The following is a list of notable deaths in June 1997.
Entries for each day are listed alphabetically by surname. A typical entry lists information in the following sequence:
- Name, age, country of citizenship at birth, subsequent country of citizenship (if applicable), reason for notability, cause of death (if known), and reference.
1
- Florence Wysinger Allen, 84, African American artists' model.[1]
- Ruth Atkinson, 78, American cartoonist, cancer.[2]
- Garland T. Byrd, 72, American politician from Georgia.
- Giorgos P. Livanos, 70, Greek-American shipping magnate.[3]
- Fred Rauch, 87, Austrian singer and songwriter.
- Mickey Rocco, 81, American baseball player.[4]
- Bernard Segal, 89, American lawyer civil rights activist, cancer.[5]
- Robert Serber, 88, American physicist, brain cancer.[6]
- Nikolai Tikhonov, 92, Soviet Russian-Ukrainian statesman.[7]
2
- Lukas Aurednik, 79, Austrian football player and football manager.
- Zhenya Belousov, 32, Soviet/Ukrainian pop singer, stroke.
- Martin Bronfenbrenner, 82, American economist.[8]
- Doc Cheatham, 91, American jazz trumpeter, singer, and bandleader.[9]
- Corwin Clatt, 73, American gridiron football player.[10]
- Louise Huntington, 92, American actress.[11]
- Helen Jacobs, 88, American tennis champion, heart failure.[12]
- William Alexander Levy, 87, American architect.[13]
- Kenneth McNaught, 78, Canadian historian.
- Nikolai Ozerov, 74, Soviet tennis player and actor.
- Eddie Thomas, 70, Welsh boxer and manager, cancer.
- Ida Turay, 89, Hungarian film actress.
3
- Salvatore Fiume, 81, Italian painter, sculptor, architect and writer.[14]
- John Holt, 73, Jamaican cricket player.
- Dennis James, 79, American television personality and philanthropist, lung cancer.[15]
- Meenakshi Shirodkar, 80, Indian actress.
4
- Thomas Boylston Adams, 86, American business executive and writer.[16]
- Stewart Anderson, 85, Australian rules football player.
- Katherine Esau, 99, German-American botanist.[17]
- Ronnie Lane, 51, English musician, songwriter, and producer, pneumonia.[18]
- Johnny "Hammond" Smith, 63, American soul jazz and hard bop organist, cancer.
- Pedro Zaballa, 58, Spanish football player.
5
- Jack Wilson Evans, 74, American politician and mayor of Dallas, Texas, cancer.
- Elaine Ryan Hedges, 69, American feminist.[19]
- Olga Kirsch, 72, South African and Israeli poet, brain tumor, brain cancer.
- J. Anthony Lukas, 64, American journalist and author, suicide by hanging.[20]
- Gustav Richter, 84, German SS officer and aide to Adolf Eichmann during World War II.
6
- Eitel Cantoni, 90, Uruguayan racecar driver.
- Magda Gabor, 81, Hungarian-American actress and socialite, and sister of Zsa Zsa and Eva Gabor, kidney failure.
- Monica Golding, 94, British Army nurse and nursing administrator.[21]
- Charles Jones, 86, Canadian-American composer of contemporary classical music.[22]
- Hannu Leminen, 87, Finnish film director, set designer and screenwriter.[23]
- Ted Nathanson, 72, American television director, lung cancer.[24]
- Richard Neilson, 59, British diplomat.
- Liao Shantao, 77, Chinese mathematician.
- Alangudi Somu, 64, Indian Tamil film lyricist.
7
- Raghu Raj Bahadur, 73, Indian statistician.[25]
- Lewis White Beck, 83, American philosopher and scholar of German philosophy.[26]
- Jacques Canetti, 88, French music executive and talent manager.[27]
- Paul Reade, 54, English composer.[28]
- Stanley Schachter, 75, American social psychologist, colon cancer.[29]
- Nadezhda Simonyan, 75, Soviet and Russian composer.
8
- Betty Andujar, 84, American civic activist and politician.[30]
- Norman Cleaveland, 96, American rugby player and Olympian.[31]
- Ken Hunt, 62, American baseball player.[32]
- Park Jaesam, 64, Korean poet.
- Reid Shelton, 72, American actor, stroke.[33]
- George Turner, 80, Australian writer and critic.[34]
- Amos Tutuola, 76, Nigerian writer, diabetes.[35]
- Karen Wetterhahn, 48, American professor of chemistry, mercury poisoning.
9
- Károly Bajkó, 52, Hungarian wrestler.[36]
- Robert W. Hansen, 86, American lawyer and jurist.
- Ismael Huerta, 80, Chilean admiral and politician, cardiac embolism.
- Stanley Knowles, 88, Canadian politician.[37]
- Yevgeni Lebedev, 80, Soviet and Russian film and theater actor.[38]
- Thornton Lee, 90, American baseball player.[39]
- Witness Lee, 91-92, Chinese christian preacher and hymnist, cancer.
10
- Carolina Cotton, 71, American singer and actress, ovarian cancer.[40]
- Leo Fuld, 84, Dutch singer.[41]
- Kim Ki-soo, 57, South Korean boxing champion, liver cancer.[42]
- Zhou Lin, 85, Chinese politician.[43]
11
- Herman Basudde, 38, Ugandan kadongo kamu musician, traffic accident.
- Robert Bates, 48, Northern Irish Ulster loyalist, shot.
- Thalassa Cruso, 88, British-American presenter and author on horticulture, Alzheimer's disease.[44]
- Ben Dunkelman, 83, Canadian-Israeli military officer, heart attack.
- Gonzalo Fonseca, 74, Uruguayan artist, stroke.[45]
- Ralph Kohl, 73, American football player, coach and scout.[46]
- Satyanarayan Rajguru, 93, Indian litterateur, epigraphist and historian.
- Mihir Sen, 66, Indian long distance swimmer, combination of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
- Kurt Stöpel, 89, German road bicycle racer.
- Lütfiye Sultan, 87, Turkish Ottoman princess.
12
- Jo Backaert, 75, Belgian football player.
- Rick Baldwin, 42, American racing driver, racing accident.
- Pieter d'Hont, 80, Dutch sculptor.
- Colette Magny, 70, French singer and songwriter.[47]
- Vittorio Mussolini, 80, Italian film critic and producer.
- Bulat Okudzhava, 73, Soviet/Russian poet, writer, musician, and singer-songwriter.[48]
- Arnaldo Sentimenti, 83, Italian football player and coach.[49]
- Veikko Vennamo, 84, Finnish politician.
- Joe Ben Wheat, 81, American archaeologist and author.[50]
14
- Marjorie Best, 94, American costume designer (Giant, Rio Bravo, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Oscar winner (1950).
- Helmut Fischer, 70, German actor, carcinoma.[54]
- Richard Jaeckel, 70, American actor (The Dirty Dozen, Sometimes a Great Notion. Starman), melanoma.[55]
- Helena Sanders, 86, British cultural activist, politician and poet.
15
- Nicholas Danby, British organist and composer.
- George Denholm, 88, British flying ace during World War II.
- Frode Jakobsen, 90, Danish author and politician.
- Edmond Leburton, 82, Belgian politician and Prime Minister.[56]
- Robert C. McEwen, 77, American politician.[57]
- Attilio Redolfi, 73, Italian-French racing cyclist.[58]
- Son Sen, 67, Cambodian communist politician and soldier, summary execution.
- Dal Stivens, 85, Australian writer.
16
- Mariya Batrakova, 74, Soviet and Russian Red Army officer and Hero of the Soviet Union.
- Rolf Ericson, 74, Swedish jazz trumpeter.[59]
- Badi-ud-din Mahmud, 92, Sri Lankan politician.
- Elizabeth McBride, 42, American costume designer (Driving Miss Daisy, Thelma & Louise, The Shawshank Redemption), cancer.
- Michael O'Herlihy, 68, Irish television producer and director.[60]
- Sukumaran, 49, Indian film actor and producer, heart attack.
- Sue Sumii, 95, Japanese social reformer, writer, and novelist.[61]
- Tom Søndergaard, 53, Danish football player.
- Inge Wersin-Lantschner, 92, Austrian alpine skier and world champion.
17
- Frances Foster, 73, American film, television and stage actress, cerebral hemorrhage.[62]
- Bernhard Jensen, 85, Danish flatwater canoeist and Olympian.[63]
- Maurice Rootes, 80, British film editor.
- Hari Krishna Shastri, 59, Indian politician.
18
- James Willard Hurst, 86, American legal scholar and law history pioneer, cancer.[64]
- Lev Kopelev, 85, Soviet author and dissident.[65]
- Devon Russell, Jamaican rocksteady and reggae singer and record producer, brain tumour.
- Cândido Tavares, 85, Portuguese football goalkeeper and manager.
- José María Fernández Unsáin, 78, Argentine film director, screenwriter, and playwright.[66]
- C. Martin Wilbur, 89, American historian and professor at Columbia University.[67]
- Héctor Yazalde, 51, Argentine footballer, heart failure.
19
- Basu Bhattacharya, Indian film director, acute pancreatitis.[68]
- Robert Francis Byrnes, 79, American professor of history, heart attack.[69]
- Jiří David, 74, Czech sprinter and Olympian.[70]
- Cathleen Delany, 89, Irish actress.[71]
- Olga Georges-Picot, 57, French actress, suicide.[72]
- Thurman Green, 56, American jazz trombonist.[73]
- Bobby Helms, 63, American country music singer, emphysema and asthma.[74]
- Robert Henrion, 81, Belgian politician.[75]
- Julia Smith, 70, English television director and producer, cancer.[76]
- Stan Stasiak, 60, Canadian professional wrestler known as Stan Stasiak, heart failure.
20
- John Akii-Bua, 47, Ugandan hurdler and the nation's first Olympic champion.[77]
- Armando Brancia, 79, Italian film and television actor.[78]
- Paul Carell, 85, German Nazi politician and propagandist.
- Henri Haest, 70, Belgian hammer thrower and Olympian.[79]
- Cahit Külebi, 80, Turkish poet and author, cancer.
- John Michael Macdonald, 91, Canadian politician.
- Lawrence Payton, 59, American tenor, songwriter, musician, and record producer, liver cancer.[80]
- Alberto Rivera, 61, Spanish anti-Catholic religious activist, colon cancer.
21
- Shintarō Katsu, 65, Japanese actor, singer, producer, and director, pharyngeal cancer.[81]
- Shantilal Jamnadas Mehta, 92, Indian surgeon and medical academic.
- Arthur Prysock, 68, American jazz and R&B singer.[82]
- Karl Ridderbusch, 65, German operatic bass.[83]
- Fidel Velázquez Sánchez, 97, Mexican union leader, cardiac and respiratory failure.[84]
- Vladimir Vinogradov, 75, Soviet diplomat.
22
- Lars Bergendahl, 88, Norwegian cross-country skier.
- William Slater Brown, 100, American novelist, biographer, and translator of French literature.[85]
- Larry Grossman, 53, Canadian politician (Legislative Assembly of Ontario), brain cancer.
- Ted Gärdestad, 41, Swedish singer, songwriter, musician, and actor, suicide.
- Don Henderson, 65, English actor (Star Wars, The Paradise Club, Strangers), throat cancer.[86]
- Paul Napolitano, 74, American basketball player.[87]
- Gérard Pelletier, 78, Canadian journalist and politician.[88]
23
- Tom Calder, 79, Australian rules football player.
- Rosina Lawrence, 84, British-Canadian actress and singer, cancer.[89]
- Prince Nico Mbarga, 47, Nigerian Igbo highlife musician, motorcycle accident.
- Don Norton, 59, American gridiron football player.[90]
- Betty Shabazz, 63, American civil rights advocate and widow of Malcolm X, burns.[91]
- Acharya Tulsi, 82, Indian Jain religious leader.[92]
24
- Brian Keith, 75, American actor (Family Affair, The Parent Trap, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming), suicide.[93]
- Paul Lavalle, 88, American conductor, composer, arranger and peron clarinet and saxophone.[94]
- Sanjukta Panigrahi, 52, Indian Odissi dancer, cancer.[95]
- Leonard B. Strang, 72, British professor of paediatric sciences, cancer.
25
- Bobby Blackwood, 62, Scottish footballer.[96]
- Jacques Cousteau, 87, French explorer, conservationist, and oceanographer, heart attack.[97]
- William Grinnell, 87, American football player and coach, congestive heart failure.
- Mario Salvadori, 90, American structural engineer and professor at Columbia University.[98]
- Sotim Ulugzoda, 85, Soviet and Tajik writer.
26
- George Bassman, 83, American composer and arranger.[99]
- Don Bradley, 72, English football player.
- Charlie Chester, 83, English comedian, radio and television presenter and writer.
- Robert Frucht, 90, German-Chilean mathematician.
- Don Hutson, 84, American football player (Green Bay Packers) and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.[100]
- Israel Kamakawiwoʻole, 38, Native Hawaiian musician and activist, respiratory failure.
- Thomas Joseph Murphy, 64, American prelate in the Catholic Church, cerebral hemorrhage.[101]
- William Turnbull, 62, American architect, cancer.[102]
27
- Ray Benge, 95, American baseball player.[103]
- Narinder Biba, 56, Indian Punjabi singer.
- Samuel L. Devine, 81, American politician, cancer.[104]
- Joseph Zong Huaide, 80, Chinese Roman Catholic Bishop.
- W. O. G. Lofts, 73, British researcher and author.[105]
- Harrison Marks, 70, English glamour photographer and director of pornographic films.[106]
- Kenneth Neate, 82, Australian tenor, opera producer, composer and author.[107]
- Ken Richardson, 85, English racing and test driver.
- Ondino Viera, 95, Uruguayan football manager.[108]
28
- Gary DeVore, 55, American Hollywood screenwriter, murdered.[109]
- Forest Dewey Dodrill, 95, American doctor and inventor of the Dodrill-GMR heart machine.[110]
- Jack Hinton, 87, New Zealand soldier during World War II and recipient of the Victoria Cross.
- Hubert Lamb, 83, English climatologist.
- Hildegard Ochse, 61, German photographer, leukemia.
- Friedrich von Mellenthin, 92, German Wehrmacht general during World War II.[111]
- Yang Yichen, 83, Chinese politician.
29
- Nicholas Cleaveland Bodman, 83, American linguist.
- William Hickey, 69, American actor (Prizzi's Honor, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, The Nightmare Before Christmas), emphysema and bronchitis.[112]
- Marjorie Linklater, 88, Scottish arts and environment campaigner, cancer and heart failure.[113]
- Tom Lovell, 88, American illustrator and painter, car accident.[114]
- Petey Rosenberg, 79, American basketball player.[115]
30
- Gyula Benkő, 78, Hungarian actor and father of actor Péter Benkő.[116]
- Su Bingqi, 87, Chinese archaeologist.
- William Bradley, 64, English bicycle racer and Olympian.[117]
- Larry O'Dea, 53, Australian professional wrestler, liver cancer.[118]
- Alcira Soust Scaffo, 73, Uruguayan teacher and poet, respiratory disease.