List of Famous people who died in 1981

Bruno Amadio, popularly known as Bragolin, and also known as Franchot Seville, Angelo Bragolin and Giovanni Bragolin, was the creator of the group of paintings known as Crying Boys. The paintings feature a variety of tearful children looking morosely straight ahead. They are sometimes called "Gypsy boys" although there is nothing specifically linking them to the Romani people.

Nils Anton Alfhild Asther was a Swedish actor active in Hollywood from 1926 to the mid-1950s, known as "the male Greta Garbo". Between 1916 and 1963 he appeared in over 70 feature films, 16 of which were produced in the silent era. He is mainly remembered today for two silent films he made with fellow Swede Greta Garbo, and his portrayal of the title character in the controversial pre-Code Frank Capra film The Bitter Tea of General Yen.

Ray Abrams was an American animator and director. Abrams worked on several major animations during the 1930s. He began his career as an animator at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio, Walter Lantz Productions and Hanna-Barbera.

Francis Cugat, also known as Francisco Coradal-Cougat, was a painter and graphic designer whose most famous work was the original 1925 dust jacket for The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. From the mid-1940s he was a Technicolor consultant on more than 60 Hollywood films.

Alfred Schlageter was a Swiss actor.

Alfred Julio Jensen was an abstract painter. His paintings are often characterized by grids of brightly colored triangles, circles or squares, painted in thick impasto. Conveying a complex web of ideas, often incorporating calligraphy or numerical systems, they are frequently referred to as "concrete" abstract art. After his death in 1981, the Guggenheim organized a major retrospective of his work, having held his solo exhibition there in 1961.

Herman Wirth was a Dutch-German historian and scholar of ancient religions and symbols. He co-founded the SS-organization Ahnenerbe but was later pushed out by Heinrich Himmler.