1991 deaths

John Goodwin Tower (September 29, 1925 – April 5, 1991) was an American politician and military officer who represented Texas in the United States Senate from 1961 to 1985. He was the first Republican elected to the U.S. Senate from Texas since Reconstruction. Tower is known for leading the Tower Commission, which investigated the Iran-Contra Affair in the Reagan administration.
Born in Houston, Texas, he served in the Pacific Theater of World War II. After the war, he worked as a radio announcer and taught at Midwestern University (now Midwestern State University) in Wichita Falls. He switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party in the early 1950s and worked on the 1956 presidential campaign of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Tower lost Texas's 1960 Senate election to Democratic Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, but performed relatively well compared to his Republican predecessors. With the Democratic victory in the 1960 presidential election, Johnson vacated his Senate seat to become Vice President of the United States. In the 1961 special election, Tower defeated Johnson's appointed successor, Bill Blakley. He won re-election in 1966, 1972, and 1978.
Upon joining the Senate in 1961, Tower became the first Republican Senator to represent a state in the South since 1913. He was the only Southern Republican in the Senate until Strom Thurmond switched parties in 1964. A political conservative earlier in his career, Tower staunchly opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Starting in 1976 with his support of Gerald Ford rather than Ronald Reagan in the 1976 Republican primaries, Tower began to alienate many fellow conservatives. He became less conservative over time, later voicing support for legal abortion, gay rights, and opposing President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983.
Tower retired from the Senate in 1985. After leaving Congress, he served as chief negotiator of the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks with the Soviet Union and led the Tower Commission. The commission's report was highly critical of the Reagan administration's relations with Iran and the Contras. In 1989, incoming President George H. W. Bush chose Tower as his nominee for Secretary of Defense, but his nomination was rejected by the Senate. After the defeat, Tower chaired the President's Intelligence Advisory Board. Tower died in the 1991 Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 2311 crash.

James Benson "Jim" Irwin (March 17, 1930 – August 8, 1991) was an American astronaut, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and a United States Air Force pilot. He served as Lunar Module pilot for Apollo 15, the fourth human lunar landing. He was the 8th person to walk on the Moon and the first, and youngest, of those astronauts to die.

Caroline Clendening Laise (November 14, 1917 – July 25, 1991) was an American civil servant, ambassador to Nepal and the first female Assistant Secretary of State.

Milton Spinoza Plesset (7 February 1908 – 19 February 1991) was an American applied physicist who worked in the field of fluid mechanics and nuclear energy. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1979 for his fundamental contributions to multiphase flows, bubble dynamics, and safety of nuclear reactors. Plesset served as professor of engineering science at California Institute of Technology during 1951 to 1978. Notable scientists Andrea Prosperetti, Norman Zabusky, and Chris Whipple finished their doctoral work under Plesset's guidance. Milton Plesset, Andrea Prosperetti, and Chris Whipple were elected to the National Academy of Engineering.
He with Christian Møller are known for the Møller–Plesset perturbation theory.
The Rayleigh-Plesset equation describing the dynamics of a bubble in an infinite body of fluid is also named after him.

José Celestino Casal Álvarez, more commonly known as Tino Casal, (11 February 1950, in Tudela Veguín, Oviedo, Asturias, Spain – 22 September 1991, in Madrid, Spain) was a Spanish singer, songwriter and producer, who was active during La Movida Madrileña (English: The Madrid movement) Tino was one of the most popular singers in the 1980s in Spain. He became one of the most famous performers and his lavish costumes and sets were comparable to Liberace.

James Lawrence Callan (June 3, 1910 – November 26, 1991) was an American politician.

Finn Hiorthøy (1903–1991) was a Norwegian judge.
He graduated with the cand.jur. degree in 1926, and then worked as a deputy judge in Nord-Hedmark for some time before being hired in the Norwegian Ministry of Justice and the Police in 1930. His specialty was constitutional law and international law, and he represented Norway internationally. He also wrote books and articles. From 1942 to 1945, during World War II, Hiorthøy stayed in London where he aided the Norwegian government-in-exile. He was promoted to deputy under-secretary of state in the Ministry of Justice in 1945, and represented Norway as an advisor in the United Nations, NATO and the Council of Europe.In 1955, he was named as a Supreme Court Justice. He stood in this position until his retirement in 1973. He died in 1991.

William Reynold Brown (October 18, 1917 – August 24, 1991) was an American realist artist who painted many Hollywood film posters. He was also briefly active as a comics artist.

William Reynold Brown (October 18, 1917 – August 24, 1991) was an American realist artist who painted many Hollywood film posters. He was also briefly active as a comics artist.

Watson Boone Duncan III (February 16, 1915 – February 21, 1991) was an American college professor best known for being the mentor of actor Burt Reynolds.