List of Famous people who died at 88

Mario Orlando Hardy Hamlet Brenno Benedetti Farrugia , best known as Mario Benedetti, was a Uruguayan journalist, novelist, and poet and an integral member of the Generación del 45. Despite publishing more than 80 books and being published in twenty languages he was not well known in the English-speaking world. In the Spanish-speaking world he is considered one of Latin America's most important writers of the latter half of the 20th century.

Malcolm Scott Carpenter was an American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, aeronautical engineer, astronaut, and aquanaut. He was one of the Mercury Seven astronauts selected for NASA's Project Mercury in April 1959. Carpenter was the second American to orbit the Earth and the fourth American in space, after Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, and Glenn.

Georgiy Nikolayevich Daneliya Georgian: გიორგი ნიკოლოზის ძე დანელია, also known as Giya Daneliya, was a Soviet and Georgian film director and screenwriter. He was named a People's Artist of the USSR in 1989.

Pierre Tcherniakowski, better known as Pierre Tchernia, was a French cinema and television producer, screenwriter, presenter, animator and actor. In France he was known as "Magic" Tchernia and Monsieur Cinema.

Myrna Loy was an American film, television and stage actress. Trained as a dancer, Loy devoted herself fully to an acting career following a few minor roles in silent films. She was originally typecast in exotic roles, often as a vamp or a woman of Asian descent, but her career prospects improved greatly following her portrayal of Nora Charles in The Thin Man (1934).

Ian Douglas Smith was a Rhodesian politician, farmer, and fighter pilot who served as Prime Minister of Rhodesia from 1964 to 1979. He was the country's first premier not born abroad, and led the predominantly white government that unilaterally declared independence from the United Kingdom in November 1965, following prolonged dispute over the terms. He remained Prime Minister for almost all of the 14 years of international isolation that followed, and oversaw Rhodesia's security forces during most of the Bush War, which pitted the unrecognised administration against communist-backed black nationalist guerrilla groups. Smith, who has been described as personifying white Rhodesia, remains a highly controversial figure—supporters portray him as a man of integrity and vision "who understood the uncomfortable truths of Africa," while his opponents consider him "an unrepentant racist."

Sir Roger Gilbert Bannister was a British middle-distance athlete and neurologist who ran the first sub-4-minute mile.

João Gilberto, was a Brazilian singer, songwriter, and guitarist, who was a pioneer of the musical genre of bossa nova in the late 1950s. Around the world he was often called "father of bossa nova"; in his native Brazil, he was referred to as "O Mito".

Earl Eugene Scruggs was an American musician noted for popularizing a three-finger banjo picking style, now called "Scruggs style", which is a defining characteristic of bluegrass music. His three-finger style of playing was radically different from the traditional way the five-string banjo had previously been played. This new style of playing became popular and elevated the banjo from its previous role as a background rhythm instrument to featured solo status. He popularized the instrument across several genres of music.

Ann Bradford Davis was an American actress. She achieved prominence for her role in the NBC situation comedy The Bob Cummings Show (1955–1959), for which she twice won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, but she was best known for playing the part of Alice Nelson, the housekeeper in ABC's The Brady Bunch (1969–1974).