Famous People Who Died Today

The first person to play James Bond on screen, Scottish actor Sean Connery went on to star in seven films of the franchise. The role catapulted him to international fame, but this charismatic actor was not restricted to his iconic role. He also tasted critical and commercial success in other productions including Murder on the Orient Express and The Untouchables

Actor, musician, and activist, River Phoenix. was the older brother of Academy Award-winning actor, Joaquin Phoenix. The child of “hippyish” parents, he had an unconventional upbringing. He began acting as a young boy and enjoyed a successful career. The promising young man died of a drug overdose when he was just 23.

Legendary magician Harry Houdini initially worked as a trapeze artist named “Ehrich, the Prince of the Air” and was later known for his iconic stunt of escaping from handcuffs, at times even under water and while buried alive. He died after a blow to the gut damaged his appendix.

The third Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi served as PM from 1966 till 1977 and then again from 1980 till her assassination in October 1984. She is considered one of India’s strongest PM and is hailed for leading India to victory over Pakistan in 1971, which resulted in the creation of Bangladesh. However, she is also categorised as authoritarian and is criticised for imposing Emergency in 1975.

Italian film director and screenwriter, Federico Fellini, is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time. He was nominated for the Academy Awards 12 times and won four in the category of Best Foreign Language Film. His distinctive style of film-making has inspired generations of directors in both Italy and Hollywood.

Romanian-born US actor and producer John Houseman is remembered for his Academy Award- and Golden Globe-winning role in The Paper Chase. Primarily a character actor, he also gained fame as a theater director and producer and collaborated with director Orson Welles on many projects.

Egon Schiele was an Austrian painter whose work is well-known for its raw sexuality and intensity. An early exponent of Expressionism, Schiele was one of the early-20th century's most prominent figurative painters. His life and career inspired the 1980 biographical film Excess and Punishment, in which Schiele was played by German actor Mathieu Carrière. 

Pulitzer Prize-winning American author Studs Terkel is remembered for his contribution to American history and for his book The Good War. Initially aspiring to be a lawyer, he later became a radio actor. He also interviewed people for his show Studs’s Place and published bestselling oral histories such as Division Street.

Amrita Pritam was an Indian poet, essayist, and novelist who wrote in Hindi and Punjabi languages. She is widely regarded as the first major female Punjabi poet and the leading Punjabi-language poet of the 20th century. In 1956, she was honored with the Sahitya Akademi Award, becoming the first woman to receive the prestigious award.

Éleuthère Irénée du Pont was the founder of the American gunpowder company E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company and the patriarch of the famous du Pont family of businessmen. Born in France, du Pont had escaped to the U.S. with his family during the French Revolution. 

Otto Rank was an Austrian psychoanalyst and philosopher. A close colleague of Sigmund Freud, Rank was also the managing director of Freud's publishing house. Rank was a prolific writer and wrote extensively on psychoanalytic themes. He was the first person who viewed therapy as a learning and unlearning experience focusing on feelings. Psychologist Rollo May was deeply influenced by Rank. 

Max Reinhardt was an Austrian-born director and producer. The son of a Jewish merchant, he took acting lessons and embarked on a brilliant theatrical career. Before long, he came to be regarded as one of the most prominent directors of German-language theater. However, he had to flee Austria during the Nazi invasion and eventually settled in USA. 

Raf Vallone was an Italian actor, journalist, and footballer. He was one of the biggest stars in Italy during the 1950s and 1960s. His performance in the drama film A View from the Bridge earned him the David di Donatello Award. As a footballer, Vallone helped his team win the Coppa Italia in the 1935–1936 season.

Saint Wolfgang, who was the bishop of Regensburg in Bavaria, Germany, had been a teacher for many years initially. Considered one of the 3 great 10th-century German saints, he became a hermit in his later life. He is the patron saint of carpenters and of ailments such as paralysis, strokes, and stomach diseases.

S.D. Burman was an Indian singer and music director. One of the most influential and successful film music composers in the history of Bollywood, Burman composed the music for more than 100 movies. During his career, he won many prestigious awards like Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, Filmfare Awards, and National Film Awards. In 1969, he was awarded the Padma Shri.

Charles Taze Russell was an American restorationist minister who is credited with founding the Bible Student movement, which formed the basis for several independent Bible Student groups. He is also credited with co-founding a not-for-profit, non-stock organization called the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, which is an important publisher of religious books in America.

Paul Dudley White was inspired to take up medicine by his physician father and ended up graduating in medicine from Harvard. A pioneer of preventive medicine, he also contributed to the study of blood coagulation and published 700 articles. He was also a medical officer during World War I

Henry Harris was an Australian professor and scientist who taught at the University of Oxford. He is best remembered for his pioneering work on human genetics and cancer during the 2000s. Henry Harris was knighted in 1993 for his contribution to science.

Raj Chandra Bose was an Indian-American statistician and mathematician best remembered for his work in finite geometry, design theory, and the theory of error-correcting codes. He is also credited with inventing the notions of association scheme, partial geometry, and strongly regular graph.

The son of a Spanish metalworker, Ignacio Zuloaga was mostly a self-taught artist. His paintings depict the Spanish culture and are full of motifs such as bullfighters and flamenco dancers. Best known for his works such as Daniel Zuloaga and His Daughters, he spent much of his life in Paris.

One of the best-known seamen from Britain, Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald had also been an MP. He is also remembered for his conflict with Admiral James Gambier. Though expelled from the Parliament for spreading a death hoax about Napoleon I along with his uncle, he was later proved to be innocent.

Not only did István Tisza serve as the Hungarian prime minister, but he also supported the Austro-Hungarian dualist government. A qualified lawyer, he also had doctorate degrees in economics and political science and also dealt with macroeconomic issues. His father, Kálmán Tisza, too, had been the prime minister of Hungary.