Gone, but never forgotten.....2015
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- Actress
- Soundtrack
An honest-to-goodness Southern Belle, similar to her most famous character role, "Elly May Clampett" on The Beverly Hillbillies (1962), Donna Douglas grew up in the Baton Rouge, Louisiana area, loving "critters". She got married soon after high school, had a son, divorced and won a couple of beauty contests, all within the span of a few years. She moved to New York and soon appeared on television series, including a well-remembered guest-star shot on The Twilight Zone (1959) in one of the series' most famous episodes, Eye of the Beholder (1960), in which she plays a woman who tries to undergo a series of experimental treatments to make her beautiful, only for the treatments to fail. The twist was she was beautiful, at least to the viewers, but considered hideous to the pig people of the planet, she was on. She immediately won the character role of "Elly May Clampett" on one of the greatest situation comedies of all time, The Beverly Hillbillies (1962). This extremely comical series debuted with The Clampetts Strike Oil (1962), on her 30th birthday, Wednesday, September 26th, 1962, which is among the narrowest & sheerest coincidences, that are hardest to believe.- Stuart Scott was born on 19 July 1965 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for The Kid (2000), The Game Plan (2007) and Drumline (2002). He was married to Kimberley Alice Emmons. He died on 4 January 2015 in Avon, Connecticut, USA.
- Music Department
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Andraé Crouch was born on 1 July 1942 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor, known for The Color Purple (1985), Colors (1988) and Downsizing (2017). He died on 8 January 2015 in Northridge, California, USA.- Actor
- Music Department
- Writer
Suave and handsome Australian actor arrived in Hollywood in the 1950s, and built himself up from a supporting actor into taking the lead in several well-remembered movies. Arguably his most fondly remembered role was that as George (Herbert George Wells), the inventor, in George Pal's spectacular The Time Machine (1960). As the movie finished with George, and his best friend Filby Alan Young seemingly parting forever, both actors were brought back together in 1993 to film a 30-minute epilogue to the original movie! Taylor's virile, matinée idol looks also assisted him in scoring the lead of Mitch Brenner in Alfred Hitchcock's creepy thriller The Birds (1963), the role of Jane Fonda's love interest in Sunday in New York (1963), the title role in John Ford's biopic of Irish playwright Sean O'Casey in Young Cassidy (1965), and a co-starring role in The Train Robbers (1973) with John Wayne. Taylor also appeared as Bette Davis future son-in-law in the well-received film The Catered Affair (1956). He also gave a sterling performance as the German-American Nazi Major trying to fool James Garner in 36 Hours (1964). Later, Taylor made many westerns and action movies during the 1960s and 1970s; however, none of these were much better than "B" pictures and failed to push his star to the next level. Additionally, Taylor was cast as the lead in several TV series including Bearcats! (1971), Masquerade (1983), and Outlaws (1986); however, none of them truly ignited viewer interest, and they were cancelled after only one or two seasons. Most fans would agree that Rod Taylor's last great role was in the wonderful Australian film The Picture Show Man (1977), about a travelling sideshow bringing "moving pictures" to remote towns in the Australian outback.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Taylor Negron was born Brad Stephen Negron in Glendale, California, to Lucy (Rosario) and Conrad Negron, who was mayor of Indian Wells, CA. His parents were both of Puerto Rican descent. Negron attended UCLA, studied acting with Lee Strasberg, and studied comedy at a private seminar taught by Lucille Ball. He went on to join the cast of an improvisational comedy group, whose ranks included talents like Robin Williams, Martin Short and Betty Thomas. In 1982 Negron made his motion-picture debut as a love-struck, pill-popping, dancing intern in Young Doctors in Love (1982) and as the obviously peeved Mr. Pizza Guy in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982). He also played Rodney Dangerfield's son-in-law in Easy Money (1983).
Negron was honored with the distinction of being asked to teach one of the first comedy courses offered at UCLA.
Negron died of cancer on January 10, 2015.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Lizabeth Scott was born Emma Matzo on September 29, 1922 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the oldest of six children of Mary (Pennock) and John Matzo, who were Slovak immigrants. Scott attended Marywood Seminary and the Alvienne School of the Theatre in New York City, where she adopted the stage name of "Elizabeth Scott." After doing a national tour of Hellzapoppin, she was discovered by Broadway producer Michael Myerberg in 1942. Scott was the understudy for Tallulah Bankhead in the original Broadway production of "The Skin of Our Teeth." Later in 1943, a Warner Brothers producer, Hal B. Wallis, discovered Scott at her 21st birthday party held at the Stork Club in New York. Wallis scheduled an interview with Scott the following day, but Scott canceled it when a telegram asked her to replace Miriam Hopkins at the Boston production of The Skin of Our Teeth.
In 1944, Scott was invited to Los Angeles by agent Charles K. Feldman, who saw her photos in "Harpers Bazaar." After failed screen tests at Universal, International, then Warner Brothers, Scott again met Wallis, who said he would hire her if he had the power. Scott mistakenly believed that Wallis was as powerful as Jack L. Warner, and did not believe him. The day Scott left for New York, she read in Variety that Wallis resigned from Warner and formed his own production company, releasing films primarily through Paramount. A few months later, she returned from New York and was finally signed to Paramount. Scott appeared in 21 films between 1945 and 1957, though loaned out for half of her films to United Artists, RKO and Columbia. When Scott was introduced to the public in 1945, Paramount publicity releases, exaggerating her background, claimed Scott was a debutante, that her grocer father was an English-born, New York banker, and that her mother was a White Russian aristocrat.
Scott's first film was You Came Along (1945), with Robert Cummings as the leading man. This Ayn Rand scripted film introduced the 23-year old smoky blonde to the American public. In a role originally intended for Barbara Stanwyck, Scott played a US Treasury PR flack that falls in love with an Army Air Force officer, who tries to hide his terminal leukemia. Despite Scott's difficulties with director John Farrow, who lobbied for Teresa Wright, the film remains one Scott's favorites.
On the strength of her first performance, Wallis starred Scott in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) over Stanwyck's protests. Scott ended up in third place at the top behind Stanwyck and Van Heflin, with Kirk Douglas, in his film debut, billed below the three stars. The film is actually two in one, with Stanwyck and Scott inhabiting two parallel worlds, both linked by Heflin. The female leads have only one brief scene together. The director, Lewis Milestone, swore never to work with Wallis again, who wanted to re-shoot all of Scott's scenes, which Wallis had to do personally. The film boasts an Oscar nominated screenplay by screenplay by Robert Rossen, music by Miklós Rózsa, art direction by Hans Dreier, and costumes by Edith Head.
In Scott's third film, she is cast with Humphrey Bogart in Dead Reckoning (1946). It is Scott's first crack as the archetypal femme fatale. In Dead Reckoning she lures Bogart into a web of lies, and deceit. As is typical in the noir genre, her power is rooted in her beauty and sexual allure. In a departure from his tough guy roles, Bogart plays a wronged man (a noir hero), who struggles to learn the fate of a missing army buddy. Scott is the ex-girlfriend who knows more than she lets on. To keep Bogart from learning the truth about his lost friend and his mysterious double life, Scott seduces him into believing she loves him.
In her fourth film, Scott appeared in the second noir to be shot in color, Desert Fury (1947), a coming-of-age story scripted again by Robert Rossen, based on the novel "Desert Town" by Ramona Stewart. Mary Astor is Fritzi Haller, a casino and bordello owner who runs the corrupt town of Chuckawalla, Nevada. She controls everyone in town, including the judge and sheriff's office. The only one who dares defy Fritzi is her rebellious daughter Paula (Scott), who returns home after being expelled from another private school. When John Hodiak, a professional gambler, comes to town, Paula falls in love with him and trouble ensues. Then newcomers Burt Lancaster, and Wendell Corey also appear.
In 1947, Scott was again cast with Lancaster and Kirk Douglas in I Walk Alone (1947), a story of betrayal and vengeance. Scott plays a nightclub singer who provides sympathy and support to Lancaster, recently released from prison to collect a debt, but is double-crossed by the Douglas character. Scott rises above it all and is completely convincing in her portrayal. Scott's character provides a degree of romanticism and humanism usually lacking in film noir.
Film number seven was Pitfall (1948). Dick Powell played a middle-level insurance investigator, married to his high school sweetheart, Jane Wyatt. They living out a comfortable but boring existence in a post-war Los Angeles suburb. Powell is restless and unfulfilled ("I feel like a wheel within a wheel within a wheel") when he receives what at first seems like a routine assignment to recover goods that have been bought with stolen money, a claim paid off by Powell's firm. The items are traced to Mona Stevens (Scott), a model living in Marina Del Rey. Powell is attracted to her, and what starts out as innocent flirtation ends up in a passionate love affair. Powell's journey into a daydream turns into a nightmare as he becomes a prisoner in his own home and kills an assailant, who has been set on his trail by a jealous private investigator, played by Raymond Burr. Meanwhile, the Burr character also blackmails Mona into doing private "fashion shows."
In Too Late for Tears (1949), Scott played an avaricious Jane Palmer, a wife who goes to any length to keep $60,000 that is accidentally thrown in the back of her husband's car. She eventually leaves behind a string of bodies in an effort to keep the money. This film is widely regarded by critics and viewers alike as Scott's best performance and film. Don DeFore, Arthur Kennedy, and Kristine Miller also star.
Also of interest is 1949's Easy Living (1949), an intelligent, well-written film about an aging football star, played by Victor Mature, who struggles to adjust to his impending retirement, as well as the pressures brought on by an ambitious and defiant wife (Scott). Lucille Ball is commendable as the sympathetic team secretary and director Jacques Tourneur is first-rate. One of Scott's finest roles, it is a favorite of many of her fans.
By the end of 1949 Scott appeared in nine films, but did not achieve the level of stardom and clout that was needed to maintain her popularity at the box-office. From 1950 on, she and Hal Wallis passed up numerous opportunities to maintain her stardom. Wallis passed up a chance to star Scott in Lillian Hellman's Broadway play "Another Part of the Forest" (1946), later to made into the 1948 film. Scott herself passed up the lead in "The Rose Tattoo (19955), a decision she publicly regretted. She continued to make films such as Dark City (1950), Red Mountain (1951), Two of a Kind (1951), Scared Stiff (1953), and Bad for Each Other (1953). In February 1954, Scott did not renew her contract with Paramount and became a freelancer. She went on to make the western noir Silver Lode (1954) and The Weapon (1956).
In 1957 she retired from the big screen by starring with Elvis Presley in Loving You (1957), Presley's second film. Also starring is newcomer Dolores Hart and veteran Wendell Corey. Since 1957 Scott appeared on a few television shows in the 1960s, during which time she attended the University of Southern California. She eventually became involved in real estate projects. Her legacy lives on, however, in the growing popularity of classic movies sparked by DVDs and movie channels such as AMC (American Movie Classics) and TCM (Turner Classic Movies).- Actor
- Production Manager
- Soundtrack
Louis Jourdan was born Louis Robert Gendre in Marseille, France to Yvonne (née Jourdan) and hotel owner Henry Gendre. He was educated in France, Britain, and Turkey. He trained as an actor with René Simon at the École Dramatique. He debuted on screen in 1939, going on to play cultivated, polished, dashing lead roles in a number of French romantic comedies and dramas.
After his father, the manager of the Cannes Grand Hôtel, was arrested by the Gestapo during World War II, Louis and his two brothers (Pierre Jourdan and Robert Gendre, both of whom became film directors) joined the French underground; his film career came to a halt when he refused to act in Nazi propaganda films.
In 1948, David O. Selznick invited him to Hollywood to appear in The Paradine Case (1947); he remained in the USA and went on to star in a number of Hollywood films. After 1953, he appeared in international productions and, in 1958, appeared in Gigi (1958), his best-known film by American audiences. He also made numerous appearances on American television.
Jourdan died at his home in Beverly Hills, California in 2015, at age 93.- Actress
- Composer
- Music Department
Lesley Gore was born Lesley Sue Goldstein in Brooklyn, New York City, to Ronny and Leo Goldstein, a manufacturer of children's clothes and swimwear. Her family was Jewish. She grew up in Tenafly, New Jersey. Gore hit the music scene at 17 years of age in 1963 with the teen anthem "It's My Party". Born in Brooklyn (Kings County), New York, she was discovered at a party by legendary producer Quincy Jones, who signed her to Mercury Records and produced "It's My Party". More hits followed: "Judy's Turn to Cry", "She's a Fool", "That's the Way Boys Are", and the surprisingly (for the times) feminist-oriented "You Don't Own Me". She branched out from recording and began appearing on stage in summer stock, and putting in appearances in movies and television shows (including one on the TV series Batman (1966), which just happened to be produced by her uncle Howie Horwitz). In 1981, she was nominated for an Academy Award with her brother Michael Gore, for Best Song for the film Fame (1980). "Out Here on My Own" was bested for the award by another song from the same film - the theme song, written by her brother and Dean Pitchford In her later life, she toured and recorded in addition to appearing in summer stock productions. Gore died at the age of 68.- Ahmad Givens was born on 2 January 1982 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was married to Racquel. He died on 20 February 2015 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Ben Woolf was born on 15 September 1980 in Fort Collins, Colorado, USA. He was an actor, known for American Horror Story (2011), Haunting Charles Manson (2014) and Woggie (2012). He died on 23 February 2015 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Leonard Simon Nimoy was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Dora (Spinner) and Max Nimoy, who owned a barbershop. His parents were Ukrainian Jewish immigrants. Raised in a tenement and acting in community theaters since age eight, Nimoy did not make his Hollywood debut until he was 20, with a bit part in Queen for a Day (1951) and another as a ballplayer in the perennial Rhubarb (1951). After two years in the United States Army, he was still getting small, often uncredited parts, like an Army telex operator in Them! (1954). His part as Narab, a Martian finally friendly to Earth, in the closing scene in the corny Republic serial Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952), somewhat foreshadowed the role which would make him a household name: Mr. Spock, the half-human/half-Vulcan science officer on Star Trek (1966) one of television's all-time most successful series. His performance won him three Emmy nominations and launched his career as a writer and director, notably of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), the story of a humpback whale rescue that proved the most successful of the Star Trek movies. Stage credits have included "Fiddler on the Roof", "Oliver", "Camelot" and "Equus". He has hosted the well-known television series In Search of... (1977) and Ancient Mysteries (1994), authored several volumes of poetry and guest-starred on two episodes of The Simpsons (1989). In the latter years of his career, he played Mustafa Mond in NBC's telling of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1998), voiced Sentinel Prime in the blockbuster Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011), and played Spock again in two new Star Trek films, Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013).
Leonard Nimoy died on February 27, 2015 in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California, of end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He was 83.- Producer
- Writer
- Animation Department
Sam Simon was born on 6 June 1955 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was a producer and writer, known for The Simpsons (1989), The Tracey Ullman Show (1987) and Shanghai Noon (2000). He was married to Jami Ferrell and Jennifer Tilly. He died on 8 March 2015 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Windell Middlebrooks was born on 8 January 1979 in Fort Worth, Texas, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Scrubs (2001), Body of Proof (2011) and The Suite Life on Deck (2008). He died on 9 March 2015 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Gregory Walcott grew up in North Carolina and went into the Army just after the end of World War II. After leaving the service, he grew restless on the East Coast and, with $100 in his pocket, thumbed his way west to pursue an acting career. An agent who spotted him in a little theater play helped Walcott land his debut movie role in Red Skies of Montana (1952). Two years later, on the strength of his performance as a drill instructor in the Marine Corps movie Battle Cry (1955), he was placed under contract at Warner Brothers. He co-starred (as a drill instructor again) in another Marine Corps story, The Outsider (1961), which earned him a Universal contract and his own TV series, 87th Precinct (1961) (1961-62) with Robert Lansing.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
American character actor and teacher. Born Jewel Guy in Powderly, Kentucky, on July 26, 1926, he was orphaned at three and adopted by Armen and Essa Knowland Best, who renamed him James Knowland Best and raised him in Corydon, Indiana. Following high school he worked briefly as a metalworker before joining the Army during World War II in July 1944. The majority of his service was as an MP in Wiesbaden, Germany just after the end of the war. While still in Germany, Best was transferred to Special Services and began his acting career. According to Best, he first acted in a European tour of "My Sister Eileen" directed by Arthur Penn. Upon his return to the U.S., he toured in road and stock companies in plays and musicals, and was finally spotted by a scout from Universal Pictures, who put him under contract. A handsome young man, his rural inflections perhaps kept him from frequent leading man roles. During the 1950s and '60s, he was a familiar face in movies and television in a wide range of roles, from Western bad guys to craven cowards and country bumpkins. Physical ailments curtailed his work for a long period late in his career, and he established a well-respected acting workshop in Los Angeles. He also served as artist-in-residence at the University of Mississippi, teaching and directing. He worked in both acting and producing capacities for Burt Reynolds on several of the latter's films in the late 1970s, before taking on his greatest commercial success. Although the The Dukes of Hazzard (1979) TV series was far beneath his talents, his role as Sheriff Rosco Coltrane was the part that gave him his greatest fame. He continued teaching, both in Hollywood and later in Florida (at the University of Central Florida). Semi-retired, he makes personal appearances and exhibits his paintings. James Best starred in the 2007 feature film, Moondance Alexander (2007), along with Don Johnson, Lori Loughlin, Kay Panabaker, Sasha Cohen and Whitney Sloan.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Talented and highly capable character actor Geoffrey Lewis, with rustic (sometimes sour-faced) looks, grew up in Rhode Island but was moved out to California at the age of ten. Lewis was very keen on the dramatic arts at high school, but often preferred to put on his own one-man shows rather than participate in larger school productions. His drama teacher took note of his growing talent and referred him to the Plymouth Theater in Massachusetts, where he appeared in summer stock. Afterwards he appeared in several off-Broadway productions in New York City. After spending considerable time traveling, in both the United States and abroad, Lewis turned his attention back to his love of the dramatic arts, and scored his first minor movie role in The Culpepper Cattle Co. (1972) as a somewhat jovial but deadly cowhand. He then cropped up as gangster Harry Pierpont in Dillinger (1973) before beginning a long association with Clint Eastwood, starting off with High Plains Drifter (1973), then as kind-hearted thief Eddie Goody in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974), as Clint's buddy Orville Boggs in Every Which Way But Loose (1978) and Any Which Way You Can (1980), then as a henpecked husband in Bronco Billy (1980), as Ricky Z in Pink Cadillac (1989), and in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997) also as patient Michael Kahn in Disturbed (1990).
Equally busy on the small screen, he has guest-starred in dozens of episodes of high profile TV series. Additionally, he received a Golden Globe nomination for his performance in the series Flo (1980). Apart from his extensive film and TV exposure, Lewis is also a member of the rather unique musical/storytelling "Celestial Navigations," along with award-winning composer songwriter Geoff Levin. Their performances have received terrific reviews from some of Hollywood's top actors and noted musicians, including Chick Corea. As Geoffrey Lewis approaches his seventh decade, nothing seems likely to slow down this multi-talented actor, storyteller and engaging entertainer!- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Alabama-born Percy Sledge had a somewhat unusual introduction to the music business. Working as an orderly in a local hospital, he was touring with a local band called the Esquires Combo on weekends and working at the hospital during the week. A former patient at the hospital who knew both Sledge and local record producer Quin Ivy introduced them to each other. Ivy was impressed with Sledge's emotional style of singing and signed him to a recording contract. Sledge hit it big with his first record, the classic "When a Man Loves a Woman", released by Atlantic Records, which went on to become a worldwide hit (and, incidentally, the first Atlantic record to go gold). Although Sledge never had another hit as big as "When a Man Loves a Woman," he did manage to place several follow-up records on the charts. He still tours today, and has an especially large following in Europe.- Ben Powers was born on 5 July 1950 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The New Mike Hammer (1984), Good Times (1974) and The Greatest American Hero (1981). He was married to Julia Harper. He died on 6 April 2015 in New Bedford, Massachusetts, USA.
- Actor
- Composer
- Soundtrack
He began singing in nightclubs in his hometown of Nassau, Bahamas, when he was only 13. He moved to Harlem in 1979, developing his other talents as a dancer, songwriter, and actor. "Just Got Paid" was a Top Ten hit in 1988; he subsequently did a tune for the soundtrack of the motion picture Sing (1989). He pursued a career with Teddy Riley on "Just Got Paid" in 1988.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Jonathan Crombie was born on Wednesday, October 12th, 1966, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was the baby of the family (he had two older sisters). His parents are David and Shirley Ann. Jonathan never intended on becoming an actor but he was spotted in a high school production of "The Wizard of Oz" by casting director Diane Polley. She suggested casting him as Gilbert Blythe in both A Judgment in Stone (1986), Anne of Green Gables (1985) & its sequel, Anne of Avonlea (1987) (it was titled "Anne of Avonlea" when it was first released on VHS). It is the role that won him recognition and is the role for which he is best remembered and loved.
Jonathan graduated from the University of Toronto's Victoria College in 1995. He had numerous performances at the prestigious Stratford Festival Theatre to his credit. His performance in the role of Valentine Coverly at the Canadian Stage Company's Arcadia earned Crombie a 1997 Dora Mavor Moore Award nomination for Outstanding Performance, a well deserved honor.
Jonathan Crombie's life ended unexpectedly on Wednesday, April 15th, 2015, from a brain hemorrhage. His life-time was 17,717 days, equaling 2,531 weeks evenly.- Actress
- Writer
- Soundtrack
One of four children (two older brothers, one younger sister) born to American missionaries, Jayne Meadows (née Jane Cotter) was born September 27, 1919, in China. The family returned to the US in the early 1930s wherein Jayne was forced to learn the English language, speaking Chinese and other foreign languages at the time before learning English. She settled in Sharon, Connecticut with her parents, Rev. Francis James Meadows Cotter (who was appointed rector of the town's Christ Church), and Ida Miller (Taylor) Cotter.
She developed an early interest in acting and studied at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. She made her Broadway debut with the comedy "Spring Again" (1941), followed by "Another Love Story" (1943), "The Odds on Mrs. Oakley" (1944), "Many Happy Returns" and "Kiss Them for Me" (1945). This led to a post-WWII, MGM contract in which her icy glare and imposing stance frequently made her the perfect manipulating "other woman" in such "B" heavy drama as Undercurrent (1946), Lady in the Lake (1946), Dark Delusion (1947), Enchantment (1948), The Fat Man (1951) and as Michal in the biblical film David and Bathsheba (1951). She occasionally was featured in lighter feature film fare as well, including Song of the Thin Man (1947) and The Luck of the Irish (1948).
Not satisfactorily moving up the credits ladder in films as she hoped, she sought work elsewhere in the early 1950's, especially in the new medium of TV. She became one of Hollywood's more glittery personalities on TV and variety programs, and a sparkling guest panelist on such popular TV game shows as "The Name's the Same, "Masquerade Party, "What's My Line," "To Tell the Truth" and "Password." At one point, she was a regular member of the celebrity panel on I've Got a Secret (1952).
Divorced from film and TV writer Milton Krims after six years, Jayne met her witty match when she married actor/comedian Steve Allen in 1954. They formed an extremely strong personal and professional relationship which would encompass stage ("Love Letters", in which they co-starred on and off for 11 years), film (College Confidential (1960), and especially TV (Meeting of Minds (1977)). Jayne supported Steve as a regular/guest on many of his comedy series ventures, including The Steve Allen Plymouth Show (1956), The New Steve Allen Show (1961), The Steve Allen Playhouse (1962) and The Steve Allen Comedy Hour (1967). They appeared as themselves in the film The Player (1992) they did not appear as themselves in the amusing TV movie Now You See It, Now You Don't (1968) and the all-star TV version of Alice in Wonderland (1985).
Jayne's solo work took a deliberate back seat. Usually playing elegant sophisticates, she cameoed in such films as the ribald comedy Norman... Is That You? (1976); the crime thriller Murder by Numbers (1989); as Billy Crystal's mother in the comedies City Slickers (1991) and City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold (1994); and made an appearance in what would become her last feature film The Story of Us (1999).
Over a three-decade period, Jayne appeared in a number of TV movies, including James Dean (1976), Sex and the Married Woman (1977), Miss All-American Beauty (1982), A Masterpiece of Murder (1986) and Parent Trap: Hawaiian Honeymoon (1989). She also guested on numerous established programs as well -- "Here Comes the Bride," "Here's Lucy," "Adam-12," "Switch," "Hawaii 5-O," "Matt Houston," "Fantasy Island," "Murder, She Wrote," "The Love Boat," "St. Elsewhere," "The Bold and the Beautiful," "The Nanny" and "Diagnosis Murder." Steady roles on prime-time TV series would include a recurring part as Nurse Chambers on the medical program Medical Center (1969), as well as regular roles on the sitcoms It's Not Easy (1982) and High Society (1995), the latter for which she earned an Emmy nomination for "Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy."
Known for her infectious laugh and joie de vivre, Jayne's confidence grew to include writing stage plays, teleplays, books, and columns. For the most part, however, she was Allen's creative and dedicated business partner for 46 years until his death in 2000. Younger sister Audrey Meadows, of The Honeymooners (1955) TV fame, died in 1996.
Jayne Meadows Allen lived the rest of her life quietly, occasionally granting interviews, until her death on April 26, 2015 in Los Angeles, aged 95.- Music Artist
- Composer
- Actor
Ben E. King was born on 28 September 1938 in Henderson, North Carolina, USA. He was a music artist and composer, known for Stand by Me (1986), Love and Monsters (2020) and Cloverfield (2008). He was married to Betty Nelson. He died on 30 April 2015 in Hackensack, New Jersey, USA.- Music Artist
- Actor
- Music Department
Riley B. King (September 16, 1925 - May 14, 2015), known professionally as B.B. King, was an American blues singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. He introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending, shimmering vibrato and staccato picking that influenced many later blues electric guitar players. AllMusic recognized King as "the single most important electric guitarist of the last half of the 20th century".
King was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, and is one of the most influential blues musicians of all time, earning the nickname "The King of the Blues", and is considered one of the "Three Kings of the Blues Guitar" (along with Albert King and Freddie King, none of whom are related). King performed tirelessly throughout his musical career, appearing on average at more than 200 concerts per year into his 70s. In 1956 alone, he appeared at 342 shows.
King was born on a cotton plantation in Itta Bena, Mississippi, and later worked at a cotton gin in Indianola, Mississippi. He was attracted to music and the guitar in church, and he began his career in Juke joints and local radio. He later lived in Memphis and Chicago; then, as his fame grew, toured the world extensively. King died at the age of 89 in Las Vegas on May 14, 2015.- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
The incredibly gifted comedienne-actress Anne Meara is known for her comedic efforts alongside husband-comedian, Jerry Stiller; together, they were 'Stiller and Meara'; they were original members of the improvisational company, the Compass Players, which later evolved as the Second City Theater. They gained popularity with their skits on The Ed Sullivan Show (1948), but the act dissolved following the demise of variety television. Meara went on to offer her talents to a variety of television roles, notably the Golden Globe-winning Sally Gallagher in Rhoda (1974), and Veronica Rooney, an outspoken Irish cook in the hit sitcom Archie Bunker's Place (1979). In later years, Meara played reoccurring characters in Sex and the City (1998) and The King of Queens (1998).- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Betsy Palmer was probably best known for playing Jason Voorhees' mother in the horror film Friday the 13th (1980), but her career as an actress began many years before.
Palmer was born Patricia Betsy Hrunek in East Chicago, Indiana, to Marie (née Love), who launched the Chicago Business College, and Rudolph Vincent Hrunek, a Czech-born industrial chemist. Palmer played a young female officer opposite Jack Lemmon in Mister Roberts (1955), and appeared in another war film the same year, The Long Gray Line (1955). Throughout the late 1950s, Palmer was recognized as a news reporter on Today (1952) on NBC, then became largely involved in television. She remained in made-for-TV films and notable guest appearances, before playing the murderous avenging mother, Mrs. Voorhees, in the horror film Friday the 13th (1980). She also continued working in television, and appearing in low-budget films like The Fear: Resurrection (1999). Palmer spent her later years between her home in New York City and Sedona, Arizona.
Betsy Palmer died of natural causes on a Friday, May 29, 2015, at a hospice care center in Danbury, Connecticut.- Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Reynaldo Rey was born on 27 January 1940 in Sequoyah County, Oklahoma, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Friday (1995), White Men Can't Jump (1992) and First Sunday (2008). He was married to Evelyn. He died on 28 May 2015 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
- Additional Crew
Mary Ellen Trainor was born in Chicago, Illinois. She appeared in many feature-films of the 1980s, notable characters include, Elaine, the kidnapped sister of Kathleen Turner and the catalyst for the entire plot in Romancing the Stone (1984), Dr. Stephanie Woods (LA Police Psychiatrist) in in all four Lethal Weapon (1987) films, Mrs. Walsh Mikey and Brand's (Sean Astinand Josh Brolin) mom in The Goonies (1985), news reporter Gail Wallens in Die Hard (1988) and Ricochet (1991).- Actor
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Equipped with a crooked, leering smirk and devilish gleam in his eye, actor Ron Moody will be most assuredly remembered for one signature role, despite the fact that the talented comedian had much, much more to offer. Carol Channing may have had her Dolly Levi and Yul Brynner his King of Siam, but Moody would become the most delightfully mischievous, engagingly musical villain of all time.
The son of a plasterer born in London in 1924, Ron never gave much of a look at pursuing the acting field until age 29. Prior to that he had entertained thoughts of becoming an economist or sociologist (trained at the London School of Economics). But, changing his destiny on the way, he became a top stand-up and improv revue artist in England (from 1952), making an inauspicious film bow in 1957 in an unbilled bit. It was the British musical stage that offered him his first taste of stardom with the London company of Leonard Bernstein's "Candide" in 1959. Although it was not a great success, however, it did lead to the role of a lifetime the following year as Fagin, the loveable, rapscallious pickpocket in the musical version of "Oliver Twist" simply entitled Oliver!.
Moody later bandied about in other roguish roles too in such TV series as The Avengers (1961) and in the comedies The Mouse on the Moon (1963) and Murder Most Foul (1964), both starring Margaret Rutherford. But in 1968, Ron was given the opportunity to transfer his Dickensian stage thief to film. Oliver! (1968) allowed him to steal a well-deserved Golden Globe trophy and Oscar nomination in the process, not to mention Hollywood interest. Although he never again matched the success of Oliver! (1968), Moody's portrayal of Uriah Heep in a TV version of Charles Dickens's David Copperfield (1970) became another a great success. Other offbeat cinematic roles, both dramatic and sharply comic, included such films as The Twelve Chairs (1970), Flight of the Doves (1971), Legend of the Werewolf (1975), Dogpound Shuffle (1975), Unidentified Flying Oddball (1979) (aka: Unidentified Flying Oddball, as Merlin), Wrong Is Right (1982), Where Is Parsifal? (1984), Emily's Ghost (1992), A Kid in King Arthur's Court (1995) (as Merlin), The 3 Kings (2000), Revelation (2001), Paradise Grove (2003) and Lost Dogs (2005).
Despite his fine work elsewhere, the role of Fagin would be Moody's long-lasting claim to fame. He reprised the part at a 1985 in a Royal Variety Performance at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, before Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh. Throughout his TV career, Moody's presence and/or voice graced several children's series including the adaptations of Into the Labyrinth (1981) and The Telebugs (1986), and he was occasionally on TV here in the U.S., including 80s episodes of "Hart to Hart," "Highway to Heaven" and "Murder, She Wrote."
The endearing Ron Moody died at age 91 in London.- Actor
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Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee was perhaps the only actor of his generation to have starred in so many films and cult saga. Although most notable for personifying bloodsucking vampire, Dracula, on screen, he portrayed other varied characters on screen, most of which were villains, whether it be Francisco Scaramanga in the James Bond film, The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), or Count Dooku in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002), or as the title monster in the Hammer Horror film, The Mummy (1959).
Lee was born in 1922 in London, England, where he and his older sister Xandra were raised by their parents, Contessa Estelle Marie (Carandini di Sarzano) and Geoffrey Trollope Lee, a professional soldier, until their divorce in 1926. Later, while Lee was still a child, his mother married (and later divorced) Harcourt George St.-Croix (nicknamed Ingle), who was a banker. Lee's maternal great-grandfather was an Italian political refugee, while Lee's great-grandmother was English opera singer Marie (Burgess) Carandini.
After attending Wellington College from age 14 to 17, Lee worked as an office clerk in a couple of London shipping companies until 1941 when he enlisted in the Royal Air Force during World War II. Following his release from military service, Lee joined the Rank Organisation in 1947, training as an actor in their "Charm School" and playing a number of bit parts in such films as Corridor of Mirrors (1948). He made a brief appearance in Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948), in which his future partner-in-horror Peter Cushing also appeared. Both actors also appeared later in Moulin Rouge (1952) but did not meet until their horror films together.
Lee had numerous parts in film and television throughout the 1950s. He struggled initially in his new career because he was discriminated as being taller than the leading male actors of his time and being too foreign-looking. However, playing the monster in the Hammer film The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) proved to be a blessing in disguise, since the was successful, leading to him being signed on for future roles in Hammer Film Productions.
Lee's association with Hammer Film Productions brought him into contact with Peter Cushing, and they became good friends. Lee and Cushing often than not played contrasting roles in Hammer films, where Cushing was the protagonist and Lee the villain, whether it be Van Helsing and Dracula respectively in Horror of Dracula (1958), or John Banning and Kharis the Mummy respectively in The Mummy (1959).
Lee continued his role as "Dracula" in a number of Hammer sequels throughout the 1960s and into the early 1970s. During this time, he co-starred in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), and made numerous appearances as Fu Manchu, most notably in the first of the series The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), and also appeared in a number of films in Europe. With his own production company, Charlemagne Productions, Ltd., Lee made Nothing But the Night (1973) and To the Devil a Daughter (1976).
By the mid-1970s, Lee was tiring of his horror image and tried to widen his appeal by participating in several mainstream films, such as The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), The Three Musketeers (1973), The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge (1974), and the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun (1974).
The success of these films prompted him in the late 1970s to move to Hollywood, where he remained a busy actor but made mostly unremarkable film and television appearances, and eventually moved back to England. The beginning of the new millennium relaunched his career to some degree, during which he has played Count Dooku in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) and as Saruman the White in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Lee played Count Dooku again in Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005), and portrayed the father of Willy Wonka, played by Johnny Depp, in the Tim Burton film, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005).
On 16 June 2001, he was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of his services to drama. He was created a Knight Bachelor on 13 June 2009 in the Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to drama and charity. In addition he was made a Commander of the Order of St John on 16 January 1997.
Lee died at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital on 7 June 2015 at 8:30 am after being admitted for respiratory problems and heart failure, shortly after celebrating his 93rd birthday there. His wife delayed the public announcement until 11 June, in order to break the news to their family.- Music Department
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James Horner began studying piano at the age of five, and trained at the Royal College of Music in London, England, before moving to California in the 1970s. After receiving a bachelor's degree in music at USC, he would go on to earn his master's degree at UCLA and teach music theory there. He later completed his Ph.D. in Music Composition and Theory at UCLA. Horner began scoring student films for the American Film Institute in the late 1970s, which paved the way for scoring assignments on a number of small-scale films. His first large, high-profile project was composing music for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), which would lead to numerous other film offers and opportunities to work with world-class performers such as the London Symphony Orchestra. With over 75 projects to his name, and work with people such as George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Oliver Stone, and Ron Howard, Horner firmly established himself as a strong voice in the world of film scoring. In addition, Horner composed a classical concert piece in the 1980s, called "Spectral Shimmers", which was world premiered by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. Horner passed away in a plane crash on June 22, 2015, two months short of his 62nd birthday.- Dick Van Patten began acting as a child. He made his first of 27 Broadway appearances at age seven in "Tapestry in Grey." After, he appeared in numerous films, including Freaky Friday (1976), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), and Spaceballs (1987). His television credits include his best-known role on the 1980s comedy-drama Eight Is Enough (1977), on which he played Tom Bradford, the patriarchal head of the pack.
Van Patten authored several bestselling books, including "How To Get Your Child Into Show Business" and his autobiography, "Eighty Is Not Enough." He was also known for lending his name to "Natural Balance," a line of high-end dog food that is intended to be indistinguishable from stews and other dishes, that are normally intended for human consumption. He was married to Pat Poole (née Patricia Poole) for 61 years; the union produced three sons: Nels Van Patten, James Van Patten, and Vincent Van Patten. - Actor
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British actor Patrick Macnee was born on February 6, 1922 in London, England into a wealthy and eccentric family. His father, Daniel Macnee, was a race horse trainer, who drank and gambled away the family fortune, leaving young Patrick to be raised by his lesbian mother, Dorothea Mary, and her partner. Shortly after graduating from Eton (from which he was almost expelled for running a gambling ring), Macnee first appeared on stage and made his film debut as an extra in Pygmalion (1938). His career was interrupted by World War II, during which he served in the Royal Navy. After military service, Macnee attended the Webber Douglas School of Dramatic Art in London on scholarship. He also resumed his stage and film career, with bit parts such as Young Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol (1951). Disappointed with his limited roles, Macnee left England for Canada and the United States.
In 1954, he went to Broadway with an Old Vic troupe and later moved on to Hollywood, where he made occasional television and film appearances until returning to England in 1959. Once back home, he took advantage of his producing experience in Canada to become co-producer of the British television series Winston Churchill: The Valiant Years (1960). Shortly thereafter, Macnee landed the role that brought him worldwide fame and popularity in the part of John Steed, in the classic British television series The Avengers (1961). His close identification with this character limited his career choices after the cancellation of the series in 1969, prompting him to reprise the role in The New Avengers (1976), which, though popular, failed to recapture the magic of the original series. During the 1980s and 1990s, Macnee became a familiar face on American television in such series as Gavilan (1982), Empire (1984), Thunder in Paradise (1994) and NightMan (1997). In the past decade, Macnee has also made several audio recordings of book fiction.- Actress
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Diana Douglas was born on 22 January 1923 in Devonshire, Bermuda. She was an actress, known for Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987), Remington Steele (1982) and The Whistle at Eaton Falls (1951). She was married to Donald Albert Webster, Bill Darrid and Kirk Douglas. She died on 3 July 2015 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Amanda Peterson was born on July 8, in Greeley, Colorado. With a natural beauty, powerful charm and a strong personality this talented and truly gifted actress began her career in film industry at age 9, with the feature film Annie (1982), directed by Academy Award-winner John Huston. To participate in "Annie", she had to persuade her mother and then compete in a casting which included more than 8000 girls. She is the youngest of three children, she has a sister, Ann-Marie Peterson, and a brother, Rev. Jim Peterson. Her mother, Sylvia Peterson, is a full-time mother and housewife and her father, James Peterson, is a doctor. Starting in 1981, Amanda had guest starring roles in television series such as Father Murphy (1981), Silver Spoons (1982) and Boone (1983). In 1985, she played alongside with Oscar nominee River Phoenix and Ethan Hawke, a four-time Oscar nominee, in Joe Dante fantasy-fable Explorers (1985). At 14 years of age this precocious young actress, had already participated in over 50 television commercials, three television series and four movies. She was also an active member of the Greeley Saddle Club, and horse riding was one of her passions since childhood. She met her greatest international success in 1987 with the comedy movie Can't Buy Me Love (1987), directed by Steve Rash. Amanda received critical praise worldwide and demonstrated that her skills were maturing into older roles. In 1987, in Chile, Amanda acted with her elder sister, Ann-Marie Peterson, Jsu Garcia and Xander Berkeley in the post-apocalyptic movie The Lawless Land (1988), directed by Jon Hess and produced by Academy Award-winner Roger Corman. In 1988, for her outstanding acting in the Emmy Award-winning television series A Year in the Life (1986), Amanda Peterson won the Young Artist Award in the category of Best Young Actress Starring in a Television Drama Series. These awards are often referred to as the Young Oscars. A year later she acted opposite Roy Scheider, two-time Oscar nominee, in the profound and moving drama Listen to Me (1989), directed by Oscar nominee Douglas Day Stewart. She also drew praise for is her performance in the excellent thriller Fatal Charm (1990), directed by Fritz Kiersch. In 1994, after participating in the memorable contemporary drama film Windrunner (1994), she decided to leave the entertainment industry. Amanda's work involves several genres, from western to romance, science fiction to thrillers, and from dramas to comedies.
Amanda found admirers on a global scale, with her delightful work. With her strong presence and dedication, she demonstrated a gift for portraying emotion and vulnerability, while immersing herself in here roles, while bringing here unique personality, an attribute that only the best actors have. In a Perfect World Amanda would have delivered many more quality character interpretations, whether in film or on television. With her movies she achieved immortality in the hearts of all who witnessed her work since her childhood. As Leonard Maltin, the most respected and recognized historian and film critic in America, once said - "Amanda Peterson is excellent". There is no doubt about that. After all, Amanda Peterson is one of the most talented and beautiful actress of her time and considered by many a legend. On July 3, 2015, Amanda Peterson died at her home in Greeley, Colorado, at the age 43 from an accidental morphine overdose. - Actor
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Large (6'1"), affable, and commanding character actor Irwin Keyes was born on March 16, 1952 in New York City. Keyes grew up in Amityville, New York and graduated from Amityville Memorial High School in 1970. He acted in his first play "The Lower Depths" by Maxim Grody while attending college. Frequently cast as likable lugs, brutish goons, and imposing authority figures, Irwin acted in a diverse array of movies in such genres as horror ("Friday the 13th," "Guilty as Charged," "House of 1000 Corpses"), comedy ("The Private Eyes," "Zapped!;" hilarious as Wheezy Joe in "Intolerable Cruelty"), thriller ("Dream Lover"), science fiction (both "Oblivion" pictures), and action ("The Warriors," "The Exterminator" and its sequel). Keyes achieved his greatest enduring popularity with his recurring role as endearingly oafish bodyguard Hugo Majelewski on the hit sitcom "The Jeffersons." Among the TV shows that Irwin made guest appearances on are "Laverne & Shirley," "Police Squad!," "Moonlighting," "Married with Children," "thirtysomething," "Growing Pains," "Tales from the Crypt," and "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation." Moreover, Keyes not only acted in TV commercials and music videos (he was very touching as a struggling down on his luck actor in the music video for "Good Enough" by Prozak), but also did voice overs for video games. Irwin lived in Los Angeles, California and continued to act with pleasing regularity right up until his death at age 63 on July 8, 2015.- Actor
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Omar Sharif, the Egyptian actor best known for playing Sherif Ali in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and the title role in Doctor Zhivago (1965), was born Michel Demitri Shalhoub on April 10, 1932 in Alexandria, Egypt to Joseph Shalhoub, a lumber merchant, and his wife, Claire (Saada). Of Lebanese and Syrian extraction, the young Michel was raised Catholic. He was educated at Victoria College in Alexandria and took a degree in mathematics and physics from Cairo University with a major. Afterward graduating from university, he entered the family lumber business.
Before making his English-language film debut with "Lawrence of Arabia", for which he earned a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination and international fame, Sharif became a star in Egyptian cinema. His first movie was the Egyptian film The Blazing Sun (1954) ("The Blazing Sun") in 1953, opposite the renowned Egyptian actress Faten Hamamah whom he married in 1955. He converted to Islam to marry Hamama and took the name Omar al-Sharif. The couple had one child (Tarek Sharif, who was born in 1957 and portrayed the young Zhivago in the eponymous picture) and divorced in 1974. Sharif never remarried.
Beginning in the 1960s, Sharif earned a reputation as one of the world's best known contract bridge players. In the 1970s and 1980s, he co-wrote a syndicated newspaper bridge column for the Chicago Tribune. Sharif also wrote several books on bridge and has licensed his name to a bridge computer game, "Omar Sharif Bridge", which has been marketed since 1992. Sharif told the press in 2006 that he no longer played bridge, explaining, "I decided I didn't want to be a slave to any passion any more except for my work. I had too many passions, bridge, horses, gambling. I want to live a different kind of life, be with my family more because I didn't give them enough time.".
As an actor, Sharif had made a comeback in 2003 playing the title role of an elderly Muslim shopkeeper in the French film Monsieur Ibrahim (2003). For his performance, he won the Best Actor Award at the Venice Film Festival and the Best Actor César, France's equivalent of the Oscar, from the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma.
Diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2012, Sharif died of a heart attack on July 10, 2015, in Cairo, Egypt.- Actor
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Like a number of British actors of the same generation (John Hurt and Alan Rickman, to name two), Roger Rees originally trained for the visual arts. He was born on May 5 1944 in Aberystwyth, Wales, and acted in church and Boy Scouts stage productions while growing up in South London, but studied painting and lithography at the Slade School of Art. He had to quit his studies, however, when his father died and he had to help support the family. His first paying jobs in show business were as a scenery painter. He was painting scenery, in fact, when he was asked to sub in for a part and made his acting debut. He put away his brushes for good after this.
He turned to acting on a full-time basis in the mid-1960s and appeared on both the London and Scottish stages. After his fourth audition, the Royal Shakespeare Company finally hired him as a walk-on, sword carrier and bit player in 1968. He then worked his way up through the RSC's ranks, finally achieving stardom in the early 1980s in the 8-1/2 hour stage adaptation of "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickelby", which had a cast of 40 actors, and for which he won both an Olivier Award and a Tony Award. Rees was also nominated for an Emmy Award for the television version of the play. By this time, he had several TV movies to his name, but he did not make his big-screen debut until Star 80 (1983).
Living in the United States since 1989, Roger made a name for himself in America when he joined the cast of the TV hit comedy Cheers (1982) as the priggish Britisher Robin Colcord and later the glib British ambassador Lord John Marbury on the series The West Wing (1999). More recently, he appeared as a frequent guest in several British and American television series and in a number of independent films.
However, Roger Rees remained primarily a man of the theatre with secondary careers as a playwright and stage director. Married to theatre collaborator Rick Elice since 2011, Roger was subsequently diagnosed with cancer. Performing on Broadway in the musical "The Visit" starring Chita Rivera, he was forced to quit the show in late May of 2015. The 71-year-old actor died on July 10, 2015.- Actor
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Theodore Bikel is one of the most versatile and respected actors and performers of his generation. A master of languages, dialects and accents, he has played every sort of film villain and semi-bad guy imaginable, and always adds depth, dimension and even sympathy to characters that would end up as cardboard cutouts in the hands of lesser actors. His memorable supporting roles include a German naval officer in The African Queen (1951), the king of Serbia in Moulin Rouge (1952) and a German submarine officer in The Enemy Below (1957). He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in The Defiant Ones (1958). Equally at home on the stage, Bikel is remembered for creating the role of Captain Von Trapp in the original Broadway cast of "The Sound of Music" opposite Mary Martin. He also appeared on stage in "Tonight in Samarkand", "The Lark" and "The Rope Dancers". Bikel is fluent in more than half a dozen European and Middle Eastern languages, and sings folk songs in nearly 20 languages, skillfully accompanying himself on guitar, mandolin, balalaika and harmonica. He was a regular on the early 1960s TV show Hootenanny (1963), a weekly cavalcade of folk music. Over the years he has performed on college campuses and in concert halls all over the country, and has recorded a number of record albums of folk music from around the world.- Bobbi Kristina Brown was born on 4 March 1993 in Livingston, New Jersey, USA. She was an actress, known for For Better or Worse (2011), The Houstons: On Our Own (2012) and Being Bobby Brown (2005). She died on 26 July 2015 in Duluth, Georgia, USA.
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Yvonne Joyce Craig was born on May 16, 1937 in Taylorville, Illinois. As a young teenager, Yvonne showed such promise as a dancer that she was accepted to Denham's Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Her training progressed until she left the company in 1957 over a disagreement on casting changes. She moved to Los Angeles hoping to continue her dancing, but was soon cast in movies. At first, Yvonne had small roles in movies such as Gidget (1959) and The Gene Krupa Story (1959). After that, her film career just bumped along. As Yvonne was dating Elvis Presley at the time, she did have a supporting role in the two Elvis movies, It Happened at the World's Fair (1963) and Kissin' Cousins (1964).
But her fame would come with the cult television series Batman (1966) in which she played Commissioner Gordon's daughter, Barbara. Her secret identity was Batgirl and as the Commissioner's daughter, she had access to all the calls of trouble taking place in Gotham City. Her character, Batgirl, was part of the 1967-68 season, which was the end of the run for the series. After Batman (1966), she also appeared on other television series such as Star Trek (1966) and The Six Million Dollar Man (1974). As her career wound down, Yvonne went into the real estate business. Yvonne Craig died at age 78 of breast cancer at her home in Pacific Palisades, California on August 17, 2015.- Writer
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Wes Craven has become synonymous with genre bending and innovative horror, challenging audiences with his bold vision.
Wesley Earl Craven was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to Caroline (Miller) and Paul Eugene Craven. He had a midwestern suburban upbringing. His first feature film was The Last House on the Left (1972), which he wrote, directed, and edited. Craven reinvented the youth horror genre again in 1984 with the classic A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), a film he wrote and directed. And though he did not direct any of its five sequels, he deconstructed the genre a decade later, writing and directing the audacious New Nightmare (1994), which was nominated as Best Feature at the 1995 Independent Spirit Awards, and introduced the concept of self-reflexive genre films to the world.
In 1996 Craven reached a new level of success with the release of Scream (1996). The film, which sparked the phenomenal trilogy, was the winner of MTV's 1996 Best Movie Award and grossed more than $100 million domestically, as did Scream 2 (1997). Between Scream 2 and Scream 3 (2000), Craven, offered the opportunity to direct a non-genre film for Miramax, helmed Music of the Heart (1999), a film that earned Meryl Streep an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. That same year, in the midst of directing, Craven completed his first novel, "The Fountain Society," published by Simon & Shuster. Recent works include the 2005 psychological thriller Red Eye (2005), and a short rom-com segment for the ensemble product, Paris, I Love You (2006).
In later years, Craven also produced remakes of two of his earlier films for his genre fans, The Hills Have Eyes (2006) and The Last House on the Left (2009). Craven has always had an eye for discovering fresh talent, something that contributes to the success of his films. While casting A Nightmare on Elm Street, Craven discovered the then unknown Johnny Depp. Craven later cast Sharon Stone in her first starring role for his film Deadly Blessing. He even gave Bruce Willis his first featured role in an episode of TV's mid-80's edition of The Twilight Zone. In My Soul to Take (2010), Craven once again brought together a cast of up-and-coming young teens, including Max Thieriot, in whom he saw the spark of stardom. The film marked Craven's first collaboration with wife and producer Iya Labunka, who also produced with him the highly anticipated production of Scream 4.
Craven's Scream 4 (2011) reunited the director with Dimension Films and Kevin Williamson, as well as with stars Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette, to re-boot the beloved franchise. Craven again exhibited his knack for spotting important talent, with a cast of young actors bringing us a totally new breed of Woodsboro high schoolers, including Emma Robert and Hayden Pannetierre.- Actress
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Having toured the world with husband, Kajar the Magician's Show 'Magicadabr', Jean Darling settled in Dublin and became an author of dozens of short mysteries for Ellery Queen, Alfred Hitchcock, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazines and Horror Fantasy for Whispers Magazine, etc. In 1980 she became Aunty Poppy (named for her home State flower) writing and telling over 450 children's story on both RTE radio and TV. Jean has also written several radio plays broadcast on RTE.- Actor
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Martin Sam Milner was born December 28, 1931 in Detroit, Michigan. His mother, Jerre Martin, originally from Oregon, was a dancer with the Paramount Theater circuit. His father, Sam Gordon Milner, a Polish Jewish immigrant, was a film distributor. The Milners moved to Seattle when Martin was a baby and to Los Angeles soon after. At age 15, Martin's father got him an agent and he was chosen to play the role of "John Day" in Life with Father (1947), Warner Bros.' version of Clarence Day, Jr.'s popular Broadway play. Milner contracted polio shortly after filming was completed and his career was put on hold for a year as he recovered from the illness. After graduating from North Hollywood High School and studying for one year at the University of Southern California, Milner worked steadily in films during the years 1949-1960. He appeared in films such as Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), Marjorie Morningstar (1958) and Sweet Smell of Success (1957). He put his career on hold again when he was inducted into the Army in 1952 for two years. Shortly after joining the Army, he was assigned to the Human Research Division, where he directed military training films and served as Master of Ceremonies for a touring show based at Fort Ord, California. Milner married television actress and singer Judy Jones in 1957 and they have four children--Amy, Molly, Stuart, and Andrew.
Milner met Jack Webb during the filming of Halls of Montezuma (1951) and later worked with him on his "Dragnet" radio show as well as the TV series Dragnet (1951). Milner appeared as 17-year-old high school student "Stephen Banner" in the episode "The Big Producer" in 1952. According to Webb's biography "Just the Facts, Ma'am", Webb owed Milner money from a card game. When Webb called him to the studio to pay him back, he offered Milner a role in the "Dragnet" radio show. After that, Webb continued to find roles for Milner until he offered him the role of "Pete Malloy" on Adam-12 (1968). Milner continued to appear in films throughout the 1970s and 1980s and made many guest appearances on television shows such as Murder, She Wrote (1984), the "Columbo" made-for-TV movies, MacGyver (1985), and Diagnosis Murder (1993). Milner was an avid fisherman and has been co-host of the syndicated radio talk show "Let's Talk Hook-up" since 1993. He also hosts fishing trips through "Let's Talk Hook-Up."
Apart from the Webb connection, Milner starred as "Tod Stiles" in his own groundbreaking CBS-TV series, Route 66 (1960). The series was notable for its coast-to-coast location shooting, eloquent scripts by co-creator Stirling Silliphant and others, impressive guest casts, and a distinctive theme song by Nelson Riddle. The series allowed Milner to explore a range of characterizations as his nomadic travels in a Corvette convertible took him from job to job all over the United States, where he dug deeply into the lives of the people he encountered there -- with traveling companions "Buz Murdock" (George Maharis) and, after Maharis left the show, "Lincoln Case" (Glenn Corbett).- Actor
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Jack Edward Larson was born in Los Angeles, California, to Anita (Calicoff) and George E. Larson. He was raised in Pasadena, and attended Pasadena Junior College (by coincidence, exactly as did his Adventures of Superman (1952) co-star George Reeves). He was a contract player at Warner Bros. Typecast as Jimmy Olsen, Larson found it virtually impossible to get other acting roles after the series went off the air and retired from acting a few years later, concentrating on writing. His plays have been highly acclaimed and he has had works performed in theaters and opera houses around the world. He was the longtime companion of late director James Bridges, with whom he co-produced a number of popular films of the 1970s and 1980s. Larson was an erudite and charming man who seems to have been close friends with many of the more prominent figures of the arts in the latter half of the 20th century, including Virgil Thomson, John Houseman, Leslie Caron, Libby Holman, Montgomery Clift, Salka Viertel, Christopher Isherwood and James Dean. Larson died of natural causes while relaxing on the deck of his Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles, at the age of 87.- Soundtrack
Ben Cauley was born on 3 October 1947 in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. He was married to Shirley. He died on 21 September 2015 in Memphis, Tennessee, USA.- Actor
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One of baseball's greatest catchers of all time, Yogi Berra appeared in a record 14 World Series while calling the games for the New York Yankees. Berra proved invaluable to the Yankees as evidenced by his three American League Most Valuable Player awards. Berra was also one of the game's best-hitting catchers, hitting 358 homers and hitting a crisp .285 in his career. Berra also proved his worth as one of the smartest men in the game, managing the Yankees and later the New York Mets. He took both teams to the World Series. Lately however, Berra is more known for his fractured witticisms "It ain't over till it's over." Still, if you were to start an all-star baseball team, Berra would be one of top picks for catcher.- Actor
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New Orleans R&B singer Frankie Ford was born on August 4, 1939 in Gretna, Louisiana. He was the adopted son of Vincent and Anna Guzzo. He studied singing and dancing as a boy and made his stage debut at age five in 1945. He performed on the Ted Mack Amateur Hour in New York City in 1952 and won many local, national, and regional vocal competitions while still a child.
Frankie was a singer and piano player for the group the Syncopators during his high school years. He had a good-sized regional hit with the song "Cheatin' Woman" for Ace Records in the late 1950s, but he scored his biggest and most beloved smash with the infectiously buoyant "Sea Cruise," which peaked at #14 on the Billboard pop charts in 1959 ("Sea Cruise" has not only been used in TV commercials for such products as Coors Light Beer, Diet Coke, and Sprite, but has also been featured on the soundtracks to the films My American Cousin (1985), Stewardess School (1986) and Ski Patrol (1990)). Alas, such equally fine follow-up singles as "Danny Boy," "Alimony," and "I Wanna Be Your Man" were only modest successes. In 1962 Frankie was drafted into the US Army and entertained troops in Vietnam, Korea, and America as a member of the Special Services. He appears as himself in the excellent 1978 Alan Freed bio movie American Hot Wax (1978).
Ford continued to tour and perform at various concerts, festivals, and nightclubs on a regular basis throughout for several decades. In addition, he closed the Gretna Heritage Festival every first weekend in October and appeared every year as a headliner at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. He was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame in 2010. Frankie Ford died at age 76 on September 28, 2015 at his home in Gretna, Louisiana.- Actor
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A 1941 graduate of Mary D. Bradford High School in Kenosha, where he served on the student council and participated in forensics under dramatic coach John Davies, he took second place in the National Forensics League national contest in Lexington, Kentucky in dramatic declaration and oratorical declamation. (The Kenosha team won the meet that year over 800-plus contestants.) By 1948, he was working in radio and joined television in its infancy, becoming the commercial announcer for "I Love Lucy" in 1951. He was married for sixty years.- Actor
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Dickie Moore made his acting and screen debut at the age of 18 months in the 1927 John Barrymore film The Beloved Rogue (1927) as a baby, and by the time he had turned 10 he was a popular child star and had appeared in 52 films. He continued as a child star for many more years, and became the answer to the trivia question, "Who was the first actor to kiss Shirley Temple on screen?" when that honor was bestowed upon him in 1942's Miss Annie Rooney (1942). As with many child actors, once Dickie got older the roles began to dry up. He made his last film in 1952, but was still in the public eye with the 1949 to 1955 TV series Captain Video and His Video Rangers (1949). He then retired from acting for a new career in publicity. He later produced industrial shows.- Actor
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Martin Ingerman was born on March 6, 1936 in New York City. He had an older brother named Arthur. He had a rough childhood and was often picked on. After he finished school, he went into the army. Later, he appeared in a couple of game shows and won. He wanted to be an actor so he went to California. He lived with another guy and actually ended up dating and eventually marrying his roommate's girlfriend.
Marty made a couple of movies, but made it big when he starred with John Astin in I'm Dickens, He's Fenster (1962). Soon after the show went off the air, he and his wife divorced.
He met and married Shirley Jones and became stepfather to Shaun, Ryan, and Patrick Cassidy, sons of Jones from her marriage to Jack Cassidy. He worked some, but Shirley was primarily the breadwinner. Eventually he started putting some money away and in a couple of years was able to accumulate over a million dollars. In 1999, he and Shirley separated for six months, but then got back together. They live in Encino, California, with three dogs.- Actress
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In America, the early performing arts accomplishments of young Maureen FitzSimons (who we know as Maureen O'Hara) would definitely have put her in the child prodigy category. However, for a child of Irish heritage surrounded by gifted parents and family, these were very natural traits. Maureen made her entrance into this caring haven on August 17, 1920, in Ranelagh (a suburb of Dublin), Ireland. Her mother, Marguerita Lilburn FitzSimons, was an accomplished contralto. Her father, Charles FitzSimons, managed a business in Dublin and also owned part of the renowned Irish soccer team "The Shamrock Rovers." Maureen was the second of six FitzSimons children - Peggy, Florrie, Charles B. Fitzsimons, Margot Fitzsimons and James O'Hara completed this beautiful family.
Maureen loved playing rough athletic games as a child and excelled in sports. She combined this interest with an equally natural gift for performing. This was demonstrated by her winning pretty much every Feis award for drama and theatrical performing her country offered. By age 14 she was accepted to the prestigious Abbey Theater and pursued her dream of classical theater and operatic singing. This course was to be altered, however, when Charles Laughton, after seeing a screen test of Maureen, became mesmerized by her hauntingly beautiful eyes. Before casting her to star in Jamaica Inn (1939), Laughton and his partner, Erich Pommer, changed her name from Maureen FitzSimons to "Maureen O'Hara" - a bit shorter last name for the marquee.
Under contract to Laughton, Maureen's next picture was to be filmed in America (The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)) at RKO Pictures. The epic film was an extraordinary success and Maureen's contract was eventually bought from Laughton by RKO. At 19, Maureen had already starred in two major motion pictures with Laughton. Unlike most stars of her era, she started at the top, and remained there - with her skills and talents only getting better and better with the passing years.
Maureen has an enviable string of all-time classics to her credit that include the aforementioned "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," How Green Was My Valley (1941), Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Sitting Pretty (1948), The Quiet Man (1952), and The Parent Trap (1961). Add to this the distinction of being voted one of the five most beautiful women in the world and you have a film star who was as gorgeous as she was talented.
Although at times early in her career Hollywood didn't seem to notice, there was much more to Maureen O'Hara than her dynamic beauty. She not only had a wonderful lyric soprano voice, but she could use her inherent athletic ability to perform physical feats that most actresses couldn't begin to attempt, from fencing to fisticuffs. She was a natural athlete.
In her career Maureen starred with some of Hollywood's most dashing leading men, including Tyrone Power, John Payne, Rex Harrison, James Stewart, Henry Fonda, Brian Keith, Sir Alec Guinness and, of course, her famed pairings with "The Duke" himself, John Wayne. She starred in five films with Wayne, the most beloved being The Quiet Man (1952).
In addition to famed director John Ford, Maureen was also fortunate to have worked for some other great directors in the business: Alfred Hitchcock, William Dieterle, Henry Hathaway, Henry King, Jean Renoir, John M. Stahl, William A. Wellman, Frank Borzage, Walter Lang, George Seaton, George Sherman, Carol Reed, Delmer Daves, David Swift, Andrew V. McLaglen and Chris Columbus.
In 1968 Maureen found much deserved personal happiness when she married Charles Blair. Gen. Blair was a famous aviator whom she had known as a friend of her family for many years. A new career began for Maureen, that of a full-time wife. Her marriage to Blair, however, was again far from typical. Blair was the real-life version of what John Wayne had been on the screen. He had been a Brigadier General in the Air Force, a Senior Pilot with Pan American, and held many incredible record-breaking aeronautic achievements. Maureen happily retired from films in 1973 after making the TV movie The Red Pony (1973) (which on the prestigious Peabody Award for Excellence) with Henry Fonda. With Blair, Maureen managed Antilles Airboats, a commuter sea plane service in the Caribbean. She not only made trips around the world with her pilot husband, but owned and published a magazine, "The Virgin Islander," writing a monthly column called "Maureen O'Hara Says."
Tragically, Charles Blair died in a plane crash in 1978. Though completely devastated, Maureen pulled herself together and, with memories of ten of the happiest years of her life, continued on. She was elected President and CEO of Antilles Airboats, which brought her the distinction of being the first woman president of a scheduled airline in the United States.
Fortunately, she was coaxed out of retirement several times - once in 1991 to star with John Candy in Only the Lonely (1991) and again, in 1995, in a made-for-TV movie, The Christmas Box (1995) on CBS. In the spring of 1998, Maureen accepted the second of what would be three projects for Polson Productions and CBS: Cab to Canada (1998) - and, in October, 2000, The Last Dance (2000).
On St. Patrick's Day in 2004, she published her New York Times bestselling memoir, 'Tis Herself, co-authored with her longtime biographer and manager Johnny Nicoletti.
On November 4, 2014 Maureen was honored by a long overdue Oscar for "Lifetime Achievement" at the annual Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Governors Awards.
Maureen O'Hara was absolutely stunning, with that trademark red hair, dazzling smile and those huge, expressive eyes. She has fans from all over the world of all ages who are utterly devoted to her legacy of films and her persona as a strong, courageous and intelligent woman.- Andrew Harold Rubin was born in the seaport town of New Bedford, Massachusetts. His father, Simon, owned a furniture and bedding factory and his mother, Leona (nee Greenstone) was an artist and international travel writer.
Andy, as he was called then, began performing and acting at the age of 10. He wrote and starred in skits and plays at the Jewish Community Center. Afterward, he continued acting the leads in plays while attending New Bedford High School. He won a college acting scholarship from the high school in his senior year.
School didn't make a lot of sense to him and as a result he only got into one college that he applied to. Wagner College, a Lutheran School, was located on Staten Island and as a concession to his parents Rubin agreed to go there. By the end of the school year Rubin's parents had received 24 letters from the Dean of Men listing various infractions by their son. His college career came rapidly to a close.
With his heart in acting, he auditioned for the famed American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. The Academy was like an embryo for him: an amazing training ground to eat and breathe acting daily for two years. After graduation he got a job as a page at NBC 30 Rock rising rapidly in the ranks to become the youngest full time writer in the history of the NBC Publicity Department. Going on auditions while at NBC landed him his first big time job. He was cast from hundreds of hopefuls to play the character of Cosmo in a guy/girl duo in a national commercial campaign (6 TV and 5 radio) for Sprite soda.
After being flown to California to shoot for two weeks on location, Rubin decided to move to California to seek work. He met with success almost immediately, guest starring in various television dramatic series including "Ironside", "The Streets of San Francisco", "Cannon" and dozens of others. He also scored recurring roles on well known comedies of the day such as "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman", "The Jeffersons", and "The Odd Couple".
Rubin's big break came when he was tapped by director Martin Ritt ('Hud','Sounder') to star as Walter Matthau's eldest son, Buddy, in the horse-racing picture "Casey's Shadow". Although the film and he got terrific reviews it was not a box office success because it conflicted with another Matthau film, "House Calls" (with Glenda Jackson) which was released the same day.
He followed "Casey's Shadow" with the iconic film, "Police Academy", playing the character of George Martin, the suave Lothario pretending to be Hispanic so he "could get the girls". Rubin then went on to star in three television series, "Jessica Novak" (with Helen Shaver), "Hometown" (TV version of "The Big Chill") and "Joe Bash", an offbeat comedy starring him and Peter Boyle as two lower Manhattan beat cops created and produced by Danny Arnold ("Barney Miller").
Rubin continued to work in TV doing films and mini-series ("Roughnecks", "Deadline: Madrid") and in movies ("Nuts"- playing Barbra Streisand's ex-husband, "Sunnyside", "Little Miss Marker", "Tell Me That You Love Me"). He also was a regular on the Los Angeles theater scene starring in the Company Theater's "James Joyce Memorial Liquid Theater", Sam Shepard's "The Unseen Hand" at the Odyssey, "Hopscotch" at LAAT and "The Passing Game", produced by Tom Hanks, at the Gene Dynarski.
It was about this time that Rubin went on what he calls a "walkabout" traveling the world. During that time he explored the pyramids of Egypt, the temples of India and the outback of Australia where he and his wife, Lauren, lived with an Aboriginal tribe in a remote region of the country. He would also return to work occasionally, playing Jules Bergman, ABC's Science correspondent in "From the Earth to the Moon", and also writing and starring in "Men and Their Fathers", a well received short film.
He recently completed filming for a documentary, "The CURE Is U", set for release in 2012. No longer on a 'walkabout', he lives with his wife, Dr. Lauren Rubin, two dogs and five cats in Pacific Palisades. His passion for and love of acting has never dimmed. - Actor
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Albert was born on June 24, 1919 to Raffaele Molinaro and Teresa Marrone. His father was born in Calabria, Italy and immigrated to the US when he was 15 years old and worked as a water boy with a railroad crew going west from New York. He ended up in Kenosha Wisconsin where he met and married Albert's mother Teresa on December 22, 1901. His father named Albert after his favorite Italian Prince, Umberto II who was born 15 years earlier. A school teacher later suggested that "Albert" might be more suitable. His mother chose his middle name Fransico after Santo Francisco since he was born on Saint Francis Day. The midwife who's English was only slightly better than Albert's parents spelled his middle name with a feminine "A" at the end which was never corrected. His legal named remained Umberto Francisca Molinaro. He was the ninth child of what would later become a family of ten children, eight boys and 2 girls. At 19 years of age Albert became a union leader at the Vincent-McCall furniture spring factory after working there for only 4 months. He later became the special assistant to the Kenosha City Manager when he was 20. At this time Albert's best friend from Kenosha, Mills Tenuta, who had moved to Southern California to work in an aircraft plant, began harassing him to come out to Hollywood. He was sure that Albert could be a movie star. Albert left a promising career with the city after only a year to head to Hollywood to become an actor. Albert had many jobs while pursuing his acting career. His first job was at Reginald Denny's Hobby shop in Hollywood. He spent 2 years as a live action animator at George Pal's studios. If Technicolor hadn't gone on a sympathy strike with the Studio Carpenters union he might have spent his career as an animator. He managed the M&G Grand Variety Store for a year and then became a bill collector for the "Collection Agency of America" in downtown LA. He quickly learned the art of bill collecting and was able to become a salesman who procured collection accounts for another agency which he later purchased. This gave him flexible hours and a steady income so he could focus again on his dreams of Hollywood. Even after his acting career took off he kept his Bill Collection business until he retired. Albert married Jacqueline Martin in 1948. They moved into a home in Granada Hills, CA and adopted their son Michael Molinaro. Albert and Jacqueline were divorced in 1980. Albert then married Betty Sedillos in 1981 and they lived in Glendale CA until his death in 2015. Albert had two step children, Jim Sedillos & Victoria Sedillos and a total of 6 grandchildren and 2 great-grand children. Albert's movie debut happened when he was 25 years old. After appearing as the lead in a Chekhov play called "The Bear" at the old Sartu Theater that used to be on the corner of Hollywood Blvd. and La Brea Ave. A movie producer saw the performance and cast him in a picture that had three separate stories, one of the stories was Chekhov's play "The Bear" but changed from a Russian setting to a Spanish locale. The movie was titled "Love Me Madly". Albert was not told that some of the scenes they shot without him were R rated in today's standards but X rated for 1954's standards. He was surprised and upset during the movies premiere and vowed to never again be in a film that his mother couldn't watch. During the early 1950's Albert began producing live television shows for local televisions stations channel 5 KTLA, channel 9 KHJ & channel 11 KTTV. He Co-created "Insomnia" a late night live show and a "Ski Show" in which Warren Miller allowed him to use some of his skiing footage. He created "Star Finder" a pre-teen amateur show, "Square Dance Party" and "The Tiny Late Show" which was his own late night one man show that filled the few minutes of time between the end of the late night movie and the station signing off for the night.
All the time Albert was working to pay his bills he was also acting in small plays in theaters all over Hollywood. After 25 years of theater acting he was convinced to play a small part in a play directed by his friend, Leo Matranga, at the Hollywood Horseshoe Theater. After the show, a commercial agent named Don Schwartz offered to represent him. Albert swore off acting and never called Don. One year later, Don called Albert telling him that he already set up an appointment for him and convinced him to audition for a national commercial. Albert got the commercial for the Volvo 140. You can see his commercial debut on youtube "Volvo 140 advertising". It's 3 min. & 30 seconds into the video (they have strung many vintage Volvo ads together). Take a look at his first commercial and you will see the face that went on to land over 100 commercials. 42 of them were nationals. He also landed a 10 year deal with "Encore" frozen dinners becoming their spokesperson. A friend from George Pal's Studios named Glenn Grossman cast Albert whenever he could in the industrial films that he would make from time to time. It was while working on one of Glenn's films that Albert met another working actor named Harvey Lembeck. When Harvey wasn't acting he ran an actor's workshop. Harvey convinced Albert that he could help him with his comedy timing. Gary Marshall's sister Penny was also a member of Harvey's workshop. One night Penny asked her brother to come down and see Albert. Gary was in the process of producing a movie starring Jacquiline Bissett called "The Grasshopper" and wanted Al to play the part of a truck driver. Albert did not play the part because the shooting dates conflicted with a Pepto-Bismol commercial he was scheduled to shoot in Phoenix. A year later, when Albert learned from his writer friend, John Rappaport, that Garry Marshall was casting for The Odd Couple TV show, John convinced him that he would be perfect to play one of the poker players. Albert first refused to call Gary but John badgered him enough to finally make him call. Albert made numerous phone calls but got no response so he decided to dress up like a delivery man and deliver a 2'x3' card with many pictures of himself glued to it stating that "Al Molinaro is a Poker Player. ...Assorted Poker Faces ... More faces available upon demand. Just Call (his Phone #) Dear Gary, If you don't call me for an audition, I'll put a curse on you to make you sterile for life. Sincerely, Al Molinaro. The delivery outfit did not get him past the guard at the Paramount gate but it did get the card delivered and Albert got an audition and landed the part of Murray the Cop. Later, Gary stated that, "Although we thought Albert was wrong for the part, we decided to take a chance on Al because of all the men who we auditioned, he was the funniest. Albert spent 5 years on The Odd Couple and when it finished, due to the fact that Jack Klugman wanted to do drama, he was offered the roll of the Malt Shop Owner on Gary's new show "Happy Days". Albert turned down the role feeling he did not want to work with a "bunch of kids". After the first season of Happy Days, Pat Morita, who was cast in the role of the malt shop owner, was offered his own show so Gary once again asked Albert to work on the show. Albert asked Gary that if he didn't like working on the show, could he quit whenever he wanted. Gary said he couldn't put that in writing but that they would shake on it. Albert enjoyed 10 years on "Happy Days" from 1974 to 1984 and 1 more year on "Joanie Loves Chachi. He guest starred on many television shows during and after the filming of the Odd Couple and Happy Days. He also worked on a short lived sitcom called "The Family Man" from 1990-1991 but decided to stop taking roles by the mid 90's. He completed his 10 year contract with Encore Frozen Foods and as his last job he surprisingly accepted an offer to be in a music video with Wheezer.
Albert was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in the mid 90's and lived with the illness for 20 years. Early diagnosis and careful medication allowed Albert to enjoy life until he had a small heart attack in May of 2015. He was a wonderfully kind man. He taught himself to play the piano, clarinet and ukulele and even had a few real gigs in Reno playing the clarinet in his youth. His family believes that his improvisational skills allowed him to mask his Alzheimer's disease from most people until just before he died. He continued to personally answer his fan mail until his health did not allow it. In June he celebrated his 96th birthday but he was declining quickly. He developed a gall stones and due to his age and the recent heart attack, surgery was not recommended. Albert died on October 30th 2015.- David Canary was born on 25 August 1938 in Elwood, Indiana, USA. He was an actor, known for All My Children (1970), One Life to Live (1968) and Hombre (1967). He was married to Maureen Maloney and Julie M. Anderson. He died on 16 November 2015 in Wilton, Connecticut, USA.
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Born and raised in New York City, Robert Loggia studied journalism at the University of Missouri before moving back to New York to pursue acting. He trained at the Actors Studio while doing stage work. From the late 1950s he was a familiar face on TV, usually as authoritative figures. Loggia also found work in movies such as The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), Scarface (1983) and Big (1988). Always in demand, Loggia worked until his death, at 85, from complications of Alzheimer's.- Actor
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Scott Weiland was born on 27 October 1967 in Santa Cruz, California, USA. He was an actor and composer, known for Tank Girl (1995), Battleship (2012) and Hulk (2003). He was married to Jamie Wachtel, Mary Forsberg and Janina Castenada. He died on 3 December 2015 in Bloomington, Minnesota, USA.- Martin E. Brooks was born on 30 November 1925 in The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The Six Million Dollar Man (1974), The Bionic Woman (1976) and Bionic Ever After? (1994). He died on 7 December 2015 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Patricia Elliott was born on 21 July 1938 in Gunnison, Colorado, USA. She was an actress, known for One Life to Live (1968), St. Elsewhere (1982) and The Quinns (1977). She was married to Peter Heath. She died on 20 December 2015 in Manhattan, New York, USA.
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Brooke McCarter was born on April 22, 1963. He was named after his father and his mother's name is Maria. Brooke had a sister named Melissa and a brother named Robert. Brooke's family had been in entertainment for quite some time. His grandfather was an old Vaudeville actor and his father was a drummer. So it was only natural for Brooke to be musically inclined as well. He modeled and, when he was 14, he won a model contest called "New Faces".He was very athletic, went to college on a racquetball scholarship, and also studied communications. It was during this time that Brooke dropped out of college to study acting in New York City. Brooke was in the new The Twilight Zone (1985), an episode called Joy Ride/Shelter Skelter/Private Channel (1987). His next role was as Tyler in Thrashin' (1986), and then in 1986, he starred in the cult classic film The Lost Boys (1987), where he played Paul. While filming The Lost Boys the cast and crew got along well. Brooke met Corey Haim, and became his manager through the 90s. He was in a film with Corey called Double Switch (1987), and was credited as a song and song performer in his movie Fast Getaway (1991). It was never released commercially but the songs were I've got a Feeling, Miss Lucy You make me feel and Something Going On. Brooke worked on the soundtrack for the documentary America the Violent and is listed as a composer. The song You Make Me Feel was re-recorded in Long Beach California by Carlee Knight. Next, Brooke worked with Ali Handal, producing the track "Dirty Little Secret". He also moved back into making documentary films. In 2002, he directed the pot documentary Leaves of Green. Brooke has played drums with the band for several performances on the song Cry Little Sister, which was on The Lost Boys soundtrack. He worked with director Herschell Gordon Lewis on "The Uh Oh Show".
Brooke died of Alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency on December 22, 2015, in Tampa, Florida.- Meadowlark Lemon was born on 25 April 1932 in Wilmington, North Carolina, USA. He was an actor, known for The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh (1979), Modern Romance (1981) and Imps* (1983). He was married to Dr. Cynthia Lemon and Willye Maultsby. He died on 27 December 2015 in Scottsdale, Arizona, USA.
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Tough around the edges and with a handsome durability, Alabama-bred Wayne Rogers was born in Birmingham on April 7, 1933. He graduated from Princeton with a history degree in 1954 and joined the Navy before giving acting a thought. During his military service, however, he became associated with theater by happenstance and decided to give it a try after his discharge.
Studying with renowned acting teacher Sanford Meisner and dancer Martha Graham at the Neighborhood Playhouse, Rogers toiled for years in off-Broadway and regional plays ("Bus Stop", "No Time for Sergeants") and had a short stint on the daytime soap The Edge of Night (1956) before making a minor dent in films, including small roles in Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), The Glory Guys (1965) and Cool Hand Luke (1967). Rogers finally hit co-star status opposite Robert Bray in the short-lived TV western series Stagecoach West (1960) and co-produced and wrote the script for the cult sci-fi cheapie The Astro-Zombies (1968) in-between.
It wasn't until 1972, when the 39-year-old actor nabbed the role of "Trapper John," a Korean War surgeon, in the classic comedy series M*A*S*H (1972), that he found elusive stardom. Alongside Alan Alda's "Hawkeye Pierce", the TV show was a huge hit and the two enjoyed equal success at the beginning. Slowly, however, Wayne's character started getting the short end of the stick as the wry, sardonic, highly appealing Alda became a resounding audience favorite. Frustrated at turning second-banana to Alda, he quit the series (his character was discharged) after three seasons amid a contractual dispute. Mike Farrell replaced him in the cohort role of "B.J. Hunnicut" and the show enjoyed several more award-winning seasons
TV movies came Wayne's way throughout the late '70s and a couple more comedy series, including House Calls (1979), in which Wayne received a Golden Globe nomination, but nothing would equal the success he found during the M*A*S*H (1972) years. Sporadic filming in Once in Paris... (1978), The Hot Touch (1981), The Gig (1985) and The Killing Time (1987) also failed to raise his standard, nor did his starring work in the TV movies He's Fired, She's Hired (1984), The Lady from Yesterday (1985), One Terrific Guy (1986), American Harvest (1987), Drop-Out Mother (1988), Miracle Landing (1990).
Broaching the millennium, Rogers was lesser seen, but found some featured roles in such films as Ghosts of Mississippi (1996), Love Lies Bleeding (1999), Frozen with Fear (2001) and Three Days of Rain (2002). He would be last glimpsed in the Hollywood-themed comedy Nobody Knows Anything! (2003) in which he also served as producer. Wayne found renewed respect as a businessman and investor in later years, managing the affairs of such stars as Peter Falk and James Caan, among others. He died on New Year's Eve of 2015 of complications from pneumonia. He was 82.- Actress
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Beth Howland was born on 28 May 1941 in Brighton, Massachusetts, USA. She was an actress and producer, known for Alice (1976), A Caribbean Mystery (1983) and The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970). She was married to Charles Kimbrough and Michael J. Pollard. She died on 31 December 2015 in Santa Monica, California, USA.