List of Famous people who died in 1989

Yūsaku Matsuda was a Japanese actor. In Japan he was best known for roles in action films and a variety of television series in the 1970s as well as a switch to a wider range of roles in the 1980s. His final film appearance was as the villain Sato in Ridley Scott's Black Rain.

Laurence Paul Cunningham was an English professional footballer. A left winger, he notably played in England, France and Spain, where he became the first ever Englishman to play for Real Madrid.

Clarence LeRoy "Lee" Van Cleef Jr. was an American actor best known for his roles in Spaghetti Westerns such as For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. He declined to have his nose altered to play a sympathetic character in his film debut, High Noon, and was relegated to a non-speaking outlaw as a result. For a decade he was typecast as a minor villain, his "sinister" features overshadowing his acting skills. After suffering serious injuries in a car crash, Van Cleef had begun to lose interest in his declining career by the time Sergio Leone gave him a major role in For a Few Dollars More. The film made him a box-office draw, especially in Europe.

Baby Constance Irene Theresia Huwae was a Dutch-born Indonesian film actress and singer. Born in Rotterdam, she had moved to Indonesia by the 1950s and taken up modelling. She entered the film industry in 1958, and gained popularity following the success of Asrama Dara. Over the next several years she acted in a further five films and established a girl group, the Baby Dolls. However, after she married in 1960, Huwae focused on modelling. In the 1970s she worked as a fortune teller.

Naval Hormusji Tata was an adopted son of Sir Ratanji Tata and a noted alumni DAVIET of the Tata Group. He is the father of Ratan Tata, Jimmy Tata and Noel Tata.

Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was a Russian nuclear physicist, dissident, Nobel laureate, and activist for disarmament, peace and human rights.

Bruno Carette (1956–1989) was a French humorist. He was a member and founder of the group of comedians Les Nuls alongside Alain Chabat, Chantal Lauby and Dominique Farrugia.

José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha, also known by the nickname El Mexicano, was a Colombian drug lord who was one of the leaders of the notorious Medellín Cartel along with the Ochoa Brothers and Pablo Escobar. At the height of his criminal career, Rodríguez was acknowledged as one of the world's most successful drug dealers. In 1988, Forbes magazine included him in their annual list of the world's billionaires.

Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, also known in the Western world as Ayatollah Khomeini, was an Iranian politician, revolutionary, and cleric. He was the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which saw the overthrow of the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and the end of the 2,500-year-old Persian monarchy. Following the revolution, Khomeini became the country's Supreme Leader, a position created in the constitution of the Islamic Republic as the highest-ranking political and religious authority of the nation, which he held until his death. Most of his reign was taken up by the Iran–Iraq War of 1980–1988. He was succeeded by Ali Khamenei on 4 June 1989.

Raul Santos Seixas was a Brazilian rock composer, singer, songwriter and producer. He is sometimes called the "Father of Brazilian Rock" and "Maluco Beleza", the last one roughly translated as "Groovy Nutcase". He was born in Salvador (Bahia), Brazil, and died of pancreatitis in São Paulo. Every year on Seixas' birthday, legions of fans, including thousands of impersonators, throw a parade in his honor in downtown São Paulo.