List of Famous people who died at 74

Lansana Conté was a Guinean politician and military official who served as the second President of Guinea, from 3 April 1984 until his death on 22 December 2008. Conté came to power in the 1984 Guinean coup d'état.

Yury Sergeevitch Saulsky was a Soviet and Russian composer, author. His works as a film composer include the score for A Glass of Water.

Jacques Deray was a French film director and screenwriter. Deray is prominently known for directing many crime and thriller films.

Sheikha Fariha Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah was a Kuwaiti royal, one of the daughters of the tenth ruler of Kuwait, Sheikh Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah. She was born in the Dasman Palace on 15 February 1944. She undertook several charitable activities, heading the "Kuwait Association for the Ideal Family", which created the "Ideal Mother Competition" in 2004 and worked to protect the youth and the disabled. Frayha also encouraged and supported politics that empowered Kuwaiti women.

Detlef Pirsig was a German football player and manager. He played in 385 matches, primarily with MSV Duisburg.

Fregattenkapitän Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock was a submarine commander in the Kriegsmarine of Nazi Germany during World War II. He ranks sixth of the most successful U-boat commanders in the Battle of the Atlantic against the Allies. He commanded four U-boats, including U-96, a Type VIIC U-boat, which gained widespread recognition when one of its patrols was documented and publicized by an accompanying member of a propaganda company Lothar-Günther Buchheim. Lehmann-Willenbrock was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves. The story of the U-96 was eventually made into a mini-series and film called Das Boot, in which the captain was portrayed by Jürgen Prochnow.

Paul Koslo was a German-born Canadian actor.

Aleksei Yuryevich German was a Soviet and Russian director and screenwriter.

Karl Waldemar Ziegler was a German chemist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1963, with Giulio Natta, for work on polymers. The Nobel Committee recognized his "excellent work on organometallic compounds [which]...led to new polymerization reactions and ... paved the way for new and highly useful industrial processes". He is also known for his work involving free-radicals, many-membered rings, and organometallic compounds, as well as the development of Ziegler–Natta catalyst. One of many awards Ziegler received was the Werner von Siemens Ring in 1960 jointly with Otto Bayer and Walter Reppe, for expanding the scientific knowledge of and the technical development of new synthetic materials.

Nadia Barentin was a French actress, known for her theatre and film roles, including Les Blessures assassines in 2000.