List of Famous people who died in 1997

Diana, Princess of Wales, was a member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales—the heir apparent to the British throne—and was the mother of Prince William and Prince Harry. Diana's activism and glamour made her an international icon and earned her enduring popularity as well as unprecedented public scrutiny, exacerbated by her tumultuous private life.

Amado Carrillo Fuentes was a Mexican drug lord who seized control of the Juárez Cartel after assassinating his boss Rafael Aguilar Guajardo. Amado Carrillo became known as "El Señor de Los Cielos", because of the large fleet of jets he used to transport drugs. He was also known for laundering money via Colombia, to finance this fleet.

Christopher George Latore Wallace, better known by his stage names the Notorious B.I.G., Biggie Smalls, or simply Biggie, was an American rapper and songwriter. Rooted in the New York rap scene and gangsta rap traditions, he is considered one of the greatest rappers of all time. Wallace became known for his distinctive laidback lyrical delivery, offsetting the lyrics' often grim content. His music was often semi-autobiographical, telling of hardship and criminality, but also of debauchery and celebration.

Giovanni Maria "Gianni" Versace was an Italian fashion designer and founder of Versace, an international fashion house that produces accessories, fragrances, make-up, home furnishings, and clothes. He also designed costumes for theatre and films. As a friend of Eric Clapton; Diana, Princess of Wales; Naomi Campbell; Kate Moss; Madonna; Elton John; Tupac Shakur and many other celebrities, he was one of the first designers to link fashion to the music world.

Andrew Phillip Cunanan was an American serial killer known to have murdered five people during a three-month period in mid-1997. His victims included Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace and Chicago real estate developer Lee Miglin. Cunanan died of suicide by gunshot on July 23, 1997.

Mother Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu, honoured in the Catholic Church as Saint Teresa of Calcutta, was an Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun and missionary. She was born in Skopje, then part of the Kosovo Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire. After living in Skopje for eighteen years, she moved to Ireland and then to India, where she lived for most of her life.

Israel Kaʻanoʻi Kamakawiwoʻole, Hawaiian of the fearless eye, the bold face; May 20, 1959 – June 26, 1997), also called Bruddah Iz or IZ, was a Hawaiian singer-lyricist, musician, and Hawaiian sovereignty activist.

David Barron Corona, a.k.a. Popeye was a Mexican high-ranking member of the Logan Heights Gang, the Mexican Mafia and a hitman for the Tijuana Cartel under the command of drug lord Ramon Arellano Felix. Barron recruited and led a band of Mexican-American Logan Heights gang members as hired enforcers for the Arellano-Felix organization.

James Maitland Stewart, also known as Jimmy Stewart, was an American actor and military officer. Known for his distinctive drawl and everyman screen persona, Stewart's film career spanned 80 films from 1935 to 1991. With the strong morality he portrayed both on and off the screen, he epitomized the "American ideal" in the twentieth century. In 1999, the American Film Institute (AFI) ranked him third on its list of the greatest American male actors.

Christopher Crosby Farley was an American actor and comedian. Farley was known for his loud, energetic comedic style, and was a member of Chicago's Second City Theatre and later a cast member of the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live between 1990 and 1995. He then went on to pursue a film career, appearing in films such as Coneheads, Tommy Boy, Black Sheep, Beverly Hills Ninja, Billy Madison, Dirty Work, and Almost Heroes (1998). He died of a drug overdose at the age of 33.

Betty Shabazz, also known as Betty X, was an American educator and civil rights advocate. She was married to Malcolm X.

Michael Kelland John Hutchence was an Australian musician, singer-songwriter and actor. Hutchence co-founded the rock band INXS, which sold over 60 million records worldwide and was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2001. He was the lead singer and lyricist of INXS from 1977 until his death.

Karen Elizabeth Wetterhahn (October 16, 1948 – June 8, 1997) was an American professor of chemistry at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire who specialized in toxic metal exposure. She died of mercury poisoning at the age of 48 due to accidental exposure to the organic mercury compound dimethylmercury (Hg(CH₃)₂). Protective gloves in use at the time of the incident provided insufficient protection, and exposure to only a few drops of the chemical absorbed through the gloves proved to be fatal after less than a year.

Bijayananda Patnaik, popularly known as Biju Patnaik, was an Indian politician, aviator and businessman. As politician, he served twice as the Chief Minister of the State of Odisha.

Emad El-Din Mohamed Abdel Mena'em Fayed, better known as Dodi Fayed, was an Egyptian film producer and the son of billionaire Mohamed Al Fayed. He was the romantic partner of Diana, Princess of Wales, when they both died in a car crash in Paris in 1997.

Henry John Deutschendorf Jr., known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer-songwriter, record producer, actor, activist, and humanitarian, whose greatest commercial success was as a solo singer. After traveling and living in numerous locations while growing up in his military family, Denver began his music career with folk music groups during the late 1960s. Starting in the 1970s, he was one of the most popular acoustic artists of the decade and one of its best-selling artists. By 1974, he was one of America's best-selling performers, and AllMusic has described Denver as "among the most beloved entertainers of his era".

Jeanne Louise Calment was a French supercentenarian from Arles, and the oldest human whose age is well-documented, with a lifespan of 122 years and 164 days. Her longevity attracted media attention and medical studies of her health and lifestyle.

Paulo Reglus Neves Freire (1921–1997) was a Brazilian educator and philosopher who was a leading advocate of critical pedagogy. He is best known for his influential work Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which is generally considered one of the foundational texts of the critical pedagogy movement.

Gulshan Kumar Dua, was an Indian businessman who was the founder of the T-Series music label, and a Bollywood movie producer. He founded T-Series in the 1980s and established it as a leading record label in the 1990s.

Deng Xiaoping, also spelled as Teng Hsiao-ping was a Chinese politician who was the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China from 1978 until his resignation in November 1989. After Chairman Mao Zedong's death in 1976, Deng gradually rose to power and led China through a series of far-reaching market-economy reforms, which earned him the reputation as the "Architect of Modern China".