- Apr 1 Bruno Coquatrix, French music impresario (b. 1910)
- Apr 2 Carroll D Rosenbloom, LA Rams president, dies at 72
- Apr 2 Ivan Barrow, cricketer (11 Tests for West Indies 1930-39), dies
- Apr 4 Edgar Buchanan, American actor (Petticoat Junction), dies at 76
- Apr 4 Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistani president, hanged in Pakistan at 51
- Apr 5 Eugène Gabritschevsky, Russian biologist and artist (b. 1893)
- Apr 6 M Marie Wadlow, American softball pitcher (Hall of Fame 1957), dies at 61
- Apr 6 Milton Ager, American composer, dies at 85
- Apr 7 Bruno Apitz, German writer, dies at 78
- Apr 9 Staats Cotsworth, American actor (Hamlet, Peyton Place), dies at 71
- Apr 10 Henriette P "Hetty" Beck, actress (Dodendans), dies at 91
- Apr 10 Nino Rota, Italian composer (Torquemada), dies at 67
- Apr 19 Rogers Morton, American politician (Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Maryland), dies at 64
- Apr 20 Peter Donald, British-born American actor and radio host dubbed "one of radio's great dialecticians" (Masquerade Party), dies at 60
- Apr 23 Blair Peach, New Zealand-born anti-fascist (b. 1946)
- Apr 24 John Carroll [Julian LaFaye], American actor (Flying Tigers, Go West), dies from leukaemia at 72
- Apr 28 Feliks Roderyk Labunski, composer, dies at 86
- Apr 29 Julia Perry, American composer (Soul Symphony), dies at 55
- Apr 29 Hardie Gramatky, American author and animator (Little Toot), dies at 72