List of Famous people who died in 1979

Ivar Valentin Johansson was a Swedish wrestler who competed at the 1928, 1932 and 1936 Summer Olympics. In 1932 he won the gold medal in the Greco-Roman welterweight and freestyle middleweight events. Four years later he won the gold medal in the Greco-Roman middleweight competition.

Barbara Luddy was an American motion picture and radio actress best known for her voiceover work for Walt Disney Studios in the 1950s and '60s.

Bernard Howell Leach, was a British studio potter and art teacher. He is regarded as the "Father of British studio pottery".

Sir Israel Brodie was the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain and the Commonwealth 1948–1965.

Dorothy Emma Arzner^[1] was an American film director whose career in Hollywood spanned from the silent era of the 1920s into the early 1940s. From 1927 until her retirement from feature directing in 1943, Arzner was the only female director working in Hollywood. Additionally, she was one of a very few women able to establish a successful and long career in Hollywood as a film director until the 1970s. Arzner made a total of twenty films between 1927 and 1943 and launched the careers of a number of Hollywood actresses, including Katharine Hepburn, Rosalind Russell, and Lucille Ball. Additionally, Arzner was the first woman to join the Directors Guild of America and the first woman to direct a sound film.

Gyula Germanus, alias Julius Abdulkerim Germanus, was a professor of oriental studies, a Hungarian writer and Islamologist, member of the Hungarian Parliament and member of multiple Arabic academies of science, who made significant contributions to the study of the Arabic language, history of language and cultural history. He was a follower of the famous orientalist, Sir Ármin Vámbéry and became a scholar of world repute.

Ann Dvorak was an American stage and film actress.