List of Famous people who died at 81

Peter Rüchel was a German music journalist, producer and founder of the WDR show Rockpalast, which since the mid-1970s has been hosting concerts by national and international bands and solo artists and broadcast them on German and European television.

Kerwin Mathews was an American actor best known for playing the titular heroes in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), The Three Worlds of Gulliver (1960) and Jack the Giant Killer (1962).

Gene Arthur Budig was an American baseball executive and academic administrator. He was the last president of the American League (AL), serving from 1994 to 1999. After his tenure concluded, the presidencies of the American League and the National League (NL) were eliminated by Major League Baseball (MLB). Budig went on to become part-owner of a minor league baseball team, a position he held until his death.

Günter Blobel was a Silesian German and American biologist and 1999 Nobel Prize laureate in Physiology for the discovery that proteins have intrinsic signals that govern their transport and localization in the cell.

Stephen Francis Patrick Aloysius Dunleavy was an Australian journalist based in the United States, best known as a columnist for the New York Post from 1976 to 2008. He was a lead reporter on the tabloid television program A Current Affair in the 1980s and 1990s.

Karin Balzer was an East German hurdler who competed in the 80 m hurdles event at the 1960, 1964 and 1968 Olympics, and in the 100 m hurdles in 1972. She won a gold medal in 1964 and a bronze in 1972, while finishing fifth in 1968. During her career she set 37 world's best performances.

André Isaac, better known as Pierre Dac, was a French humorist. During World War II, Pierre Dac was one of the speakers of the BBC's Radio Londres service to occupied France. He produced a series of satirical songs which were broadcast on the station. After the war, he participated in a comic duet with the humorist Francis Blanche.

Edwin Herbert Land, ForMemRS, FRPS, Hon.MRI was an American scientist and inventor, best known as the co-founder of the Polaroid Corporation. He invented inexpensive filters for polarizing light, a practical system of in-camera instant photography, and the retinex theory of color vision, among other things. His Polaroid instant camera went on sale in late 1948 and made it possible for a picture to be taken and developed in 60 seconds or less.

Karin Hardt Meta Therese was a German actress.

Rajinder Kumar Dhawan was an Indian politician who was one of the leaders of the Indian National Congress and a member of the Rajya Sabha.