List of Famous people who died in 2016

Jean-Pierre Coffe was a French radio and television presenter, food critic, and author.

Martin David Crowe was a New Zealand cricketer, Test and ODI captain as well as a commentator. He played for the New Zealand national cricket team between 1982 and 1995, and is regarded as one of the country's greatest batsmen.

Raymond Samuel Tomlinson was a pioneering American computer programmer who implemented the first email program on the ARPANET system, the precursor to the Internet, in 1971; he is internationally known and credited as the inventor of email. It was the first system able to send mail between users on different hosts connected to ARPANET. Previously, mail could be sent only to others who used the same computer. To achieve this, he used the @ sign to separate the user name from the name of their machine, a scheme which has been used in email addresses ever since. The Internet Hall of Fame in its account of his work commented "Tomlinson's email program brought about a complete revolution, fundamentally changing the way people communicate".

Colin Vearncombe, known by his stage name Black, was an English singer-songwriter. He emerged from the punk rock music scene and achieved mainstream pop success in the late 1980s, most notably with the 1986 single "Wonderful Life", which was an international hit the next year.

Rodney Lynn Temperton commonly and professionally known as Rod Temperton, and informally known within music circles as 'The Invisible Man', was an English songwriter, musician, vocalist, and record producer. He initially made his mark as the keyboardist and main songwriter for the 1970s pop music, disco, and funk band Heatwave, whose hit songs included "Always and Forever", "Boogie Nights", and "The Groove Line", amongst many others.

Robert Thomas Velline, known professionally as Bobby Vee, was an American singer, songwriter and musician who was a teen idol in the early 1960s and also appeared in films. According to Billboard magazine, he had thirty-eight Hot 100 chart hits, ten of which reached the Top 20. He had six gold singles in his career.

Koichi Kato was a Japanese politician who held a seat in the House of Representatives in the National Diet for 13 terms between 1972 and 2012 as a member of the Liberal Democratic Party. After losing his seat at the December 2012 general election, his daughter Ayuko Kato regained the seat for the LDP at the following election. His father, Seizo Kato, also sat in the House of Representatives for five terms between 1952 and 1965.

George Gaynes was a Finnish-born American singer, actor and voice artist. Born to Dutch and Russian-Finnish parents in the Grand Duchy of Finland of the Russian Empire, he served in the Royal Netherlands Navy during World War II and subsequently emigrated to the United States, where he became a citizen and began his acting career on Broadway.

Srinivasa Iyer Ramaswamy, better known as Cho Ramaswamy, was an Indian actor, comedian, character actor, editor, political satirist, playwright, dialogue writer, film director and lawyer in Tamil Nadu.

Jules Shungu Wembadio Pene Kikumba, known professionally as Papa Wemba, was a Congolese singer and musician who played Congolese rumba, soukous and ndombolo. Dubbed the "King of Rumba Rock", he was one of the most popular musicians of his time in Africa and played an important role in world music. He was also a fashion icon who popularized the Sape look and style through his musical group Viva la Musica, with whom he performed on stages throughout the world.