Famous People Who Died in September a to z

American actor and comedian Don Adams is best known for his role as secret agent Maxwell Smart on NBC's hit 1960s sitcom Get Smart.

Charles Addams was an American cartoonist whose work was frequently featured in The New Yorker. His most famous creation was the humorously macabre Addams Family.

Spiro Agnew was twice elected U.S. vice president under Richard Nixon, but resigned from his second term after being charged with bribery, conspiracy and tax fraud.

Samuel Alexander was an Australian-born British philosopher. He was the first Jewish fellow of an Oxford or Cambridge college.

Soldier and revolutionary leader José Gervasio Artigas is regarded as the father of Uruguayan independence, which occurred years after his exile.

James Mitchell Ashley was best known as a U.S. congressman and abolitionist who laid the foundation to pass the 13th Amendment, outlawing slavery.

Politician and publisher Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor became a member of Parliament and was the publisher of the London Observer from 1915 to 1945.

Susan Atkins was a member of Charles Manson's "Family" and was convicted of the group's infamous 1969 murder of Sharon Tate, which was orchestrated by Manson.

Mohamed Atta is believed to have been the pilot of the first plane that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

W.H. Auden was a literary chameleon known for his poetry but who also wrote librettos, essays and verse dramas.

S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike was the fourth prime minister of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).

Nazi leader Klaus Barbie was head of the Gestapo in Lyon from 1942 to 1944, and was held responsible for the death and deportation thousands.

John Bell was elected Tennessee senator in 1847, serving in the Senate until 1859. He was also a U.S. presidential nominee on the eve of the American Civil War.

Ventriloquist Edgar Bergen took his comedy act from vaudeville to radio with his dummy Charlie McCarthy. He was also the father of actress Candice Bergen.

Steve Biko spearheaded the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa. He died in 1977, from injuries sustained while in police custody.

Alfred Blalock was a surgeon who pioneered corrective heart surgery in newborns and did groudbreaking work related to blood loss and shock.

Infamous drug trafficker Griselda Blanco is suspected of committing more than 200 murders while transporting cocaine from Colombia to the U.S. She was murdered in Colombia in 2012.

American explorer and frontiersman Daniel Boone blazed a trail to the far west though the Cumberland Gap, thereby providing access to the frontier.

American motion-picture actress Clare Bow personified the flapper of the 1920s. From 1927 to 1930 she was one of the top five Hollywood box-office attractions.

Tom Bradley was a lawyer and police officer who became the first African-American mayor of Los Angeles, serving from 1973 to 1993.

Anne Bradstreet was a 17th century writer who is credited as being one of the first English poets in the colonies.

André Breton was a French writer, editor and critic who was a key figure in the Dada and Surrealist art movements.

Jeremy Brett was a British actor and singer known for his roles in My Fair Lady and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

Christy Brown was a writer with cerebral palsy who penned the autobiography My Left Foot, which was adapted into a film starring Daniel Day-Lewis.

Angelo Buono was a serial killer known as the “Hillside Strangler,” who was convicted of murdering nine women in the late 1970s.

Ambrose Burnside is best known for his leadership as a general of the Union army in the Civil War, and for originating the fashion of sideburns in the United States.

Aaron Burr was the third vice president of the United States, serving under President Thomas Jefferson. Burr fatally shot his rival, Alexander Hamilton, during a duel.

Canadian actor Raymond Burr is best known for his title roles in the television dramas Perry Mason and Ironside.

Maria Callas was best known for her dramatic operatic performances around the world.

French explorer Jacques Cartier is known chiefly for exploring the St. Lawrence River and giving Canada its name.

Johnny Cash, the Man in Black, was a singer, guitarist, and songwriter whose music innovatively mixed country, rock, blues, and gospel influences.

Charles of Blois was a rival duke of Brittany in the mid-1300s.

Nationalist revolutionary Ho Chi-Minh was president of North Vietnam from 1954 to 1969. He ranks among the most famous and influential politicians of the 20th century.

St. John Chrysostom was archbishop of Constantinople and an important early church father.

William Clark was half of the famous exploration team Lewis and Clark, who explored and mapped the unknown lands west of the Mississippi River.

Levi Coffin was an American abolitionist who assisted thousands of runaway slaves on their flight to freedom.

French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798–1857) greatly advanced the field of social science, giving it the name "sociology" and influenced many 19th-century social intellectuals.

James Fenimore Cooper was a 19th-century American novelist, best known for his Leatherstocking Tales, which included The Last of the Mohicans.

Jim Croce was an American folk singer and songwriter. He released five studio albums between 1966 and 1973, before his untimely death in 1973.

From Some Like It Hot to Spartacus, Tony Curtis was the reigning Hollywood heartthrob of the 1950s. He's also known as actress Jamie Lee Curtis's dad.

Dorothy Dandridge was an American actress and popular singer, and was the first African American to be nominated for an Academy Award for best actress.

Poet, writer, political thinker. Dante was a Medieval Italian poet and philosopher whose poetic trilogy, The Divine Comedy, made an indelible impression on both literature and theology.

Nine-time Grammy Award winner Miles Davis was a major force in the jazz world, as both a trumpet player and a bandleader.

The expedition team of Francisco Vázquez de Coronado discovered the Grand Canyon and many other famous landmarks.

Michel de Montaigne was a 16th century French author best known for his series of philosophical essays, which were published in 1575.

Priest Tomas De Torquemada became notorious for his cruelty while serving as Inquisitor General during the Spanish Inquisition.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a 19th century French artist known for works like “The Streetwalker” and “At the Moulin Rouge.”

Actor and cultural icon James Dean starred in East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant. He was killed in a tragic car accident at age 24.

Painter and sculptor Edgar Degas was a highly celebrated 19th-century French Impressionist whose work helped shape the fine art landscape for years to come.

Bob Denver played the title role on the goofy 1960s TV sitcom Gilligan's Island.

André Derain was a French painter of the Fauvist school and a book illustrator. He was friends with Henri Matisse.

Domitian was a Roman emperor from years AD 81 to 96 and was known for the reign of terror members of the Senate lived under in his last years.

Hilda Doolittle (or H.D.) was a poet of the avant-garde Imagist movement and was openly bisexual.

Isadora Duncan was a trailblazing dancer and instructor whose emphasis on free forms of movement was a precursor to modern dance techniques.

Michael Clarke Duncan was an African-American actor, best remembered for his role in The Green Mile.

Irene Dunne was an Academy Award-nominated actress and singer known for her roles in Showboat, Anna and the King of Siam and Love Affair.

Willem Einthoven was a physiologist who discovered the electrical properties of the heart and developed the EKG.

Arab statesman Faisal I was king of Iraq from 1921 to 1933 and a leader in advancing Arab nationalism during and after World War I.

Father Divine was a prominent African-American religious leader of the 1930s who founded the Peace Mission, an important precursor of the Civil Rights Movement.

Serial killer Roy Fontaine, originally Archibald Hall, killed a former lover, his employers, an accomplice and another man in England in the 1970s.

Steve Fossett was an American businessman and adventurer best known for circumnavigating the globe in a hot air balloon in 2002.

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist best known for developing the theories and techniques of psychoanalysis.

Thomas Gallaudet was an education pioneer and established the American School for the Deaf in 1817.

James Garfield is best known as the 20th president of the United States. He was assassinated after only a few months in office.

Silent film actress Janet Gaynor won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Actress in 1929, for her role in the movie Seventh Heaven.

Bernice Gera became the first female umpire of a baseball game in 1972, but later resigned, reportedly because other umpires refused to work with her.