List of Famous people who died in 1981

Max Ludwig Henning Delbrück, a German–American biophysicist, helped launch the molecular biology research program in the late 1930s. He stimulated physical scientists' interest into biology, especially as to basic research to physically explain genes, mysterious at the time. Formed in 1945 and led by Delbrück along with Salvador Luria and Alfred Hershey, the Phage Group made substantial headway unraveling important aspects of genetics. The three shared the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses". He was the first physicist to predict what is now called Delbrück scattering.

Nelson Algren was an American writer. His 1949 novel The Man with the Golden Arm, won the National Book Award, and was adapted as the 1955 film of the same name.

Albert Gendelshtein was a Russian film director known for the movies Lermontov, and Love and Hate (1935) with an early score by Shostakovich.

Sir George Andrew Dick Lauder, 12th Baronet of the Fountainhall creation, was a British author and soldier.

William Henry Vanderbilt III was Governor of Rhode Island and a member of the wealthy and socially prominent Vanderbilt family.

William Saroyan was an Armenian-American novelist, playwright, and short story writer. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1940, and in 1943 won the Academy Award for Best Story for the film The Human Comedy. When the studio rejected his original 240-page treatment, he turned it into a novel, The Human Comedy.

Ahmed Ramy was an Egyptian poet, songwriter and translator. He is best known for writing lyrics for the Egyptian singers Umm Kalthoum and Mohammed Abdel Wahab. Rami was also a translator. His works include translations of several of Shakespeare's plays and the quatrains of the Persian poet Omar Khayyám. Ramy also played a leading role in developing the Arabic song, using simple language to express his sublime themes. He was named "Poet of the youth" in recognition of his considerable contributions to the Arabic song.