Famous People Who Died Today

Robert Goulet was an American actor and singer whose career, which spanned almost 60 years, is embellished with a Tony and Grammy Award. He is best remembered for his performance in the popular Broadway musical, Camelot. An actor of French-Canadian origin, Robert Goulet was honored with a star on Canada's Walk of Fame in 2006.

French social anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss is remembered for his contribution to structural anthropology. His book Tristes Tropiques was based on his research deep in the Brazilian Amazon. While he left France for the U.S. during World War II, he later returned to Paris and received his doctorate.

Henry Dunant was a Swiss businessman, social activist, and humanitarian. He is credited with co-founding and promoting the Red Cross. In 1901, he became the first Swiss Nobel laureate when he was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize. Dunant is also credited with founding the Swiss branch of YMCA. His life inspired the 1948 historical drama film, Man to Men.

Ramon Novarro was a Mexican-American actor who went on to become one of the most bankable actors during the 1920s and early-1930s. Promoted as a Latin lover, Ramon Novarro was regarded as a sex symbol in Hollywood. His murder, which took place on October 30, 1968, inspired several works of art like short stories, songs, and TV series.

Barnes Wallis was an English engineer, inventor, and scientist. He played an important role during the Second World War by inventing the bouncing bomb which was used in Operation Chastise by the Royal Air Force to attack the dams of the Ruhr Valley. Barnes Wallis is also credited with inventing the earthquake bomb and his version of the geodetic airframe.

Clifford Geertz was an anthropologist who strongly supported and influenced the practice of symbolic anthropology. He attended Harvard University, where he completed an interdisciplinary program. He then embarked on an academic career and wrote several theoretical pieces and essays on symbolic anthropology. He has left a strong influence on modern anthropology and communication studies. 

Willebrord Snell was a Dutch mathematician and astronomer. He is credited with rediscovering the law of refraction, which is named Snell's law in his honor. A much-revered mathematician in the Netherlands, Willebrord Snell was honored by the Royal Netherlands Navy by naming three of its survey ships after him. Snellius, a lunar crater, is also named in his honor.

Gustav Ludwig Hertz was a German experimental physicist best known for his work on inelastic electron collisions in gasses, in collaboration with James Franck. They received the 1925 Nobel Prize in Physics. Hertz worked at the University of Berlin and served in the military during World War I. He was a Member of the German Academy of Sciences.

Venerated for recovering numerous lost or neglected Classical Latin manuscripts from different European monasteries, Poggio Bracciolini was an early Renaissance humanist, scholar and calligrapher. Among his most notable recoveries are On the Nature of Things, a didactic poem by Titus Lucretius Carus, Ten Books on Architecture by Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, and Pro Sexto Roscio, a speech by Marcus Tullius Cicero.

Hungarian composer Emmerich Kalman is best remembered for his operettas and was a leading figure in the development of the Viennese operetta. He initially worked as a lawyer’s assistant and a music critic for Pesti Napló to fund his music studies. One of his best-known works remains The Gay Hussars.

Dayananda Saraswati was an Indian social leader and philosopher. He is credited with founding an influential Hindu reform movement known as Arya Samaj. He is also credited with popularizing the term Swaraj which was used as a powerful tool by leaders like Lokmanya Tilak and Mahatma Gandhi during India’s freedom struggle. Saraswati influenced people like Bhagat Singh and Madam Cama.

Bessie Lillian Carter was an American nurse best remembered as the mother of Jimmy Carter, who served as the 39th president of the USA. She is also remembered for her immense contributions to nursing in Georgia. Lillian Gordy Carter also served in India as a Peace Corps volunteer.

Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and playwright Bernard Slade is best known for creating the iconic 1970s’ series The Partridge Family. Hugely successful on Broadway, he had also penned scripts for series such as Bewitched and Love on a Rooftop, and films such as Stand Up and Be Counted.

Allan Cunningham was a Scottish author and poet best remembered for his immense contribution to the London Magazine during its salad days in the 1820s. A prolific songwriter, Cunningham also contributed to Eugenius Roche's Literary Recreations. In addition to his poems and songs, Allan Cunningham also wrote novels and biographies of popular figures like Sir Joshua Reynolds and William Blake.

Ozaki Kōyō was a Japanese poet and author. He is credited with founding a literary magazine called Ken'yūsha which was published widely during Meiji era Japan. Some of his works, such as Tajō Takon and Konjiki Yasha, were serialized for magazines. Ozaki Kōyō is also credited with mentoring students like Izumi Kyōka and Tokuda Shūsei, who became famous authors themselves.

Born to Nobel-winning parents Alva and Gunnar Myrdal, Jan Myrdal grew up to be a renowned author and filmmaker. He and his third wife, Kessle, traveled around places such as Afghanistan and India and penned works associated with politics and travel. He also wrote a series of semi-autobiographical "I- Novels."

Born to a magistrate, Charles Alexandre de Calonne initially followed in his father’s footsteps to become a lawyer and gradually rose to be the controller-general of finance when the French government was sinking in debt. His suggestion of taxing the rich was rejected, paving the path for the French Revolution.