List of Famous people who died at 72

François Varillon (1905–1978) was a French Jesuit and theologian. He was also a writer of some significance. He entered the Society of Jesus, as a novitiate, at 22 and was ordained in 1937. He won the Grand prix catholique de littérature in 1974 for L’humilité de Dieu.

Thierry Lévy was a high-profile French criminal defence lawyer who spent his career in a state of permanent opposition to the French legal establishment. Admitted to the Paris bar in 1969, he went on to appear in a succession of well publicised criminal trials during the ensuing three and a half decades. His father had been a journalist and press proprietor who was not infrequently supportive of nationalist and other right-wing movements. Thierry Lévy's own assessments of the French criminal justice system, which he shared frequently through the print media and, especially during his later years, in television debates, placed him firmly at the liberal-left end of the political spectrum, however. He was a prominent and eloquent backer of the campaign that led to the abolition of the death penalty by Justice Minister Robert Badinter under President Mitterrand in 1981.

Victor Gsovsky was a Russian ballet dancer, teacher, balletmaster and choreographer.

Valery Ilyich Rozhdestvensky was a Soviet cosmonaut.

Mashour Haditha al-Jazy (1928-2001) was a Jordanian Lieutenant General, mostly known for participating in the Six-Day War and the Battle of Karameh.