List of Famous people who died at 73

Oliver Friggieri was a Maltese poet, novelist, literary critic, and philosopher. He led the establishment of literary history and criticism in Maltese while teaching at the University of Malta, studying the works of Dun Karm, Rużar Briffa, and others. A prolific writer himself, Friggieri explored new genres to advocate the Maltese language, writing the libretti for the first oratorio and the first cantata in Maltese. His work aimed to promote the Maltese cultural identity, while not shying from criticism: one of his most famous novels, Fil-Parlament Ma Jikbrux Fjuri, attacked the tribalistic divisions of society caused by politics. From philosophy, he was mostly interested in epistemology and existentialism.

André Waignein was a Belgian composer, conductor, trumpeter, and musicologist. He is well known for his symphonies with over six hundred compositions at the time of his death. Waignein's symphonies were known to be lively and upbeat, and they reflected his character. He was a professor at the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles and a director at the Conservatoire de Tournai

Helmut Haller was a German footballer who played as a forward. At international level, he represented West Germany at three World Cups. At club level, he played in both Germany and Italy, and won Italian league titles with Bologna and Juventus.

Marcel Bezençon was a Swiss journalist, media executive and the director of the European Broadcasting Union between 1954 and 1970. In 1955, he conceived the idea of the Eurovision Song Contest, based on the famous Sanremo Music Festival.

Daniel Matasi Rudisha was a Kenyan sprint athlete who competed mainly in the 400 metres.

Valentin Yuryevich Nikulin was a Soviet, Russian and Israeli theater and film actor.

José Tejada Marín, known as Pepe Marchena and also as Niño de Marchena in the first years of his career, was a Spanish flamenco singer who achieved great success in the ópera flamenca period (1922–1956). Influenced by singers like Antonio Chacón, he carried to the extreme the tendency to a more mellow and ornamented style of flamenco singing. Owing to his particular vocal conditions and singing style, he excelled mainly in palos (styles) like fandangos, cantes de ida y vuelta and cantes libres, contributing to making them the most popular flamenco styles in the era of the ópera flamenca, and created a new cante de ida y vuelta, the colombiana, later recorded by many other artists like El Lebrijano or Enrique Morente. He was also the first flamenco singer to use an orchestra to accompany flamenco singing, though later he returned to the guitar.

Yrjö Aulis Uramo Blomstedt was a Finnish architect and professor of architecture at the Helsinki University of Technology. He was a renowned modernist architect and architectural theoretician in the decades following the Second World War. Blomstedt was born into an architect family: his father Yrjö Blomstedt was an architect known for his National Romantic Jugend architecture, while his older brother Pauli E. Blomstedt was, until his premature death at the age of 35, a pioneering early modernist architect. His other brother, Jussi Jalas, was a composer. Blomstedt was married to Heidi Blomstedt, the daughter of the composer Jean Sibelius. They had two children, the artist Juhana Blomstedt and the architect Severi Blomstedt.

Prince Ernst August of Lippe was a claimant to the headship of the House of Lippe. Between 1950 and 1954 he was the president of the Vespa Club of Germany (VCVD).

Nigel Desmond Norman, was an aircraft designer and aviation pioneer. Norman co-founded Britten-Norman in 1954, was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1970, and served as chairman and managing director of AeroNorTec (1988–2002). With his longtime friend and business partner John Britten, he also designed, built and sailed racing yachts, as well as a series of air cushion vehicles and crop spraying equipment. He died of a heart attack at age 73 in 2002.