List of Famous people who died in 1980

Martial Henri Valin was a French Air Force general. He initially served as a cavalryman in the First World War. After nine years cavalry service in the chasseurs d'Afrique, dragoons, spahis, and hussars, he eventually volunteered for the French Army's aviation branch, the aéronautique militaire, in 1926. He commanded the Free French Air Forces from July 1941 to June 1944, and was then Chief of General Staff of the French Air Army from October 1944 until 1946. He participated in both World Wars and the Rif War.

Raymond François Lantier was a 20th-century French archaeologist.

David Newell was primarily known as an American character actor, whose acting career spanned from the very beginning of the sound film era through the middle of the 1950s. He made his film debut in a featured role in The Hole in the Wall, a 1929 film starring Edward G. Robinson and Claudette Colbert. Early in his career he had many featured roles, in such films as: RKO's The Runaway Bride in 1929, starring Mary Astor; 1931's Ten Cents a Dance, starring Barbara Stanwyck and directed by Lionel Barrymore; and White Heat in 1934. He would occasionally receive a starring role, as in 1930's Just Like Heaven, which co-starred Anita Louise. However, by the mid-1930s he was being relegated to mostly smaller supporting roles. Some of the more notable films he appeared in include: A Star is Born (1937), which stars Janet Gaynor and Fredric March; Blondie (1938); the Bette Davis vehicle, Dark Victory (1939); Day-Time Wife (1939), starring Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell; It's a Wonderful World (1939), with James Stewart and Claudette Colbert; Rings on Her Fingers (1942), starring Henry Fonda and Gene Tierney; the Danny Kaye and Dinah Shore film, Up in Arms (1944), which also stars Dana Andrews; 1947's Killer McCoy with Mickey Rooney, Brian Donlevy, and Ann Blyth; Homecoming (1948), starring Clark Gable, Lana Turner, and Anne Baxter; That Wonderful Urge (1949), starring Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney; David and Bathsheba (1951), starring Gregory Peck and Susan Hayward; and Cecil B. DeMille's 1952 blockbuster, The Greatest Show on Earth. During his 25-year acting career, he appeared in over 110 films. His final appearance in film was in 1954's The Eddie Cantor Story, in which he had a small supporting role.

Wolfgang Gröbner was an Austrian mathematician. His name is best known for the Gröbner basis, used for computations in algebraic geometry. However, the theory of Gröbner bases for polynomial rings was developed by his student Bruno Buchberger in 1965, who named them for Gröbner.

Haig Manoogian was an Armenian-American professor of film at New York University and a major early influence for many filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, who was a student of his.

Farciot Edouart, ASC was a motion picture special effects artist and innovator, a recognized specialist and innovator in the area of "process photography", also known as rear projection.