1931 births

John Malach Shaw (November 14, 1931 – December 24, 1999) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.

Grant McDonald Wilson (May 24, 1931 – September 10, 2012) was a notable American thermodynamicist. He is widely known to the fields of chemical engineering and physical chemistry for having developed the Wilson equation, one of the first attempts of practical importance to model nonideal behavior in liquid mixtures as observed in practice with common polar compounds such as alcohols, amines, etc. The equation has been in use in all commercial chemical process simulators to predict phase behavior and produce safe process designs of commercial and environmental protection importance to the chemical industry. He founded the company Wilco (now Wiltec) in 1977 to research, measure, commercialize, and publish thermophysical property data for numerous chemical mixtures of interest to the industry. The Journal of Chemical & Engineering Data published a posthumous issue in honor of Wilson in April 2014 in recognition of his extensive contributions to the field.

Gillian Mary Baverstock (born Pollock; 15 July 1931 – 24 June 2007) was a British author, non-fiction writer and memoirist. She was the elder daughter of English novelist Enid Blyton and her first husband, Hugh Pollock. She wrote and spoke to audiences and the media extensively about her mother as well as her own childhood and life.

Otilia Larrañaga Villarreal (3 November 1931 – 6 October 2021) was a Mexican dancer and actress who participated in classic Mexican films and also on stage and television.

João José Pereira de Lyra (17 June 1931 – 12 August 2021) was a Brazilian businessman and politician.

Royce Cullen Womble (August 12, 1931 – November 30, 2016) was an American football running back who played in the National Football League (NFL) and the American Football League (AFL). He played five seasons for the NFL's Baltimore Colts and the AFL's Los Angeles Chargers. He died from complications of Alzheimer's disease in 2016.

William R. Schulz (born April 4, 1931) is an American businessman who was an Independent candidate for Governor of Arizona in the 1986 gubernatorial election, and was the Democratic nominee against Barry Goldwater in the 1980 U.S. Senate election.

Ellen Virginia Holly (January 16, 1931 – December 6, 2023) was an American actress. Beginning her career on stage in the late 1950s, Holly was perhaps best known for her role as Carla Gray–Hall on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live (1968–1980; 1983–1985). Holly is noted as the first African American to appear on daytime television in a leading role.

Joseph Mewis (born 23 March 1931) is a Belgian wrestler. He was Olympic silver medalist in Freestyle wrestling in 1956. He also competed at the 1952, 1960 and 1964 Olympics.

Robert Randall Onstead, Senior (July 20, 1931 – August 4, 2004) was founder of Randall's Food Markets in Houston and served as chair of the board from 1966 to 1999.