The following is a list of notable deaths in January 1998.
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.
January 1998
1 John F. Bateman, 83, American football player and coach. Muhamet Dibra, 74, Albanian footballer. Piero Filippone, 86, Italian art director. Jack Forsey, 84, Canadian ice hockey player (Toronto Maple Leafs). Dennis Hatsell, 67, English football player. Alfred Lagarde, 49, Dutch radio personality, stroke. Haxhi Lleshi, 84, Albanian military leader and communist politician. Xanthe Ryder, 71, British alpine skier and Olympian (1948). Åke Seyffarth, 78, Swedish speed skater, road cyclist and Olympian (1948). Helen Wills, 92, American tennis player and Olympian (1924).
2 Max Colpet, 92, American writer, scriptwriter and lyricist. Sergei Frolov, 73, Soviet/Russian realist painter and graphic artist. Virginia Galante Garrone, 91, Italian writer. Donald McCormick, 86, British journalist and popular historian. Frank Muir, 77, English comedy writer and radio and television personality. Fred Naumetz, 75, American gridiron football player (Los Angeles Rams). Rell Sunn, 47, American World surfing champion, cancer. Nick Venet, 61, American record producer, Burkitt's lymphoma.
3 Wayne Ambler, 82, American baseball player (Philadelphia Athletics). Essie Coffey, 56, Australian Aboriginal community leader. Howard Gilman, 73, American philanthropist and art collector, heart attack. William Russell Kelly, 92, American businessman, cancer. Margot Lumb, 85, English squash and tennis player. George Shaw, 64, American gridiron football player. Eugenio Soto, 88, Chilean footballer. Geoffrey Watson, 76, Australian statistician.
4 Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, 103, Italian film director, complications from a fall. Raymond Léopold Bruckberger, 90, French Dominican priest, writer, and screenwriter. Thomas F. Frist, Sr., 87, American physician and businessman. John Gary, 65, American singer, recording artist, and television host. Dini Haryati, 19, Indonesian student. Roland Kaiser, 54, German actor and voice actor. Ahmed Mohiuddin, 74, Pakistani scientist and scholar. Giuseppe Primavera, 80, Italian chess player. Sally Purcell, 53, British poet and translator, lymphoma of brain cells. Mae Questel, 89, American actress (Betty Boop), Alzheimer's disease. Francisco Soc Rodrigo, 83, Filipino playwright, broadcaster, lawyer and politician. Han Soo-ann, 71, South Korean Olympic boxer (1948, 1952). Rudy Sikich, 76, American gridiron football player (Cleveland Rams). Yusif Yusifov, 68, Soviet and Azerbaijani linguist and historian.
5 Hugo Avendaño, 70, Mexican singer and actor, pancreatic cancer. David Bairstow, 46, English cricketer, suicide by hanging. Sonny Bono, 62, American singer-songwriter, actor and politician, skiing accident. Alik Cavaliere, 71, Italian sculptor. Ana Cortés, 102, Chilean painter. Ken Forssi, 54, American musician, brain tumor, brain cancer. Roy Mayne, 62, American stock car racing driver.
6 Walt Barnes, 79, American football player (Philadelphia Eagles), and actor, diabetes. Richard Clutterbuck, 80, British army general and military historian. Otello Colangeli, 85, Italian film editor. Jack T. Conway, 80, American labor unionist. Alice Frost, 87, American actress. Victorine du Pont Homsey, 97, American architect. Märta Johansson, 90, Swedish Olympic diver (1924). Ronny Miller, 79, American baseball player (Washington Senators). Murray Salem, 47, American television actor and screenwriter, AIDS-related complications. Otto Schmitt, 84, American inventor, engineer and biophysicist. Georgy Sviridov, 82, Soviet and Russian composer, heart attack.
7 Owen Bradley, 82, American musician and record producer. Roger Dean, 84, Australian politician. Jacqueline deWit, 85, American actress. Richard Hamming, 82, American mathematician, heart attack. Dorothy Leavey, 101, American philanthropist.Myrna Oliver, Longtime Philanthropist Dorothy Leavey Dies, The Los Angeles Times, 9 January 1998. Retrieved 23 April 2022 Alva Liles, 41, American gridiron football player (Oakland Raiders, Detroit Lions). Slava Metreveli, 61, Soviet and Georgian football player and manager. Hiker Moran, 86, American baseball player (Boston Bees). Valerio Perentin, 88, Italian rower and Olympian (1928, 1936). Vladimir Prelog, 91, Croatian-born Swiss organic chemist. Frank Roberts, 90, British diplomat. Lawrence Treat, 94, American mystery writer. Tere Velázquez, 55, Mexican actress, colorectal cancer. Dorothy Wilson, 88, American film actress.
8 Doug Anderson, 70, Canadian ice hockey player (Montreal Canadiens). Rui Araújo, 87, Portuguese footballer. Erwin Blasl, 86, Austrian Olympic water polo player (1936). Bill Corbus, 86, American gridiron football player. Walter Diemer, 94, American inventor of bubble gum, congestive heart failure. Marie-Madeleine Dienesch, 83, French politician. Tony Lavelli, 71, American basketball player (Boston Celtics, New York Knicks), and musician, heart attack. Denys Lombard, 59, French historian and sinologist. Akihiko Mori, 32, Japanese video game music composer, cancer. Max Morris, 72, American basketball and gridiron football player. Sam Perrin, 96, American screenwriter. Shamima Shaikh, 37, South African journalist and Muslim women's rights activist, breast cancer. Raziuddin Siddiqui, 90, Pakistan-born American physicist. Sir Michael Tippett, 90, English composer, pneumonia.
9 Hugo Zepeda Barrios, 90, Chilean politician and lawyer. Paul H. Dunn, 73, American Mormon leader. Kenichi Fukui, 79, Japanese chemist and Nobel Prize laureate, cancer. Richard Graff, 60, American winemaker, plane crash.Obituary: Richard Graff Alberto Isaac, 74, Mexican Olympic swimmer (1948, 1952), film director and screenwriter. Imi Lichtenfeld, 87, Israeli martial artist. Lia Manoliu, 65, Romanian discus thrower and Olympian (1952, 1956, 1960, 1964, 1968, 1972), heart attack. Kathleen Shannon, 62, Canadian film director and producer, lung cancer. Charito Solis, 62, Filipino film actress, cardiac arrest.
10 Elaine Bray, 57, Australian cricketer. Mark Goodspeed, 41, American football player (St. Louis Cardinals). Deng Guangming, 90, Chinese historian, cancer. Wolfgang Hahn, 86, German mathematician. Mona May Karff, 83, American chess player. Victor Papanek, 74, Austrian-American designer. Mario Santiago Papasquiaro, 44, Mexican poet, traffic collision. Emilio Torres, 91, Colombian Olympic middle-distance runner (1936). Lars Zebroski, 56, American Olympic cyclist (1960).
11 Joe Becker, 89, American baseball player (Cleveland Indians), and coach. Erik Jarvik, 90, Swedish paleontologist. Win Mortimer, 78, Canadian comic book and comic strip artist, cancer. Ellis Rabb, 67, American actor and director, heart failure. Ronald Rylance, 73, English rugby player. Aydan Siyavuş, 50, Turkish basketball player and coach, heart attack. Bedri Spahiu, 89, Albanian politician and general. Klaus Tennstedt, 71, German conductor, cancer. Georgi Vins, 69, Soviet dissident and Baptist pastor. John Wells, 61, English actor, writer and satirist.Satirist John Wells dies – BBC News, 11 January 1998. Retrieved 9 November 2019
12 Florence Riefle Bahr, 88, American artist and activist, house fire. Bruce Beer, 87, Canadian politician, member of the House of Commons of Canada (1962-1972). Ramón Sampedro Cameán, 55, Spanish writer and euthanasia activist, assisted suicide. Roger Clark, 58, British rally driver, stroke. Kyle Dinkheller, 22, American deputy sheriff, multiple gunshot wounds. Chandrasekhar Gadkari, 69, Indian cricketer. Rajesh Joshi, 29, Indian film and theater actor. Mark MacGuigan, 66, Canadian academic and politician, liver cancer. Libuše Moníková, 52, Czech writer. Ian Moores, 43, English footballer, cancer. Phyllis Nelson, 47, American singer, breast cancer. Robert Townsend, 77, American businessman and author, heart attack.
13 Martin Flämig, 84, German church musician. Jaap Helder, 90, Dutch Olympic sailor (1960). Mihovil Logar, 95, Yugoslav composer and music writer. Muslim Mulliqi, Albanian painter. Andrew Rutherford, 68, British educationalist.Andrew Hook, Obituary: Andrew Rutherford, The Independent, 29 January 1998, accessed 9 November 2019
14 Safiye Ayla, 90, Turkish classical singer. Tony De Vita, 65, Italian composer, conductor, arranger and pianist. Arturo Enrile, 57, Filipino general, septic shock. Mohammad Ghazi, 84, Iranian writer and translator and writer, laryngeal cancer. René Sence, 77, French Olympic sailor (1972). Harry Simmons, 90, American baseball executive, writer and historian.
15 John A. Anderson, 65, American football coach, heart attack. Hal Baylor, 79, American actor. Marcelline Jayakody, 95, Sri Lankan Catholic priest, musician, author, journalist. Gennady Kolbin, 70, Soviet politician. Marguerite Kuczynski, 93, German economist and literary scholar. Duncan McNaughton, 87, Canadian athlete and Olympian (1932). Gulzarilal Nanda, 99, Indian politician and economist. E. Jack Neuman, 76, American writer and producer. Ahmed Oudjani, 60, Algerian football player. George Pottinger, 81, British convicted fraudster.'Pottinger, player in Poulson scandal, dies at 81', Herald Scotland, 19 January 1998. Accessed 9 November 2019. Boris Tatushin, 64, Soviet football player, manager, and Olympian (1956). Harriet Van Horne, 77, American newspaper columnist and radio/television critic, breast cancer. Junior Wells, 63, American blues vocalist and harmonica player, lymphoma.
16 Lionel Birkett, 92, Barbadian cricketer. Gayane C'ebotaryan, 79, Armenian composer and musicologist. Hans Grünberg, 80, German Luftwaffe fighter ace during World War II. Dimitris Horn, 76, Greek-Austrian actor, cancer. Matti Kuusi, 83, Finnish folklorist, paremiographer and paremiologist. Greta Magnusson, 68, Swedish athlete and Olympian (1952). Lorenzo Mongiardino, 81, Italian architect and interior designer, pneumonia. Tommy Pederson, 77, American jazz trombonist and composer. Emil Sitka, 83, American actor, stroke. Luggi Waldleitner, 84, German film producer.
17 Alan E. Cober, 62, American illustrator. Zygmunt Czyżewski, 87, Polish ice hockey and football player and manager. Helvi Hämäläinen, 90, Finnish writer. Junior Kimbrough, 67, American blues musician, heart attack. Luizinho, 67, Brazilian footballer. Joseph S. Murphy, 64, American political scientist and university administrator, traffic collision. Cliffie Stone, 80, American musician and radio and TV personality. Frank Gordon Theis, 86, American district judge (United States District Court for the District of Kansas).
18 Byron Bailey, 67, American gridiron and Canadian football player (Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, BC Lions). Joan Banks, 79, American actress, lung cancer. Jose Calugas, 90, Filipino-American Philippine Scout and recipient of the Medal of Honor. Guy Charbonneau, 75, Canadian politician. Maria Judite de Carvalho, 76, Portuguese author. Monica Edwards, 85, English children's writer. Dan Georgiadis, 75, Greek football player and manager. Antoine "T.C.D." Lundy, 34, American singer, ALS. Gerry Ottenheimer, 63, Canadian politician. Benjamin Hoskins Paddock, 71, American bank robber and con man, FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive, heart attack. Skeet Quinlan, 69, American gridiron football player (Los Angeles Rams, Cleveland Browns). Wilhelm Törsleff, 91, Swedish Olympic sailor (1928). Josip Uhač, 73, Yugoslav-Croatian Apostolic nuncio. James Villiers, 64, English actor, cancer. Jan Vrolijk, 80, Dutch Olympic canoeist (1936).
19 Hansruedi Bruder, 60, Swiss sprinter and Olympian (1960). Bengt Eklund, 73, Swedish actor. Tomáš Jungwirth, 55, Czech Olympic middle-distance runner (1968). Cornelis Kalkman, 69, Dutch botanist. Al Negratti, 76, American basketball player (Washington Capitols), and coach, cancer.