List of Famous people who died at 56

Gilles Verlant was a Belgian journalist, best known as a music critic and rock expert. He was also Serge Gainsbourg's friend and wrote his definitive biography. He died from falling down a set of stairs.

Claudia Joan Alexander was a Canadian-born American research scientist specializing in geophysics and planetary science. She worked for the United States Geological Survey and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She was the last project manager of NASA's Galileo mission to Jupiter and until the time of her death had served as project manager and scientist of NASA's role in the European-led Rosetta mission to study Comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

Ananda Shankar was a Bengali musician, singer and composer best known for fusing Western and Eastern musical styles. He was married to dancer and choreographer Tanusree Shankar.

Yumi Shitsukawa , also known by her stage name Yō Inoue , was a Japanese voice actress. Inoue was diagnosed with lung cancer in late 2001, underwent treatments during 2002, and her condition deteriorated rapidly in the last month of her life.

Iain Norman Macleod was a British Conservative Party politician and government minister.

Al-Sayyid Muhammad al-Hasan bin ‘Alawi bin ‘Abbas bin ‘Abd al-‘Aziz (1944–2004), also knowing as Muhammad ibn Alawi al-Maliki, was one of the foremost traditional Sunni Islamic scholar of contemporary times from Saudi Arabia. He was the Mujaddid of 20th-21st century.