List of Famous people who died in 1996

Meridel Le Sueur was an American writer associated with the proletarian literature movement of the 1930s and 1940s. Born as Meridel Wharton, she assumed the name of her mother's second husband, Arthur Le Sueur, the former Socialist mayor of Minot, North Dakota.

William Thomas Cahill was an American Republican Party politician who served as the 46th Governor of New Jersey, from 1970 to 1974, and who represented New Jersey's 1st congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1959 to 1967 and the state's 6th district from 1967 to 1970.

Samuel Robert Gibson was an American folk singer and a key figure in the folk music revival in the late 1950s and early 1960s. His principal instruments were banjo and 12-string guitar.

Richard Krebs was a German sprinter who won a silver medal in the 4 × 400 m relay at the 1928 Summer Olympics. This was his only international competition. Domestically he finished third in the 400 m at the 1929 national championships.

Michel Kelber (1908–1996) was a French cinematographer. Beginning in the late 1920s, he worked on more than a hundred film productions during a lengthy career. Born in Kiev, then part of the Russian Empire, he studied art and architecture in Paris. He started worked as an assistant cameraman in 1928, before progressing to cinematographer four years later. He worked with leading directors such as Jean Renoir, René Clair, Julien Duvivier and Claude Autant-Lara. He also worked for periods in Spain, including during the wartime German Occupation of France.

Vagn Gylding Holmboe was a Danish composer and teacher who wrote largely in a neo-classical style.