List of Famous people who died at 56

Arthur Maia was a Brazilian composer and musician. Maia played with musicians such as Djavan, Gilberto Gil, Marisa Monte, Lulu Santos and Ney Matogrosso. His compositions usually present a fusion of jazz, funk, swing music and reggae.

Zuzana Brabcová was a Czech writer.

Tomohiko Kira was a Japanese guitarist who led the band ZABADAK. He also composed the original music for the 1988 cult horror film Evil Dead Trap, and performed guitar on soundtracks of the role-playing video games Xenogears (1998) and Chrono Cross (1999), playing the opening and ending themes on the latter. He later recorded an album with the singer of the ending theme from Chrono Cross, Noriko Mitose.

Hirotaka Suzuoki was a Japanese actor, voice actor and narrator from Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture who graduated from Tokyo Keizai University.

Éric Laforge was a French radio host. He is best known for hosting the show Le Morning Club, which was broadcast on Classic 21.

Sally JoAnne Menke was an American film editor, who worked in cinema and television. Over the span of her 30-year career in film, she accumulated more than 20 feature film credits.

Kevin Noel Clark was an American screenwriter, actor, and film producer. He adopted the last name of his adoptive father, Maurice Jarre.

Alphonse Massamba-Débat was a political figure of the Republic of the Congo who led the country from 1963 until 1968 in a one-party system.

Richard Lam Chun-Keung was a Cantopop lyricist with several hundred Cantopop songs to his name, and a columnist for Apple Daily and Next Magazine in Hong Kong.

Christian Mistral was a Canadian novelist, poet, and songwriter from Quebec.