Actors who have passed away and miss
by eileen-guthrie555 | created - 02 Feb 2015 | updated - 02 Feb 2015 | Public
1. Jack Lemmon
Actor | The Apartment
Jack Lemmon was born in Newton, Massachusetts, to Mildred Lankford Noel and John Uhler Lemmon, Jr., the president of a doughnut company. His ancestry included Irish (from his paternal grandmother) and English. Jack attended Ward Elementary near his Newton, MA home. At age 9 he was sent to Rivers ...
He was good at both drama and comedy. I loved him in China Syndrome, Missing, The Front Page, Some Like It Hot, My Fellow Americans, Grumpy Old Men, and Mr Roberts. Great actor
2. Heath Ledger
Actor | Brokeback Mountain
When hunky, twenty-year-old heart-throb Heath Ledger first came to the attention of the public in 1999, it was all too easy to tag him as a "pretty boy" and an actor of little depth. He spent several years trying desperately to sway this image, but this was a double-edged sword. His work comprised ...
He had so much promise and was becoming a really great actor, The Joker was his best work. I will miss him and the potential that could have been.
3. John Candy
Actor | Planes, Trains & Automobiles
Candy was one of Canada's greatest and funniest character actors. His well-known role as the big hearted buffoon earned him classics in Uncle Buck (1989) and Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987). His career has handed him some dry spells but Candy always rebounded.
Born in Newmarket, Ontario, in ...
One of my favorite comedic actors. Watch Planes, Trains and Automobiles every Thanksgiving Day and still laugh. "That's not a pillow." Uncle Buck is another favorite comedy. He died too young 43.
4. Robin Williams
Actor | Mrs. Doubtfire
Robin McLaurin Williams was born on Saturday, July 21st, 1951, in Chicago, Illinois, a great-great-grandson of Mississippi Governor and Senator, Anselm J. McLaurin. His mother, Laurie McLaurin (née Janin), was a former model from Mississippi, and his father, Robert Fitzgerald Williams, was a Ford ...
Another actor who could be missed and was great at both comedy and dramatic roles. Favorite roles Mrs Doubtfire and Good Will Hunting and Patch Adams.
5. Brad Renfro
Actor | The Client
Brad Renfro was born on July 25, 1982 in Knoxville, Tennessee, to Angela Denise McCrory and Mark Renfro, a factory worker. He was discovered at age 10 by director Joel Schumacher and was cast in the motion picture The Client (1994), which starred Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones. Although this ...
Another one who died too soon. Favorite films The Client and Sleepers
6. Bernie Mac
Actor | The Bernie Mac Show
Bernard Jeffrey McCollough was born in 1957 in Chicago, the son of Mary McCullough and Jeffery Harrison. He grew up in the city, in a rougher neighborhood than most others, with a large family living under one roof. This situation provided him with a great insight into his comedy, as his family, ...
7. Patrick Swayze
Actor | Dirty Dancing
Patrick Wayne Swayze was born on August 18, 1952 in Houston, Texas, to Patsy Swayze (née Yvonne Helen Karnes), a choreographer, and Jesse Wayne Swayze, a chemical plant engineer draftsman. His mother owned a dance school in Houston, where Patrick was also a student. His father passed away in 1982. ...
8. Paul Newman
Actor | The Hustler
Screen legend, superstar, and the man with the most famous blue eyes in movie history, Paul Leonard Newman was born on January 26, 1925, in Cleveland, Ohio, the second son of Arthur Sigmund Newman (died 1950) and Theresa Fetsko (died 1982). His elder brother was Arthur S. Newman Jr., named for ...
Great actor and I loved just about every film. Favorites Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting and The Verdict.
9. Michael Clarke Duncan
Actor | The Green Mile
Michael Clarke Duncan was born on December 10, 1957 in Chicago, Illinois. Raised on Chicago's South Side by his single mother, Jean, a house cleaner, Duncan grew up resisting drugs and alcohol, instead concentrating on school. He wanted to play football in high school, but his mother wouldn't let ...
I loved his performance in The Green Mile.
10. Corey Haim
Actor | The Lost Boys
Corey Haim was born in Toronto, Ontario, to Judy Haim, an Israeli-born data processor, and Bernie Haim, a clothing sales representative. He has a sister, Carol, and a half-brother, Daniel. His family is Jewish. He was raised mostly in Willowdale.
Corey appeared in 26 episodes of the early 1980s ...
I loved him in Murphy's Romance, The Lost Boys and Lucas. He was a good little actor in his early days and its a shame drugs messed up his life.
11. Philip Seymour Hoffman
Actor | The Master
Film and stage actor and theater director Philip Seymour Hoffman was born in the Rochester, New York, suburb of Fairport to Marilyn (Loucks), a lawyer and judge, and Gordon Stowell Hoffman, a Xerox employee, and was mostly of German, Irish, English and Dutch ancestry. After becoming involved in ...
Favorite films The talented Mr Ripley, Cold Mountain, Capote, The Master and The Ides of March.
12. James Gandolfini
Actor | The Sopranos
James Gandolfini was born in Westwood, New Jersey, to Santa (Penna), a high school lunchlady, and James Joseph Gandolfini, Sr., a bricklayer and head school janitor. His parents were both of Italian origin. Gandolfini began acting in the New York theater. His Broadway debut was in the 1992 revival ...
favorite films All the Kings Men. A Civil Action, Crimson Tide, She's So Lovely and 8mm,
13. Charles Durning
Actor | Dog Day Afternoon
WWII veteran, dance instructor and diversely talented stage & screen actor were all inclusions on the resume of this perpetually busy US actor who didn't get in front of the cameras until around the time of his fortieth birthday. The stockily built Charles Durning was one of Hollywood's most ...
favorite films he was in Tootsie, The Sting, Home for the Holiday's, Mass Appeal and True Confessions.
14. Paul Walker
Actor | The Fast and the Furious
Paul William Walker IV was born in Glendale, California. He grew up together with his brothers, Caleb and Cody, and sisters, Ashlie and Amie. Their parents, Paul William Walker III, a sewer contractor, and Cheryl (Crabtree) Walker, a model, separated around September 2004. His grandfather, William ...
Favorite movies he was in Into the Blue, Eight Below and Flags of Our Fathers.
15. James Garner
Actor | The Notebook
Amiable and handsome James Garner had obtained success in both films and television, often playing variations of the charming anti-hero/con-man persona he first developed in Maverick, the offbeat western TV series that shot him to stardom in the late 1950s.
James Garner was born James Scott ...
My favorite films Victor/Victoria, Support Your Local Sheriff, The Great Escape, Heartsounds, Murphy's Romance, Barbarians of the Gate, Maverick, My Fellow Americans, Space Cowboys, The Notebook and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood,
16. James Stewart
Actor | Vertigo
James Maitland Stewart was born on May 20, 1908, in Indiana, Pennsylvania, to Elizabeth Ruth (Johnson) and Alexander Maitland Stewart, who owned a hardware store. He was of Scottish, Ulster-Scots, and some English descent. Stewart was educated at a local prep school, Mercersburg Academy, where he ...
He was probably one of my favorite actors and my parents favorites we watched a lot of his movies growing up on video. Favorite films he was in The Philadelphia Story, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Call Northside 777, Harvey, Bell, Book and Candle, Anatomy of a Murder, Take Her, She's Mine, The Shootist and all of Alfred Hitchcock films especially Read Window one of my favorite movies,
17. Henry Fonda
Actor | 12 Angry Men
This remarkable, soft-spoken American began in films as a diffident juvenile. With passing years, he matured into a star character actor who exemplified not only integrity and strength, but an ideal of the common man fighting against social injustice and oppression. He was born in Grand Island, ...
Another of my parents favorite actors so I was expose to his acting through video's. My favorites are The Grapes of Wrath, The Ox-Bow Incident, Mr Roberts, Advice and Consent, Fail Safe, A Big Hand for the Little Lady, Once Upon a Time in the West, The Cheyenne Social Club, Midway, and On Golden Pond
18. Steve McQueen
Actor | The Great Escape
He was the ultra-cool male film star of the 1960s, and rose from a troubled youth spent in reform schools to being the world's most popular actor. Over 40 years after his untimely death from mesothelioma in 1980, Steve McQueen is still considered hip and cool, and he endures as an icon of popular ...
Another of my parents favorites. My favorite movies he was in The Great Escape, The Getaway and Papillon. He died at the age of 50, he was too good of an actor to have lost him so young. I think of the movies he could have been in.
19. Edward Herrmann
Actor | Overboard
Edward Herrmann was born on July 21, 1943 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. He was an actor, known for Overboard (1987), The Lost Boys (1987) and Nixon (1995). He was married to Star Herrmann and Leigh Curran. He died on December 31, 2014 in New York City, New York, USA.
A good character actor. My favorite films he was in Overboard, The Lost Boys, Intolerable Cruelty, The Aviator and The Wolf of Wall Street.
20. Bob Hoskins
Actor | The Long Good Friday
Bob Hoskins was described by the director John Mackenzie as "an actor from the British tradition but with an almost American approach, an instinctive approach to acting and knowing how to work with the camera". He was born on October 26, 1942, in Bury St. Edmund's, Suffolk, where his mother was ...
Favorite movies Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Hook, Neverland, Heart Condition and Mermaids
21. Gene Kelly
Soundtrack | Singin' in the Rain
Eugene Curran Kelly was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the third son of Harriet Catherine (Curran) and James Patrick Joseph Kelly, a phonograph salesman. His father was of Irish descent and his mother was of Irish and German ancestry.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was the largest and most powerful studio in...
I loved him and I loved he was an amazing dancer. I took dance and tap because of him. My favorite movies he appeared in are Anchors Aweigh, Singing in the Rain, On the Town and Brigadoon.
22. Freddie Prinze
Actor | Chico and the Man
Freddie Prinze was born Frederick Karl Pruetzel in New York City, New York, to a Puerto Rican mother, Aurea Elena Ruiz, and a German immigrant father, Edward Karl Pruetzel. Freddie grew up in the Washington Heights section of New York City. As a chubby child, he was often bullied, but was quite ...
I was a fan and thought he was one of the best stand out comedians. He had so much potential so his death via suicide. Very sad, he was only 22.
23. River Phoenix
Actor | My Own Private Idaho
River Phoenix was born River Jude Bottom in Madras, Oregon. His mother, Arlyn (Dunetz), a Bronx-born secretary, and his father, John Bottom, a carpenter, met in California in 1968. They worked as itinerant fruit pickers, and later joined the Children of God religious group (John was originally ...
Another young actor had was an incredible actor and his death was shocking. My favorite movies he was in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Stand By Me, Running on Empty, Little Nikita, Sneakers and A Thing Called Love (loved his singing and guitar playing. Could've missed Sandra Bullock's singing).
24. Peter O'Toole
Actor | Lawrence of Arabia
A leading man of prodigious talents, Peter O'Toole was born and raised in Leeds, Yorkshire, England, the son of Constance Jane Eliot (Ferguson), a Scottish nurse, and Patrick Joseph O'Toole, an Irish metal plater, football player and racecourse bookmaker. Upon leaving school, he decided to become a...
Favorite films Lawrence of Arabia, The Lion in Winter, Goodbye, Mr Chips, Man of La Mancha and My Favorite Year.
25. Jim Hutton
Actor | The Green Berets
Described in the press as the heir apparent to James Stewart and Jack Lemmon, Jim Hutton broke out of the pack with his funny, awkward TV Thompson in Where the Boys Are (1960). Son of Col. Thomas R. Hutton and Helen Ryan, his parents divorced when he was an infant. Jim recalled seeing his father ...
He was another actor my parents liked. My favorite movies he was in are Who's Minding the Mint?, The Green Berets, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark and the TV series Ellery Queen.
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