List of Famous people who died in 1954

Jean (Alexis) Périer was a French operatic baryton-martin and actor. Although he sang principally within the operetta repertoire, Périer did portray a number of opera roles; mostly within operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Giacomo Puccini. His career was almost entirely centered in Paris and he had a long association with the Opéra-Comique. He sang in a large number of world premieres, most notably originating the role of Pelléas in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande in 1902. In addition to his opera career, Périer appeared in several films between 1900 and 1938.

Charles Wesley Elmer (1872–1954) was an American amateur astronomer and court reporter who co-founded the Perkin-Elmer optical company in 1937.

Reinhold Schünzel was a German actor and director, active in both Germany and the United States. The son of a German father and a Jewish mother, he was born in St. Pauli, the poorest part of Hamburg. Despite being Jewish, Schünzel was allowed by the Nazis to continue making films for several years until he eventually left to live abroad.

William Linn Westermann was an American historian and papyrologist who served as the president of the American Historical Association in 1944. He was regarded as an expert on the economy of the ancient world.

William Shane "Bill" Beardsley was an American politician. He served on the Iowa Senate from 1933 to 1941, and was a member of the Iowa House of Representatives between 1947 and 1949. Beardsley was the 31st Governor of Iowa from 1949 to 1954.

Leon Schiller or Leon Schiller de Schildenfeld was a Polish theatre and film director, as well as critic and theatre theoretician. He also wrote theatre and radio screenplays and composed music. He was born in Kraków under the Austrian rule during the foreign Partitions of Poland, to a family of Austrian origin that had been ennobled by Empress Maria Theresa.