January 1 - Alfredo Binda, Italian cyclist
January 4 - Phil Lynott, lead singer and bassist of Thin Lizzy
January 7 - Juan Rulfo, Mexican writer
January 8 - Pierre Fournier, French cellist
January 10 - Jaroslav Seifert, Czech writer, Nobel Prize laureate
January 14 - Donna Reed, American actress
January 24 - L. Ron Hubbard, American writer and founder of Scientology
January 24 - Gordon MacRae, American actor, singer
January 27 - Lilli Palmer, German actress
February 1 - Alva Myrdal, Swedish politician, diplomat, and writer, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
February 6 - Frederick Coutts, the 8th General of The Salvation Army
February 11 - Frank Herbert, American author
February 11 - Evelio Javier, Filipino politician, lawyer, and civil servant
February 21 - Helen Hooven Santmyer, American writer
February 21 - Shigechiyo Izumi, Japanese supercentenarian, the oldest man ever
February 24 - Tommy Douglas, Canadian politician and "Father of Medicare" in Canada
February 27 - Jacques Plante, Canadian hockey player
February 28 - Olof Palme, Prime Minister of Sweden
February 28 - Thomas Williams, British politician
March 4 - Richard Manuel, Canadian musician (The Band)
March 4 - Howard Greenfield, American songwriter
March 6 - Georgia O'Keeffe, American artist
March 10 - Ray Milland, Welsh actor
March 23 - Moshe Feinstein, Orthodox Rabbi
March 30 - James Cagney, American actor
April 3 - Peter Pears, English tenor
April 7 - Leonid Kantorovich, Russian economist, Nobel Prize laureate
April 8 - Yukiko Okada, Japanese idol singer
April 14 - Simone de Beauvoir, French feminist writer
April 15 - Jean Genet, French writer
April 19 - Aileen Britton, Australian actress
April 22 - Mircea Eliade, Romanian historian of religions and writer
April 23 - Harold Arlen, 20th century American music composer
April 23 - Otto Preminger, Austrian-born film director
April 24 - Wallis Simpson, wife of King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, later titled "Duke of Windsor" due to his abdication
April 26 - Broderick Crawford, American actor
April 26 - Dechko Uzunov, Bulgarian painter
May 2 - Henri Toivonen, Finnish rally car driver
May 3 - Robert Alda, American-born actor
May 9 - Tenzing Norgay, Nepalese sherpa
May 11 - Henry P. McIlhenny, American art collector, socialite, philanthropist and the chairman of the Philadelphia Art Museum
May 12 - Elisabeth Bergner, Austrian actress
May 15 - Elio de Angelis, Italian race car driver
May 15 - Theodore White, American writer
May 19 - Jimmy Lyons, American musician
May 23 - Sterling Hayden, American actor
May 25 - Chester Bowles, American politician
May 26 - Gian-Carlo Coppola, American film producer
May 31 - Jane Frank (Jane Schenthal Frank), American artist
May 31 - James Rainwater, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
June 13 - Benny Goodman, American jazz musician
June 14 - Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine writer
June 16 - Maurice Duruflé, French composer
June 17 - Kate Smith, American singer
June 18 - Frances Scott Fitzgerald, Daughter of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre.
June 19 - Len Bias, American basketball player
June 19 - Coluche, stage name of Michel Colucci, French comedian and humorist
June 21 - Assi Rahbani, Lebanese composer, musician, conductor and author
July 4 - Oscar Zariski, Russian mathematician
July 6 - Jagjivan Ram, Indian politician
July 8 - Hyman Rickover, American admiral
July 8 - Skeeter Webb, baseball player
July 14 - Raymond Loewy, French-born industrial designer
July 15 - Billy Haughton, American harness driver and trainer
July 21 - Ernest Maas, American screenwriter
July 24 - Fritz Albert Lipmann, American biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
July 25 - Vincente Minnelli, American film director
August 2 - Roy Cohn, American lawyer and anti-Communist
August 16 - Jaime Saenz, Bolivian poet, novelist, and short story writer
August 20 - Milton Acorn, Canadian poet, writer, and playwright
August 26 -- Ted Knight, American actor (b. 1923)
August 31 - Urho Kekkonen, President of Finland
August 31 - Henry Moore, British sculptor
September 4 - Hank Greenberg, baseball player
September 7 - Omar Ali Saifuddin III, Sultan of Brunei
September 25 - Nikolay Nikolayevich Semyonov, Russian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
September 27 - Cliff Burton, American bassist (Metallica)
October 5 - James H. Wilkinson, English mathematician
October 14 - Keenan Wynn, American actor
October 16 - Arthur Grumiaux, Belgian violinist
October 22 - Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, Hungarian physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate
October 23 - Edward Adelbert Doisy, American biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
October 25 - Forrest Tucker, American actor
October 26 - Jackson Scholz, American runner
October 28 - Ian Marter, British actor and writer
October 31 - Robert S. Mulliken, American physicist and chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
November 2 - Paul Frees, American voice actor
November 6 - Elisabeth Grümmer, Alsatian soprano
November 8 - Artur London, Czech statesman
November 8 - Vyacheslav Molotov, Soviet politician
November 18 - Gia Carangi, supermodel
November 21 - Dar Robinson, American film stuntman
November 22 - Scatman Crothers, American actor, musician
November 22 - William Bradford Huie, American journalist, editor, publisher and author
November 29 - Cary Grant, British actor
December 2 - Desi Arnaz, Cuban-born actor
December 3 - Austin Hayes, Irish footballer
December 21 - Willy Coppens, Belgian pilot
December 29 - Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
December 29 - Andrei Tarkovsky, Russian film director
