List of Famous people who died in 1997

Bernard Girard was an American screenwriter, producer and film director.

Katherine Esau was a German-American botanist who received the National Medal of Science for her work on plant anatomy.

John Kenneth Tyrrell McLeish, known as Kenneth McLeish (1940-1997) was a British writer, playwright and translator. McLeish, "the most widely respected and prolific translator of drama in Britain", translated all the surviving classical Greek plays, most plays by Henrik Ibsen and Georges Feydeau, and individual plays by Plautus, Molière, Alfred Jarry, August Strindberg, Ödön von Horváth and Eugène Marin Labiche.

Bessie Schonberg was a highly influential dancer, choreographer and teacher of the 20th century. She was at the center of contemporary modern dance from her beginning at Bennington College up until her death in 1997. Her career spanned sixty-five years and she helped mold a new generation of modern dancers including Lucinda Childs, Elizabeth Keen, Meredith Monk and Carolyn Adams (dancer).

Capturing a sense of the life and work of Bessie Schonberg is possible if one evokes the image of a prism, a multi-face crystalline object which cannot be perceived in its entirety, but can be appreciated and understood by catching glimpses of light from its different sides.

Jambyn Batmönkh was a Mongolian communist political leader and economics professor. He was the leader of Mongolia during its transition into democracy in 1990.

Walter Fritzsch was a German football player and manager.

Jerome "Jerry" Hal Lemelson was an American engineer, inventor, and patent holder. Several of his inventions and works in the fields in which he patented have made possible, either wholly or in part, innovations like automated warehouses, industrial robots, cordless telephones, fax machines, videocassette recorders, camcorders, and the magnetic tape drive used in Sony's Walkman tape players. Lemelson's 605 patents made him one of the most prolific inventors in American history.

Madiha Kamel was an Egyptian actress.