List of Famous people who died at 72

Sir Gyles Isham, 12th Baronet was an English aristocrat, actor and historian.

Arthur Dunkel was a Swiss (Portuguese-born) administrator. He served as director-general of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade between 1980 and 1993. Dunkel was educated at the Graduate Institute of International Studies, in Geneva. He was Professor for international trade at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland).

Rudolf F. Ahlswede was a German mathematician. Born in Dielmissen, Germany, he studied mathematics, physics, and philosophy. He wrote his Ph.D. thesis in 1966, at the University of Göttingen, with the topic "Contributions to the Shannon information theory in case of non-stationary channels". He dedicated himself in his further career to information theory and became one of the leading representatives of this area worldwide.

Hans Bellmer was a German artist, best known for the life-sized pubescent female dolls he produced in the mid-1930s. Historians of art and photography also consider him a Surrealist photographer.

John Lee was an Australian actor with an extensive career in film and television in Australia as well as the United Kingdom and the United States.

James Clavell, was an Australian novelist, screenwriter, director, and World War II veteran and prisoner of war. Clavell is best known as the author of his Asian Saga novels, a number of which have had television adaptations. Clavell also authored such screenplays as those for The Fly (1958) and The Great Escape (1963). He directed the popular 1967 film To Sir, with Love for which he also wrote the script.