List of Famous people who died in 1986

Harry Peter McNab Brown Jr. was an American poet, novelist and screenwriter.

Leslie Harry Ernest Bury CMG was an Australian politician and economist. He was a member of the Liberal Party and served in the House of Representatives between 1956 and 1974, representing the Division of Wentworth. He held ministerial office in Coalition governments for nearly a decade, serving as Minister for Air (1961–1962), Housing (1963–1966), Labour and National Service (1966–1969), Treasurer (1969–1971) and Foreign Affairs (1971).

Sir Roger Antony Hornby, was senior partner at the stockbrokers Cazenove.

Sarah Blanche Sweet was an American silent film actress who began her career in the earliest days of the Hollywood motion picture film industry.

Violet Vivian Stuart was a British writer from 1953 to 1986. She published under different pen names: her romantic novels as Vivian Stuart, Alex Stuart, Barbara Allen, Fiona Finlay, and Robyn Stuart, her military sagas as V.A. Stuart, and her historical saga as William Stuart Long.

Leo James Rainwater was an American physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1975 for his part in determining the asymmetrical shapes of certain atomic nuclei.

Oleg Georgievich Goncharenko, Distinguished Master of Sports of the USSR, was the first male Soviet speed skater to become World Allround Champion.

Una Merkel was an American stage, film, radio, and television actress.

Friedrich Kohner, credited professionally as Frederick Kohner, was an Austrian-born novelist and screenwriter, both in Germany and the U.S..

Moses Asch, often known as Moe Asch, was a Polish-American recording engineer and record executive. He founded Asch Records, which then changed its name to Folkways Records when the label transitioned from 78 RPM recordings to LP records. Asch ran the Folkways label from 1948 until his death in 1986. Folkways was very influential in bringing folk music into the American cultural mainstream. Some of America's greatest folk songs were originally recorded for Asch, including "This Land Is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie and "Goodnight Irene" by Lead Belly. Asch sold many commercial recordings to Verve Records; after his death, Asch's archive of ethnic recordings was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution, and released as Smithsonian Folkways Records.