Deaths Date 1980 | History by KabAstro

Deaths 1 - 200 of 373

Joy Adamson (1910-1980)

Jan 3 Austrian naturalist and author (Born Free), murdered at 69 by her servant

Jan 3 Lucien Buysse, Belgian cyclist (Tour de France 1926), dies at 87
Jan 6 Georgeanna Tillman, American singer (The Marvelettes - "Please Mr. Postman"), dies from lupus and sickle cell anemia at 37
Jan 7 Carl White, American vocalist, dies at 47
Jan 7 Larry Williams, American R&B singer-songwriter ("Dizzy, Miss Lizzie"; "Slow Down"), dies of a gunshot wound to the head at 44
Jan 7 Sarah Selby, American actress (Tower of London), dies at 74
Jan 7 Simonne Mathieu, French tennis player (French C'ships 1938-39; 11 Grand Slam doubles titles), dies at 71
Jan 8 John Mauchly, American physicist who with J. Presper Eckert, designed the first general purpose electronic digital computer (ENIAC), dies at 72
Jan 8 Oscar Ewing, US government official (Everybody's Business), dies at 90
Jan 10 Bo Rein, American college football coach (b. 1945)
Jan 10 George Meany, American labor leader (AFL-CIO), dies at 86
Jan 11 Barbara Pym, English novelist (b. 1913)
Jan 13 Andre Kostelanetz, Russian-American orchestral-pop music conductor (Lincoln Portrarit), dies of pneumonia at 78
Jan 14 Robert Ardrey, American author (b. 1908)
Jan 16 Anna Maria Franciska van Wageningen-Salomons, Dutch author (Girl Student), dies at 94
Jan 17 Barbara Britton [Brantingham], American actress (Captain Kidd; Young and Willing; Mr. and Mrs. North), dies of pancreatic cancer at 60
Jan 18 Cecil Beaton, British photographer, dies at 76
Jan 19 Richard Franko Goldman, American educator and composer, dies at 69
Jan 19 William O. Douglas, American member US Supreme court (1939-75), dies at 81
Jan 22 Iris Meredith [Shunn], American actress (Son of Davy Crockett; The Mystery of the Hooded Horsemen), dies at 64
Jan 23 Babs Gonzales [Lee Brown], American be-bop jazz vocalist, poet, and songwriter ("Oop-Pop-A-Da"), dies of cancer at 60
Jan 23 Lil Dagover [Marie Seubert;], German silent and sound screen actress (Destiny; Spiders), dies at 92
Jan 25 David Newell, American actor (Runaway Bride, White Heat, Dangerous Curves), dies at 75
Jan 25 Queenie Watts [Mary Spenton], British singer and actress (Up the Junction, Holiday on the Buses), dies at 56
Jan 28 Franco Evangelisti, Italian avant-garde classical and electroacoustic composer, and sound theorist (From Silence to a New Sonorous World), dies at 74
Jan 29 Antonio Molina, Filipino composer, conductor and music administrator (Ana Maria, Hatinggabi), dies at 85

Jimmy Durante (1893-1980)

Jan 29 American actor, comedian and singer known as "the schnozzola" (The Durante-Moore Show, Jimmy Durante Show), dies of pneumonia at 86

Jan 30 Professor Longhair [Henry Roeland Byrd], American boogie-woogie, New Orleans R&B, and mambo pianist and singer ("Tipitina": "Go To The Mardis Gras"), dies from a heart attack at 61
Jan 31 Jacobus Petrus Duminy, South African cricket batsman (3 Tests; Western Province, Transvaal, Oxford University CC) and academic (principal & vice-chancellor University of Cape Town), dies at 82
Feb 1 Gastone Nencini, Italian road cyclist (Giro d'Italia 1957, Tour de France 1960), dies at 49
Feb 1 Jack Bailey, American actor and TV host (Queen for a Day), dies at 72
Feb 1 Romolo Valli, Italian actor (Boom, La Viaccia), dies at 54
Feb 2 William H. Stein, American biochemist (Nobel 1972), dies at 68
Feb 7 Ernst Kunz, Swiss composer, dies at 88
Feb 7 Katherine Emery, American actress (Maze, Isle of the Dead), dies at 73
Feb 7 Secondo Campini, Italian jet engine pioneer, dies at 75
Feb 8 Nikos Xilouris, Greek folk singer-songwriter, dies of lung and brain cancer at 43
Feb 9 Antoine Pompe, Belgian architect, dies at 106
Feb 9 Charlie Fowlkes, American baritone saxophonist (Count Basie Orchestra, 1953-80), dies at 63
Feb 9 Tom Macdonald, Welsh journalist and writer (The White Lanes of Summer), dies at 79
Feb 12 Muriel Rukeyser, American poet (The Book of the Dead), dies at 66
Feb 12 Wally Wales [Floyd Taliaferro Alderson], American actor (Crossing Trails), dies at 84
Feb 13 David Janssen, American actor (The Fugitive, Harry O), dies at 49
Feb 13 Marian Rejewski, Polish mathematician and cryptologist (1st to break German Enigma code), dies at 74
Feb 14 Luitkonwar Rudra Baruah, Assamese composer and actor
Feb 16 Erich Hückel, German physicist and physical chemist, dies at 83
Feb 17 Graham Sutherland, English artist (official WWII war artist), dies at 76
Feb 17 Jerry Fielding, American jazz musician and composer (Lively Ones, Hogan's Heroes), dies at 57
Feb 18 Gale Robbins [Betty Gale Murphy], American singer and actress (Fuller Brush Girl, Mr Hex), dies of lung cancer at 58
Feb 19 (Clarence) "Shorty" Cherock, American swing jazz and big band trumpeter (Jimmy Dorsey; Gene Krupa; Nelson Riddle), dies at 64
Feb 19 (Ronald) "Bon" Scott, Australian rock musician, singer, and lyricist (AC/DC -"It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)"), dies of acute alcohol poisoning at 33
Feb 20 Alice Longworth Roosevelt, youngest daughter of Theodore, dies at 96
Feb 20 Joseph Banks Rhine, American parapsychologist (Extra-Sensory Perception), dies at 84
Feb 21 Chester Lauck, American actor (Dreaming Out Loud, 2 Weeks to Live), dies at 78
Feb 21 Janet Vogel, American doo-wop soprano (Skyliners - “Since I Don’t Have You”), takes her own life at 37
Feb 22 Alfred Andersch, German writer (Red Head), dies at 66
Feb 22 Dick Kallman, American actor (Born to Be Loved, Verboten!), murdered in his New York apartment at 46
Feb 22 Oskar Kokoschka, Austria-British painter and graphic artist, dies at 93
Feb 23 Enrico Celio, Swiss lawyer and President of Switzerland (1943), dies at 90
Feb 23 Robert Vandekerckhove, Belgian politician, dies at 62
Feb 27 George Tobias, American actor (Bewitched), dies at 78
Feb 28 Dinorá de Carvalho, Brazilian pianist, conductor, music educator and composer (Missa Profundis), dies at 75 (or 85, year of birth disputed)
Feb 28 Ian Alexander Ross Peebles, cricketer (45 wkts for England), dies
Feb 29 Gil Elvgren, American illustrator and commercial artist (Brown & Bigelow pin-up calendars), dies of cancer at 65
Feb 29 Yigal Allon (né Peikowitz) Israeli politician (Deputy Prime Minister, 1968-74), dies of heart failure at 61
Mar 1 Dixie Dean, English soccer striker (16 caps; Everton), dies from a heart attack at 73
Mar 1 Emmett Ashford, American baseball umpire (first certified black umpire), dies from a heart attack at 65
Mar 1 John Jacob Niles, American composer and singer, dies at 87
Mar 1 Wilhelmina Cooper, Dutch-American model and founder of Wilhelmina Models, dies at 40
Mar 5 Jay Silverheels [Harold J. Smith], Canadian actor (The Lone Ranger, Key Largo), dies from a stroke at 67
Mar 5 Winifred Wagner, English-German daughter-in-law of Richard Wagner and friend of Adolf Hitler (ran Bayreuth Festival), dies at 82
Mar 9 Olga Chekova, actress (Moulin Rouge, Pawns of Possession), dies at 82
Mar 10 Herman Tarnower, American doctor (Scarsdale Diet), shot and killed by girlfriend Jean Harris at 69
Mar 10 Melville Henry Cane, American lawyer and poet (Making a Poem), dies at 100
Mar 12 Arthur Charles Dobson, British racing driver (b. 1914)
Mar 13 Tauno Pylkkänen, Finnish opera composer dies at 61
Mar 14 Allard Lowenstein, American writer (A Brutal Mandate), politician (US Representative from New York, 1969-71), and human rights activist, shot to death in his office by an associate at 51
Mar 14 Mohammad Hatta, Indonesian politician (b. 1902)
Mar 15 Gerald Abrahams, English author (Teach Yourself Chess), dies at 72
Mar 16 Tamara de Lempicka, Polish-born painter (b. 1898)
Mar 17 Rudolf George Escher, Dutch composer (Vrai Visage de la Paix), dies at 68
Mar 18 "Grishata" Grigor Vachkov, Bulgarian actor (At Each Kilometer), dies at 47
Mar 18 Erich Fromm, German psychologist and psychoanalyst (Sane Society), dies at 79
Mar 18 Herman Griffith, West Indian cricket fast bowler (13 Tests; 44 wickets; best 6-103), dies at 86
Mar 18 Ludwig Guttmann, German-British neurologist, founder of the Stoke Mandeville Games (now the Paralympics), dies at 80
Mar 21 Gideon Fagan, South African conductor and composer, dies at 75
Mar 21 Peter Stoner, American mathematician, astronomer and Christian apologist, dies at 92
Mar 23 Arthur Melvin Okun, American economist (Misery Index), dies of a heart attack at 51
Mar 24 Oscar Romero, El Salvador Roman Catholic priest, murdered during mass at 62
Mar 25 Ioan Dumitru Chirescu, Romanian composer and conductor, dies at 91
Mar 25 James Wright, American Pulitzer Prize-winning poet (The Branch Will Not Break), dies of cancer at 52
Mar 25 Milton H. Erickson, American psychiatrist and psychologist, dies at 78
Mar 25 Roland Barthes, French writer (Mythologies), literary critic (The Death of the Author), and academic theorist, dies of injuries after being struck by a vehicle while walking at 64
Mar 25 Walter Susskind, Czech conductor and pianist, dies at 66
Mar 26 Jon-Jon Poulos, American drummer (Buckinghams), dies at 32
Mar 28 John Poulos, American drummer (The Buckinghams - "Kind Of A Drag"), dies of heart failure at 32
Mar 28 Richard "Dick" Haymes, Argentine-American actor and singer (State Fair, Real Life, Betrayal), dies of lung cancer at 61
Mar 29 Annunzio Mantovani, Italian orchestra leader (Mantovani), dies at 74

Jesse Owens (1913-1980)

Mar 31 American athlete (4 Olympic gold 100/200m, long jump, 4x100m relay 1936), dies of lung cancer at 66

Mar 31 Vladimír Holan, Czech poet, dies at 74
Apr 2 Dick Howorth, English cricket all-rounder (5 Tests, 19 wickets; Worcestershire CCC), dies at 70
Apr 2 Pascual de Rogatis, Argentine composer (Huemac; Estampas Argentinas), dies at 99
Apr 3 Luella Gear, American actress (Joe & Mabel), dies at 82
Apr 4 Woodrow Wilson "Red" Sovine, American country music singer, dies following a heart attack leading to a car crash at 62
Apr 9 Kathleen Burke, American actress (Island of Lost Souls), dies at 66
Apr 10 Kay Medford [Margaret Kathleen Regan], American actress (Dean Martin Show: To Rome With Love), dies of cancer at 60
Apr 11 Charlotte Henry, American actress (Alice in Wonderland; Babes In Toyland; Jungle Menace), dies of cancer at 66
Apr 11 Florence Lake, American comic actress (leading lady in many of Edgar Kennedy comedy shorts; Lassie), dies at 75
Apr 12 Clark McConachy, New Zealand billiards player (World Professional C'ships 1951), dies at 84
Apr 12 William Tolbert, Liberian President (1971-80), killed with 27 others in a coup at 66
Apr 13 Markus Höttinger, Austrian racing driver, dies at 23
Apr 14 Tom Fadden, American stage and screen character actor (It's a Wonderful Life; Broken Arrow; Cimarron City), dies at 85

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)

Apr 15 French existentialist philosopher and writer (Le Mur, Nobel 1964; declined), dies at 74

Apr 15 Marshall Reed, American actor (The Madmen of Mandoras, Mysterious Island), dies from a massive hemorrhage at 62
Apr 15 Paul Langton, American actor (Till the Clouds Roll By, Peyton Place), dies from a heart attack at 66
Apr 15 Raymond Bailey, American actor (Vertigo, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Incredible Shrinking Man), dies at 75
Apr 16 Morris Stoloff, American violinist, Academy Award-winning composer, music director (Columbia Pictures, 1938-62), and orchestra leader (Moonglow/Theme from Picnic), dies at 81
Apr 19 Ethel Wilson, actress (Aunt Harriet-Aldrich Family), dies at 88
Apr 19 Tony Beckley, actor (Assault, When a Stranger Calls), dies at 51
Apr 21 Aleksandr Oparin, Russian biochemist (b. 1894)
Apr 21 Sohrab Sepehri, Persian poet and painter (b. 1928)

Jane Froman (1907-1980)

Apr 22 American singer (Jane Froman's USA Canteen), dies at 72

Apr 24 Alenjo Carpentier, Cuban-French writer (Guerra del Tiempo), dies at 75
Apr 25 Katia Mann, German actress and wife of German writer Thomas Mann, dies at 96
Apr 26 Cicely Courtneidge, Australian-born British actress (Double Exposure), dies at 87
Apr 28 (Francisco) "Chino" Pozo, Cuban-American latin jazz and Afro-Cuban drummer, bongosero and conguero, dies at 64
Apr 28 Dee Carroll [Betty Jean Marsh], American actress (Mad Bomber, Split), dies at 54
Apr 28 Tommy Caldwell, American rock bass player (Marshall Tucker Band), dies in a jeep crash at 30

Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980)

Apr 29 English film director (Psycho; The Birds; Rear Window; Vertigo), dies of renal failure at 80

Apr 30 Luis Muñoz Marín, Puerto Rican poet, journalist, and politician (b. 1898)
Apr 30 Mary McCarty, American singer, dancer, stage and screen actress (Babes in Toyland; All That Jazz;, Trapper John, M.D.), dies of a heart attack at 56
May 2 Alioune Diop, Senegalese writer and editor (Présence africaine), dies at 70
May 2 Clarrie Grimmett, Australian cricket spin bowler (37 Tests; 216 wickets @ 24.21; ICC Cricket Hall of Fame), dies at 88
May 2 George Pál, Hungarian-American film director (When Worlds Collide, Puppetoons), dies at 72

Josip Broz Tito (1892-1980)

May 4 Yugoslav communist revolutionary and leader of Yugoslavia (1943-80), dies at 87

May 4 Kay Hammond, British actress (Blithe Spirit, 5 Golden Hours), dies at 71
May 5 Edmond Vandercammen, French-Belgian painter and poet (Grand Combat), dies at 79
May 12 Lillian Roth [Rutstein], American singer and actress (Animal Crackers; Alice Sweet Alice), dies at 69
May 14 Hugh Griffith, Welsh actor (Ben-Hur, Mutiny on the Bounty, Oliver!), dies from a heart attack at 67
May 14 Wilhelm Weismann, German composer, dies at 79
May 18 David A. Johnston, American volcanologist, dies in Mount St. Helens eruption at 30
May 18 Harry Truman, American victim of Mount St. Helens eruption, dies at 83
May 18 Ian Curtis, English rock singer-songwriter (Joy Division - "Love Will Tear Us Apart"). commits suicide at 23
May 18 Reid Blackburn, American photojournalist for National Geographic & victim of Mount St. Helens eruption, dies at 28
May 21 Ida Kamińska, Polish stage and screen actress, director, and writer (The Shop on Main Street; Mother Courage and Her Children), dies at 80
May 28 Rolf Nevanlinna, Finnish mathematician (b. 1895)
May 30 Carl Radle, American bass guitarist (Derek and the Dominoes), dies of a kidney infection at 37
Jun 1 Arthur Nielsen, American market analyst (b. 1897)

Rube Marquard (1886-1980)

Jun 1 American Baseball HOF pitcher (NL wins leader 1912; NL strikeout leader 1911; no-hitter 1915; NY Giants), dies at 93

Jun 4 Charles Miller, American rock-funk flutist, saxophonist, and singer (War - "Why Can't We Be Friends?"; "Low Rider"), stabbed to death during a mugging in Los Angeles at 41
Jun 5 Lauritz Lauritzen, German politician, dies at 70
Jun 7 Elizabeth Craig, British writer (b. 1883)

Henry Miller (1891-1980)

Jun 7 American writer (Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn), dies of circulatory complications at 88

Jun 7 Philip Guston, Canadian-American abstract painter, muralist, and printmaker (To Fellini), dies of a heart attack at 66
Jun 7 Richard Bonnelli, actor (Enter Madame), dies
Jun 8 Ernst Busch, German singer and actor, dies at 80
Jun 9 Leonhard Huizinga, Dutch journalist and writer (Olivier & Adrian), dies at 73
Jun 10 Denys Morkel, South African cricketer (batsman scored 663 runs 1927-32), dies
Jun 12 Billy Butlin, South African-born British founder of Butlins holiday camps, dies at 80
Jun 12 Milburn Stone, American actor (Gunsmoke, Pickup on South Street), dies from a heart attack at 75
Jun 18 André Leducq, French cyclist (Tour de France 1930, 32; Olympic gold road race 1924), dies at 76
Jun 18 Terence Fisher, English film director (Hammer Films), dies at 76
Jun 19 Karl Bjarnhof, Danish blind journalist and writer (The Stars Grow Pale), dies at 82
Jun 20 Allan Pettersson, Swedish violist and composer (Symphony No. 7), dies at 68
Jun 21 Bert Kaempfert, German orchestra leader, songwriter ("Strangers in the Night"; "Danke Schoen"), and record producer (The Beatles first recordings), dies of a stroke at 56
Jun 23 Clyfford Still, American abstract painter and leading figure of the Abstract Expressionists, dies at 75
Jun 23 John Laurie, Scottish actor (Hamlet, The 39 Steps, Jericho, Island of Desire), dies at 83
Jun 23 Odile Versois, actress (Nude in a White Car, Young Lovers), dies
Jun 23 Sanjay Gandhi, Indian politician, dies in a plane crash at 33
Jun 23 V.V. [Varahagiri Venkata] Giri, Fourth President of India (1969-74), dies at 85
Jun 23 Walter Rodney, Guyanese historian (bomanslag), dies
Jun 27 Albany "Barney" Bigard, Creole-American jazz clarinetist (Duke Ellington Orchestra, 1927-42 - "Mood Indigo"), dies at 74
Jun 28 Helen Gahagan Douglas, American actress and politician (Nixon's 1st opponent for the United States Senate in 1950), dies at 79
Jun 28 Herbie Faye, comedian (Doc, Phil Silvers Show), dies at 81
Jun 28 José Iturbi, Spanish concert pianist and conductor who appeared in nearly a dozen 1940s MGM musicals, dies at 84
Jun 28 Yoshiro Irino, Japanese composer, dies at 58
Jun 30 Virginia Brown Faire, American silent film actress (Lonesome Trail, Temptress), dies at 76
Jul 1 Charles P. Snow, English novelist (Death Under Sail, Strangers and Brothers) and physical chemist, dies at 74
Jul 3 James "Buster" Bennett, American blues saxophonist and blues shouter, dies at 66
Jul 4 Maurice Grevisse, Belgian grammarian (b. 1895)
Jul 5 Archibald James Potter, Irish composer, dies at 61
Jul 6 Gail Patrick [Margaret Fitzpatrick], American actress (My Man Godfrey, Love Crazy), dies of leukemia at 69
Jul 7 Reginald Gardiner, British actor (The Flying Deuces; The Great Dictator), dies at 77
Jul 9 Vinicius de Moraes, Brazilian poet and lyricist, dies at 66
Jul 10 Komako Kimura, Japanese suffragette, actress and editor, dies at 92
Jul 11 Bolesław Woytowicz, Polish pianist and composer, dies at 80
Jul 11 Peggy Knudson, actress (April-So This is Hollywood), dies at 57
Jul 12 John W Davis, President (WV State college), dies at 92
Jul 13 Seretse Khama, 1st President of Botswana (1966-80), dies of pancreatic cancer at 59
Jul 14 Felix Berezin, Russian physicist and mathematician (Berezin integral), dies at 49
Jul 15 Eddie Jackson, comedian (Jimmy Durante Show), dies at 84
Jul 15 Henri Martelli, French composer, dies at 85
Jul 16 Robert Brackman, American artist, dies at 81
Jul 17 Boris Delaunay, Russian mathematician (b. 1890)
Jul 17 Donald "Red" Barry, American actor (Adventures of Red Ryder, Jesse James' Women), commits suicide at 68