List of Famous people who died at 80

Michael Phelps Ward CBE was an English surgeon and an expedition doctor on the 1953 first ascent of Mount Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary. He argued that the conquest of the mountain was a victory for science since doctors had finally figured out how to cope with the physiological effects of high altitude. His discoveries a few years earlier in the Royal Geographic Society archives of the Milne-Hink map and unofficial RAF photos of the Everest area helped to make the summit ascent possible.

Moses Asch, often known as Moe Asch, was a Polish-American recording engineer and record executive. He founded Asch Records, which then changed its name to Folkways Records when the label transitioned from 78 RPM recordings to LP records. Asch ran the Folkways label from 1948 until his death in 1986. Folkways was very influential in bringing folk music into the American cultural mainstream. Some of America's greatest folk songs were originally recorded for Asch, including "This Land Is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie and "Goodnight Irene" by Lead Belly. Asch sold many commercial recordings to Verve Records; after his death, Asch's archive of ethnic recordings was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution, and released as Smithsonian Folkways Records.

Yuri Abramoviсh Levitin was a Soviet Russian composer of classical music.

László Somogyi was a Hungarian conductor.

James Patrick Francis O'Malley was an English singer and character actor who appeared in many American films and television programmes from the 1940s to 1982, using the stage name J. Pat O'Malley. He also appeared on the Broadway stage in Ten Little Indians (1944) and Dial M for Murder (1954).

Franz Peter Wirth was a German film director and screenwriter. His film Helden was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1958.

František Jílek was a Czech conductor, known especially for his interpretation of Leoš Janáček's works.