Famous People Who Died Today

A child prodigy, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is regarded as one of the greatest classical composers ever. A prolific composer, he had a profound influence on Western music. Many of his works are considered pinnacles of choral, symphonic, operatic, chamber, and concertante music. Before his death, at the age of 35, he had composed over 600 works.

Kirstie Alley graduated from being an interior designer to participating in game shows, and then stepped into showbiz. She is known for her rib-tickling comedy and her Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning performance as Rebecca Howe in Cheers. She was also part of Dancing with the Stars and Celebrity Big Brother.

Claude Monet was a French painter. The founder of French Impressionist painting, Monet's painting Impression, soleil levant gave rise to the term Impressionism. Often dubbed the driving force behind Impressionism, Monet mastered the art of painting the same scene several times so as to capture the changing of the light. Since his death, his paintings have sold for record prices.

Bob Dole is an American retired politician who remains active in public life. Before commencing his political career, Dole served in the United States Army during World War II. For his service in the army and later as a politician, Bob Dole has been honored with several prestigious awards, such as the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Presidential Citizens Medal.

MLB player Joseph Jefferson Jackson, or Shoeless Joe, was associated with the Philadelphia Athletics, the Cleveland Naps/Indians, and the Chicago White Sox. He was dragged into the Black Sox Scandal, through which the 1919 Chicago White Sox team members conspired to fix the World Series, leading him to be banned.

One of the most widely read French authors of all time, Alexandre Dumas was prolific in several genres. He joined the army as a young man and later became a full-time writer. Starting his writing career as a playwright, he moved on to writing novels. His novels have been adapted into nearly 200 films in the past century.

TV writer and producer Norman Lear is best known for producing hit sitcoms such as All in the Family, One Day at a Time, The Jeffersons, and Sanford and Son. He is also part of the Malibu Mafia and a liberal activist. He also established People for the American Way.

Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer widely regarded as one of the 20th century's most prominent and controversial composers. Remembered for his pioneering work in electronic music, Stockhausen received several distinctions and prizes throughout his career. His compositions remain widely influential on jazz, popular music, and composers. 

Regarded as France’s first rock star, Jean-Philippe Léo Smet, better known as Johnny Hallyday, had a phenomenal career, with 5 diamond, 40 golden, and 22 platinum albums. He was also always in the news for his flamboyant lifestyle, his many romances, his five marriages, and his love for cocaine and racing.  

Amrita Sher-Gil was a Hungarian-Indian painter best remembered as a pioneer of modern Indian art. Widely regarded as one of the early-20th century's greatest avant-garde women artists, Sher-Gil's work has influenced several Indian artists like Arpita Singh and Sayed Haider Raza. Her life and career inspired the 1969 documentary film Amrita Sher-Gil which was directed by Bhagwan Das Garga.

Jorge Negrete was a Mexican actor and singer. One of the most popular actors of his generation, Negrete helped create the charro film genre. He is credited with co-founding the Mexican Actors Association, where he served as one of its most important leaders. Such is his popularity that fans still pay tribute on his death anniversary by visiting his tomb.

A pioneer of abstract art and Orphism, French artist Sonia Delaunay was the first living female to have an exhibition at the Louvre Museum. Her art extended to stage sets, pottery, and fabrics. She and her husband, Robert Delaunay, collaborated on various public projects, including murals.

Robert Watson-Watt, often called the father of radar was a British physicist who did pioneering work in radio direction finding (RDF) and radar technology. He developed high-frequency direction finding (huff-duff) as a system for locating lightning. It was later introduced during the Second World War and played an instrumental role in intelligence, mainly in catching enemy radios while they transmitted.

Serge Monast was a Québécois investigative journalist, poet, and essayist. He was also known as a conspiracy theorist. He wrote extensively on the theme of the New World Order in the 1990s and was particularly inspired by the works of fellow conspiracy theorist William Guy Carr. Project Blue Beam (NASA) is one of his most popular works. 

Valentin Serov was a Russian painter best remembered as a master of portraiture. Apart from painting the portraits of prominent personalities, Serov also painted several self-portraits. From 1897 to 1909, he taught painting at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture where he taught future painters like Pavel Kuznetsov, Martiros Saryan, N. N. Sapunov, Konstantin Yuon, and Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin.

Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye was a French Canadian military officer and fur trader. Along with his four sons, he explored the area west of Lake Superior and established trading posts there. The family also helped in the process of adding Western Canada to the original New France territory.  He was awarded the Order of Saint Louis. 

Though trained as a tailor, Władysław Stanisław Reymont never worked as one and joined a traveling theater instead. He later devoted himself to writing and gained fame with novels such as The Promised Land and Revolt. His 4-volume novel The Peasants won him the Nobel Prize and was also filmed.

Sri Aurobindo was an Indian philosopher, poet, yogi, teacher, and nationalist. He was one of the most influential leaders of the Indian independence movement before becoming a spiritual reformer, focusing on spiritual evolution and human progress. He is credited with founding the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, which continues to serve spiritual aspirants from all over the world.

Three-time president of Syria, Hashim al-Atassi was a nationalist. Born into a landowning family, he began his political career serving as the governors of places such as Hama, Anatolia, and Baalbek. Known for his adherence to constitutional means of governance, he was respected by his opponents, too.

Frits Philips, the only son of Anton Philips - a co-founder of Royal Philips Electronics N.V., served as the fourth Chairman of the BOD of Philips. Frits is also remembered for saving 382 Jews during the Nazi Occupation of the Netherlands in the Second World War for which he was later recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

Ramaswamy Krishnamurthy, better known by his pseudonym Kalki, is remembered for his immense contribution to Tamil literature, which included his short stories, novels, and novellas. His social novel Alai Osai won him a Sahitya Akademi award. He also used the pseudonym Karnatakam to write as a film and music critic.