List of Famous people who died in 1979

Yoshie Shiratori was a Japanese national born in Aomori Prefecture. Shiratori, who became an anti-hero in Japanese culture, is famous for having escaped from prison four times. A memorial to Shiratori is in the Abashiri Prison Museum.

Mary Teston Luis Bell was an Australian aviator and founding leader of the Women's Air Training Corps (WATC), a volunteer organisation that provided support to the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) during World War II. She later helped establish the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF), the first and largest women's wartime service in the country, which grew to more than 18,000 members by 1944.

Dr. Max Jacobson was a German physician and medical researcher who treated numerous high-profile clients in America, including President John F. Kennedy. Jacobson came to be known as "Miracle Max" and "Dr. Feelgood," because he administered highly addictive "vitamin shots" laced with various substances that included amphetamine and methamphetamine.

Cecilia Helena Payne-Gaposchkin was a British-born American astronomer and astrophysicist who proposed in her 1925 doctoral thesis that stars were composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. Her groundbreaking conclusion was initially rejected because it contradicted the scientific wisdom of the time, which held that there were no significant elemental differences between the Sun and Earth. Independent observations eventually proved she was correct.

Jack Soo was an American singer and actor. He was best known for his role as Detective Nick Yemana on the television sitcom Barney Miller.

Habib (Habibollah) Elghanian was a prominent Iranian Jewish businessman and philanthropist who served as the president of the Tehran Jewish Society and acted as the symbolic head of the Iranian Jewish community in the 1970s.

Donny Edward Hathaway was an American soul singer, keyboardist, songwriter, and arranger. Hathaway has been described as a "soul legend" by Rolling Stone. His most popular songs include "The Ghetto", "This Christmas", "Someday We'll All Be Free", and "Little Ghetto Boy". Hathaway is also renowned for his renditions of "A Song for You", "For All We Know", and "I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know", along with "Where Is the Love" and "The Closer I Get to You", two of many collaborations with Roberta Flack. He has been inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame and won one Grammy Award from four nominations. Hathaway was also posthumously bestowed with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Dutch director David Kleijwegt made a documentary called Mister Soul – A Story About Donny Hathaway, which premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam on January 28, 2020.

Theodore Crawford Cassidy was an American actor noted for his tall stature at 6 ft 9 in (206 cm) and his deep bass voice; he tended to play unusual characters in offbeat or science-fiction series such as Star Trek and I Dream of Jeannie, and may be best known for the role of Lurch on The Addams Family in the mid-1960s. He is also known for narrating The Incredible Hulk TV series.

Bobby Wayne Pearson, known as Jesse Pearson, was an American actor, singer, director, and writer.

Michael Charles Gauntlet Wilding was an English stage, television, and film actor. He is best known for a series of films he made with Anna Neagle, for the two films he made with Alfred Hitchcock and for being Elizabeth Taylor's second husband.