List of Famous people who died in 2002

Henri Verneuil was a French-Armenian playwright and filmmaker, who made a successful career in France. He was nominated for Oscar and Palme d'Or awards, and won Locarno International Film Festival, Edgar Allan Poe Awards, French Legion of Honor, Golden Globe Award, French National Academy of Cinema and Honorary Cesar awards.

Andrei Stanislavovich Rostotsky was a Soviet Russian film and theatre actor and stunt performer, film director and screenwriter, and also TV host.

Boris Mikhailovich Sichkin was a Soviet film actor, dancer, choreographer, master conversational genre, composer.

Aloysius Martin "Lou" Thesz was an American professional wrestler. An official six-time world champion, he held the NWA World Heavyweight Championship three times for a combined total of 10 years, three months and nine days – longer than anyone else in history. Considered to be one of the last true shooters in professional wrestling, Thesz is widely regarded as one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. In Japan, Thesz was known as a 'God of Wrestling' and was called Tetsujin, which means 'Ironman', in respect for his speed, conditioning and expertise in catch wrestling. Alongside Karl Gotch and Billy Robinson, Thesz later helped train young Japanese wrestlers and mixed martial artists in catch wrestling.

John Edward Thaw, was an English actor who appeared in a range of television, stage, and cinema roles. He starred in the television series Inspector Morse as title character Detective Chief Inspector Endeavour Morse, Redcap as Sergeant John Mann, The Sweeney as Detective Inspector Jack Regan, Home to Roost as Henry Willows, and Kavanagh QC as title character James Kavanagh.

Mohammad Nasir Hussain Khan or Nasir Hussain was an Indian film producer, director and screenwriter. With a career spanning decades, Hussain has been credited as a major trendsetter in the history of Hindi cinema. For example, he directed Yaadon Ki Baraat (1973), which created the Bollywood masala film genre that defined Hindi cinema in the 1970s and 1980s, and he wrote and produced Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988), which set the Bollywood musical romance template that defined Hindi cinema in the 1990s. Akshay Manwani wrote a book on Hussain's cinema titled Music, Masti, Modernity: The Cinema of Nasir Husain.

James Fred Blake was an American bus driver in Montgomery, Alabama, whom Rosa Parks defied in 1955, prompting the Montgomery bus boycott.

Ingeborg Hermine Morath was an Austrian-born American photographer. In 1953, she joined the Magnum Photos Agency, founded by top photographers in Paris, and became a full photographer with the agency in 1955. Morath was also the third wife of playwright Arthur Miller; their daughter is screenwriter/director Rebecca Miller.

Lieutenant General Alexander Ivanovich Lebed was a Soviet and Russian military officer and politician who held senior positions in the Airborne Troops before running for president in the 1996 Russian presidential election. He did not win, but placed third behind incumbent Boris Yeltsin and the Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, with roughly 14% of the vote nation-wide. Lebed later served as the Secretary of the Security Council in the Yeltsin administration, and eventually became the governor of Krasnoyarsk Krai, the second largest Russian region. He served four years in the latter position, until his death following a Mi-8 helicopter crash.

Edward Kern "Ted" Demme was an American director, producer, and actor.