Famous People Who Died Today

One of the most admired British actors, Alan Rickman gained global recognition for his work on stage and screen. The late actor excelled at portraying villainous characters especially in movies like Die Hard, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny. Other notable works of the versatile actor include Harry Potter film series and Truly, Madly, Deeply.

Ray Kroc was the man who helped expand McDonald's into a global franchise, eventually turning it into the most successful fast food corporation. Not surprisingly, he was mentioned in Time magazine's Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century list. He was also the owner of the popular baseball team San Diego Padres.

Humphrey Bogart is considered one of the greatest Hollywood actors and a legend. His filmography includes classics such as Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, To Have and Have Not, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, In a Lonely Place and The Caine Mutiny. He won Academy Award for Best Actor for the 1951 film The African Queen. 

Donna Reed was an American actress whose career spanned over four decades. She is best remembered for her performance in the 1953 film From Here to Eternity, which earned her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Donna Reed is also remembered for her TV work and received the Golden Globe Award for her role in The Donna Reed Show.

Ricardo Montalbán was a Mexican actor who achieved immense popularity in Hollywood during his illustrious career that spanned 70 years! He was the recipient of several prestigious awards including an Emmy Award and Screen Actors Guild's Lifetime Achievement Award. Ricardo Montalbán is credited with establishing the Nosotros Foundation where he served as the first president.

Shelley Winters was an American actress who contributed immensely to all the three major acting mediums in a career spanning almost sixty years. The winner of two Academy Awards, Shelley Winters remained popular throughout her life. She was also known for her much-publicized personal life, which included her four marriages and the romance with actor Farley Granger.

Hailed as one of the greatest logicians since Aristotle, Kurt Gödel was Austrian-born American mathematician, logician, and philosopher, who earned international stardom for his incompleteness theorem. Also credited with developing a technique called Gödel numbering, he later started working on Mathematical Platonism, a philosophical theory that failed to attract wide acceptance.

French-Cuban-American diarist, essayist, and novelist Anais Nin wrote several volumes of journals, erotica, novels, critical studies, essays, and short stories. Her journals and diaries are among her most studied works. She had a deep interest in psychoanalysis and studied it extensively with René Allendy and Otto Rank. Critics consider her one of the finest writers of female erotica.

Jeanette MacDonald was an American actress and singer best remembered for her performances in the musical films of the 1930s. Renowned for her singing skills, MacDonald appeared in opera and concerts. One of the 20th century's most influential sopranos, Jeanette MacDonald is credited with inspiring a generation of singers and introducing opera to film-going audiences.

Edmond Halley was an English astronomer and mathematician who was mainly concerned with practical applications of science. He abandoned college education to travel to St. Helena. He published catalogue of 341 southern stars with telescopically determined locations. Known for his wide range of interest, he helped Newton to publish his magnum opus,  Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. He used Newton's Law of Motion to compute periodicty of Halley’s Comet.

Sergei Korolev was a Soviet spacecraft designer and rocket engineer who played an important role during the Space Race between the Soviet Union and the United States of America in the 1950s and 1960s. He was largely responsible for developing the R-7 Rocket and launching Yuri Gagarin into space. Sergei Korolev also launched Belka, Strelka, and Laika into space.

English track and field athlete is best remembered for his gold medal win in the 100m race at the Paris Olympics in 1924. Part of the Achilles Club, he and his exploits inspired the 1981 film Chariots of Fire. Following his retirement, he became a broadcaster and sports administrator.

An amateur drag racer in his youth, American racing driver Dan Gurney began his professional career in 1959, quickly becoming one of the most popular international racing stars of his era. Also a prominent race car constructor and the founder of All American Racers, he is known as much for his engineering acumen as for his quest for innovative solutions.

George Berkeley was an Anglo-Irish philosopher who is credited with popularizing a theory called immaterialism, which claims that material substance like tables and chairs can't exist without being perceived by the mind. Berkeley influenced several philosophers like David Hume. Also remembered for his humanitarian work, George Berkeley worked towards creating homes for abandoned children in London.

Civil engineer Hubert Cecil Booth had designed everything from Ferris wheels to bridges, but the product that he is most remembered for is the vacuum cleaner, which he invented to introduce a hygienic method of dust removal. He had also designed Navy ships. He rejected the knighthood offered to him.

Georgy Malenkov was a Soviet politician who succeeded Joseph Stalin as the leader of the Soviet Union. He also played a major role during World War II as he was given sole responsibility of Soviet Union's missile program during the war. Almost inseparable from any account of Stalin's biographies, Malenkov was played by Jeffrey Tambor in The Death of Stalin.

Charles Hermite was a French mathematician best remembered for his research on number theory, invariant theory, algebra, elliptic functions, orthogonal polynomials, and quadratic forms. Also an inspiring and influential teacher, Hermite taught Jules Henri Poincaré, who went on to become fa amous mathematician in his own right.

Abdul Razak Hussein was a Malaysian politician best remembered for his service as the Prime Minister of Malaysia from 22 September 1970 until his death on 14 January 1976. An influential politician, Abdul Razak Hussein held several other prominent offices, including the office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Defence, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Minister of Home Affairs.

Jaishankar Prasad was an Indian poet and an important figure in modern Hindi theatre and Hindi literature. Along with Mahadevi Verma, Sumitranandan Pant, and Suryakant Tripathi, Prasad is counted among the Four Pillars of Romanticism in Hindi literature.

Seventeenth-century Italian composer Francesco Cavalli had taken up the surname of his Venetian patron Federico Cavalli. He was initially a soprano at the St. Mark's Basilica. While he mainly composed for operas, he also developed the early recitative-aria technique. Two of his most notable works were Erismena and L’Ormindo.

Marika Rivera was a French-born actress and dancer best remembered for playing important roles in movies like Hôtel du Paradis and Eat the Rich. After starting her career as a dancer, Marika Rivera went on to establish herself as an actress. However, her personal life, which includes her marriage with acclaimed painter Jean Paul Brusset, eclipsed her professional achievements.

Miles Copeland, Jr. was an American businessman, musician, and Central Intelligence Agency officer. He is remembered for his close friendship with Gamal Abdel Nasser and his famous books on intelligence. Miles Copeland, Jr. played important role in the March 1949 Syrian coup d'état as well as in the 28 Mordad coup d'état, participating in many covert operations in the process.

Odoric of Pordenone was an Italian Franciscan missionary explorer and friar. Odoric, who traveled far and wide, penned down the narrative of his travels, which are preserved even today in Italian, French, and Latin manuscripts. Many incredible accounts of Sir John Mandeville have proven to be merely distorted versions of Odoric's original eyewitness descriptions.

Terje Bakken, also known as Valfar, launched the Norwegian black metal band Windir and experimented with several lyrical styles such as folk and Viking. In early 2004, he got lost in a blizzard while walking in his hometown, Sogndal, and died of hypothermia. His body was recovered several days later.

Born in Hungary, rabbi and author Joseph Hertz moved to New York as a child. He had a PhD from Columbia University and was also the first to graduate from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Before becoming the chief rabbi of England, he was a professor in South Africa.