List of Famous people who died at 53

Eli M. Black was an American businessman. He controlled the United Brands Company. His son Leon Black is a founding member of private equity firm Apollo Management.

Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe was a prominent South African political dissident and teacher, who founded the Pan Africanist Congress in opposition to the South African apartheid system.

Srividya, also known as Sreevidya, was an Indian film actress best known for her work predominantly in Malayalam and Tamil films with few Telugu, Kannada and Hindi films. In a career spanning for 40 years, she has acted in more than 800 films. In the latter part of her career, she concentrated on Malayalam films. In addition to acting, Srividya occasionally worked as a playback singer as well. She was best known for restraint and subtlety in portrayal of varied emotions. She used her own voice for dubbing almost in all movies in all languages. In 2006, she died of spine cancer, aged 53.

Alan Brown, known professionally as Alan Browning, was an English actor. He is best remembered for portraying Alan Howard in the television series Coronation Street, a role he played from 1969 to 1973. He was married to his Coronation Street co-star Pat Phoenix from 23 December 1972, until his 1979 death from liver failure as a result of his heavy alcohol intake. Phoenix played his on screen wife, Elsie Tanner, in Coronation Street.

Elio Petri was an Italian political filmmaker best known for the 1970 Academy Award-winning film Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion.

Cristina Campo was the pen name of Vittoria Maria Angelica Marcella Cristina Guerrini, an Italian writer and translator. She also published under the pseudonyms Puccio Quaratesi, Bernardo Trevisano, Giusto Cabianca and Benedetto P. d'Angelo.