Famous People Who Died in March a to z

Silent film director F.W. Murnau created the first major vampire film with 1924's Nosferatu, based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stroker.

Modest Mussorgsky was a 19th century Russian composer. His most famous works include "Night on Bald Mountain," "Boris Godunov" and "Pictures at an Exhibition."

French artist Nadar was a caricaturist and photographer who became famous for his portrait studio and the images snapped from his giant hot air balloon.

Sarojini Naidu was an India political leader best known as the first female President of the India National Congress.

English physicist and mathematician Sir Isaac Newton, most famous for his law of gravitation, was instrumental in the scientific revolution of the 17th century.

Organized crime figure Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti was a member of Al Capone’s Chicago gang, and the front man for Capone’s empire when Capone was imprisoned.

Georgia O'Keeffe is a 20th century American painter best known for her flower canvases and southwestern landscapes.

Aristotle Onassis is best known as the Greek shipping tycoon who married JFK’s widow, Jacqueline Kennedy, in 1968. Onassis died on March 15, 1975.

American track-and-field athlete Jesse Owens won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. His long jump world record stood for 25 years.

German composer Johann Pachelbel was known for his works for organ, and was considered one of the great organ masters of the generation before J.S. Bach.

Charlie Parker was a legendary Grammy Award–winning jazz saxophonist who with Dizzy Gillespie invented the musical style called bop or bebop.

Gordon Parks was an African-American photographer, filmmaker and author, best known for his work published in LIFE magazine and for directing the hit movie Shaft.

Maxfield Parrish was an American painter and illustrator who was the highest-paid commercial artist in the United States by the 1920s.

Lucy Parsons was an activist who was politically radical for her times and one of the first minority activists.

Paul I of Russia served as the nation's emperor for a brief, tyrannical five years before he was assassinated 1801.

Matthew C. Perry was a 19th century U.S. Naval officer who fought in the Mexican War and headed an important naval expedition to Japan.

Homer Plessy is best known as the plaintiff in Plessy v. Ferguson, a landmark court case challenging southern-based segregation.

Pocahontas, later known as Rebecca Rolfe, was a Native American who assisted English colonists during their first years in Virginia.

Thanks to the model 356, created in 1948 by Ferdinand Anton Ernst "Ferry" Porsche, the Porsche car company became known worldwide as a producer of successful sports and racing cars. Several years earlier, in 1934, Porsche worked with father Ferdinand Porsche on the first designs of the Volkswagen car.

Actor Robert Preston was best known for his portrayal of the charismatic huckster in The Music Man—a role he played on Broadway and in the film adaptation.

Elizabeth I was the long-ruling queen of England, governing with relative stability and prosperity for 44 years. The Elizabethan era is named for her.

Queen Elizabeth was the Queen consort of King George VI until his death in 1952. She is best known for her moral support to the British people during WWII and her longevity.

Sergey Rachmaninov was a Russian musician known for his magnificent piano playing as well as his distinguished compositions and symphonies.

J. Arthur Rank was a British film producer and magnate who also owned two large movie chains.

British thespian Michael Redgrave is acclaimed for his theater and film roles. He has also sired two generations of acting luminaries.

Dana Reeve was an actress and the wife of actor Christopher Reeve. She established and chaired the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Resource Center.

Adrienne Rich is a U.S. poet, scholar and critic whose work exhibits her commitment to the women's movement and a lesbian/feminist aesthetic influence.

Chemist, sanitation engineer, and home economist Ellen Richards opened scientific education and professions to women when she started teaching at MIT in 1884.

British actress of stage and screen Natasha Richardson won a Tony Award for her work in the Broadway show Cabaret before dying in a tragic skiing accident.

Patricia Roberts Harris was the first African-American woman to hold a cabinet position, serve as U.S. ambassador and head a law school.

Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin was an American community leader and women's rights activist who focused particularly on issues affecting African-American women.

Augusta Savage is remembered as an artist, activist, and arts educator, serving as an inspiration to the many that she taught, helped, and encouraged.

British actor Paul Scofield is one of only a handful of actors who have won an Oscar, an Emmy and a Tony.

Earl Scruggs is a bluegrass musician who pioneered the Scruggs Style, a method of banjo playing.

Known as the "Queen of Tejano Music," Selena was a beloved Latin recording artist who was killed by the president of her fan club.

Hailed as Britain's "best ever pop singer" by Rolling Stone, the English-born Dusty Springfield charted several 1960s hits, including "Son of a Preacher Man."

Joseph Stalin ruled the Soviet Union for more than two decades, instituting a reign of terror while modernizing Russia and helping to defeat Nazism.

Maureen Stapleton was an American actress known primarily for her stage work in the plays of Tennessee Williams.

Rudolf Steiner was a lecturer and founder of anthroposophy. His works attempted to find a synthesis between science and mysticism.

Alexander Stephens was the Confederate vice president during the American Civil War.

Charles Sumner was a U.S. Representative best known an anti-slavery advocate who authored the nation’s first civil rights legislation.

William Howard Taft, the 27th president of the United States, fulfilled a lifelong dream when he was appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court, becoming the only person to have served as both a U.S. chief justice and president.

Architect Kenzo Tange's best-known early work is the Hiroshima Peace Center. His later work includes the dramatic National Gymnasium for the 1964 Olympic Games.

Actress Elizabeth Taylor starred in films like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Butterfield 8, but was just as famous for her violet eyes and scandalous love life.

Jim Thorpe was a Native American professional football and baseball player, known for his all-around athleticism. He was a gold-medal runner at the 1912 Olympics.

Tiberius was an ancient Roman emperor who ruled from year 14 to 37.

Poet, novelist and short-story writer Jean Toomer was a major figure during the Harlem Renaissance. He is best known for his first book, Cane.

Santo Trafficante is best known for running casinos in Cuba, prior to Castro's revolution.

Harriet Tubman escaped slavery to become a leading abolitionist. She led hundreds of enslaved people to freedom along the route of the Underground Railroad.

Peter Ustinov was an English actor, writer and director who is known for his Oscar-winning performances in Spartacus (1960) and Topkapi (1964).

Jules Verne was a 19th century French author whose revolutionary science-fiction novels, including Around the World in Eighty Days and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, have entranced readers for more than a century.

Actress Nancy Walker appeared in films and on stage before playing Ida Morgenstern on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rosie in the Bounty paper towel commercials.

Blues guitarist and singer-songwriter T-Bone Walker is best known for his hit song "Stormy Monday"  and has been called the Charlie Parker of Blues guitar.

DeWitt Wallace was an American publisher and, with his wife, founder of Reader's Digest magazine. The couple supported numerous philanthropic causes.

Ida B. Wells was an African-American journalist and activist who led an anti-lynching crusade in the United States in the 1890s.

Walt Whitman was an American poet whose verse collection Leaves of Grass is a landmark in the history of American literature.

William I is best known for ruling Prussia as regent, and king, and later as German emperor.

Eric Williams formed the People's National Movement for an independent Trinidad and Tobago, and served as that country's first prime minister.

Actor Paul Winfield was best known for his portrayal of a Louisiana sharecropper in the film Sounder, which earned him an Academy Award nomination.

English Writer Virginia Woolf became famous for her nonlinear prose style, especially noted in her novels Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse.