List of Famous people who died at 69

David Robert Jones, known professionally as David Bowie, was an English singer-songwriter and actor. He was a leading figure in the music industry and is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. He was acclaimed by critics and musicians, particularly for his innovative work during the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, with his music and stagecraft having a significant impact on popular music. During his lifetime, his record sales, estimated at over 100 million records worldwide, made him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. In the UK, he was awarded ten platinum album certifications, eleven gold and eight silver, and released eleven number-one albums. In the US, he received five platinum and nine gold certifications. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. Rolling Stone placed him among its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and named him the "Greatest Rock Star Ever" following his death in 2016.

Sir David Anthony Andrew Amess was a British politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Southend West from May 1997 until his killing in 2021. He previously served as MP for Basildon from 1983 to April 1997. He was a member of the Conservative Party.

Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman was an English actor and director. Known for his languid tone and delivery, Rickman's signature sound was the result of a speech impediment when he could not move his lower jaw properly as a child. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), performing in modern and classical theatre productions. He played the Vicomte de Valmont in the RSC stage production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses in 1985, and after the production transferred to the West End in 1986 and Broadway in 1987 he was nominated for a Tony Award.

Harold Allen Ramis was an American actor, comedian, director and writer. His best-known film acting roles were as Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989), and as Russell Ziskey in Stripes (1981); he also co-wrote those films. As a director, his films include the comedies Caddyshack (1980), National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), Groundhog Day (1993), and Analyze This (1999). Ramis was the original head writer of the television series SCTV, on which he also performed, as well as a co-writer of Groundhog Day and National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). The final film that he wrote, produced, directed, and acted in was Year One (2009).

James Riddle Hoffa was an American labor union leader who served as the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) from 1957 until 1971.

Mark Blum was an American actor who worked in theater, film and television. Blum found success with a lead role in the 1985 film Desperately Seeking Susan, which he followed up the next year with a supporting role in Crocodile Dundee. On the stage, he won an Obie Award for his role in the play Gus and Al during its 1988–1989 season.

Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, commonly known as Colonel Gaddafi, was a Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He governed Libya as Revolutionary Chairman of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then as the "Brotherly Leader" of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011. He was initially ideologically committed to Arab nationalism and Arab socialism but later ruled according to his own Third International Theory.

Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth President of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and later, the Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party and its regional organization, the Iraqi Ba'ath Party—which espoused Ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism—Saddam played a key role in the 1968 coup that brought the party to power in Iraq.

Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III, better known as Desi Arnaz, was a Cuban-American actor, musician, bandleader, comedian and film and television producer, revolutionary in the creation of modern television. He is best known for his role as the witty Ricky Ricardo on the American television sitcom I Love Lucy, in which he co-starred with his then wife Lucille Ball. Arnaz and Ball are generally credited as the innovators of the syndicated rerun, which they pioneered with the I Love Lucy series.

Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, better known by his pen name and, later, legal name Pablo Neruda, was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. Neruda became known as a poet when he was 13 years old, and wrote in a variety of styles, including surrealist poems, historical epics, overtly political manifestos, a prose autobiography, and passionate love poems such as the ones in his collection Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (1924).

Alan Thicke was a Canadian actor, songwriter, and game and talk show host. He was the father of singer Robin Thicke. In 2013, Thicke was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame. Thicke was known for playing Dr. Jason Seaver on the 1980s sitcom Growing Pains.

Robert Craig Knievel, professionally known as Evel Knievel, was an American stunt performer and entertainer. Over the course of his career, he attempted more than 75 ramp-to-ramp motorcycle jumps.

Julio Cortázar, born Julio Florencio Cortázar American Spanish: [ˈxuljo korˈtasar] (listen); was an Argentine novelist, short story writer, and essayist. Known as one of the founders of the Latin American Boom, Cortázar influenced an entire generation of Spanish-speaking readers and writers in America and Europe.

Kim Jong-il was a North Korean politician who served as the second Supreme Leader of North Korea from 1994 to 2011. He led North Korea from the 1994 death of his father Kim Il-sung, the first Supreme Leader until his own death in 2011, when he was succeeded by his son, Kim Jong-un.

Henry Hill Jr. was an American mobster who was associated with the Lucchese crime family of New York City between 1955 and 1980. In 1980, Hill was arrested on narcotics charges and became an FBI informant. He testified against his former Mafia associates, resulting in 50 convictions, including those of caporegime (captain) Paul Vario and James Burke on multiple charges. He subsequently entered the Witness Protection Program, but was removed from the program in the early 1990s.

Norma Leah Nelson McCorvey, better known by the generic legal pseudonym "Jane Roe", was the plaintiff in the landmark American legal case Roe v. Wade in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1973 that individual state laws banning abortion were unconstitutional.

Margaret Ruth Kidder, known professionally as Margot Kidder, was a Canadian-American actress, director, and activist whose career spanned five decades. Her accolades include three Canadian Screen Awards and one Daytime Emmy Award. Though she appeared in an array of film and television roles, Kidder is most widely known for her performance as Lois Lane in the Superman film series, appearing in the first four films.

Anna Marie "Patty" Duke was an American actress and health advocate. Over the course of her acting career, she was the recipient of an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Leighton Durham Reynolds was a British Latinist who was known for his work on textual criticism. Spending his entire teaching career at Brasenose College, Oxford, he prepared the most commonly cited edition of Seneca the Younger's Letters.

Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov was the sixth paramount leader of the Soviet Union and the fourth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Following the 18-year rule of Leonid Brezhnev, Andropov served in the post from November 1982 until his death in February 1984.