List of Famous people who died in 1997

Cahit Arf was a Turkish mathematician. He is known for the Arf invariant of a quadratic form in characteristic 2 in topology, the Hasse–Arf theorem in ramification theory, Arf semigroups, and Arf rings.

Durgabai Kamat was a Marathi actress, who was the first actress in Indian cinema. In the early 1900s, acting in film or theatre was a taboo for women, so much so Dadasaheb Phalke, the father of Indian cinema, had to use male actors for female roles in first Indian film, Raja Harishchandra. However with its success, female actresses were encouraged. Thus he introduced Kamat in his 1913 second movie Mohini Bhasmasur as a leading lady Parvati, while her daughter Kamlabai Gokhale, played the role of Mohini, thus becoming the first female child actress of Indian cinema. After Kamat, other actresses started working in cinema.

Evgeny Viktorovich Belousov, better known as Zhenya Belousov was a Soviet and Ukrainian pop singer, popular in the late 1980s — early 1990s. His best-known hits include My Blue-Eyed Girl, Night Taxi, Alyoshka, Girl girl, Evening-evening, Hair cloud, Golden domes, Short summer, Dunya-Dunyasha, In the evening on a bench.

Georgi Aleksandrovich Yumatov was a Soviet and Russian film actor. He appeared in 72 films between 1946 and 1994. He was a People’s Artist of the RSFSR (1982).

Stig Erik Leopold Anderson, better known as Stikkan Anderson, was a Swedish music manager, lyricist and music publisher. He was the co-founder of Polar Music, and is best known for managing the Swedish pop band ABBA.

John Townes Van Zandt, better known as Townes Van Zandt, was an American singer-songwriter. He wrote numerous songs, such as "Pancho and Lefty", "For the Sake of the Song", "Tecumseh Valley", "Rex's Blues", and "To Live Is to Fly", that are widely considered masterpieces of American songwriting. His musical style has often been described as melancholy and features rich, poetic lyrics. During his early years, Van Zandt was respected for his guitar playing and fingerpicking ability.

Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava was a Soviet and Russian poet, writer, musician, novelist, and singer-songwriter of Georgian-Armenian ancestry. He was one of the founders of the Soviet genre called "author song", or "guitar song", and the author of about 200 songs, set to his own poetry. His songs are a mixture of Russian poetic and folksong traditions and the French chansonnier style represented by such contemporaries of Okudzhava as Georges Brassens. Though his songs were never overtly political, the freshness and independence of Okudzhava's artistic voice presented a subtle challenge to Soviet cultural authorities, who were thus hesitant for many years to give him official recognition.

Emanuel Theodore Bronner was the maker of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps. He used product labels to promote his moral and religious ideas, including a belief in the goodness and unity of humanity.

Josef "Jupp" Posipal was a Romanian-born German footballer who was part of the 1954 FIFA World Cup winning German squad.

Clyde William Tombaugh was an American astronomer. He discovered Pluto in 1930, the first object to be discovered in what would later be identified as the Kuiper belt. At the time of discovery, Pluto was considered a planet, but was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006. Tombaugh also discovered many asteroids, and called for the serious scientific research of unidentified flying objects.