List of Famous people who died in 2019
Jeffrey Epstein
Jeffrey Edward Epstein was an American financier and convicted sex offender. He began his professional life as a teacher, but then switched to the banking and finance sector in various roles, working at Bear Stearns before forming his own firm. He developed an elite social circle and procured many women and children who were then sexually abused by Epstein and some of his contacts.
Juice WRLD
Jarad Anthony Higgins, known professionally as Juice Wrld, was an American rapper, singer, and songwriter from Chicago, Illinois. His song "Lucid Dreams" has been played on the music streaming platform Spotify over one billion times and peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. "Lucid Dreams", along with his earlier hit single "All Girls Are the Same", helped him secure a recording contract with Lil Bibby's Grade A Productions and Interscope Records. He derived his stage name from late rapper Tupac Shakur and his part in the film Juice and that it represents taking over the world.
Cameron Boyce
Cameron Mica Boyce was an American actor. He began his career as a child actor, making his first acting appearance in a Panic! at the Disco music video, before making his film debut in Mirrors in 2008. Boyce then went on to star as Luke Ross in Disney Channel's comedy series Jessie from 2011 to 2015. He starred in feature films Eagle Eye, Grown Ups, and Grown Ups 2. He was also known for his role as Carlos in the three Descendants television films and for his lead role as Conor in Disney XD's comedy series Gamer's Guide to Pretty Much Everything. Boyce did voice acting for various works, such as Jake in Jake and the Never Land Pirates and Herman Schultz in Spider-Man. On July 6, 2019, Boyce died at the age of 20 due to complications of epilepsy.
Luke Perry
Coy Luther Perry III was an American actor. He became a teen idol for playing Dylan McKay on the TV series Beverly Hills, 90210 from 1990 to 1995, and again from 1998 to 2000. He also starred as Fred Andrews on the CW series Riverdale. He had guest roles on notable shows which are Criminal Minds, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, The Simpsons, and Will & Grace, and also starred in several films, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), 8 Seconds (1994), The Fifth Element (1997), and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), his final feature performance.
Peter Tork
Peter Halsten Thorkelson, known professionally as Peter Tork, was an American musician, composer, and actor who was best known as the keyboardist and bass guitarist of the Monkees.
Nipsey Hussle
Ermias Joseph Asghedom, known professionally as Nipsey Hussle, was an American rapper, activist, and entrepreneur. Emerging from the West Coast hip hop scene in the mid-2000s, Hussle independently released his first mixtape, Slauson Boy Volume 1, to moderate local success, which led to him being signed to Cinematic Music Group and Epic Records.
Frank Lucas
Frank Lucas was an American drug trafficker who operated in Harlem during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was known for cutting out middlemen in the drug trade and buying heroin directly from his source in the Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia. Lucas boasted that he smuggled heroin using the coffins of dead American servicemen, but this claim is denied by his Southeast Asian associate, Leslie "Ike" Atkinson. Rather than hide the drugs in the coffins, they were hidden in the pallets underneath, as depicted in the feature film American Gangster (2007) in which he was played by Denzel Washington, although the film fictionalized elements of Lucas' life for dramatic effect. In 1976, Lucas was convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to 70 years in prison; however, after becoming an informant, his sentence was reduced to five years. He was convicted of the same offense in 1984, and sentenced to seven years in prison. He died in 2019.
Niki Lauda
Andreas Nikolaus Lauda was an Austrian Formula One driver and aviation entrepreneur. He was a three-time F1 World Drivers' Champion, winning in 1975, 1977 and 1984, and is the only driver in F1 history to have been champion for both Ferrari and McLaren, the sport's two most successful constructors.
Gloria Vanderbilt
Gloria Laura Vanderbilt was an American artist, author, actress, fashion designer, heiress, and socialite. She was a member of the Vanderbilt family of New York and the mother of CNN television anchor Anderson Cooper.
Jacques Chirac
Jacques René Chirac was a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. Chirac was previously the Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988, as well as the Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.
Cokie Roberts
Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne "Cokie" Roberts was an American journalist and bestselling author. Her career included decades as a political reporter and analyst for National Public Radio and ABC News, with prominent positions on Morning Edition, The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, World News Tonight, and This Week.
Emiliano Sala
Emiliano Raúl Sala Taffarel was an Argentine professional footballer who played as a forward.
Doris Day
Doris Day was an American actress, singer, and animal welfare activist. She began her career as a big band singer in 1939, achieving commercial success in 1945 with two No. 1 recordings, "Sentimental Journey" and "My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time" with Les Brown & His Band of Renown. She left Brown to embark on a solo career and recorded more than 650 songs from 1947 to 1967.
Jessi Combs
Jessica Combs was an American professional racer, television personality, and metal fabricator. She set a women's land speed class record in 2013 and broke her own record in 2016. She was known as "the fastest woman on four wheels".
Karl Lagerfeld
Karl Otto Lagerfeld was a German creative director, fashion designer, artist, photographer, and caricaturist who lived in Paris.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, born Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarrai, was an Iraqi terrorist and the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) from 2014 until his death.
Beth Chapman
Alice Elizabeth Chapman was an American bounty hunter and reality star who co-starred with her husband, Duane "Dog" Chapman, on the reality television shows Dog the Bounty Hunter, Dog and Beth: On the Hunt, and Dog's Most Wanted.
Theodor Wonja Michael
Theodor Wonja Michael was a mixed-race German journalist and actor as well as a prominent speaker on living as a prisoner in Nazi forced labor camps during World War II.
Philip McKeon
Philip Anthony McKeon was an American child actor and radio personality, best known for his role as Tommy Hyatt, the son of the title character on the television sitcom Alice from 1976 to 1985.
Sushma Swaraj
Sushma Swaraj was an Indian politician and a Supreme Court lawyer. A senior leader of Bharatiya Janata Party, Swaraj served as the Minister of External Affairs of India in the first Narendra Modi government (2014–2019). She was the second woman to hold the office, after Indira Gandhi. She was elected seven times as a Member of Parliament and three times as a Member of the Legislative Assembly. At the age of 25 in 1977, she became the youngest cabinet minister of Indian state of Haryana. She also served as 5th Chief Minister of Delhi for a short duration in 1998 and became the First female Chief Minister of Delhi.