- 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
Assassination
Drug Overdose
Gunshot Wound
Murder
Plane Crash
Suicide