List of Famous people who died in 1979

Asa Earl Carter was a 1950s Ku Klux Klan leader, segregationist speech writer, and later Western novelist. He co-wrote George Wallace's well-known pro-segregation line of 1963, "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever", and ran in the Democratic primary for governor of Alabama on a segregationist ticket. Years later, under the alias of supposedly-Cherokee writer Forrest Carter, he wrote The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales (1972), a Western novel that led to a 1976 National Film Registry film, and The Education of Little Tree (1976), a best-selling, award-winning book which was marketed as a memoir but which turned out to be fiction.

Arno Assmann was a German actor, film director and television writer. He committed suicide.

Charles Louis Seeger, Jr. was an American musicologist, composer, teacher, and folklorist. He was the father of the American folk singers Pete Seeger (1919–2014), Peggy Seeger, and Mike Seeger (1933–2009); and brother of the World War I poet Alan Seeger (1888–1916).

Hermann von Wissmann was a German-Austrian explorer of Arabia.

Yusuke Hagihara was a Japanese astronomer noted for his contributions to celestial mechanics.

Albert Benitz was a German cinematographer who worked on more than ninety films. He also directed the 1949 film Das Fräulein und der Vagabund. During the 1940s, he was under contract to Terra Film and worked with Leni Riefenstahl during the era.

Yisrael Yeshayahu Sharabi was an Israeli politician, minister and the fifth Speaker of the Knesset.

Nikolai Semenovich Tikhonov was a Soviet writer and member of the Serapion Brothers literary group.