List of Famous people who died at 40

Wolfgang Graßl was a German skier, coach and businessman, who represented Germany on the junior level in the 1980s. He died of heart failure.

James Wright Foley was an American journalist and video reporter. While working as a freelance war correspondent during the Syrian Civil War, he was abducted on November 22, 2012, in northwestern Syria. He was beheaded in August 2014 purportedly as a response to American airstrikes in Iraq, thus becoming the first American citizen killed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS).

José Sergio Vega Cuamea, better known by his stage name "El Shaka", was a Regional Mexican singer. He was born in Ejido Hornos, Sonora, located near Ciudad Obregón in Mexico. On June 26, 2010, he was killed by gunfire in the Mexican state of Sinaloa after a car chase. The assailants pursued Sergio Vega for a distance, shooting at him and his passenger Montiel Sergio Ávila 30 times. He was killed and Ávila was seriously injured. Vega had recently increased his security because of other celebrity deaths like that of Sergio Gómez.

Mamoru Takuma was a Japanese mass murderer who killed eight children in the Osaka school massacre in Ikeda, Osaka Prefecture on 8 June 2001.

Nathaniel Marston was an American actor and producer. He is known for his two roles on ABC's One Life to Live as Al Holden and Dr. Michael McBain from 2001 to 2007.

Prince Anthony Stanisław Albert Radziwiłł was a Swiss-born American television executive and filmmaker. He was a nephew of former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.

Richard Erwin Rood, better known by his ring name "Ravishing" Rick Rude, was an American professional wrestler who performed for many promotions, including World Championship Wrestling (WCW), World Wrestling Federation (WWF), and Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW). Well known for his bold persona, he is considered by many to be one of the best wrestlers who never won the WWE Championship

Christopher Shannon Penn was an American actor. He was typically cast as a tough character, featured as a villain or a working-class thug, or in a comic role and was known for his roles in such films as The Wild Life, Reservoir Dogs, The Funeral, Footloose, Rush Hour, Corky Romano, True Romance, Beethoven's 2nd, Short Cuts, The Boys Club, All the Right Moves, At Close Range, and Pale Rider. He also provided the voice of the corrupt, ruthless cop Edward "Eddie" Pulaski in the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

Ashraf Daniel Mohamad Sinclair was a Malaysian actor known for his role as Eddy in the 2005 film Gol & Gincu. He was born to an English father and a Malaysian mother of Malay ancestry and Javanese descent from Ipoh, Perak.

Beatrice Muriel Hill Tinsley was a British-born New Zealand astronomer and cosmologist and professor of astronomy at Yale University, whose research made fundamental contributions to the astronomical understanding of how galaxies evolve, grow and die.