List of Famous people who died in 2001

Rahmil "Emil" Yacovlevich Gorovets was a famous Soviet Ukrainian singer of Jewish origin, Gorovets standing for Horovitz in Russian. Gorovets' voice in between a tenor and baritone, was bright and had lush tonal coloration and emotional interpretations. Besides his hits in Russian, Ukrainian and Yiddish, he was also known to sing European and American famous hits in Russian.

Shinji Sōmai was a Japanese film director. He directed 13 films between 1980 and 2000.

Richard Carl Laymon was an American author of suspense and horror fiction, particularly within the splatterpunk subgenre.

Richard Seifert was a Swiss-British architect, best known for designing the Centre Point tower and Tower 42, once the tallest building in the City of London. His eponymously named practice – R. Seifert and Partners was at its most prolific in the 1960s and 1970s, responsible for many major office buildings in Central London as well as large urban regeneration projects in other major British cities.

Philippe Agostini was a French cinematographer, director and screenwriter born 11 August 1910 in Paris (France), died 20 October 2001. He was married to Odette Joyeux until the end of her life.

Kenneth George Aston, MBE was an English teacher, soldier, and football referee, who was responsible for many important developments in football refereeing - including the yellow and red penalty card system.

Vladimir Artemovich Pasechnik was a senior Soviet biologist and bioweaponeer who defected to the United Kingdom in 1989, alerting Western intelligence to the vast scope of Moscow's clandestine biological warfare (BW) programme, known as Biopreparat. His revelations that the program was ten times larger than previously suspected were confirmed in 1992 with the defection to the United States of Colonel Kanatjan Alibekov, the No. 2 scientist for the program.

Jean-Jacques "Babik" Reinhardt was a guitarist and the younger son of gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt by Django's second wife, Naguine. His elder half brother Lousson, who was Django's son by his first wife, Bella, was also a guitarist, but the two grew up in different families and rarely met. He was christened Jean-Jacques but generally known by his family nickname, Babik.

Harvey Ross Ball was an American commercial artist. He is recognized as the designer of a popular smiley graphic picture, which became an enduring and notable international icon. He never applied for a trademark for the iconic smiley image and only earned $45 for his efforts. Ball later founded the World Smile Foundation in 1999, a non-profit charitable trust that supports children’s causes.

Pauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker magazine from 1968 to 1991. Kael was known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated and sharply focused" reviews, her opinions often contrary to those of her contemporaries. She was one of the most influential American film critics of her era.