List of Famous people who died at 72

Frederick IX was King of Denmark from 1947 to 1972.

Tony deBrum was a Marshallese politician and government minister. He helped organize the Marshall Islands' independence from the United States and later served as Foreign Minister of the Marshall Islands from 1979 to 1987, from 2008 to 2009 and from 2014 to 2016. He was the Minister in Assistance to the President of Marshall Islands from 2012 to 2014. He was particularly outspoken on climate change, and participated in numerous conferences and demonstrations, including the People's Climate March in New York City in September 2014.

İsmail Akbay was a Turkish scientist. He is mostly remembered as the first Turk to work for NASA.

Leopold John "Leo" Genn was an English actor and barrister. He played Petronius in the 1951 film Quo Vadis, which earned him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor nomination.

Arturo Martín Jauretche was an Argentine writer, politician, and philosopher.

Ene Mihkelson was an Estonian writer. She was a recipient of the Herder Prize and the Baltic Assembly Prize for Literature.

Thelma Alicia Parapar, better known by her stage name, Thelma del Río was an Argentine film, stage and television actress, as well as a noted vedette. She worked as in the theatre with Carlos A. Petit, Adolfo Stray and Nelida Roca. A victim of breast cancer, she died in Buenos Aires in 1998, and was buried in La Chacarita Cemetery.

Semaun, also spelled Semaoen, was the first chairman of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) and was a leader of the Semarang branch of the Sarekat Islam.

Svyatoslav Igorevich Belza was a Soviet Russian literary and musical scholar, critic and essayist, and a prominent TV personality who's launched and hosted several TV programs aimed at popularizing classical music, theatre, and ballet, including Music on Air and Masterpieces of the World Music Theatre. Belza has received high-profiled honors in three countries, among them the Russian Order of Merit for the Fatherland, the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, and the Ukrainian Order of Saint Nicholas.

Louis Stewart was an Irish jazz guitarist.