List of Famous people who died in 2001

Jeanne Loriod was a French musician, regarded as the world's leading exponent of the ondes Martenot, an early electronic instrument.

Eudora Alice Welty was an American short story writer, novelist and photographer, who wrote about the American South. Her novel The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty received numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Order of the South. She was the first living author to have her works published by the Library of America. Her house in Jackson, Mississippi, has been designated as a National Historic Landmark and is open to the public as a house museum.

Robert Rutledge was an American sound editor who won Best Sound Editing at the 1985 Academy Awards. He won for Back to the Future, which was shared with Charles L. Campbell.

Elisabeth Freundlich was an Austrian Jewish playwright, poet, and journalist who reported on the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials. She is a Holocaust survivor.