List of Famous people who died at 53

Leif Thormod Panduro was a Danish writer, novelist, short story writer, and dramatist. A dentist by profession, he began in his thirties to write stories about people who can't conform to society's rules for one reason or another. Rend mig i traditionerne, from 1959 is about an adolescent who finally ends up in an asylum because he thinks society is mad. This novel was made into a film in 1979. Fern fra Danmark is about a man who wakes up in a hospital with amnesia but discovers more and more about a not very pleasant self.

Solomon Aaron Berson was an American physician and scientist whose discoveries, mostly together with Rosalyn Yalow, caused major advances in clinical biochemistry. Five years after Berson's death, Yalow received a Nobel Prize, which cannot be awarded posthumously, for their joint work on the radioimmunoassay. The Solomon A. Berson Medical Alumni Achievement Award was created in Berson's honor by NYU School of Medicine.

Leonard Jimmie Savage was an American mathematician and statistician. Economist Milton Friedman said Savage was "one of the few people I have met whom I would unhesitatingly call a genius."

Luis Contreras was an American character actor. The son of actor Roberto Contreras, his film debut was in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Contreras often played the parts of bums, gang members, police officers, prison inmates, and criminals. One of the typical roles that he played as a gang member or criminal was that of Jesus in Walking the Edge.

Piero Natoli was an Italian actor, director and screenwriter.

Juan Downey was a Chilean artist who was a pioneer in the fields of video art and interactive art.

Itamar Assumpção was a Brazilian songwriter and composer who was born in Tietê, a city in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. Assumpção built a strong reputation in the Brazilian independent and alternative music scenes during the 1980s and 1990s, particularly in his home state of São Paulo.

Susan Morrow was an American actress.