- Oct 2 Herb Joesting, College Football Hall of Fame halfback/fullback (Uni of Minnesota; Chicago Bears), dies from heart failure at 58
- Oct 3 Bobby McDermott, American Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame guard and coach (2 × NBL Coach of the Year 1944-45, Fort Wayne Pistons), dies at 49
- Oct 7 Grace Darmond, silent screen actress (Below the Surface), dies at 69
- Oct 7 Gustaf Gründgens, German actor and director (M, Faust, A Glass of Water), dies from an internal hemorrhage at 63
- Oct 8 Remedios Varo, Spanish-Mexican surrealist artist (Eyes on the table, Useless Science or the Alchemist), dies of a heart attack aged 54 [1]
- Oct 9 Thurlow Lieurance, American composer (By the Waters of Minnetonka; Sad Moon on Falling Leaf), ethnomusicologist (Indigenous peoples), and educator, dies at 85
Edith Piaf (1915-1963)
Oct 10 French singer (No, I Don't Regret Anything; Le Vie En Rose), dies of liver failure at 47
- Oct 10 Roy Cazaly, Australian rules footballer, dies at 70
Jean Cocteau (1889-1963)
Oct 11 French poet, filmmaker and painter (Les Enfants Terribles), dies at 73
- Oct 15 Edmond Fleg[enheimer], Swiss-French writer (Ecoute Israel), dies at 88
- Oct 15 Horton Smith. American golfer (US Masters 1934, 36), dies of Hodgkin's disease at 55
- Oct 17 Jacques Hadamard, French mathematician (proved the prime number theorem), dies at 97
- Oct 18 Cláudio Carneyro, Portuguese violinist, composer, and educator, dies at 68
- Oct 21 George Cressey, American geographer (Crossroads), dies at 66
- Oct 21 Józef Franczak, Polish soldier and anti-communist resistance fighter who was the last cursed soldiers, dies in a firefight with 35 functionaries of a ZOMO (paramilitary riot police) at 45
- Oct 22 Elvin M. Jellinek, American physiologist and pioneer in the study of alcoholism, dies at 73
- Oct 24 Beverly Wills, American actress (I Married Joan - "Beverly"; Some Like It Hot), dies in a house fire at 30
- Oct 25 Abu-Bakr Khairat, Egyptian composer, dies at 53
- Oct 28 Mart Saar, Estonian composer, dies at 81
- Oct 29 Adolphe Menjou, American actor (Front Page; Star is Born), dies at 73
- Oct 29 Michael Holliday [Norman Milne], British pop singer ("The Story of My Life"), dies of a suspected drug overdose at 38
- Oct 31 Henry Daniell, British actor (The Great Dictator, Camille, Philadelphia Story, Body Snatchers), dies at 69
Assassination
Drug Overdose
Gunshot Wound
Murder
Plane Crash
Suicide