 9 Louis II [Louis Honoré Charles Antoine Grimaldi], Prince of Monaco, dies at 78
- May 16 William Newzam Prior Nicholson, painter/engraver, dies
- May 18 James Truslow Adams, American historian (Pulitzer Prize 1921, popularized phrase "American Dream"), dies at 70
- May 18 Nikolai Semashko, Soviet statesman and health official (People’s Commissar of Public Health, created Semashko healthcare model), dies at 74 [1]
- May 20 Randolph West, American biochemist, known for the Dakin-West reaction (b. 1890)
- May 21 Klaus Mann, German-American writer (Mephisto; The Turning Point), dies from an overdose of sleeping pills at 42
- May 22 Hans Pfitzner, German composer (Palestrina), dies at 80
- May 22 James Forrestal, American banker and administrator (Secretary of the Navy, 1944-47, 1st US Secretary of Defense 1947-49), jumps to his death from 16th floor of Bethesda (Maryland) Naval Hospital at 57 [1]
- May 24 Alexey Shchusev, Russian-Soviet architect, dies at 75
- May 25 Simon Spoor, Dutch army intelligence officer (WWII; Indonesian National Revolution), dies at 47
- May 27 Ropert L Ripley, cartoonist (Believe It or Not), dies at 55 in NY
- Jun 2 Dynam-Victor Fumet, French composer, dies at 82
Amadeo Giannini (1870-1949)
Jun 3 American banker and entrepreneur (founded Bank of America), dies at 79
- Jun 10 John T. McCutcheon, American cartoonist (Pulitzer Prize-1931), dies at 79
- Jun 10 Sigrid Undset, Danish-born Norwegian writer (Kristin Lavransdatter, 1928 Nobel Prize for Literature), dies at 67
- Jun 11 Koci Xoxe, Albanian vice-premier, executed
- Jun 11 Oton Zupanic, Slavs poet (Zimzelen pod snegom), dies at 71
- Jun 19 Syed Zafarul Hasan, Indian-Pakistani Prominent Muslim philosopher, dies at 64
- Jun 25 Buck Freeman, American baseball outfielder (World Series 1903; HR leader 1899, 1903; AL RBI leader 1902, 03; Boston Americans), dies at 77
- Jun 26 Kim Gu, President of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea (1939-48), dies at 72
- Jun 29 Walter Giffen, Australian cricketer "one of the worst Test batsmen of all time" (brother of George, 3 Tests), dies at 87
- Jul 2 Georgi Dimitrov, Bulgarian Communist leader (Prime Minister 1946-49), dies at 67
- Jul 7 Bunk Johnson, American jazz trumpeter, dies after a series of strokes at 59 [1]
- Jul 8 Antun Sa'ada [Antoun Saadeh], Syrian politician (Syrian Social Nationalist Party), executed by firing squad in Lebanon at 45
- Jul 8 Riccardo Pick-Mangiagalli, Italian composer, dies at 66
- Jul 9 Fritz Bennicke Hart, British composer, and conductor (Melbourne Symphony Orchestra), dies of cardiac issues at 75
- Jul 12 Douglas Hyde, first President of Ireland (b. 1860)
- Jul 14 Frank Hearne, English cricket batsman (2 Tests England, 4 South Africa; Kent, Western Province), dies at 90
- Jul 16 Vyacheslav Ivanov, Russian philosopher, playwright and poet, dies at 83
- Jul 18 Vítězslav Novák, Czech composer, dies at 78
- Jul 19 Frank Murphy, American politician and 56th United States Attorney General, dies at 59
- Aug 9 Edward Thorndike, American psychologist (father of modern educational psychology), dies at 74
- Aug 9 Harry Davenport, American actor and director (Her Unborn Child, My Sin), dies at 83
- Aug 11 Karl Weigl, Austrian-American pianist, composer (Apocalyptic Symphony), and educator, dies of bone marrow cancer at 68
- Aug 14 Husni al-Barazi, premier of Syria, shot to death
- Aug 14 Husni el-Zaim, president/dictator of Syria, shot to death
- Aug 17 Gregorio Perfecto, Filipino jurist (48th Associate Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court) and politician, dies at 57
- Aug 18 Paul J Mares, US jazz trumpetist/composer (Tin Roof Blues), dies at 49
- Aug 21 Gerhard von Keussler, German composer, dies at 75
- Aug 26 Nico van Suchtelen, Dutch writer and publisher, dies at 70
- Aug 27 Arthur Chesney [Kellaway], British stage and screen character actor (The Lodger; Chelsea Life), dies of a stroke at 68
- Aug 30 Arthur Fielder, English cricket fast bowler (6 Tests 1903-08), dies at 72
- Aug 31 André-Louis Debierne, French chemist and physicist (discoverer of element actinium, worked with Marie Curie), dies at 75
- Aug 31 Paul Höffer, German composer (Olympic Arts gold, 1936), dies at 53
- Sep 1 Bobby Walthour Sr., American cyclist (motor-pacing World Championships gold 1904-05; Madison Square Garden 6-Day Race 1901, 03), dies at 71
- Sep 7 José Clemente Orozco, Mexican painter of political murals (Epic of Culture in New World), dies at 65
Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
Sep 8 German composer (Also sprach Zarathustra, Don Quixote), dies at 85
- Sep 11 Henri Rabaud, French composer and conductor (L'ete), dies at 75
Harry Burleigh (1866-1949)
Sep 12 African American baritone and composer (Five Songs of Laurence Hope), and Springarn Medal winner (1917), dies at 82
August Krogh (1874-1949)
Sep 13 Danish zoophysiologist (arterioles and capillaries, Nobel 1920), dies at 75
- Sep 18 Frank Morgan [Francis Wuppermann], American silent and sound film character actor (The Wizard of Oz; The Affairs of Cellini), dies of a heart attack at 59
- Sep 19 George Shiels, Irish dramatist (The Rugged Path), dies at 68
- Sep 19 Will Cuppy, American humorist (The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody), dies at 65
- Sep 20 Nikolaos Skalkottas, Greek composer, dies due to an untreated hernia at 45
- Sep 20 Richard Dix, American actor (10 Commandments, Cimarron, The Ghost Ship), dies from a heart attack at 56
- Sep 22 Kim Jong-suk, Wife of Kim Il-sung, mother of Kim Jung-Il, "The Heroine of the Anti-Japanese Revolution", dies at 31
- Sep 22 Sam Wood, American communist fighter and director (For Whom the Bell Tolls), dies at 66
- Sep 24 Pierre de Bréville, French composer, author and professor (Une histoire du théâtre lyrique en France), dies at 88
- Oct 1 Oswald Garrison Villard, American journalist and editor of the New York Evening Post, dies at 77
- Oct 2 Frank Schulte, American baseball outfielder (NL MVP 1911; Chicago Cubs), dies at 67
- Oct 4 Edmund Eysler, Austrian composer, mostly of operettas (Bruder Straubinger; The Golden Mistress), dies from injuries from falling off of a stage at 75
- Oct 6 Robert Lynd, Irish writer and critic (News Chronicle), dies at 70
- Oct 9 Viktor Alexandrovich Uspensky, Russian composer, dies at 70
- Oct 16 Hale A. VanderCook, American composer, dies at 85
- Oct 23 Bill Traylor, African-American artist of folk and modern art, dies at 95 [1]
- Oct 24 Joaquín Nin, Cuban composer and pianist, father of Anaïs Nin, dies at 70
- Oct 27 Ginette Neveu, French child prodigy and concert violinist, dies in a plane crash on São Miguel Island, Azores, Portugal at 30
- Oct 27 Marcel Cerdan, French boxer (NBA, NYSAC, The Ring middleweight titles 1948-49), dies in a plane crash at 33
- Oct 29 G. I. Gurdjieff, Armenian mystic (b. 1872)
- Oct 31 Edward Stettinius Jr. 48th US Secretary of State (1944-45) and diplomat, dies at 49
- Nov 1 Leslie Gay, English cricket wicket-keeper (1 Test; Cambridge Uni, Hampshire CCC) and soccer goalkeeper (3 caps; Cambridge Uni), dies at 78
- Nov 2 Jerome F. Donovan, American politician (rep-NY 1918-21), dies at 77
- Nov 3 Solomon R. Guggenheim, American businessman and art collector (Guggenheim Museum New York), dies at 88
- Nov 8 Cyriel Verschaeve, Belgian priest and writer (Maria Magdalena -1928), dies at 75
- Nov 14 Matsudaira Tsuneo, Japanese diplomat, dies at 72
- Nov 19 James Ensor, Flemish painter and etcher (Oestereetster), dies at 89
- Nov 23 Gustav Radbruch, German lawyer and jurist, dies at 71
Bill Robinson (1878-1949)
Nov 25 American actor and tap dancer (Stormy Weather; The Little Colonel), dies at 71
- Nov 27 Tom Walls, British actor and producer (A Cuckoo in the Nest, Undercover), dies at 66
- Dec 2 Albert Ammons, American jazz, blues, and boogie-woogie pianist, dies at 42
- Dec 3 Elin Pelin [Dimitar Ivanov Stoyanov], Bulgarian writer (The Gerak Family; Earth), dies at 72
- Dec 3 Maria Ouspenskaya, Russian stage and film actress (The Wolf Man; King's Row), and teacher (School of Dramatic Art - New York), dies following a house fire at 73
- Dec 3 Philip Barry, American dramatist (The Philadelphia Story), dies of a heart attack at 53
Lead Belly (1888-1949)
Dec 6 American blues 12-string guitarist (Rock Island Line), dies of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis at 64
- Dec 10 Duncan Stewart, 2nd British Governor of Sarawak (1949), dies at 45 after being fatally stabbed in the streets of Sibu by pro-Indonesian Malay student Rosli Dhoby
- Dec 16 Sidney Olcott, Canadian film director (Ben Hur), dies at 76
- Dec 16 Traitsjo Kostov, Bulgarian communist vice-premier, executed by the state at 52
- Dec 17 David Stanley Smith, American composer (Merrymount), dies at 72
- Dec 28 Hervey Allen, American writer and poet (Anthony Adverse), dies at 60
- Dec 28 Ivie Anderson, American swing jazz singer (Duke Ellington Orchestra, 1931-42), dies of complications from chronic asthma at 45 [1]
- Dec 28 Jack Lovelock, New Zealand athlete (Olympic gold 1,500m 1936), dies in rail accident at 39
Assassination
Car Crash
Hanging
Killed in Action
Plane Crash
Poisoning