List of Famous people who died in 1995

Michael Andreas Helmuth Ende was a German writer of fantasy and children's fiction. He is best known for his epic fantasy The Neverending Story; other famous works include Momo and Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver. His works have been translated into more than 40 languages, sold more than 35 million copies, and adapted as motion pictures, stage plays, operas and audio books. Ende is one of the most popular and famous German authors of the 20th century, mostly due to the enormous success of his children's fiction. He was not strictly a children's writer, as he wrote books for adults as well. Ende's writing could be described as a surreal mixture of reality and fantasy.

Nicolas Slonimsky, born Nikolai Leonidovich Slonimskiy, was a Russian-born American conductor, author, pianist, composer and lexicographer. Best known for his writing and musical reference work, he wrote the Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns and the Lexicon of Musical Invective, and edited Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians.

William Rory Gallagher was an Irish blues and rock multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and producer. Born in Ballyshannon, County Donegal, and brought up in Cork, Gallagher recorded solo albums throughout the 1970s and 1980s, after forming the band Taste during the late 1960s. His albums have sold over 30 million copies worldwide.

Tarık Ümit was a Turkish intelligence official in the National Intelligence Organization (MIT). He was kidnapped and murdered in March 1995.

Kenule Beeson "Ken" Saro-Wiwa was a Nigerian writer, television producer, environmental activist, and winner of the Right Livelihood Award for "exemplary courage in striving non-violently for civil, economic and environmental rights" and the Goldman Environmental Prize. Saro-Wiwa was a member of the Ogoni people, an ethnic minority in Nigeria whose homeland, Ogoniland, in the Niger Delta has been targeted for crude oil extraction since the 1950s and which has suffered extreme environmental damage from decades of indiscriminate petroleum waste dumping. Initially as spokesperson, and then as president, of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), Saro-Wiwa led a nonviolent campaign against environmental degradation of the land and waters of Ogoniland by the operations of the multinational petroleum industry, especially the Royal Dutch Shell company. He was also an outspoken critic of the Nigerian government, which he viewed as reluctant to enforce environmental regulations on the foreign petroleum companies operating in the area.

Hideo Murai was a member of the Aum Shinrikyo cult and one of the perpetrators responsible for the Sakamoto family murder.

James William "Ike" Altgens was an American photojournalist, photo editor, and field reporter for the Associated Press (AP) based in Dallas, Texas, who became known for his photographic work during the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy (JFK). Altgens was 19 when he began his AP career, which was interrupted by military service during World War II. When his service time ended, Altgens returned to Dallas and got married. He soon went back to work for the local AP bureau and eventually earned a position as a senior editor.

Hildegard Martha Lächert was a female guard, or Aufseherin, at several concentration camps controlled by Nazi Germany. She became publicly known for her service at Ravensbrück, Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau. After the war, she was sentenced to a total of 27 years in prison for her brutal treatment of inmates during her camp service, of which she served close to ten.

Priscilla Lane was an American actress, and the youngest sibling in the Lane Sisters of singers and actresses. She is best remembered for her roles in the films The Roaring Twenties (1939) co-starring with James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart; Saboteur (1942), an Alfred Hitchcock film in which she plays the heroine, and Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), in which she portrays Cary Grant's fiancée and bride.

Leila Mourad was an Egyptian singer and actress, and one of the most prominent superstars in Egypt and the entire Arab world in her era. Born Lillian Zaki Mourad Mordechai to an Egyptian Jewish family known for their patriotism in 1918 in the El Daher District in Cairo, she later changed her name to Leila Mourad as a stage-name. Leila married three times and divorced three times. She converted to Islam early in her life and died in 1995.