List of Famous people who died in 1981

Hazel Dorothy Scott was a Trinidadian-born jazz and classical pianist, singer, and actor. She was a critically acclaimed performing artist and an outspoken critic of racial discrimination and segregation. She used her influence to improve the representation of Black Americans in film.

Cahide Sonku was a Turkish actress, model, writer and the first female film director in Turkey. Sonku was the founder of her own movie production company, Sonku Film, in 1950. She was thrice married and divorced. She died in Istanbul, aged 61.

General Erwin Vierow was a general in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany during World War II.

Rudolph Nissen was a surgeon who chaired surgery departments in Turkey, the United States and Switzerland. The Nissen fundoplication, a surgical procedure for the treatment of gastroesophageal reflux disease, is named after him. Nissen completed the first pneumonectomy by a Western physician in 1931. In 1948, he performed an abdominal surgery that extended the life of Albert Einstein by several years. He trained under German physicians Ludwig Aschoff and Ferdinand Sauerbruch. Nissen wrote an autobiography published at Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt in 1969 called “Helle Blätter, dunkle Blätter. Erinnerungen eines Chirurgen.“ (ISBN 978-3421014993) which was reviewed in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. A selection of his writings and lectures was published at Schattauer in 1997 under the title of “Fünfzig Jahre erlebter Chirurgie: Ausgewählte Vorträge und Schriften.“ (ISBN 978-3794506156).

Melanie Susan Potier, better known as Suki Potier, was an English model.

Béla Guttmann was a Hungarian footballer and coach. He was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary, and was Jewish. He was deported by the Nazis to a Nazi slave labor camp where he was tortured; he survived the Holocaust.

Karl Richter was a German conductor, choirmaster, organist, pianist and harpsichordist.

Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone was a member of the British royal family. She was the longest-lived British princess of the blood royal, and was the last surviving grandchild of Queen Victoria. Princess Alice was the chatelaine of Rideau Hall from 1940 until 1946, while her husband, Lord Athlone, served as the governor general of Canada.

Victor Assis Brasil was a Brazilian jazz saxophonist. He began playing the saxophone at the age of 16 and recorded his first album, Desenhos, in 1965. He later studied at Berklee College of Music. He also toured on three continents.

Rudolf Karl Wütherich, most commonly known as Rolf Wütherich, was a German Luftwaffe mechanic and pilot, and later an automotive engineer and racer who was riding in James Dean's Porsche during Dean's fatal car crash on September 30, 1955. He experienced many personal difficulties as a result of the crash and himself died in a car accident 26 years later.