- Dec 3 Jēkabs Graubiņš, Latvian composer, dies at 75
- Dec 3 Mary Charleson, Irish-American silent film actress (Upstairs And Down), dies at 71
- Dec 3 Pat O'Hara Wood, Australian tennis player (Australasian C'ship 1920, 23), dies at 70
Grandma Moses (1860-1961)
Dec 13 American primitive painter (Old Oaken Bucket), dies at 101
- Dec 15 William "Dummy" Hoy, American baseball outfielder (most accomplished deaf player in MLB history; NL stolen base leader 1888; Washington Senators, Cincinnati Reds), dies at 99
- Dec 16 Boris Semyonovich Shekhter, Russian composer and teacher, dies at 61
- Dec 16 Cato Engelen-Sewing, Dutch soprano singer, prima donna, dies at 93
- Dec 17 Marion Perkins, sculptor (Man of Sorrow), dies at 53
- Dec 20 Earle Page, eleventh Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1880)
- Dec 20 Luis Abraham Delgadillo, Nicaraguan composer, conductor, and educator, dies at 75
Moss Hart (1904-1961)
Dec 20 American playwright (You Can't Take it With You, Act 1), dies of a heart attack at 57
- Dec 23 Kurt Meyer, German SS officer (b. 1910)
- Dec 24 Guy de Lioncourt, French composer, dies at 76
- Dec 25 Otto Loewi, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1873)
- Dec 25 Owen Brewster, U.S. Senator from Maine (b. 1888)
- Dec 25 Rheinhold Rudenberg, inventor of electron microscope, dies
- Dec 26 Charlie Frank, cricketer (S Af Test centurion v Aust 1921-22), dies
- Dec 28 Edith Wilson, American 1st lady (1915-21) second wife of Woodrow Wilson, dies at 89
- Dec 30 Jacobus "Ko" van den Bosch, Dutch actor (Amsterdamned)/dir, dies at 53
Assassination
Drug Overdose
Gunshot Wound
Murder
Plane Crash
Suicide