List of Famous people who died at 85

Akiyuki Nosaka was a Japanese novelist, singer, lyricist, and member of the House of Councillors. As a broadcasting writer he used the name Yukio Aki and his alias as a chanson singer was Claude Nosaka .

Erivan K. Haub was a German billionaire businessman, and the managing director and part owner of Tengelmann Group, one of Germany's largest retailers.

Mustai Karim, was a Bashkir Soviet poet, writer and playwright. He was named People's poet of the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1963), Hero of Socialist Labour (1979), and winner of the Lenin Prize (1984) and the State Prize of the USSR (1972).

Thomas Douglas Allsup was an American rockabilly and swing musician.

Vladimir Nikolayevich Voinovich, was a Russian writer and former Soviet dissident. Among his most well-known works are the satirical epic The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin and the dystopian Moscow 2042. He was forced into exile and stripped of his citizenship by Soviet authorities in 1980 but later rehabilitated and moved back to Moscow in 1990. After the fall of the Soviet Union, he continued to be an outspoken critic of Russian politics under the rule of Vladimir Putin.

Hilmar Thate was a German actor. He appeared in 40 films and television shows between 1955 and 2016.

Patrick O'Brian, CBE, born Richard Patrick Russ, was an English novelist and translator, best known for his Aubrey–Maturin series of sea novels set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, and centred on the friendship of the English naval captain Jack Aubrey and the Irish–Catalan physician Stephen Maturin. The 20-novel series, the first of which is Master and Commander, is known for its well-researched and highly detailed portrayal of early 19th-century life, as well as its authentic and evocative language. A partially finished 21st novel in the series was published posthumously containing facing pages of handwriting and typescript.

Dennis Morgan was an American actor-singer. He used the acting pseudonym Richard Stanley before adopting the name under which he gained his greatest fame.

Yevgeny Pavlovich Krylatov was a Soviet and Russian composer who wrote songs for over 120 Soviet and Russian movies and animated films.

Betty Friedan was an American feminist writer and activist. A leading figure in the women's movement in the United States, her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is often credited with sparking the second wave of American feminism in the 20th century. In 1966, Friedan co-founded and was elected the first president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), which aimed to bring women "into the mainstream of American society now [in] fully equal partnership with men".