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

January



 * January 1 – Alexis Korner, British blues musician and broadcaster (b. 1928)
 * 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, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (b. 1914)
 * February 12
 * Anna Anderson, Pretender to the Russian throne (b. 1896)
 * Julio Cortázar, Argentine writer (b. 1914)
 * 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)

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, American singer (b. 1939)
 * 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 5 – Ahmad Fuad Mohieddin, 42nd Prime Minister of Egypt (b. 1926)
 * June 6 – Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, Sikh theologian, Most powerful Sikh leader of the 20th century (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 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 17 – 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)

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)
 * Ellen Raskin, 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)

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, Turkish film director (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 an early 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 – Sam Peckinpah, American film director (b. 1925)
 * December 29 – Leo Robin, American composer (b. 1900)