Famous People Who Died In 1959

Musician and singer-songwriter Buddy Holly was a central figure of mid-1950s rock and roll. Born to a musical family, he learned to sing and play the guitar as a child. He began his career as a teenager and found much success within a short period. Sadly, he died in an aircraft crash when he was just 22 years old.

Widely regarded as the pioneer of Latin rock and Chicano rock, Ritchie Valens was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter. Since his untimely death at the age of 17, Ritchie Valens has inspired several musicians and bands like Carlos Santana, Los Lonely Boys, and Los Lobos. Valens also inspired Robert Quine, Jimi Hendrix, Keith O'Conner Murphy, and Chris Montez among others.

Regarded as the successor to Douglas Fairbanks, Errol Flynn was an Australian-born actor who gained recognition in the Golden Age of Hollywood mainly because of his romantic swashbuckler roles. He also achieved fame for his reputation as a womanizer and party animal in personal life. His career and life inspired several films, such as My Wicked, Wicked Ways and Flynn.

Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect who designed over 1,000 structures in a career spanning 70 years. A pioneer of organic architecture, Wright influenced three generations of architects by playing a critical role in the 20th century's architectural movements. His structure Fallingwater is called America's best architectural work and Wright is considered the greatest architect America has ever produced.

Lou Costello was a comedian best known for his comedy routine Who's on First?, which he performed alongside Bud Abbott. During the Second World War, the comedy duo was one of the highest-paid and most popular entertainers in the world. In 2009, he was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.

Cecil B. DeMille was an American filmmaker. DeMille is widely regarded as a founding father of the cinema of the United States. He is also considered the most successful filmmaker in the history of American cinema. The recipient of several prestigious awards, DeMille's work has influenced several filmmakers. The Cecil B. DeMille Award is named in his honor. 

George Marshall was an American statesman and soldier who played a key role in the Allied victory during the Second World War. Marshall served as the third US Secretary of Defense from 1950 to 1951. As Secretary of State, George Marshall advocated economic recovery programs to aid post-war European countries, for which he was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize.

Known for his collaborations with director John Ford, actor Victor McLaglen was a favorite of audiences of Westerns and even bagged an Oscar for his performance as Gypo Nolan in The Informer. Earlier, he was a carnival boxer and would often use the nickname Sharkey for his bouts.

Born Elea, Albert Namatjira was rechristened after converting to Christianity. The Australian aboriginal painter, known for his watercolor paintings, couldn’t build a house in Alice Springs because of his aboriginal origin, leading to public outrage, which eventually led the government to make him and his wife full citizens.

Camilo Cienfuegos was a Cuban revolutionary who was part of the 1956 Granma expedition alongside Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. He went on to become one of Fidel Castro's top guerrilla commanders and played an important role in winning the Battle of Yaguajay, which earned him the nickname Hero of Yaguajay. Camilo Cienfuegos is revered as a hero in Cuba.

The 3rd president of the Philippines, José P. Laurel had also led the country as its Commissioner of Justice and Minister of the Interior. His rule as a president, though, was largely nominal, as the Philippines was occupied by Japan back then. Charged with treason multiple times, he managed to escape trials.

Heitor Villa-Lobos was a Brazilian composer, conductor, cellist, and classical guitarist. He is widely believed to be "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music." He was a prolific composer with over 2,000 orchestral, chamber, instrumental, and vocal works to his name. His music continues to be popular today, even six decades after his death. 

German Expressionist artist George Grosz, later a naturalized US citizen, is most noted for his caricatural drawings and paintings of Berlin life. A leading member of the Berlin Dada and New Objectivity groups during the Weimar Republic, Grosz later departed from his earlier style and subjects and taught at the Art Students League of New York for several years.  

Born to a Jewish family in Geneva, Ernest Bloch had learned to play the violin by age 9. Best known for works such as Avodath Hakodesh, Bloch composed music that carried a significant neoclassical trend. He also taught at the University of California, Berkeley, and was a skilled photographer, too.

Czech composer and modern classical musician Bohuslav Martinů had started learning the violin at age 6. While he was dismissed from the Prague Conservatory for his poor performance, he later joined the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra and then moved to Paris to study music. He later moved to the US and taught at Princeton.

Enrico De Nicola was an Italian jurist, journalist, and politician. He served as the provisional head of state of republican Italy from 1946 to 1948, following which he became the first president of Italy. He was a successful lawyer before he entered politics. He was succeeded by economist Luigi Einaudi as the president. 

Austrian printmaker, illustrator, and occasional writer Alfred Kubin is counted among the important representatives of Symbolism and Expressionism. He is noted for his inventive black-and-white drawings that included dreamlike, often morbid, subjects and portrayed supernatural creatures and sexual violence. He illustrated Der Orchideengarten magazine, and has also worked for the likes of E. T. A. Hoffmann and Edgar Allan Poe.  

Wanda Landowska was a Polish pianist and harpsichordist who is credited with reinvigorating the popularity of the harpsichord through her performances, writings, teaching, and recordings in the early 20th century. In 1933, Wanda Landowska became the first person to record Goldberg Variations, which were originally composed by Johann Sebastian Bach for keyboard, on the harpsichord.

Mike Hawthorn was a British racing driver best remembered as the first Formula One World Champion from the United Kingdom; he achieved the feat when he won the world championship in 1958. Having been affected by the demise of his friend Peter Collins in the 1958 German Grand Prix, Mike Hawthorn announced his retirement after winning the F1 title.  

Scottish physicist, meteorologist and Nobel Laureate Charles Thomson Rees Wilson is noted for inventing the cloud chamber particle detector, also referred to as Wilson cloud chamber, used for visualizing the passage of ionizing radiation. It played a significant role in the area of experimental particle physics between the 1920s and 1950s.

German-American physician Max Gerson was the proponent of the Gerson Therapy, which began as a diet-based treatment for migraine but ended up being used by him as a treatment for tuberculosis and cancer. Though Gerson died of pneumonia, there was an alternate theory that stated he had been murdered.

Raphael Lemkin was a Polish lawyer best remembered for coining the term genocide. He is also credited with initiating the Genocide Convention, an international treaty criminalizing genocide. Interestingly, no such international law existed before Lemkin initiated the Genocide Convention. Raphael Lemkin’s work inspired American sociologist and feminist scholar Jessie Bernard whose book American Community Behavior is based on Lemkin's work.