List of Famous people who died in 2009

Beverly Eckert was an activist and advocate for the creation of the 9/11 Commission. She was one of the members of the 9/11 Family Steering Committee for the 9/11 Commission. Eckert's husband, Sean Rooney, died at age 50 in the attacks of September 11, 2001. She pushed for a commission to investigate 9/11 and to establish a memorial.

Sergei Leonidovich Magnitsky was a Ukrainian-born Russian tax advisor. His arrest in 2008 and subsequent death after eleven months in police custody generated international media attention and triggered both official and unofficial inquiries into allegations of fraud, theft and human rights violations in Russia.

Lyudmila Georgievna Zykina was a national folk singer of Russia.

Simple Kapadia was a Hindi film actress and costume designer, who was active in her professional career from 1987 until her death in 2009.

Lester William Polsfuss, known as Les Paul, was an American jazz, country, and blues guitarist, songwriter, luthier, and inventor. He was one of the pioneers of the solid-body electric guitar, and his prototype, called the Log, served as inspiration for the Gibson Les Paul. Paul taught himself how to play guitar, and while he is mainly known for jazz and popular music, he had an early career in country music. He is credited with many recording innovations. His early experiments with overdubbing, delay effects such as tape delay, phasing effects and multitrack recording were among the first to attract widespread attention.

Maurice-Alexis Jarre was a French composer and conductor. Although he composed several concert works, Jarre is best known for his film scores, particularly for his collaborations with film director David Lean. Jarre composed the scores to all of Lean's films from Lawrence of Arabia (1962) on. Notable scores for other directors include The Train (1964), Mohammad, Messenger of God (1976), Lion of the Desert (1981), Witness (1985), Fatal Attraction (1987) and Ghost (1990).

Fritz Muliar, born as Friedrich Ludwig Stand, was an Austrian actor who, due to his huge popularity, is often referred to by his countrymen as Volksschauspieler.

Charles Jerome Daly was an American basketball head coach. He led the Detroit Pistons to two consecutive National Basketball Association (NBA) championships in 1989 and 1990, and the 1992 United States men's Olympic basketball team to the gold medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics.

Paul Angelis was an English actor and writer, best known for his role as PC Bruce Bannerman in the BBC police series Z-Cars and as Navy Rum in Porridge.

Lucy Gordon was an English actress and model. She became a face of CoverGirl in 1997 before starting an acting career. Her first film was Perfume in 2001 before going on to have small roles in Spider-Man 3, Serendipity and The Four Feathers. Gordon had played the actress and singer Jane Birkin in the film Gainsbourg, a biopic of singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg. Before the film was released, she was found hanged in her flat in Paris on 20 May 2009 after dying by suicide.