Deaths in 1986

	Contents
January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December
← 1985	1986	1987 →

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:

• 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 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)
• 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)^[1]
  • 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 famous 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)
• 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 danseur 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)
• 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)
  • Bessie Love, American actress (b. 1898)
  • Hermann Gmeiner, Austrian educator (b. 1919)
  • Valery Khodemchuk, Soviet engineer, working at Chernobyl reactor 4 (b. 1951)
• April 27 – J. Allen Hynek, American ufologist (b. 1910)
• 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)
• 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 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
  • 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)
• August 24 – Harry Benjamin, American endocrinologist and sexologist (b. 1885)^[2]
• 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)
• MLB Hall of Fame (b. 1911
  )
• 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)
• 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)
• 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)
  • 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)
  • Roman Catholic cardinal (b. 1891
    )
  • Andrei Tarkovsky, Russian filmmaker, writer, and film theorist (b. 1932)

References