Deaths in August 1987

The following is a list of notable deaths in August 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

 * Benson Fong, 70, American actor, stroke.
 * Howdy Forrester, 65, American bluegrass fiddler.
 * S. Marshall Kempner, 88, American investment banker, founder of the French Bank of California.
 * Pola Negri, 90, Polish-American stage and film actress and singer, pneumonia secondary to a brain tumour.

2

 * Mohammad Choucair, 70, Lebanese politician, assassinated.
 * Abu Sayeed Chowdhury, 66, President of Bangladesh, Chairman of U.N. Commission on Human Rights, heart attack.
 * Tom Doerr, 39–40, American gay activist.
 * Jaime Ferrer, 70, Filipino lawyer, guerrilla and politician, Secretary of Local Government, assassinated.
 * Clement Howell, 51, Turks and Caicos politician, aircraft disappearance and presumed crash.
 * David N. Johnson, 65, American organist, composer and choral clinician.
 * Nandadasa Kodagoda, 67, Sri Lankan medical doctor, Vice Chancellor of the University of Colombo.
 * David A. Martin, 50, American founding member and original bass player for the rock group Sam the Sham, heart attack.
 * Mangkunegara VIII, 62, Indonesian politician, last ruler of Mangkunegaran, Java.
 * Myron Stout, 78–79, American abstract painter, lung cancer.
 * Yves Volel, 52–53, Haitian lawyer, activist and presidential candidate, assassinated.

3

 * Garrick Agnew, 56, Australian competition swimmer, businessman and dual Olympian, heart attack.
 * Edward Cowart, 62, American circuit judge, heart attack.
 * Joseph Desch, 80, American electrical engineer and inventor.
 * Dorothy Hammerstein, 88, Australian-American interior designer and decorator, wife of Oscar Hammerstein II.
 * William S. Moorhead, 64, American politician, member of U.S. House of Representatives, lung cancer.
 * Ivan Mykolaichuk, 46, Ukrainian actor, producer and screen writer.
 * Ivan Svanidze, 59, German-Soviet academic specialising in agriculture and African Studies.

4

 * Dick Farney, 65, Brazilian jazz pianist, composer and singer.
 * Kenny Price, 56, American country music singer, songwriter and actor, heart attack.
 * Jesse M. Unruh, 64, American politician, minority leader and speaker of the California Assembly, prostate cancer.
 * John W. Wydler, 63, American politician, member of U.S. House of Representatives.

5

 * Anatoli Papanov, 64, Soviet stage, film and voice actor, heart attack.
 * Salvador Flores Rivera, 67, Mexican composer and singer.
 * Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, 59, Japanese novelist, art critic and translator of French literature, ruptured carotid aneurysm.

6

 * Abbas Babaei, 36, Iranian pilot, brigadier-general in Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force during Iran-Iraq War, shot down.
 * Sherwood Bailey, 64, American child actor and civil engineer, cancer.
 * Paula Bauersmith, 78, American actress, cancer.
 * Ira C. Eaker, 91, U.S. Army Air Forces general during World War II.
 * Lena Küchler-Silberman, 77, Polish member of the Jewish resistance.
 * Myles Lane, 83, American NHL ice hockey player.
 * Léon Noël, 99, French diplomat, politician and historian.

7

 * Mihailo Apostolski, 80, Macedonian general, politician and historian.
 * Jeanne Boitel, 83, French film actress.
 * Camille Chamoun, 87, President of Lebanon, heart attack.
 * Andrew D. Holt, 82, American educator, president of the University of Tennessee.
 * Nobusuke Kishi, 90, Japanese politician, Prime Minister of Japan.
 * Jaap van Praag, 77, Dutch football administrator, chairman AFC Ajax, traffic accident.

8

 * Danilo Blanuša, 83, Yugoslavian mathematician, physicist and engineer, professor at the University of Zagreb.
 * Julián Gorkin, 86, Spanish revolutionary socialist.
 * Laurence Hyde, 73, English-Canadian film maker, painter and graphic artist.
 * Nirmal Mahto, 36, Indian political activist, murdered.
 * Trevor O'Keeffe, 18–19, Irish man murdered while hitchhiking in France.
 * Irwin Schiff, 50, New York City businessman and mob associate, murdered.

9

 * Rudolf Broby-Johansen, 86, Danish art historian, communist activist and writer.
 * Leon Keyserling, 79, American economist and lawyer, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.
 * August Miete, 78, Nazi German SS functionary, sentenced to life imprisonment.
 * Henry Morgan, 80, Irish first-class cricketer.

10

 * Georgios Athanasiadis-Novas, 94, Greek poet, lawyer and politician, Prime Minister of Greece.
 * Casey Donovan, 43, American pornographic actor, AIDS-related pulmonary infection.
 * Edmund Germer, 85, German inventor, father of the fluorescent lamp.
 * Uys Krige, 77, South African writer of novels, short stories, poems and plays.
 * Patrick O'Boyle, 91, American Roman Catholic prelate.
 * Prince Yamashina Takehiko, 89, Japanese head of the Yamashina-no-miya.
 * Raquel Torres, 78, Mexican-American film actress, heart attack.

11

 * Eugene Bordinat, 67, American automobile designer and corporate executive.
 * Živko Čingo, 51, Yugoslavian writer.
 * F. Herrick Herrick, 85, American film director and philatelist.
 * Walter Herrmann, 76, German nuclear physicist and mechanical engineer.
 * Clara Peller, 85, Russian-American manicurist and television personality, congestive heart failure.
 * Alexander Ziegler, 43, Swiss author and actor, suicide.

12

 * Crystal Bennett, 68, British archaeologist.
 * Lester Gaba, 80, American sculptor and writer, colon cancer.
 * Dmitri Klebanov, 69, Ukrainian composer.
 * Sally Long, 85, American dancer and actress.
 * Fatime Sokoli, 39, Albanian folk music singer.

13

 * Thomas B. Manuel, 88, American community leader and politician, heart attack.

14

 * Sydney Bromley, 78, English actor, cancer.
 * Bernard Fagg, 71, British archaeologist and museum curator.
 * Mary-Louise Hooper, 80, American heiress and activist in the civil rights and anti-apartheid movements.
 * Narayana Kasturi, 89, Indian writer, professor and journalist.
 * Brewster Mason, 64, English stage, film and television actor, injuries from a fall.
 * Vincent Persichetti, 72, American composer and pianist.
 * Edgar Rosenberg, 61, German-British film and television producer, suicide by overdose.
 * Shigeo Sasaki, 74, Japanese mathematician working on differential geometry Sasakian manifolds.

15

 * Konstantin Aleksandrov, 67, Soviet sailor and Olympian.
 * Hanna Greally, 63, Irish writer.
 * Ubaldo Ragona, 70, Italian film director and screenwriter.
 * Dan Sandifer, 60, American NFL player, heart disease.
 * Robert Leonard Ewing Scott, 90, American convicted murderer.
 * Louis Scutenaire, 82, Belgian French-language poet and anarchist.
 * K. K. Shetty, 86, Indian politician, Member of Parliament.

16

 * Pepe Cáceres, 52, Colombian bullfighter.
 * Dorothy Hughes, 77, English-Kenyan architect, politician, social reformer and disability activist.
 * Sumiko Kurishima, 85, Japanese actress, master of traditional Japanese dance.
 * Samuel Lubell, 75, American public opinion pollster, journalist and author, stroke.
 * Edwin Barnard Martin, 68, Canadian member of the British Free Corps in Nazi Germany.
 * Andrei Mironov, 46, Soviet stage and film actor, complications from wrongly administered drug.
 * Peter Schidlof, 65, Austrian-British violist, co-founder of the Amadeus Quartet.
 * Nick Vanos, 24, American NBA basketballer, plane crash.
 * Charles H. Wesley, 95, American historian, minister and author.

17

 * Leon Berkowitz, 75, American artist.
 * Frank Beswick, 75, British politician, deputy leader of the House of Lords.
 * Clarence Brown, 97, American film director, kidney failure.
 * Gary Chester, 62, American studio drummer and author.
 * Carlos Drummond de Andrade, 84, Brazilian poet and writer.
 * Rudolf Hess, 93, German Nazi official, Deputy Führer, ostensibly suicide by hanging.
 * Harold McCluskey, 75, American chemical operations technician and radiation survivor, coronary artery disease.
 * Shaike Ophir, 58, Israeli film and theatre actor, comedian, playwright, screenwriter and director, lung cancer.
 * Antti Rantamaa, 52, Finnish priest, member of Finnish Parliament and author.
 * Tjilik Riwut,.
 * Heinz Schubert, 73, German SS officer during World War II.
 * Tillit Sidney Teddlie, 102, American singing teacher, composer, publisher and minister.

18

 * Keerthisena Abeywickrama, 53, Sri Lankan politician, member of parliament, grenade attack.
 * Shichirō Fukazawa, 73, Japanese author and guitarist.
 * Ralph Haver, 71–72, American architect (Haver Homes).
 * Dambudzo Marechera, 35, Zimbabwean novelist, short story writer, playwright and poet, AIDS-related pulmonary disorder.

19

 * Michael Bowes-Lyon, 58, British nobleman and peer.
 * Laxmi Narayan Mishra, 83, Indian Hindi play writer.
 * Sachin Nag, 67, Indian swimmer and water polo player, Olympian.
 * Hayden Rorke, 76, American actor, played Colonel Alfred Bellows in I Dream of Jeannie, multiple myeloma.
 * Paul Schlack, 89, German chemist.
 * Harold Sherman, 89, American writer and \"parapsychologist\".
 * Yidnekatchew Tessema, 65, Ethiopian international footballer.

20

 * Winifred Bryson, 94, American stage and silent-screen actress.
 * José Bueno y Monreal, 82, Spanish cardinal, Roman Catholic archbishop of Seville.

21

 * Frances Mary Albrier, 88, American civil rights activist.
 * Bombolo, 56, Italian actor and comedian.
 * Dorothy Adlington Cadbury, 94, English botanist and director of confectionery company Cadbury.
 * Steve Davis, 58, American jazz bassist (John Coltrane Quartet).
 * Li Fang-Kuei, 85, Chinese linguist.
 * Angelo Francesco Lavagnino, 78, Italian composer of film scores.
 * Glesca Marshall, 80, American actress.
 * Irving Thalberg Jr., 56, American author, son of actress Norma Shearer, cancer.

22

 * Arne Brustad, 75, Norwegian international footballer.
 * Leonard Caston, 70, American blues pianist and guitarist, heart disease.
 * Mary Dobkin, 84, American amateur sports coach, stroke.
 * Joseph P. Lash, 77, American radical political activist, journalist and writer.
 * Ted Sherdeman, 78, American radio producer, television writer and screenwriter (My Favorite Martian, The Flying Nun, Bewitched).
 * John Milton Bryan Simpson, 84, American circuit judge.

23

 * Griselda Allan, 81, English artist.
 * Siegfried Borris, 80, German composer.
 * Thomas D'Alesandro Jr., 84, American politician, mayor of Baltimore, member of U.S. House of Representatives.
 * Sheila van Damm, 65, British motor rally driver, owner of Windmill Theatre in London.
 * Malcolm Kirk, 51, English professional wrestler, died in the ring.
 * Paulo Navalho, 20, Angolan-Portuguese footballer, acute myocardial infarction during a game.
 * Didier Pironi, 35, French racing driver and power boat racer, powerboat racing accident.
 * Stéphanos I Sidarouss, 83, Egyptian priest of the Coptic Catholic Church.

24

 * Michèle Alfa, 76, French stage and film actress, hider of leaders of the French Resistance.
 * Douglas Byng, 94, English comic singer and songwriter.
 * Carlos Cossio, 84, Argentinian militant university reformer, jurist, lawyer, legal philosopher and professor.
 * Wayne Hansen, 58, American NFL footballer, bone cancer.
 * W. W. Keeler, 79, American engineer and oilman, principal chief of the Cherokee Nation.
 * Bayard Rustin, 75, American civil and gay rights activist, perforated appendix.

25

 * Héctor Abad Gómez, 66, Colombian medical doctor, university professor and human rights leader.
 * Otto Höfler, 86, Austrian philologist specialising in Germanic studies.
 * Sam Kahn, 75, South African politician, member of parliament.
 * John Ortell Kingston, 68, American Trustee of the Davis County Cooperative Society in Davis County, Utah.
 * Victor Stafford Reid, 74, Jamaican writer.
 * Fernando Ramos da Silva, 19, Brazilian actor, police shootout.

26

 * Vern Gardner, 62, American basketballer, stroke.
 * John Goddard, 68, Barbadian cricketer, captain of West Indies Test team.
 * Marcelo Ramos Motta, 56, Brazilian writer, heart attack.
 * Alberto Socarras, 78, Cuban-American flautist.
 * Georg Wittig, 90, German chemist, Nobel laureate in Chemistry.

27

 * Ben Branch, 59, American entrepreneur, jazz tenor saxophonist and bandleader.
 * Joan Haythorne, 72, British actress.
 * Scott La Rock, 25, American hip-hop disc jockey and music producer, murdered.
 * Peter Mehringer, 77, American freestyle wrestler and Olympic gold medalist.
 * Charlie Smalls, 43, American composer and songwriter, burst appendix.

28

 * Lillian Chase, 93, Canadian physician, researcher in the treatment of diabetes.
 * John Huston, 81, American film director, screenwriter and actor, pneumonia as a complication of lung disease.
 * Hoàng Cơ Minh, 52, Vietnamese Navy commodore-admiral, leader of anti-communist resistance.
 * Harold Samuel, 75, British founder of Land Securities.
 * Jack Young, 62, Australian motorcycle speedway rider, Speedway World Champion.

29

 * Naji al-Ali, 48–49, Palestinian cartoonist, assassinated.
 * Archie Campbell, 72, American comedian and writer, heart attack.
 * Bernadene Hayes, 75, American film and television actress (Some Like It Hot, Dick Tracy's Dilemma.
 * Lee Marvin, 63, American film and television actor (The Dirty Dozen, The Big Heat), heart attack.
 * John R. Napier, 70, British primatologist, paleoanthropologist and physician.
 * Jean Schlumberger, 80, French jewellery designer.
 * Phillip Hagar Smith, 82, American electrical engineer (Smith chart).

30

 * Wade H. McCree, 67, American legal scholar and judge, Solicitor General of the United States, bone cancer.
 * George Mikes, 75, Hungarian-British journalist, humorist and writer.
 * Vic Silayan, 58, Filipino actor, heart attack.
 * John C. Sjogren, 71, American soldier in the United States Army, Medal of Honor recipient.
 * Frank Stojack, 75, Canadian-NFL footballer and wrestler, world light-heavyweight champion, Alzheimer's disease.
 * Dick Young, 69, American sportswriter.

31

 * Thomas Agro, 55, American gangster with the Gambino crime family.
 * Lenore Lonergan, 59, American stage and film actress, cancer.

Unknown date

 * Wylie Sypher, 81, American non-fiction writer.