List of Famous people who died at 97

Maurice Marie Jean Pon was a French lyricist who mainly worked with Henri Salvador.

Joseph Hanson Kwabena Nketia was a Ghanaian ethnomusicologist and composer. Considered Africa's premier musicologist, during his lifetime, he was called a "living legend" and "easily the most published and best known authority on African music and aesthetics in the world", with more than 200 publications and 80 musical compositions to his credit.

Abdelmalek Benhabylès was an Algerian politician. He was born in Chevreuil. He was a chairman of the Constitutional Council from 11 January 1992 until 14 January 1992, thus was acting head of state when the military ousted Chadli Bendjedid. He received the 1st Class, Grand Cordon of Order of the Rising Sun on 17 December 2012.

Jacqueline Worms de Romilly was a Franco-Greek philologist, classical scholar and fiction writer. She was the first woman nominated to the Collège de France, and in 1988, the second woman to enter the Académie française.

Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone was a member of the British royal family. She was the longest-lived British princess of the blood royal, and was the last surviving grandchild of Queen Victoria. Princess Alice was the chatelaine of Rideau Hall from 1940 until 1946, while her husband, Lord Athlone, served as the governor general of Canada.

Raymond Merrill Smullyan was an American mathematician, magician, concert pianist, logician, Taoist, and philosopher.

Charles Randolph Quirk, Baron Quirk, CBE, FBA was a British linguist and life peer. He was the Quain Professor of English language and literature at University College London from 1968 to 1981. He sat as a crossbencher in the House of Lords.

Elena Moiseevna Rzhevskaya was a writer and former Soviet war interpreter. In April and May, 1945, she participated in the Battle of Berlin. According to her memoirs, called in English Memories of a War-time Interpreter, she was a member of the Soviet unit searching for Adolf Hitler in the ruins of the Reich Chancellery. The Führer's corpse was, according to her own words, found by soldier Ivan Churakov on 4 May 1945. Four days later, on 8 May, Colonel Vassily Gorbushin gave her a small box that allegedly contained Hitler's jawbones. During the identification of the corpse, the Soviet team worked in top secret conditions. It consisted of only three people, Rzhevskaya being one of them. She and Gorbushin allegedly managed to find in Berlin, Käthe Heusermann, an assistant of Hugo Blaschke, Hitler's personal dentist. Heusermann confirmed the identity of the Nazi leader. The information was, however, suppressed by Joseph Stalin, who later ordered the facts not to be publicized. She was a recipient of the Andrei Sakharov Prize For Writer's Civic Courage.

Francis Hardy was a French politician.

Jeannette Guyot was a French Resistance operative who went on to become one of the Second World War's most decorated women. She is one of only two women to hold the American Distinguished Service Cross obtained during the war. She participated in Pathfinder Mission of Operation Sussex.