Notable Deaths on December 24

Harold Pinter was an English playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A recipient of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature, Pinter was one of the most influential modern dramatists of British theatre with a writing career that spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party (1957), The Homecoming (1964) and Betrayal (1978), each of which he adapted for the screen. His screenplay adaptations of others' works include The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1971), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), The Trial (1993) and Sleuth (2007). He also directed or acted in radio, stage, television and film productions of his own and others' works.

Betty Gleadle, known by the stage name Liz Smith, was an English actress. She was known for her roles in BBC sitcoms, including as Annie Brandon in I Didn't Know You Cared (1975–1979), the sisters Bette and Belle in 2point4 Children (1991–1999), Letitia Cropley in The Vicar of Dibley (1994–1996) and Norma ("Nana") in The Royle Family (1998–2006). For the latter, Smith was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Comedy Performance in 2007. She also played Zillah in Lark Rise to Candleford (2008) and won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her portrayal of Mother in the film A Private Function (1984).

William Marrion Branham was an American Christian minister and faith healer who initiated the post-World War II healing revival, and claimed to be a prophet with the anointing of Elijah, who had come to prelude Christ's second coming; He is credited as "a principal architect of restorationist thought" for charismatics by some Christian historians, and has been called the "leading individual in the second wave of Pentecostalism." He made a lasting influence on televangelism and the modern charismatic movement, and his "stage presence remains a legend unparalleled in the history of the Charismatic movement". At the time they were held, Branham's inter-denominational meetings were the largest religious meetings ever held in some American cities. Branham was the first American deliverance minister to successfully campaign in Europe; his ministry reached global audiences with major campaigns held in North America, Europe, Africa, and India.

Norman Vincent Peale was an American Protestant clergyman, and an author best known for popularizing the concept of positive thinking, especially through his best-selling book The Power of Positive Thinking (1952). He served as the pastor of Marble Collegiate Church, New York, from 1932, leading this Reformed Church in America congregation for more than a half century until his retirement in 1984. Alongside his pulpit ministry, he had an extensive career of writing and editing, and radio and television presentations. Despite arguing at times against involvement of clergy in politics, he nevertheless had some controversial affiliations with politically active organizations in the late 1930s, and engaged with national political candidates and their campaigns, having influence on some, including personal friendships with Presidents Richard Nixon and Donald Trump.

Claudia Vera Jones was a Trinidad and Tobago-born journalist and activist. As a child, she migrated with her family to the United States, where she became a Communist political activist, feminist and Black nationalist, adopting the name Jones as "self-protective disinformation". Due to the political persecution of Communists in the US, she was deported in 1955 and subsequently lived in the United Kingdom. Upon arriving in the UK, she immediately joined the Communist Party of Great Britain and would remain a member for the rest of her life. In 1958, she founded Britain's first major Black newspaper, the West Indian Gazette (1958–1965), and from 1959 she organised a series of indoor Caribbean carnivals that have been cited as an influence on what became the Notting Hill Carnival, the second-largest annual carnival in the world.

Johannes Marten den Uijl, better known as Joop den Uyl, was a Dutch politician and economist who served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 1973 to 1977. He was a member of the Labour Party (PvdA). Den Uyl studied economics at the University of Amsterdam obtaining a Master of Economics degree and worked as a civil servant at the Ministry of Economic Affairs from February 1942 until May 1945 and as a journalist and editor for Het Parool and Vrij Nederland from May 1945 until January 1949. Den Uyl served as director of the Wiardi Beckman Foundation from January 1949 until June 1963. Den Uyl became a member of the House of Representatives shortly after the number of seats was raised from 100 to 150 seats following the election of 1956 serving from 6 November 1956 until 5 June 1963 as a frontbencher and spokesperson for economics. Den Uyl was appointed as Minister of Economic Affairs in the Cals cabinet, taking office on 14 April 1965. After Labour Leader Anne Vondeling unexpectedly announced he was stepping down, Den Uyl announced his candidacy and was selected as his successor as Leader on 13 September 1966. Under his leadership, the PvdA became a big tent party that undermined support for the small left parties, including the Radicals and the Communists.

Johnny Lane Oates was an American professional baseball player, coach, and manager. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a catcher for the Baltimore Orioles, Atlanta Braves, Philadelphia Phillies, Los Angeles Dodgers, and New York Yankees from 1970 to 1981. During his playing career, Oates was a light-hitting player who was valued for his defensive skills and played most of his career as a reserve player. It was as a big league manager that Oates experienced his greatest success, when, under his leadership, the Texas Rangers won three American League Western Division titles.

Johan Marius Nicolaas Heesters, known professionally as Johannes Heesters, was a Dutch-German actor of stage, television and film, as well as a vocalist of numerous recordings and performer on the concert stage with a career dating back to the 1920s. He worked as an actor until his death and is probably the oldest performing entertainers in history, performing shortly before his death at the age of 108. Heesters was almost exclusively active in the German-speaking world from the mid-1930s and became a film star in Nazi Germany, which later led to controversy in his native country. He was able to maintain his popularity in Germany in the decades until his death.

William Charles Schneider was an American aerospace engineer. He served in the United States Naval Reserve 1942–1946 as an Aviation Machinist's Mate, 1st Class Petty Officer. He joined NASA in June 1963 and served as the Gemini mission director for seven of the ten piloted Gemini missions. From 1967 to 1968, he served as Apollo mission director and the Apollo program's deputy director for missions. He then served from 1968 to 1974 as the Skylab program's director. From 1974 to 1978, he worked as the Deputy Associate Administrator for Space Transportation Systems. From 1978 to 1980, he served as the Associate Administrator for Space Tracking and Data systems. He received a Ph.D. in engineering from Catholic University of America.

Gerald Donald Kindall was an American professional baseball player and college baseball player and coach. He was primarily a second baseman in Major League Baseball (MLB) who appeared in 742 games played over nine seasons for the Chicago Cubs, Cleveland Indians (1962–64), and Minnesota Twins (1964–65). After his playing career, he became the head baseball coach of the University of Arizona Wildcats, winning 860 games and three College World Series (CWS) championships over 24 seasons (1973–1996). Kindall batted and threw right-handed and was listed as 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 m) tall and 175 pounds (79 kg).

Charles Gondouin was a French rugby union player and tug of war competitor who competed in the 1900 Summer Olympics. He was a member of the French rugby union team, which won the gold medal. Gondouin studied at the Lycée Condorcet, then worked as a sports journalist. He also participated in the tug of war competition and won a silver medal as a member of French team. He was killed on Christmas Eve when he was struck by a motorist in Paris while returning from a meeting for a racing club in France.

Maruthur Gopalan Ramachandran, popularly known by his initials M. G. R., was an Indian politician, actor, environmentalist and philanthropist who served as the chief minister of Tamil Nadu from 1977 until his death in 1987. He was the founder and first general secretary of the political party All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). He is regarded as one of the most influential politicians of post-independent India, and was known by the epithets Makkal Thilagam and Puratchi Thalaivar. In March 1988, he was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour.

Anna Juliane Bochkoltz was a German operatic soprano, voice teacher and composer. She performed her first concert in 1843, then studied in Brussels and Paris. After singing concerts in Paris, London and Berlin, she appeared in the 1850s on opera stages in Wiesbaden, Frankfurt, Munich and Coburg. She was known for the range of her voice, and was regarded as one of the important dramatic coloratura sopranos of her era, appearing as Mozart's Donna Anna, Beethoven's Fidelio and Bellini's Norma. She later taught singing in Vienna, Strasbourg and Paris.

Jean Louis Xavier François Darlan was a French admiral and political figure. Born in Nérac, Darlan graduated from the École navale in 1902 and quickly advanced through the ranks following his service during World War I. He was promoted to rear admiral in 1929, vice admiral in 1932, and lieutenant admiral in 1937 before finally being made admiral and Chief of the Naval Staff in 1937. In 1939, Darlan was promoted to admiral of the fleet, a rank created specifically for him.

Walter Bower was a Scottish canon regular and abbot of Inchcolm Abbey in the Firth of Forth, who is noted as a chronicler of his era. He was born about 1385 at Haddington, East Lothian, in the Kingdom of Scotland. In 1991, Donald Watt said of Bower's Scotichronicon that "We are more and more convinced that this book is one of the national treasures of Scotland, which should be studied in depth for many different kinds of enquiry into Scotland's past."

Karl Dönitz was a German naval officer and politician who briefly succeeded Adolf Hitler as the head of state of Germany in the Nazi era after the latter's suicide during the Second World War in April 1945. He held this position until the dissolution of the Flensburg Government, about two weeks after Germany's unconditional surrender to the Allies. As Supreme Commander of the Navy beginning in 1943, he played a major role in the naval history of the war.

John Dunstaple was an English composer whose music helped inaugurate the transition from the medieval to the Renaissance periods. The central proponent of the Contenance angloise style, Dunstaple was the leading English composer of his time, and is often coupled with William Byrd and Henry Purcell as England's most important early music composers. His style would have an immense influence on the subsequent music of continental Europe, inspiring composers such as Du Fay, Binchois, Ockeghem and Busnois.

Empress Go-Sakuramachi was the 117th monarch of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. She was named after her father Emperor Sakuramachi, with the word go (後) before her name translating in this context as "later" or "second one", also referred to as "Sakuramachi II". Her reign during the Edo period spanned the years from 1762 through to her abdication in 1771. As of 2026, she remains the most recent Japanese empress regnant.

Richard Dirrane Bowes was an American author described as an "urban fantasist" whose stories tended to be "set in, and to evoke, a congested, magically altered New York." He won two World Fantasy Awards for his short fiction along with the Lambda Award for his 1999 mosaic novel Minions of the Moon. He was also an eight-time finalist for the Nebula Award, including for his often-reprinted short story "There's a Hole in the City."