List of Famous people who died in 2002

Alexander Mikhailovich Prokhorov was an Australian-born Soviet-Russian physicist known for his pioneering research on lasers and masers in the Soviet Union for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1964 with Charles Hard Townes and Nikolay Basov.

Choi Hong-hi was a South Korean Army general, defector to North Korea, and martial artist who was an important figure in the history of the Korean martial art of Taekwondo, albeit controversial due to his attempt to introduce the martial art in North Korea, and his eventual defection to the North in 1979.

Vlastimil Brodský was a respected Czech actor. He appeared in more than one hundred films, and is considered a key figure in the postwar development of Czech cinema.

Wolfgang Preiss was a German theatre, film and television actor.

Mike Stone was an English recording engineer and record producer. Stone worked with Queen, Blue Öyster Cult, Foreigner, Journey, Kiss, Toby Beau, Asia, Lou Reed, Whitesnake, Joe Walsh and others.

Christine Gouze-Rénal was a French film and television producer. A graduate in literature and art history and former Résistance member, she became in 1956 France's first female film producer with The Bride Is Much Too Beautiful, starring Brigitte Bardot.

Tōru "Tohl" Narita was a Japanese visual artist who is best known for creating the characters and mechanics for the Ultra series of television programs: Ultra Q, Ultraman, and Ultraseven.

Alain Vanzo was a French opera singer and composer, one of few French tenors of international standing in the postwar era. He, along with such singers as Henri Legay and the Canadian Léopold Simoneau, represented a traditional French lyric style during a period when larger Italian and German vocal styles had become popular.

John Jacob "Jay" Berwanger was an American college football player and referee. He was the first winner of the Downtown Athletic Club Trophy in 1935 ; the trophy is awarded annually to the nation's most outstanding college football player. Berwanger was a star halfback for the Chicago Maroons football team of the University of Chicago, where he was known as the "one man football team". In 1936, Berwanger became the first player drafted into the National Football League (NFL) in its inaugural 1936 NFL Draft, although he did not play professionally.

César Milstein, CH, FRS was an Argentine biochemist in the field of antibody research. Milstein shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1984 with Niels Kaj Jerne and Georges J. F. Köhler for developing the hybridoma technique for the production of monoclonal antibodies.