List of Famous people who died in 1980

Helmut Käutner was a German film director active mainly in the 1940s and 1950s. He began his career at the end of the Weimar Republic and had released his first major films in Nazi Germany.

Rudolf Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff was an officer in the German Army. He attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler by suicide bombing on 21 March 1943; the plan failed when Hitler left early, but Gersdorff was undetected. That same month, soldiers from his unit discovered the mass graves of the Soviet-perpetrated Katyn massacre.

Sonja Wigert was a Norwegian-Swedish actress. She appeared in 34 films between 1934 and 1960. She was a spy in World War II. Ingrid Bolsø Berdal portrayed her in the movie The Spy.

Victor Sen Yung, was an American character actor, best known for playing Jimmy Chan in the Charlie Chan films and Hop Sing in the western series Bonanza. He was born in San Francisco, California to Gum Yung Sen and his first wife, both immigrants from China.

Konstantin Zetkin was a German physician, social economist and political activist.

Elvira Juana Rodríguez Roglán, known professionally as Elvira de Hidalgo, was a prominent Spanish coloratura soprano, who later became a teacher and vocal coach. Her most famous pupil was Maria Callas.

Gu Jiegang was a Chinese historian best known for his seven-volume work Gushi Bian. He was a co-founder and the leading force of the Doubting Antiquity School, and was highly influential in the 20th century development of Chinese history.

María Luisa Bombal Anthes was a Chilean author. Her work is now highly regarded, incorporating themes of eroticism, surrealism and feminism, and she ranks among a small number of Latin American female authors whose works received worldwide acclaim. She was a recipient of the Santiago Municipal Literature Award.

John Howard Griffin was an American journalist and author from Texas who wrote about racial equality. He is best known for his project to temporarily pass as a black man and journey through the Deep South of 1959 to see life and segregation from the other side of the color line. He first published a series of articles on his experience in Sepia Magazine, which had underwritten the project. He published a fuller account in a book Black Like Me (1961). This was later adapted as a 1964 film of the same name. A 50th anniversary edition of the book was published in 2011 by Wings Press.

Tayfur Sökmen was the president of the Hatay State during its existence.