Betsy von Furstenberg (1931 - 2015)

Betsy von Furstenberg was born Elizabeth Caroline Maria Agatha Felicitas Therese, Freiin von Fürstenberg-Herdringen in Arnsberg. Her parents were Franz-Egon, Graf (Count) von Fürstenberg-Herdringen (1896–1975) and his first wife, Elizabeth Foster Johnson (1899–1961), a native of Memphis, Tennessee. Her stepmothers were Gloria Rubio, Clara Ghyczy, and Joan Siegel. She has two half siblings from her father’s […]

Barbara Meek (1934 - 2015)

Barbara Meek was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Juanita (née Coleman) and Harold Talmadge Meek, and is the maternal granddaughter of the Reverend Horatius “H.H.” Coleman, pastor of the Greater Macedonia Baptist Church. She was a graduate of Northwestern High School, and as an undergraduate was asked to join Wayne State University’s graduate theater program. […]

Paul Almond (1931 - 2015)

Paul Almond attended Bishop’s College School, McGill University and Balliol College, Oxford University, where he read Philosophy, Politics, Economics, edited the University magazine Isis played for the Oxford University Ice Hockey Club and was president of the university Poetry Society. At the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, he worked primarily as a director and producer, and also wrote […]

Jacques Sernas (1925 - 2015)

Jacques Sernas, was a Lithuanian-born French actor with an international film career. He was born in Kaunas, Lithuania, the son of Jokūbas Šernas, a signatory of the 1918 Act of Independence of Lithuania, who died when Sernas was one year old. His mother took him to Paris, France, where Sernas received his formal education. During […]

Paul Engle (1908 - 1991)

Paul Engle is often mistakenly credited with having founded the Iowa Writers’ Workshop (an honor that more appropriately belongs to his predecessor, Wilbur Schramm). Nonetheless, perhaps no one helped to better establish the reputation of the venerable writing program than Engle. During his tenure as director (1941–1965), he was responsible for luring some of the […]

María Elena Velasco (1940 - 2015)

María Elena Velasco was born in Puebla, to Tomás Velasco, a railway mechanic, and María Elena Fragoso. She had three siblings, Gloria, Tomás and Susana. After the death of Tomás Velasco, the family moved to Mexico City, where she worked as a dancer at the Teatro Tívoli. Later, she became one of the showgirls of the […]

Cristie Schoen (1976 - 2015)

Cristie Schoen (also known as Cristie Schoen Codd or Cristie Codd; 1976—March 12, 2015) was a Spanish-born chef. She came to prominence as a contestant in the eighth season of the Food Network series Food Network Star. Schoen was born in Madrid, Spain. She grew up cooking primarily Cajun cuisine with her father. In 2012, it was […]

Elaine Riley (1917 - 2015)

Elaine Riley (January 15, 1917 – December 7, 2015) was an American film and television actress. The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. A.B. Riley, Riley was born in East Liverpool, Ohio, on January 15, 1917. She won the Miss East Liverpool beauty title and was runner-up for the Miss Ohio title in 1937. Riley also was […]

Monica Lewis (1922 - 2015)

Monica Lewis was born in Chicago, Illinois on May 22, 1922, the youngest of three children. Her father, Leon, was a pianist and composer while her mother, Jessica, was a singer with the Chicago Opera Company, with Lewis studying her voice with her mother. At the age of 11, Lewis’ family moved to New York […]

Carol Doda (1937 - 2015)

Carol Doda was born August 29, 1937, in Solano County, California, and grew up in San Francisco. Her parents divorced when she was 3. Although private about her personal life, she said she dropped out of school and became a cocktail waitress at age 14. Carol Doda attended the San Francisco Art Institute and worked […]

Candida Royalle (1950 - 2015)

Candida Royalle was born on October 15, 1950, in New York City as Candice Marion Vadala. Initially trained in music, dance, and art in New York, with studies at the High School of Art and Design, Parson’s School of Design and the City University of New York. In 1975 she began her career in porn as […]

Stewart Stern (1922 - 2015)

Stewart Henry Stern (March 22, 1922 – February 2, 2015) was a two-time Oscar-nominated and Emmy award winning American screenwriter. He is best known for writing the screenplay for the iconic film Rebel Without a Cause (1955), starring James Dean. In addition to Rebel Without a Cause, Stewart Stern’s most notable screenwriting credits include Sybil, which […]

R. J. Adams (1942 - 2015)

R. J. Adams was born in St. Catharines, Ontario where he spent his early childhood until his family headed across the border to Niagara Falls, New York. Known to his friends as Bob Adams, the aspiring actor/radio D.J. spent just a couple of years attending Bishop Duffy High school before dropping out and moving to […]

Sally Forrest (1928 - 2015)

Born in San Diego, Sally Forrest studied dance from a young age and shortly out of high school was signed to a contract by MGM. to Michael and Marguerite (née Ellicott) Feeney. Her father was a U.S. Navy career officer, who moved his family to various naval bases, finally settling in San Diego. He and […]

Lorena Rojas (1971 - 2015)

Lorena Rojas (born Seydi Lorena Rojas Gonzalez; 10 February 1971 – 16 February 2015) was a Mexican actress and singer, best known for her leading roles in popular telenovelas. Seydi Lorena Rojas Gonzalez was born in Mexico City, Mexico and began her artistic career in 1990 when she participated in the telenovela Alcanzar Una Estrella produced […]

June Fairchild (1946 - 2015)

June Fairchild was born June Edna Wilson on September 3, 1946, in Manhattan Beach, California. Her father was a musician who specialized in writing gospel songs and music. Fairchild was raised in Manhattan Beach and graduated from Aviation High School in Redondo Beach. She was hired as a member of the Gazzarri Dancers on the […]

Blaze Starr (1932 - 2015)

Starr was born on April 10, 1932 in rural Wayne County, West Virginia, along Twelvepole Creek, (also spelled Twelve Pole Creek) the second eldest of 11 siblings born to Lora (née Evans) and Goodlow Fleming). Reared in the Newground Hollow (also spelled New Ground Hollow) area of Wilsondale, West Virginia, she left home at either age […]

Marília Pêra (1943 - 2015)

Marília Soares Pêra (Marilia Pera da Graça Mello, after she married), was born on January 22, 1943 in the neighborhood of Rio Comprido, in Rio de Janeiro. From 14 to 21 years, works as a dancer in musicals and revue as Minha Querida Lady (1962), starring Bibi Ferreira, and O Teu Cabelo Não Nega (1963) biography […]

Gregg Palmer (1927 - 2015)

Brown-haired and brown-eyed Gregg Palmer was born in San Francisco, California, to Norwegian parents. His father was a carpenter. He entered the United States Army Air Corps, forerunner of the Air Force, and became a cryptographer during World War II. He was discharged in 1946 as a sergeant. Sometimes known as “Grizzly”, Palmer worked as […]

Don Harron (1924 - 2015)

Don Harron’s parents owned and operated Harron’s Cleaners and Dyers in Toronto. Beginning at the age of 10, he earned extra money for the family during the Great Depression, doing “chalk talks” telling humorous stories while drawing caricatures in coloured chalk at company or club banquets, making $10 or $15 a talk. As a result […]

Wally Cassell (1912 - 2015)

Wally Casell (March 3, 1912 – April 2, 2015), born as Oswaldo Silvestri Trippilini Rolando Vincenza Castellano, was an Italian-born American film-noir character actor and businessman. Castellano was born in Agrigento, Sicily, and moved with his family to the United States when he was two years of age. He began his film career in 1942, initially […]

Oliver Sacks (1933 - 2015)

Oliver Wolf Sacks, CBE, FRCP (9 July 1933 – 30 August 2015) was a British neurologist, naturalist and author who spent his professional life in the United States. Oliver Sacks felt that the brain was the “most incredible thing in the universe” and therefore important to study. He became widely known for writing best-selling case […]

Daws Butler (1916 - 1988)

Daws Butler was born on November 16, 1916 in Toledo, Ohio, the only child of Ruth Butler and Charles Allen Butler. The family later moved from Ohio to Oak Park, Illinois, where Butler got interested in impersonating people. In 1935, the future voice master started as an impressionist, entering multiple amateur contests and winning most of them. […]

John Stephenson (1923 - 2015)

John Winfield Stephenson was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the oldest son of Ray and Martha Stephenson. Stephenson went to Ripon College and was active in campus drama. Stephenson wanted to be a lawyer and studied at the University of Wisconsin Law School. After serving in the United States Army Air Forces, as a gunner and […]

Mary Healy (1918 - 2015)

Mary Healy was born April 14, 1918, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Crowned Miss New Orleans in 1935, Healy performed as a singer in the New Orleans area. She made her first screen appearance in Josette (1938). In 1939 she had major film roles in Second Fiddle and Star Dust, in which she sang the title […]

Pierre Brice (1929 - 2015)

Pierre Brice was born in Brest, France. When he was 19, Brice enlisted in the French Army and fought in the First Indochina War. While patrolling in Indochina, one of his team triggered a mine and its explosion sent Brice whirling through the air, but left him virtually unhurt. Later he served as a paratrooper […]

Setsuko Hara (1920 - 2015)

Setsuko Hara was born Masae Aida (会田 昌江 Aida Masae?) in what is now Hodogaya-ku, Yokohama in a family with three sons and five daughters. Her elder sister was married to film director Hisatora Kumagai, which gave her an entry into the world of the cinema and she went to work for Nikkatsu Studios in […]

Saeed Jaffrey (1929 - 2015)

Saeed Jaffrey, OBE (Punjabi: ਸਈਦ ਜਾਫ਼ਰੀ, Urdu: سعید جعفری; Hindi: सईद जाफ़री; 8 January 1929 – 15 November 2015) was an Indian-born British actor whose versatility and fluency in multiple languages allowed him to straddle radio, stage, television and film in a career that spanned over six decades and more than a hundred and fifty […]

Lynn Borden (1937 - 2015)

Born Lynn Freyse in Detroit, Michigan to Bill (1898–1969) and Evelyn S. Freyse (1908–2003), her family moved to Cleveland, Ohio and later Tucson, Arizona, in hopes of coping with her mother’s health needs, which required a warm, dry climate. She had a brother, Steve. Lynn’s father, a Detroit native, was a cartoonist who drew the […]

Holly Woodlawn (1946 - 2015)

Holly Woodlawn was born as Haroldo Santiago Franceschi Rodriguez Danhakl in Juana Díaz, Puerto Rico, to an American soldier of German descent, and Aminta Rodriguez, a native Puerto Rican, and grew up in Miami Beach, where she came out at a young age. She adopted the name Holly from the heroine of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, […]