List of Famous people who died in 2017

Charles Milles Manson was an American criminal and cult leader. In mid-1967, he formed what became known as the "Manson Family", a quasi-commune based in California. His followers committed a series of nine murders at four locations in July and August 1969. Although the motive for the murders was disputed by Manson, the Los Angeles County district attorney believed that Manson intended to start a race war. In 1971, he was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder for the deaths of seven people, including the film actress Sharon Tate. The prosecution contended that, while Manson never directly ordered the murders, his ideology constituted an overt act of conspiracy.

Lotfi Aliasker Zadeh was a mathematician, computer scientist, electrical engineer, artificial intelligence researcher and professor emeritus of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley.

Parvathamma Rajkumar was an Indian film producer and distributor. She was the wife of veteran Kannada actor Rajkumar. She produced successful films featuring Rajkumar and their sons Shiv Rajkumar, Puneeth Rajkumar and Raghavendra Rajkumar under the production house named "Poornima Enterprises". Actresses who found fame in her productions include Malashri, Prema, Rakshita, Sudha Rani and Ramya. She was awarded a doctorate from Bangalore University.

Sir Roger George Moore was an English actor. He is best known for portraying fictional secret agent James Bond in the Eon Productions film series, playing the character in seven feature films between 1973 and 1985. Moore was the third actor in the role, and his seven appearances as Bond, from Live and Let Die to A View to a Kill, are the most of any actor in the Eon-produced entries.

William Paxton was an American actor, musician, director, producer and writer. He appeared in films such as Weird Science (1985), Near Dark (1987), True Lies (1994), Apollo 13 (1995), Twister (1996) and Titanic (1997). He also starred in the HBO drama series Big Love (2006–2011), earning three Golden Globe Award nominations during the show's run. He was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award for portraying Randall McCoy in the History channel miniseries Hatfields & McCoys (2012) and as Detective Frank Roarke in the CBS television series Training Day (2017). His final film appearance was in The Circle (2017), released two months after his death.

Chester Charles Bennington was an American singer, songwriter, and occasional actor. He was best known as the lead vocalist for Linkin Park and was also lead vocalist for the bands Grey Daze, Dead by Sunrise and, between 2013 and 2015, Stone Temple Pilots. Bennington has been credited by several publications as one of the greatest rock vocalists of his generation.

Aaron Josef Hernandez was an American football tight end and convicted murderer. He played in the National Football League (NFL) for three seasons with the New England Patriots until his career came to an abrupt end after his arrest and conviction for the murder of Odin Lloyd.

Hugh Marston Hefner was an American magazine publisher. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of Playboy magazine, a publication with revealing photographs and articles which provoked charges of obscenity. The first issue of Playboy was published in 1953 featuring Marilyn Monroe in a nude calendar shoot; it sold over 50,000 copies.

Christopher John Cornell was an American singer, songwriter, and musician best known as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist for the rock bands Soundgarden and Audioslave. He also had a solo career and contributed to soundtracks. Cornell was also the founder and frontman of Temple of the Dog, a one-off tribute band dedicated to his late friend Andrew Wood.

Gustav Elijah Åhr, known professionally as Lil Peep, was an American rapper, singer, songwriter and model. He was a member of the emo rap collective GothBoiClique. Helping pioneer an emo revival style of rap and rock music, Lil Peep has been credited as the leading figure of the mid–late 2010s emo rap scene and came to be an inspiration to outcasts and youth subcultures.

Antony Charles Robert Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon was a British photographer and filmmaker who married Princess Margaret, the sister of Queen Elizabeth II.

Thomas Earl Petty was an American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, and actor. He was the lead vocalist and guitarist of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, formed in 1976. He previously led the band Mudcrutch, and was also a member of the late 1980s supergroup the Traveling Wilburys.

Jean-Philippe Léo Smet, better known by his stage name Johnny Hallyday, was a French rock and roll and pop singer and actor, credited for having brought rock and roll to France.

Roger Eugene Ailes was an American television executive and media consultant. He was the chairman and CEO of Fox News, Fox Television Stations and 20th Television, from which he resigned in July 2016 after allegations of sexual harassment were made by 23 women. Ailes was a media consultant for Republican presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush, and for Rudy Giuliani's first mayoral campaign. In 2016, he became an adviser to the Donald Trump campaign, where he assisted with debate preparation.

Helmut Josef Michael Kohl was a German statesman and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and as chairman of the CDU from 1973 to 1998. Kohl's 16-year tenure is the longest of any German Chancellor since Otto von Bismarck, and oversaw the end of the Cold War, the German reunification and the creation of the European Union.

Simone Veil was a French magistrate and stateswoman who served as Health Minister in several governments and was President of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1982, the first woman to hold that office. As health minister, she is best remembered for advancing women’s legal rights in France, in particular for the 1975 law that legalized abortion, today known as Loi Veil. From 1998 to 2007 she was a member of the Constitutional Council, France’s highest legal authority.

John Heard Jr. was an American actor. He appeared in a number of successful films, including Heart Beat (1980), Cutter's Way (1981), Cat People (1982), C.H.U.D. (1984), After Hours (1985), Beaches (1988), The Package (1989), and Deceived (1991). Other films include The Trip to Bountiful (1985), Big (1988), Awakenings (1990), Rambling Rose (1991), The Pelican Brief (1993), My Fellow Americans (1996), Animal Factory (2000), White Chicks (2004), Would You Rather (2012), and Assault on Wall Street (2013). Heard also played the role of Peter McCallister, the father of protagonist Kevin McCallister, in Home Alone (1990) and its sequel Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992).

Jerry Lewis, nicknamed "The King of Comedy", was an American comedian, actor, singer, filmmaker and humanitarian, who appeared in over sixty films and other media, from the Martin & Lewis partnership with singer Dean Martin to on his own as a soloist.

Otto Frederick Warmbier was an American college student who was imprisoned in North Korea in 2016 on a charge of subversion. In June 2017, he was released by North Korea in a vegetative state and died soon afterward.

David Bruce Cassidy was an American actor, singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He was best known for his role as Keith Partridge, the son of Shirley Partridge, in the 1970s musical-sitcom The Partridge Family. This role catapulted Cassidy to teen idol status as a superstar pop singer of the 1970s.