List of Famous people who died in 1975

Ernst Franz Sedgwick Hanfstaengl was a German-American businessman and intimate friend of Adolf Hitler. He eventually fell out of favour with Hitler, however, and defected from Nazi Germany to the United States. He later worked for Franklin D. Roosevelt and was once engaged to the author Djuna Barnes.

Dmitri Aleksandrovich Bystrolyotov was a Russian/Soviet intelligence officer, a sailor and painter, a doctor and lawyer, a traveler and polyglot, a writer and a Gulag prisoner. One of the most outstanding Soviet undercover operatives, Bystrolyotov acted in Western Europe in the period between the great wars, recruiting and controlling several important agents in Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy. His greatest achievement was breaking into the British Foreign Office files years before Kim Philby, as well as procuring diplomatic ciphers of scores of European countries. Despite his personal courage and heroism, he fell victim of Joseph Stalin's purges of the 1930s. Arrested by the NKVD on drummed up charges, he was severely tortured and turned into an invalid. Serving his term, he spent over 16 years in various Gulag camps. There, at great risk to himself, he wrote and smuggled to the outside world his voluminous memoirs, an indictment of Communist Party of the Soviet Union's crimes against humanity.

Erich Kempka was a member of the SS in Nazi Germany who served as Adolf Hitler's primary chauffeur from 1934 to April 1945. He was present in the area of the Reich Chancellery on 30 April 1945, when Hitler shot himself in the Führerbunker. Kempka delivered the petrol to the garden behind the Reich Chancellery where the remains of Hitler and Eva Braun were burned.

Samuel Mooney Giancana was an American mobster who was boss of the Chicago Outfit from 1957 to 1966.

Gottlob Christian Berger was a senior German Nazi official who held the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS and was the chief of the SS Main Office responsible for Schutzstaffel (SS) recruiting during World War II. After the war, he was convicted as a war criminal and spent six and a half years in prison. While serving in the German Army during World War I, he was wounded four times and awarded the Iron Cross First Class. Immediately after the war, he was a leader of the Einwohnerwehr militia in his native North Württemberg. He joined the Nazi Party in 1922 but lost interest in right-wing politics during the 1920s, training and working as a physical education teacher.

Latife Uşaklıgil was Mustafa Kemal's wife between 1923 and 1925. She was related from her father's side to Turkish novelist Halid Ziya Uşaklıgil.

Pier Paolo Pasolini was an Italian film director, poet, writer, and intellectual, who also distinguished himself as an actor, journalist, novelist, playwright, and political figure. He remains a controversial personality in Italy due to his direct style and the focus of some of his works on taboo sexual matters. He was an established major figure in European literature and cinematic arts. His murder prompted an outcry in Italy and its circumstances continue to be a matter of heated debate.

William Henry Hartnell was an English actor. While Hartnell made numerous stage and television appearances and acted in over 75 British films, he is best remembered today as the First Doctor in BBC Television's Doctor Who, which he played from 1963 to 1966. He was also well known for his roles as Sergeant Grimshaw, the title character of the first Carry On film, Carry On Sergeant in 1958, and as Company Sergeant Major Percy Bullimore in the sitcom The Army Game from 1957 to 1961.

Fredric March was an American actor, regarded as "one of Hollywood's most celebrated, versatile stars of the 1930s and 1940s". He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), as well as the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for Years Ago (1947) and Long Day's Journey into Night (1956).

Lyubov Petrovna Orlova was the first recognized star of Soviet cinema, a famous theatre actress, and a gifted singer.