# Deaths in 1984

The following is a list of notable deaths in 1984. Entries for each day are listed alphabetically by surname. A typical entry lists information in the following sequence:

## Deaths in 1984
### January

* January 1
** Alexis Korner, British blues musician and broadcaster (b. 1928)
** Joaquín Rodríguez Ortega, known as "Cagancho", Spanish bullfighter (b. 1903)
* January 5 – Giuseppe Fava, Italian writer (b. 1925)
* January 6 – Ernest Laszlo, Hungarian-American cinematographer (b. 1898)
* January 7 – Alfred Kastler, French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1902)
* January 9 – Sir Deighton Lisle Ward, 4th Governor-General of Barbados (b. 1909)
* January 11 – Jack La Rue, American actor (b. 1902)
* January 14
** Saad Haddad, Lebanese military officer and militia leader (b. 1936)
** Ray Kroc, American entrepreneur (b. 1902)
* January 17 – George Rigaud, Argentinian actor (b. 1905)
* January 20 – Johnny Weissmuller, American swimmer and actor (b. 1904)
* January 21
** Archduke Gottfried of Austria (b. 1902)
** Jackie Wilson, American singer (b. 1934)
* January 29 – Frances Goodrich, American screenwriter (b. 1890)
* January 30 – Luke Kelly, lead singer of Irish band The Dubliners (b. 1940)
* January 31 – George Harmon Coxe, American writer (b. 1901)

### February

* February 5 – El Santo, Mexican professional wrestler and actor (b. 1917)
* February 6 – Jorge Guillén, Spanish poet (b. 1893)
* February 8
** Karel Miljon, Dutch boxer (b. 1903)
** Philippe Ariès, French medievalist and historian (b. 1914)
* February 9 – Yuri Andropov, 69, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, kidney failure.
* February 12
** Anna Anderson, Pretender to the Russian throne (b. 1896)
** Julio Cortázar, Argentine writer (b. 1914)
** Elmer Keith, American rancher, author, and firearms enthusiast (b. 1899)
* February 13
** Pierre Brambilla, French road cyclist (b. 1919)
** Naomi Uemura, Japanese adventurer (b. 1941)
* February 15 – Ethel Merman, American singer and actress (b. 1908)
* February 16 ― Kenny Williams, American game show announcer {Hollywood Squares) {b. 1914)
* February 20 – Giuseppe Colombo, Italian scientist (b. 1920)
* February 21 – Mikhail Sholokhov, Russian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1905)
* February 23 – Maurice Tabard, French photographer (b. 1897)
* February 27 – Ana Rosa Tornero, bolivian writer (b.1907)

### March

* March 1 – Jackie Coogan, American actor (b. 1914)
* March 5
** Tito Gobbi, Italian operatic baritone (b. 1913)
** William Powell, American actor (b. 1892)
* March 6
** Martin Niemöller, German theologian and Lutheran pastor (born 1892)
** Henry Wilcoxon, British actor (b. 1905)
* March 10 – June Marlowe, American actress (b. 1903)
* March 12 – Arnold Ridley, English playwright and actor (b. 1896)
* March 14 – Aurelio Peccei, Italian industrialist and philanthropist, co-founder of the Club of Rome (b. 1908)
* March 15
** Ken Carpenter, American Olympic athlete (b. 1913)
** Konstantin Badygin, Soviet Naval officer and explorer (b. 1910)
* March 18 – Paul Francis Webster, American lyricist (b. 1907)
* March 23 – Peter Kolosimo, Italian journalist and writer (b. 1922)
* March 24 – Sam Jaffe, American actor (b. 1891)
* March 26 – Ahmed Sékou Touré, Guinean politician, 1st President of Guinea (b. 1922)
* March 27 – Jack Donohue, American film screenwriter and director (b. 1908)
* March 28 – Benjamin Mays, American Baptist minister and civil rights leader (b. 1894)
* March 30 – Karl Rahner, German Jesuit priest and theologian (b. 1904)

### April

* April 1
** Marvin Gaye, 44, American singer, murdered by his father.
** Elizabeth Goudge, English writer (b. 1900)
* April 5
** Sir Arthur Harris, British air marshal (b. 1892)
** Giuseppe Tucci, Italian scholar (b. 1894)
* April 7 – Frank Church, American politician (b. 1924)
* April 8 – Pyotr Kapitsa, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1894)
* April 9 – Willem Sandberg, Dutch typographer (b. 1897)
* April 12 – Edward Sokoine, 2nd Prime Minister of Tanzania (b. 1938)
* April 15
** Tommy Cooper, Welsh comedian and magician (b. 1921)
** William Empson, English poet and critic (b. 1906)
* April 16 – Byron Haskin, American film and television director (b. 1899)
* April 17 – Mark W. Clark, American general (b. 1896)
* April 19 – Machito, Cuban jazz musician (b. 1908)
* April 20 – Otto Arosemena, 32nd President of Ecuador (b. 1925)
* April 21 – Marcel Janco, Romanian-Israeli artist (b. 1895)
* April 22 – Ansel Adams, American photographer (b. 1902)
* April 23 – Roland Penrose, English artist, historian and poet (b. 1900)
* April 26
** Count Basie, American musician and composer (b. 1904)
** May McAvoy, American actress (b. 1899)
* April 27
** Richard Durham, American radio scriptwriter and civil rights activist (b. 1917)
* April 30 – Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, Colombian lawyer and politician (b. 1946)

### May

* May 2
** Jack Barry, American game show host (The Joker's Wild) (b. 1918), heart attack.
** Bob Clampett, American cartoonist (b. 1913)
* May 4 – Diana Dors, English actress (b. 1931)
* May 15 – Lionel Robbins, British economist (b. 1898)
* May 16
** Andy Kaufman, American comedian (b. 1949)
** Irwin Shaw, American author (b. 1913)
* May 19 – Sir John Betjeman, English diplomat and poet (b. 1906)
* May 20 – Ólafur Jóhannesson, 15th Prime Minister of Iceland (b. 1913)
* May 21
** Andrea Leeds, American actress (b. 1914)
** Ann Little, American actress (b. 1891)
* May 22
** Rambai Barni, Queen consort of King Prajadhipok of Thailand (b. 1904)
** Karl-August Fagerholm, 20th Prime Minister of Finland (b. 1901)
** John Marley, American actor (b. 1907)
* May 24 – Vincent J. McMahon, American professional wrestling promoter (b. 1914)
* May 28
** Eric Morecambe, British comedian (b. 1926)
** D'Urville Martin, American actor and director (b. 1939)

### June

* June 2 – François de Menthon, French politician and professor of law (b. 1900).
* June 5 – Ahmad Fuad Mohieddin, 42nd Prime Minister of Egypt (b. 1926)
* June 6 – Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, Sikh theologian (b. 1947)
* June 11 – Enrico Berlinguer, General Secretary of the Italian Communist Party (b. 1922)
* June 15
** Ned Glass, American actor (b. 1906)
** Meredith Willson, American composer (b. 1902)
* June 19 – Lee Krasner, American painter (b. 1908)
* June 20 – Estelle Winwood, English actress (b. 1883)
* June 22 – Joseph Losey, American film director (b. 1909)
* June 24 – William Keighley, American film director (b. 1889)
* June 25 – Michel Foucault, French philosopher (b. 1926)
* June 26 – Carl Foreman, American screenwriter (b. 1914)
* June 28
** Yigael Yadin, Israeli archeologist, politician and Military Chief of Staff (b. 1917)
** Claude Chevalley, French mathematician (b. 1909)
* June 30
** Henri Fabre, French aviator & inventor (b. 1882)
** Lillian Hellman, American playwright (b. 1905)

### July

* July 1 – Moshé Feldenkrais, Ukrainian founder of the Feldenkrais Method (b. 1904)
* July 3 – Raoul Salan, French general (b. 1899)
* July 4 – Starke R. Hathaway, American psychologist (b. 1903)
* July 7 – Dame Flora Robson, English actress (b. 1902)
* July 8
** Brassaï, Hungarian-French photographer (b. 1899)
** Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz, Spanish historian and politician (b. 1893)
* July 14 - Philippe Wynne, American singer (b. 1941)
* July 16 – Karl Wolff, German Nazi SS Officer (b. 1900)
* July 19 – Faina Ranevskaya, Soviet and Russian actress (b. 1896)
* July 25 – Big Mama Thornton, American singer (b. 1926)
* July 26 – George Gallup, American statistician and opinion pollster (b. 1901)
* July 27 – James Mason, English actor (b. 1909)
* July 28 – Bess Flowers, American actress (b. 1898)
* July 29 – Fred Waring, American bandleader, choral director, radio and television personality (b. 1900)

### August

* August 2 – Quirino Cristiani, Argentine animated film director (b. 1896)
* August 4
** Walter Burke, American actor (b. 1908)
** Mary Miles Minter, American actress (b. 1902)
* August 5 – Richard Burton, Welsh actor (b. 1925)
* August 8
** Richard Deacon, American actor (b. 1922)
** Denis Johnston, Irish playwright (b. 1901)
** Ellen Raskin, American author, The Westing Game (b.1928)
* August 9 – Walter Tevis, American author and screenwriter (b. 1928)
* August 11
** Alfred A. Knopf Sr., American publisher (b. 1892)
** Paul Felix Schmidt, Estonian–German chess player (b. 1916)
* August 13
** Clyde Cook, Australian actor (b. 1891)
** Tigran Petrosian, Georgian chess player (b. 1929)
* August 14 – J. B. Priestley, British novelist and playwright (b. 1894)
* August 22 – Charley Foy, American actor (b. 1898)
* August 25
** Truman Capote, American writer (b. 1924)
** Viktor Chukarin, Russian Olympic gymnast (b. 1921)
** Henry Lynn, Polish-born American film director, screenwriter, and producer (b. 1895)
* August 28 – Mohammed Naguib, 30th Prime Minister of Egypt and 1st President of Egypt (b. 1901)
* August 29 – Pierre Gemayel, Lebanese politician, founder of the Kataeb Party (b. 1905)
* August 31 – Edward J. York, American air force colonel, participant of the Doolittle Raid during World War II (b. 1912)

### September

* September 1 – Madeleine de Bourbon-Busset, Duchess of Parma (b. 1898)
* September 5
** Adam Malik, 3rd Vice President of Indonesia (b. 1917)
** Jane Roberts, American writer (b. 1929)
* September 6 – Ernest Tubb, American singer (b. 1914)
* September 7 – Joe Cronin, American baseball player (b. 1906)
* September 9 – Yılmaz Güney, Palme d'Or award-winning Kurdish film director, scenarist, actor, novelist and activist (b. 1937)
* September 12 – Yvon Petra, French tennis player (b. 1916)
* September 14
** Richard Brautigan, American author (b. 1935)
** Janet Gaynor, American actress (b. 1906)
* September 17 – Richard Basehart, American actor (b. 1914)
* September 20 – Steve Goodman, American folk musician and songwriter (b. 1948)
* September 24 – Neil Hamilton, American actor (b. 1899)
* September 25 – Walter Pidgeon, Canadian actor (b. 1897)

### October

* October 1
** Walter Alston, American baseball player and manager (b. 1911)
** Blagoje Marjanović, Yugoslav football player and manager (b. 1907)
* October 4 – Bernhard, Prince of Saxe-Meiningen (b. 1901)
* October 5 – Leonard Rossiter, British actor (b. 1926)
* October 6 – George Gaylord Simpson, American paleontologist (b. 1902)
* October 9 – Heinz von Cleve, German actor (b. 1897)
* October 14 – Sir Martin Ryle, English radio astronomer, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics (b. 1918)
* October 16 – Peggy Ann Garner, American actress (b. 1932)
* October 17 – Alberta Hunter, American singer (b. 1895)
* October 18 – Jon-Erik Hexum, American actor (b. 1957)
* October 19
** Jin Yuelin, Chinese philosopher (b. 1895)
** Henri Michaux, Belgian writer and painter (b. 1899)
** Jerzy Popiełuszko, Polish Roman Catholic priest (b. 1947)
* October 20
** Carl Ferdinand Cori, Czech-American biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1896)
** Paul Dirac, British physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1902)
* October 21 – François Truffaut, French film director (b. 1932)
* October 23 – Oskar Werner, Austrian actor (b. 1922)
* October 25 – Pascale Ogier, French actress (b. 1958)
* October 30 – June Duprez, English actress (b. 1918)
* October 31
** Eduardo De Filippo, Italian actor (b. 1900)
** Indira Gandhi, Indian politician and political figure, 3rd Prime Minister of India (b. 1917)

### November

* November 11 – Martin Luther King Sr., American Baptist pastor, missionary, and figure in the civil rights movement (b. 1899)
* November 16
** Vic Dickenson, American trombonist (b. 1906)
** Leonard Rose, American cellist (leukemia) (b. 1918)
* November 20
** Trygve Bratteli, Norwegian politician, 19th Prime Minister of Norway (b. 1910)
** Carlo Campanini, Italian actor (b. 1906)

### December

* December 5 – Cecil M. Harden, American politician (b. 1894)
* December 7
** Jeanne Cagney, American actress (b. 1919)
** Jack Mercer, American voice artist (b. 1910)
* December 8 – Luther Adler, American actor (b. 1903)
* December 11 – George Waggner, American film director (b. 1894)
* December 14 – Vicente Aleixandre, Spanish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1898)
* December 15 – Jan Peerce, American tenor (b. 1904)
* December 20
** Stanley Milgram, American psychologist (b. 1933)
** Dmitriy Ustinov, Soviet Army officer and Minister of Defense (b. 1908)
* December 24
** Ian Hendry, English actor (b. 1931)
** Peter Lawford, English-American actor and socialite (b. 1923)
* December 28
** Peter Kihss, an American journalist at The New York Times.
** Sam Peckinpah, American film director (b. 1925)
* December 29 – Leo Robin, American composer (b. 1900)