List of Famous people who died in 2019
Tony Rodham
Anthony Dean Rodham was an American consultant and businessman who was the youngest brother of Hillary Clinton and brother-in-law of former U.S. President Bill Clinton. His business dealings had sometimes appeared to take advantage of his connections to the Clintons and accordingly attracted public scrutiny.
Mark Zakharov
Mark Anatolyevich Zakharov was a Soviet and Russian stage and film director, screenwriter and pedagogue best known for his fantasy parable movies. He was named People's Artist of the USSR in 1991.
Billy Drago
William Eugene Burrows Jr., known professionally by his stage name Billy Drago, was an American television and film actor. Drago's films, in which he was frequently cast as a villain, included Clint Eastwood's western Pale Rider and Brian De Palma's The Untouchables. He also had recurring roles in the television series The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. and Charmed.
Charlie Whiting
Charles Whiting was a British motorsports director. He served as the FIA Formula One Race Director, Safety Delegate, Permanent Starter and head of the F1 Technical Department, in which capacities he generally managed the logistics of each F1 Grand Prix, inspected cars in parc fermé before a race, enforced FIA rules, and controlled the lights that start each race.
Makoto Wada
Makoto Wada was a Japanese illustrator, essayist, and film director.
Lyra McKee
Lyra Catherine McKee was a journalist from Northern Ireland who wrote for several publications about the consequences of the Troubles. She also served as an editor for Mediagazer, a news aggregator website. On 18 April 2019, McKee was fatally shot during rioting in the Creggan area of Derry.
Mahendran
J. Alexander, known professionally as Mahendran, was an Indian film director, screenwriter and actor, known for his work in the Tamil film industry. Mahendran is regarded as one of the greatest film makers of Tamil cinema and has influenced several filmmakers of the generations that followed.
Mary Oliver
Mary Jane Oliver was an American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Her work is inspired by nature, rather than the human world, stemming from her lifelong passion for solitary walks in the wild. It is characterised by a sincere wonderment at the impact of natural imagery, conveyed in unadorned language. In 2007 she was declared to be the country's best-selling poet.
Stanley Donen
Stanley Donen was an American film director and choreographer whose most celebrated works are On the Town (1949) and Singin' in the Rain (1952), both of which starred Gene Kelly who co-directed. His other films include Royal Wedding (1951), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), Funny Face (1957), Indiscreet (1958), and Charade (1963). He began his career in the chorus line on Broadway for director George Abbott, where he befriended Kelly. From 1943, he was in Hollywood and worked as a choreographer before beginning to collaborate with Kelly. After On the Town, Donen worked as a contract director for MGM under producer Arthur Freed producing critically well-received box-office hits. Donen and Kelly co-directed the musical Singin' in the Rain, released in April 1952, which has appeared on lists of the best films ever made. Donen's relationship with Kelly deteriorated during their final collaboration, It's Always Fair Weather (1955). He then broke his contract with MGM to become an independent producer in 1957. He continued making films throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, often financial successes that gained positive attention. His film output became less frequent in the early 1980s and he briefly returned to the stage as a director in the 1990s and again in 2002.
Vidya Sinha
Vidya Sinha was an Indian film actress who has acted in Hindi films, most known for Rajnigandha (1974), Chhoti Si Baat (1975) and Pati Patni Aur Woh (1978). She started her career as a model and won the Miss Bombay title. Her first movie was Raja Kaka (1974) opposite Kiran Kumar. However, fame came to her through the low-budget break-away hit Rajnigandha (1974), directed by her mentor Basu Chatterjee. She acted in several films after which she took a hiatus. Returning to acting in the later part of her life, she acted in several TV serials and the Salman Khan movie Bodyguard (2011).