- Feb 2 Jessie Royce Landis [Medbury], American stage and screen actress (To Catch A Thief; North by Northwest), dies of cancer at 75
- Feb 2 Natalie Clifford Barney, American writer (b. 1876)
- Feb 3 John Litel, American actor (Jezebel, Virginia City, My Hero), dies at 79
- Feb 5 Marianne Moore, American poetess (Pulitzer 1951), dies at 84
- Feb 6 Julian Steward, American anthropologist (cultural ecology), dies at 70
- Feb 8 Márkos Vamvakaris, Greek musician and rebetiko songwriter, dies at 66
- Feb 11 Jan Wils, Dutch architect (Olympian Stadium, Amsterdam), dies at 80
- Feb 14 (Lambertus) "Bertus" van Lyre, Dutch composer and conductor (Dike), dies at 65
- Feb 15 Edgar Snow, American author and journalist (Battle for Asia), dies at 66
- Feb 15 Jef [Josephus CF] Last, Dutch poet/Indonesian politician, dies at 73
- Feb 17 Gavriil Popov, Soviet Russian composer, dies at 67
- Feb 19 (Edward) Lee Morgan, American hard-bop jazz trumpeter ("The Sidewinder"), dies after being shot by his wife between sets during a gig at 33 [1]
- Feb 19 John Grierson, Scottish documentary filmmaker (Drifters), dies at 73
- Feb 19 Tedd Pierce, American cartoon screenwriter and voice actor (Warner Brothers), dies at 65
- Feb 20 Herbert Menges, English composer, dies at 69
- Feb 20 Maria Goeppert-Mayer, American-German atomic physicist (Nobel 1963), dies at 65
- Feb 20 Walter Winchell, American journalist, gossip columnist, radio host, and narrator (the Untouchables), dies at 74
- Feb 21 Bronislava Nijinska, Polish-Russian ballet dancer (Ballets Russes) and choreographer (1914-70), dies of a heart attack at 81
- Feb 21 Eugène Tisserant, French Catholic candinal (b. 1884)
- Feb 23 Michael Taube, Polish composer, dies at 81
- Feb 26 Tom Manders, Dutch cabaret artist (Dorus), dies at 50
- Feb 27 Pat Brady [Robert Ellsworth O'Brady], American actor (The Roy Rogers Show, Man from Music Mountain), dies at 57
- Feb 28 Victor Barna, table tennis champ, dies
Assassination
Drug Overdose
Gunshot Wound
Murder
Plane Crash
Suicide