List of Famous people who died at 72

Albert Fritz was a German racing cyclist. He rode in the 1971 Tour de France.

Yevgenia Solomonovna Ginzburg was a Russian author who served an 18-year sentence in the Gulag. Her given name is often Latinized to Eugenia.

James E. Brown was an American film and TV actor best known for his role as Lieutenant Ripley "Rip" Masters in all 166 episodes of the 1954-1959 ABC Western television series, The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin. He was also credited variously as J.B. Brown, Jim L. Brown, and James Bowen Brown.

Manfred Weiß was a German politician, jurist and member of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU). He served as a member of the Landtag of Bavaria, the state parliament, from 1978 until 2013, and the Minister of Justice of Bavaria from 1999 to 2003.

Johannes Leimena was a Moluccan politician and physician who is a National Hero of Indonesia. He was one of the longest-serving government ministers in Indonesia and the longest-serving under Sukarno's presidency, most prominently filling the roles of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Health. He also served in the People's Representative Council and the Constitutional Assembly. An Ambonese Christian, he was a member of the Indonesian Christian Party (Parkindo) and was its chairman between 1950 and 1961.

Tatjana Lematschko was a Soviet-born Swiss chess player, She was born in Moscow, but lived in Bulgaria for several years.

Dominique Farran was a French radio host and journalist.

Rubén José Suñé was an Argentine football midfielder who won eight titles with Boca Juniors and also played for the Argentina national team, With the Argentina national team, where he his international debut in 1969 and played a total of six games for the squad.

Dámaso Pérez Prado was a Cuban bandleader, pianist, composer and arranger who popularized the mambo in the 1950s. His big band adaptation of the danzón-mambo proved to be a worldwide success with hits such as "Mambo No. 5", earning him the nickname "King of the Mambo". In 1955, Prado and his orchestra topped the charts in the US and UK with a mambo cover of Louiguy's "Cherry Pink ". He frequently made brief appearances in films, primarily of the rumberas genre, and his music was featured in films such as La Dolce Vita.

Ousmane Tanor Dieng was the First Secretary of the Socialist Party of Senegal. He was vice-president of the Socialist International since 1996.