List of Famous people who died in 1981

Bùi Thanh Liêm was a Vietnamese cosmonaut (astronaut).

Shep Fields was an American bandleader who led Shep Fields and His Rippling Rhythm orchestra during the 1930s.

Rolf von Goth was a film actor from Windhoek in German Southwest Africa who settled and worked in Germany. After appearing in minor roles in several silent films such as Metropolis (1927) von Goth emerged as a prominent actor in the late 1920s. During the early 1930s he played a mixture of leading and supporting roles in films such as Once There Was a Waltz and A Shot at Dawn (1932) but his appearances began to decline during the Nazi era. By the outbreak of the Second World War he had almost entirely retired from film. von Goth switched to become a director of radio shows, becoming extremely successful in the format during the post-war years. He was married to the actress Karin Hardt.