List of Famous people who died in 1981

Dositej II was the Metropolitan of Skopje, under the canonical jurisdiction of the Serbian Orthodox Church from 1959 to 1967, and Archbishop of Ohrid and Macedonia as the primate of the self-proclaimed Macedonian Orthodox Church until his death in 1981.

Theodore Roszak was a Polish-American sculptor and painter. He was born in Posen, Prussia, now Poznań, Poland, as a son of Polish parents, and emigrated to the United States at the age of two. From 1925 to 1926 he studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, In 1930 he won the Logan Medal of the Arts, then moved to New York City to take classes at the National Academy of Design with George Luks and at Columbia University, where he studied logic and philosophy.

William Donald Dennison was a Canadian social-democratic politician that served in both the Ontario Legislative Assembly and finally as the City of Toronto's mayor. He served two nonconsecutive terms as a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) in the 1940s and early 1950s. After his provincial-level career, he focused on Toronto's municipal politics, holding offices as an alderman, member of the Toronto Board of Control, and finally as the city's mayor. He was the mayor from 1967 to 1972, winning two consecutive three-year terms. Prior to entering politics, he was a school principal and teacher. As of 2020 he was the last mayor of Toronto to be a member of the Orange Order.

Alhaji Imoru Egala was a Ghanaian politician and educationist. He held various positions in government in the Gold Coast and after independence of Ghana. He was the foreign minister of Ghana in the First Republic between 1960 and 1961.

Julien Levy (1906–1981) was an art dealer and owner of Julien Levy Gallery in New York City, important as a venue for Surrealists, avante-garde artists and American photographers in the 1930s and 1940s.