The following is a list of notable deaths in 1980. Entries for each day are listed alphabetically by surname. A typical entry lists information in the following sequence:
Name, age, country of citizenship at birth, subsequent country of citizenship (if applicable), reason for notability, cause of death (if known), and reference.
April 13 – Frederick D. Alexander, American businessman, civil rights activist, and politician, first African American to serve on Charlotte City Council since the 1890s (b. 1910)
November 23 – R. Allatini, Austrian-British novelist who wrote under the pseudonyms R. Allatini, A.T. Fitzroy, Mrs Cyril Scott, Lucian Wainwright, and Eunice Buckley (b. 1890]
Hamilton Shirley Amerasinghe, Sri Lankan diplomat and civil servant, High Commissioner to India, Ambassador to Nepal and Afghanistan, President of United Nations General Assembly (b. 1913)
Joe Birch, English professional footballer (b. 1904)
Jenő Brandi, Hungarian water polo player and Olympic medalist (b. 1913)
^"Jay Silverheels". The Lone Ranger.tv. Archived from the original on 2010-02-05. Retrieved 2011-11-21. Jay Silverheels suffered a stroke in 1974 and passed away on March 5, 1980 after several years of ill health
^Pepys-Whiteley, D. "Courtneidge, Dame (Esmerelda) Cicely (1893–1980)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2011, accessed 8 August 2011 (subscription required)
^Ledbetter, Les (1980). "Lillian Roth, Actress and Singer, Dies...", The New York Times, May 13, 1980, p. C20. ProQuest Historical Newspapers, Ann Arbor, Michigan; subscription access through The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library.
^Glebb, Lloyd-Lincoln, Abbey (1995). The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Guinness Pub. p. 2243.((cite book)): CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)