In one week of March 2026, fans of 1980s films lost Superman’s Eve Teschmacher, Back to the Future’s Mr Strickland and the action star whose fight with Bruce Lee in the Colosseum is still studied by stunt teams. Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans lost Xander a day after Chuck Norris died. These are ten of the best-known people who died in March 2026.
1. Lou Holtz (March 4, aged 89)
Lou Holtz coached Notre Dame to the 1988 national championship and became one of the most quoted men in American college football, first on the sideline and later as a television analyst. He also coached at Arkansas, North Carolina State and South Carolina, and was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame. He was famous for his magic tricks in the locker room and for pep talks that could fill a book, and eventually did.
2. Soli Philander (March 4, aged 65)
Soli Philander was a South African actor, director and television presenter, a familiar face to South African viewers on screen and on stage. His film work included Devil’s Peak. He died of cancer on the same day as Lou Holtz.
3. Jennifer Runyon (March 6, aged 65)
Jennifer Runyon’s best-known scene lasts a few minutes: she is the student whose card-guessing test Bill Murray’s Peter Venkman rigs in the opening of Ghostbusters. She also starred in Charles in Charge and the soap Another World. She died of cancer.
4. Country Joe McDonald (March 7, aged 84)
At Woodstock in 1969, Country Joe McDonald stood in front of half a million people and led them in a profane spelling chant before playing “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag”, a sing-along about Vietnam that became one of the anti-war movement’s best-known songs. His band, Country Joe and the Fish, was part of San Francisco’s psychedelic scene. He died of complications from Parkinson’s disease.
5. Phil Campbell (aged 64, announced March 16)
Phil Campbell joined Motörhead in 1984 and stayed until the band ended in 2015 with the death of Lemmy Kilmister. He played on more than a dozen Motörhead albums and afterwards formed Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons with his three sons. His family said he died after a long stay in intensive care following a complex operation.
6. Chuck Norris (March 19, aged 86)
In The Way of the Dragon in 1972, Chuck Norris fought Bruce Lee in the Colosseum in Rome, and the fight made him a film star. He was a world karate champion before that, and he became one of the most recognised faces on American television as Cordell Walker in Walker, Texas Ranger. In the 2000s a generation who had never seen his films knew him through the internet joke lists known as Chuck Norris facts. His family said he died suddenly in Hawaii, surrounded by them.
7. Nicholas Brendon (March 20, aged 54)
Nicholas Brendon was Xander Harris, the one member of the Scooby Gang without superpowers, in all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. His family said he died in his sleep of natural causes. Alyson Hannigan, who played Willow, was among the first of his co-stars to pay tribute.
8. Valerie Perrine (March 23, aged 82)
Valerie Perrine won Best Actress at Cannes in 1975 and an Oscar nomination for playing Honey Bruce opposite Dustin Hoffman in Lenny. Three years later she was Eve Teschmacher, Lex Luthor’s girlfriend in Superman. She had lived with Parkinson’s disease for well over a decade and died at her home in Beverly Hills.
9. James Tolkan (March 26, aged 94)
James Tolkan made a career out of glaring. He was Mr Strickland, the principal who calls Marty McFly a slacker in Back to the Future, and Stinger, the commander who shouts at Maverick in Top Gun. The official Back to the Future website said he died in Saranac Lake, New York. He had been married to his wife, Parmelee, for 54 years.
10. Mary Beth Hurt (March 28, aged 79)
Mary Beth Hurt received three Tony nominations, including one for Crimes of the Heart, and her films included The World According to Garp, The Age of Innocence and Affliction, which was directed by her husband, Paul Schrader. She had lived with Alzheimer’s disease for more than a decade and died at an assisted-living home in Jersey City.
Chuck Norris and Nicholas Brendon died a day apart, and their deaths reached two audiences who rarely overlap: people who grew up on 1980s action films, and people who grew up on Buffy in the late 1990s.