List of Famous people who died in 1956

Piero Pirelli, born Piero Carlo Pirelli,, was an Italian entrepreneur and the son of Giovanni Battista Pirelli, the founder of Pirelli.

Theodore Kosloff was a Russian-born ballet dancer, choreographer, and film and stage actor. He was occasionally credited as Theodor Kosloff.

Mikheil Gelovani was a Georgian-Soviet actor, known for his numerous portrayals of Joseph Stalin in cinema, starring in fifteen historic movies mostly about the early Soviet era.

Ward Greene was an American writer, editor, journalist, playwright, and general manager of the comic syndicate King Features Syndicate. He is known for overseeing the works of Alex Raymond and other writers and artists at King Features Syndicate, as well as writing Raymond's Rip Kirby comic strip from 1946 until his death.

Makbule Atadan was the sister of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey. She was the only one surviving sister of Atatürk, while the other four siblings died at early ages.

Otto Peter Leck Fischer was a Danish writer and playwright. He was the brother of the politician Viggo Kampmann. Fischer was a socially conscious writer that portrayed the modern urban man with a sad, gray everyday life. His literary style was cool and matter-of-fact. Fischer was read and appreciated in his day, but he has since been forgotten, perhaps because he was so closely associated with the time in which he lived and which he portrayed. Fischer made a name for himself in many genres: novels, films, and radio drama. He is buried at Mariebjerg Cemetery in Gentofte.

Thomas John Watson Sr. was an American businessman. He served as the chairman and CEO of International Business Machines (IBM). He oversaw the company's growth into an international force from 1914 to 1956. Watson developed IBM's management style and corporate culture from John Henry Patterson's training at NCR. He turned the company into a highly-effective selling organization, based largely on punched card tabulating machines. A leading self-made industrialist, he was one of the richest men of his time and was called the world's greatest salesman when he died in 1956.

Joseph Buell Ely was an American lawyer and Democratic politician from Massachusetts. As a conservative Democrat, Ely was active in party politics from the late 1910s, helping to build, in conjunction with David I. Walsh, the Democratic coalition that would gain an enduring political ascendancy in the state. From 1931 to 1935, he served as the 52nd Governor. He was opposed to the federal expansion of the New Deal, and was a prominent intra-party voice in opposition to the policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In 1944 he made a brief unsuccessful bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Jacob Levitzki, also known as Yaakov Levitsky was an Israeli mathematician.