List of Famous people who died in 1981

Madge Evans was an American stage and film actress. She began her career as a child performer and model.

Mary Coyle Chase was an American journalist, playwright and children's novelist, known primarily for writing the 1944 Broadway play Harvey, which was adapted into the 1950 film starring Jimmy Stewart.

Dorothy Louise Walton,, née McKenzie was a Canadian badminton player who is the only Canadian ever to win the All England Open Badminton Championships, winning the Women's Singles in 1939.

Roland Hampe was a German classical archaeologist. From 1959-1975 he was a professor at Heidelberg University. He was the son of German historian Karl Hampe (1869-1936).

Kirill Petrovich Kondrashin, was a Soviet and Russian conductor.

Walter Heinrich Heitler was a German physicist who made contributions to quantum electrodynamics and quantum field theory. He brought chemistry under quantum mechanics through his theory of valence bonding.

Tadeusz Marian Kotarbiński was a Polish philosopher, logician and ethicist.

Robert Lloyd Fish was an American writer of crime fiction.

Jacob Wolfowitz was a Polish-born American Jewish statistician and Shannon Award-winning information theorist. He was the father of former United States Deputy Secretary of Defense and World Bank Group President Paul Wolfowitz.

Sir Claud Humphrey Meredith Waldock, was a British jurist and international lawyer. Humphrey Waldock served as the British judge in the European Court of Human Rights from 1966 until 1974 and in the International Court of Justice from 1973 until 1981. He was also the President of the ICJ between 1979 and 1981. Prior to joining the Court, he had served on the United Nations' International Law Commission from 1961 to 1972, and had also been Chichele Professor of Public International Law at All Souls College, Oxford.