Deaths in January 1997

The following is a list of notable deaths in January 1997.

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

 * Prince Eugen of Bavaria, 71, German noble.
 * Aenne Brauksiepe, 84, German politician.
 * Asnoldo Devonish, 64, Venezuelan track and field athlete.
 * Al Eugster, 87, American animator, writer, and film director.
 * Jean Feller, 77, Luxembourgian footballer.
 * Ivan Graziani, 51, Italian singer-songwriter and guitarist, colon cancer.
 * Hagood Hardy, 59, Canadian composer, pianist, and vibraphonist, lymphoma.
 * Mohammed Hafez Ismail, 77, Egyptian diplomat and ambassador.
 * Graham Kersey, 25, English cricketer, traffic accident.
 * Hans-Martin Majewski, 85, German composer of film scores.
 * James B. Pritchard, 87, American archeologist.
 * Joan Rice, 66, English film actress.
 * Franco Volpi, 75, Italian actor and voice actor, cancer.
 * Townes Van Zandt, 52, American singer-songwriter, cardiac arrythmia.
 * Ladislau Zilahi, 74, Romanian football player and manager.

2

 * Randy California, 45, American guitarist, singer and songwriter, drowned.
 * Samuel Carlisi, 82, American mobster, heart attack.
 * Joan Coromines, 91, Spanish linguist.
 * Antonio Giordani Soika, 83, Italian entomologist and ecologist.
 * Moshe Wilensky, 86, Polish-Israeli composer.

3

 * Werner Genuit, 59, German classical pianist and composer.
 * Roger Goeb, 82, American composer.
 * Michel Heller, 74, Russian historian, heart attack.
 * Pieter Keuneman, 79, Sri Lankan communist politician.
 * Jon Lennart Mjøen, 84, Norwegian actor, film director and screenwriter.
 * Gianfranco Pandolfini, 76, Italian water polo player.
 * Marie Torre, 72, American television journalist, lung cancer.
 * Odd Øyen, 82, Norwegian physician and resistance member during World War II.

4

 * Hédi Berkhissa, 24, Tunisian footballer, heart attack.
 * Akhteruzzaman Elias, 53, Bangladeshi novelist and short story writer.
 * Harry Helmsley, 87, American real estate mogul, pneumonia.
 * Harry P. Jeffrey, 95, American attorney and politician.
 * Bill Lancaster, 49, American screenwriter (The Thing, The Bad News Bears) and actor (Moses the Lawgiver).
 * Lucien Rebuffic, 75, French basketball player.
 * Tormod Skagestad, 76, Norwegian poet, novelist, playwright and actor.
 * Richard Taitano, 75, Guamanian politician.

5

 * André Franquin, 73, Belgian comics artist, (Spirou & Fantasio, Gaston, Marsupilami), heart attack.
 * Peter Zack Geer, 68, American politician, cancer.
 * Prince Bertil, Duke of Halland, 84, Swedish royal, third son of King Gustaf VI Adolf.
 * Homer Hobbs, 73, American football player and coach.
 * Burton Lane, 84, American composer and lyricist.
 * Frans Piët, 91, Dutch comics artist (Sjors en Sjimmie).
 * Emil Roy, 89, American baseball player.
 * V. C. Wynne-Edwards, 90, English zoologist.

6

 * Herbert Blitzstein, 62, American mobster, murdered.
 * Dick Donovan, 69, American MLB baseball player, cancer.
 * Kalevi Laitinen, 78, Finnish gymnast and Olympic champion.
 * Teiichi Matsumaru, 87, Japanese football player.
 * Charles Murphy, 88, Australian politician.
 * Catherine Scorsese, 84, Italian-American actress (Goodfellas), Alzheimer's disease.

7

 * Tod Goodwin, 85, American gridiron football player.
 * Paul-Werner Hozzel, 86, Nazi Germany Luftwaffe pilot during World War II.
 * Christopher Mayhew, 81, British politician.
 * Patricia McLaughlin, 80, Northern Irish politician.
 * Sándor Végh, 84, Hungarian-French, violinist and conductor.

8

 * Smiley Bates, 59, Canadian country singer, songwriter, and musician, cancer.
 * Melvin Calvin, 85, American biochemist, heart failure.
 * Paul Endacott, 94, American basketball player.
 * James Fraser, 72, Scottish surgeon.
 * Harold Foote Gosnell, 100, American political scientist and author.
 * George Handy, 76, American jazz arranger, composer and pianist.
 * Phyllis Hartnoll, 90, British poet, author and editor.
 * Alfred John Markiewicz, 68, American prelate of the Catholic Church.

9

 * Karol Borhy, 84, Czechoslovak football coach.
 * Ove Dahlberg, 65, Swedish ice hockey referee, heart attack.
 * Angelo Drossos, 68, American basketball executive, Parkinson's disease.
 * Ellen Griffin Dunne, 64, American actress and activist, multiple sclerosis.
 * Muhammadu Junaidu, 91, Nigerian historian and writer.
 * Shorty McWilliams, 70, American football player.
 * Edward Osóbka-Morawski, 87, Polish activist and politician.
 * Jesse White, 80, American actor and comedian, heart attack.

10

 * Mary Bancroft, 93, American novelist and spy.
 * Samuel Preston Bayard, 88, American folklorist and musicologist.
 * Emmet Reid Blake, 88, American ornithologist and museum curator.
 * Gordon W. Burrows, 70, American politician, cardiac arrest.
 * André Caron, 52, member of the House of Commons of Canada from 1993 to 1997, cancer.
 * Seymour Halpern, 83, American politician.
 * Elspeth Huxley, 89, English author, journalist, broadcaster, and government adviser.
 * Valentin Koptyug, 65, Soviet/Russian chemist.
 * Phil Marchildon, 83, Canadian Major League Baseball player.
 * Tordis Maurstad, 95, Norwegian stage actress.
 * Martin Pike, 76, British athlete.
 * Alexander R. Todd, Baron Todd, 89, Scottish biochemist and Nobel Prize laureate, heart attack.
 * Shiv Verma, 92, Indian revolutionary.
 * Lee Willerman, 57, American psychologist.
 * Albert Wohlstetter, 83, American nuclear strategist.
 * George Young, 74, Scottish footballer.

11

 * Arild Andersen, 68, Norwegian racing cyclist.
 * Bhabatosh Datta, 85, Indian economist, academic and writer.
 * Rosalind Hill, 88, English historian, heart failure.
 * Pancheti Koteswaram, 81, Indian meteorologist, hydrologist, and atmospheric physicist.
 * Sheldon Leonard, 89, American actor, producer, director, and writer.
 * Stu Martin, 84, American Major League Baseball player.
 * Jerry Neudecker, 66, American MLB umpire, cancer.
 * Helen Foster Snow, 89, American journalist.
 * Jill Summers, 86, English music hall performer and comedian, kidney failure.
 * Ian White-Thomson, 92, British Anglican priest.

12

 * Jean-Edern Hallier, 60, French writer, critic and editor, cerebral haemorrhage after fall, heart attack, traffic collision.
 * Jean Hoerni, 72, Swiss-American engineer.
 * Charles Brenton Huggins, 95, Canadian-American cancer researcher and Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate.
 * Ewa Larysa Krause, 22, Polish judoka, traffic collision.
 * Wally Rose, 83, American jazz and ragtime pianist.
 * Jorge Suárez, 51, Salvadoran football player, cancer.

13

 * Sivar Arnér, 87, Swedish novelist and playwright.
 * Burton Barr, 79, American businessman and politician, kidney failure.
 * Johannes Coleman, 86, South African marathon runner and Olympian.
 * Max Kaser, 90, German academic and professor of jurisprudence.
 * Leo Margolis, 69, Canadian parasitologist, heart attack.
 * Baburaoji Parkhe, 84, Indian industrialist.
 * Ruslan Stratonovich, 66, Russian physicist and engineer.
 * Herman V. Wall, 91, American combat photographer during World War II.

14

 * John Amdisen, 62, Danish football player.
 * Shalva Chikhladze, 84, Soviet light-heavyweight wrestler and Olympian.
 * Leonard Dodson, 84, American golfer.
 * Celso Ferreira, 46, Brazilian football player.
 * King Hu, 64, Chinese film director and actor, complications from angioplasty.
 * Robert Irsay, 73, American football team owner.
 * Ebba Lodden, 83, Norwegian civil servant and politician.
 * Roland Martin, 84, French archaeologist.
 * Dollard Ménard, 83, Canadian general.
 * Knud Nellemose, 88, Danish sculptor.

15

 * Oscar Auerbach, 92, American physician and pathologist.
 * Edwin Smith, 74, New Zealand rower.
 * Ahmad Tafazzoli, 59, Iranian Iranist and professor of ancient Iranian languages, homicide.
 * Kenneth V. Thimann, 92, English-American plant physiologist and microbiologist.

16

 * Romano Amerio, 91, Swiss Italian theologian.
 * Ödön Gróf, 81, Hungarian swimmer and Olympian.
 * Roy Henderson, 73, Scottish football player.
 * Markus Hoffmann, 26, German actor, suicide.
 * Nils Katajainen, 77, Finnish flying ace during World War II.
 * Erik Källström, 88, Swedish football player.
 * Iain Mills, 56, English politician.
 * Shinobu Muraki, 73, Japanese production designer and art director (Ran).
 * Beverly Peer, 84, American jazz double-bassist, cancer.
 * Martin Redmond, 59, British politician.
 * Juan Landázuri Ricketts, 83, Peruvian catholic cardinal.
 * Jeff Teale, 57, British international athlete and Olympian.
 * Rajagopala Tondaiman, 74, Indian monarch and the last Raja of Pudukkottai.
 * Barbara Woodell, 86, American actress.
 * Willie Yeadon, 89, British railway historian.

17

 * Susanna Al-Hassan, 69, Ghanaian author and politician.
 * Earl Girard, 69, American football player.
 * Robert Giraud, 75, French journalist, poet and lexicographer.
 * Björn Isfält, 54, Swedish composer, cancer.
 * Bill Kardash, 84, Canadian politician.
 * Bert Kelly, 84, Australian politician and government minister.
 * Amha Selassie, 80, Ethiopian Emperor-in-exile and son of Haile Selassie I.
 * Clyde Tombaugh, 90, American astronomer.
 * Theo Wilson, 79, American reporter, cerebral hemorrhage.

18

 * Herbert A. Allen, Sr., 88, American stockbroker.
 * Ruth Brinkmann, 62, American actress and founder of Vienna's English Theatre, ovarian cancer.
 * Adriana Caselotti, 80, American actress and singer (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), lung cancer.
 * Keith Diamond, 46, American songwriter and producer, heart attack.
 * Jean Gravelle, 69, Canadian ice hockey player.
 * Henry Hermansen, 75, Norwegian cross-country skier and Olympian.
 * Ardis Krainik, 67, American mezzo-soprano opera singer.
 * Diana Lewis, 77, American film actress, pancreatic cancer.
 * Myfanwy Piper, 85, British art critic and opera librettist.
 * Gilberto Martínez Solares, 90, Mexican actor, cinematographer, screenwriter, and director.
 * Darío Suro, 79, Dominican Republic art critic, diplomat and painter.
 * Paul Tsongas, 55, American politician, non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

19

 * Robert Chapatte, 75, French cyclist and sports journalist.
 * James Dickey, 73, American poet and novelist.
 * Richard E. Jennings, 75, English comics artist, pneumonia.
 * Tamara Makarova, 89, Soviet actress.
 * Vasily Nalimov, 86, Russian philosopher and humanist.
 * Charles Nelson, 95, American film editor (Picnic, Cat Ballou, A Song to Remember), Oscar winner (1956).
 * Sudhir, 75, Pakistani film actor, director and producer.

20

 * Albín Brunovský, 61, Slovak painter and graphic artist.
 * Curt Flood, 59, American baseball player, pneumonia.
 * Edith Haisman, 100, South African-born RMS Titanic survivor
 * Hiram Keller, 52, American actor, liver cancer.
 * Joseph J. Loferski, 71, American physicist.
 * Ashious Melu, 39, Zambian footballer and coach.
 * Konrad Püschel, 89, German architect, town planner, and university professor.
 * Dennis Main Wilson, 72, British radio and television producer, lung cancer.

21

 * John Glyn-Jones, 87, British actor.
 * Hans Egon Holthusen, 83, German nazi, writer and academic.
 * Sourendra Nath Kohli, 80, Indian Navy admiral.
 * Irwin Levine, 58, American songwriter.
 * Louis Miehe-Renard, 77, Danish film actor.
 * Shinroku Momose, 77, Japanese aircraft/automotive engineer.
 * Eduardo Morera, 91, Argentine film director.
 * Colonel Tom Parker, 87, Dutch-American manager of Elvis Presley, stroke.
 * Giorgio Prosperi, 85, Italian screenwriter.
 * Polly Ann Young, 88, American actress, cancer.

22

 * Ênio Andrade, 68, Brazilian football player and manager.
 * L. Kijungluba AO, 90, Indian baptist missionary.
 * Pilar Barbosa, 98, Puerto Rican educator, historian and political activist.
 * George Dockins, 79, American baseball player.
 * Ron Holden, 57, American pop and R&B singer, heart attack.
 * Elwyn Lynn, 79, Australian artist, author and art critic.
 * Billy Mackenzie, 39, Scottish singer and songwriter, suicide.
 * Cornelio Reyna, 56, Mexican singer, composer and actor.
 * Willard Wheatley, 81, British Virgin Islands politician and Chief Minister.
 * Wally Whyton, 67, British musician, songwriter and radio and TV personality.

23

 * Richard Berry, 61, American singer, songwriter and musician, aneurysm.
 * Paul Egli, 85, Swiss road bicycle racer.
 * Randy Greenawalt, 47, American serial killer, execution by lethal injection.
 * Alois Hudec, 88, Czechoslovak gymnast and World and Olympic Champion.
 * Lyudmila Marchenko, 56, Soviet film actress.
 * Hardy Rafn, 66, Danish film actor.
 * Roger Tayler, 67, British astronomer, cancer.
 * Rolling Thunder, 80, American hippy spiritual leader, complications of diabetes.
 * David Waller, 76, English actor.
 * Bill Zuckert, 81, American actor, pneumonia.

24

 * William Alexander, 81, German painter and television host.
 * Lourdino Barreto, 58, Indian musicologist and composer.
 * Dr. Jerry Graham, 75, American professional wrestler, cerebrovascular disease.
 * Jack Halloran, 81, American composer and choral director.
 * Ida Kohlmeyer, 84, American painter.
 * Roy Sproson, 66, English footballer and manager.
 * Suzy Vernon, 95, French film actress.

25

 * Werner Aspenström, 78, Swedish poet.
 * Dan Barry, 73, American cartoonist.
 * Donald Beer, 61, American rower and Olympic champion, brain cancer.
 * James Boyd, 66, American boxer, cancer.
 * Manuel Tuñón de Lara, 81, Spanish historian.
 * Jeane Dixon, 93, American astrologer, heart failure.
 * Exuma, 54, Bahamian musician, artist, playwright and author, heart attack.
 * Carlton Benjamin Goodlett, 82, American physician and newspaper publisher.
 * Edith Thacher Hurd, 86, American children's author.
 * Nikola Koljević, 60, Bosnian Serb politician, essayist, and scholar, suicide.
 * George W. Mitchell, 92, American economist.
 * Seldon Powell, 68, American jazz, music, and R&B tenor saxophonist and flautist.
 * Elizabeth Rudel Smith, 85, American politician.
 * Bill Wightkin, 69, American gridiron football player.

26

 * Sufi Barkat Ali, 85, Indian muslim sufi.
 * Jack Clayton, 82, American football, basketball, and baseball coach, congestive heart failure.
 * Shūhei Fujisawa, 69, Japanese author.
 * Cornelius Herman Muller, 87, American botanist and ecologist.
 * Guy Raymond, 85, American actor.
 * Margaret Hessen und bei Rhein, 83, German princess.
 * Laurence Stoddard, 93, American rowing coxswain.
 * Donald E. Stokes, 69, American political scientist, acute leukemia.
 * Mira Zimińska, 95, Polish actress.

27

 * Bill Kennedy, 88, American actor and television show host.
 * Cecil Arthur Lewis, 98, British last surviving World War I fighter ace.
 * Gerald Marks, 96, American composer.
 * Louis E. Martin, 84, American journalist, newspaper publisher and civil rights activist.
 * Zia Sarhadi, 83, Pakistani screenwriter and film director.
 * Harish Chandra Sarin, 82, Indian civil servant, writer and defence secretary of India.
 * Richard X. Slattery, 71, American actor.
 * David Townsend, 84, English cricket player.
 * Aleksandr Zarkhi, 88, Soviet film director, screenwriter, and playwright.

28

 * Antônio Callado, 80, Brazilian journalist, playwright, and novelist.
 * Edmond de Stoutz, 76, Swiss conductor.
 * Anna Galmarini, 54, Italian figure skater.
 * Raya Garbousova, 87, Russian-American cellist.
 * Alfred Gell, 51, British social anthropologist.
 * Mikel Koliqi, 96, Albanian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.
 * Wong Shun Leung, 61, Hong Kong martial artist, stroke.
 * Louis Pauwels, 76, French journalist and writer, heart attack.
 * Geoffrey Rippon, 72, British politician.
 * Pandurang Vasudeo Sukhatme, 85, Indian statistician.

29

 * Antal Benda, 86, Hungarian field handball player.
 * Irma Greta Blohm, 85, German politician.
 * Ken Harada, 77, Japanese politician.
 * Daniel P. Mannix, 85, American writer, journalist, animal trainer, and performer.
 * Mumtaz Mirza, 57, Indian Urdu poet.
 * Clifford Richmond, 82, New Zealand lawyer and judge.
 * Osvaldo Soriano, 54, Argentine journalist and writer, lung cancer.
 * Thomas Daniel Young, 77, American academic.

30

 * Charles Hargens, 103, American painter.
 * Willis Harman, 78, American engineer, futurist, and author, brain cancer.
 * Duane Josephson, 54, American baseball player.
 * Nicholas Mallett, 51, British television director.
 * Henry Bentinck, 11th Earl of Portland, 77, British noble and activist.
 * Frank Tejeda, 51, United States Marine and politician, brain cancer.

31

 * Raymond Coxon, 100, British artist.
 * Hedy Graf, 70, Spanish-Swiss soprano.
 * Eve Lister, 83, British actress.
 * Seth Lover, 87, American inventor.
 * Zahir Pajaziti, 34, Kosovo Albanian guerilla commander, killed in action.
 * John Joseph Scanlan, 90, American catholic bishop.
 * Eugenia Smith, 98, American Romanov impostor.
 * Alexander Solonik, 36, Russian gangster, strangled.
 * Andrzej Szczepkowski, 73, Polish actor.
 * Hans Tisdall, 86, German-British artist.