List of Famous people who died in 1997

Simone Duvalier, also known as Mama Doc, was the wife of Haitian leader François "Papa Doc" Duvalier and the First Lady of Haiti.

Haruko Sugimura was a Japanese stage and film actress, best known for her appearances in the films of Yasujirō Ozu and Mikio Naruse from the late 1940s to the early 1960s.

Nikolai Nikolayevich Ozerov was a Soviet tennis player and actor, who was best known as a leading sports commentator of the Soviet Union in the 1950s–80s. He was awarded the Olympic Order in 1992, and received the Paul Loicq Award in 2016.

Roland Topor was a French illustrator, cartoonist, comics artist, painter, novelist, playwright, film and TV writer, filmmaker and actor, who was known for the surreal nature of his work. He was of Polish-Jewish origin. His parents were Jewish refugees from Warsaw. He spent the early years of his life in Savoy, where his family hid him from the Gestapo.

Mário Henrique Simonsen was a Brazilian economist, who served as Brazil's finance minister from 1974 to 1979.

Sir Eric Matthew Gairy PC was the first Prime Minister of Grenada, serving from his country's independence in 1974 until his overthrow in a coup by Maurice Bishop in 1979. Gairy also served as head of government in pre-independence Grenada as Chief Minister from 1961 to 1962, and as Premier from 1967 to 1974.

Marshall Herff Applewhite Jr., also known as Do, among other names, was an American cult leader who founded what became known as the Heaven's Gate religious group and organized their mass suicide in 1997, claiming the lives of 39 people.

Frances Goitsemang Baard was a South African trade unionist, organiser for the African National Congress Women's League and a Patron of the United Democratic Front, who was commemorated in the renaming of the Diamantveld District Municipality (Kimberley) as the Frances Baard District Municipality. Schoeman Street in Pretoria was also renamed in her honour.

Robert Alexander "Jeep" Swenson Jr. was an American professional wrestler, stuntman and actor.

Pierre Péladeau, was a French-Canadian businessman. He was the founder of Quebecor Inc., a Canadian media and telecommunications conglomerate in Quebec.