Notable Deaths on October 27

Robert Ray "Rod" Roddy was an American radio and television announcer. He was primarily known for his role as an offstage announcer on game shows. Among the shows that Roddy announced are the CBS game shows Whew! and Press Your Luck. Roddy is widely recognized by the signature line, "Come on down!" from The Price Is Right, and it appears on his grave marker, although the phrase was originated and made popular by his predecessor Johnny Olson. Roddy succeeded original announcer Olson on The Price Is Right and held the role from 1986 until his death in 2003, and as of 2026, is the longest-serving announcer on the current incarnation of the show. On many episodes of Press Your Luck and The Price Is Right, Roddy appeared on camera. He was also the voice of Mike the microphone on Disney's House of Mouse from 2001 until his death in 2003.

Jacques Demy was a French director, screenwriter and lyricist. He appeared at the height of the French New Wave alongside contemporaries like Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut. Demy's films are celebrated for their visual style, which drew upon diverse sources such as classic Hollywood musicals, the plein-air realism of his French New Wave colleagues, fairy tales, jazz, Japanese manga, and the opera. His films contain overlapping continuity, lush musical scores and motifs like teenage love, labor rights, chance encounters, incest, and the intersection between dreams and reality. He was married to Agnès Varda, another prominent director of the French New Wave. Demy is best known for the two musicals he directed in the mid-1960s: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967).

Charlotte Perriand was a French architect and designer. Her work aimed to create functional living spaces in the belief that better design helps in creating a better society. In her article "L'Art de Vivre" from 1981 she states "The extension of the art of dwelling is the art of living — living in harmony with man's deepest drives and with his adopted or fabricated environment." Charlotte liked to take her time in a space before starting the design process. In Perriand's Autobiography, "Charlotte Perriand: A Life of Creation", she states: "I like being alone when I visit a country or historic site. I like being bathed in its atmosphere, feeling in direct contact with the place without the intrusion of a third party." Her approach to design includes taking in the site and appreciating it for what it is. Perriand felt she connected with any site she was working with or just visiting she enjoyed the living things and would reminisce on a site that was presumed dead.

Santō Kyōden was a Japanese artist, writer, and the owner of a tobacco shop during the Edo period. His real name was Iwase Samuru , and he was also known popularly as Kyōya Denzō . He began his professional career illustrating the works of others before writing his own Kibyōshi and Sharebon, which marked his importance in the history of manga. Within his works, Kyōden often included references to his shop to increase sales. Kyōden's works were affected by the shifting publication laws of the Kansei Reforms, which aimed to punish writers and their publishers for writings related to the Yoshiwara and other things that were deemed to be "harmful to society" at the time by the Tokugawa Bakufu. As a result of his punishment in 1791, Kyōden shifted his writings to the more didactic Yomihon. During the 1790s, Santō Kyōden became a household name, and one of his works could sell as many as 10,000 copies, numbers that were previously unheard of for the time.

József Gregor was a renowned Hungarian operatic bass who enjoyed success first in Hungary, then in France, Belgium and Canada, and finally in the United States. Gregor was born in Rákosliget, a small town that is now part of Budapest. He studied violin for ten years and then, voice at the Liszt Academy in Budapest for one year but did not graduate. He started singing with the Hungarian Army chorus in 1958 before becoming a soloist in National Theatre of Szeged in Hungary. In Europe he sang in many opera houses, including Vlaamse Opera and La Scala in Milan. Beginning in 1989, József Gregor appeared in the US with the Portland Opera and later with the Houston Grand Opera and the Metropolitan Opera. His most famous roles included Sarastro, Osmin, Falstaff, Don Pasquale, Dulcamara, Don Basilio, Don Bartolo, Don Alfonso, Leporello, Don Magnifico, Boris Godunov, Gremin, Varlaam, Gianni Schicchi, Philip II, Banquo, Attila, Pagano, Fiesco, Mephistofeles, Bluebeard etc., roles in masses and oratorios, musicals, and songs. He died in Szeged of gastric cancer.

Yal Ayerdhal was a French thriller and science fiction writer from Lyon. His later work preferred the thriller genre; Transparences, Resurgences and Rainbow Warriors play with various genres. Rainbow Warriors flirts with political fiction with most protagonists being LGBTQ. He received the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire in 2005 for Transparences and in 1993 for his novel Demain une oasis. He is considered one of the leading names in both genres. He shared the Prix Tour Eiffel with co-author Jean-Claude Dunyach for their 1999 novel Étoiles mourantes. He also received an award for his novel Parleur ou les chroniques d'un rêve enclavé and two for Transparences, a thriller. He also received the Cyrano award for lifetime achievement in the service of genre fiction and its actors.

Qirwash ibn al-Muqallad, also known by the honorific Muʿtamid al-Dawla, was the third Uqaylid emir of Mosul, and ruler of other towns in Iraq, from 1001 to 1050. An ambitious ruler, like the other petty rulers of the region he was engaged in a constant struggle of shifting alliances and enmities to keep and extend his domains. This involved his nominal overlords the Buyid emirs of Baghdad, other Bedouin tribes, local warlords and administrators, and even members of his own tribe and family who begrudged his position. In 1010, Qirwash even briefly defected from the Abbasid allegiance and recognized the Fatimid Caliphate in Cairo instead. He was eventually defeated, imprisoned and deposed by his brother, Baraka, and died on 27 October 1052.

Julia Verlyn LaMarsh was a Canadian politician, lawyer, author and broadcaster. In 1963, she became the second woman to serve as a federal Cabinet minister. Under Prime Minister Lester Pearson's minority governments of the middle and late 1960s, she helped push through the legislation that created the Canada Pension Plan and Medicare. As Secretary of State, she was in charge of Canada's Centennial celebrations in 1967. After leaving politics in 1968, she wrote three books, and had her own radio show on CBC Radio. She was stricken with pancreatic cancer in 1979 and was given the Order of Canada at her hospital bed. She died a few days short of the 20th anniversary of her first political election victory, in 1980.

Ulrich III was the ruler in the March of Carniola from c. 1249 and Duke of Carinthia from 1256 until his death, the last ruler from the House of Sponheim. His rule had long-lasting consequences. In Carniola, he acquired the former Meranian possessions, thus becoming the first undisputed princeps terrae, provincial lord or landgrave, creating the power and legal basis of the future Duchy of Carniola. The center of his original Carniolan possessions, Ljubljana, became the new administrative center and thus the provincial capital, as well as the center of Ulrich's power. In Carinthia, which he took over after his father's death, his seal became the coat of arms of Carinthia up to today. Despite his attempts to secure the vast Babenberg inheritance through two marriages, first to Agnes of Merania, widow of the last Babenberg duke Frederick II of Austria, and then to Frederick's niece Agnes of Baden, Ulrich remained childless. After a short interregnum by his younger brother Philip of Spanheim, patriarch of Aquileia, the House of Spanheim went extinct, and all of Ulrich's possessions were inherited by his cousin Ottokar II of Bohemia.

Rodolphus Agricola was a Dutch humanist scholar recognized as the "father of Northern European humanism" for his role in introducing the Italian Renaissance's intellectual disciplines to the North. Known for his mastery of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, he was a versatile figure who excelled as an organist, poet, and orator, though he preferred the life of an independent scholar over institutional ties. His most important work, De inventione dialectica (1479), influenced the field of logic by shifting the focus from rigid scholastic reasoning to practical argumentation and rhetoric, profoundly impacting later thinkers like Erasmus, who regarded him as a "truly divine man."

Gabriel Báthory was Prince of Transylvania from 1608 to 1613. The Ottomans nicknamed him "Deli Kiral". Born to the Roman Catholic branch of the Báthory family, he was closely related to four rulers of the Principality of Transylvania. His father, Stephen Báthory, held estates in the principality, but never ruled it. Being a minor when his father died in 1601, Gabriel became the ward of the childless Stephen Báthory, from the Protestant branch of the family, who converted him to Calvinism. After inheriting most of his guardian's estates in 1605, Gabriel became one of the wealthiest landowners in Transylvania and Royal Hungary.

Enrico Mattei was an Italian public administrator. After World War II, he was given the task of dismantling the Italian petroleum agency Agip, a state enterprise established by Fascist Italy. Instead, Mattei enlarged and reorganized it into the National Fuel Trust. Under his direction, ENI negotiated important oil concessions in the Middle East as well as a significant trade agreement with the Soviet Union, which helped break the oligopoly of the "Seven Sisters" that dominated the mid-20th-century oil industry. He also introduced the principle whereby the country that owned exploited oil reserves received 75% of the profits.

John David Carson was an American actor known for his work in film and television. Born in Los Angeles, California, he began his career as a voice actor for Hanna-Barbera cartoons, including Space Ghost (1966–1968). He transitioned to live-action roles, making his film debut in Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971). Carson appeared in a variety of projects, such as Stay Hungry (1976), Empire of the Ants (1977), and TV shows like Hawaii Five-O and Charlie's Angels. He retired after his role in Pretty Woman (1990) and died in 2009 at the age of 57.

Elizabeth de Burgh was the second wife and only queen consort of Robert the Bruce, King of Scots. Elizabeth was born sometime around 1289, probably in what is now County Down or County Antrim in Ulster, the northern province in Ireland. She was the daughter of one of the most powerful Norman nobles in the Lordship of Ireland at that time, Richard Óg de Burgh, the 2nd Earl of Ulster, a member of the noble dynasty, the House of Burgh and a close friend and ally to King Edward I of England.

Néstor Carlos Kirchner Ostoić was an Argentine lawyer and politician who served as the president of Argentina from 2003 to 2007. A member of the Justicialist Party, he previously served as Governor of Santa Cruz Province from 1991 to 2003, and mayor of Río Gallegos from 1987 to 1991. He later served as first gentleman of Argentina during the early tenure of his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the first person to serve in this role. Ideologically, he identified himself as a Peronist and a progressive, with his political approach called Kirchnerism.

Marcellin "Marcel" Cerdan was a French professional boxer and world middleweight champion in 1948–1949. He is considered by many to be France's greatest boxer ever, and one of the best to have learned his craft in Africa. Nicknamed "The Moroccan bomber" or "The man with clay hands" his talent led him to France in 1938, where he became French champion three times, and then European champion in the welterweight category in 1939. His life was marked by his sporting achievements, social lifestyle, and ultimately tragedy, being killed in an airplane crash.

Allen R. Schindler Jr. was an American radioman petty officer third class in the United States Navy who was murdered for being gay. He was killed in a public toilet in Sasebo, Nagasaki, Japan, by Terry M. Helvey, who acted with the aid of an accomplice, Charles E. Vins, in what Esquire called a "brutal murder". The case became synonymous with the debate concerning LGBT members of the military that had been brewing in the United States, culminating in the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Lewis Allan Reed was an American musician, songwriter, and poet. He was the guitarist, lead singer, and principal songwriter for the rock band the Velvet Underground and had a solo career that spanned five decades. Although not commercially successful during its existence, the Velvet Underground came to be regarded as one of the most influential bands in the history of underground and alternative rock music. Reed's distinctive deadpan voice, poetic and transgressive lyrics, and experimental guitar playing were trademarks throughout his long career.

Ranjit Roy Chaudhury, was an Indian clinical pharmacologist, medical academic and health planner, who headed the National Committee for formulating the policy and guidelines on drugs and clinical trials in India. He was the chairman of the joint programme of World Health Organization and Government of India on Rational Use of Drugs in India. He was the founder president of the Delhi Medical Council and the president of the Delhi Society for Promotion of Rational Use of Drugs.