List of Famous people who died at 53

Asa Earl Carter was a 1950s Ku Klux Klan leader, segregationist speech writer, and later Western novelist. He co-wrote George Wallace's well-known pro-segregation line of 1963, "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever", and ran in the Democratic primary for governor of Alabama on a segregationist ticket. Years later, under the alias of supposedly-Cherokee writer Forrest Carter, he wrote The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales (1972), a Western novel that led to a 1976 National Film Registry film, and The Education of Little Tree (1976), a best-selling, award-winning book which was marketed as a memoir but which turned out to be fiction.

Tony Stratton-Smith was an English rock music manager, and entrepreneur. He founded the London-based record label Charisma Records in 1969 and managed rock groups such as the Nice, Van der Graaf Generator and Genesis.