List of Famous people who died in 1975

Petr Zenkl was an influential Czech politician, government minister, Mayor of Prague, chairman of the Czechoslovak National Social Party (1945-1948), deputy Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia (1946-1948) and the chairman of exile Council of Free Czechoslovakia (1949-1974).

Roy Roberts was an American character actor. Over his more than 40-year career, he appeared in more than nine hundred productions on stage and screen.

Rex Todhunter Stout was an American writer noted for his detective fiction. His best-known characters are the detective Nero Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin, who were featured in 33 novels and 39 novellas between 1934 and 1975.

William Bennet Kouwenhoven, also known as the "Father of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation," is famous for his development of the closed-chest cardiac massage and his invention of the cardiac defibrillator. After obtaining his doctorate degree in engineering from the Karlsruhe Technische Hochschule in Germany, Kouwenhoven began his career as the dean at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Kouwenhoven focused his research mainly on improving and saving lives of patients through the application of electricity. With the help and cooperation of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine's Department of Surgery and an Edison Electric Institute grant, Kouwenhoven was able to develop a closed-chest defibrillator. For his contributions to the field of medical science, he became the first ever recipient of an honorary degree conferred by the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Two years before his death, Kouwenhoven was also awarded the Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research.

Robert Strauss was an American actor. He became most familiar in Hollywood films of the 1950s such as Stalag 17 (1953), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Rao Shushi like his confederate Gao Gang, was a senior leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC), who once enjoyed great power and fame that then quickly evaporated, leaving behind many mysteries about his rise and fall.

Martha Elizabeth Moxley was a 15-year-old American high school student from Greenwich, Connecticut who was murdered in 1975. She was last seen alive spending time at the home of the Skakel family, across the street from her home in Belle Haven. Michael Skakel, also 15 at the time, was convicted in 2002 of murdering Moxley and was sentenced to 20 years to life. In 2013, he was granted a new trial by a Connecticut judge who ruled that his counsel had been inadequate; Skakel was then released on $1.2 million bail. On December 30, 2016, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled 4–3 to reinstate Skakel's conviction. The Connecticut Supreme Court reversed itself on May 4, 2018 and ordered a new trial. On October 30, 2020, the state of Connecticut announced it would not retry Skakel for Moxley's murder.