List of Famous people who died in 1981

John Moors Cabot was an American diplomat and U.S. Ambassador to five nations during the Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy administrations. He also served as Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs. He warned repeatedly of the dangers of Soviet communism toward American interests in Latin America.

Riad Mohamed El Sunbati, also written as Riad Sonbati or Riadh Sonbati was a 20th-century Egyptian composer and musician who was considered an icon of Egyptian Music. The number of his lyric works is 539 works in Egyptian Opera, operetta, cinematic and religious song, poem, Taqtouqa and Mawalia. The number of song poets who he composed for is more than 120 poets. He composed for many famous Arab singers like: Umm Kulthum, Fairouz, Asmahan, Warda Al-Jazairia, Najat Al Saghira, Mounira El Mahdeya, Fayza Ahmed, Saleh Abdel Hai, Souad Mohamed, Aziza Galal and others.

Hoagland Howard "Hoagy" Carmichael was an American singer, songwriter, and actor. American composer and author Alec Wilder described Carmichael as the "most talented, inventive, sophisticated and jazz-oriented of all the great craftsmen" of pop songs in the first half of the 20th century. Carmichael was one of the most successful Tin Pan Alley songwriters of the 1930s, and was among the first singer-songwriters in the age of mass media to utilize new communication technologies such as television and the use of electronic microphones and sound recordings.

Sir Edmund McNeill Cooper-Key was a British Conservative politician. He was Member of Parliament for Hastings from 1945 until his retirement in 1970.

Josephine Therese (Pepi) Weixlgärtner-Neutra was an Austrian-Swedish artist, who concentrated on graphic design, painting, sculpture and enamelwork.