List of Famous people who died at 79

Rolf Rodenstock was a German industrialist who was born and died in Munich.

Audra Marie Lindley was an American actress, most famous for her role as landlady Helen Roper on the sitcom Three's Company and its spin-off The Ropers.

Josef "Pepa, Pepi, Joe" Maleček was a very successful Czechoslovak ice hockey player during the period between World Wars.

Bronisław Dąbrowski was a Polish bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. He was auxiliary bishop of Warsaw 1962–1993 and general secretary of the Polish Episcopal Conference 1968–1993. In 1982 Dąbrowski became titular archbishop pro hac vice and in 1993 senior bishop of the Warsaw Archdiocese. Because of his function in the Episcopal Conference, Dąbrowski participated in political events of communist Poland. In December 1981 he wrote a letter to General Wojciech Jaruzelski in which he condemned the proclamation of the martial law in Poland and the subsequent repressions by the regime.

Paul Lorenzen was a German philosopher and mathematician, founder of the Erlangen School and inventor of game semantics.

Naum Ilyich Akhiezer was a Soviet and Ukrainian mathematician of Jewish origin, known for his works in approximation theory and the theory of differential and integral operators. He is also known as the author of classical books on various subjects in analysis, and for his work on the history of mathematics. He is the brother of the theoretical physicist Aleksander Akhiezer.

Dixy Lee Ray was an American scientist and politician who served as the 17th Governor of the U.S. state of Washington. Variously described as idiosyncratic, and "ridiculously smart," she was the state's first female governor and was in office during the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. She was a supporter of atomic energy.