# Deaths in 1986

The following is a list of notable deaths in 1986. Entries for each day are listed alphabetically by surname. A typical entry lists information in the following sequence:

## Deaths in 1986
### January

* January 4
** Christopher Isherwood, English writer (b. 1904)
** Phil Lynott, Irish musician, lead singer and bassist (Thin Lizzy) (b. 1949)
* January 5 – Ilmari Salminen, Finnish Olympic athlete (b. 1902)
* January 6 – Una Merkel, American actress (b. 1903)
* January 7 – Juan Rulfo, Mexican writer (b. 1917)
* January 10 – Jaroslav Seifert, Czech writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1901)
* January 12 – Juan Carlos Corazzo, Uruguayan football player (b. 1907)
* January 13 – Abdul Fattah Ismail, Leader of the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen) (b. 1939)
* January 14 – Donna Reed, American actress (b. 1921)
* January 16 – Herbert W. Armstrong, founded the Worldwide Church of God (b. 1892)
* January 17 – Abdul Majid Kubar, 4th Prime Minister of Libya (b. 1909)
* January 23 – Willard Van Dyke, American filmmaker and photographer (b. 1906)
* January 24
** Sir Victor Crutchley, British admiral (b. 1893)
** L. Ron Hubbard, American writer and founder of Scientology (b. 1911)
** Gordon MacRae, American actor and singer (b. 1921)
* January 27
** Nikhil Banerjee, Indian classical sitarist (b. 1931)
** Lilli Palmer, German actress (b. 1914)
* January 28 – In the Challenger disaster:
** Gregory Jarvis, American astronaut (b. 1944)
** Christa McAuliffe, American astronaut and teacher (b. 1948)
** Ronald McNair, American astronaut (b. 1950)
** Ellison Onizuka, American astronaut (b. 1946)
** Judith Resnik, American astronaut (b. 1949)
** Dick Scobee, American astronaut (b. 1939)
** Michael J. Smith, American astronaut (b. 1945)
* January 29 – Leif Erickson, American actor (b. 1911)

### February

* February 1
** Alva Myrdal, Swedish politician, diplomat, and writer, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1902)
** Ida Rhodes, American mathematician, pioneer in computer programming (b. 1900)
* February 6 – Minoru Yamasaki, Japanese architect, designed the twin towers of the World Trade Center (b. 1912)
* February 7 – Cheikh Anta Diop, Senegalese historian, anthropologist, physicist, and politician (b. 1923)
* February 10 – Brian Aherne, British actor (b. 1902)
* February 11 – Frank Herbert, American author (b. 1920)
* February 14 – Edmund Rubbra, British composer (b. 1901)
* February 16 – Howard da Silva, American actor (b. 1909)
* February 17
** Jiddu Krishnamurti, Indian philosopher (b. 1895)
** Paul Stewart, American actor (b. 1908)
* February 19
** Francisco Mignone, Brazilian classical music composer (b. 1897)
** Barry Seal, American smuggler of drugs and arms, aircraft pilot, and money launderer and former Trans Worlds Airlines pilot (b. 1939)
** Adolfo Celi, Italian actor and director (b. 1922)
* February 20 – Bert Schneider, Canadian boxer (b. 1897)
* February 21
** Helen Hooven Santmyer, American writer (b. 1895)
** Mart Stam, Dutch architect (b. 1899)
* February 24 – Tommy Douglas, Canadian politician and "Father of medicare" in Canada (b. 1904)
* February 25 – Pasquale Festa Campanile, Italian screenwriter, film director and novelist (b. 1927)
* February 27 – Jacques Plante, Canadian hockey player (b. 1929)
* February 28 – Olof Palme, Swedish politician, 26th Prime Minister of Sweden (b. 1927)

### March

* March 4
** Richard Manuel, Canadian musician (The Band) (b. 1943)
** Howard Greenfield, American songwriter (b. 1936)
* March 6
** Adolph Caesar, American actor (b. 1933)
** Georgia O'Keeffe, American artist (b. 1887)
** Zhu Guangqian, Chinese esthetician, modern literary theorist, and scholar (b.1897)
* March 10 – Ray Milland, Welsh-American actor and director (b. 1907)
* March 13 – Eugen Gerstenmaier, German politician, 20 July Plotter (b. 1906)
* March 15 – Miguel Darío Miranda y Gómez, Mexican Roman Catholic archbishop and cardinal (b. 1895)
* March 17 – John Bagot Glubb, British soldier (b. 1897)
* March 18 – Bernard Malamud, American writer (b. 1914)
* March 19 – Jon Lormer, American actor (b. 1906)
* March 22
** Charles Starrett, American actor (b. 1903)
** Martin Harlinghausen, German air force general (b. 1902)
* March 23
** Moshe Feinstein, Orthodox rabbi (b. 1895)
** Anastasia Zuyeva, Soviet actress (b. 1896)
* March 24 – Michael, Prince of Montenegro (b. 1908)
* March 28 – Virginia Gilmore, American actress (b. 1919)
* March 29 – Harry Ritz, American actor (b. 1907)
* March 30 – James Cagney, American actor and dancer (b. 1899)
* March 31 – Jerry Paris, American actor and director (b. 1925)

### April

* April 1 – Erik Bruhn, Danish ballet dancer and choreographer (b. 1928)
* April 3 – Sir Peter Pears, English tenor (b. 1910)
* April 7 – Leonid Kantorovich, Russian economist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1912)
* April 8 – Yukiko Okada, Japanese idol singer (b. 1967)
* April 14
** Simone de Beauvoir, French feminist writer (b. 1908)
** Jole Bovio Marconi, Italian archaeologist and prehistorian (b. 1897)
* April 15
** Jean Genet, French writer (b. 1910)
** Tim McIntire, American actor (b. 1944)
** Robert Marjolin, French economist and politician, 1st Secretary-General of the OECD (b. 1911)
* April 17
** Paul Costello, American Olympic rower – double sculls (b. 1894)
** Marcel Dassault, French aircraft industrialist (b. 1892)
** Bessie Head, South African writer (b. 1937)
* April 19 – Alvin Childress, American actor (b. 1907)
* April 20 – Aleksei Arbuzov, Soviet playwright (b. 1908)
* April 21 – Teodoro Casana Robles, Peruvian lawyer, historian, journalist, archaeologist, photographer and geographer (b. 1900)
* April 22 – Mircea Eliade, Romanian historian of religions and writer (b. 1907)
* April 23
** Harold Arlen, American music composer (b. 1905)
** Jim Laker, English cricketer (b. 1922)
** Otto Preminger, Austrian-American film director (b. 1905)
* April 24 – The Duchess of Windsor (b. 1896)
* April 26
** Broderick Crawford, American actor (b. 1911)
** Hermann Gmeiner, Austrian educator (b. 1919)
** Valery Khodemchuk, Soviet engineer, working at Chernobyl reactor 4 (b. 1951)
** Bessie Love, American actress (b. 1898)
** Dechko Uzunov, Bulgarian painter (b. 1899)
* April 27 – J. Allen Hynek, American ufologist (b. 1910)
* April 30 – Robert Stevenson, English film director (b. 1905)

### May

* May 2 – Henri Toivonen, Finnish rally car driver (b. 1956)
* May 3 – Robert Alda, American actor (b. 1914)
* May 7 – Herma Szabo, Austrian figure skater (b. 1902)
* May 9
** Herschel Bernardi, American actor (b. 1923)
** Tenzing Norgay, Nepalese sherpa (b. 1914)
* May 11
** Vladimir Pravik, Soviet firefighter (b. 1962)
** Aleksandr Akimov, Soviet engineer who was the shift supervisor during the events of the Chernobyl disaster (b. 1953)
* May 12
** Elisabeth Bergner, Austrian actress (b. 1897)
** Alicia Moreau de Justo, Argentine physician, politician, pacifist and human rights activist (b. 1885)
* May 13 – Vasily Ignatenko, Soviet firefighter who responded to the Chernobyl disaster (b. 1961)
* May 15
** Elio de Angelis, Italian race car driver (b. 1958)
** Theodore White, American writer (b. 1915)
* May 20 – Helen B. Taussig, American cardiologist (b. 1898)
* May 22 – Georgie Nokes, American child actor (b. 1936)
* May 23
** Sterling Hayden, American actor (b. 1916)
** Altiero Spinelli, Italian political theorist and European federalist (b. 1907)
* May 24 – Yakima Canutt, American actor and stuntman (b. 1895)
* May 25 – Chester Bowles, American politician (b. 1901)
* May 26 – Gian-Carlo Coppola, American film producer (b. 1963)
* May 28 – Lurene Tuttle, American actress (b. 1907)
* May 30 – Perry Ellis, American fashion designer (b. 1940)
* May 31 – James Rainwater, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1917)

### June

* June 3 – Dame Anna Neagle, English actress (b. 1904)
* June 5 – Bryan Grant, American tennis champion (b. 1909)
* June 11 – Chesley Bonestell, American painter (b. 1888)
* June 13 – Benny Goodman, American jazz musician (b. 1909)
* June 14
** Alan Jay Lerner, American lyricist (b. 1918)
** Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine writer (b. 1899)
* June 16 – Maurice Duruflé, French composer (b. 1902)
* June 17 – Kate Smith, American singer (b. 1907)
* June 19
** Len Bias, American basketball player (b. 1963)
** Coluche, stage name of Michel Colucci, French comedian and humorist (b. 1944)
* June 23 – Sir Moses Finley, British classicist (b. 1912)
* June 26 – Kunio Maekawa, Japanese architect (b. 1905)
* June 27 – Don Rogers, American football player (b. 1962)
* June 28 – Mary Anderson, American actress (b. 1897)

### July

* July 3 – Rudy Vallée, American singer, actor, and bandleader (b. 1901)
* July 4 – Oscar Zariski, Russian mathematician (b. 1899)
* July 6 – Jagjivan Ram, Indian politician (b. 1908)
* July 8 – Hyman G. Rickover, American admiral (b. 1900)
* July 13 – Joe Wirkkunen, Finnish-Canadian ice hockey coach (b. 1928)
* July 14
** Raymond Loewy, French-American industrial designer (b. 1893)
** Joseph Vogt, German classical historian (d. 1895)
* July 18
** Buddy Baer, American boxer and actor (b. 1915)
** Sir Stanley Rous, English administrator, 6th President of FIFA (b. 1895)
* July 19 – Alfredo Binda, Italian cyclist (b. 1902)
* July 22 – Floyd Gottfredson, American cartoonist (b. 1905)
* July 23 – Kazimierz Sikorski, Polish composer (d. 1895)
* July 24
** Fritz Albert Lipmann, American biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1899)
** Yoshiyuki Tsuruta, Japanese Olympic swimmer (b. 1903)
* July 25
** Ted Lyons, American baseball player (Chicago White Sox) and member of the MLB Hall of Fame (b. 1900)
** Vincente Minnelli, American film director (b. 1903)
* July 26 – W. Averell Harriman, American diplomat and politician (b. 1891)
* July 31
** Patriarch Iustin of Romania (b. 1910)
** Teddy Wilson, American jazz pianist (b. 1912)
** Chiune Sugihara, Japanese diplomat and humanitarian who saved Jewish WWII refugees (b. 1900)

### August

* August 2 – Roy Cohn, American lawyer (b. 1927)
* August 6 – Emilio Fernández, Mexican film director, actor and screenwriter (b. 1904)
* August 11 – Chuck McKinley, American tennis champion (b. 1941)
* August 19 – Hermione Baddeley, British actress (b. 1906)
* August 20 – Thad Jones, American jazz musician (b. 1923)
* August 22 – Celâl Bayar, Turkish politician, 3rd Prime Minister of Turkey and President of Turkey (b. 1883)
* August 23
** Mikhail Kuznetsov, Soviet actor (b. 1918)
** Ben C. Duniway, American judge whom served on the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 1961 until 1986 (b. 1907)
* August 24 – Harry Benjamin, American endocrinologist and sexologist (b. 1885)
* August 26 – Ted Knight, American actor (b. 1923)
* August 27 – George Nēpia, New Zealand Maori rugby player (b. 1905)
* August 31
** Jorge Alessandri, Chilean engineer, entrepreneur and politician, 27th President of Chile (b. 1896)
** Urho Kekkonen, Finnish politician, 21st Prime Minister of Finland and 8th President of Finland (b. 1900)
** Henry Moore, British sculptor (b. 1898)

### September

* September 1 – Murray Hamilton, American actor (b. 1923)
* September 3 – Vittorino Veronese, Italian lawyer and international servant, 4th Director-General of UNESCO (b. 1910)
* September 4 – Hank Greenberg, American baseball player and member of the MLB Hall of Fame (b. 1911)
* September 4 – Alexei Fofanov, Soviet major and Hero of the Soviet Union
* September 6 – Blanche Sweet, American actress (b. 1896)
* September 7 – Omar Ali Saifuddien III, Sultan of Brunei (b. 1914)
* September 11
** Jacques Henri Lartigue, French painter (b. 1894)
** Panagiotis Kanellopoulos, Greek author and politician, 164th Prime Minister of Greece (b. 1902)
** Henry DeWolf Smyth, American physicist (b. 1898)
* September 18 – Pat Phoenix, English actress (b. 1923)
* September 22 – József Asbóth, Hungarian tennis champion (b. 1917)
* September 23 – Gottfried Freiherr von Banfield, Austro-Hungarian naval aeroplane pilot in the First World War (b. 1890)
* September 25 – Nikolay Semyonov, Russian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1896)
* September 26 – Noboru Terada, Japanese Olympic swimmer (b. 1917)
* September 27 – Cliff Burton, American musician and songwriter (b. 1962)
* September 28 – Robert Helpmann, Australian actor, dancer and choreographer (b. 1909)
* September 29 – Prince Georg of Denmark (b. 1920)

### October

* October 4 – Arno von Lenski, German military officer and general (b. 1893)
* October 5
** Hal B. Wallis, American film producer (b. 1898)
** James H. Wilkinson, British mathematician (b. 1919)
* October 10 – Michele Pellegrino, Italian Roman Catholic cardinal (b. 1903)
* October 11 – Georges Dumézil, French philologist and historian (b. 1898)
* October 14 – Keenan Wynn, American actor (b. 1916)
* October 16 – Arthur Grumiaux, Belgian violinist (b. 1921)
* October 19 – Samora Machel, Mozambican military commander, politician and revolutionary, 1st President of Mozambique (b. 1933)
* October 21 – Fritz Hochwälder, Austrian author (b. 1911)
* October 22 – Albert Szent-Györgyi, Hungarian physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1893)
* October 23 – Edward Adelbert Doisy, American biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1893)
* October 25 – Forrest Tucker, American actor (b. 1919)
* October 26 – Jackson Scholz, American Olympic athlete (b. 1897)
* October 28 – Ian Marter, English actor and writer (b. 1944)
* October 31 – Robert S. Mulliken, American physicist and chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (b. 1896)

### November

* November 2 – Paul Frees, American actor, comedian (b. 1920)
* November 4 – Abdallah El-Yafi, Lebanese politician, 9th Prime Minister of Lebanon (b. 1901)
* November 5 – Claude Jutra, Canadian film director (b. 1930)
* November 6 – Elisabeth Grümmer, Alsatian soprano (b. 1911)
* November 7 – Tracy Pew, Australian musician (b. 1957)
* November 8
** Artur London, Czech statesman (b. 1915)
** Vyacheslav Molotov, Soviet politician (b. 1890)
* November 11 – Roger C. Carmel, American actor (b. 1932)
* November 15 – Alexandre Tansman, French composer and virtuoso pianist (b. 1897)
* November 16 – Siobhán McKenna, Irish actress (b. 1923)
* November 18 – Gia Carangi, American supermodel (b. 1960)
* November 21
** Jerry Colonna, American comedian (b. 1904)
** Dar Robinson, American stunt performer and actor (b. 1947)
* November 22
** Scatman Crothers, American actor, musician (b. 1910)
** Dinny Pails, Australian tennis player (b. 1921)
* November 29 – Cary Grant, English actor (b. 1904)

### December

* December 2 – Desi Arnaz, Cuban-American actor, bandleader, musician and television producer (b. 1917)
* December 8 – Anatoly Marchenko, Soviet dissident and author (b. 1938)
* December 10 – Susan Cabot, American actress (b. 1927)
* December 12 – Paul Verner, German politician (b. 1911)
* December 13
** Heather Angel, British-American actress (b. 1909)
** Ella Baker, American civil rights activist (b. 1903)
* December 14 – Antal Páger, Hungarian actor (b. 1899)
* December 15 – Serge Lifar, Soviet dancer and choreographer (b. 1905)
* December 17
** Guillermo Cano Isaza, Colombian journalist (b. 1925)
** Wanis al-Qaddafi, Libyan politician, 10th Prime Minister of Libya (b. 1924)
* December 21 – Willy Coppens, Belgian pilot (b. 1892)
* December 24
** Gardner Fox, American writer (b. 1911)
** Richard van der Riet Woolley, English astronomer (b. 1906)
* December 26 – Elsa Lanchester, British-American actress (b. 1902)
* December 29
** Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1894)
** Pietro Parente, Italian Roman Catholic cardinal (b. 1891)
** Andrei Tarkovsky, Russian filmmaker, writer, and film theorist (b. 1932)