The following is a list of notable deaths in October 1997.

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.

October 1997

1

• Francisco Aramburu, 75, Brazilian footballer.^[1]
• Georg Bodenhausen, 92, Dutch civil servant.
• Jerome H. Lemelson, 74, American engineer, inventor and patent holder, liver cancer.^[2]
• Gul Mohammed, 40, Shortest adult human, heart attack.
• Inbal Perlmuter, 26, Israeli rock musician, singer, composer and lyricist, car accident.

2

• Carybé, 86, Argentine-Brazilian artist, historian and journalist, heart failure.
• Douglas Fairbairn, 70, American author.^[3]
• Esa Seeste, 84, Finnish gymnast.^[4]
• Guillermo Meza Álvarez, 80, Mexican painter.^[5]

3

• Michael Adekunle Ajasin, 88, Nigerian politician.
• John Ashley, 62, American actor, producer and singer, heart attack.^[6]
• Walter Baumgartner, 92, Swiss film composer.^[7]
• Richard Gilkey, 72, American painter, suicide.^[8]
• Verna Hillie, 83, American film actress, stroke.^[9]
• Jarl Kulle, 70, Swedish actor and director, bone cancer.^[10]
• Millard Lampell, 78, American movie and television screenwriter, lung cancer.^[11]
• Phil Medley, 81, American songwriter.^[12]
• Charlie Parsley, 71, American basketball player and college coach.^[13]
• Hadassah Rosensaft, 85, Polish holocaust survivor, liver failure.^[14]
• A. L. Rowse, 93, British historian and author.^[15]
• George Urban, 76, Hungarian writer.^[16]
• Blake Wayne Van Leer, 71, United States Navy officer.

4

• Nelson Coral Nye, 90, American author and editor.^[17]
• Otto Ernst Remer, 85, German Wehrmacht officer during World War II.
• Anne Strachan Robertson, 87, Scottish archaeologist, numismatist and writer.
• Gunpei Yokoi, 56, Japanese video game designer and creator of the Game Boy, traffic collision.^[18]
• Georgi Yumatov, 71, Soviet and Russian film actor, aneurysm.

5

• Chitta Basu, 70, Indian politician, heart attack.
• Mary Jayne Gold, 88, American heiress, pancreatic cancer.^[19]
• Andrew Keir, 71, Scottish actor (Cleopatra, Rob Roy, Mary, Queen of Scots).^[20]
• Debbie Linden, 36, British glamour model and actress, heroin overdose.
• Dave Marr, 63, American golfer and sportscaster, stomach cancer.^[21]
• Brian Pillman, 35, American professional wrestler (WCW, WWF, ECW), heart attack.
• Tommy Ring, 67, Scottish footballer.^[22]
• Larisa Rozanova, 78, Soviet and Ukrainian pilot and navigator during World War II.
• Curtis Williams Sabrosky, 87, American entomologist.^[23]
• Arthur Tracy, 98, American vocalist and actor, heart attack.^[24]
• Bernard Yago, 81, Ivoirian cardinal of the Catholic Church.^[25]

6

• Orlando Ramón Agosti, 73, Argentine general and part of the military junta, cancer.^[26]
• George T. Barclay, 87, American football player and coach.
• Warren Louis Boudreaux, 79, American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church, heart failure.^[27]
• Robert Endean, 71, Australian marine scientist.^[28]
• Adrienne Hill, 60, English actress (Doctor Who), cancer.
• Yevgeny Khaldei, 80, Soviet naval officer and photographer.^[29]
• Johnny Vander Meer, 82, American baseball player, abdominal aneurysm.^[30]

7

• Felicisimo Ampon, 76, Filipino tennis player.
• Johnny Darrell, 57, American country music artist, diabetes.^[31]
• Wan Laiming, 97, Chinese animator.
• Gus Marker, 92, Canadian ice hockey player.
• Aldo Sebben, 77, American football, cross country, and track and field coach.
• Janez Vrhovec, 76, Yugoslav actor of Slovenian-German origin.^[32]

8

• Henryk Bista, 63, Polish actor.^[33]
• Albert Blumberg, 91, American philosopher and political activist.^[34]
• Bertrand Goldberg, 84, American architect and industrial designer.^[35]
• Robin Lee, 77, American figure skater.^[36]
• Brown Meggs, 66, American writer and music executive.^[37]
• Nininho, 73, Brazilian football player.
• Desmond J. Scott, 79, New Zealand flying ace during World War II.^[38]
• Sant Singh Sekhon, 89, Indian playwright and writer.^[39]
• George Everard Kidder Smith, 84, American architectural writer and photographer.^[40]
• William Spong Jr., 77, American politician.^[41]

9

• Michael Cummings, 78, British newspaper cartoonist.^[42]
• Monty Hoyt, 53, American figure skater and Olympian, melanoma.^[43]
• Arch Johnson, 75, American actor, cancer.^[44]
• Jean Pasqualini, French/Chinese journalist.^[45]
• Joel Pritchard, 72, American politician, lymphoma.^[46]
• Roy Rappaport, 71, American anthropologist.^[47]

10

• D. J. Ambalavanar, 69, Sri Lankan Tamil bishop.^[48]
• Marjorie Harris Carr, 82, American scientist and environmental activist.
• Michael J. S. Dewar, 79, American theoretical chemist.^[49]
• Hans-Joachim Kasprzik, 69, German film and television director and screenwriter.^[50]
• George Malcolm, 80, English pianist, harpsichordist, composer, and conductor.^[51]
• Anne Marriott, 83, Canadian writer, stroke.^[52]
• Dencio Padilla, 69, Filipino actor and comedian, heart attack.
• Walt Simon, 57, American basketball player.^[53]
• Thomas Whiteside, 79, American journalist, heart failure.^[54]

11

• Paul Doughty Bartlett, 90, American chemist.^[55]
• Giacinto Bosco, 92, Italian jurist, academic and politician.
• Lina Gennari, 86, Italian actress and operetta singer.
• Käthe Gold, 90, Austrian actress.^[56]
• Will Sherman, 69, American gridiron football player.^[57]
• Ivan Yarygin, 48, Soviet / Russian heavyweight freestyle wrestler, car crash.^[58]

12

• Raúl Arellano, 62, Mexican football forward.
• John Denver, 53, American singer ("Take Me Home, Country Roads", "Poems, Prayers & Promises", "Annie's Song") and activist, plane crash.^[59]
• Talib El-Shibib, 63, Iraqi politician.
• Draga Garašanin, 76, Serbian archaeologist.^[60]
• Kenneth Hahn, 77, American civil servant, heart failure.^[61]
• Fred McCain, 79, Canadian politician.
• Isadore Twersky, 67, American orthodox rabbi and professor.^[62]

13

• Ian Stuart Black, 82, British novelist, playwright and screenwriter.^[63]
• Joyce Compton, 90, American actress.^[64]
• Gary Lee Davis, 53, American convicted murderer, execution by lethal injection.^[65]
• Kārlis Irbītis, 92, Latvian aeroplane designer.
• Richard Mason, 78, British novelist, lung cancer.^[66]
• William Staveley, 68, Royal Navy officer, heart attack.^[67]
• Adil Çarçani, 75, Albanian politician.^[68]

14

• Hy Averback, 76, American actor, producer and director.^[69]
• Piedade Coutinho, 77, Brazilian swimmer and Olympian.^[70]
• Jacqueline Delubac, 90, French stage and film actress, traffic collision.^[71]
• George Forrest, 72, British classicist and academic, cancer.^[72]
• Henry Pelling, 77, British historian.^[73]
• Harold Robbins, 81, American writer, heart failure.^[74]
• Barbara Slater, 76, American film actress.

15

• MacDonald Critchley, 97, British neurologist.^[75]
• Peter J. Dalessandro, 79, United States Army soldier and Medal of Honor recipient.
• Jack Dwyer, 70, American gridiron football player.^[76]
• Walter Fritzsch, 76, German football player and manager.^[77]
• Parker T. Hart, 87, American diplomat.^[78]
• Bill McKay, 76, Irish rugby player.
• John Merricks, 26, English sailor and Olympian, traffic collision.^[79]

16

• A. H. Armstrong, 88, English educator and author.^[80]
• Dick Cavalli, 74, American cartoonist, heart attack.
• Princess Olga of Greece and Denmark, 94, Greek princess, Alzheimer's disease.^[81]
• Noel Ferrier, 66, Australian comedian, actor, and theatrical producer.^[82]
• Lotte Goslar, 90, German-American dancer.^[83]
• Adam Kennedy, 75, American actor, novelist, and painter, heart attack.^[84]
• Audra Lindley, 79, American actress (Three's Company, Another World, The Heartbreak Kid), leukemia.^[85]
• James A. Michener, 90, American author, kidney failure.^[86]

17

• Larry Jennings, 64, American magician.
• Giorgio Pisanò, 73, Italian journalist, essayist and neo-fascist politician.^[87]
• László Szabados, 86, Hungarian swimmer and Olympic medalist.^[88]
• Ben Welden, 96, American actor.^[89]
• Fang Yi, 81, Chinese Communist revolutionary, diplomat, and politician.

18

• Leonard Andrzejewski, 73, Polish actor.
• Ramiro Castillo, 31, Bolivian footballer, suicide by hanging.^[90]
• Gordon Clark, 83, English football player.^[91]
• Walter William Curtis, 84, American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church, pneumonia.^[92]
• Nancy Dickerson, 70, American radio and television journalist, stroke.^[93]
• Trude Eipperle, 89, German operatic soprano.^[94]
• Vince Gironda, 79, American bodybuilder, personal trainer and author.^[95]
• Roberto Goizueta, 65, Cuban businessman and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company, cancer.^[96]
• Milt Neil, 83, American animator (Fantasia, Dumbo, The Three Caballeros).
• William Rotsler, 71, American artist, cartoonist, pornographer and author.
• Paul Edwin Zimmer, 54, American poet and author, heart attack.^[97]

19

• Donald R. Bensen, 70, American editor and science fiction writer.^[98]
• Glen Buxton, 49, American guitarist and composer, complications from pneumonia.^[99]
• Claudia Drake, 79, American actress and singer.^[100]
• Harold French, 100, English film director, screenwriter and actor.^[101]
• Arthur Ibbetson, 75, British cinematographer (Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Where Eagles Dare, The Bounty).
• Francisco Guerrero Marín, 46, Spanish composer.^[102]
• William J. McGill, 75, American psychologist and author.^[103]
• Pilar Mercedes Miró Romero, 57, Spanish screenwriter and film director, heart attack.^[104]
• Stella Sierra, 80, Panamanian poet and prose writer.

20

• John Jacobs, 50, American student and anti-war activist, complications from melanoma.^[105]
• Frank Robert Miller, 89, Canadian air chief marshal.
• Manush Myftiu, 78, Albanian politician.
• Manuel Rodríguez Barros, 71, Spanish racing cyclist.^[106]
• Li Ruishan, 76, Chinese politician.
• Ron Tarr, 60, British actor, cancer.
• Henry Vestine, 52, American guitarist, heart and respiratory failure.^[107]
• Robin Woods, 83, English Anglican bishop.^[108]

21

• Dolph Camilli, 90, American baseball player.^[109]
• John Whitney Hall, 81, American Japanologist.^[110]
• Lorenzo Sumulong, 92, Filipino politician.
• Aale Tynni, 84, Finnish poet and translator.^[111]
• Waldemar F. A. Wendt, 85, United States Navy admiral.^[112]
• Dick Wilkins, 72, American gridiron football player.^[113]

22

• Leonid Amalrik, 92, Soviet animator.^[114]
• Reinhard Lauck, 51, German footballer, traffic collision.^[115]
• Quentin Smythe, 81, South African sergeant and recipient of the Victoria Cross, cancer.^[116]
• Valerie Taylor, 84, American author and feminist.^[117]
• Matthew Trupiano, 58, American mobster, heart attack.^[118]

23

• Ann Devroy, 49, American political journalist, uterine cancer.^[119]
• Claire Falkenstein, 89, American visual artist, stomach cancer.^[120]
• Bert Haanstra, 81, Dutch filmmaker, Alzheimer's disease.^[121]
• Pinchas Lapide, 74, Israeli theologian and historian.^[122]
• Kim Lim, 61, Singaporean-British sculptor and printmaker.
• Bob Manning, 71, American big band singer, pneumonia.^[123]
• Michael Peter, 48, Field hockey player from West Germany.^[124]
• Georges Pianta, 85, French politician .^[125]
• Babette Rosmond, 75, American author.^[126]
• Alfredo dos Santos, 77, Brazilian footballer.
• Luther George Simjian, 92, Armenian-American inventor and entrepreneur.^[127]
• Trevor Smith, 87, English footballer and manager.
• Gerd Tacke, 91, German businessman and CEO of Siemens.

24

• Luis Aguilar, 79, Mexican actor, and singer.^[128]
• Skip Alexander, 79, American golfer.
• Michael Balfour, 79, English actor, cancer.^[129]
• Don Messick, 71, American voice actor (Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, The Yogi Bear Show, The Jetsons), stroke.^[130]

25

• William J. Hirsch, 88, American thoroughbred racehorses trainer, Alzheimer's disease.
• Tina Lattanzi, 99, Italian actress and voice actress.
• Jamie Livingston, 41, American photographer and film maker, brain tumor.^[131]
• Mina Rees, 95, American mathematician.^[132]

26

• Georg Adelly, 78, Swedish film actor.
• Teng Haiqing, 88, Chinese military officer and a politician.
• William B. Hutchinson, 88, American physician.^[133]
• Rolf Kukowitsch, 84-85, German football coach.
• Donald Ray Matthews, 90, American politician.^[134]
• Rankin M. Smith, Sr., 72, American businessman and philanthropist.^[135]

27

• Mahala Andrews, 58, British vertebrae palaeontologist.
• Achim Gercke, 95, German Nazi politician.
• Billy Neill, 47, Northern Irish football player.
• Vladimir Sokoloff, 84, American pianist and accompanist.^[136]
• Thomas Dale Stewart, 96, American anthropologist.^[137]
• Reuben Sturman, 73, American businessman and pornographer.
• François-Henri de Virieu, 65, French journalist and television presenter, pancreatic cancer.

28

• Walter Capps, 63, American politician, heart attack.^[138]
• Toni Carabillo, 71, American feminist, graphic designer, and historian, lung cancer.^[139]
• Paul Jarrico, 82, American screenwriter, traffic collision.^[140]
• Marian E. Koshland, 76, American immunologist, lung cancer.^[141]
• Bryan Lefley, 49, Canadian ice hockey player (New York Islanders) and coach, car accident.^[142]
• Klaus Wunderlich, 66, German musician, heart attack.

29

• Len Beurton, 83, English communist and Soviet agent.
• H. C. Coombs, 91, Australian economist and public servant.^[143]
• William Crook, 72, American politician and ambassador, congestive heart failure.^[144]
• Alexander zu Dohna-Schlobitten, 97, German junker, businessman and author.
• Paul Guth, 87, French journalist and writer.^[145]
• Anton LaVey, 67, American author, musician, and occultist, pulmonary edema.^[146]
• Andreas Gerasimos Michalitsianos, 50, Greek-American astronomer and astrophysicist, brain tumor.
• Big Nick Nicholas, 75, American jazz saxophonist and singer, heart failure.^[147]
• Anthony Velonis, 86, American painter and designer.^[148]

30

• Jacques Derogy, 72, French journalist, cancer.^[149]
• Samuel Fuller, 85, American screenwriter, novelist, and film director.^[150]
• Barney Martin, 74, American baseball player.^[151]
• Sydney Newman, 80, Canadian film and television producer (The Avengers, Doctor Who), heart attack.^[152]

31

• Zubeida Agha, 75, Pakistani artist.
• Bram Appel, 75, Dutch footballer.
• Hans Bauer, 70, German footballer.^[153]
• Sidney Darlington, 91, American electrical engineer.^[154]
• Tadeusz Janczar, 71, Polish film actor.^[155]
• Taisto Kangasniemi, 73, Finnish heavyweight wrestler.^[156]
• Wilfrid Oulton, 86, British Royal Air Force officer, cancer.^[157]
• George Roth, 86, American gymnast and Olympic champion.^[158]