Deaths in April 1987

The following is a list of notable deaths in April 1987.

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.

1

 * Henri Cochet, 85, French tennis player, world number one player.
 * Victor D'Amico, 82, American teaching artist, Director of the Department of Education of the Museum of Modern Art.
 * James Edward Doyle, 71, American lawyer, United States district judge.
 * Vladimir Popov, 56, Soviet animator and art director.

2

 * Tommy Davis, 52, American NFL footballer, lung cancer.
 * Trevor Hockey, 43, British footballer and Welsh international.
 * Eleanor Leacock, 64, American anthropologist and social theorist, stroke.
 * Larry Marley, 41–42, Irish member of the IRA, shot.
 * Wang Renmei, 72, Chinese actress and singer, cerebral hemorrhage.
 * Buddy Rich, 69, American jazz drummer, songwriter, conductor and bandleader, cardiac failure
 * Harry Watt, 80, Scottish documentary and feature film director.
 * Kansuke Yamamoto, 73, Japanese photographer and poet.

3

 * Robert Dalban, 83, French actor.
 * Anne Grey, 80, English actress.
 * Tom Sestak, 51, American AFL footballer, heart attack.

4

 * Agyeya, 76, Indian poet, novelist, literary critic, journalist and revolutionary.
 * C. L. Moore, 76, American science fiction and fantasy writer.
 * Michael Redstone, 84, American entrepreneur, founder of the Northeast Theater Corporation.
 * Osman Saleh Sabbe, 54–55, Eritrean-writer and political activist.
 * Le Tari, 40, American film and television actor, heart attack.
 * Chögyam Trungpa, 48, Tibetan Buddhist meditation master.

5

 * Jack Howe, 71, English international footballer.
 * Leabua Jonathan, 72, Prime Minister of Lesotho, heart attack.
 * Jan Lindblad, 54, Swedish naturalist, writer, photographer and film maker, kidney failure.
 * Tsuneko Nakazato, (Nakazato Tsune), 77, Japanese novelist, colon cancer.
 * Jim White, 67, American NFL footballer.

6

 * Vicente Cañas, 47, Spanish Christian missionary, assassinated.
 * James G. Donovan, 88, American lawyer and politician, member of U.S. House of Representatives.
 * Jean-Baptiste Doumeng, 67, French businessman and communist politician.
 * Henry Lucien de Vries, 77, Surinamese politician and entrepreneur.

7

 * Terry Carr, 50, American science fiction fan, author and editor, congestive heart failure.
 * Will Hindle, 57, American filmmaker of personal 16mm movies.
 * Charles Hope, 75, British peer and businessman.
 * John Lehmann, 79, English publisher and poet.
 * Nick De Noia, 45, American director, screenwriter and choreographer, murdered.
 * Noel F. Parrish, 77, American brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force.
 * Paul Peek, 82, American attorney and politician, Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court.
 * Walter H. Reynolds, 86, American politician, Mayor of Providence, Rhode Island.
 * Maxine Sullivan, 75, American jazz vocalist, seizure.

8

 * Tommy Abbott, 52, American actor, dancer and choreographer.
 * Terry Allen, 62, English flyweight boxer and World Champion.
 * Anni Frind, 87, German lyric soprano.
 * Andrei Getman, 83, Soviet military commander, general of the Red Army.
 * Kevin McNamara, 60, Irish Catholic academic, Archbishop of Dublin, cancer.
 * Ervin Nyiregyházi, 84, Hungarian and American pianist and composer.

9

 * James Leroy Bondsteel, 39, American soldier of the U.S. Army and Medal of Honor recipient.
 * James Bush, 79, American actor.
 * Horst Dassler, 51, German businessman, chairman of Adidas, cancer.
 * Al Dodd, 41, American NFL footballer.
 * Emil M. Mrak, 85, American food scientist and microbiologist, chancellor of the University of California.

10

 * Birgit Dressel, 26. West German heptathlete and Olympian, multiple organ failure due to long-term steroid abuse.
 * Berta Drews, 85, German stage and film actress.

11

 * Carleton F. Bryant, 94, American Vice Admiral in the U.S. Navy.
 * Erskine Caldwell, 83, American novelist and short story writer, complications of emphysema and lung cancer.
 * Netania Davrath, 55, Ukrainian-Israeli soprano opera and concert singer.
 * Rudolf Krause, 80, East German racing driver.
 * Primo Levi, 67, Italian chemist and writer and Jewish Holocaust survivor, suicide by jumping.
 * Frederick Joseph Loftus-Tottenham, 88, Irish-Major General in the British Indian Army.
 * Kent Taylor, 79, American film and television actor.
 * Hédi Váradi, 57, Hungarian actress.

12

 * Mike Von Erich, (Michael Adkisson), 23, American professional wrestler, suicide by overdose.
 * René Hardy, 76, French citizen, member of the French Resistance during World War II.
 * Akram Pahalwan, 57, Pakistani wrestler.
 * Hertha von Walther, 83, German film actress.

13

 * Dennis Allen, 35, Australian drug dealer, reported to have murdered many victims, heart failure.
 * Herbert Blumer, 87, American sociologist and NFL footballer.
 * Joe Colquhoun, 60, British comics artist, heart attack.
 * Simha Flapan, 76, Israeli historian and politician.
 * Gerry McAloon, 70, Scottish footballer, hypothermia.
 * Guido Sala, 58, Italian Grand Prix motorcycle road racer and world champion kart racer.

14

 * Brian Carlson, 54, Australian international rugby league footballer.
 * Karl Höller, 79, German composer.
 * Julius Sumner Miller, 77, American physicist and television personality, leukemia.

15

 * Orland K. Armstrong, 93, American politician, member of the U.S. House of Representatives, journalist and social activist.
 * Hans-Joachim Born, 77, German radiochemist.
 * Rachel Burrows, 74, Irish actress, broadcaster, and teacher.
 * Mickey Finn, 35, Irish fiddler.
 * Peter Benjamin Graham, 61, Australian visual artist, printer and art theorist.
 * Louis R. Lowery, 70, American Captain in the U.S. Marine Corps.
 * Press Maravich, 71, American college and professional basketball coach, prostate cancer.
 * Masatoshi Nakayama, 74, Japanese karate master.
 * Samuel Rothschild, 87, Canadian NHL ice hockey player.

16

 * Charlotte Curtis, 58, American journalist, columnist and editor at The New York Times, cancer.
 * Fateh Muhammad Panipati, 82, Pakistani Islamic scholar.
 * Bikash Roy, 70, Indian actor and filmmaker.
 * Juan Evangelista Venegas, 58, Puerto Rican boxer and Olympic medalist, skull fracture from fall.

17

 * Carlton Barrett, 36, Jamaican reggae drummer, murdered in conspiracy initiated by his wife.
 * Arthur Delaney, 59, English painter.
 * Cecil Harmsworth King, 86, English chairman of Daily Mirror Newspapers, director of the Bank of England.
 * Dick Shawn, 63, American actor and comedian, heart attack.
 * Willi Smith, 39, American fashion designer, pneumonia.
 * Cornelius Van Til, 91, Dutch-American Christian philosopher, reformed theologian and presuppositional apologist.

18

 * Eduardo Alcaraz, 72, Chilean-Mexican actor.
 * Carlos Baker, 77, American writer, biographer and former Professor of Literature.
 * Heinie Beau, 76, American jazz composer, arranger, saxophonist and clarinetist.
 * Kenneth Cook, 57, Australian journalist, television documentary maker and novelist, heart attack.
 * Hugh B. Cott, 86, British zoologist.
 * Vincent Hanley, 33, Irish radio DJ and television presenter, AIDS.
 * Jim Langton, 69, Irish hurler.
 * Joe Robb, 50, American NFL footballer.

19

 * Hugh Brannum, 77, American vocalist, arranger, composer and actor, cancer.
 * Milt Kahl, 78, American animator for the Disney Studio, pneumonia.
 * David G. Mandelbaum, 75, American anthropologist, cancer.
 * Maxwell D. Taylor, 85, American Army general and diplomat, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff.
 * Antony Tudor, 79, English dancer and choreographer.

20

 * Nicholas Acquavella, 88, American art dealer and gallerist, founder of Acquavella Galleries.
 * Con Cremin, 78, Irish diplomat, Irish U.N. representative.

21

 * Joseph Alcazar, 77, French international footballer.
 * Gustav Bergmann, 80, Austrian-American philosopher.
 * Wenike Opurum Briggs, 69, Nigerian lawyer, journalist and politician.
 * Edith Green, 77, American politician, member of U.S. House of Representatives.
 * Moosa AbdulRahman Hassan, Omani businessman, tribal leader and landlord.
 * Haruyasu Nakajima, 77, Japanese baseballer.
 * Hildrus Poindexter, 85, American bacteriologist who studied the epidemiology of tropical diseases.

22

 * Irving Ashby, 66, American jazz guitarist.
 * Margaret Ponce Israel, 57, American painter and ceramicist, traffic accident.
 * Masumi Mitsui, 99, Japanese-Canadian veteran of World War I.
 * J. Edwin Orr, 75, Irish-American Baptist Christian minister, hymn writer, professor and author.

24

 * Josephine Bell, 89, English physician and writer.
 * Larry Bethea, 30, American NFL footballer, suicide.
 * Henry Murdoch, 66, Aboriginal Australian actor and stockman.
 * Pablo Acosta Villarreal, 50, Mexican narcotics smuggler and crime boss, gunned down by Mexican Federal Police.
 * Berhanu Zerihun, 53–54, Ethiopian writer and journalist.

25

 * Blas Roca Calderio, 78, Cuban politician and Marxist theorist, President of the National Assembly of People's Power.
 * Pētõr Damberg, 78, Latvian Livonian linguist and poet.
 * Maurice Gibson, 73, Northern Irish Judge of the High Court, car bomb.
 * Charlotte May Pierstorff, 78, American girl who was shipped alive through the U.S. postal system by parcel post.

26

 * Bill Amos, 88, American college football player and coach.
 * Oliver J. Flanagan, 66, Irish Fine Gael politician, Minister for Defence.
 * Archie M. Gubbrud, 76, American politician, Governor of South Dakota, lung cancer.
 * Frederick N. Howser, 82, American politician, Attorney General of California.
 * Dudley Mason, 85, British master of the tanker SS Ohio during World War II, recipient of the George Cross.
 * John Silkin, 64, British politician and solicitor, Shadow Leader of the House of Commons.
 * Frank Szymanski, 63, American NFL footballer.
 * Amelita Ward, 63, American film actress.

27

 * John Burrows, 73, American Major League baseballer.
 * Attila Hörbiger, 91, Austrian stage and movie actor, stroke.
 * Alice Nāmakelua, 94, Hawaiian composer and performer.

28

 * Hannelore Baron, 60, German-American artist.
 * Xavier Fourcade, 60, French American contemporary art dealer.
 * Paidi Lakshmayya, 83, Indian parliamentarian, actor, writer and administrator, member of Parliament.
 * William Marchant, appr. 38, Northern Irish loyalist, shot by IRA gunmen.
 * Emil Staiger, 79, Swiss historian, writer, Germanist and Professor of German Studies.

29

 * Héctor Carmona, 61, Chilean modern pentathlete and Olympian.
 * Gus Johnson, 48, American NBA basketballer, brain cancer.
 * Helmut Laux, 70, German Nazi photographer.
 * Philip Lombardo, 78, American crime boss of the Genovese family.
 * Russ Saunders, 81, American NFL footballer.
 * Thomas Trenchard, 63, British hereditary peer, Minister of State for Defence Procurement.
 * Zachari Zachariev, 83, Bulgarian military pilot and commander.

30

 * Marc Aaronson, 36, American astronomer, observatory accident.
 * Hugh Dempster, 86, British theatre and film actor.

Unknown date

 * Arthur Lane, 76, British actor.