List of Famous people who died in 1974

Edward Vincent Sullivan was an American television personality, impresario, sports and entertainment reporter, and syndicated columnist for the New York Daily News and the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate. He is principally remembered as the creator and host of the television variety program The Toast of the Town, later popularly—and, eventually, officially—renamed The Ed Sullivan Show. Broadcast for 23 years from 1948 to 1971, it set a record as the longest-running variety show in US broadcast history. "It was, by almost any measure, the last great TV show," said television critic David Hinckley. "It's one of our fondest, dearest pop culture memories."

Farid al-Atrash, also written Farid El-Atrache, was a Syrian-Egyptian composer, singer, virtuoso oud player, and actor. Having immigrated to Egypt at the age of only nine years old with his mother and siblings, he studied there under numerous respected musicians. Al-Atrash embarked on a highly successful career spanning more than four decades—recording 500 songs and starring in 31 movies. Sometimes referred to as "King of the Oud", he is one of the most important figures of 20th century Arab music.

Salvador Puig Antich was a Catalan militant anarchist. His execution for involvement in a bank robbery and shooting a police officer dead became a cause célèbre in Francoist Spain for Catalan autonomists, pro-independence supporters, and anarchists. After fighting the Spanish state with the terrorist group Iberian Liberation Movement in the early 1970s, he was convicted and executed by garrote vil for the death of a policeman during a shoot-out.

Paul Jaray was an engineer, designer, and a pioneer of automotive streamlining.

Françoise Rosay was a French opera singer, diseuse, and actress who enjoyed a film career of over sixty years and who became a legendary figure in French cinema. She went on to appear in over 100 movies in her career.

Frank Spencer Sutton was an American actor best remembered for his role as Gunnery Sergeant Vince Carter on the CBS television series Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.

Rashid Gibiatovich Nezhmetdinov was an eminent Soviet chess player, chess writer, and checkers player. He is part of an elite group of players who never became World Champion, yet created chess masterpieces of enduring brilliance. According to Pishkin, the list includes Chigorin, Reti, Spielmann and especially Nezhmetdinov.

Clifford Charles Arquette was an American actor and comedian, famous for his persona, Charley Weaver, played on numerous television shows.

Maria Petrovna Maksakova was a Soviet opera singer, mezzo-soprano, a leading soloist in the Bolshoi Theater (1923–1953), who enjoyed great success in the 1920s and 1930s, in the times often referred to as the golden age of Soviet opera. Maria Maksakova, the three times laureate of the Stalin's Prize, was designated as a People's Artist of the USSR in 1971. The actress Lyudmila Maksakova is her daughter; singer and TV presenter Maria Maksakova Jr. her granddaughter.

James William Colbert Jr. was an American physician and the first vice president of academic affairs at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), serving in this capacity from 1969 until his death in a plane crash in 1974. He is the father of Stephen Colbert and Elizabeth Colbert Busch.