List of Famous people who died in 2008

Daisy Jugadai Napaltjarri was a Pintupi-Luritja-speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region, and sister of artist Molly Jugadai Napaltjarri. Daisy Jugadai lived and painted at Haasts Bluff, Northern Territory. There she played a significant role in the establishment of Ikuntji Women's Centre, where many artists of the region have worked.

Harold Pinter was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party (1957), The Homecoming (1964), and Betrayal (1978), each of which he adapted for the screen. His screenplay adaptations of others' works include The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1971), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), The Trial (1993), and Sleuth (2007). He also directed or acted in radio, stage, television, and film productions of his own and others' works.

Rashid Mahdi (1923–2008) was a Sudanese photographer, active in Khartoum from the 1950s to the 1970s. French photographer Claude Iverné, founder of a large archive of photographs dedicated to this "Golden Age" of photography in Sudan, called Mahdi "certainly the most sophisticated and one of the major African photographers of the 20th century."

Samuel Adrian Baugh was an American professional football player and coach. During his college and professional careers, he most notably played quarterback, but also played as a defensive back and punter. He played college football for the Horned Frogs at Texas Christian University, where he was a two-time All-American. He then played in the National Football League (NFL) for the Washington Redskins from 1937 to 1952. After his playing career, he served as a college coach for Hardin–Simmons University before coaching professionally for the New York Titans and the Houston Oilers.

Sandra Elaine Allen was an American woman recognized by the Guinness World Records as the tallest woman in the world. She was 7 feet 7 inches (231 cm) tall.

Horst Tappert was a German movie and television actor best known for the role of Inspector Stephan Derrick in the television drama Derrick.

Dianne Odell was a Tennessee woman who spent most of her life in an iron lung. She contracted "bulbo-spinal" polio at age 3 in 1950 and was confined to an iron lung for the rest of her life. Due to a spinal deformity caused by the polio, she was unable to change to a portable breathing device introduced in the late 1950s. Odell's condition was not as severe in youth and she could spend short periods outside the machine until her 20s, from then on she needed to be in it 24 hours a day. Caregivers could still slide Odell's bedding out of her iron lung for basic nursing care but only briefly.

Kazuyoshi Miura was a Japanese businessman, who was accused of being involved in the killing of his wife, Kazumi Miura. The prolonged legal battle, lasting decades, ended when he presumably committed suicide in October 2008.

David Jacobs was an American personal trainer, convicted steroid dealer and informant.

Evan Lloyd Tanner was an American professional mixed martial arts fighter, writer, traveler and adventurer. He once held the UFC Middleweight Championship and was the first American to win the Pancrase Neo-Blood tournament in Tokyo, Japan.