John Hart (1917 - 2009)

Hart began his screen career in 1937 with a bit part in Daughter of Shanghai. He continued in a variety of B pictures such as Prison Farm and King of Alcatraz before appearing in two of Cecil B. DeMille’s films The Buccaneer (1938) and North West Mounted Police (1940). His acting career was interrupted when he […]

Steven Gilborn (1936 - 2009)

Steven Neil Gilborn (July 15, 1936 – January 2, 2009) was an American actor and educator. Gilborn was born in New Rochelle, New York. He attended Swarthmore College, where he was awarded a bachelor’s degree in English and earned a Ph.D. in dramatic literature from Stanford University in 1969, where his dissertation provided a psychoanalytic perspective […]

Robert Ginty (1948 - 2009)

Ginty was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Elsie M. (née O’Hara), a government worker, and Michael Joseph Ginty, a construction worker. Ginty was involved with music from an early age, playing with Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Carlos Santana and John Lee Hooker. He studied at Yale and trained at the Neighborhood Playhouse […]

Paul Burke (1926 - 2009)

Burke was born in New Orleans, the son of Santa Maria (Palermo) and Martin Joseph “Marty” Burke, a boxer who fought Gene Tunney and later owned a restaurant and a nightclub known as “Marty Burke’s” in the New Orleans French Quarter. He was of Irish and Italian descent. After training at the Pasadena Playhouse, Burke’s film […]

Bud Tingwell (1923 - 2009)

Tingwell was born in the Sydney suburb of Coogee, the son of William Harvey Tingwell and Enid (née Green). As an adolescent, his father encouraged him to be an accountant, but Tingwell failed the entrance exam. While still at school, he became a cadet at Sydney radio station 2CH, soon becoming the youngest radio announcer […]

Connie Hines (1931 - 2009)

Hines was one of four children born in Dedham in Norfolk County in eastern Massachusetts to an actress mother and a Boston-based teacher/acting coach father. As a child, she appeared in many of her father’s stock-company plays. A member of the class of 1948 at Dedham High School, she was voted the most popular girl […]

Don Galloway (1937 - 2009)

Galloway was born in Brooksville, Kentucky, the son of Malee (Poe) and Paul Smith Galloway, a contractor. Galloway began his television career in 1962 in the New York-based soap opera The Secret Storm as the first actor to play Kip Rysdale. His first nighttime video stint was on Tom, Dick and Mary, one-third of the […]

Mollie Sugden (1922 - 2009)

Sugden was born in Keighley in the West Riding of Yorkshire in 1922. When she was four years old, she heard a woman reading a poem at a village concert making people laugh. The following Christmas, after being asked if she could “do anything”, Sugden read this poem and everyone fell about laughing. She later […]

Alaina Reed Hall (1946 - 2009)

Hall was born Bernice Ruth Reed in Springfield, Ohio on November 10, 1946. In the mid-1960s she attended Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, where she was active in many productions at KSU’s E. Turner Stump Theater. These included “The Streets of New York”, “It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman!”, and “The Tragedy of Tragedies […]

Val Avery (1924 - 2009)

Avery was born in Philadelphia. In his early years he acted in plays with the Armenian Youth Federation. Following his service in World War II, he attended the Bessie V. Hicks School of Drama in Philadelphia. Avery’s pock-marked face and shifty appearance allowed him to frequently be cast as a gangster, or other menacing heavies. Avery’s […]

Dallas McKennon (1919 - 2009)

Born in La Grande, Oregon, McKennon’s best-known roles were that of Gumby for Art Clokey, and Archie Andrews for Filmation’s Archie series, and the primary voice of Buzz Buzzard in the Woody Woodpecker cartoons. In the early 1950s, McKennon created and hosted his own daily kids TV wraparound show, Space Funnies/Capt. Jet, which was seen […]

Reg Varney (1916 - 2008)

Varney was born in Canning Town, Essex, now part of Greater London. His father worked in a rubber factory in Silvertown and he was one of five children who grew up in Addington Road, Canning Town. Varney was educated at the nearby Star Lane Primary School in West Ham and after leaving school at 14, […]

Julie Ege (1943 - 2008)

Ege was born in Høyland, Sandnes as Julie Dzuli. At the age of 15 she began to work as a model. She was crowned Miss Norway at the age of 18, and subsequently participated in Miss Universe. She graduated from the University of Oslo where she studied History and English. In 1967 she moved to […]

David Groh (1939 - 2008)

Groh was born in Brooklyn, the son of Mildred and Benjamin Groh. He had a sister, Marilyn. He attended Brooklyn Technical High School, then enrolled at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in English literature. He performed with the American Shakespeare Theatre, then went to Great Britain […]

Kathy Staff (1928 - 2008)

Born in Dukinfield, Cheshire, Staff was best known for her role as one of the main characters, Nora Batty, in the long-running BBC sitcom Last of the Summer Wine. She played Nora Batty from the pilot episode in 1973, (though in the pilot and first series, she was referred to as Mrs.Batty),  until 2008, the […]

Lilyan Chauvin (1925 - 2008)

Chauvin began her career working in broadcasting in France. Her mother was French and her father was Italian. While under contract to a French radio station she had her heart set on becoming a lawyer; however her earnings soon exceeded that of her parents and she gave serious consideration to making show business her way […]

Claire Kelly (1934 - 1998)

Claire Kelly (March 15, 1934 in San Francisco, California – July 1, 1998 in Palm Springs, California) was an American actress. Born Claire Ann Green, the daughter of a wealthy California rancher, she was trained at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York. She started out as a model in Miami, and appeared several times on […]

Perry Lopez (1929 - 2008)

Perry Lopez (born Julios Caesar Lopez; July 22, 1929 – February 14, 2008) was an American film and television actor. His acting career lasted 40 years. Lopez was born in New York City of Puerto Rican descent. Lopez began his acting career on in theater, based in New York. He was signed to a contract at […]

Brian Wilde (1927 - 2008)

Though born in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, he was brought up in Devon and Hertfordshire and attended Hertford Grammar School. He trained as an actor at RADA. He had a small part in the horror film Night of the Demon (1957). He had an earlier role as a small time crook in the 1954 film “Forbidden Cargo” (uncredited) […]

Brad Sullivan (1931 - 2008)

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Bradford E. Sullivan served in the Korean War and then attended the University of Maine. After touring with a stage company, he moved to New York City and studied at the American Theatre Wing. He made his Off-Broadway debut in Red Roses for Me in 1961, and went on to appear […]

Jules Dassin (1911 - 2008)

Dassin was born in Middletown, Connecticut, one of eight children of Berthe Vogel and Samuel Dassin, a barber. His family was Russian Jewish. Dassin grew up in Harlem and went to Morris High School in the Bronx. He joined the Communist Party USA in the 1930s and left it after the Hitler–Stalin Pact in 1939. […]

Majel Barrett (1932 - 2008)

Majel began taking acting classes as a child. She attended Shaker Heights High School, graduating in 1950 before going on to the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, then had some stage roles and came to Hollywood. Her father, William Hudec, was a Cleveland police officer. He was killed in the line of duty […]

Harvy Korman (1927 - 2008)

Korman, who was of Russian Jewish descent, was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Ellen (née Blecher) and Cyril Raymond Korman, a salesman. He served in the United States Navy during World War II. After being discharged, he studied at the Goodman School of Drama. He was a member of the Peninsula Players summer […]

Paul Benedict (1938 - 2008)

Benedict was born in Silver City, New Mexico, the son of Alma Marie (née Loring), a journalist, and Mitchell M. Benedict, a doctor. He grew up in Massachusetts. As a young man, he suffered from acromegaly, a pituitary disorder that affects the extremities and face, which accounted for his slightly oversized jaw and large nose. Benedict […]

Lois Nettleton (1927 - 2008)

Lois Nettleton was born on August 16, 1927 in Oak Park, Illinois to Virginia and Edward L. Nettleton. She was Miss Chicago of 1948 as well as a semifinalist at the Miss America 1948 Pageant. Her professional acting career began in 1949. She understudied Barbara Bel Geddes in the original Broadway production of Tennessee Williams’ […]

Richard Widmark (1914 - 2008)

Widmark was born in Sunrise Township, Minnesota, the son of Ethel Mae (née Barr) and Carl Henry Widmark. His father was of Swedish descent and his mother of English and Scottish ancestry. Widmark grew up in Princeton, Illinois, and also lived in Henry, Illinois for a short time, moving frequently because of his father’s work […]

Cyd Charisse (1922 - 2008)

Charisse was born as Tula Ellice Finklea in Amarillo, Texas, the daughter of Lela (née Norwood) and Ernest Enos Finklea, Sr., who was a jeweler. Her nickname “Sid” was taken from her younger brother, Thomas Jarrell Finklea (June 25, 1923), who tried to say “Sis”. (It was later given the more intriguing and exotic spelling […]

Beverly Garland (1926 - 2008)

Garland was born Beverly Lucy Fessenden in Santa Cruz, California, the daughter of Amelia Rose (née Scherer), a businesswoman, and James Atkins Fessenden, a singer and salesman. Garland grew up in Glendale, California. She was a drama student of Anita Arliss. In the 1950s, many of her roles were of secure, tough women who could handle […]

Mel Ferrer (1917 - 2008)

Ferrer was born Melchor Gastón Ferrer in the Elberon section of Long Branch, New Jersey, of Cuban and Irish descent. His father, Dr. José María Ferrer (1857–1920), was born in Cuba, of Spanish ancestry, and was an authority on pneumonia and served as chief of staff of St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York City. His […]

John Phillip Law (1937 - 2008)

Law was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff John Law and actress Phyllis Sallee and the brother of actor Thomas Augustus Law (also known as Tom Law). He worked as a film extra as a child, and had a non-speaking role as a courtroom page in John Sturges’s The […]