The man who sang “Beauty and the Beast” with Celine Dion and “A Whole New World” with Regina Belle died on June 2, 2026, and within ten days the author of Persepolis, the actor who played Rupert Giles and the most famous British painter alive had followed him. These are ten of the best-known people who died in June 2026.
1. Peabo Bryson (June 2, aged 75)
Peabo Bryson was the voice of two of Disney’s best-loved duets, “Beauty and the Beast” with Celine Dion and “A Whole New World” with Regina Belle, and both won him Grammys, in 1993 and 1994. Before that he had a long run of soul hits, including “If Ever You’re in My Arms Again”. He had been treated after a stroke and died of complications from it.
2. Marjane Satrapi (announced June 4, aged 56)
Marjane Satrapi told the story of her childhood in Iran after the 1979 revolution in Persepolis, a graphic novel published in four French volumes between 2000 and 2003. She co-directed the animated film version, which won the Jury Prize at Cannes in 2007 and was nominated for an Oscar. President Emmanuel Macron’s office announced her death. A friend told AFP she had died “of sadness” a year after her husband, the producer Mattias Ripa.
3. Anthony Head (announced June 5, aged 72)
Anthony Head was Rupert Giles, the librarian and Watcher in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and later King Uther in Merlin and Rupert Mannion in Ted Lasso. British viewers also knew him as the man in the long-running Gold Blend coffee adverts. His daughters, Emily and Daisy, told the BBC he died peacefully of complications from pneumonia, surrounded by his family. His Buffy co-star Nicholas Brendon had died in March.
4. David Hockney (June 11, aged 88)
David Hockney was born in Bradford in 1937, moved to Los Angeles in the 1960s and painted its swimming pools in colours that defined an era. In 2018 his Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) sold in New York for about $90 million, then a record for a living artist. In his 80s he painted on an iPad and moved to Normandy. His publicist said he died at home in London.
5. Gene Shalit (June 12, aged 100)
For almost four decades, Gene Shalit reviewed films on NBC’s Today show, and his moustache, bow ties and puns made him one of the most recognisable critics in America. He retired in 2010. He died having lived to 100.
6. Victor Gbeho (June 13, aged 91)
James Victor Gbeho was Ghana’s ambassador to the United Nations from 1980 to 1990 and minister for foreign affairs from 1997 to 2001 under Jerry John Rawlings, and in 2010 he was elected president of the ECOWAS Commission. He was the son of Philip Gbeho, who composed Ghana’s national anthem. Ghana gave him a state funeral at the State House forecourt in Accra on July 31.
7. Tay Keith (June 18, aged 29)
Tay Keith, born Brytavious Chambers in Memphis, produced Travis Scott’s “Sicko Mode” and BlocBoy JB’s “Look Alive”, and co-produced Drake’s “Nonstop”. Police in Nashville found him dead in his apartment during a welfare check and said they did not suspect foul play. The cause of death was awaiting an autopsy.
8. James Burrows (announced June 19, aged 85)
James Burrows directed episodes of Taxi, co-created Cheers and directed most of it, and went on to direct Frasier and Will and Grace. He won eleven Emmys. His agent called him the greatest comedic television director in the history of the medium.
9. Ann Blyth (June 24, aged 98)
Ann Blyth was nominated for an Oscar as a teenager for playing Joan Crawford’s daughter, Veda, in Mildred Pierce, and later starred in MGM musicals such as The Great Caruso. She was one of the last surviving stars of the studio era. Read our full obituary of Ann Blyth.
10. Om Malik (June 24, aged 59)
Om Malik started GigaOm as a one-man blog about broadband in 2001 and turned it into one of the first technology publications the industry read every day. He later became a partner at True Ventures. He died at Stanford Hospital after a long heart illness, on the same day as Ann Blyth. Read our full obituary of Om Malik.
Hockney was still working when he died: an exhibition of his new paintings was on at the Serpentine Gallery in London, and it stayed open until August.