List of Famous people who died at 81

Ave Maria Ninchi was an Italian supporting actress who played character roles on stage, television, and in over 98 feature films that included Tomorrow Is Too Late (1949) and Louis Malle's Murmur of the Heart (1971) and Lacombe Lucien (1974).

Arne Carl-August Beurling was a Swedish mathematician and professor of mathematics at Uppsala University (1937–1954) and later at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Beurling worked extensively in harmonic analysis, complex analysis and potential theory. The "Beurling factorization" helped mathematical scientists to understand the Wold decomposition, and inspired further work on the invariant subspaces of linear operators and operator algebras, e.g. Håkan Hedenmalm's factorization theorem for Bergman spaces.

Hans Grauert was a German mathematician. He is known for major works on several complex variables, complex manifolds and the application of sheaf theory in this area, which influenced later work in algebraic geometry. Together with Reinhold Remmert he established and developed the theory of complex-analytic spaces. He became Professor at the University of Göttingen in 1958, as successor to C. L. Siegel. The lineage of this chair traces back through an eminent line of mathematicians: Weyl, Hilbert, Riemann, and ultimately to Gauss. Until his death, he was professor emeritus at Göttingen.

Howard B. Zieff was an American director, television commercial director, and advertising photographer.

Jhr. Emile (Emiel) van Lennep was a Dutch official, diplomat and Minister of State.

Luca Ronconi was an Italian actor, theater director, and opera director.

Wilson Moreira was a Brazilian sambista.

Barbara Stuart was an American actress.