List of Famous people who died in 1963

Ngô Đình Diệm was a Vietnamese politician. He was the final prime minister of the State of Vietnam (1954–55), and then served as President of South Vietnam from 1955 until he was deposed and assassinated during the 1963 military coup.

Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a French composer and pianist. His compositions include songs, solo piano works, chamber music, choral pieces, operas, ballets, and orchestral concert music. Among the best-known are the piano suite Trois mouvements perpétuels (1919), the ballet Les biches (1923), the Concert champêtre (1928) for harpsichord and orchestra, the Organ Concerto (1938), the opera Dialogues des Carmélites (1957), and the Gloria (1959) for soprano, choir and orchestra.

Harold Franklin Hawkins, better known as Hawkshaw Hawkins, was an American country music singer popular from the 1950s into the early 1960s. He was known for his rich, smooth vocals and music drawn from blues, boogie and honky tonk. At 6 ft 5 inches tall, Hawkins had an imposing stage presence, and he dressed more conservatively than some other male country singers. Hawkins died in the 1963 plane crash that also killed country stars Patsy Cline and Cowboy Copas. He was a member of the Grand Ole Opry and was married to country star Jean Shepard.

J. D. Tippit was an American police officer who served as an 11-year veteran with the Dallas Police Department. About 45 minutes after the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, Tippit was shot dead in a residential neighborhood in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas, Texas. Lee Harvey Oswald was initially arrested for the murder of Tippit and was subsequently arrested for killing President Kennedy. Oswald was charged with both crimes shortly after his arrest but was killed by Jack Ruby two days later.

Robert Henry Brand, 1st Baron Brand, was a British civil servant and businessman.

Garrett Augustus Morgan, Sr. was an African-American inventor, businessman, and community leader. His most notable inventions were a three-position traffic signal and a smoke hood notably used in a 1916 tunnel construction disaster rescue. Morgan also discovered and developed a chemical hair-processing and straightening solution. He created a successful company based on his hair product inventions along with a complete line of hair-care products, and became involved in the civic and political advancement of African-Americans, especially in and around Cleveland, Ohio.

Philip Leslie Graham was an American newspaperman. He served as publisher and later co-owner of The Washington Post and its parent company, The Washington Post Company. During his years with the Post Company, Graham helped The Washington Post grow from a struggling local paper to a national publication and the Post Company expand to own other newspapers as well as radio and television stations. He was married to Katharine Graham, a daughter of Eugene Meyer, the previous owner of The Washington Post. Phil Graham, who had bipolar disorder, died by suicide in 1963, after which Katharine took over as de facto publisher, making her one of the first women in charge of a major American newspaper.

Hal Hays LeSueur was an American actor and the older brother of Oscar-winning actress Joan Crawford.

John Elmer "Jack" Carson was a Canadian-born, American film actor. Though he was primarily used in supporting roles for comic relief, his work in films such as Mildred Pierce (1945) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) displayed his mastery of "straight" dramatic actor roles as well. He worked for RKO and MGM, but most of his memorable work was for Warner Bros. His trademark character was the wisecracking know-it-all, typically and inevitably undone by his own smug cockiness.

Carl Koch or Karl Koch was a German film director and writer with many secondary credits including collaborations with his wife Lotte Reiniger, the animator of The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926).