List of Famous people who died in 2017

Anne Wiazemsky was a French actress and novelist. Through her mother, she was the granddaughter of novelist and dramatist François Mauriac. She made her cinema debut at the age of 18, playing Marie, the lead character in Robert Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar (1966), and went on to appear in several of Jean-Luc Godard's films, among them La Chinoise (1967), Week End (1967), and One Plus One (1968). She and Godard were married from 1967 to 1979.

Keith David Palmer, was a British police officer who was posthumously awarded the George Medal, the second highest award for gallantry "not in the face of the enemy". Though unarmed, he stopped a knife-wielding terrorist from entering the Palace of Westminster during the 2017 Westminster attack; he died from wounds he received in this attack. He had worked for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) for 16 years, and had joined the MPS's Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Group in April 2016.

Gonzague Saint Bris was an award-winning French novelist, biographer, and journalist. He won the 2002 Prix Interallié for Les Vieillards de Brighton. He was the founder of La Forêt des livres, an annual book festival, and the Cabourg Film Festival. He was also a juror for the prix Contrepoint, a French literary award. With his family, he was a co-proprietor of Clos Lucé.

Lin Yi-han was a Taiwanese writer.

Albert Geoffrey Bayldon was an English actor. After playing roles in many stage productions, including the works of William Shakespeare, he became known for portraying the title role of the children's series Catweazle (1970–71). Bayldon's other long-running parts include the Crowman in Worzel Gummidge (1979–81) and Magic Grandad in the BBC television series Watch (1995).

Brian Matthew was an English broadcaster who worked for the BBC for 63 years from 1954 until 2017. He was the host of Saturday Club, among other programmes, and began presenting Sounds of the 60s in March 1990, often employing the same vocabulary and the same measured delivery he had used in previous decades.

Ryan McBride was a Northern Irish footballer who played as a defender for Derry City in the League of Ireland.

William Peter Blatty was an American writer, director and producer. He is best known for his 1971 novel The Exorcist, for which he won the Academy Award for the screenplay of its film adaptation and was nominated for Best Picture as its producer. The film also earned Blatty the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture as producer. He also wrote and directed the sequel The Exorcist III.

Hywel Thomas Bennett was a Welsh film and television actor. Bennett is perhaps best known for his leading roles in films including The Family Way (1966) and for playing the titular James Shelley in the television sitcom Shelley (1979–1992).

Elizabeth Mary MacKean was a British television reporter and presenter. She worked on the BBC's Newsnight programme and was the reporter on an exposé of Sir Jimmy Savile as a paedophile which was controversially cancelled by the BBC in December 2011. The decision to axe the Newsnight investigation became the subject of the Pollard Inquiry. She and colleague Meirion Jones later won a London Press Club Scoop of the Year award for their work on the story. She also won the 2010 Daniel Pearl Award for her investigation of the Trafigura toxic dumping scandal.