List of Famous people who died in 1997

Anton Szandor LaVey was an American author, musician, and occultist. He was the founder of the Church of Satan and the religion of LaVeyan Satanism. He authored several books, including The Satanic Bible, The Satanic Rituals, The Satanic Witch, The Devil's Notebook, and Satan Speaks! In addition, he released three albums, including The Satanic Mass, Satan Takes a Holiday, and Strange Music. He played a minor on-screen role and served as technical advisor for the 1975 film The Devil's Rain and served as host and narrator for Nick Bougas' 1989 mondo film Death Scenes.

Viktor Emil Frankl was an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor.

Maurice Harington Kaufmann was a British actor of stage, film and television, who specialised in whodunits and horror films, from 1954 to 1981, when he retired.

Edward Arnold Chapman was an English criminal and wartime spy. During the Second World War he offered his services to Nazi Germany as a spy and subsequently became a British double agent. His British Secret Service handlers codenamed him Agent Zigzag in acknowledgement of his rather erratic personal history.

Robert Lewis Bell, better known as Bob Bell, was an American announcer and actor famous for his alter-ego, Bozo the Clown. He was the original portrayer of the character for Chicago superstation WGN-TV.

Leonard Ho was a Chinese film producer.

Sir Georg Solti, was a Hungarian-born British orchestral and operatic conductor, best known for his appearances with opera companies in Munich, Frankfurt and London, and as a long-serving music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Born in Budapest, he studied there with Béla Bartók, Leó Weiner and Ernő Dohnányi. In the 1930s, he was a répétiteur at the Hungarian State Opera and worked at the Salzburg Festival for Arturo Toscanini. His career was interrupted by the rise of the Nazis' influence on Hungarian politics, and being of Jewish background he fled the increasingly harsh Hungarian anti-Jewish laws in 1938. After conducting a season of Russian ballet in London at the Royal Opera House he found refuge in Switzerland, where he remained during the Second World War. Prohibited from conducting there, he earned a living as a pianist.

Yorozuya Kinnosuke (萬屋錦之介) was a Japanese kabuki actor. Born Kin'ichi Ogawa , son of kabuki actor Nakamura Tokizō III, he entered kabuki and became the first in the kabuki tradition to take the name Nakamura Kinnosuke. He took on his guild name (yagō) Yorozuya as his surname in 1971.

Charles Bishop Kuralt was an American journalist. He is most widely known for his long career with CBS, first for his "On the Road" segments on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, and later as the first anchor of CBS News Sunday Morning, a position he held for fifteen years.

Castor Gonçalves de Andrade e Silva was a well-known bicheiro in Rio de Janeiro. From the 1980s, Castor de Andrade was the uncontested leader of all the main bicheiros of the city of Rio de Janeiro, and had more than 100 policemen and a number of public servants, prominent politicians, and judges working for him. Castor was also very involved in the Brazilian Carnival and in soccer—he was the major sponsor of Bangu Atlético Clube and even called the "owner of Bangu", and he was also the patron of samba school Mocidade Independente de Padre Miguel. He also helped found in 1984 the Liga Independente das Escolas de Samba do Rio de Janeiro, which has run the Rio de Janeiro Carnival ever since and has served as the legal cover for the "jogo do bicho cartel".