List of Famous people who died at 78

Hazel Brooks was an American actress.

Santiago García Aracil was a Spanish Catholic archbishop.

Hilarion Tumi Vendégou was a French politician, the high chief of the Isle of Pines, in New Caledonia, and the mayor of the commune. He was recognised as grand chef in 1974, but, due to a violent succession dispute with his relative Jean-Marie Vendégou, was not formally enthroned until 7 July 1979. He was also the mayor of the island commune, until 2014.

Vadim Alekseyevich Kuzmin was a Russian theoretical physicist.

Abdullah ibn Hamoud Tariki, also known as Red Sheikh, was a Saudi politician and government official. He was the first Saudi oil minister appointed by King Saud, and co-founder of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) along with Venezuelan minister Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonso.

Wolfgang Büttner was a German actor. He appeared in more than one hundred films from 1950 to 1998.

Harry Frederick Wilcoxon, known as Henry Wilcoxon, was an actor born in Roseau, Dominica, British West Indies, and who was a leading man in many of Cecil B. DeMille's films, also serving as DeMille's associate producer on his later films.

Frederick Osam-Duodu was a Ghanaian coach and a FIFA Instructor. A former Ghana national football team coach, he won the 1978 Africa Cup of Nations, the 1993 African U-20 Cup of Nations and a silver medal at the 1993 FIFA World Youth Championship. He was also Ghana's coach during the 2002 African Cup of Nations, held in Mali.

Leo Vincent Gordon was an American character actor and writer. During more than 40 years in film and television he was most frequently cast as a supporting actor playing brutish bad guys but occasionally played more sympathetic roles just as effectively.

Thor Thorvaldsen was a Norwegian sailor and Olympic champion. He was born in Bamble and died in Bærum. He competed at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, where he received a gold medal in the dragon class as helmsman on the boat Pan.