Deaths in October 1987

The following is a list of notable deaths in October 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

 * Richard Blackburn, 69, Australian judge, legal academic and military officer.
 * Douglas Cleverdon, 84, English radio producer and bookseller.
 * June Clyde, 77, American actress, singer and dancer.
 * Valeriya Golubtsova, 86, Soviet scientist, director of the Moscow Power Engineering Institute.
 * Geoffrey Jackson, 72, British diplomat and writer, kidnapped by guerrillas and released after eight months of captivity.
 * Zina Morhange, 78, Polish-French physician, member of the French Resistance.
 * Abdur Rahim, 69, Bangladeshi Islamic scholar politician.

2

 * Madeleine Carroll, 81, English actress, pancreatic cancer.
 * Sir Peter Medawar, 72, Brazilian-British biologist, Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine.
 * Russell Rouse, 73, American screenwriter, director and producer.
 * Hryhoriy Vasiura, 72, Soviet officer in the Red Army and in the German Schutzmannschaft, executed.

3

 * Jean Anouilh, 77, French dramatist and screenwriter, heart attack.
 * Catherine Bramwell-Booth, 104, English Salvation Army officer, granddaughter of Salvation Army founder.
 * Hans Gál, 97, Austrian-Scottish composer, teacher and author.
 * Maria Ivogün, 95, Hungarian soprano singer.
 * Kalervo Palsa, 40, Finnish artist, pneumonia.

4

 * Mercer Cook, 84, American diplomat and professor, U.S. Ambassador to the Gambia, Senegal and Niger, pneumonia.
 * Eric Gandar Dower, 92–93, Scottish politician and businessman.
 * Mian Arshad Hussain, 77, Pakistani politician and diplomat, Foreign Minister of Pakistan and Pakistan's Ambassador to Sweden.
 * Eloise Wilkin, 83, American illustrator, cancer.
 * Hubert Yencesse, 87, French sculptor.

5

 * Manny Cussins, British businessman, chairman of Waring & Gillow and Leeds United F.C..

6

 * Roald Jensen, 44. Norwegian international footballer.
 * Eugen Steimle, 77, Nazi German SS commander.

7

 * Charles J. Carney, 74, American politician, member of U.S. House of Representatives.
 * Phil Flanagan, 77, American NFL footballer.
 * John Fletcher, 46, English tubist and French Horn player, cerebral haemorrhage.
 * Greta Granstedt, 80, American film and television actress.
 * Cedric Phatudi, 75, South African politician, Chief Minister of Lebowa.
 * Sarkes Tarzian, 87, Ottoman-American engineer, inventor and broadcaster.
 * Bobby Walston, 58, American NFL footballer.

8

 * Spencer Gordon Bennet, 94, American film producer and director.
 * Alberto Segismundo Cruz, 87, Filipino poet, short story writer and novelist.
 * Mona Douglas, 89, British Manx cultural activist, folklorist, poet, novelist and journalist.
 * Rolf Dudley-Williams, 79, British aeronautical engineer and politician, Member of Parliament.
 * Roger Lancelyn Green, 68, British biographer and children's writer.
 * Nader Mahdavi, 24, Persian Revolutionary Guard Corps naval commander.
 * Donald McWhinnie, 66, British BBC executive, radio, television and stage director.
 * Konstantinos Tsatsos, 88, Greek diplomat, professor of law and politician, President of Greece.

9

 * Mohammad Farhad, 49, Bangladeshi guerrilla force commander during the Bangladesh independence war, heart attack.
 * Guru Gopinath, 79, Indian actor and dancer.
 * Clare Boothe Luce, 84, American writer and politician, U.S. Ambassador to Italy, member of U.S. House of Representatives, brain cancer.
 * William P. Murphy, 95, American physician, Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine.
 * Henry Studholme, 88, British politician, Member of Parliament.
 * Carlos Volante, 81, Argentinian international footballer.

10

 * Carlos Ancira, 58, Mexican film actor.
 * Behice Boran, 77, Turkish Marxist-Leninist politician, author and sociologist, heart disease.
 * Jaroslav Bouček, 74, Czechoslovakian international footballer.
 * Gretl Braun, 72, German sister of Eva Braun.
 * Peter Clyne, 60, Austrian-Australian lawyer, businessman, tax consultant and author.
 * Oretha Castle Haley, 48, American civil rights activist, cancer.
 * Malathi, 20, Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers fighter, died in combat.

11

 * Uwe Barschel, 43, German politician, Minister-President of Schleswig-Holstein, suicide by overdose.
 * Eske Brun, 83, Danish high civil servant and governor of Greenland.
 * Jaime Pardo Leal, 46, Colombian lawyer, union leader, and politician, assassinated.
 * Niall Macpherson, 79, Scottish politician, Minister of Pensions and National Insurance.
 * Alan McNicoll, 79, Australian senior officer in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and diplomat.
 * Koldo Mitxelena, 71–72, Spanish Basque linguist, reconstructed Proto-Basque language.
 * Fritz Rössler, 75, German neo-Nazi politician.

12

 * Fahri Korutürk, 84, Turkish admiral, diplomat and politician, President of Turkey.
 * Alf Landon, 100, American oil man and politician, Republican candidate in 1936 presidential election.
 * Russ Letlow, 74, American NFL footballer.
 * Philleo Nash, 77, American government official, anthropologist and politician, Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
 * Gustavo Baz Prada, 93, Mexican politician and medical doctor, governor of the State of Mexico.

13

 * Walter Houser Brattain, 85, American physicist at Bell Labs, Nobel laureate in Physics, Alzheimer's disease.
 * Kishore Kumar, 58, Indian actor and playback singer, heart attack.
 * Nilgün Marmara, 29, Turkish poet, suicide.
 * Lucy Monroe, 80, American operatic soprano and dancer, cancer.
 * Walter Fraser Oakeshott, 83, Transvaal-British vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, known for discovering the Winchester Manuscript of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur.
 * Anwar Kamal Pasha, 62, Pakistani film director and producer.

14

 * Elżbieta Barszczewska, 73, Polish stage and film actress.
 * Rodolfo Halffter, 86, Spanish composer.
 * Finlay J. MacDonald, 62, Scottish journalist and radio and television producer and writer.
 * Basil Wright, 80, English documentary filmmaker, film historian and film critic.

15

 * Arthur Benson, 79, British colonial administrator and governor, governor of Northern Rhodesia.
 * Thomas Andrew Donnellan, 73, American Roman Catholic prelate, archbishop of Atlanta, stroke.
 * Juda Hirsch Quastel, 88, British-Canadian biochemist.
 * Thomas Sankara, 37, Burkinabe politician, Prime Minister and President of Burkina Faso, assassinated.
 * Donald Wandrei, 79, American science fiction and fantasy writer, poet and editor.

16

 * Joseph Höffner, 80, German Roman Catholic cardinal, Archbishop of Cologne.
 * Nazir Hussain, 65, Indian actor, director and screenwriter.
 * Margo Lee, 64, Australian actor and singer of radio, stage, film and TV.
 * Aleksandr Sery, 59, Soviet film director, suicide.
 * Dana Suesse, 75, American musician, composer and lyricist, stroke.

17

 * Ruby Dandridge, 87, American actress, heart attack.
 * Roderich Menzel, 80, Czech-German amateur tennis player and writer.
 * Peter Pund, 80, American college football player.
 * Hirsch Schwartzberg, 79, Lithuanian-leader of holocaust survivors.
 * Abdul Malek Ukil, 63, Bangladeshi politician, speaker of Jatiya Sangsad.

18

 * Theodore Brameld, 83, American philosopher and educator.
 * Pete Carpenter, 73, American jazz trombonist and arranger, lung cancer.
 * Adriaan Ditvoorst, 47, Dutch film director and screenwriter.
 * Prince Emanuel of Liechtenstein, 78, member of the sovereign family of Liechtenstein.
 * Sol Goldman, 70, American real estate investor and philanthropist.
 * Philip Levine, 87, Belorus-American immuno-hematologist.
 * Louis Miriani, 90, American politician, mayor of Detroit, Michigan.

19

 * Hermann Lang, 78, German racing driver.
 * Igor Newerly, 84, Polish novelist.
 * Jacqueline du Pré, 42, British cellist, multiple sclerosis.
 * Ben Stahl, 77, American artist, illustrator and author.
 * Ernie Toseland, 82, English footballer.

20

 * Georges Douking, 85, French stage, film and television actor.
 * Andrey Kolmogorov, 84, Russian mathematician.
 * Mecha Ortiz, 87, Argentinian actress.
 * Lars-Erik Sjöberg, 43, Swedish international ice hockey player, cancer.

21

 * Igor Chernat, 20–21, Soviet serial killer, executed.
 * Pál Gábor, 55, Hungarian film director and screenwriter.
 * T. Krishna, 36, Indian film director and screenwriter.
 * Bob Simmons, 64, English actor and stunt man.
 * Albert Western, 64, Australian rules footballer.
 * He Yingqin, 97, Chinese politician, Premier of the Republic of China.

22

 * K. G. Adiyodi, 60, Indian politician, member of the Kerala Legislative Assembly.
 * Archduke Anton of Austria, 86, Austrian noble.
 * John H. Masters, 74, American major general in the U.S. Marine Corps.
 * Taylor Scott, 40, English Fleet Air Arm pilot and test pilot for British Aerospace, test flight accident.
 * Andrey Starostin, 81, Soviet footballer and author.
 * Lino Ventura, 68, Italian-French actor.

23

 * Constantin Alajalov, 86, Armenian-American painter and illustrator.
 * Fred Hughson, 73, Australian rules footballer.
 * Raymond W. Ketchledge, 67, American engineer, known for contributions to first computerized telephone switching control systems, cancer.
 * Barry Levinson, 54–55, American film producer.
 * A. L. Morton, 84, English Marxist historian.
 * Jimmy Mullen, 64, English international footballer.
 * Della H. Raney, 75, American nurse in the Army Nurse Corps.
 * Gene Rodgers, 77, American jazz pianist, composer and arranger.
 * Alejandro Scopelli, 79, Italian Argentine international footballer and coach.
 * Ted Taylor, 53, American blues singer, car crash.

24

 * Enid Chadwick, 84, British religious artist.
 * Raymond Francis, 76, British actor.
 * Leo Hepp, 80, German military officer in the Wehrmacht.
 * Kelvin Martin, 23, American criminal, shot.

25

 * Ivan Beshoff, appr. 104, Russian mutineer in 1905 on the battleship Potemkin.
 * Cecil Brown, 80, American journalist and war correspondent.
 * Marta Feuchtwanger, German-exile to America who devoted her life to promoting the work of her deceased writer husband.
 * Maxwell Finland, 85, American scientist and medical researcher, expert on infectious diseases.
 * Louis Guttman, 71, American sociologist and professor of Social and Psychological Assessment.
 * Willis Jackson, 55, American jazz tenor saxophonist.
 * Gerald Pearson, 82, American physicist, worked on silicon rectifiers.
 * J. A. Ratcliffe, 84, British radio physicist.
 * Kate L. Turabian, 94, Armenian-American educator and author.

26

 * Herbert Anaya, 32–33, El Salvadoran president of the NGO Human Rights Commission of El Salvador, assassinated.
 * Greg Bautzer, 76, American attorney who represented famous clients, heart failure.
 * Aldo Boffi, 72, Italian international footballer.
 * Edith Luckett Davis, 99, American film and stage actress, mother of Nancy Reagan, stroke.
 * Victor Ganz, 74, American business owner and art collector, lung cancer.
 * Carolus Lassila, 65, Finnish diplomat, Finnish Ambassador to Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, UAE, Spain and Morocco, flash flood.
 * Bjørge Lillelien, 60, Norwegian sports journalist and commentator, cancer.
 * Adam Wolanin, 67, Polish American international footballer.

27

 * Jorge Dalto, 39, Argentine-American pianist.
 * Jean Hélion, 83, French painter.
 * John Oliver Killens, 71, American fiction writer, cancer.
 * Kosaraju, 82, Indian lyricist and poet.
 * Vijay Merchant, 76, Indian test cricketer.
 * Mario Merola, 65, American Bronx County District Attorney, stroke.
 * John C. Young, 75, Chinese American businessman.

28

 * D. Djajakusuma, 69, Indonesian film director.
 * André Masson, 91, French artist.
 * Sir Jasper More, 80, British politician, Member of Parliament.

29

 * Albert P. Crary, 76, American polar geophysicist and glaciologist.
 * William Davis, 86, British Royal Navy admiral.
 * Robert Heber-Percy, 75, English eccentric.
 * Woody Herman, 74, American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, singer, and big band leader.
 * Kamal el-Mallakh, 69, Egyptian archaeologist.
 * Ram Awtar Sharma, 79, Indian politician, Member of Parliament.
 * Frederic M. Wheelock, 85, American Latin professor.

30

 * Thomas G. Bergin, 82, American scholar of Italian literature.
 * Joseph Campbell, 83, American writer on comparative mythology and comparative religion, complications of esophageal cancer.
 * Sydney Vernon Petersen, 73, South African poet and author.
 * Chaudhary Dalbir Singh, 61, Indian politician, Member of Parliament.
 * Grady B. Wilson, 67–68, American evangelist, congestive heart failure.

31

 * Paul D. Adams, 81, American general in the U.S. Army.
 * Raj Chandra Bose, 86, Indian-American mathematician and statistician.
 * Ruel Vance Churchill, 87, American mathematician.
 * Josef Erber, 90, Nazi German SS-Oberscharführer at Auschwitz concentration camp, traffic accident.
 * Jimmy Jewell, 33–34, British rock climber, climbing accident.
 * Hans Sommer, 73, Nazi German member of the Sicherheitsdienst.

Unknown date

 * Filippo Buccola, 101, Italian-American mobster, member of the Patriarca crime family.