List of Famous people who died at 81

Birgitta Trotzig was a Swedish writer who was elected to the Swedish Academy in 1993. She was one of Sweden's most celebrated authors, and wrote prose fiction and non-fiction, as well as prose poetry.

Maurice William "Moe" Mantha was a Canadian ice hockey player and a politician.

Bernard Beryl Brodie, a leading researcher on drug therapy, is considered by many to be the founder of modern pharmacology and brought the field to prominence in the 1940s and 1950s. He was a major figure in the field of drug metabolism, the study of how drugs interact in the body and how they are absorbed. A member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, Brodie was a founder and former chief of the Laboratory of Chemical Pharmacology at the National Heart Institute of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

Antal Apró was a Hungarian Communist politician, who served as Speaker of the National Assembly of Hungary between 1971 and 1984.

Nelson Doubleday Jr. was the owner and the next-to-last president and CEO of Doubleday and Company before its sale to Bertelsmann A.G. in 1986. He was instrumental in the company's purchase of the New York Mets in 1980.

Larry Simon Gelbart was an American television writer, playwright, screenwriter, director and author, most famous as a creator and producer of the television series M*A*S*H, and as co-writer of the Broadway musicals A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and City of Angels.

Róbert Ilosfalvy was a Hungarian operatic tenor; he possessed a voice of lyric grace and dramatic power enabling him to sing a wide range of roles in the Italian, German, and French repertories.

Olga San Juan O'Brien was a Nuyorican actress, dancer and comedian, mainly active in films during the 1940s.

Antonietta Meneghel, better known by her stage name Toti Dal Monte, was a celebrated Italian operatic soprano. She may be best remembered today for her performance as Cio-cio-san in Puccini's Madama Butterfly, having recorded this role complete in 1939 with Beniamino Gigli as Pinkerton.