Dick Curtis (1902 - 1952)

Dick Curtis (May 11, 1902 – January 3, 1952) was an American actor who made over 230 film and television appearances during his career. Curtis was born Richard Dye in Newport, Kentucky. Standing at 6′ 3″, Curtis appeared in films stretching from Charles Starrett to The Three Stooges. In most of his films, he played villains […]

Dick Cusack (1925 - 2003)

Cusack was born in New York City, the son of Margaret (née McFeeley) and Dennis Joseph Cusack. His family was of Irish Catholic background. He served with the U.S. Army in the Philippines in World War II. After the war Cusack attended College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he played basketball with […]

Dick Elliott (1886 - 1961)

Prolific motion picture and television actor. He played the role of ‘Mayor Pike’ on The Andy Griffith Show (1960). (bio by: A.J. Marik)  Family links:  Spouse:  Ora Esther Claud Elliott (1885 – 1949)  Children:  Richard L Elliott (1913 – 1977)* *Calculated relationship

Dick Foran (1910 - 1979)

Dick Foran was born in Flemington, New Jersey, the first of five sons to Arthur F. and Elizabeth Foran. His father Arthur F. Foran was a Republican member of the New Jersey Senate, as was Dick Foran’s younger brother, Walter E. Foran. After graduation he attended the Hun School, a college preparatory school in nearby […]

Dick Gautier (1931 - 2017)

Dick Gautier started his career as a nightclub comic and a singer; he joined ASCAP in 1959 after serving in the United States Navy. In 1960, he portrayed fictional rock ‘n roll star Conrad Birdie in the original Broadway theatre production of Bye Bye Birdie, receiving a Tony Award nomination for his performance. He would later […]

Dick Gregory (1932 - 2017)

Dick Gregory Dick Gregory, byname of Richard Claxton Gregory, (born October 12, 1932, St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.—died August 19, 2017, Washington, D.C.), American comedian, civil rights activist, and spokesman for health issues, who became nationally recognized in the 1960s for a biting brand of comedy that attacked racial prejudice. By addressing his hard-hitting satire to […]

Dick Haymes (1918 - 1980)

Haymes was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1918. His mother, whom Haymes predeceased, was Irish-born Marguerite Haymes (1894–1987), a well-known vocal coach and instructor. Dick Haymes became a vocalist in a number of big bands, worked in Hollywood, on radio, and in films throughout the 1940s/1950s.  Though never achieving the immensely popular status of […]

Dick Kazmaier (1930 - 2013)

Kazmaier was born November 23, 1930, in Toledo, Ohio, the only child of Richard and Marian Kazmaier. He graduated from Maumee High School in Ohio in 1948. He played football (four years), basketball (four years), track and field (four years), baseball (four years) and golf (one year) earning a letter each year in each sport. […]

Dick Powell (1904 - 1970)

Dick Powell was born in Mountain View, the seat of Stone County in northern Arkansas. The family moved to Little Rock in 1914, where Powell sang in church choirs and with a local orchestras and started his own band. Powell attended the former Little Rock College, before he started his entertainment career as a singer […]

Dick Purcell (1908 - 1944)

Dick Purcell was born Richard Gerald Purcell, Jr. in Greenwich, Connecticut. An only child, he attended Catholic grade school and high school, before enrolling as a student at Fordham University in The Bronx in New York City. While in New York City, Dick Purcell began his acting career in theatre, appearing in at least three […]

Dick Sargent (1930 - 1994)

Born Richard Stanford Cox in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, on April 19, 1930 to mother, Ruth McNaughton, daughter of John McNaughton who founded Los Angeles famed Union Stockyards. She appeared under the ‘nom-de-arte’ (stage name) of Ruth Powell, and had important supporting bit roles in such screen classics as The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and Hearts […]

Dick Scobee (1939 - 1986)

Dick Scobee enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1957, where he served as a reciprocating engine mechanic at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. While off duty, he attended San Antonio College, and eventually received a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Arizona in 1965. He […]

Dick Shawn (1923 - 1987)

Dick Shawn was born Richard Schulefand in Buffalo, New York and raised in adjacent Lackawanna. The best remembered roles of his career are the hot-headed Sylvester Marcus, son of Mrs. Marcus (Ethel Merman), in Stanley Kramer’s It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) and easygoing Lorenzo St. DuBois/Adolf Hitler in the musical Springtime for […]

Dick Tiger (1929 - 1971)

Dick Tiger Nigerian professional boxer, world middleweight (160 pounds) and light heavyweight (175 pounds) champion during the 1960s. Tiger learned to box from British military officers stationed in Nigeria. He began his professional boxing career in his homeland in 1952, and he went on to win the Nigerian championship in the middleweight division before moving […]

Dick Van Patten (1928 - 2015)

Dick Van Patten The round-faced actor who found lasting fame as the patriarch on TV’s “Eight is Enough,” has died. Van Patten’s rep confirmed the news of his death to FOX411. The actor died Tuesday in Santa Monica, California, of complications from diabetes. He was 86. Born in New York, the veteran entertainer began his […]

Dick Wesson (1922 - 1996)

Richard Lewis “Dick” Wesson (November 19, 1922 – April 25, 1996) was a prolific character actor, comedian, comedy writer, and producer. The dark haired man with a flat top haircut was frequently confused with announcer Dick Wesson. Wesson was born Richard Lewis Wesson on November 19, 1922 in Boston, Massachusetts. A comedian, impressionist and singer, Wesson […]

Dick Wilson (1970 - 1970)

Dick Wilson Dick Wilson, a British-born character actor who won American television fame as Mr. Whipple, the comically fussy star of two decades of Charmin toilet paper commercials, died on Monday at the Motion Picture & Television Fund Hospital in Woodland Hills, Calif. He was 91 and had lived at the organization’s residence in Woodland […]

Dickey Chapelle (1919 - 1965)

Photojournalist. When she was killed in Viet Nam, she was both the first war correspondent killed in that conflict, as well as the first American woman reporter to be killed in any conflict. Born Georgette Louise Meyer, she was attending MIT by the age of sixteen, taking aeronautical design classes.  Later, she went to New […]

Dickie Arnold (1970 - 1990)

Actor. His film and television credits include “A Small Problem,” “Clockwise,” “Santa Claus,” “The Magnificent Evans,” “I’m Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” “All Creatures Great and Small,” “Juliet Bravo,” “Bergerac,” “Coronation Street,” and “Ripping Yarns.”

Dickie Jones (1927 - 2014)

Richard Percy “Dickie” Jones was born on Friday, February 25, 1927 in Snyder, some ninety miles south of Lubbock, Texas. The son of a newspaper editor, Jones was a prodigious horseman from infancy, having been billed at the age of four as the “World’s Youngest Trick Rider and Trick Roper”. At the age of six, […]

Diem Brown (1982 - 2014)

Diem Brown Diem Brown (June 12, 1982 – November 14, 2014) was a recurring cast member on MTV’s reality television series The Challenge and entertainment reporter. Brown was also the founder and creator of MedGift, a website that provides support pages to people going through any medical or health experience. They provide resources to support […]

Dieter Borsche (1909 - 1982)

Actor. From 1930 and 1935 he was a ballet dancer in Hanover, but after being diagnosed with muscular dystrophy he switched to acting,  making his debut in the Weiß-Ferdl film “Alles wegen dem Hund” (1935).  He went on to star in over 70 films,  notably “Dr. Holl” (1951, with Maria Schell), “Königliche Hoheit” (1953, with […]

Dieter Grau (1913 - 2014)

Dieter Grau (April 24, 1913 – December 17, 2014) was a rocket scientist and member of the “von Braun rocket group”, at Peenemünde (1939–1945) working on the V-2 rockets in World War II. He was among the scientists who surrendered to the United States and traveled there, providing rocketry expertise via Operation Paperclip, which took […]

Dietrich Gruen (1847 - 1911)

Watchmaker. A native of Osthofen, Germany, he was a pioneer of the pocket watch. Gruen was educated in public and private schools and learned watchmaking as an apprentice to Hans Martens in Friedburg. After emigrating to America in 1867, he married the daughter of a watchmaker and went to work for her father in Delaware. […]

Digby Bell (1849 - 1917)

Actor. A renown comic theater actor, he appeared in two motion pictures at the very end of his career – “The Education Of Mr. Pipp” (1914), as ‘Mr. Pipp’ and “Father and the Boys” (1917), as ‘Lemuel Morewood’.  Family links:  Parents:  William J. Bell (1828 – 1869)  Jeannette L. Seymore Bell (1829 – 1906)  Spouse: […]

Dik Browne (1917 - 1989)

Cartoonist. Born Richard Arthur Allan Browne, he was a popular comic artist best known for his newspaper comic strip characters. While serving in the US Army, he began producing work for the Engineer Corps and created a comic strip about The Woman’s Army Corps titled, ” Jenny Jeep”. In the 1940s, he worked as an […]

Dilys Laye (1934 - 2009)

From 1950, Dilys Laye appeared in numerous West End revues, including And So to Bed, Intimacy at 8.30, For Amusement Only and High Spirits. In 1954, she played the first Dulcie in The Boy Friend on Broadway alongside Julie Andrews, with whom she shared a Manhattan flat during the run. At this time she dated […]

Dimitra Arliss (1932 - 2012)

Actress. Out of a 30 year career she is remembered as Loretta Salino, the hit-lady of 1973’s comedy classic “The Sting”. Raised in Ohio she had early theatrical ambitions and for many years was a company member at the Goodman Theater of Chicago; after relocating to New York Dimitra first attracted major notice in the […]

Dina Gottliebova-Babbitt (1923 - 2009)

Artist,  Holocaust Survivor. She spent the last 35 years of her life attempting to claim paintings that she had done to buy the lives of herself and her mother in Auschwitz. Dina Gottlieb was an art student in Prague when she was arrested by the Nazis in 1942, and sent to a concentration camp. Eventually […]

Dina Merrill (1923 - 2017)

On advice from her half-sister’s (then) husband, she adopted the stage name Dina Merrill, borrowing from Charles E. Merrill, a famous stockbroker like her father. Dina Merrill made her debut on the stage in the play The Mermaid Singing in 1945. During the late 1950s and 1960s, Merrill was believed to have intentionally been marketed […]