List of Famous people who died at 75
Cokie Roberts
Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne "Cokie" Roberts was an American journalist and bestselling author. Her career included decades as a political reporter and analyst for National Public Radio and ABC News, with prominent positions on Morning Edition, The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, World News Tonight, and This Week.
Penny Marshall
Carole Penny Marshall was an American actress, director, and producer. She came to notice in the 1970s for her role as Laverne DeFazio on the television sitcom Laverne & Shirley (1976–1983), receiving three nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy for her portrayal.
Donald Pleasence
Donald Henry Pleasence was an English actor. He began his career on stage in the West End before transitioning into a screen career, where he played numerous supporting and character roles including RAF Flight Lieutenant Colin Blythe in The Great Escape (1963), the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice (1967), SEN 5241 in THX 1138 (1971), and the deranged Clarence "Doc" Tydon in Wake in Fright (1971).
Lars Vilks
Lars Endel Roger Vilks Lanat was a Swedish visual artist and activist whose drawings of Muhammad resulted in at least two failed attempts by Islamic extremists to murder him. He also created the sculptures, Nimis and Arx, made of driftwood and rock, respectively. The area where the sculptures are located was proclaimed by Vilks as an independent country, "Ladonia".
Cynthia Lennon
Cynthia Powell Lennon was the first wife of John Lennon and the mother of Julian Lennon.
Robert Hansen
Robert Christian Hansen, known in the media as the "Butcher Baker," was an American serial killer. Between 1971 and 1983, Hansen abducted, raped, and murdered at least 17 women in and around Anchorage, Alaska; he hunted many of them down in the wilderness with a Ruger Mini-14 and a knife. He was arrested and convicted in 1983, and was sentenced to 461 years and a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Jerry Heller
Gerald Elliot "Jerry" Heller was an American music manager and businessman. He was best known for his controversial management of West Coast rap and gangsta rap pioneers N.W.A and Eazy-E. He rose to prominence in the 1960s and 1970s, importing Elton John and Pink Floyd for their first major American tours, and representing Journey, Marvin Gaye, Van Morrison, War, Eric Burdon, Crosby Stills & Nash, Ike & Tina Turner, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Otis Redding, the Who, REO Speedwagon, Black Sabbath, Humble Pie, Styx, the Grass Roots, and the Standells, among many others.
Christopher Robin Milne
Christopher Robin Milne was an English author and bookseller and the only child of author A. A. Milne. As a child, he was the basis of the character Christopher Robin in his father's Winnie-the-Pooh stories and in two books of poems.
Christine Keeler
Christine Margaret Keeler was an English model and showgirl. Her meeting at a dance-club with society osteopath Stephen Ward drew her into fashionable circles. At the height of the Cold War, she became sexually involved with a married government minister, John Profumo, as well as with a Soviet naval attaché, Yevgeny Ivanov. A shooting incident between two of her other lovers caused the press to investigate her, revealing that her affairs could be threatening national security. In the House of Commons, Profumo denied any improper conduct but later admitted that he had lied.
Satchel Paige
Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige was an American professional baseball pitcher who played in Negro league baseball and Major League Baseball (MLB). His career spanned five decades and culminated with his induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Lyudmila Gurchenko
Lyudmila Markovna Gurchenko, was a popular Soviet and Russian actress, singer and entertainer. People's Artist of the USSR (1983).
Don Lane
Don Lane was an American-born talk show host and singer, best known for his television career in Australia, especially for hosting The Don Lane Show which aired on the Nine Network from 1975 to 1983, and his appearances opposite Bert Newton.
Donald Neilson
Donald Neilson, alias the "Black Panther", was a British armed robber, kidnapper and murderer. He murdered three men during robberies of sub-post offices between 1971 and 1974, and murdered kidnap victim Lesley Whittle, an heiress from Highley, Shropshire, in January 1975. He was apprehended later that year, and sentenced to life imprisonment in July 1976, remaining in prison until his death in 2011.
Paulo Freire
Paulo Reglus Neves Freire (1921–1997) was a Brazilian educator and philosopher who was a leading advocate of critical pedagogy. He is best known for his influential work Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which is generally considered one of the foundational texts of the critical pedagogy movement.
Rutger Hauer
Rutger Oelsen Hauer was a Dutch actor. In 1999, he was named by the Dutch public as the Best Dutch Actor of the Century.
Rocky Johnson
Rocky Johnson was a Canadian-American professional wrestler. Among many National Wrestling Alliance titles, he was the first black Georgia Heavyweight Champion. He won the World Tag Team Championship in 1983, along with his partner Tony Atlas, to become the first black champions in WWE history.
Erich Kästner
Emil Erich Kästner was a German author, poet, screenwriter and satirist, known primarily for his humorous, socially astute poems and for children's books including Emil and the Detectives. He received the international Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1960 for his autobiography Als ich ein kleiner Junge war. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times.
Roy Scheider
Roy Richard Scheider was an American actor and amateur boxer. He played Martin Brody in the thriller film Jaws (1975), reprising the role in its sequel Jaws 2 (1978).
Pat Bowlen
Patrick Dennis Bowlen was the American majority owner of the Denver Broncos of the National Football League (NFL). The Bowlen family, including his two brothers John Bowlen and Bill Bowlen, and sister Marybeth Bowlen, purchased the team from Edgar Kaiser in 1984. Bowlen served as the Broncos CEO from his purchase of the club in 1984 until July 2014, when he stepped down as Broncos' CEO due to the onset and progression of Alzheimer's disease.
Brian Keith
Brian Keith was an American film, television and stage actor who in his six-decade-long career gained recognition for his work in movies such as the Disney family film The Parent Trap (1961), Johnny Shiloh (1963), the comedy The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966), and the adventure saga The Wind and the Lion (1975), in which he portrayed President Theodore Roosevelt.