List of Famous people who died in 2009

Rafael Calixto Escalona Martinez was a Colombian composer and troubadour. He was known for being one of the most prominent vallenato music composers and troubadours of the genre and for being the co-founder of the Vallenato Legend Festival, along with Consuelo Araújo and Alfonso López Michelsen.

Frank Manning was an American dancer, instructor, and choreographer. Manning is considered one of the founders of Lindy Hop, an energetic form of the jazz dance style known as swing.

Jocelyn Quivrin was a French actor. He had a supporting role in the critically acclaimed film Syriana.

Michael Sinclair MacAuslan Shea, was Press Secretary to Queen Elizabeth II from 1978 to 1987. Earlier he had been a career diplomat and was also an author of political thrillers and non-fiction.

David Carradine was an American actor best known for playing martial arts roles. He is perhaps best known as the star of the 1970s television series Kung Fu, playing Kwai Chang Caine, a peace-loving Shaolin monk travelling through the American Old West. He also portrayed the title character of both of the Kill Bill films. He appeared in two Martin Scorsese movies: Boxcar Bertha and Mean Streets.

Hirotugu Akaike was a Japanese statistician. In the early 1970s, he formulated the Akaike information criterion (AIC). AIC is now widely used for model selection, which is commonly the most difficult aspect of statistical inference; additionally, AIC is the basis of a paradigm for the foundations of statistics. Akaike also made major contributions to the study of time series. As well, he had a large role in the general development of statistics in Japan.

Jade Cerisa Lorraine Goody was an English television personality. She rose to prominence when she appeared in the third series of the then-Channel 4 reality show Big Brother in 2002. She subsequently went on to star in her own television programmes after her eviction from the show, which in turn lead to her launching a variety of products under her own name. Immediately criticised by the British press for her perceived lack of decorum and intelligence, Goody was dubbed by multiple outlets as "the most hated woman in Britain". The country's celebrity magazines were less derisive, publishing reports of her affable nature and competent school performance from those who knew her.

Laurence Kim Peek was an American savant. Known as a "megasavant", he had an exceptional memory, but he also experienced social difficulties, possibly resulting from a developmental disability related to congenital brain abnormalities. He was the inspiration for the character Raymond Babbitt in the 1988 movie Rain Man. Although Peek was diagnosed with autism and severe intellectual disability, he is now thought to have had FG syndrome. The Utah Film Center’s Peek Award is meant to honor his legacy.

Beatrice Arthur was an American actress and comedian.

Shōichi Nakagawa was a Japanese conservative politician in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), who served as Minister of Finance from 24 September 2008 to 17 February 2009. He previously held the posts of Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry and Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in the cabinet of Junichiro Koizumi. He was regarded as one of Japan's most attractive public figures. On 4 October 2009, he was found dead in his Tokyo apartment. The cause of his death is yet to be determined; although no suicide note was found, there was also no indication of foul play.