Deaths in September 1987

The following is a list of notable deaths in September 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

 * Dennis Coi, 26, Canadian figure skater, AIDS.
 * Gerhard Fieseler, 91, German World War I flying ace, aerobatics champion and aircraft designer and manufacturer.
 * Philip Friend, 72, British film and television actor.
 * Arnaldo Momigliano, 78, Italian historian of classical antiquity.
 * Alan Reid, 72, Australian political journalist, lung and stomach cancer.
 * Pinky Whitney, 82, American Major League baseballer.

2

 * William Borm, 92, German politician, member of the Bundestag (1965-1972).
 * Cam Carreon, 50, American Major League baseballer.
 * Brian Clay, 52, Australian rugby league footballer.
 * LeGrande A. Diller, American officer in the U.S. Army.
 * Ken Flower, 73, English-Rhodesian police officer and intelligence chief.
 * Remzi Aydın Jöntürk, 50, Turkish filmmaker, actor, screenwriter and producer, traffic accident.
 * Ramesh Naidu, 55, Indian music composer, instrumentalist and singer.
 * Alfredo Oscar Saint Jean, 60, Argentine Army division general and politician, de facto President of Argentina.
 * Stephen B. Small, 40, American businessman, kidnapped and held for ransom, asphyxiation during captivity.

3

 * Diana Caldwell, 73, English society femme fatale figure, best known for her part in the murder of Lord Erroll in 1941.
 * Carter W. Clarke, 90. American intelligence officer in the U.S. Army, heart attack.
 * Ned Day, 42, American journalist and newspaper reporter, heart attack.
 * Morton Feldman, 61, American composer, pancreatic cancer.
 * Maxwell Fry, 88, English modernist architect, writer and painter.
 * Doris Gates, 85, American writer of children's fiction.
 * Merlin Minshall, 80, British naval officer and adventurer.
 * Aleksandr Nadiradze, 73, Georgian engineer, involved in militarising the Soviet spase program.
 * Viktor Nekrasov, 76, Soviet writer, journalist and editor.
 * Lee Theodore, 54, American Broadway theater director, choreographer, performer and dance archivist.
 * Rusty Wescoatt, 76, American supporting actor.

4

 * Bill Bowes, 79, English test cricketer, player in the Bodyline series, heart attack.
 * George M. Chinn, 85, American weapons expert and soldier.
 * Richard Marquand, 49, Welsh film and television director, stroke.

5

 * Richard D. Adams, 78, American rear admiral in the U.S. Navy.
 * Wolfgang Fortner, 79, German composer and conductor.
 * Scott Irwin, 35, American professional wrestler, brain tumour.
 * Salvador Lutteroth, 90, Mexican professional wrestling promoter.
 * Quinn Martin, 65, American television producer, heart attack.

6

 * Jack d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, 74, British Army major general and politician, Member of Parliament.
 * Arun Kumar Choudhury, 64, Indian founding head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Calcutta.
 * William Haley, 86, British newspaper editor and broadcasting administrator.
 * Paul Hiebert, 95, Canadian writer and humorist (Sarah Binks).

7

 * Gordon Gollob, 75, Austrian fighter pilot during World War II, fighter ace.
 * Harry Locke, 73, English actor.

8

 * Robert Sharples, 74, British musical conductor, composer and bandleader.

9

 * Sam Brody, 80, English-founding member of the Workers Film and Photo League, injuries from a fall.
 * Tom Davis, 76, Irish international footballer.
 * Bill Fraser, 79, Scottish stage, screen and television actor, emphysema.
 * Gunnar de Frumerie, 79, Swedish composer and pianist.
 * Gerrit Jan Heijn, 56, Dutch businessman, murdered after abduction.
 * Vratislav Mazák, 50, Czech biologist specialising in paleoanthropology, mammalogy and taxonomy.
 * Al Read, 78, British radio comedian, stroke.
 * Dora Zaslavsky, 83, Russian-American pianist.

10

 * Benjamin Howard Baker, 95, English international footballer, high jumper and triple jumper, dual Olympian.

11

 * Kerstin Bernadotte, 76, Swedish journalist, aristocrat and magazine editor.
 * Hugh David, 62, British actor and television director (Doctor Who).
 * Charles Fleming, 71, New Zealand geologist and ornithologist.
 * Lorne Greene, 72, Canadian actor, radio personality and singer, pneumonia.
 * Harry Gale Nye Jr., 79, American industrialist, entrepreneur and world champion sailor.
 * Hervey Rhodes, 92, British politician, Member of Parliament.
 * Sandilyan, 76, Indian writer.
 * Manikuntala Sen, 75–76, member of the Communist Party of India.
 * Nareshchandra Singh, 78, Indian ruler of Sarangarh State.
 * Surendra, 76, Indian singer-actor.
 * Peter Tosh, 42, Jamaican reggae singer and musician, murdered after being taken hostage at his home.
 * Mahadevi Varma, 80, Indian poet, essayist and sketch story writer.
 * John Lloyd Waddy, 70, Australian officer in the Royal Australian Air Force and politician.
 * Frank Wiziarde, 71, American actor and television personality.

12

 * J. Lawton Collins, 91, American Army general, Chief of Staff of the United States Army.
 * William Dickson, 88, British aviator of the Royal Naval Air Service and Marshal of the Royal Air Force.
 * John Qualen, 87, Canadian-American actor, heart failure.
 * John J. Voll, 65, American career officer in the U.S. Air Force, World War II flying ace.

13

 * Aníbal Gordon, Argentine suspected of being a leader of the Triple A death squad, lung cancer.
 * Mervyn LeRoy, 86, American film producer, director and actor, heart issues complicated by Alzheimer's disease.

14

 * Julien Kialunda, 37, Congolese footballer, international player for Zaire, AIDS.
 * Erik Lundberg, 80, Swedish economist.
 * Stormont Mancroft, 73, British politician, member of the House of Lords.
 * Arthur W. Vanaman, 95, American major general in the U.S. Air Corps and Air Force.
 * Henry Wrigley, 95, Australian Air Vice Marshal in the Royal Australian Air Force.

15

 * David Akui, 67, American soldier, captured first Japanese prisoner of war in World War II.
 * Wilhelm Berlin, 98, German Nazi general, Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross recipient.
 * Leon Hirszman, 49, Brazilian film director, producer and screenwriter, AIDS.
 * Harry Holcombe, 80, American actor and radio director.
 * Moazzam Jah, 79, Indian royal, son of the last Nizam of Hyderabad.
 * Nilo Menéndez, 84, Cuban-American songwriter.
 * George Edward Pendray, 86, American author, founder of the American Interplanetary Society.
 * Joe Reisman, 62, American musician, bandleader, arranger and record producer.

16

 * William Richard Joseph Cook, 82, British mathematician, leader in the development of the hydrogen bomb, stroke.
 * Simon Gipps-Kent, 28, English theatre and film actor, morphine poisoning.
 * Howard Moss, 65, American poet, dramatist and critic, heart attack.
 * Christopher Soames, 66, British politician, Member of Parliament, pancreatitis.

17

 * K. Jack Bauer, 62, American writer and naval historian, heart attack.
 * Vladimir Basov, 64, Soviet actor, film director and screenwriter, stroke.
 * Francis E. Dorn, 76, American politician, member of U.S. House of Representatives.
 * George Dwyer, 78, English Roman Catholic prelate, archbishop of Birmingham.
 * Musa Gareyev, 65, Soviet Air Force squadron leader, cancer.
 * Carol Henry, 69, American actor.
 * Henry Kroeger, 70, Russian-Canadian politician, member of Legislative Assembly of Alberta, complications of lymphoma, pneumonia and blood infection.
 * Philip Wayne Powell, 73–74, American historian specialising in Spanish colonial history of the American Southwest, heart attack.
 * Dieter Schidor, 39, German actor, AIDS.

18

 * Golbery do Couto e Silva, 76, Brazilian army general and politician, Chief of Staff of the Presidency.
 * Frederic Fitch, 79, American logician, professor at Yale University.
 * Olinka Hrdy, 85, American artist.
 * Emil Schram, 93, president of the New York Stock Exchange.
 * Américo Tomás, 92, Portuguese Navy officer and politician, President of Portugal, infection.

19

 * Lean Alejandro, 27, Filipino student leader and nationalist political activist, assassinated.
 * Betty Burbridge, 91, American screenwriter and actress.
 * Einar Gerhardsen, 90, Norwegian politician, Prime Minister of Norway.
 * Nyamyn Jagvaral, 68, Mongolian politician, statesman and economist, Chairman of the Presidium of the People's Great Khural.
 * Muhammad Mansuruddin, 83, Bangladeshi author, literary critic and essayist.
 * Graciela Olivarez, 59, American lawyer, advocate for civil rights and for the poor.
 * Ralph Steinhauer, 82, Canadian politician, lieutenant governor of Alberta.
 * Ken Uston, 52, American blackjack player, heart failure.

20

 * George William Goddard, 98, English-American brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force.
 * Greville Howard, 78, British politician, Member of Parliament.
 * K. C. S. Mani, 65, Indian socialist activist, attempted to assassinate C. P. Ramaswamy Iyer.
 * Michael Stewart, 63, American playwright and dramatist, librettist, lyricist, screenwriter and novelist.
 * Péter Török, 36, Hungarian international footballer.

21

 * Aimo Aaltonen, 81, Finnish politician, leader of the Communist Party of Finland.
 * Sven Andersson, 77, Swedish politician, Minister for Foreign Affairs.
 * Ruth Attaway, 77, American film and stage actress, injuries from a fire.
 * John Chandos, 70, Scottish film and television actor.
 * William Kwai-sun Chow, 73, American martial artist.
 * J. Clyde Morris, 78, American civic leader.
 * Jaco Pastorius, 35, American jazz bassist, composer and producer, brain hemorrhage after being attacked at a club.

22

 * Hákun Djurhuus, 78, Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands.
 * H. R. Gross, 88, American politician, member of U.S. House of Representatives, complications from Alzheimer's disease.
 * Norman Luboff, 70, American music arranger, music publisher and choir director, lung cancer.
 * Carman Maxwell, 84, American animator and voice actor.
 * Dan Rowan, 65, American actor and comedian, lymphoma.

23

 * Walter M. Baumhofer, 82, American illustrator.
 * Bob Fosse, 60, American actor, choreographer, dancer, and film and stage director, heart attack.
 * Louis Kentner, 82, Hungarian and British pianist.
 * Rajendra Krishan, 68, Indian poet, lyricist and screenwriter.
 * Erland Van Lidth De Jeude, 34, Dutch-American wrestler, opera singer and actor, heart failure.
 * O. B. McClinton, 47, American country music singer and songwriter, abdominal cancer.

24

 * Drew Bundini Brown, 59, American assistant trainer and cornerman of Muhammad Ali.
 * John Nelson Cooper, 80, American custom knifemaker, founding member of the Knifemakers' Guild.
 * Damiaen Joan van Doorninck, 85, Dutch officer, lieutenant commander in the Royal Netherlands Navy Reserve.
 * Erhard Kroeger, 82, Nazi German SS officer, involved in the resettlement of Baltic Germans before World War II.
 * Dorothy Meyer, 62, American film and television actress.
 * Victor Mollo, 78, British contract bridge player, journalist and author.
 * Joseph Tabenkin, 66, Israeli military commander.

25

 * Mary Astor, 81, American actress, respiratory failure due to pulmonary emphysema.
 * Gerald Chapman, 37, English theatre director, AIDS.
 * Duffy Daugherty, 72, American college football player and coach.
 * Hassan El-Hassani, 71, Algerian comedian.
 * Harry Holtzman, 75, American artist and founding member of the American Abstract Artists.
 * Victoria Kent, 96, Spanish lawyer and republican politician.
 * Abba Kovner, 69, Lithuanian-Jewish partisan leader, Israeli poet and writer, laryngeal cancer.
 * Gennady Mikhasevich, 40, Soviet serial killer, executed.
 * Emlyn Williams, 81, Welsh writer, dramatist and actor, complications from bowel cancer.

26

 * Edgar Anstey, 80, British documentary filmmaker.
 * Ethel Catherwood, 79, Canadian high jumper and javelin thrower, Olympic gold medalist.
 * Co Prins, 49, Dutch international football, heart attack.
 * Andi Ramang, 63, Indonesian international footballer.
 * Howard W. Robison, 71, American politician, member of U.S. House of Representatives.
 * Sergio Santander, 33, Chilean race car driver, racing crash.
 * Herbert Tichy, 75, Austrian writer, geologist, journalist and climber.

27

 * John Newbold Camp, 79, American businessman, banker and politician, member of U.S. House of Representatives, heart attack.
 * J. N. Findlay, 83, South African philosopher.
 * Robert Benjamin Greenblatt, 80–81, Canadian endocrinologist.
 * Maria Guardiola, 92, Portuguese teacher and politician, anti-feminist.
 * M. K. K. Nair, 66, Indian bureaucrat and art connoisseur, officer of the Indian Administrative Service, cancer.
 * Eddy de Wind, 71, Dutch Holocaust survivor, physician, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.

28

 * Willard Harrison Bennett, 84, American plasma physicist.
 * Roman Brandstaetter, 81, Polish writer, poet, playwright, journalist and translator, heart attack.
 * Mehdi Hashemi, 42–43, Iranian Shi'a cleric, senior official in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, executed.
 * Belle Linsky, 82–83, Ukrainian-American businesswoman and philanthropist.
 * Ray Madden, 95, American lawyer, politician and World War I veteran, member of U.S. House of Representatives.

29

 * Darach Ó Catháin, 64, Irish sean-nós singer.
 * Elizabeth Eden, 41, American trans woman, AIDS-related pneumonia.
 * Henry Ford II, 70, American president of Ford Motor Company, pneumonia.
 * Vinodini Nilkanth, 80, Indian writer and translator.
 * Sebastian Peschko, 77, German classical pianist.
 * Mario Prestifilippo, 28, Italian member of the Sicilian Mafia, suspected murderer, shot.

30

 * Alfred Bester, 73, American science fiction author, TV, radio and comics scriptwriter, complications from broken hip.
 * Geoffrey Bowers, 33, American attorney.
 * Geoffrey Burridge, 38, English theatre and television actor, AIDS.
 * Herbert Sobel, 75, American soldier in World War II, his story featured in Stephen E. Ambrose's book Band of Brothers, malnutrition.

Unknown date

 * A. K. Brohi, 72, Pakistani politician and lawyer.
 * Ephraim Hertzano, 74–75, Romanian-Israeli board game designer, inventor of the game Rummikub.
 * Alice Rahon, 83, French-Mexican poet and artist.