Robert Coote (1909 - 1982)

Robert Coote was born in London and educated at Hurstpierpoint College in Sussex. He began his stage career at the age of 16, performing in Britain, South Africa, and Australia before arriving in Hollywood in the late 1930s. He played a succession of pompous British types in supporting roles, including a brief but memorable turn […]

Cy Endfield (1914 - 1995)

Cy Endfield was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He attended Yale University and began his career as a theatre director and drama coach, becoming a significant figure in New York’s progressive theatre scene. It was largely the shared interest of magic that led Orson Welles to become aware of Endfield and his recruitment as an apprentice […]

Douglas Hickox (1929 - 1988)

Douglas Hickox (10 January 1929 – 25 July 1988) was an English film director. Hickox was born in London, where he was educated at Emanuel School. Hickox worked extensively as an assistant director and second unit director throughout the 1950s and early 1960s. ‘’The British B Film’’ (Steve Chibnall & Brian McFarlane; BFI, 2009) credits […]

Milo O’Shea (1926 - 2013)

Milo O’Shea began acting on the stage, then moved into film in the 1960s. He became popular in the United Kingdom, as a result of starring in the BBC sitcom Me Mammy alongside Yootha Joyce. In 1967–68 he appeared in the drama Staircase, co-starring Eli Wallach and directed by Barry Morse, which stands as Broadway’s […]

Anita Pallenberg (1942 - 2017)

Anita Pallenberg appeared in over a dozen films over a 40-year span. One of her first appearances was as the Great Tyrant in Roger Vadim’s science fiction film Barbarella (1968); the character’s voice was dubbed by Joan Greenwood. She played the sleeper wife of Michel Piccoli in Dillinger Is Dead (1969), directed by Marco Ferreri. […]

John Avildsen (1935 - 2017)

After starting out as an assistant director on films by Arthur Penn and Otto Preminger, John Avildsen received his first success with the low budget feature Joe (1970) which received critical acclaim for star Peter Boyle and moderate box office business. This was followed by another critical success, Save the Tiger (1973), that was nominated […]

Allan Holdsworth (1946 - 2017)

Allan Holdsworth (6 August 1946 – 15 April 2017) was a British guitarist and composer. He released twelve studio albums as a solo artist and played a variety of musical styles in a career spanning more than four decades, but is best known for his work in jazz fusion. Allan Holdsworth was known for his […]

Lisa Spoonauer (1972 - 2017)

Lisa Ann Spoonauer (December 16, 1972 – May 20, 2017) was an American character actress best known for the role of Caitlin Bree in Clerks, which she reprised for an episode in the animated series. Lisa Spoonauer was born in Rahway, New Jersey, and raised in Freehold Township. She attended Brookdale Community College, where she […]

Venus Ramey (1924 - 2017)

Venus Ramey became the first Miss America to run for public office, seeking a seat in the Kentucky House of Representatives. She was wooed by Hollywood in 1947, but dissatisfied with show business, she returned home to her Eubank, Kentucky, tobacco farm (which she maintained for over 50 years) in Lincoln County, Kentucky. She married […]

Stephen Furst (1954 - 2017)

Stephen Furst worked as a pizza delivery driver while looking for acting jobs in the mid-1970s, and included his head shot in pizza boxes. After Matty Simmons saw his photo, Furst was cast as Flounder in National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978). He reprised this role in the 1979 spin-off series Delta House. Others include ‘Junior’ […]

Tony Liscio (1940 - 2017)

Tony Liscio was selected by the Green Bay Packers in the third round (42nd overall) of the 1963 NFL Draft. He was also drafted by the New York Jets in the tenth round (75th overall) of the 1963 AFL Draft. During training camp he was used as a defensive end and defensive tackle. He was […]

Larry Grantham (1938 - 2017)

James Larry Grantham (September 16, 1938 – June 17, 2017) was an American collegiate and professional football player. A member of the Ole Miss Athletic Hall of Fame, he was a linebacker at the University of Mississippi who came to the American Football League’s New York Titans in the 1960 college draft and helped form […]

Greg Allman (1947 - 2017)

Greg Allman Gregg Allman, the singer, musician and songwriter who played an essential role in the invention of Southern rock, has died at the age of 69 of complications from liver cancer. Allman’s rep confirmed to Rolling Stone that the artist died Saturday afternoon. Allman “passed away peacefully at his home in Savannah, Georgia,” a statement on […]

Sonny West (1937 - 2017)

Sonny West Sonny West has died in Nashville after a long illness. He was 79 years old. He had been suffering lung cancer.Sonny was a member of Elvis Presley’s entourage and met him for the first time in 1958 before Elvis left for his military service in Germany. Later he came to work for Elvis, […]

Roger Smith (1932 - 2017)

Roger Smith Roger Smith, who brought glamour to the TV detective genre as a hip private eye on “77 Sunset Strip,” has died. He was 84. Jack Gilardi, who is the agent of Smith’s widow, actress Ann-Margret, said the actor died Sunday morning at a Los Angeles hospital after battling a terminal illness. Smith had […]

Ernie Wilkins (1922 - 1999)

Ernie Wilkins was born in St. Louis, Missouri. In his early career he played in a military band, before joining Earl Hines‘s last big band. He worked with Count Basie from 1951 to 1955, eventually leaving to work free-lance as a jazz arranger and songwriter. His success declined in the 1960s, but revived after work with Clark Terry, […]

Charlie Fowlkes (1916 - 1980)

Charlie Fowlkes (16 February 1916 – 9 February 1980) was an American baritone saxophonist, best known for his time withCount Basie, which lasted for more than twenty-five years. Charlie Fowlkes was born in New York, and studiedalto and tenor saxophone, clarinet, and violinbefore settling on the baritone sax (he also played occasional flute). He spent most of his early career in New York, playing with Tiny […]

Frank Foster (1928 - 2011)

Frank Foster was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and educated at Wilberforce University. In 1949, he moved to Detroit, Michigan, where he joined the local jazz scene, playing with musicians such as Wardell Gray. Drafted into the US Army in 1951, Foster served in Korea with the 7th Infantry Division. Upon finishing his military service in 1953 he joined Count Basie’s […]

Frank Wess (1922 - 2013)

Frank Wess was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the son of a principal father and a schoolteacher mother. He began with classical music training and played in Oklahoma in high school. He later switched to jazz on moving to Washington, D. C. and by nineteen was working with big bands. His career was interrupted by World War […]

Shirley Scott (1934 - 2002)

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Shirley Scott was an admirer of Jimmy Smith, Jackie Davis (American soul jazz singer, organist and bandleader), and Bill Doggett (American jazz and rhythm and blues pianist and organist; and played piano and trumpet before moving to the Hammond organ, her main instrument, though on occasion she still played piano. In the 1950s she became known for her […]

Cedar Walton (1934 - 2013)

Cedar Walton was drafted into the U.S. Army, and stationed in Germany, cutting short his rising status in the after-hours scene. While in the Army, he played with musicians Leo Wright, Don Ellis, and Eddie Harris. Upon his discharge after two years, Walton picked up where he left off, playing as a sideman withKenny Dorham (on whose 1958 album This […]

Mickey Roker (1932 - 2017)

Mickey Roker was born into extreme poverty in Miami to Granville (Sr.) and Willie Mae Roker. After his mother died (his father never lived with them), when he was only ten, he was taken by his grandmother to live in Philadelphia with his uncle Walter, who gave him his first drum kit and communicated his […]

Jack O’Neill (1923 - 2017)

Jack O’Neill grew up in Oregon and southern California, where he began body surfing in the late 1930s. He was a Navy pilot during World War II. O’Neill later moved to San Francisco in 1949 and earned a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts at San Francisco State University. In 1952, he founded the O’Neill brand […]

Jimmy Piersall (1929 - 2017)

Jimmy Piersall was selected to the American League All-Star team in 1954 and 1956. By the end of the 1956 season, in which he played all 156 games, he posted a league-leading 40 doubles, scored 91 runs, drove in 87, and had a .293 batting average. The following year, he hit 19 home runs and […]

Roger Smith (1932 - 2017)

Roger Smith served with the Naval Reserve and was stationed in Hawaii with the Fleet All-Weather Training Unit-Pacific, a flight training unit near Honolulu. After a chance meeting with actor James Cagney, he was encouraged to try a career in Hollywood. (Cagney had also encouraged other young actors, including Don Dubbins, for whom he found […]

Isaac Burns Murphy (1861 - 1896)

Isaac Burns Murphy rode in eleven Kentucky Derbies, winning three times: on Buchanan in 1884, Riley in 1890, and Kingman in 1891. Kingman was owned by Jacobin Stables (co-owners, Preston Kinzea Stone and Dudley Allen) and trained by Dudley Allen, and is the first horse co-owned by an African-American to win the Derby. Murphy is […]

George Stovey (1866 - 1936)

In 1907, black player-turned-sportswriter Sol White alluded to a supposed effort in 1887 by New York to sign George Stovey. White, writing in a baseball book bearing his name, stated that “arrangements were about completed for his transfer from the Newark club, when a brawl was heard from Chicago to New York. Cap Anson, with […]

Larry Doby (1923 - 2003)

Lawrence Eugene Doby (December 13, 1923 – June 18, 2003) was an American professional baseball player in the Negro leagues and Major League Baseball (MLB) who was the second black player to break baseball’s color barrier. A native of Camden, South Carolina and three-sport all-state athlete while in high school in Paterson, New Jersey, Doby […]

Moses Fleetwood Walker (1856 - 1924)

Moses Fleetwood “Fleet” Walker (October 7, 1856 – May 11, 1924) was an American professional baseball catcher who is credited with being one of the first black men to play in Major League Baseball (MLB). A native of Mount Pleasant, Ohio, and a star athlete at Oberlin College as well as the University of Michigan, […]

Cap Anson (1852 - 1922)

Adrian Constantine Anson (April 17, 1852 – April 14, 1922), nicknamed “Cap” (for “Captain”) and “Pop”, was a Major League Baseball (MLB) first baseman. Including his time in the National Association (NA), he played a record 27 consecutive seasons. Cap Anson was regarded as one of the greatest players of his era and one of […]