List of Famous people who died at 78

Bruce Myers was a British actor, comedian, and director.

Shirley Barbara de la Hunty AO, MBE, known as Shirley Strickland during her early career, was an Australian athlete. She won more Olympic medals than any other Australian in running sports.

Charles Kenneth "C. K." Williams was an American poet, critic and translator. Williams won many poetry awards. Flesh and Blood won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1987. Repair (1999) won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, was a National Book Award finalist and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. The Singing won the National Book Award, 2003 and in 2005 Williams received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. The 2012 film Tar related aspects of Williams' life using his poetry.

Hitoshi Takagi was a Japanese voice actor. He died at the age of 78 due to partial ischemic heart disease.

Fu Zuoyi was a Chinese military leader. He began his military career in the service of Yan Xishan, and he was widely praised for his defense of Suiyuan from the Japanese. During the final stages of the Chinese Civil War, Fu surrendered the large and strategic garrison around Beiping to Communist forces. He later served in the government of the People's Republic of China.

Sheikh Pierre Gemayel, also spelled Jmayyel, Jemayyel or al-Jumayyil, was a Lebanese political leader. He is remembered as the founder of the Kataeb Party, as a parliamentary powerbroker, and as the father of Bachir Gemayel and Amine Gemayel, both of whom were elected to the Presidency of the Republic in his lifetime.

Émile Jung was a French chef, who achieved three stars in the Michelin Guide for his restaurant Au Crocodile.

Falk Harnack was a German director and screenwriter. During Germany's Nazi era, he was also active with the German Resistance and toward the end of World War II, the partisans in Greece. Harnack was from a family of scholars, artists and scientists, several of whom were active in the anti-Nazi Resistance and paid with their lives.

Pierre Pascau was a Mauritian-Canadian journalist.

Modibo Keita was a Malian politician who was Prime Minister of Mali on two separate occasions, from 18 March 2002 to 8 June 2002 and from 9 January 2015 to 9 April 2017.