List of Famous people who died at 81

Patrick Barry Sullivan was an American movie actor who appeared in over 100 movies from the 1930s to the 1980s, notably The Bad and the Beautiful opposite Kirk Douglas.

Gustav Neidlinger was a German bass-baritone most famous as the pre-eminent leading performer of Wagner's "howling-and-spitting" villains, especially Alberich and Klingsor, from the early 1950s to the early 1970s. Born in Mainz, Neidlinger studied at the Frankfurt conservatory, where he was trained by Otto Rottsieper. He debuted in 1931 at the Stadttheater in Mainz, where he sang until 1934. In 1934 and 1935, he performed at the Stadttheater in Plauen, Sachsen. From 1935 to 1950, he was a member of the Hamburg opera, where In 1937 he took part in the world premiere of the opera Schwarzer Peter by Norbert Schultze. In 1950, he joined the Stuttgart Staatsoper, where he became very popular and was, in 1977, named an honorary member. In Stuttgart, he sang in Igor Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress. In 1956 he moved to the Vienna Staatsoper, where he had sung as early as 1941. He also sang at the Paris Opéra (1953–67) and at Covent Garden in London in tandem with the Stuttgart ensemble. He was honored with the title German Kammersänger in 1952.

Robert Alan Good was an American physician who performed the first successful human bone marrow transplant between persons who were not identical twins. He is regarded as a founder of modern immunology.

Kurt Otto Friedrichs was a noted German American mathematician. He was the co-founder of the Courant Institute at New York University, and a recipient of the National Medal of Science.

Michel Hénon was a French mathematician and astronomer. He worked for a long time at the Nice Observatory.

Raymond Federman was a French–American novelist and academic, known also for poetry, essays, translations, and criticism. He held positions at the University at Buffalo from 1973 to 1999, when he was appointed Distinguished Emeritus Professor. Federman was a writer in the experimental style, one that sought to deconstruct traditional prose. This type of writing is quite prevalent in his book Double or Nothing, in which the linear narrative of the story has been broken down and restructured so as to be nearly incoherent. Words are also often arranged on pages to resemble images or to suggest repetitious themes.

Damião Ferreira da Cruz, better known by his stage name Damião Experiença, was a Brazilian singer-songwriter, lyricist, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and compulsive hoarder. Considered to be a major icon of the Brazilian countercultural scene and one of the country's most famous and prolific outsider musicians, he was praised by figures such as Tony Bellotto, George Israel and Rogério Skylab, and also constantly compared to schizophrenic outsider artist Arthur Bispo do Rosário and musicians Frank Zappa, Moondog, Captain Beefheart, Sun Ra, Jandek and Father Yod. His albums, usually sold by him in the streets or even handed out for free when he felt like it, became much-sought collector's items, and his reclusive, eccentric and unpretentious personality has attained him a passionate cult following.

Harper Goff, born Ralph Harper Goff, was an American artist, musician, and actor. For many years, he was associated with The Walt Disney Company, in the process of which he contributed to various major films, as well as to the planning of the Disney theme parks. During World War II, he was also an advisor to the U.S. Army on camouflage.