List of Famous people who died at 72

Jennifer Stoller was a British actress. In a career spanning almost 40 years, she appeared in TV, film, stage and radio productions.

Georges Frêche was a French politician. He served as President of the Languedoc-Roussillon Region from 2004 until his death: prior to that, he had been mayor of Montpellier for 27 years, and was also a former member (député) of the National Assembly. Frêche had been a member of the French Socialist Party until he was expelled on January 27, 2007.

Antonio Margheriti, also known under the pseudonyms Anthony M. Dawson and Antony Daisies, was an Italian filmmaker. Margheriti worked in many different genres in the Italian film industry, and was known for his sometimes derivative but often stylish and entertaining science fiction, sword and sandal, horror/giallo, Eurospy, Spaghetti Western, Vietnam War and action movies that were released to a wide international audience. He died in 2002.

René Pétillon was a French satirical and political cartoonist and comics artist. As a cartoonist he was most famous for his work in Canard Enchaîné. As a comics artist his best known and longest-running series was the humoristic comic strip Jack Palmer, about a goofy private detective.

Tomu Uchida , born Tsunejirō Uchida on 26 April 1898, was a Japanese film director. The stage name "Tomu" translates to “spit out dreams”.

William David "Dai" Davies was a Welsh professional footballer, who played as a goalkeeper between 1969 and 1987. He made 52 appearances for the Wales national team and played for Everton, Wrexham (twice), Tranmere Rovers and at Swansea City.

Boris Kuzmich Novikov was a Soviet actor of theater and cinema. People's Artist of Russia (1994).

Namio Harukawa was a pseudonymous Japanese fetish artist best known for his works depicting female domination ("femdom"), with erotic asphyxiation through facesitting appearing as a frequent subject of his art. He depicted voluptuous women, who dominated and used men as human furniture.

John Howard Davies was an English actor, producer and director, famous for appearing in the title role in the 1948 film adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist. After joining the BBC as a production assistant in 1966, Davies became a hugely influential television director and producer, specialising in comedy. He played a key role in British TV comedy across four decades, working variously as the commissioning producer, producer or director on many of the most successful British comedy shows of the era, including The World of Beachcomber, Steptoe and Son, All Gas and Gaiters, The Benny Hill Show, Monty Python's Flying Circus, The Goodies, Fawlty Towers, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, Not The Nine O'Clock News, Only Fools and Horses, Yes, Minister, Blackadder and Mr. Bean. Davies was the producer of all four seasons of the hit BBC sitcom The Good Life, and is also somewhat notorious for being the person who ended Benny Hill's TV career in the late 1980s.

Marc Allégret was a French screenwriter, photographer and film director.