Stephen McNally (1911 - 1994)

Born in New York City, McNally attended Fordham University School of Law and was an attorney in the late 1930s before he pursued his passion for acting. He was a one time president of the Catholic Actors Guild. He started his stage career using his real name Horace McNally and began appearing uncredited in many World […]

Ralph Michael (1907 - 1994)

Ralph Michael (26 September 1907 – 9 November 1994) was an English actor. He was born as Ralph Champion Shotter in London. His film appearances included Dead of Night, A Night to Remember, Children of the Damned, Grand Prix, The Assassination Bureau, and Empire of the Sun. Television credits include: The Adventures of Robin Hood, A […]

Terry Scott (1927 - 1994)

Scott was born and brought up in Watford, Hertfordshire and educated at Watford Field Junior School and Watford Grammar School for Boys. He was the youngest of three children, and the only surviving son after his brother Aubrey died when Scott was six. After National Service in the Navy, at the end of World War […]

Olan Soule (1909 - 1994)

Born in La Harpe, Illinois to Elbert and Ann Williams Soule (descendants of three Mayflower passengers), Olan left Illinois at the age of seven and arrived in Des Moines, Iowa, where he lived until he was seventeen. He then launched his theatrical career by joining Jack Brooks’ tent show in Sabula, Jackson County, in eastern […]

Tom Villard (1953 - 1994)

Villard was born in Waipahu, Hawaii and grew up in Spencerport, New York, the son of Diane Ruth (MacNaughton), a teacher of the emotionally handicapped, and Ronald Louis Villard, a photochemical engineer. He attended Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania, before moving to New York City to attend the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute and […]

Steven Keats (1945 - 1994)

The son of Jewish emigrants from Denmark,[citation needed] Keats was a popular and prolific actor of the 1970s. He grew up in Canarsie, Brooklyn, New York, graduated from the New York School for the Performing Arts (now Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts). After serving a tour of duty […]

Nick Cravat (1912 - 1994)

Nicholas Cuccia (pronounced coo-cha; January 10, 1912 – January 29, 1994), better known by his stage name Nick Cravat, was an American actor and stunt performer. Cravat was born in New York City, New York. He took his stage name from a character in a play he had seen and liked. Cravat and Burt Lancaster met as […]

Christopher Collins (1949 - 1994)

Collins was born Christopher Lawrence Latta in Orange, New Jersey, and grew up in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan, New York City. His legal name became Christopher Charles Collins when his stepfather adopted him. Collins’ biological father, Robert Latta, was a New York stage actor. His mother, Jane Morin, worked as an advertising executive. […]

Charles Drake (1917 - 1994)

Drake was born as Charles Ruppert in New York City. He graduated from Nichols College and became a salesman. In 1939, he turned to acting and signed a contract with Warner Brothers. He was not immediately successful. During World War II Drake served in the United States Army. Drake returned to Hollywood in 1945, his […]

Derek Jarman (1942 - 1994)

Jarman’s first films were experimental super 8 mm shorts, a form he never entirely abandoned, and later developed further in his films Imagining October (1984), The Angelic Conversation (1985), The Last of England (1987) and The Garden (1990) as a parallel to his narrative work. The Garden was entered into the 17th Moscow International Film […]

Tamara Toumanova (1919 - 1996)

After moving to Paris, Toumanova was given piano lessons and studied ballet with Olga Preobrajenska, who she described as her “first and only permanent teacher” and an “immortal friend”. At the age of six, the ballerina Anna Pavlova invited young Toumanova to perform in one of her gala concerts (08.06.1925). Toumanova danced a polka choreographed […]

Tommy Rettig (1941 - 1996)

Rettig was born to a Jewish father, Elias Rettig, and a Christian Italian-American mother, Rosemary Nibali, in Jackson Heights in the Queens borough of New York City. He started his career at the age of six, on tour with Mary Martin in the play Annie Get Your Gun, in which he played Little Jake. Before his […]

Ted Bessell (1935 - 1996)

Born in Flushing, New York, Bessell grew up in Manhasset on Long Island, New York. He was originally gearing up for a career as a classical musician. As a 12-year-old child prodigy, he performed a piano recital at Carnegie Hall. Bessell played lacrosse in high school with future football star and actor Jim Brown. However, after […]

Mark Lenard (1924 - 1996)

Lenard was born Leonard Rosenson in Chicago, Illinois, the son of a Russian Jewish immigrant, Abraham, and his wife, Bessie, but was raised in the small town of South Haven, Michigan, where his family owned a tourist resort. He joined the United States Army in 1943 and trained to be a paratrooper during World War […]

Juliet Prowse (1936 - 1996)

Prowse was born in Bombay, British India to South African parents and reared in South Africa. She began studying dance at the age of four. In her early twenties she was dancing at a club in Paris when she was spotted by a talent agent and eventually signed to play the part of “Claudine” in […]

Joe Seneca (1919 - 1996)

Joe Seneca (January 14, 1919 – August 15, 1996) was an American film and television actor who had a lengthy Hollywood career, portraying bit parts in many major films and television sitcoms spanning from the 1970s to the 1990s. He played the father of Danny Glover’s character in the film Silverado. Seneca was born Joel McGhee […]

Whit Bissell (1909 - 1996)

Born in New York City, Bissell was the son of prominent surgeon Dr. J. Dougal Bissell. He trained with the Carolina Playmakers, a theatrical organization associated with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He had a number of roles in Broadway theatre, including the Air Force show Winged Victory, when he was an […]

Ronald Howard (1918 - 1996)

Howard was born in South Norwood, London, the son of Ruth Evelyn (Martin) and film actor Leslie Howard. He attended Tonbridge School. After graduating from Jesus College, Cambridge, Ronald Howard became a newspaper reporter for a while but decided to become an actor. His first film role was an uncredited bit part in Pimpernel Smith (1941), […]

Vince Edwards (1928 - 1996)

Edwards was born in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, New York City, New York, to Julia and Vincento Zoino. He and his twin brother, Anthony, were the youngest of seven children. He was a standout on his high school swim team and went on to study at Ohio State University on an athletic scholarship. He […]

Haing S. Ngor (1940 - 1996)

Born in Samrong Young, Cambodia, Ngor trained as a surgeon and gynecologist. He was practicing in the capital, Phnom Penh, in 1975 when Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge seized control of the country and proclaimed it Democratic Kampuchea. He was compelled to conceal his education, medical skills, and even the fact that he wore glasses to […]

Hiram Keller (1944 - 1997)

Keller received his dramatic training at Lee Strasberg’s prestigious Actors Studio in New York. His first stage engagement took him to Broadway. From 1968 until his departure to appear in Fellini Satyricon, he was a member of the tribe in the original line-up stage production of Hair, directed by Tom O’Horgan, written by Gerome Ragni […]

Jean Engstrom (1920 - 1997)

Jean Engstrom was born Flora Jean Bovie,  in Michigan on July 25, 1920, the eldest of two children  born to Clarence Augustus Bovie (1892-1928), an artist  and commercial illustrator,  and Nona Iola Cochrun (1895-1976) After her father’s death due to a cerebral hemorrhage in 1928, 1930 census records show that she and her mother and […]

Allan Edwall (1924 - 1997)

Johan Allan Edwall (25 August 1924 – 7 February 1997) was a Swedish actor, director, author, composer and singer, best-known outside Sweden for the small roles he played in some of Ingmar Bergman’s films, such as Fanny and Alexander (1982). He found his largest audience in the Scandinavian countries for playing lovable characters in several […]

James Cossins (1933 - 1997)

James Cossins (4 December 1933 – 12 February 1997) was an English character actor. Born in Beckenham, Kent, he became widely recognised as the abrupt, bewildered Mr Walt in the Fawlty Towers episode “The Hotel Inspectors” and as Mr Watson the frustrated Public Relations training course instructor in an episode of Some Mothers Do ‘Ave […]

John Beal (1970 - 1997)

Beal was born James Alexander Bliedung in Joplin, Missouri. He originally went to New York to study art but a chance to understudy in a play made him change his mind. He began acting in the 1930s, opposite Katharine Hepburn (in the 1934 RKO film The Little Minister),[1] among others; one of his notable screen […]

Barry Evans (1943 - 1997)

Born in Guildford, Surrey, and abandoned as a baby, Evans was educated at the orphanage boarding schools run by the Shaftesbury Homes, first at Fortescue House School in Twickenham and then at Bisley Boys’ School in Bisley, Surrey. His acting ability was recognised at an early age and he often played the leading roles in […]

Charles Hallahan (1943 - 1997)

Charles John Hallahan (July 29, 1943 – November 25, 1997) was an American film, television and stage actor known for his performances in Going in Style, The Thing, Cast a Deadly Spell, and Dante’s Peak. Hallahan was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and graduated from Rutgers University, then going on to Temple University to earn a Master’s […]

Adriana Caselotti (1916 - 1997)

Caselotti was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut to an Italian American family. Her father, Guido Caselotti (1884-1978), was an immigrant from Udine, and worked as a teacher of music and a vocal coach. Her mother, Maria Orefice (1893-1961), from Naples, was a singer in the Royal Opera Theatre of Rome. Her older sister, Louise, sang opera […]

Brian Glover (1934 - 1997)

Glover was born in Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, but grew up in Barnsley. His father was a wrestler, performing as the “Red Devil”. He attended Barnsley Grammar School and the University of Sheffield, where he supplemented his student grant with appearances as a professional wrestler, going under the ring name “Leon Arras the Man […]

Jesse White (1917 - 1997)

White was born as Jonah Marcus Weidenfeld in Buffalo, New York, and was reared in Akron, Ohio. He was called “Jesse” as a nickname. He made his first amateur appearance in local stage productions at the age of fifteen. Though aspiring to be an actor, he worked at many different jobs during the 1930s, including […]