List of Famous people who died at 61

Paul Lamar Dawkins was an American-Turkish professional basketball player, who played for the Utah Jazz of the National Basketball Association (NBA), appearing in 57 games. He was inducted into the Northern Illinois University Athletics Hall of Fame in 1991. In 2007, he was also inducted into the Saginaw County Sports Hall of Fame.

Robert Burnham Jr. was an American astronomer, best known for writing the classic three-volume Burnham's Celestial Handbook. He is the discoverer of numerous asteroids including the Mars crossing asteroid 3397 Leyla, as well as six comets.

Jacobo Majluta Azar was Vice President of the Dominican Republic from 16 August 1978 to 4 July 1982. He was one of the generations of politicians in the Dominican Republic whose ambition was continually thwarted by the country's labyrinthine power struggles and sectarianism. He was elected Vice-President in 1978 and served as President for 42 days in 1982, replacing Antonio Guzmán who had committed suicide, but he never again held the highest office.

Strother Douglas Martin Jr. was an American character actor who often appeared in support of John Wayne and Paul Newman and in Western films directed by John Ford and Sam Peckinpah. Martin perhaps is best known as the prison captain in the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke, in which he uttered the line, "What we've got here is failure to communicate." The line is number 11 on the American Film Institute list of AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes.

Maurice Dugowson was a French film director and screenwriter. His 1975 film Lily, aime-moi was entered into the 25th Berlin International Film Festival. The following year, his film F comme Fairbanks was entered into the 26th Berlin International Film Festival. In 1981 his film Bye, See You Monday was entered into the 12th Moscow International Film Festival.