Deaths in 1984

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January \- February \- March \- April \- May \- June \- July \- August \- September \- October \- November \- December

← 1983 | 1984  | 1985 →

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:

* Name, age, country of citizenship at birth, subsequent country of citizenship (if applicable), reason for notability, cause of death (if known), and reference.

## Deaths in 1984

[edit]

### January

[edit]

Alfred Kastler Ray Kroc

* January 1
* Alexis Korner, British blues musician and broadcaster (b. 1928)
* Joaquín Rodríguez Ortega, 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, Hungarian-born 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

[edit]

Yuri Andropov

* 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)[1]
* 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

[edit]

William Powell Ahmed Sékou Touré

* 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)[2]
* 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)[3]
* March 30 – Karl Rahner, German Jesuit priest and theologian (b. 1904)[4]

### April

[edit]

Marvin Gaye Pyotr Kapitsa Machito

* 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)[5]
* 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

[edit]

Diana Dors Andy Kaufman Karl-August Fagerholm

* 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

[edit]

Ahmad Fuad Mohieddin Enrico Berlinguer

* 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

[edit]

Flora Robson Fred Waring

* 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 15 \- Enrique Godoy Sayán, Cuban business magnate and banker (d. 1984)[6]
* 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

[edit]

Richard Burton Truman Capote Mohammed Naguib

* 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)[7]
* Ellen Raskin, American author, The Westing Game (b.1928)
* August 9
* Christine Hargreaves, English actress (b. 1939)[8]
* Walter Tevis, American author and screenwriter (b. 1928)
* August 11
* Yosef Greenwald, Hungarian rabbi (b. 1903)[9]
* Alfred A. Knopf Sr., American publisher (b. 1892)[10]
* 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)[11]
* 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 (b. 1912)[12]

### September

[edit]

Yılmaz Güney Janet Gaynor Walter Pidgeon

* 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

[edit]

François Truffaut Indira Gandhi

* 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

[edit]

Martin Luther King Sr.

* 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

[edit]

Jeanne Cagney Peter Lawford

* December 5 – Cecil M. Harden, American politician (b. 1894)[13]
* 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, American journalist[14]
* Sam Peckinpah, American film director (b. 1925)
* December 29 – Leo Robin, American composer (b. 1900)

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Elmer Keith Papers, 1984-1986
2. ^ Pace, Eric (8 March 1984). "Martin Niemoller, Resolute Foe Of Hitler". New York Times.
3. ^ Mays, Benjamin Elijah
4. ^ Byers, Paula K.; Bourgoin, Suzanne M., eds. (2004). "Karl Rahner". Encyclopedia of World Biography. Vol. 13 (2nd ed.). Detroit, Michigan: Gale. pp. 4–5\. ISBN 978-0-7876-2553-5.
5. ^ Pearson, Richard (1984-04-08). "Frank Church Dies". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2021-01-14.
6. ^ Institute for Research in Biography (New York, N.Y.); Marquis Who's Who, Inc (1965). Who's who in Finance and Industry. [etc.] Marquis Who's Who. p. 487.
7. ^ Denis Johnston (1901-84)
8. ^ "page 14". Newspapers.com. Manchester Evening News. 14 August 1984. Retrieved 27 June 2025.
9. ^ "אדמו"ר רבי יוסף גרינוולד מפאפא". MyTzadik (in Hebrew).
10. ^ Alfred A. Knopf American publisher
11. ^ Charlie Foy, the second oldest of vaudeville's 'Seven Little...
12. ^ Conklin, Susan L. "Edward Joseph (Cichowski) York". Genesee County, New York. Retrieved 2024-09-06.
13. ^ CECIL MURRAY HARDEN
14. ^ "Peter Kihss, reporter for the New York Times". Associated Press. December 30, 1984. Retrieved July 11, 2025.

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Deaths by month

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2021|

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2017|

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2016|

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2015|

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2014|

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2013|

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2012|

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2011|

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2010|

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2009|

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2008|

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2005|

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2004|

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2003|

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2002|

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2001|

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2000|

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1999|

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1998|

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1997|

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1996|

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1995|

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1994|

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1993|

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1992|

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1991|

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1990|

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Lists of deaths by year
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