List of Famous people who died in 1981

William Holden was an American actor who was also known professionally as Bill Holden. He was one of the biggest box-office draws of the 1950s. Holden won the Oscar for Best Actor for the film Stalag 17 (1953), and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for the television film The Blue Knight (1973). Holden starred in some of Hollywood's most popular and critically acclaimed films, including Sunset Boulevard (1950), Sabrina (1954), Picnic (1955), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), The Wild Bunch (1969) and Network (1976). He was named one of the "Top 10 Stars of the Year" six times, and appeared as 25th on the American Film Institute's list of 25 greatest male stars of Classic Hollywood Cinema.

Princess Margarita of Greece and Denmark was the eldest child and daughter of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg. She was the first great-great-grandchild of Queen Victoria, and the eldest sister of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

Machgielis "Max" Euwe was a Dutch chess player, mathematician, author, and chess administrator. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion, a title he held from 1935 until 1937. Euwe served as President of FIDE, the World Chess Federation, from 1970 to 1978.

Sir Hans Adolf Krebs, FRS was a German-born British biologist, physician and biochemist. He was a pioneer scientist in the study of cellular respiration, a biochemical process in living cells that extracts energy from food and oxygen and makes it available to drive the processes of life. He is best known for his discoveries of two important sequences of chemical reactions that take place in the cells of humans and many other organisms, namely the citric acid cycle and the urea cycle. The former, often eponymously known as the "Krebs cycle", is the key sequence of metabolic reactions that provides energy in the cells of humans and other oxygen-respiring organisms; and its discovery earned Krebs a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1953. With Hans Kornberg, he also discovered the glyoxylate cycle, which is a slight variation of the citric acid cycle found in plants, bacteria, protists, and fungi.

Ervil Morrell LeBaron was said to be the leader of a polygamous Mormon fundamentalist group who was accused of ordering the killings of many of his colleagues. The religious doctrine of blood atonement was used to justify the murders. The use of unquestionable authority was used to coerce members of the LeBaron Family social group to commit the murders. Also, the use of unquestionable authority kept Alma Dayer LeBaron's family in a constant state of refusing to questioning what was really going on, even more tragic, the non questioning continues today 1-21-21. Ervil LeBaron was sentenced to multiple events in prison during his land dispute. He was ultimately sentenced to life in prison after facing trial for orchestrating the murder of a colleague. What happened was after the people who orchestrated Rulan Allred's murder and also who confessed later of their guilt, later pinned the murder orchestration on Ervil by writing books. In Rena Chynoweth's book she confesses the murder but points the blame at Ervil. By banning Ervil's family's freedom of speech to each other, additionally, by getting to the investigators first and telling the narrative blaming Ervil, and thirdly publishing books about how they were manipulated by Ervil, they successfully distracted the whole world from the actual land dispute. The land dispute legal documents speak for themselves. Read the land dispute over carefully. Family members were not allowed to question why are the LeBaron brothers fighting in the first place. People who discussed the land dispute were murdered.The inability to for the LeBaron Family to have freedom of speech kept Ervil's family members from talking to anyone, not even amongst themselves. Therefore, over 25 murders were believed to be orchestrated as a result of the land dispute distraction most possibly could not have been orchestrated the people not allowed to speak to one another. Ervil did not orchestrate Rulan Allred's murder either. Rena Chynoweth confessed to being the actual murderer. Note in the summary of the legal battle for Ervil's land that coincidentally, both Ervil and his brother Verlan mysteriously "died" in 1980 right after being awarded land that had been disputed for the decade prior to his death. Both the LeBaron brothers, Ervil who owned the land, and his brother Verlan, was technically in charge of the land, who had been kept separated since the land dispute started, separated by being maligned against each other, by people intested in co-opting Ervil's land development vision, and the cash flow of weathy investors who were investing in Ervil's land development dream. Both LeBaron brothers died 2 days apart in 1980. Verlan in died in an auto accident in Mexico City two days after Ervil's dead body was discovered in his cell.

Earle Haas, D.O. (1888–1981) was an osteopathic physician and inventor of the tampon with an applicator, marketed as "Tampax". He graduated from the Kansas City College of Osteopathy in 1918 and spent 10 years in Colorado as a country general practitioner, then went to Denver in 1928.

Kuniko Mukōda was a Japanese TV screenwriter. Most of her scripts focus on day-to-day family life and relationships. She won the 83rd Naoki Prize (1980上) for her short stories "Hanano Namae", "Kawauso" and "Inugoya."

Beatrice Muriel Hill Tinsley was a British-born New Zealand astronomer and cosmologist and professor of astronomy at Yale University, whose research made fundamental contributions to the astronomical understanding of how galaxies evolve, grow and die.

Allen Ludden was an American television personality, actor, emcee and game show host. He hosted various incarnations of the game show Password between 1961 and 1980.

The lynching of Michael Donald in Mobile, Alabama, on March 21, 1981, was one of the last reported lynchings in the United States. Several Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members beat and killed Michael Donald, a 19-year-old African-American, and hung his body from a tree. One perpetrator, Henry Hays, was executed by electric chair in 1997, while another, James Knowles, was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty and testifying against Hays. A third man was convicted as an accomplice and also sentenced to life in prison, and a fourth was indicted but died before his trial could be completed.