Famous People Who Died Today

Eddie Van Halen was an American songwriter and guitarist. The co-founder of the popular rock band Van Halen, Eddie is widely considered one of the greatest guitar players in the history of rock music. He is credited with popularizing the tapping technique, which is now used extensively by guitarists all over the world.

Two-time Academy Award-winner Bette Davis, a prominent figure from the Golden Age of Hollywood, was known for playing unlikeable characters and her addiction to cigarettes both off and on screen. Fans loved her in All About Eve and Human Bondage. Bette was also the first female AFI Lifetime Achievement Award-winner.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson was a British poet. One of the most famous British poets of all time, Tennyson served as the Poet Laureate during Queen Victoria's reign. His poetry, which is renowned for its powerful visual imagery, served as an important influence on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of English poets and painters.

Veteran English actor, Denholm Elliott, had more than 125 film and TV credits to his name. He is best remembered for playing Mr. Emerson in the film, A Room with a View. A much-respected character actor, he received three British Academy Film Awards. He was secretly bisexual and had an open marriage to actress Susan Robinson.

Diane Cilento is one of the earliest Australian actresses to make it big in the British film industry. Although her popularity increased after marrying the famous James Bond actor Sean Connery, her film career went downhill and she could never really revive her career. In 2001, she was honored with the Centenary Medal for service to the arts.

Spanish opera singer and a legend of classical music, Montserrat Caballé became an international sensation after recording the duet Barcelona, the official anthem for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, with Freddie Mercury. She is also remembered for his iconic portrayal of the title role of Lucrezia Borgia.

A major figure in the early-20th century international golf, American golfer Walter Hagen is often hailed as the father of professional golf for his contributions towards raising the stature of the game. The first golfer to earn one million dollars, he registered 58 wins including eleven major championships and made golf popular in the USA, with his flair and style.

Charles Stewart Parnell led both the Irish Parliamentary Party and the Home Rule League. A nationalist, he is remembered as one of the pioneering political leaders of Europe. However, his political image suffered a huge blow after he was dragged into an adultery scandal with Katherine O’Shea.

Tod Browning was an American actor, director, screenwriter, and vaudeville performer. Browning is best remembered for directing films like Dracula and Freaks. He had an illustrious career that spanned from 1913 to 1939. Although he was famous during his lifetime, Browning's work received greater critical appreciation after his death. He is sometimes referred to as the Edgar Allan Poe of cinema.

Austrian racing driver Helmuth Koinigg was from an affluent family but struggled to finance his racing dreams initially. He tragically passed away in a deadly crash at age 25, in what was his second Grand Prix start, the 1974 US Grand Prix, when a suspension failure caused him to be decapitated.

British philosopher Gilbert Ryle, often considered as an ordinary language philosopher, is best-known for his critique of Cartesian dualism. He introduced the phrase ghost in the machine in his book The Concept of Mind as his description of René Descartes' mind-body dualism. He first introduced the notion of thick description, which has greatly influenced cultural anthropologists like Clifford Geertz.

Ferdinand von Richthofen, also known as Baron von Richthofen, was a German geographer who discovered quite a few places in and around China, thus contributing to his book China, the Results of My Travels and the Studies Based Thereon. He worked on chorography and chorology and also developed geomorphology.

George Gaylord Simpson was an American paleontologist. He was one of the 20th century's most influential paleontologists. Simpson, who wrote extensively on the taxonomy of extant mammals and fossils, is credited with coining the word hypodigm. From 1945 to 1959, he served as the curator of the Department of Paleontology and Geology at the American Museum of Natural History.

Porter Hall was an American actor who achieved prominence during the 1930s and 1940s. He is best remembered for playing supporting roles in popular films like The Thin Man and Double Indemnity.

Considered the most popular female Soviet sculptor, Vera Mukhina earned the nickname of the queen of Soviet sculpture. After a plastic surgery following a sledging accident as a young girl, she focused on studying sculpting. The five-time Stalin Prize winner is remembered for her works such as Peasant Woman.

Ricardo Palma was a Peruvian author, scholar, librarian, and politician. He became interested in politics as a young man and held several political positions. He began writing seriously following the birth of his first son, for whom he used to write fantastic tales. He went on to pursue a literary career and published various articles and books. 

Soviet Russian singer-songwriter and film-actor Igor Talkov is best-known for releasing popular songs like Clean Ponds and Summer Rain. While several of his songs were about love and fate, many also included lyrics containing political message criticising the Soviet regime. He also starred in the films Tsar Ivan the Terrible and Behind the Last Line. He was murdered in 1991.

Otto Fritz Meyerhof was a German physician and biochemist. He studied medicine in Strasbourg and Heidelberg and later became a professor at the University of Kiel. He jointly won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine with Archibald Vivian Hill in 1922. He became one of the directors of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research in 1929. 

Considered the Father of Parliamentary Politics in Japan, Yukio Ozaki was a revered member of the House of Representatives, who served as Education Minister, Minister of Justice and also as the Mayor of Tokyo. Today, he is best remembered for his struggles to establish universal manhood suffrage and a governmental system responsible to the majority party in the Diet.