List of Famous people who died in 1996

James Burke, also known as "Jimmy the Gent", was an Irish American gangster and Lucchese crime family associate who is believed to have organized the 1978 Lufthansa heist, the largest cash robbery ever in American history, at the time. He's believed responsible for the deaths of those involved, in the months following the robbery.

Miriam Alejandra Bianchi, known by her stage name Gilda was an Argentine cumbia singer and songwriter.

Jean-Bédel Bokassa, also known as Bokassa I, was a Central African political and military leader who served as the second president of the Central African Republic and as the emperor of its successor state, the Central African Empire, from his Saint-Sylvestre coup d'état on 1 January 1966 until overthrown in a subsequent coup in 1979.

Renato Russo was a Brazilian singer and songwriter. He was the lead singer of the alternative rock band Legião Urbana. A Brazilian film depicting his life and career was released in 2013, called Somos Tão Jovens.

Abdullah Çatlı was a Turkish secret government agent, as well as a contract killer for the National Intelligence Organization (MİT). He led the Grey Wolves, the youth branch of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), during the 1970s. His death in the Susurluk car crash, while travelling in a car with state officials, revealed the depth of the state's complicity in organized crime in what became known as the Susurluk scandal. He was a hitman for the state, and was involved in the killings of suspected members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA).

Mary Ann Evans, also known by her stage name Fearless Nadia was an Indian actress and stuntwoman of Australian origin who is most remembered as the masked, cloaked adventurer in Hunterwali, released in 1935, which was one of the earliest female-lead Indian films. She is often referred to as a sex symbol.

Raaj Kumar, was an Indian film actor. He worked as sub-inspector of Mumbai Police in the late 1940s before he turned to acting with the 1952 Hindi film Rangeeli. He appeared in the Oscar-nominated 1957 film Mother India and went on to star in over 70 Hindi films in a career that spanned over four decades.

Ottis Elwood Toole was an American drifter and serial killer who was convicted of six counts of murder. Like his companion Henry Lee Lucas, Toole made confessions he then later recanted, which resulted in murder convictions. The discrediting of the case against Lucas for crimes for which Toole had offered corroborating statements created doubts as to whether either was a genuine serial killer or, as Hugh Aynesworth suggested, both were merely compliant interviewees whom police used to clear unsolved murders from the books.

Marguerite Germaine Marie Donnadieu, known as Marguerite Duras, was a French novelist, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, and experimental filmmaker. Her script for the film Hiroshima mon amour (1959) earned her a nomination for Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards.

Spiro Theodore Agnew was the 39th vice president of the United States, serving from 1969 until his resignation in 1973. He is the second and most recent vice president to resign the position, the other being John C. Calhoun in 1832. Unlike Calhoun, Agnew resigned as a result of a scandal.