List of Famous people who died at 72

Erik Ode was a German director and actor who was most famous for playing Kommissar Herbert Keller in the German television drama Der Kommissar. He married actress Hilde Volk in 1942. Many years later they co-starred together in the TV series Sun, Wine and Hard Nuts.

Patricia Annette Olson, known by her stage name Sigrid Valdis, was an American actress. She was best known for playing "Hilda" in the American television series Hogan's Heroes.

Lyudmila Vasilyevna Tselikovskaya was a Russian actress, best remembered for her leading parts in films like Hearts of the Four (1941–1944), Anton Ivanovich Gets Angry (1941), The Aerial Cabman (1943), Ivan the Terrible (1944), Twins (1945) and The Busy Estate (1946). She had a troubled artistic career and received her People's Artist of the RSFSR title only in 1963. Ignored by the officialdom, Tselikovskaya was admired by the general public and is revered as a true legend of the Soviet War time cinema.

John Campbell Brown was a Scottish astronomer who worked primarily in solar physics. He held the posts of Astronomer Royal for Scotland, the Regius Professor of Astronomy at the University of Glasgow, and honorary professorships at both the University of Edinburgh and the University of Aberdeen.

William Inglis Lindon Travers, known professionally as Bill Travers, was a British actor, screenwriter, director and animal rights activist. Prior to his show business career, he had served in the British army with Gurkha and special forces units.

Margaret Alexis Smith was a Canadian-born stage, film, and television actress and singer. She appeared in several major Hollywood films in the 1940s and had a notable career on Broadway in the 1970s, winning a Tony Award in 1972 for the Stephen Sondheim-James Goldman musical Follies.

Bogislaw Oskar Adolf Fürchtegott von Bonin was a German Wehrmacht officer and journalist.

Ang Rita Sherpa was a Nepali mountaineer who climbed Mount Everest ten times without the use of supplemental oxygen between 1983 and 1996. His sixth climb set the world record for the most successful ascents of Mount Everest, which he re-set on his tenth climb. Although others have since summitted Everest more, he still holds the record for most summits without supplementary oxygen. He was also the first, and to date only, person to climb Mount Everest without supplementary oxygen in winter. He was nicknamed the "Snow Leopard" by his peers.

Thomas Chandy was an Indian businessman and politician. He was a member of the Kerala Legislative Assembly from the Kuttanad constituency, the transport minister of the state of Kerala, and president of the Nationalist Congress Party in Kerala. He resigned from the minister's office on 15 November 2017 after an allegation regarding his resort in Alappuzha arose. He died in Kochi on 20 December 2019 after a battle with cancer.

Mike Walker was an American radio personality and gossip columnist for The National Enquirer, and hosted the magazine's 1999–2001 MGM-produced newsmagazine, National Enquirer TV. He was also the author of the 2005 book, Rather Dumb: A Top Tabloid Reporter Tells CBS How to Do News.