List of Famous people who died at 81

David Zelag Goodman was a playwright and screenwriter for both TV and film. His most prolific period was from the 1960s to the early 1980s. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Lovers and Other Strangers, though he did not win. He co-wrote, with Sam Peckinpah, the screenplay for 1971's controversial Straw Dogs. He died less than two weeks after the remake was released. Other films that he wrote or co-wrote included Logan's Run, Monte Walsh, and Farewell, My Lovely. He also wrote a number of the episodes of The Untouchables in the early 1960s.

David Harald Vilgot Sjöman was a Swedish writer and film director. His films deal with controversial issues of social class, morality, and sexual taboos, combining the emotionally tortured characters of Ingmar Bergman with the avant garde style of the French New Wave. He is best known as the director of the films 491 (1964), I Am Curious (Yellow) (1967), and I Am Curious (Blue) (1968), which stretched the boundaries of acceptability of what could then be shown on film, deliberately treating their subjects in a provocative and explicit manner.

Đorđe "Đoko" Rosić was a Bulgarian actor who was also well known in Hungary.

Hu Ning was a Chinese physicist and writer.