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The following is a list of notable deaths in February 1987.

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.

February 1987

1

• Alessandro Blasetti, 86, Italian film director and screenwriter.
• Christian Broda, 70, Austrian lawyer and politician, Minister of Justice.^[1]
• Sala Burton, 61, Polish-American politician, member of U.S. House of Representatives, colon cancer.^[2]
• Salvadora Debayle, 91, First Lady of Nicaragua.
• Gustav Knuth, 85, German film actor.
• Lee Aubrey "Speed" Riggs, 79, American tobacco auctioneer, voice of Lucky Strike cigarettes, congestive heart failure.

2

• Carlos José Castilho, 59, Brazilian international footballer, suicide.
• Walter Clutterbuck, 92, English Major General in the British Army.
• Yakov Estrin, 63, Soviet chess player, ICCF World Champion.
• Spike Hughes, 78, British musician, composer and arranger.
• Alfred Lion, 78, German-American record executive, co-founded jazz record label Blue Note, heart failure.^[3]
• Olive Little, 69, American baseballer in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.
• Alistair MacLean, 64, Scottish novelist of thrillers and adventure stories, heart failure.^[4]
• David du Plessis, 81, South African-American Pentecostal minister.
• Ken Reid, 67, British comic artist and writer, co-creator of Roger the Dodger, stroke.

3

• Donald Aronow, 59, American speedboat designer, builder and racer, murdered.
• Theodore Cogswell, 68, American science fiction author.
• Nobuhito, Prince Takamatsu, 82, younger brother of Japanese Emperor Hirohito, lung cancer.
• George Derwent Thomson, 83–84, British classical scholar and Marxist philosopher.

4

• Bruce Jacobi, 51, American race car driver, head injuries from racing accident.
• Meena Keshwar Kamal, 30, Afghan revolutionary political and women's rights activist, assassinated.
• Liberace, 67, American pianist, singer and actor, pneumonia as a complication of AIDS.^[5]
• Fyfe Robertson, 84, Scottish television journalist and broadcaster.
• Carl Rogers, 85, American psychologist, heart attack as a result of a fall.
• Wynford Vaughan-Thomas, 78, Welsh newspaper journalist and radio and television broadcaster.
• Patrick Waddington, 85, English actor.
• George W. Woodruff, 91, American engineer, businessman and philanthropist.^[6]

5

• E. Michael Burke, 70, American navy officer, circus manager and Major League Baseball executive.
• William Collier Jr., 84, American stage performer, producer and film actor.
• Klāvs Elsbergs, 28, Latvian poet and translator, accident.
• David Ensor, 80, British lawyer, actor, author and politician, Member of Parliament.
• Armando Fosco, 64, leader of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
• Gustav Lechner, 73, Austro-Hungarian–born Yugoslavian international footballer.
• Otto Wöhler, 92, German general, convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

6

• Lalithambika Antharjanam, 77, Indian author and social reformer.
• Julien Chouinard, 58, Canadian lawyer and Puisne Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, brain cancer.
• Donald MacCrimmon MacKay, 64, British physicist and professor.
• K. C. Nag, 93, Indian Bengali mathematician and author of mathematics textbooks.

7

• John Leypoldt, 40, American NFL footballer, dysentery.^[7]
• Bennetto Payne, 77, Mexican professional boxer.
• Stuart T. Saunders, 77, American railroad executive, heart failure.^[8]
• Claudio Villa, 61, Italian singer and actor, heart attack.
• Adriaan van Wijngaarden, 70, Dutch mathematician and computer scientist.

8

• Tony Destra, 32, American drummer, car accident.
• Hendrik Koekoek, 74, Dutch farmer, politician and founder of the defunct Farmers' Party.
• Elsie Lee, 75, American author of fiction and non-fiction.
• Harriet MacGibbon, 81, American film, stage and television actress.
• Max Seydewitz, 94, German politician, Minister-President of Saxony.
• Bronisława Wajs, 78, Polish-Romani classic poet and singer.

9

• Larry French, 79, American Major League baseballer.
• Louis Plack Hammett, 92, American physical chemist.
• Edna Manley, 86, Jamaican artist.^[9]

10

• Angela Giussani, 64, co-writer of comic book anti-hero series, Diabolik.
• Robert O'Brien, 78, American racing driver.
• William Rose, 68, American screenwriter of British and Hollywood films.
• Hans Rosenthal, 61, German radio editor, director, and radio and television host.
• Sadequain, 56, Pakistani artist and poet.
• John Raymond Ylitalo, 70, American diplomat, U.S. Ambassador to Paraguay, cancer.

11

• Mark Ashton, 26, British gay rights activist, pneumonia as a complication of AIDS.
• Edith Gyömrői Ludowyk, 90, Hungarian-psychotherapist, poet and communist militant.
• Andy Linden, 64, American race car driver.
• John Malachi, 67, American jazz pianist.
• Bill McGee, 77, American Major League baseballer.

12

• Jules Bergman, 57, American broadcast writer and journalist.^[10]
• Lang Jeffries, 56, Canadian-American television and film actor, cancer.
• Dennis Poore, 70, British entrepreneur, financier and racing driver.

13

• M. Bhaktavatsalam, 89, Indian independence activist and politician, Chief Minister of Madras State.
• Dorothy Dean, 54, American writer and actress, cancer.^[11]
• Dhumal, 72, Indian actor in Bollywood films, heart attack.
• Curly Page, 84, New Zealand Test cricketer and international rugby union player.

14

• Rolf Dahlgren, 54, Swedish-Danish botanist and professor.
• Kulada Charan Das Gupta, 87, Indian judge of the Supreme Court of India.
• Wendy Holcombe, 23, American banjo player and singer, congenital heart defect.
• Dmitry Kabalevsky, 82, Soviet composer, conductor and pianist.
• Karolos Koun, 78, Greek theater director, heart attack.^[12]
• Tsai Lan-chin, 22, Taiwanese singer and songwriter, heart attack.
• Bola Sete, 63, Brazilian jazz guitarist, pneumonia and lung cancer.

15

• Jimmy Holiday, 52, American R&B singer and songwriter, heart failure.
• John Myhill, 63, British mathematician.

16

• Norman Crowther Hunt, Baron Crowther-Hunt, 66, British scholar politician, Minister of State, heart attack.

17

• Leo Anchóriz, 54, Spanish actor and writer, cardiac disease.
• T. M. Chummar, 87, Indian academic and writer of Malayalam literature.
• Hal K. Dawson, 90, American actor.
• Hubert Howard, 79, English intelligence officer.
• Frank Kurtis, 79, American racing car designer.
• Diederick Charles Mathew, 58, Aruban politician and teacher, deputy commissioner for Aruba.
• Husayn Muruwwa, appr. 77, Lebanese Marxist philosopher, journalist, author and literary critic, assassinated.
• Romola Remus, 86, American actress.
• Verree Teasdale, 83, American actress.

18

• William Coldstream, 78, English realist painter and art teacher.
• Bryce Harlow, 70, American army officer, advisor to U.S. presidents and corporate lobbyist.
• Boris Kowerda, 79, Soviet White émigré, monarchist, diplomat and convicted murderer.

19

• Hugh Greene, 76, British television executive and journalist, director-general of the BBC, cancer.^[13]
• Henry-Russell Hitchcock, 83, American architectural historian and professor, cancer.
• Robert E. Kuttner, 59, American biologist and white supremacist.
• Kirsten Walther, 53, Danish actress, heart failure.

20

• Wayne Boring, 81, American comic book artist, known for his work on Superman, heart attack.
• Caesar Gatimu, 65, Kenyan Roman Catholic Bishop of Nyeri.
• Edgar P. Jacobs, 82, Belgian comic book creator.
• Joseph Parecattil, 74, Indian Roman Catholic prelate, Archbishop of Ernakulam.^[14]
• Lev Russov, 61, Soviet painter, graphic artist and sculptor, heart disease.
• AKM Samsuzzoha, appr. 62, Bangladeshi politician, member of parliament.
• C. C. Wei, 72, Chinese-American contract bridge player, complications from diabetes.
• Willi Welscher, 80, German hurdler and Olympian.

21

• William T. Fairbourn, 72, American Major General of the U.S. Marine Corps.^[15]
• Petro Grigorenko, 79, Ukrainian-Major General in the Soviet Army, founder of human rights movement in the Soviet Union.^[16]
• Helen Taft Manning, 95, American professor of history, daughter or President William Taft, pneumonia.^[17]
• Noel Odell, 96, English geologist and mountaineer.
• George Tibbles, 73, American composer and screenwriter.^[18]
• Meir Ya'ari, 89, Israeli politician, educator and social activist.

22

• Naomi Drake, 80, American Registrar of the Bureau of Vital Statistics for New Orleans.
• Habib Painter, 72, Indian Qawwal and a folk singer.
• John Paul Scott, 60, American criminal, only escapee from Alcatraz prison to have reached San Francisco shore by swimming.
• David Susskind, 66, American producer of TV, movies and stage plays, TV talk show host, heart attack.
• Andy Warhol, 58, American artist, director and writer, sudden post-operative irregular heartbeat.^[19]
• Glenway Wescott, 85, American poet and novelist, stroke.^[20]

23

• José Afonso, 57, Portuguese singer-songwriter, teacher and activist, sclerosis.^[21]
• Cyril Butcher, 77, English actor and director.
• John Counsell, 81, English actor, director and theatre manager.
• Jack Heinz, 78, American business executive and CEO of the H. J. Heinz Company, cancer.
• Esmond Knight, 80, English actor, heart attack.
• Edward Lansdale, 79, American Major General of the U.S. Air Force, heart ailment.
• George Musulin, 72, Serbian-American army officer of the OSS, CIA operative, complications of diabetes.
• Polly Ward, 74, British singer and actress.

24edit

• Kakai Kilonzo, 32–33, Kenyan musician.
• Edwin McArthur, 79, American classical music conductor, pianist and accompanist.

25edit

• William G. Barr, 67, American businessman and politician, member of the Illinois House of Representatives.
• S. H. Bihari, 66, Indian lyricist, songwriter and poet.
• James Coco, 56, American stage and screen actor, heart attack.^[22]
• John Collin, 58, British actor.
• Arthur A. Collins, 77, American radio engineer and entrepreneur.^[23]
• Jess Larson, 82, American lawyer who served as the first Administrator of General Services.^[24]
• E. D. Nixon, 87, American civil rights leader and union organizer.
• Krishna Chandra Panigrahi, 77, Indian historian and archaeologist.

26edit

• Knut Frydenlund, 59, Norwegian diplomat and politician, Minister of Foreign Affairs, cerebral hemorrhage.^[25]
• Audrey Marie Hilley, 53, American murderer and suspected serial killer, hypothermia and exposure.
• Fredric R. Mann, 83, American industrialist and patron of the arts, U.S. Ambassador to Barbados, cancer.^[26]
• Paul Taunton Matthews, 67, British theoretical physicist, cycling accident.

27edit

• Franciszek Blachnicki, 65, Polish priest, poisoning.^[27]
• Jose W. Diokno, 65, Filipino nationalist, lawyer and statesman, Senator of the Philippines.^[28]
• Bill Holman, 83, American cartoonist (Smokey Stover).^[29]
• Fumio Kamei, 78, Japanese documentary and fiction film director.
• Latif-ur Rehman, 58, Indian and Pakistani hockey player and Olympic gold medalist.
• Colvin R. de Silva, 81–82, Sri Lankan politician, Minister of Plantation Industries.

28edit

• Nasim Amrohvi, 78, Pakistani Urdu poet, philosopher and lexicographer.
• Frederic G. Donner, 84, American chairman and CEO of the General Motors Corporation.^[30]
• Joan Greenwood, 65, English actress, acute bronchitis and asthma.
• Nora Kaye, 67, American prima-ballerina, cancer.^[31]
• William F. McKee, 80, American General in the U.S. Air Force, administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration.
• Anny Ondra, 83, Czechoslovakian film actress.
• Stephen Tennant, 80, British socialite.

Unknown dateedit

• Clifford Bias, 76–77, American alleged psychic.
• Raquel Martínez, 78, Chilean sprinter and Olympian.
• Adi Pherozeshah Marzban, 72, Indian Gujarati Parsi playwright, actor, director and broadcaster, lung cancer.
• Clare Rendlesham, 67, British fashion editor and boutique manager.

Referencesedit