- Dec 10 Ed Wood, American filmmaker and director (Plan 9 from Outer Space), dies of heart failure at 54
- Dec 12 Fay Compton [Virginia Compton-Mackenzie], British stage and screen actress (Hamlet; The WInter's Tale; Othello; The Haunting), dies at 84
- Dec 15 Chill Wills, American actor (Frontier Circus, Rounders), dies at 75
- Dec 16 Blanche Calloway, American jazz vocalist, bandleader (Twelve Clouds of Joy), civil rights activist, and broadcaster, dies of breast cancer at 76
- Dec 17 Don Ellis, American avant garde jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and Grammy Award-winning film score composer (The French Connection), dies of a heart attack at 44
- Dec 27 Bob de Lange [Jacob Bernard de Lange], Dutch actor and director (Daniel), dies at 62
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