List of Famous people who died in 1969

Master Vithal or Vithal was an actor in Indian cinema, best known as the hero of India's first talkie Alam Ara (1931) and of Marathi and Hindi silent stunt films, which gave him the epithet as the Douglas Fairbanks of India.

Levi Eshkol was an Israeli statesman who served as the third Prime Minister of Israel from 1963 until his death from a heart attack in 1969. A founder of the Israeli Labor Party, he served in numerous senior roles, including Minister of Defense (1963–1967) and Minister of Finance (1952–1963).

Jan Palach was a Czech student of history and political economy at Charles University in Prague. His self-immolation was a political protest against the end of the Prague Spring resulting from the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact armies.

Robert Arthur Jr. was a writer of speculative fiction known for his work with The Mysterious Traveler radio series and for writing The Three Investigators, a series of young adult novels.

Mirko Basaldella was an Italian sculptor and painter.

Coleman Randolph Hawkins, nicknamed "Hawk" and sometimes "Bean", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. One of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument, as Joachim E. Berendt explained: "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn". Hawkins biographer John Chilton described the prevalent styles of tenor saxophone solos prior to Hawkins as "mooing" and "rubbery belches." Hawkins cited as influences Happy Caldwell, Stump Evans, and Prince Robinson, although he was the first to tailor his method of improvisation to the saxophone rather than imitate the techniques of the clarinet. Hawkins' virtuosic, arpeggiated approach to improvisation, with his characteristic rich, emotional, loud, and vibrato-laden tonal style, was the main influence on a generation of tenor players that included Chu Berry, Charlie Barnet, Tex Beneke, Ben Webster, Vido Musso, Herschel Evans, Buddy Tate, and Don Byas, and through them the later tenormen, Arnett Cobb, Illinois Jacquet, Flip Phillips, Ike Quebec, Al Sears, Paul Gonsalves, and Lucky Thompson. While Hawkins became well known with swing music during the big band era, he had a role in the development of bebop in the 1940s.

Laxman Shrawan Bhatkar was a politician and social worker from Central Provinces and Berar of British India. He was born in 1901 at Thugaon village of then Amravati district of the Province. He studied at Depressed Classes Mission High School at Bombay.