List of Famous people who died at 79

Jackie Fields was an American professional boxer who won the World Welterweight Championship twice. Statistical boxing website BoxRec lists Fields as the #19 ranked welterweight of all-time. Fields was elected to the United Savings-Helms Hall of Boxing Fame in 1972, the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1979, the World Boxing Hall of Fame in 1987, and the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2004.

Wan Chun Cheng or Zheng Wanjun was a Chinese botanist. Initially one of the Chinese plant collectors who followed in the wake of the Europeans after 1920, he became one of the world's leading authorities on the taxonomy of gymnosperms. Working at the National Central University in Nanjing, he was instrumental in the identification in 1944 of the dawn redwood, Metasequoia glyptostroboides previously known only from fossils. The plant Juniperus chengii is named in his honour.

Cyril Leonard Shaps was an English actor of radio, television and film, with a successful career spanning over seven decades.