List of Famous people who died in 2012

Bernardo da Costa Sassetti Pais was a Portuguese jazz pianist and film composer.

Mika Yamamoto was an award-winning Japanese video and photo journalist for the news agency Japan Press. Yamamoto was killed on 20 August 2012 while covering the ongoing Syrian Civil War in Aleppo, Syria. She was the first Japanese and fourth foreign journalist killed in the Syrian Civil War that began in March 2011. She was also the fifteenth journalist killed in Syria in 2012. Yamamoto was a recipient of the Vaughn-Uyeda Memorial Prize of the Japanese Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association for her reporting of international affairs in 2004.

Pyotr Naumovich Fomenko was a Soviet and Russian film and theater director, teacher, artistic director of the Moscow theater Pyotr Fomenko Workshop. Created 60 productions in theaters in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tbilisi, Wroclaw, Salzburg and Paris.

Laszlo Toth was a Hungarian-born Australian geologist. He achieved worldwide notoriety when he vandalised Michelangelo's Pietà statue on 21 May 1972. Toth was not charged with any criminal offence after the incident. He was hospitalized in Italy for two years. On his release, he was immediately deported to Australia.

Brigitte Engerer was a French pianist.

Chang Fu-chi, known by the stage name Chang Mei-yao, was a Taiwanese actress.

Meral Okay was a Turkish actress, film producer and screenwriter.

Nelida Haydee Rivas was born on April 21, 1939 in Buenos Aires, Argentina and died on the August 28, 2012. She was the mistress of Juan Domingo Peron, President of Argentina, during the early 1950s.

Alexis Sigismund Weissenberg was a Bulgarian-born French pianist.

Manuel Fraga Iribarne was a Spanish professor and politician in Francoist Spain, who was also the founder of the People's Party. Fraga was Minister of Information and Tourism between 1962 and 1969, Ambassador to the United Kingdom between 1973 and 1975, Minister of the Interior in 1975, Second Deputy Prime Minister between 1975 and 1976, President of the People's Alliance/People's Party between 1979 and 1990 and President of the Regional Government of Galicia between 1990 and 2005. He was also a Member of the Congress of Deputies and a Senator.