List of Famous people who died in 1988

Helen Wilburforce Gandy was an American civil servant. For 54 years, she was the secretary to Federal Bureau of Investigation director J. Edgar Hoover, who called her "indispensable". She exercised great behind-the-scenes influence on Hoover and the workings of the Bureau. Following Hoover's death in 1972, she spent weeks destroying his "Personal File", thought to be where the most incriminating material he used to manipulate and control the most powerful figures in Washington was kept.

Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby was a British intelligence officer and a double agent for the Soviet Union. In 1963 he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five, a spy ring which passed information to the Soviet Union during World War II and in the early stages of the Cold War. Of the five, Philby is believed to have been most successful in providing secret information to the Soviets.

Ramón Antonio Esteban Gómez de Valdés y Castillo, often credited as Ramón Valdés, was a Mexican actor and comedian. He is best remembered for his portrayal of Don Ramón. He is also recognized as one of Mexico's best comedians.

Christa Päffgen, known by her stage name Nico, was a German singer, songwriter, musician, model, and actress. She had roles in several films, including Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960) and Andy Warhol's Chelsea Girls (1966).

Tara Leigh Calico is an American woman who disappeared near her home in Belen, New Mexico, on September 20, 1988. She is widely believed to have been kidnapped. In July 1989, a Polaroid photo of an unidentified young woman and boy, gagged and seemingly bound, was televised to the public after it was found in a convenience store parking lot in Port St. Joe, Florida. Family friends thought the woman resembled Calico and contacted her mother, who then met with investigators and examined the Polaroid. She believed it was her daughter after taking "time, growth and lack of makeup" into consideration, and noted that a scar on the woman's leg was identical to one that Calico had. Scotland Yard analyzed the photo and concluded that the woman was Calico, but a second analysis by the Los Alamos National Laboratory disagreed. An FBI analysis of the photo was inconclusive.

Juan Pujol García, also known as Joan Pujol Garcia, was a Spanish spy who acted as a double agent loyal to Great Britain against Nazi Germany during World War II, when he relocated to Britain to carry out fictitious spying activities for the Germans. He was given the codename Garbo by the British; their German counterparts codenamed him Alaric and referred to his non-existent spy network as "Arabal".

Maharaja Karni Singh ji also known as Dr Karni Singh, was from 1950 the last Maharaja of Bikaner State to hold the title of Maharaja of Bikaner, officially, till 1971, when the privy purse and all the royal titles were abolished by the Republic of India. He was also a politician, serving as a member of the Lok Sabha for twenty-five years, from 1952 to 1977, and an international clay pigeon and skeet champion.

Richard Ernest May was a New Zealand-born jazz singer and musician, best known for singing cover versions of numerous pop songs or jazz standards. He moved to Australia in 1962 where he worked mainly in theatre and cabaret and had TV appearances on The Don Lane Show, The Midday Show and Hey Hey It's Saturday, as well as hosting his own show, Ten on the Town (1966).

Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay was an Indian social reformer and freedom activist. She was most remembered for her contribution to the Indian independence movement; for being the driving force behind the renaissance of Indian handicrafts, handlooms, and theatre in independent India; and for upliftment of the socio-economic standard of Indian women by pioneering the co-operation.

Guillermo Haro Barraza was a Mexican astronomer. Through his own astronomical research and the formation of new institutions, Haro was influential in the development of modern observational astronomy in Mexico. Internationally, he is best known for his contribution to the discovery of Herbig–Haro objects.