Julius Carry (1952 - 2008)

Carry grew up in the Lake Meadows neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. He attended Hales Franciscan High School, where, at age 15, he joined the Spartan Players, an acting group. He discovered a love of acting with the group, performing in plays such as Hamlet and West Side Story. After touring the country with the Spartan […]

Sam Bottoms (1955 - 2008)

Samuel John “Sam” Bottoms (October 17, 1955 – December 16, 2008) was an American actor and producer. Bottoms was born in Santa Barbara, California, the third son of James “Bud” Bottoms (a sculptor and art teacher) and Betty (Chapman), both of whom survive him. He was the brother of actors Timothy Bottoms (born 1951), Joseph Bottoms […]

Ivan Dixon (1931 - 2008)

Ivan Nathaniel Dixon III, was born in Harlem, the son of a grocery store owner. When he was young, Dixon lived in the brownstone at 518 West 150th Street in Harlem, on the same block with Josh White, Ralph Ellison, and the Hines brothers, (Gregory and Maurice). He graduated from the Lincoln Academy in Gaston […]

Rob Knox (1989 - 2008)

Knox was born to Colin and Sally Knox in 1989. He was a pupil at Beths Grammar School, Bexley. He had been acting since the age of 11, and his first credited role was a small part in an episode of the ITV police drama The Bill and he also appeared in the Channel 4 […]

Paul Scofield (1922 - 2008)

Paul Scofield was born in Birmingham England, the son of Mary and Edward Harry Scofield. When Scofield was a few weeks old, his family moved to Hurstpierpoint, Sussex, where his father served as the headmaster at the Hurstpierpoint Church of England School. Scofield told his biographer, Garry O’Connor, that his upbringing was divided. His father […]

Hazel Court (1926 - 2008)

Court was born in Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire, lived in the Boldmere area and attended Boldmere School and Highclare College. Her father was G.W. Court, a cricketer who played for Durham CCC. At the age of fourteen, she studied drama at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre and the Alexandra Theatre, also in Birmingham, England. At the age of […]

Nina Foch (1924 - 2008)

Nina Foch was born Nina Consuelo Maud Fock in Leiden, Netherlands to American actress and singer Consuelo Flowerton and Dutch classical music conductor Dirk Fock. After her mother and father divorced when Foch was a toddler, she went with her mother to the United States, settling in New York City. As Foch grew up in […]

Allan Melvin (1923 - 2008)

Born in Kansas City, Missouri, to Richard and Marie Melvin and raised in New York City by his paternal grandparents, Frank and Helen (née Campbell) Melvin. He attended Columbia University. After graduation he served in the United States Navy during World War II and married his wife, Amalia Faustina Sestero, in March 1944 in New […]

Michael Pate (1920 - 2008)

Initially interested in becoming a medical missionary, but unable to afford the university fees due to the Depression, he worked in Sydney before 1938, when he became a writer and broadcaster for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, collaborating with George Ivan Smith on Youth Speaks. For the remainder of the 1930s, he worked primarily in radio […]

Stanley Kamel (1943 - 2008)

Kamel was born to a Jewish family and raised in South River, New Jersey, and attended Rutgers Preparatory School. He started his acting career off-Broadway and broke into television with a role in Days of Our Lives as Eric Peters. Kamel had a recurring role on Melrose Place in 1994 as Bruce Teller, the Chief Executive […]

Barry Morse (1918 - 2008)

Born to a Cockney family, Morse was a 15-year-old school dropout and errand boy when he won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He performed the role of the Lion in Androcles and the Lion and as a result came to know George Bernard Shaw, a patron of the academy. His first […]

Darlene Conley (1934 - 2007)

Conley, an Irish American, was born south of Chicago in Chicago Heights, Illinois, the daughter of Melba (née Manthey) and Raymond Conley. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Conley was employed with the traveling theater group the Chicago Uptown Circuit Players and Playwrights Company. She earned a bit part in the movie The Birds, […]

Anton Rodgers (1933 - 2007)

Rodgers was born in London, the son of Leonore (née Wood) and William Robert Rodgers. His early education was at Westminster School. Later he was educated at the Italia Conti Academy and LAMDA. He appeared on stage from the age of 14. He was well known for his television performances, specifically his long-running roles in […]

Nicholas Worth (1937 - 2007)

Nicholas Worth (September 4, 1937 – May 7, 2007) was an American character actor who portrayed General Marzaq and Premier Romanov in Westwood Studios’ Command & Conquer series of games, Emperor: Battle for Dune, and also voice-acted as Colonel Bulba/Mr. Jones in Freedom Fighters. He also took up several smaller roles in sci-fi programs like […]

Tom Poston (1921 - 2007)

Poston was born in Columbus, Ohio, the son of George and Margaret Poston; his father was a liquor salesman and dairy chemist. After completing high school, Tom Poston attended Bethany College in West Virginia, but did not graduate. While there, he joined Sigma Nu Fraternity. He joined the United States Army Air Forces in 1941. Accepted […]

Dabbs Greer (1917 - 2007)

Greer was born in Fairview in Newton County in southwestern Missouri, the son of Bernice Irene (née Dabbs), a speech teacher, and Randall Alexander Greer, a druggist. Greer moved to Anderson as an infant with his family. At the age of eight, he began acting in children’s theater productions. He attended Drury University in Springfield, […]

Charles Lane (1905 - 2007)

Lane spent a short time as an insurance salesman before taking to the stage at the Pasadena Playhouse. Actor/director Irving Pichel first suggested that Lane go into acting in 1929, and four years later Lane was a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild. He became a favorite of director Frank Capra, who used him […]

Alice Ghostley (1923 - 2007)

Ghostley was born in Eve, Vernon County, Missouri in 1923, to Edna Muriel (née Rooney) and Harry Francis Ghostley, who worked as a telegraph operator. She grew up in Henryetta, Oklahoma. After graduating from high school, she attended the University of Oklahoma but dropped out to pursue a career in theatre. Ghostley first came to Broadway […]

Barry Nelson (1918 - 2007)

Nelson was born Haakon Robert Nielsen in Wellington, New Zealand, the son of Norwegian immigrants, Betsy (née Christophersen) and Trygve Nielsen but moved to America when he was 8 years old on July 1 1926 (His year of birth has been reported variously, but his 1943 Army enlistment record and his 1993 voter registration records […]

Marcheline Bertrand (1950 - 2007)

Born at St. Francis Hospital in Blue Island, Illinois, Bertrand was brought up in the nearby small town of Riverdale. Her parents were Lois June (née Gouwens; 1928–1973) and Rolland F. Bertrand (1923–1985). She had two younger siblings: a sister, Debbie, and a brother, Raleigh. In 1965, Bertrand’s family moved from the Chicago area to […]

Roscoe Lee Browne (1922 - 2007)

Browne was the fourth son of a Baptist minister, Sylvanus S. Browne, and his wife Lovie (née Lovie Lee Usher). Born in Woodbury, New Jersey, Browne first attended historically black Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, where he became a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1946. During World War II, […]

Mala Powers (1931 - 2007)

She was born in San Francisco, California. In 1940, her family moved to Los Angeles. Her father was an executive with United Press. Her mother was a minister. Powers later told a reporter, “I’ve worked in show business since I’ve been seven.” In the summer of her relocation, Powers attended the Max Reinhardt Junior Workshop where […]

Richard Jeni (1957 - 2007)

Richard Jeni was raised in an Italian-American Roman Catholic family in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. He graduated with honors from Hunter College, earning a bachelor’s degree in comparative politics. After graduating, Jeni went on to do public relations work, but was let go from five different firms in two years before doing an open-mic night in Brooklyn […]

Barbara McNair (1934 - 2007)

Barbara McNair (March 4, 1934 – February 4, 2007) was an American singer and actress. Born Barbara Jean McNair in Chicago, Illinois and raised in Racine, Wisconsin, McNair studied music at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. Her big break came with a win on Arthur Godfrey’s TV show Talent Scouts, which led to […]

Laraine Day (1920 - 2007)

Day was born La Raine Johnson in Roosevelt, Utah, one of eight children in an affluent Mormon family. She had a twin brother, Lamar. The family later moved to California where she began her acting career with the Long Beach Players. She was a 1938 graduate of Polytechnic High School in Long Beach, California. In […]

Floyd Westerman (1936 - 2007)

Westerman was born Floyd Westerman (Kanghi Duta) on the Lake Traverse Indian Reservation, home of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, a federally recognized tribe. It is one of the tribes of the Eastern Dakota subgroup of the Great Sioux Nation, living within the U.S. state of South Dakota. Kanghi Duta means “Red Crow” in Dakota (one […]

Kerwin Mathews (1926 - 2007)

Mathews was born in Seattle, Washington and was two years old when he moved with his divorced mother to Janesville, Wisconsin. He attended Janesville High School, graduating in 1943. Mathews said that “a kind high school teacher put me in a play, and that changed my life.” According to a classmate, he was a “handsome […]

Tab Thacker (1962 - 2007)

Talmadge Layne “Tab” Thacker (10 March 1962 – 28 December 2007), was a former NCAA wrestler and actor. While at North Carolina State University Thacker won the NCAA heavyweight wrestling championship in 1984, collecting 4 Atlantic Coast Conference titles along with the Wolfpack. He finished his college career 92-11-1, ranking second in N.C. State history with […]

Bruce Bennett (1906 - 2007)

Harold Herman Brix was the fourth child in a family of five of an immigrant couple from Germany. His eldest brother, and their father’s favored son, Herman, died before Harold’s birth; and he was given his middle name in this child’s memory. To please his father, by high school, he had discontinued using his own […]

Laurie Bartram (1958 - 2007)

She was an actress and ballet dancer who started in 1973. She is perhaps best known for her role as the camp counselor Brenda in the original film Friday the 13th, a performance where she was praised as one of the more “likeable” characters in the film. She also appeared in the soap opera Another […]