Vivian Vance (1909 - 1979)

Vivian Vance Veteran Broadway actress fondly remembered for playing Lucille Ball’s landlady, ‘Ethel Mertz’ in the hit 1950s television sitcom “I Love Lucy.” She was born Vivian Roberta Jones on 26 July 1909 in Cherryvale, Kansas, the second of six children. After her family moved to Independence, Kansas, she was able to study drama under […]

Danitra Vance (1954 - 1994)

American motion picture and television actress of the 1980s and 90s. Best known as being a cast member on “Saturday Night Live” in the mid-1980s. (bio by: A.J. Marik) Cause of death: Breast Cancer

Irene Barnes Vanbrugh (1872 - 1949)

Actress. Born in Exeter,  England, she made her first stage appearance at the age of fifteen in Margate theatre, playing Phoebe in “As You Like it”. After moving to London, she first appeared on the West End stage, when she was only sixteen, playing the White Queen and Jack of Hearts in a revival of […]

Jo Van Fleet (1914 - 1996)

Actress. She won an Academy Award in 1955 for “East of Eden”. She also won a Tony award for her role in “Trip to Bountiful”. (bio by: Ron Moody)

Dora Van Der Groen (1927 - 2015)

Belgian Actress. Van der Groen was considered one of the greatest actresses in Belgium for her work in television and film. She came from a musical family, but chose to go to the Studio of the National Theatre to learn acting. Van der Groen started her acting career at the Royal Dutch Theatre in Antwerp, […]

Mabel Van Buren (1878 - 1947)

Actress. Born in Chicago, Illinois, she began her career as a theatrical performer playing the leading lady in both “The Virginian” and “The Squaw Man” (1909). A veteran of over 80 films, she made her screen debut in “Serious Sixteen” (1910). Among her credits are “The Probationer” (1913), “Elizabeth’s Prayer” (1914), “The Girl of the […]

Virginia Valli (1898 - 1968)

Silent Film Actress. She was the star of several 1920s Hollywood features. Born Virginia McSweeney, she was raised in Chicago and got her acting start as a teenager with a Milwaukee-based stage troupe. After making some films for Essanay Studios in her home city starting around 1915, she moved on to Hollywood, where she was […]

Valda Valkyrien (1895 - 1956)

Although she wasn’t born with it, during the height of her fame, the woman once dubbed the most beautiful woman in Denmark was known by just one name: Valkyrien. Her beauty and nobility made her desirable to film companies across the world, but her star fell faster and sooner than many of her contemporaries. What […]

Grace Valentine (1882 - 1964)

Actress. Her film roles include “The New Adam and Eve” (1915), “ The Unchastened Woman” (1918), and “ Her Secret” (1933). Some of the original Broadway productions she appeared in were “The Yellow Jacket” (1912), “Trial Marriage” (1927), “The American Way” (1939), “A Story for Strangers” (1948), and “A Season in the Sun” (1950). (bio […]

Sigrid Valdis (1935 - 2007)

Actress.  Best known for her role as Colonel Klink’s secretary “Hilda” on the televsion series “Hogan’s Heroes.”  She married the show’s star Bob Crane on the set in 1970, the couple had two children.  Crane was murdered in 1978.  Though of Swedish decent she was born Patricia Olson in Bakersfield, California.  She grew up in […]

Minerva Urecal (1894 - 1966)

Actress. Born Minerva Holzer in Eureka, California, she was a radio and stage performer making her film debut in “Her Bodyguard” (1933). A veteran of over 250 films, her credits include “It Happened in New York” (1935), “Son of the Pioneer” (1942), “Block Busters” (1944), “Apache Rose” (1947), “The Raging Tide” (1951), “Miracle in the […]

Misty Anne Upham (1982 - 2014)

America Actress. Upham, a Native-American who grew up in south Seattle as a member of the Blackfoot Tribe, began her career at the age of thirteen when she joined the Red Eagle Soaring community theater group and by the following year, she was writing and directing short skits and performing on tours throughout the northwest. […]

Miyoshi Umeki (1929 - 2007)

Actress. She is best remembered for her role as Katsumi,  the doomed Japanese wife of an American serviceman played by Red Buttons, in the 1957 film “Sayonara”.  It earned her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress,  making her the first Asian performer to win an Oscar.  She was also  nominated for a Golden Globe […]

Lenore Ulric (1892 - 1970)

Actress. Born in New Ulm, Minnesota, she was a star of the Broadway stage making her silent screen debut in “The First Man” (1911), followed by “A Polished Burglar” (1911). Her many film credits included “Kilmeny” (1915), “The Better Woman” (1915), “The Intrigue” (1916), “Her Own People” (1917), “Tiger Rose” (1923), “South Sea Rose” (1929), […]

Luise Ullrich (1910 - 1985)

Austrian Film and Stage Actress, Singer, Writer. She made more than 50 film and television appearances during her long career. She was famous for singing the song “Waiting.” Her films include Nora (1944), Nachtwache (1949) and Ein Student ging vorbei (1960). (bio by: Rudi Polt)

Marian Sorenson Uhlman (1922 - 2003)

Actress. Known as “The Polka Dot Girl” of World War II pinups, using the name of Chili Williams, later appearing as a Goldwyn Girl. A graduate of the Marshall High School, she was discovered by a modelling agent in 1943 at Fire Island in New York. The modelling agent’s photographer took her picture while she […]

Gisela Uhlen (1919 - 2007)

Actress. Original name Gisela Friedlinde Schreck. Her career spanned more than seven decades and nearly 100 roles, starting with UFA Film in the late 1930s, and she made numerous TV appearances in recent years. She was not related to “Nosferatu” actor Max Schreck but to avoid confussion adopted the moniker Uhlen soon after she started […]

Margaret Tyzack (1931 - 2011)

Award Winning Actress. Noted throughout her career for portraying ladies older than herself, she was a respected star of British stage, screen, and television for more than 50 years. Raised in West Ham, she studied at a private girls’ school and at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts prior to her 1951 professional debut as […]

Billie Nelson Tyrrell (1970 - 1970)

American Actress, Memorabilia Collector. Born Billie Nelson on the east coast, the aspiring actress arrived in Hollywood during the early  1940s, where she met and married actor David Tyrrell. The couple became close friends with Hollywood luminaries of the era ranging from Margaret O’Brien to Jackie Coogan. In the 1940s, she starred in off-Broadway plays, […]

Judy Tyler (1932 - 1957)

Actress. Killed with second husband, Greg Lafayett, in an auto accident in Billy the Kid, Wyoming, three days after shooting was finished on ‘Jailhouse Rock’ with Elvis Presley. They had been married in May of the same year. First husband was Colin Romoff, from 1950-1956. Also appeared in ‘Bop Girl Goes Calypso’ and was Princess […]

Ginny Tyler (1925 - 2012)

Actress. A popular Mouseketeer from the 1960s, she shall be remembered for providing the voices of numerous Disney cartoon characters. Born Merrie Virginia Erlandson, she was raised in Seattle from infancy and early-on evidenced a talent for story telling and animal mimicry. As a young girl she became a fixture on the local kids’ radio […]

Beverly Jean Tyler (1927 - 2005)

Actress. She was born in Scranton (Pennsylvania) and died in Reno (Nevada). She was a contract player with MGM and appeared in a number of films during the 1940s and 50s. She also worked on TV during the 1950s. She is best remembered for her film opposite Tom Drake and Peter Lawford “The Green Years” […]

Helen Twelvetrees (1908 - 1958)

Actress. Born in New York, she attended a fine arts school as a teen, and inspired by her love for moving film took her talents to Hollywood, landing numerous roles in silent films. She later went on to act with such stars as Clark Gable and John Barrymore. Some of her more popular films include […]

Lurene Tuttle (1907 - 1986)

Actress. She is best remembered for variety of roles on the stage, in vaudeville, radio, television and movies. Born in Pleasant Lake, Indiana, she was raised on a ranch in Arizona. She studied acting in Phoenix and was known to steal the scene in her early roles. She began in the vaudeville company, Murphy’s Comedians,” […]

Florence Turner (1885 - 1946)

Actress. She was one of the cinema’s first matinee idols. In the years before World War I, when films were considered disreputable and actors appeared in them anonymously, Turner was known to millions as “The Vitagraph Girl”, after the studio where she worked.  Public demand forced Vitagraph to reveal her name.  She was also one […]

Barbara Turner (1936 - 2016)

Actress, Screenwriter. Born Gloria Rose Turner, to Jewish parents who both immigrated from Europe. She studied at the University of Texas for one year, prior to returning to New York, where she took acting classes at the Dramatic Workshop, where she met actor Vic Morrow. After her and Morrow married they moved to Hollywood and […]

Rosa Turich (1903 - 1998)

Actress, Comedian. Born in Tucson, Arizona, with her husband Felipe F. Turich, they were the comic Spanish language act “Felipin Y Rosita” in the 1940s. As a performer, she appeared in films to include “Prairie “Pioneers” (1941), “Bowery Buckaroos” (1947), “The Kid from Texas” (1950), “Tripoli” (1951), “Havana Rose” (1951) and “Gun Fury” (1953). Her […]

Marin Turcott (1890 - 1971)

Actress.  Family links:  Children:  Mattie J. Mizell (1848 – 1926)* *Calculated relationship

Keiko Tsushima (1926 - 2012)

Japanese Actress. A respected star of the Japanese cinema, she is remembered for a long career during which she transitioned from daughter to mother to grandmother roles. Born Mori Naoko, she initially intended to be a dancer and indeed was teaching dance at the Shochika Oofuna movie studio when she was spotted and given her […]

Lyudmila Vasilyevna Tselikovskaya (1919 - 1992)

Actress. A performer of both the stage and screen, she was considered Russia’s leading sex symbol of the 1940s. Tselikovskaya studied piano at the Gnesin School of Music before switching her interests to the field of acting. From 1937 to 1941 she attended the Shehiukin Theatrical School in Moscow, graduating three weeks prior to the […]