List of Famous people who died in 1997

Brian William Pillman was an American professional wrestler and professional football player best known for his appearances in Stampede Wrestling in the 1980s and World Championship Wrestling (WCW), Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), and the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in the 1990s.

Jacques-Yves Cousteau, was a French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water. He co-developed the Aqua-Lung, pioneered marine conservation and was a member of the Académie Française.

Colonel Thomas Andrew "Tom" Parker was a Dutch-born American musical entrepreneur who was the manager of Elvis Presley.

Burnum Burnum was an Australian Aboriginal activist, actor, and author. He was a Woiworrung and Yorta Yorta man at Wallaga Lake in southern New South Wales. He was originally named Harry Penrith but took the name of his great grandfather, which means Great Warrior.

Magdolna "Magda" Gabor was a Hungarian-American actress and socialite, and the elder sister of Zsa Zsa and Eva Gabor.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, was a Pakistani vocalist, musician and music director primarily a singer of Qawwali, a form of Sufi Islamic devotional music. Widely regarded as the greatest sufi singer in the Urdu language and the South Asia's greatest qawwali singer, he is often referred to as "Shahenshah-e-Qawwali". He was described as the 4th greatest singer of all time by LA Weekly in 2016. He possessed an extraordinary range of vocal abilities and could perform at a high level of intensity for several hours. He belonged to the Patiala gharana extending the 600-year old Qawwali tradition of his family, Khan is widely credited with introducing Qawwali music to international audiences.

Sir John Cowdery Kendrew, was an English biochemist, crystallographer, and science administrator. Kendrew shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Max Perutz, for their work at the Cavendish Laboratory to investigate the structure of heme-containing proteins.

Shōichi Yokoi was a sergeant in the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) during the Second World War, and was among the last three Japanese holdouts to be found after the end of hostilities in 1945. He was discovered in the jungles of Guam on 24 January 1972, almost 28 years after U.S. forces had regained control of the island in 1944.

Don Richard Ashburn, also known by the nicknames, "Putt-Putt", "The Tilden Flash", and "Whitey", was an American center fielder in Major League Baseball. He was born in Tilden, Nebraska. From his youth on a farm, he grew up to become a professional outfielder and veteran broadcaster for the Philadelphia Phillies and one of the most beloved sports figures in Philadelphia history. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1995.

Ennis William Cosby, the only son of American comedian Bill Cosby, was murdered on January 16, 1997, near Interstate 405 in Los Angeles, California. He was shot in the head by 18-year-old Mikhail Markhasev in a failed robbery attempt. Cosby was 27 years old.