- Apr 2 Franz Halder, German general (b. 1884)
Gil Hodges (1924-1972)
Apr 2 American Baseball HOF 1st baseman (8 x MLB All Star; Brooklyn/LA Dodgers; NY Mets; World Series 1955, 59, 69; Gold Glove Award 1957–59) and manager (Washington Senators, NY Mets), dies of a heart attack at 47
- Apr 2 Toshitsugu Takamatsu, Japanese Martial Arts Grandmaster (b. 1887)
- Apr 3 Ferde Grofé American composer (Grand Canyon Suite), dies at 80
Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (1908-1972)
Apr 4 American politician (Rep-D-NY), dies of acute prostatitis at 63
- Apr 4 Jan A.H.J.S. Bruins Slot, Dutch politician, resistance fighter, and underground newspaper co-founder and editor (Trouw (Faithful)), dies at 66 [1]
- Apr 4 Stefan Wolpe, German composer (Zeus & Elidco), dies at 69
- Apr 5 Isabel Jewell, American actress (Gone With The Wind), dies at 64
- Apr 6 Brian Donlevy, American actor (Barbary Coast, Glass Key, Wake Island), dies at 71
Joe Gallo (1929-1972)
Apr 7 American mobster, murdered at his 43rd birthday party by rival mobsters
- Apr 7 Abeid Karume, Tanzanian sheik/president, murdered
- Apr 7 Victor Wong, American actor (Mission to Moscow, War Correspondent, King Kong), dies at 65
Sherwin Badger (1901-1972)
Apr 8 American figure skater (US singles championship 1920-24; Olympic silver pairs [with Beatrix Loughran] 1932), dies at 70
James F. Byrnes (1879-1972)
Apr 9 American politician and statesman influential in domestic and foreign policy in the mid-1940s, dies at 89
- Apr 10 Henech Kon, Polish composer and cabaret performer, dies at 81
- Apr 12 C W Ceram [Kurt Marek], German/American writer (1st American), dies at 57
- Apr 12 Henri Potiron, French composer, dies at 89
- Apr 15 Otto Brenner, German trade union leader (Industrial Union of Metalworkers), dies at 64
- Apr 16 Yasunari Kawabata, Japanese novelist (Thousand Cranes) and Nobel laureate (1968), dies at 72
- Apr 19 Adolf Bach, German language professor and sociologist, dies at 82
- Apr 19 Billy Burke, American golfer (US Open 1931), dies at 69
- Apr 25 George Sanders, Russian actor (All About Eve-Academy Award 1950), commits suicide at 65
- Apr 26 Fernando Amorsolo, Filipino painter, dies at 79
- Apr 26 Margaret Bonds, American composer (The Ballad of the Brown King), pianist, arranger, and teacher, dies at 59
Kwame Nkrumah (1909-1972)
Apr 27 1st Prime Minister of Ghana (1957-60) and 1st President of Ghana (1960-66), dies of prostate cancer at 62 [1]
Assassination
Drug Overdose
Gunshot Wound
Murder
Plane Crash
Suicide