List of Famous people who died in 1972

Cihan Alptekin was a Turkish revolutionary and militant who was a leader in left-wing organizations such as People's Liberation Army of Turkey, and the Revolutionary Youth Federation of Turkey, a Marxist organization. He was active in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when he died.

Paul Kirchhoff was a German-Mexican anthropologist, most noted for his seminal work in defining and elaborating the culture area of Mesoamerica, a term he coined.

Viola Klein (1908–1973) was a sociologist in Great Britain. Her work demonstrated that objective ideas about women's attributes are socially constructed. Although her early training was in psychology and philosophy, her most prolific research engagements concerned women's social roles and how these changed after the Industrial Revolution. She was one of the first scholars to bring quantitative evidence to bear on this socio-economic topic. Her research not only illuminated the changing roles of women in society, but she also wrote and lectured on concrete social and political changes that would help facilitate these new roles.

Brigadier General Arnold Nugent Strode Strode-Jackson, was a British athlete, British Army officer, and a barrister. He was the winner of the 1500 m at the 1912 Summer Olympics, in what was hailed at the time as "the greatest race ever run". He was a brigadier general and amongst the most highly decorated British general officers of the First World War.

Henry Kotani was a pioneering Japanese film director and cinematographer.

Edward Calvin Kendall was an American chemist. In 1950, Kendall was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine along with Swiss chemist Tadeusz Reichstein and Mayo Clinic physician Philip S. Hench, for their work with the hormones of the adrenal gland. Kendall did not only focus on the adrenal glands, he was also responsible for the isolation of thyroxine, a hormone of the thyroid gland and worked with the team that crystallized glutathione and identified its chemical structure.

Paul A. Bloomquist was an American pilot and officer of the United States Army, who was the first American killed by the Red Army Faction. A veteran of the Vietnam War stationed in West Germany, Bloomquist died in a bombing attack at the IG Farben Building on 11 May 1972.

Fatin Abdel Wahab was an Egyptian film director. He directed 52 films between 1949 and 1970. His 1961 film Wife Number 13 was entered into the 12th Berlin International Film Festival. His 1965 film Driven from Paradise was entered into the 4th Moscow International Film Festival.

Claude Cerval was a French film actor. He appeared in more than forty films from 1955 to 1971.

Philip Drinker was an industrial hygienist. With Louis Agassiz Shaw, he invented the first widely used iron lung in 1928.