List of Famous people who died in 1979

Brigitte Rau was a German actress.

Akiyoshi Umekawa was a Japanese mass murderer who killed a woman on December 16, 1963, and shot dead four people on January 26, 1979. Mass media also used a number of different possible readings of his given name, including Teruyoshi, Terumi, Akimi and Akemi. He was one of the rare criminals who was shot dead by Japanese police.

Pastora Imperio is the artistic name of Pastora Rojas Monje, a gypsy dancer from Seville and one of the most representative figures of flamenco folklore of all times. She was the great-grandmother of the Spanish actress Pastora Vega.

Mary Marquet was a French stage and film actress.

Victoria Ocampo was an Argentine writer and intellectual, described by Jorge Luis Borges as La mujer más argentina. Best known as an advocate for others and as publisher of the literary magazine Sur, she was also a writer and critic in her own right and one of the most prominent South American women of her time. Her sister Silvina Ocampo, also a writer, was married to Adolfo Bioy Casares.

Younis Saleh Bahri al-Juburi was an Iraqi traveler, journalist, broadcaster, and writer. He was born in January 1904 in Mosul, and was nicknamed "the sailor" for having studied in a military school in Istanbul and graduated as a naval officer. In 1921, he continued his education in the Cavalry Military School in Munich, where he met Adolf Hitler. He has written many books, traveled to several countries, and he is said to have mastered over 17 languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Turkish. He has founded multiple radio stations, including the first Arab radio station in the European continent in 1939, Arab Radio of Berlin, which broadcast from Germany to the Arab world. His famous catchphrase was: "This is Berlin, the neighborhood of Arabs." On air, he would make speeches, where he would insult some kings and presidents. He has met some very famous people of his time, and was sentenced to death four times. His personality did, and still does, cause controversy around the nature of his work and his different professions. While he lived in India, he was a monk during the day and a dancer at a nightclub during the night, but still managed to find time to work as a reporter for an Indian newspaper. He was also a Mufti in Indonesia, an Editor in Chief for a newspaper in Java, an Imam in Paris, and gained the nickname "the Legend of the Earth".

Heinz Reinefarth, 26 December 1903 – 7 May 1979) was a German SS commander during World War II and government official in West Germany after the war. During the Warsaw Uprising of August 1944 his troops committed numerous atrocities. After the war Reinefarth became the mayor of the town of Westerland, on the isle of Sylt, and member of the Schleswig-Holstein Landtag. Polish demands for extradition were never accepted, nor was Reinefarth ever convicted of any war crime.

Masataka Taketsuru was a Japanese chemist and businessman who founded Japan's first whisky industry. He was born in 1894 in Takehara, Hiroshima, to a family that had owned a sake brewery since 1733.

Georges Maurice Edmond Dorléac was a French actor of the stage and screen. He was the father of actresses Catherine Deneuve, Françoise Dorléac and Sylvie Dorléac. He was the husband of actress Renée Simonot, who was the dubbing voice for Olivia de Havilland

Valentin Ivanovich Zubkov was a Soviet film actor. He was born in Peschanoye Settlement of Ryazan Province. He finished Armavir Military Aviation School (1941–1943) and served as a pilot at frontlines of the German-Soviet War.