List of Famous people who died at 81

Michael Jary was a German composer.

Mary Wimbush was an English actress whose career spanned 60 years. Active across film, television, theatre and radio, she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 1969 film Oh! What a Lovely War. Her television credits included Poldark (1975–77), Jeeves and Wooster (1990–92), and Century Falls (1993). She played Julia Pargetter in BBC Radio 4's popular soap opera The Archers, a part she played from 1992 until her death.

Günther Maleuda was an East German politician. From 1989 to 1990 he was the President of the People's Chamber.

Kai Peter Anthon Ewans was a Danish-American jazz reedist.

Indrajit Gupta was an Indian politician who belonged to the Communist Party of India (CPI). From 1996 to 1998, he served as Union Home Minister in the United Front governments of prime ministers H. D. Deve Gowda and I. K. Gujral. That was a dramatic reversal of roles, as the home ministry had, since independence in 1947, banned the CPI thrice, with many of its members, including Gupta, being sent to prison or pushed underground for long stretches. He was the longest-serving member having been elected eleven times to the Lok Sabha the lower house of Indian Parliament.He suffered his only electoral reverse when he lost to Ashok Krishna Dutt in 1977 after the CPI supported Emergency.

Arthur Floyd Gottfredson was an American cartoonist best known for his defining work on the Mickey Mouse comic strip, which he worked on from 1930 until his retirement in 1975. He has probably had the same impact on the Mickey Mouse comics as Carl Barks had on the Donald Duck comics. 17 years after his death, his memory was honored with the Disney Legends award in 2003 and induction into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2006.

Israel Gohberg was a Bessarabian-born Soviet and Israeli mathematician, most known for his work in operator theory and functional analysis, in particular linear operators and integral equations.

Erwin Heerich was a German artist.

John Carl West, Sr. was an American Democratic Party politician who served as the 109th governor of South Carolina from 1971 to 1975. From 1977 to 1981, he was the United States ambassador to Saudi Arabia.