List of Famous people who died at 39

Colin Steele McRae, was a Scottish rally driver. He was the 1991 and 1992 British Rally Champion, and in 1995 became the first Scottish person and the youngest to win the World Rally Championship Drivers' title. With 25 victories in the WRC, McRae held the record for the most wins in the series.

Andrew James Pennington was a British politician, and a posthumous recipient of the George Medal in 2001.

Werner Teske was an East German Hauptmann (Captain) of the Ministry for State Security (Stasi) who was executed for "planned treason" in June 1981.

Cássia Rejane Eller was a Brazilian singer and musician. She came to prominence in the early 1990s and performed a mix of rock and MPB. Eller released five studio albums in her lifetime: Cássia Eller (1990), O Marginal (1992), Cássia Eller (1994), Veneno AntiMonotonia (1997) and Com Você... Meu Mundo Ficaria Completo (1999). Her sixth studio album, Dez de Dezembro (2002) was released posthumously. Eller's most successful album was Acústico MTV – Cássia Eller (2001), selling over 1 million copies. She was ranked as the 18th greatest vocalist and 40th greatest Brazilian musician by Rolling Stone Brasil. On December 29, 2001, Eller died of a heart attack caused by a malformation of her heart at the age of 39.

Dennis Carl Wilson was an American musician, singer, and songwriter who co-founded the Beach Boys. He is best remembered as their drummer and as the middle brother of bandmates Brian and Carl Wilson. Dennis was the only true surfer in the Beach Boys, and his personal life exemplified the "California Myth" that the band's early songs often celebrated. He was also known for his brief association with Charles Manson, a cult leader and songwriter later convicted of several murders, and for co-starring in the 1971 film Two-Lane Blacktop.

Élie Kakou was a French actor and stand-up comedian.

Dieter Schidor was a German actor, perhaps best known for his work in Sam Peckinpah's Cross of Iron, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Querelle.

Alfred Willi Rudolf Dutschke was a German Marxist sociologist and a political activist in the German student movement and the APO protest movement of the 1960s.

Esat Oktay Yıldıran was a Turkish military officer who was appointed governor of the Diyarbakır Prison after the 1980 Turkish coup d'état. Yıldıran became famous for his torture of PKK members in Diyarbakır Prison.

Ibrahim Shaheen, a Palestinian man and his Egyptian wife Inshirah Moussa worked for the Israeli intelligence service Mossad from 1967 until their arrest in 1974. Shaheen was executed in Egypt in 1977, while his wife and children fled to Israel and converted to Judaism. The case was widely published in the Israeli media in the 1980s.