- Jan 4 Willem Bruynzeel, Dutch timber/lumber/wood manufacturer, dies at 76
- Jan 6 John D MacArthur, US insurance billionaire, dies at 80
- Jan 6 Burt Munro, New Zealand motorcycle racer (b. 1899)
- Jan 8 Walter Keirnan, TV panelist (I've Got a Secret), dies at 75
- Jan 9 Eddie Gilbert, cricket (Aboriginal Qld quick got Don for a duck), dies
- Jan 10 John D. Rockefeller III, US billionaire/philanthropist, dies at 71
- Jan 10 Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, of La Prensa, assassinated in Managua
- Jan 10 Zeb Turner, country-rock performer (Chew Tobacco Rag), dies at 62
- Jan 10 Don Gillis, American composer (b. 1912)
- Jan 11 Michael Bates, English actor (Clockwork Orange, Salt & Pepper), dies at 57
- Jan 11 Ibn-e-Insha, Pakistani humorist and Urdu poet (b. 1927)
- Jan 13 Hubert Humphrey, (Sen-D-Minn, VP), dies at 66 in Waverly, Minn
- Jan 13 Joseph V McCarthy, baseball manager (NY Yankees), dies at 96
- Jan 14 Blossom Rock [Edith Marie Blossom MacDonald], American actress (Grandmamma-Addams Family), dies at 81
- Jan 14 Robert Heger, composer, dies at 91
- Jan 14 Harold Abrahams, British athlete (b. 1899)
- Jan 14 Kurt Gödel, Austrian mathematician (b. 1906)
- Jan 15 Margaret Bowman & Janet Levy, Chi Omega, FSU, killed by Ted Bundy
- Jan 18 Carl Betz, American actor (The Donna Reed Show, Love of Life), dies of lung cancer at 56
- Jan 18 Ivan Ivonovich Dzerzhinsky, Russian composer, dies at 68
- Jan 18 Hasan Askari, Pakistani philosopher, critic and writer (b. 1919)
- Jan 18 Walter H. Thompson, English Scotland Yard detective, bodyguard of Winston Churchill (b. 1890)
- Jan 21 Freda Utley, British scholar and author. (b. 1898)
- Jan 22 Herbert Sutcliffe, cricketer (54 Tests for England 4555 runs), dies
- Jan 22 Oliver Leese, British World War II general, dies at 83
- Jan 23 Jack Oakie, American actor (The Great Dictator, 1974 Photoplay Award), dies at 74
- Jan 23 Terry Kath, American musician and songwriter (Chicago), accidentally shot in head at 31
- Jan 23 Vic Ames, American singer (Ames Brothers), dies in a car accident at 52
- Jan 24 Herta Oberheuser, German doctor (b. 1911)
- Jan 25 Tango Duke, dies in Australia at 42; oldest known thoroughbred horse
- Jan 26 Leo Genn, British lawyer and actor (Mourning Becomes Electra, Moby Dick, Affair in Monte Carlo), dies at 72
- Jan 27 Marguerite Canal, composer, dies at 87
- Jan 27 Oscar Homolka, Hungarian actor (Sabotage, The Seven Year Itch, Ball of Fire, I Remember Mama), dies at 79
- Jan 29 Tim McCoy, American actor (Arizona Bound) and soldier, dies at 86