List of Famous people who died in 1949

Maxwell Warburn Long was an American athlete, winner of 400 m at the 1900 Summer Olympics.

Nikos Skalkottas was a Greek composer of 20th-century classical music. A member of the Second Viennese School, he drew his influences from both the classical repertoire and the Greek tradition. He also produced a sizeable amount of tonal music in the last phase of his musical creativity.

Charles Dullin was a French actor, theater manager and director.

Hermann Joseph Otto Hubert August Constantin Hupp was a German graphical artist. His main working area was heraldry, yet he also worked as a typeface designer, creating commercial symbols and metal works.

Samuel Grosvenor Wood was an American film director and producer, who is best known for having directed such Hollywood hits as A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, and The Pride of the Yankees, and for his uncredited work directing parts of Gone with the Wind. He was also involved in a few acting and writing projects.

James Vincent Forrestal was the last Cabinet-level United States Secretary of the Navy and the first United States Secretary of Defense.

André-Louis Debierne was a French chemist and is considered the discoverer of the element actinium.

Béla Balázs, born Herbert Béla Bauer, was a Hungarian film critic, aesthetician, writer and poet of Jewish heritage. He was a proponent of formalist film theory.