List of Famous people who died in 2017

Michel Durafour was a French conservative politician. He served in many government posts under Jacques Chirac, Raymond Barre and Michel Rocard, and was Mayor of Saint-Étienne from 1965 to 1977.

Javier Valdez Cárdenas was a Mexican journalist and founder of Ríodoce, a newspaper based in Sinaloa. He received several international awards for his writings on drug trafficking and organized crime in the Mexican Drug War.

Jean-Pierre Bernard was a French film, television and stage actor. He appeared in many French films over a 50-year period and became known internationally for his portrayal of a French climber named Jean-Paul Montaigne in the 1975 film The Eiger Sanction that was directed by and starred Clint Eastwood.

Todor "Toza" Veselinović was a Serbian footballer and coach. He was one of the most renowned goalscorers in Yugoslavian national team history.

John Carl Hendricks, known professionally as Jon Hendricks, was an American jazz lyricist and singer. He is one of the originators of vocalese, which adds lyrics to existing instrumental songs and replaces many instruments with vocalists, such as the big-band arrangements of Duke Ellington and Count Basie. He is considered one of the best practitioners of scat singing, which involves vocal jazz soloing. Jazz critic and historian Leonard Feather called him the "Poet Laureate of Jazz", while Time dubbed him the "James Joyce of Jive". Al Jarreau called him "pound-for-pound the best jazz singer on the planet—maybe that's ever been".

Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov was a prominent Soviet/Russian philologist, semiotician and Indo-Europeanist probably best known for his glottalic theory of Indo-European consonantism and for placing the Indo-European urheimat in the area of the Armenian Highlands and Lake Urmia.

Yoshitomo Tokugawa was the 4th-generation head of the Tokugawa Yoshinobu-ke, the branch of the Tokugawa line started by the last Shōgun Tokugawa Yoshinobu.

María del Rosario Green Macías was a Mexican economist, diplomat and politician.

Michiru Shimada was a Japanese anime screenwriter from Tokyo. Shimada was a graduate of Waseda University. She made her screenwriting debut in 1980.

Basilio Martín Patino was a Spanish film director, specializing in a creative approach to documentary works. Patino produced pieces on the Spanish Civil War, the famous dictator (Caudillo), or his executioners. He also produced fiction. Patino often experimented with new technologies, including digital tools, 3D, and offline editing.