Famous People Who Died in 1953

Deaths 1 - 200 of 201

• Jan 1 Ludomir Różycki, Polish composer and conductor (Eros i Psyche; Pan Twardowski), dies at 69
• Jan 2 Guccio Gucci, Italian founder of Gucci fashion house, dies at 71
• Jan 4 Arthur Hoyt, American actor and director (Gold Dust Gertie, Goldie Get Along), dies at 79
• Jan 4 Prince Yasuhito Chichibu, brother of Emperor Showa, dies at 50
• Jan 7 Osa Johnson, American adventurer and filmmaker, dies at 58
• Jan 8 Admiral Sir Hugh Binney, British naval commander and Governor of Tasmania (b. 1883)
• Jan 8 Heinrich Kaspar Schmid, German composer, dies at 78
• Jan 10 Theo Mackeben, German pianist/composer (Golden Cage), dies at 56
• Jan 11 Ernst Herman van Rappard, Dutch Nazi founder (NSNAP), dies at 53
• Jan 11 Hans Aanrud, Norwegian author (Storken), dies at 89
• Jan 11 Marcel Canneel, Flemish painter (Reuzenstoet), dies at 58
• Jan 11 Noe Zhordania, Georgian journalist and politician (Prime Minister, 1918-21; government-in-exile leader, 1921-53), dies at 84
• Jan 12 Simeon Roncal, Bolivian composer, dies at 82
• Jan 13 Paul Niggli, Swiss mineralogist (crystal structures), dies at 64
• Jan 15 Patrick Vretblad, Swedish composer, dies at 76
• Jan 24 Ben Taylor, American Baseball Hall of Fame 1st baseman (Indianapolis ABCs) and manager (Washington Potomacs, Baltimore Black Sox), dies of pneumonia at 64
• Jan 24 Mike Jacobs, American boxing promoter (Twentieth Century Sporting Club - Joe Louis' promoter; 3 x $1m fights), dies at 72

• Jan 26 Athanase David, French Canadian politician and businessman, dies at 74
• Jan 26 Martinus Nijhoff, Dutch poet and linguistic (spelling), dies at 58
• Jan 28 Derek Bentley, Englishman controversially convicted for murder of a police officer (pardoned 1998), executed at 19
• Jan 28 James Scullin, Australian Labour Party politician and 9th Prime Minister of Australia, dies at 76
• Feb 2 Gustav Strube, German-American composer and conductor (Baltimore Symphony Orchestra), dies at 85
• Feb 4 Alexander Loudon, Dutch diplomat (League of Nations), dies at 60
• Feb 8 Cliff Clark, American actor (Kid Glove Killer, Golden Hoofs, Vigilante Hideout), dies from a heart attack at 63
• Feb 9 Charlie Spencer, English soccer defender and manager (2 caps; Newcastle United; mgr Grimsby Town 1937-51), dies at 53
• Feb 25 Jesus Garcia Leoz, Spanish orchestral and film composer (The Sun Comes Out Every Day), dies at 49
• Feb 26 Elisabeth Kuyper, Dutch pianist, conductor, composer, educator, and women's rights activist dies at 75
• Mar 2 Jim Lightbody, American athlete (Olympic gold 800m, 1500m, 2590m Steeplechase 1904), dies at 70

• Mar 5 Herman J. Mankiewicz, American screenwriter (b. 1897)

• Mar 7 Edward Sedgwick, American film director (The Flaming Frontier, Let 'er Buck), dies of a heart attack at 63
• Mar 10 Charles Gordon Curtis, American inventor (Curtis-steam turbine), dies at 92
• Mar 14 Klement Gottwald, Czech Communist politician, Premier and President of Czechoslovakia, dies at 56
• Mar 15 Arthur Berry, English football player (Olympic gold 1908, 12), dies at 65
• Mar 17 Conrado del Campo y Zabaleta, Spanish composer and violinist, dies at 73
• Mar 20 Graciliano Ramos, Brazilian author (Vidas Secas), dies at 60
• Mar 23 Raoul Dufy, painter, Forcalquier, France
• Mar 24 Felix M Abel, French dominican/biblical scholar, dies at 74
• Mar 24 Mary of Teck, Queen of Great Britain and consort of George V, dies at 85
• Mar 27 Narciso Garay, Panamanian composer, dies at 76

• Mar 29 Arthur Fields [Abraham Finkelstein], American singer-songwriter (Aba Daba Honeymoon), dies in a fire at his nursing home residence at 68 [1]
• Mar 30 Roderich Mojsisovics-Mojsvar, Austrian composer, dies at 75
• Apr 2 Jean Epstein, French director (Vive la Vie), dies at 56
• Apr 4 Carol II, King of Romania (1930-40), dies at 59
• Apr 4 Rachilde [Marguerite Vallette-Eymery], French author (Monsieur Venus, "Why I am not a Feminist"), dies at 93
• Apr 6 Idris Davies, Welsh poet (b. 1905)
• Apr 6 Whirlaway, American thoroughbred racehorse (Triple Crown 1941), dies at 15
• Apr 11 Kid Nichols, American Baseball HOF pitcher (3 × NL wins leader; All-Time Saves Leader 1899–1906; Boston Beaneaters, St. Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Phillies) and manager (St. Louis Cardinals 1904–05), dies at 83
• Apr 12 Lionel Logue, Australian speech therapist who treated King George VI (The Kings Speech), dies at 73
• Apr 14 Emmanuel de Bom, Flemish writer (Scheldelucht), dies at 84
• Apr 20 Erich Weinert, German communist writer, dies at 62
• Apr 22 Top Naeff, Dutch writer (School Idyills), dies at 75
• Apr 29 Moïse Kisling, Polish-French painter (La souris boiteuse), dies at 62
• May 4 Edward Shanks, British poet and critic, dies at 60
• May 4 T. Tertius Noble, English composer, dies at 85
• May 7 Ormy Pearse, South African cricketer (55 runs & 3 wkts in 3 Tests for S Af), dies at 68
• May 11 Jean Adair, Canadian actress, dies at 80
• May 14 Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Japanese-American painter, etcher and lithographer, dies at 59

• May 17 Eric De Lamarter, American organist, composer and conductor (Chicago Symphony), dies at 73
• May 18 Tom Killick, English cricketer (at the crease 2 Tests for Eng 1929), dies at 69
• May 19 Damaso Berenguer, Spanish soldier and politician (122nd Prime Minister of Spain), dies at 79
• May 22 Vaclav Klicka, Czech composer, dies at 70
• May 24 Cor Hermus, Dutch actor, director, and writer (Bleeke Bet; William of Orange; De Jantjes; A Mother), dies at 63
• May 26 Albert Spalding, American violinist and composer, dies at 64
• May 27 Jesse Burkett, American Baseball HOF left fielder (NL batting champion 1895-96, 1901; 240 hits in 1896 MLB record for 15 years; Cleveland Spiders, St. Louis Perfectos/Cardinals), dies at 84
• May 28 Hori Tatsuo, Japanese writer (b. 1904)
• May 29 Man Mountain Dean [Frank Simmons Leavitt], American professional wrestler, dies at 61
• May 30 Dooley Wilson [Arthur Wilson], American musician and actor (Beulah, Casablanca), dies of natural causes at 67
• May 30 George Barnes, cinematographer, dies at 60

• Jun 5 Roland Young, English American actor (David Copperfield, Irene, Dulcy), dies at 65
• Jun 5 William Farnum, American actor (Drifter, Scarlet Letter), dies at 76
• Jun 8 Godfrey Tearle, English-American actor (39 Steps; Mandy; At Dawn We Die), dies at 68
• Jun 9 Ugo Betti, Italian judge and dramatist (The Fugitive), dies at 61
• Jun 10 Grzegorz Fitelberg, Polish composer, dies at 73
• Jun 16 John Scott Lidgett, English theologist, dies at 98
• Jun 16 Margaret Bondfield, English politician and 1st British female cabinet minister (Labour), dies at 80
• Jun 17 Walter Niemann, German composer, dies at 76

• Jun 20 Hendrik de Man, sociologist (Belgian Working people Party), dies at 67
• Jun 25 Algy Gehrs, Australian cricketer (6 Tests for Australia 1904-11), dies at 72
• Jun 29 Jules van Nuffel, Belgian composer, priest, and musicologist (Nova Organi Harmonia), dies at 70
• Jun 30 Charles William Miller, father of football in Brazil (b. 1874)
• Jun 30 Elsa Beskow, Swedish children's author and illustrator (Tale of the Little Little Old Woman), dies at 79
• Jun 30 Göte Carlid, Swedish composer (Eine kleine Teemusik), dies at 32
• Jun 30 Vsevolod Pudovkin, Soviet film director and theorist (Mother, Deserter), dies of a heart attack at 60
• Jul 1 Azzedine Bey, Tunisian heir to the throne, murdered
• Jul 1 Jacob D du Toit [Totius], South African poet/theologist, dies
• Jul 10 Sidney Homer, American composer, dies at 88
• Jul 11 Oliver Campbell, American tennis player (US Open 1890-92), dies at 82
• Jul 12 Joseph Jongen, Belgian organist and composer (Symphonie concertante, Op. 81), dies at 79 [1]
• Jul 14 Richard von Mises, Austrian scientist and mathematician (probability theory), dies at 70
• Jul 15 Servant of God Archbishop Mar Ivanios (b.1882)
• Jul 16 Hilaire Belloc, Anglo-French author (Path to Rome), dies at 82
• Jul 17 Bernhard van den Sigtenhorst Meyer, Dutch composer, dies at 65
• Jul 17 Maude K Adams, American actress (Little Minister), dies
• Jul 18 Lucy Booth, Daughter of William and Catherine Booth (b. 1868)
• Jul 19 Maurice J. Tobin, 56th Governor of Massachusetts, dies at 52
• Jul 20 Dumarsaid Estime, President of Haiti (b. 1900)
• Jul 20 Jan Struther, British author (b. 1901)
• Jul 22 Cyrus "Cy" Kendall, American actor (Tarzan's New York Adventure, Mysteries of Chinatown), dies from heart problems at 55
• Jul 26 Nikolaos Plastiras, Greece politician and general (Prime Minister of Greece 1945-50, 51-2), dies at 69
• Jul 31 Robert A. Taft, American politician (U.S. Senator from Ohio), dies at 63
• Aug 2 Betty Jack Davis, American country singer (with Skeeter Davis in The Davis Sisters), killed in car crash at 21
• Aug 7 Abner Powell, American baseball utility, team owner and executive (first to use infield tarpaulin after rain), dies at 92
• Aug 11 Ludwig Strauss, German-Israeli writer (Heimliche Gegenwart), dies at 60
• Aug 11 Tazio Nuvolari, Italian auto racer (72 x major race wins; 24 Hours of Le Mans 1933; European Championship 1932), dies from a stroke at 60
• Aug 13 Dmitri Arakishvili, Soviet and Georgian composer, dies at 80
• Aug 15 Ludwig Prandtl, German physicist (considered the father of aerodynamics - discovered the boundary layer), dies at 78
• Aug 17 Bannister Fletcher, English architect and architectural historian (A History of Architecture), dies at 87
• Aug 17 Johannes Tielrooy, Dutch literary figure (French Living Lesson), dies at 66
• Aug 22 Jim Tabor, American MLB 3rd baseman (2 x grand slams in one game), dies of a heart attack at 36
• Aug 27 Nicolai Berezowsky, Russian-American composer, dies at 53
• Aug 28 Nikolai Golovanov, Russian conductor and composer (Bolshoi Opera), dies at 61
• Aug 30 Dimitar Nenov, Bulgarian composer, pianist and architect, dies at 51
• Sep 1 Bernard O'Dowd, Australian poet, dies at 87
• Sep 2 Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright IV, American army officer, dies at 70

• Sep 5 Richard Walther Darré, Nazi politician, one of the leading 'blood and soil' ideologists (b. 1895)
• Sep 8 Fred M. Vinson, American Democratic politician, US Treasury Secretary (1945-46) and the 13th Chief Justice of US Supreme Court (1946-53), dies of a heart attack at 63
• Sep 12 Hugo Schmeisser, German inventor and weapons designer, dies at 68
• Sep 12 Lewis Stone, American actor (The Lost World, Prisoner of Zenda), dies of a heart attack at 73
• Sep 15 Jacques Thibaud, French violinist, dies at 72
• Sep 16 Colin G. Fink, American chemist (electro chemistry), dies at 71 [1]
• Sep 17 Emil Ermatinger, Swiss literature historian, dies at 80
• Sep 17 Henry Holden Huss, American classical pianist, composer, and educator, dies at 91
• Sep 18 Charles de Tornaco, Belgian racing driver, dies at 26
• Sep 21 Roger Quilter, British composer, dies at 75
• Sep 22 William Brann, South African cricketer (3 Tests for South Africa), dies at 54
• Sep 24 Berthold Viertel, Austrian screenwriter, dies at 68
• Sep 25 Dimitur Poljanov [Popov], Bulgaria poet (Iron Verses), dies at 76
• Sep 26 Xu Beihong, Chinese painter, dies at 58
• Sep 27 Jules-Marie Canneel, Flemish painter and caricaturist (Rocks of Oran), dies at 72

• Oct 3 Arnold Bax, British composer known for his orchestral music (Tintagel), and memoirist (Farewell My Youth), dies of heart failure at 69
• Oct 3 Florence Sabin, American Scientist who was the first woman to graduate from Johns Hopkins and the first lifetime woman member of the National Academy of Sciences, dies at 82
• Oct 5 Friedrich Wolf, writer, dies at 64
• Oct 6 Porter Hall, American actor (Half-Breed, Double Indemnity), dies of a heart attack at 64
• Oct 8 Kathleen Ferrier, English contralto singer (Orfeo Ed Evridice), dies of cancer at 41
• Oct 8 Nigel Bruce, British actor (Rebecca, Suspicion, Sherlock Holmes), dies from a heart attack at 58
• Oct 9 James Finlayson, Scottish-American stage, and silent and "talkie" film actor (Laurel and Hardy films), dies of a heart attack at 66
• Oct 11 James Earle Fraser, American sculptor (Indian Head (Buffalo) nickel), dies at 76
• Oct 13 Millard Mitchell, Cuban actor (12 O'Clock High, Gunfighter), dies from lung cancer at 50
• Oct 18 Douwe Kalma, Dutch literary writer and leader (Young Frisian Movement), dies at 57
• Oct 18 Federico Gerdes, composer, dies at 80
• Oct 20 Werner Baumbach, German bomber pilot (Luftwaffe special bombing unit WWII), dies in a plane accident at 36
• Oct 21 Muirhead Bone, Scottish etcher and painter (WWI & WWII war artist), dies at 77
• Oct 23 Maurice Lugeon, Swiss geologist (nappism), dies at 83
• Oct 24 Ernest Irving, English composer, dies at 74
• Oct 27 Zdzislaw Jachimecki, Polish composer and music historian, dies at 71
• Oct 29 William Kapell, American concert pianist and recording artist, dies in a plane crash at 31
• Oct 30 Alice Eastwood, Canadian-American botanist (Handbook of Trees of California), dies at 94
• Oct 30 Emmerich Kálmán, Hungarian composer of operettas, dies at 71
• Nov 4 Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, American pianist and philanthropist, dies at 89
• Nov 6 John Parsons Beach, American composer, dies at 76
• Nov 8 Ivan Bunin, Russian poet and novelist (Gentleman from San Francisco-Nobel 1933, dies at 83
• Nov 8 John van Melle, South African writer (Bart Nel), dies at 66

• Nov 11 Irene of Hesse and by Rhine, German granddaughter of Queen Victoria and wife of a Prussian prince, dies at 87
• Nov 16 Sol Hoʻopiʻi [Kaʻaiʻai], Native Hawaiian acoustic and electric lap steel guitar virtuoso, dies of diabetes related kidney failure at 50
• Nov 18 Ruth Crawford Seeger, American modernist classical and folk music composer (String Quartet, 1931; Rissolty, Rossolty), dies at 52
• Nov 21 Larry Shields, American jazz clarinetist (Original Dixieland Jazz Band), dies at 60
• Nov 22 Syed Sulaiman Nadvi, Pakistani religious scholar and biographer of Muhammad, dies at 69
• Nov 24 George Alexander Russell, American organist, composer and the first Frick Professor of Music for Princeton University, dies at 73
• Nov 24 Robert Lightfoot, English theologist and exegetist, dies at 70

• Nov 27 T. F. Powys, British novelist and short-story writer (Captain Patch, Goat Green), dies at 77
• Nov 29 Alfons Fryland, Austrian actor (b. 1888)
• Nov 29 Milt Gross, American comic book illustrator and animator (b. 1895)
• Nov 29 Sam De Grasse, Canadian actor, dies from a heart attack at 78
• Dec 2 Ernie Hayes, English cricket all-rounder (5 Tests; Surrey CCC, Leicestershire CCC), dies at 77
• Dec 2 Francis Picabia, French avante-garde artist, writer and typographist (Amorous Parade), dies at 74
• Dec 2 Reginald "Snowy" Baker, Australian boxer (Olympic silver middleweight 1908), rugby union halfback (2 caps) and actor (The Sword of Valor), dies at 69
• Dec 2 Walter "Doc" Meanwell, English Basketball Hall of Fame coach (University of Wisconsin 1911–1917, 1920–1934), dies at 69
• Dec 4 Daniel Gregory Mason, American composer (Chanticker), dies at 80
• Dec 5 Jorge Negrete [Moreno], Mexican singer and actor (The Rebel, La madrina del diablo), dies of hepatitis at 42
• Dec 6 Konstanty I Galczynski, Polish poet (Zielona Ges), dies at 48
• Dec 10 Abdullah Yusuf Ali, British-Indian Islamic scholar and translator (translated Qu'ran into English), dies at 81
• Dec 11 Albert Coates, English conductor and composer (Eagle; Pickwick), dies at 78
• Dec 14 Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, American writer (The Yearling), dies of a cerebral hemorrhage at 57
• Dec 15 Ed Barrow, American Baseball HOF manager (World Series 1918 Boston Red Sox) and executive (10 x World Series NY Yankees), dies at 85
• Dec 15 Kishio Hirao, Japanese composer, dies at 46

• Dec 19 Rudolf Leonhard, writer, dies
• Dec 20 Henry Horatio Dixon, Irish Biologist who originated the cohesion-tension theory of water and mineral movement in plants, dies at 84

• Dec 24 Ralph Linton, American cultural anthropologist (Tree of Culture), dies at 60
• Dec 25 Lee Shubert, American theatre producer (theatres in NY & LA named after him), dies at about 80
• Dec 25 Patsy Donovan, Irish-American baseball outfielder (Pittsburgh Pirates, St. Louis Cardinals) and manager (Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Washington Sens, Brooklyn Superbas, Boston RS), dies at 88
• Dec 27 Julian Tuwim, Polish poet and lyricist, dies at 59
• Dec 29 Violet MacMillan, American Broadway theatre actress(b. 1887)

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