Deaths in February 1987

The following is a list of notable deaths in February 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

 * Alessandro Blasetti, 86, Italian film director and screenwriter, complications from fall.
 * Christian Broda, 70, Austrian lawyer and politician, Minister of Justice, heart attack.
 * Sala Burton, 61, Polish-American politician, member of U.S. House of Representatives, colon cancer.
 * Salvadora Debayle, 91, First Lady of Nicaragua.
 * Gustav Knuth, 85, German film actor.
 * Lee Aubrey "Speed" Riggs, 79, American tobacco auctioneer, voice of Lucky Strike cigarettes, heart failure.

2

 * Carlos José Castilho, 59, Brazilian international footballer (Fluminense, Brazil), suicide.
 * Walter Clutterbuck, 92, English Major General in the British Army.
 * Yakov Estrin, 63, Soviet chess player, ICCF World Champion.
 * Spike Hughes, 78, British musician and composer.
 * Alfred Lion, 78, German-American record executive, co-founded Blue Note Records, heart failure.
 * Olive Little, 69, American baseballer in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.
 * Alistair MacLean, 64, Scottish novelist of thrillers and adventure stories (The Guns of Navarone),, heart failure.
 * David du Plessis, 81, South African-American Pentecostal minister.
 * Ken Reid, 67, British comic artist and writer, co-creator of Roger the Dodger, stroke.

3

 * Donald Aronow, 59, American speedboat designer, builder and racer, murdered.
 * Mustafa Bouyali, 46–47, leader of the Algerian Islamic Armed Movement, killed in an ambush.
 * Theodore Cogswell, 68, American science fiction author.
 * Nobuhito, Prince Takamatsu, 82, younger brother of Japanese Emperor Hirohito, lung cancer.
 * George Derwent Thomson, 83–84, British classical scholar and Marxist philosopher.

4

 * Bruce Jacobi, 51, American race car driver, racing accident.
 * Meena Keshwar Kamal, 30, Afghan revolutionary political and women's rights activist, assassinated.
 * Liberace, 67, American pianist, singer and actor, pneumonia.
 * Fyfe Robertson, 84, Scottish television journalist and broadcaster.
 * Carl Rogers, 85, American psychologist, heart attack after fall.
 * Wynford Vaughan-Thomas, 78, Welsh newspaper journalist, radio and television broadcaster.
 * Patrick Waddington, 85, English actor.
 * George W. Woodruff, 91, American engineer and businessman, pneumonia.

5

 * E. Michael Burke, 70, American navy officer, circus manager and Major League Baseball executive, cancer.
 * William Collier Jr., 84, American stage performer, producer and film actor.
 * Klāvs Elsbergs, 28, Latvian poet and translator, fall from building.
 * David Ensor, 80, British actor and politician, Member of Parliament.
 * Armando Fosco, 64, American leader of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
 * Gustav Lechner, 73, Austro-Hungarian–born Yugoslavian international footballer (Beograd, Yugoslavia).
 * Otto Wöhler, 92, Nazi German general, convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

6

 * Lalithambika Antharjanam, 77, Indian author.
 * Julien Chouinard, 58, Canadian lawyer and Puisne Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, brain cancer.
 * Donald MacCrimmon MacKay, 64, British physicist and professor.
 * K. C. Nag, 93, Indian Bengali mathematician and author of mathematics textbooks.

7

 * John Leypoldt, 40, American NFL footballer (Buffalo Bills), dysentery.
 * Bennetto Payne, 77, Mexican professional boxer.
 * Stuart T. Saunders, 77, American railroad executive, heart failure.
 * Claudio Villa, 61, Italian singer and actor, heart attack.
 * Adriaan van Wijngaarden, 70, Dutch mathematician and computer scientist.

8

 * Tony Destra, 32, American drummer, car accident.
 * Hendrik Koekoek, 74, Dutch farmer, politician and founder of the defunct Farmers' Party.
 * Elsie Lee, 75, American author of fiction and non-fiction.
 * Harriet MacGibbon, 81, American actress (The Beverly Hillbillies).
 * Max Seydewitz, 94, German politician, Minister-President of Saxony.
 * Bronisława Wajs, 78, Polish-Romani classic poet and singer.

9

 * Larry French, 79, American Major League baseballer (Chicago Cubs, Pittsburgh Pirates), kidney and heart disease.
 * Louis Plack Hammett, 92, American physical chemist (Hammett equation).
 * Edna Manley, 86, Jamaican artist.

10

 * Angela Giussani, 64, Italian co-writer of comic book anti-hero series, Diabolik.
 * Robert O'Brien, 78, American racing driver.
 * William Rose, 68, American screenwriter (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner).
 * Hans Rosenthal, 61, German director and radio & television host.
 * Sadequain, 56, Pakistani artist and poet.
 * John Raymond Ylitalo, 70, American diplomat, U.S. Ambassador to Paraguay, cancer.

11

 * Mark Ashton, 26, British gay rights activist, pneumonia.
 * Edith Gyömrői Ludowyk, 90, Hungarian-psychotherapist, poet and communist militant.
 * Andy Linden, 64, American race car driver.
 * John Malachi, 67, American jazz pianist.
 * Bill McGee, 77, American Major League baseballer (St. Louis Cardinals).

12

 * Jules Bergman, 57, American broadcast writer and journalist, science editor for ABC News.
 * Lang Jeffries, 56, Canadian-American television and film actor, cancer.
 * Dennis Poore, 70, British entrepreneur, financier and racing driver.

13

 * M. Bhaktavatsalam, 89, Indian independence activist and politician, Chief Minister of Madras State.
 * Dorothy Dean, 54, American writer and actress, cancer.
 * Dhumal, 72, Indian actor in Bollywood films, heart attack.
 * Curly Page, 84, New Zealand Test cricketer and international rugby union player.

14

 * Rolf Dahlgren, 54, Swedish-Danish botanist and professor, car crash.
 * Kulada Charan Das Gupta, 87, Indian judge of the Supreme Court of India.
 * Wendy Holcombe, 23, American banjo player and singer, congenital heart defect.
 * Dmitry Kabalevsky, 82, Soviet composer, conductor and pianist.
 * Karolos Koun, 78, Greek theater director, heart attack.
 * Tsai Lan-chin, 22, Taiwanese singer and songwriter, heart attack.
 * Bola Sete, 63, Brazilian jazz guitarist, pneumonia and lung cancer.

15

 * Jimmy Holiday, 52, American R&B singer and songwriter, heart failure.
 * John Myhill, 63, British mathematician (Myhill–Nerode theorem).

16

 * Norman Crowther Hunt, Baron Crowther-Hunt, 66, British scholar politician, Minister of State, heart attack.

17

 * Leo Anchóriz, 54, Spanish actor and writer, cardiac disease.
 * T. M. Chummar, 87, Indian academic and writer of Malayalam literature.
 * Hal K. Dawson, 90, American actor.
 * Hubert Howard, 79, English intelligence officer.
 * Frank Kurtis, 79, American racing car designer.
 * Diederick Charles Mathew, 58, Aruban politician and teacher, deputy commissioner for Aruba.
 * Husayn Muruwwa, appr. 77, Lebanese Marxist philosopher, journalist, author and literary critic, assassinated.
 * Romola Remus, 86, American actress.
 * Verree Teasdale, 83, American actress.

18

 * William Coldstream, 78, English realist painter and art teacher.
 * Bryce Harlow, 70, American army officer, advisor to U.S. presidents and corporate lobbyist.
 * Boris Kowerda, 79, Soviet White émigré, monarchist, diplomat and convicted murderer.

19

 * Hugh Greene, 76, British television executive and journalist, director-general of the BBC, cancer.
 * Henry-Russell Hitchcock, 83, American architectural historian and professor, cancer.
 * Robert E. Kuttner, 59, American biologist and white supremacist.
 * Kirsten Walther, 53, Danish actress, heart failure.

20

 * Wayne Boring, 81, American comic book artist, known for his work on Superman, heart attack.
 * Caesar Gatimu, 65, Kenyan Roman Catholic Bishop of Nyeri.
 * Edgar P. Jacobs, 82, Belgian comic book creator.
 * Joseph Parecattil, 74, Indian Roman Catholic prelate, Archbishop of Ernakulam.
 * Lev Russov, 61, Soviet painter, graphic artist and sculptor, heart disease.
 * AKM Samsuzzoha, appr. 62, Bangladeshi politician, member of parliament.
 * C. C. Wei, 72, Chinese-American contract bridge player, complications from diabetes.
 * Willi Welscher, 80, German hurdler and Olympian.

21

 * William T. Fairbourn, 72, American Major General of the U.S. Marine Corps.
 * Petro Grigorenko, 79, Ukrainian-Major General in the Soviet Army, founder of human rights movement in the Soviet Union.
 * Helen Taft Manning, 95, American professor of history, daughter or President William Taft, pneumonia.
 * Noel Odell, 96, English geologist and mountaineer.
 * George Tibbles, 73, American composer and screenwriter.
 * Meir Ya'ari, 89, Israeli politician, educator and social activist.

22

 * Naomi Drake, 80, American Registrar of the Bureau of Vital Statistics for New Orleans.
 * Habib Painter, 72, Indian Qawwal and a folk singer.
 * John Paul Scott, 60, American criminal, only escapee from Alcatraz prison to have reached San Francisco shore by swimming.
 * David Susskind, 66, American producer of TV, movies and stage plays, TV talk show host, heart attack.
 * Andy Warhol, 58, American artist, director and writer, sudden post-operative irregular heartbeat.
 * Glenway Wescott, 85, American poet and novelist, stroke.

23

 * José Afonso, 57, Portuguese singer-songwriter, teacher and activist, sclerosis.
 * Cyril Butcher, 77, English actor and director.
 * John Counsell, 81, English actor, director and theatre manager.
 * Jack Heinz, 78, American business executive and CEO of the H. J. Heinz Company, cancer.
 * Esmond Knight, 80, English actor, heart attack.
 * Edward Lansdale, 79, American Major General of the U.S. Air Force, heart ailment.
 * George Musulin, 72, Serbian-American army officer of the OSS, CIA operative, complications of diabetes.
 * Polly Ward, 74, British singer and actress.

24

 * Kakai Kilonzo, 32–33, Kenyan musician.
 * Edwin McArthur, 79, American classical music conductor, pianist and accompanist.

25

 * William G. Barr, 67, American businessman and politician, member of the Illinois House of Representatives.
 * S. H. Bihari, 66, Indian lyricist, songwriter and poet.
 * James Coco, 56, American stage and screen actor, heart attack.
 * John Collin, 58, British actor.
 * Arthur A. Collins, 77, American radio engineer and entrepreneur.
 * Jess Larson, 82, American lawyer who served as the first Administrator of General Services.
 * E. D. Nixon, 87, American civil rights leader and union organizer.
 * Krishna Chandra Panigrahi, 77, Indian historian and archaeologist.

26

 * Knut Frydenlund, 59, Norwegian diplomat and politician, Minister of Foreign Affairs, cerebral hemorrhage.
 * Audrey Marie Hilley, 53, American murderer and suspected serial killer, hypothermia and exposure.
 * Fredric R. Mann, 83, American industrialist and patron of the arts, U.S. Ambassador to Barbados, cancer.
 * Paul Taunton Matthews, 67, British theoretical physicist, cycling accident.

27

 * Franciszek Blachnicki, 65, Polish priest, poisoning.
 * Jose W. Diokno, 65, Filipino nationalist, lawyer and statesman, Senator of the Philippines.
 * Hossein Kharrazi, 29, Iraqi Mortar Bomb killed Kharrazi in Operation Karbala-5 in 1987.
 * Bill Holman, 83, American cartoonist (Smokey Stover).
 * Fumio Kamei, 78, Japanese documentary and fiction film director.
 * Latif-ur Rehman, 58, Indian and Pakistani hockey player and Olympic gold medalist.
 * Colvin R. de Silva, 81–82, Sri Lankan politician, Minister of Plantation Industries.

28

 * Nasim Amrohvi, 78, Pakistani Urdu poet, philosopher and lexicographer.
 * Frederic G. Donner, 84, American chairman and CEO of the General Motors Corporation.
 * Joan Greenwood, 65, English actress, acute bronchitis and asthma.
 * Nora Kaye, 67, American prima-ballerina, cancer.
 * William F. McKee, 80, American General in the U.S. Air Force, administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration.
 * Anny Ondra, 83, Czechoslovakian film actress.
 * Stephen Tennant, 80, British socialite.

Unknown date

 * Clifford Bias, 76–77, American alleged psychic.
 * Raquel Martínez, 78, Chilean sprinter and Olympian.
 * Adi Pherozeshah Marzban, 72, Indian Gujarati Parsi playwright, actor, director and broadcaster, lung cancer.
 * Clare Rendlesham, 67, British fashion editor and boutique manager.