List of Famous people who died at 79

Ilya Piatetski-Shapiro was a Soviet-born Israeli mathematician. During a career that spanned 60 years he made major contributions to applied science as well as pure mathematics. In his last forty years his research focused on pure mathematics; in particular, analytic number theory, group representations and algebraic geometry. His main contribution and impact was in the area of automorphic forms and L-functions.

Benjamin Emmet Nye, Sr. was an American makeup artist for the Hollywood film industry for over four decades, from the 1930s to the early 1980s. He worked on over five hundred 20th Century Fox films both in and out of Hollywood. Including Gone with the Wind (1939), Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), The King and I (1956), The Fly (1958), Valley of the Dolls (1967), and Planet of the Apes (1968).

Ellis Larkins was an American jazz pianist born in Baltimore, Maryland, perhaps best known for his two recordings with Ella Fitzgerald: the albums Ella Sings Gershwin (1950) and Songs in a Mellow Mood (1954). He was also the leader in the first solo sides by singer Chris Connor on her album Chris (1954).

Elsa Romio de Serrano, commonly known as Elsa Serrano, was an Italian-born Argentine fashion designer.

Barbara Olive Skelton was an English memoirist, novelist and socialite.

Colin Charles Houghton Davis was a British racing driver from England, who won the 1964 Targa Florio.

Donald Oscar Pederson was an American professor of electrical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and one of the designers of SPICE, a simulator for integrated circuits that has been universally used as a teaching tool and in the everyday work of circuits engineers. The IEEE Donald O. Pederson Award in Solid-State Circuits is named in his honor.