List of Famous people who died at 78

Arthur Freed was an American lyricist and Hollywood film producer. He won the Academy Award for Best Picture twice, in 1951 for An American in Paris and in 1958 for Gigi. Both films were musicals. In addition, he produced and was also a co-lyricist for the now-iconic film Singin' in the Rain.

Jean-Marie Léonard was a Belgian politician. A member of the Socialist Party (PS), he served in the Chamber of Representatives of Belgium from 1990 to 1995 and the Parliament of Wallonia from 1990 to 2004.

Arthur Kinyanjui Magugu was a Kenyan politician who served as Minister for Finance from 1982 to 1988. He was a beneficiary of the Kennedy Airlift in 1959. As a KANU MP he represented the Githunguri Constituency from 1969 to 1988, and from 2002 to 2007.

John Zaremba was an American actor most noted for supporting roles on science fiction films and television series.

Harold Hotelling was an American mathematical statistician and an influential economic theorist, known for Hotelling's law, Hotelling's lemma, and Hotelling's rule in economics, as well as Hotelling's T-squared distribution in statistics. He also developed and named the principal component analysis method widely used in finance, statistics and computer science.

Jackie Davis was an American soul jazz singer, organist and bandleader. He is notable for his contributions in bringing the Hammond organ to the forefront of jazz and pop, preceding the better-known Jimmy Smith by several years.

Robert Oscar Peterson was an American businessman and philanthropist. As the founder of the Jack in the Box restaurant chain, he popularized the drive-through fast food restaurant concept. He is credited with being the first to pair the drive-through window with an intercom system.

Ya'akov Jacques Amir was an Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset for the Alignment between 1974 and 1988.