Deaths in January 1996

The following is a list of notable deaths in January 1996.

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

 * Arleigh Burke, 94, United States Navy admiral.
 * Dori Dorika, 82, Russian-Italian actress.
 * Alifa Rifaat, 65, Egyptian author.
 * Arthur Rudolph, 89, German rocket engineer.
 * Jessie Vihrog, 89, South African-born German film actress.
 * Virgil W. Vogel, 76, American television and film director.
 * Sergei Yakovlev, 70, Soviet/Russian actor.

2

 * Michel Berto, 46, French actor.
 * Viatcheslav Nazarov, 43, Russian musician, traffic collision.
 * Karl Rappan, 90, Austrian football player and coach.


 * Julià Reig Ribó, 84, Andorran politician.


 * Efua Theodora Sutherland, 71, Ghanaian writer.

3

 * Aníbal Pinto Santa Cruz, 76-77, Chilean economist, heart attack.
 * Terence Cuneo, 88, British artist.
 * Paul Lipson, 82, American stage actor.
 * Connie Ryan, 75, American baseball player and coach.
 * Ričardas Vaitkevičius, 62, Soviet/Lithuanian rower and Olympian.

4

 * Anna Amalie Abert, 89, German musicologist.
 * Tino Bianchi, 90, Italian actor, pneumonia.
 * Jean Feyte, 92, French film editor.
 * Bob Flanagan, 43, American writer, performance artist, poet, musician, and comic, cystic fibrosis.
 * Zhou Mingzhen, 77, Chinese paleontologist.
 * Steve Raines, 79, American actor (Rawhide).
 * Ramón Vinay, 84, Chilean opera singer.

5

 * Yahya Ayyash, 29, Palestinian chief bombmaker of Hamas, homicide.
 * Gus Bivona, 80, American musician.
 * Václav David, 85, Czechoslovak politician.
 * Lincoln Kirstein, 88, American writer, impresario, art connoisseur, and philanthropist.
 * Knut Løfsnes, 77, Norwegian resistance member during World War II and politician.
 * Thung Sin Nio, 93, Indonesian-Dutch women's rights activist, physician, economist and politician.
 * Elmer Singleton, 77, American baseball player.

6

 * Henry Hopkinson, 1st Baron Colyton, 94, British politician.
 * Jan Willem de Pous, 75, Dutch politician and economist.
 * William J. Dyess, 66, American diplomat, cancer.
 * Duane Hanson, 70, American sculptor.
 * Johnnie Johnston, 80, American actor and singer.
 * Maude Kegg, 91, American Ojibwe traditionalist, bead artist, and author.
 * John Philipps Kenyon, 68, British historian.
 * Kim Kwang-seok, 31, South Korean musician, suicide.
 * Kurt Schmücker, 76, German politician.
 * Chubby Wise, 80, American bluegrass fiddler.

7

 * William H. Clothier, 92, American cinematographer.
 * John A. Gronouski, 76, American diplomat.
 * Károly Grósz, 65, Hungarian politician, kidney cancer.
 * V. Kumar, 61, India film score composer.
 * Seton Lloyd, 93, British archaeologist.
 * Harold Norman Moldenke, 86, American botanist and taxonomist.
 * Tarō Okamoto, 84, Japanese artist, art theorist, and writer, Parkinson's disease.
 * Bienvenido Santos, 84, Filipino writer.
 * Heinrich Scheel, 80, German historian of modern age.
 * Aaron Stell, 84, American film and television editor.

8

 * Paul Cleary, 73, American gridiron football player.
 * Carmen Conde, 88, Spanish poet, novelist, literary critic, Alzheimer's disease.
 * Teobaldo Depetrini, 81, Italian football player and coach.
 * John Hargreaves, 50, Australian actor, AIDS-related complications.
 * Fernand Leblanc, 78, Canadian politician.
 * Joyce McCartan, 65, Northern Irish community worker and peace activist.
 * Norrie McCathie, 34, Scottish football player, carbon monoxide poisoning.
 * Michiya Mihashi, 65, Japanese singer, multiple organ dysfunction syndrome.
 * Harlan Mills, 76, American computer scientist and academic.
 * François Mitterrand, 79, French statesman and President of France, prostate cancer.
 * Howard Taubman, 88, American theatre critic.
 * Paul Vialar, 97, French writer.
 * Sadao Watanabe, 83, Japanese printmaker.

9

 * Abdullah al-Qasemi, 89, Saudi Arabian writer and intellectual, cancer.
 * Moe Becker, 78, American basketball player.
 * Ronnie Bell, 88, British physical chemist.
 * Howie Braun, 83, American basketball player and coach.
 * Roger Freed, 49, American baseball player, heart problems.
 * Félix González-Torres, 38, American artist, AIDS-related complications.
 * Metin Göktepe, 27, Turkish photojournalist, beaten to death.
 * M. Larry Lawrence, 69, American diplomat.
 * Walter M. Miller, 72, American fiction writer, suicide.
 * Fearless Nadia, 88, Australian-Indian actress and stuntwoman.
 * Sultan Rahi, 57, Pakistani actor, producer and screenwriter, ballistic trauma.
 * Özdemir Sabancı, 54, Turkish businessman, murdered.
 * Jack Smith, 79, American journalist, author, and newspaper columnist.
 * Mike Synar, 45, American politician, brain cancer.
 * Louis William Tordella, 84, American mathematician and deputy director of the National Security Agency.
 * Danni Xtravaganza, 34, American member of the ballroom scene, AIDS-related complications.

10

 * Ivan Deryugin, 67, Soviet/Russian modern pentathlete and Olympic champion.
 * Raymond H. Fogler, 103, American politician.
 * Dean McAdams, 78, American gridiron football player.
 * Egidio Ortona, 85, Italian diplomat.
 * Don Richardson, 77, American television director (Lost in Space, The Adventures of Ellery Queen, Bonanza).
 * Joseph Charles Schultz Jr., 77, American baseball player, manager, and coach.

11

 * Harold Walter Bailey, 96, British scholar of Asian languages.
 * Tato Bores, 70, Argentine actor.
 * Roger Crozier, 53, Canadian ice hockey player, cancer.
 * Eric Hebborn, 61, English painter, draughtsman, art forger and author, homicide.
 * Ike Isaacs, 76, Burmese-English jazz guitarist.

12

 * Eduard Haken, 85, Czech actor, doctor and opera singer.
 * Edmund Happold, 65, British engineer and activist.
 * Jonas Jonsson, 92, Swedish sport shooter.
 * Joseph Kuzmin, 85, Russian politician.
 * Jon Pattis, American engineer imprisoned in Iran, congestive heart failure.
 * John Howard Purnell, 70, Welsh chemist.
 * Fouad Sedki, 70, Egyptian football player.
 * Bartel Leendert van der Waerden, 92, Dutch mathematician and mathematics historian.
 * Dai Ward, 61, Welsh football player.

13

 * Denise Grey, 99, Italian-French actress.
 * Mark Herron, 67, American actor, cancer.
 * Dean Kelley, 64, American basketball player.
 * Ester Krumbachová, 72, Czech filmmaker.
 * Bobby Langton, 77, English football player and manager.
 * Aliou Mahamidou, 48, Nigerien politician and Prime Minister.
 * Sam Merwin, Jr., 85, American writer.
 * Elina Pohjanpää, 62, Finnish actress, oral cancer.
 * Jorge Sapelli, 70, Uruguayan politician.

14

 * Annie Broadbent, 87, British artistic gymnast.
 * Umberto Drei, 70, Italian racing cyclist.
 * Jacques Lebrun, 85, French sailor.
 * Onno Tunç, 47, Turkish composer, plane crash.

15

 * Les Baxter, 73, American musician, singer, and composer.
 * Richard Cobb, 78, British historian, essayist, and professor.
 * Gerhard Huttula, 93, German cinematographer and film director.
 * Moshoeshoe II of Lesotho, 57, King of Lesotho, traffic collision.
 * Edward Makula, 65, Polish aviator.
 * Mohsin Naqvi, 48, Pakistani poet, murdered.
 * Max Varnel, 70, French film director.
 * Rudolf Wanderone, 82, American pool player.

16

 * Marcia Davenport, 92, American author and music critic.
 * Richard Kermode, 49, American keyboardist.
 * Harry Potts, 75, English football player and manager.
 * Kurt Svanström, 80, Swedish football player.

17

 * Arnold Anderson, 83, New Zealand sprinter.
 * Barbara Jordan, 59, American politician, pneumonia.
 * Charles Madge, 83, English poet, journalist and sociologist.
 * Harry Robertson, 63, Scottish musician, bandleader, and composer.
 * Juan Luis Segundo, 70, Uruguayan priest and theologian.
 * Xuefan Zhu, 90, Chinese politician.

18

 * Osro Cobb, 91, American lawyer and politician.
 * Leonor Fini, 87, Argentine painter, designer and writer.
 * John Hope, 1st Baron Glendevon, 83, British politician.
 * N. T. Rama Rao, 72, Indian actor, producer, director, and politician, heart attack.
 * Alberto Ruschel, 77, Brazilian actor, producer, and director.

19

 * Upendranath Ashk, 85, Indian novelist, short story writer and playwright.
 * Bernard Baily, 79, American comic book artist.
 * A. G. Gaston, 103, American businessman.
 * Kasım Gülek, 91, Turkish politician.
 * Byron Keith, 78, American actor (77 Sunset Strip, Batman, The Stranger), heart attack.
 * Anton Myrer, 73, American author, leukemia.
 * Donny Schmit, 29, American motorcycle racer, aplastic anemia.
 * Don Simpson, 52, American film producer (Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop, The Rock), heart failure.
 * Lucien Theys, 68, Belgian long-distance and steeplechase runner.
 * Harold Wolpe, 70, South African political economist.

20

 * Buster Benton, 63, American blues guitarist and singer, diabetes.
 * Tom Dimitroff, Sr., 60, American and Canadian football player and coach.
 * Sidney Korshak, 88, American lawyer and "fixer" for the Chicago Mafia.
 * Joseph Mermans, 73, Belgian football player.
 * Gerry Mulligan, 68, American jazz baritone saxophonist, arranger and composer, liver cancer.
 * Lo Wei, 77, Chinese film director, heart failure.

21

 * Jordan Christopher, 55, American actor (Secrets of Midland Heights) and singer.
 * Roman Cieślewicz, 66, Polish artist, laryngeal cancer.
 * Herbert McEver, 89, American sportsman and coach.
 * Peter Stadlen, 85, British pianist.
 * Henry Serrano Villard, 95, American diplomat and author, pneumonia.

22

 * William Cantrell, 87, American powerboat and racecar driver.
 * Israel Eldad, 85, Israeli philosopher.
 * Dick Rand, 64, American baseball player.
 * Petro Shelest, 87, Soviet/Ukrainian politician.

23

 * Cliff Griffith, 79, American racecar driver.
 * Norman MacCaig, 85, Scottish poet and teacher.
 * Richard Sakakida, 75, American intelligence agent.
 * Horst Wende, 76, German musician.
 * Art White, 80, American gridiron football player.

24

 * Jimmy Davidson, 70, Scottish football player.
 * Sándor Iharos, 65, Hungarian long-distance runner.
 * Tom Tracy, 61, American gridiron football player.
 * Wim Umboh, 62, Indonesian film director.
 * Seigo Yamaguchi, 71, Japanese aikido instructor and Aikikai teacher.

25

 * Billy Bailey, 49, American murderer, execution by hanging.
 * Ruth Berghaus, 68, German stage director of opera, cancer.
 * Antonio Buenaventura, 91, Filipino composer and musician.
 * Ángel García, 76, Cuban sprinter.
 * Jack Haden, 81, American gridiron football player.
 * Mian Shaukat Hussain, 67, Pakistani tabla player.
 * Jonathan Larson, 35, American composer and playwright (Rent, Tick, Tick... Boom!), aortic dissection.
 * Yuri Levitansky, 74, Russian poet and writer.

26

 * Gerrit Cornelis Berkouwer, 92, Dutch theologian.
 * Harold Brodkey, 65, American short-story writer and novelist, AIDS-related complications.
 * Saul Goodman, 88, American timpanist.
 * Yawara Hata, 85, Japanese politician and lawyer.
 * Frank Howard, 86, American gridiron football player and coach.
 * Charles Jewtraw, 95, American speed skater.
 * Jiří Kotalík, 75, Czech art historian and gallery director.
 * Henry Lewis, 63, American conductor, heart attack.
 * Georg Alexander, Duke of Mecklenburg, 74, German noble.
 * Bob Pastor, 82, American boxer.
 * Allan Robert Phillips, 81, American ornithologist, cancer.
 * Stevie Plunder, 32, Australian guitarist and singer-songwriter, suicide.
 * Dave Schultz, 36, American wrestler and murder victim, shot.
 * Hormasji Maneckji Seervai, 89, Indian lawyer.
 * John Albert Taylor, 36, American murderer, execution by firing squad.
 * Dimitri Zaitz, 78, American shot putter.

27

 * Olga Havlová, 62, Czech activist and first wife of president Václav Havel, cancer.
 * Vyacheslav Lemeshev, 43, Olympic boxer.
 * Patrick Ludlow, 92, British actor.
 * Thomas Mitchell, 93, English cricket player.
 * Vsevolod Sanayev, 83, Russian/Soviet actor.
 * Barbara Skelton, 79, English memoirist, novelist and socialite.
 * Ralph Yarborough, 92, American politician and lawyer.

28

 * Dev Kant Baruah, 81, Indian politician.
 * Joseph Brodsky, 55, Russian-American poet, heart attack.
 * Burne Hogarth, 84, American cartoonist.
 * Piero Palermini, 70, Italian actor.
 * Jerry Siegel, 81, American comic book artist, co-creator of Superman, heart attack.
 * Geo Widengren, 88, Swedish historian and academic.
 * San Yu, 77, Burmese general, politician, and president of Myanmar.

29

 * Julius Posener, 91, German architectural historian and author.
 * Terence Reese, 82, British bridge player and writer.
 * Bill Sorensen, 63, New Zealand rugby player, coach and administrator.
 * Jamie Uys, 74, South African film director, film producer, and screenwriter, heart attack.

30

 * Friedrich Benfer, 90, German actor.
 * Guy Doleman, 72, New Zealand actor (Thunderball, The Ipcress File, Funeral in Berlin), lung cancer.
 * Gino Gallagher, 33, Irish republican and member of the Irish National Liberation Army, shot.
 * Bob Thiele, 73, American record producer and music executive, kidney failure.

31

 * E. C. L. During Caspers, 61, Dutch archaeologist.
 * Olle Hallberg, 92, Swedish long jumper and Olympian.
 * Rufus G. Herring, 74, United States Navy Medal of Honor recipient.
 * Wolf Karni, 84, Finnish football referee.
 * Gustave Solomon, 65, American mathematician and electrical engineer.