1956 deaths

Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a playwright in Munich and moved to Berlin in 1924, where he wrote The Threepenny Opera with Kurt Weill and began a life-long collaboration with the composer Hanns Eisler. Immersed in Marxist thought during this period, he wrote didactic Lehrstücke and became a leading theoretician of epic theatre (which he later preferred to call "dialectical theatre") and the Verfremdungseffekt.
During the Nazi Germany period, Brecht fled his home country, first to Scandinavia, and during World War II to the United States, where he was surveilled by the FBI. After the war he was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Returning to East Berlin after the war, he established the theatre company Berliner Ensemble with his wife and long-time collaborator, actress Helene Weigel.

Irène Joliot-Curie (French: [iʁɛn ʒɔljo kyʁi] ; née Curie; 12 September 1897 – 17 March 1956) was a French chemist, physicist and politician, the elder daughter of Pierre Curie and Marie Skłodowska–Curie, and the wife of Frédéric Joliot-Curie. Jointly with her husband, Joliot-Curie was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935 for their discovery of induced radioactivity, making them the second-ever married couple (after her parents) to win the Nobel Prize, while adding to the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. This made the Curies the family with the most Nobel laureates to date. In addition to the following honours in the family: the first ever woman Nobel Prize laureate, the first ever person and, to this day, only woman double Nobel Prize laureate, the sole person to this day with two Nobel Prizes in different sciences, thanks to her mother.
Her mother Marie Skłodowska–Curie and herself also form the only mother–daughter pair to have won Nobel Prizes whilst Pierre and Irène Curie form the only father-daughter pair to have won Nobel Prizes by the same occasion, whilst there are 6 father-son pairs who have won Nobel Prizes by comparison.She was also one of the first three women to be a member of a French government, becoming undersecretary for Scientific Research under the Popular Front in 1936. Both children of the Joliot-Curies, Hélène and Pierre, are also prominent scientists.In 1945, she was one of the six commissioners of the new French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) created by de Gaulle and the Provisional Government of the French Republic. She died in Paris on 17 March 1956 from an acute leukemia linked to her exposure to polonium and X-rays.

Anthony Williamsen (January 31, 1880 – October 1, 1956) was an American cyclist. He competed in four events at the 1904 Summer Olympics.

Albert Sézary (26 December 1880, Algiers – 1 December 1956, Paris) was a French dermatologist and syphilogist.
He served as a hospital interne in Algiers (from 1901) and Paris (from 1905), where he worked with neurologists Joseph Jules Dejerine and Fulgence Raymond and dermatologists Lucien Jacquet and Edouard Jeanselme. He received his medical doctorate in 1909, and from 1919 to 1926 was laboratory chief in the clinic for skin and syphilitic diseases at the Hôpital Saint-Louis. In 1927, he became an associate professor for skin and venereal diseases, and two years later was appointed chef de service at the Hôpitaux Broca and Saint-Louis.In 1921 he introduced the combination of arsenic and bismuth for the treatment of syphilis. He also proposed pentavalent arsenic as a treatment for general paresis of the insane.

Henri Valbel (1885–1956) was a French film actor. Valbel was also noted for his work as voice actor.

Paul René Colas (6 May 1880 – 9 September 1956) was a French sport shooter who competed at the 1908, 1912, 1920, and 1924 Summer Olympics.Between 1908 and 1924 Colas won four Olympic medals: a bronze in 1908, two gold in 1912, and one silver in 1924. Only in 1920 did he fail to win a medal. With his two individual gold medals at the 1912 Games he became the second shooter (a day behind Alfred Lane of the United States) and the first rifle shooter to win two individual Olympic gold medals.In the 1908 Olympics he also participated in the following events:

300 metre free rifle - 25th place
1000 yard free rifle - 28th placeIn the 1912 Olympics he also participated in the following events:

Team free rifle - fourth place
Team military rifle - fifth place
300 metre military rifle, three positions - 22nd placeIn the 1920 Olympics he also participated in the following events:

Team free rifle - seventh place
300 m free rifle, 3 positions - result unknown

Henri Léon Thiébaut (19 November 1880 in Paris – 13 October 1956 in Paris) was a French fencer who competed in the late 19th century and early 20th century. He participated in Fencing at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris and won the silver medal in the sabre. He was defeated by Georges de la Falaise in the final.

Rudolf Veiel (10 December 1883 – 19 March 1956) was a German general (General der Panzertruppe) during World War II.

Faith Bacon (born Frances Yvonne Bacon; July 19, 1910 – September 26, 1956) was an American burlesque dancer and actress. During the height of her career, she was billed as "America's Most Beautiful Dancer".

Ludwig Dürr (4 June 1878 in Stuttgart – 1 January 1956 in Friedrichshafen) was a German airship designer.