List of Famous people who died in 1997

Pamela Beryl Harriman, also known as Pamela Churchill Harriman, was an English-born American political activist for the Democratic Party, diplomat, and socialite. She married three important and powerful men, her first husband being Randolph Churchill, the son of prime minister Winston Churchill. Her only child, Winston Churchill, was named after his famous grandfather.

Fahd Ballan was a popular Syrian Druze singer and actor. Like most of his generation of artists who started their show business careers in the early sixties he was exposed to a world of influences of those decades of music glory. His voice and looks made him a symbol of masculinity and won him many acting roles in his youth.

Mihir Sen was a famous Indian long distance swimmer and businessman. He was the first Indian to swim the English Channel from Dover to Calais in 1958, and did so in the fourth fastest time. He was the only man to swim the oceans of the five continents in one calendar year (1966). These included the Palk Strait, Dardanelles, Bosphorus, Gibraltar, and the entire length of the Panama Canal. This unique achievement earned him a place in The Guinness Book of Records as the "world's greatest long distance swimmer".

Henry Hermansen was a Norwegian cross-country skier who competed in the 1950s. He won a bronze medal in the 4 × 10 km relay at the 1950 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships.

Marion Freisler was the wife of Roland Freisler, the infamous judge and chairman of the Nazi Volksgerichtshof, who died in 1945 during an air raid in Berlin. She is sometimes mistakenly referred to as Anna Freisler.

On September 7, 1997, hunters in North Carolina's Pisgah National Forest found human bones, clothing, and some other items scattered in the woods near a campground. The remains, most of which were around a shallow grave, were identified as belonging to a woman between the ages of 40 and 55 with a seriously arthritic knee. Due to holes and cuts on her bra, and similar cutting marks on the bones, investigators ruled that the unidentified decedent had been stabbed to death.

Darcy Ribeiro was a Brazilian anthropologist, historian, sociologist, author and politician. His ideas of Latin American identity have influenced several later scholars of Latin American studies. As Minister of Education of Brazil he carried out profound reforms which led him to be invited to participate in university reforms in Chile, Peru, Venezuela, Mexico and Uruguay after leaving Brazil due to the 1964 coup d'état.

Manasse Herbst was a German-speaking silent movie actor, child-actor, theater actor and singer. He participated in 416 sold-out performances of the operetta White Horse Inn between 1930 and 1932 in Berlin. During the first half of the 1930s Herbst had a relationship with the German Baron Gottfried von Cramm, one of the most popular tennis players of the time. Because of this, von Cramm was sentenced in a Nazi propaganda trial which was recognized all over the world. Due to his Jewish background and the Nazi prohibition to perform his job Herbst had to flee from Germany in 1936. Later he became a US citizen.

Abraham "Abe" Gibron was a professional American football player and coach. Gibron played 11 seasons as a guard in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and National Football League (NFL) in the 1940s and 1950s, mostly with the Cleveland Browns. He was then hired as an assistant coach for the NFL's Washington Redskins and Chicago Bears before becoming head coach of the Bears between 1972 and 1974.

Jurek Becker was a Polish-born German writer, film-author and GDR dissident. His most famous novel is Jacob the Liar, which has been made into two films. He lived in Łódź during World War II for about two years and survived the Holocaust.