List of Famous people who died at 54

William Thomas Kinkade III was an American painter of popular realistic, pastoral, and idyllic subjects. He is notable for achieving success during his lifetime with the mass marketing of his work as printed reproductions and other licensed products via the Thomas Kinkade Company. According to Kinkade's company, one in every twenty American homes owned a copy of one of his paintings.

Yukiko Miyake (三宅 雪子, Miyake Yukiko ) was an American-born Japanese politician. She served one term in the Japanese House of Representatives.

Edward Davis Wood Jr. was an American filmmaker, actor, and author.

Valery Benediktovich Nosik was a Soviet Russian film and stage actor, the People's Artist of Russia (1994) who appeared in more than 100 films, as well as in numerous stage productions at the Moscow Pushkin Drama (1965-1972) and the Maly Theatres (1972-1995).

Robert Allen Palmer was an English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. He was known for his powerful, distinctive, gritty and soulful voice, sartorial elegance and for combining soul, jazz, rock, pop, reggae and blues.

Marina Grigorievna Golub was a Russian film, television and stage actress. Most well known for her performances in Russian television program Morning Mail, Ah, Semenovna, Girls, Travelling Naturalist.

Neale James Cooper was a Scottish football player and coach. Cooper played as a midfielder during the 1980s and 1990s, most prominently for the Aberdeen team managed by Alex Ferguson. He later played for Aston Villa, Rangers, Reading, Dunfermline Athletic and Ross County. Cooper then became a coach, and worked as a manager in England with Hartlepool United and Gillingham, and in Scotland with Ross County and Peterhead.

Kenule Beeson "Ken" Saro-Wiwa was a Nigerian writer, television producer, environmental activist, and winner of the Right Livelihood Award for "exemplary courage in striving non-violently for civil, economic and environmental rights" and the Goldman Environmental Prize. Saro-Wiwa was a member of the Ogoni people, an ethnic minority in Nigeria whose homeland, Ogoniland, in the Niger Delta has been targeted for crude oil extraction since the 1950s and which has suffered extreme environmental damage from decades of indiscriminate petroleum waste dumping. Initially as spokesperson, and then as president, of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), Saro-Wiwa led a nonviolent campaign against environmental degradation of the land and waters of Ogoniland by the operations of the multinational petroleum industry, especially the Royal Dutch Shell company. He was also an outspoken critic of the Nigerian government, which he viewed as reluctant to enforce environmental regulations on the foreign petroleum companies operating in the area.

Masayuki Imai was a Japanese playwright and actor.

Deborah Scaling Kiley was an American sailor, author, motivational speaker, and businesswoman. She was the first American woman to complete the Whitbread Round the World Race and famously survived a boating accident in 1982 off the coast of North Carolina, which became the subject of TV shows, books and films.