List of Famous people who died in 1957

Gichin Funakoshi is the founder of Shotokan karate-do, perhaps the most widely known style of karate, and is known as a "father of modern karate". Following the teachings of Anko Itosu and Anko Asato, he was one of the Okinawan karate masters who introduced karate, but after Ankō Itosu sensei, Funakoshi sensei's teacher, had introduced the art pre-1922, to the Japanese mainland in 1922. He taught karate at various Japanese universities and became honorary head of the Japan Karate Association upon its establishment in 1949.

Charles J. Brabin was a British-American film director and screenwriter.

Redfield Proctor Jr. was an American business executive and politician who served as the 59th Governor of Vermont from 1923 to 1925.

James Middleton Cox was the 46th and 48th Governor of Ohio, a two-term U.S. Representative from Ohio, and the Democratic nominee for President of the United States at the 1920 presidential election. His running mate during his presidential campaign was future president Franklin D. Roosevelt. He founded the chain of newspapers that continues today as Cox Enterprises, a media conglomerate.

Harald Ulrik Sverdrup was a Norwegian oceanographer and meteorologist. He was director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography and director of the Norwegian Polar Institute.

Jacques Louis Eugène Rouché was a French art and music patron. He was the owner of the journal La Grande Revue and manager of the Théâtre des Arts and the Paris Opera.

Robert Harry Lowie was an Austrian-born American anthropologist. An expert on Indigenous peoples of the Americas, he was instrumental in the development of modern anthropology and has been described as "one of the key figures in the history of anthropology".

Laureano Barrau was a Spanish impressionist painter.

Sholem Asch, also written Shalom Ash, was a Polish-Jewish novelist, dramatist, and essayist in the Yiddish language who settled in the United States.