Chris Alcaide (1922 - 2004)

Alcaide was born John (“Jack”) Berger to parents George and Frances Conroy Berger in the traditionally steel city of Youngstown, the seat of Mahoning County in eastern Ohio, and served from 1943 to 1946 in the United States Army during World War II. He came to Hollywood, California, after the war to launch his acting […]

Jason Raize (1975 - 2004)

Born in Oneonta, New York, Raize grew up in the Catskills in upstate New York and started acting as a teenager, when his stepmother enrolled him in a summer Shakespeare workshop. In high school, after moving with his father to Oneonta, Raize performed in high school plays and with Oneonta’s Orpheus Theatre. He moved to […]

Richard Ney (1916 - 2004)

Ney was born in New York City, the son of Erwin Maximillian Ney and Charlotte Marie Donaldson. His father also married Rebie Margaret (Flood), daughter of the Rev. Theodore L. Flood, editor of The Chautauquan and Ruth Crosley Pardington, daughter of Arthur Rayner Pardington, of Lincoln Highway fame. Richard Ney was the father of Rick […]

Frances Dee (1909 - 2004)

The younger daughter of Francis “Frank” Marion Dee and his wife, the former Henriette Putnam, Frances Marion Dee was born in Los Angeles, California, where her father was working as a civil-service examiner. She grew up in Chicago, Illinois, where she attended Shakespeare Grammar School and Hyde Park High School, where she went by the nickname […]

Anna Lee (1913 - 2004)

Lee trained at the Royal Albert Hall, [clarification needed] then debuted with a bit part in His Lordship (1932). When she and her first husband, director Robert Stevenson, moved to Hollywood she became associated with John Ford, appearing in several of his films, notably How Green Was My Valley, Two Rode Together and Fort Apache. […]

Noble Willingham (1931 - 2004)

Willingham was the son of Ladelle (née Speights) and Noble Henry Senior, a railroad worker and a farmer. He was born in the small town of Mineola, in Wood County east of Dallas, Texas. After graduating in 1953 from North Texas State University in Denton, he earned a master’s degree in educational psychology from Baylor University […]

John Randolph (1915 - 2004)

Randolph was born in New York City, the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia and Romania. His mother, Dorothy (née Shorr), was an insurance agent, and his father, Louis Cohen, was a hat manufacturer. In the 1930s, he spent his summers at the Pine Brook Country Club in Nichols, Connecticut which was the summer home […]

Ingrid Thulin (1926 - 2004)

Thulin was born in Sollefteå, Ångermanland, northern Sweden, the daughter of Nanna (née Larsson) and Adam Thulin, a fisherman. She took ballet lessons as a girl and was accepted by The Royal Dramatic Theatre (“Dramaten”) in Stockholm 1948. For many years she worked regularly with Ingmar Bergman; among other films, Thulin appeared in Bergman’s Wild Strawberries […]

Bob Keeshan (1927 - 2004)

Keeshan was born in Lynbrook, New York. After an early graduation from Forest Hills High School in Queens, New York in 1945, during World War II, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve, but was still in the United States when Japan surrendered. He attended Fordham University on the GI Bill and few […]

Mercedes McCambridge (1916 - 2004)

McCambridge was born in Joliet, Illinois, the daughter of Irish American Roman Catholic parents Marie (née Mahaffry) and John Patrick McCambridge, a farmer. She graduated from Mundelein College in Chicago before embarking on a career. She began her career as a radio actor during the 1930s while also performing on Broadway and continued through the 40s […]

John Drew Barrymore (1932 - 2004)

Barrymore was born in Los Angeles, California to John Barrymore and Dolores Costello. His parents separated when he was 18 months old, and he rarely saw his father afterward. Educated at private schools, he made his film debut at 18, billed as John Barrymore Jr. In 1958, he changed his middle name to Drew, although he […]

Virginia Grey (1917 - 2004)

Virginia Grey (March 22, 1917 – July 31, 2004) was an American actress and singer. She was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of director Ray Grey. One of her early babysitters was movie star Gloria Swanson. Grey debuted at the age of ten in the silent film Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1927) as Little […]

Spalding Gray (1941 - 2004)

Gray was born in Providence, Rhode Island, to Rockwell Gray, Sr., the treasurer of Brown & Sharpe, and Margaret Elizabeth “Betty” Horton, a homemaker. He was the middle-born of three sons: Rockwell, Jr., Spalding, and Channing. He was raised in the Christian Scientist faith and grew up in Barrington, Rhode Island, spending summers at his […]

Eugene Roche (1928 - 2004)

Roche was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Mary M. (née Finnegan) and Robert F. Roche, who was at the time serving in the U.S. Navy. He served in the United States Army after graduating high school. He married Marjory Perkins in 1953; the couple had nine children, including actors Eamonn, Liam Chad, […]

Alan King (1927 - 2004)

The youngest of several children, King was born in New York City, New York, the son of Polish-Russian-Jewish immigrants Minnie (née Solomon) and Bernard Kinberg, a handbag cutter. He spent his first years on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Later, King’s family moved to Brooklyn. King used humor to survive in the tough neighborhoods. […]

Richard Marner (1921 - 2004)

Born in Petrograd, Soviet Union, Molchanoff (nicknamed “Sacha” by his family) was the eldest son of Colonel Paul Molchanoff, of the Semyonovsky Regiment, one of two that were set up for children of children who had played with Peter the Great of Russia. In 1924, his entire family left Russia and went to Finland and […]

Doris Dowling (1923 - 2004)

Doris Dowling (May 15, 1923 – June 18, 2004) was an American actress of film, stage and television. After her time as a chorus-girl on Broadway, Detroit-born Doris Dowling followed her elder sister Constance to Hollywood. Her first credited film role was that of Gloria, barfly and drinking companion to fellow alcoholic Ray Milland in the […]

Elmer Bernstein (1922 - 2004)

Bernstein was born in New York City, the son of Selma (née Feinstein, 1901-1991), from Ukraine, and Edward Bernstein (1896-1968), from Austria-Hungary. He was not related to the celebrated composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein; but the two men were friends, and even shared a certain physical similarity. Within the world of professional music, they were […]

William Boyett (1927 - 2004)

Boyett was born in Akron, Ohio, and lived there until the 1940s, when he moved with his family to Los Angeles, California. He won a Shakespeare competition in high school which led to acting jobs in radio. He served in the Navy during World War II and afterward performed on the stage in both New […]

Eric Douglas (1958 - 2004)

Born in Los Angeles, California, Douglas was the youngest son of actor Kirk Douglas and German American mother Anne Buydens. He was the younger brother of Peter Douglas, and his older half-brothers were Michael and Joel Douglas. Douglas studied at Pitzer College, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, and the London Academy of Dramatic Arts. Douglas made […]

Alberto Sordi (1920 - 2003)

Born in Rome to a schoolteacher and a musician, Sordi enrolled in Milan’s dramatic arts academy but was kicked out because of his thick Roman accent. In the meantime he studied to be an opera singer, a bass. It was his accent and voice that would later prove to be his trademark. In a career that […]

Andrea King (1919 - 2003)

Andrea King was born Georgette André Barry in Paris, France in 1919 to American Lovinia Belle Hart. At two months of age, she moved with her mother to the United States. She lived with her grandmother in Cleveland, Ohio, and Palm Beach, Florida, for the first four years of her life while her mother attended […]

Rand Brooks (1918 - 2003)

After leaving school, he managed to get a screen test at MGM and was given a bit part in Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938). His big fame came with his part as Charles Hamilton in Gone with the Wind (1939). After Gone With the Wind, he had relatively small parts in other movies including Babes […]

Frederick Coffin (1943 - 2003)

Coffin was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1943 to actress Winifred Deforest Coffin and writer Dean Coffin, and was one of five children. He was educated at Western Reserve Academy in Hudson, Ohio, where he was both a student and athlete. He began to study theater at WRA and graduated in 1961, with a B.A. […]

Norman Burton (1923 - 2003)

Born in New York City, Burton was a student of The Actor’s Studio. After early work on stage, he broke into films with a minor role in Fright (1956). His career in film and television was long and relatively successful, but he never achieved major recognition. He played the Hunt Leader, a gorilla, in the science […]

Penny Singleton (1908 - 2003)

Singleton began her show business career when she was a child, singing at a silent movie theater, and toured in vaudeville as part of an act called “The Kiddie Kabaret”. She sang and danced with Milton Berle, whom she had known since childhood, and actor Gene Raymond, and appeared on Broadway in Jack Benny’s The […]

Les Tremayne (1913 - 2003)

In 1974, Tremayne commented, “I’ve been in more than 30 motion pictures, but it’s from radio … that most people remember me.” His radio career began in 1931, and during the 1930s and 1940s, Tremayne was heard in as many as 45 shows a week. Replacing Don Ameche, he starred in The First Nighter Program from […]

Anthony Eisley (1925 - 2003)

Born Frederick Glendinning Eisley in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, whose father was a general sales manager for a large corporation. He was the father of Amanda Eisley, Jonathan Erickson Eisley, Nan R. Eisley, David Glen Eisley and grandfather of actress India Eisley. Following service in the United States Navy, he took drama classes at the University of Miami […]

Nedra Volz (1908 - 2003)

Nedra Volz Born in Montrose, Iowa, she began her career in the family tent show, and appeared in vaudeville as a toddler (called “Baby Nedra”). In the early 1930s, Volz was featured vocalist with Cato’s Vagabonds, a Des Moines, Iowa, big band that briefly enjoyed national popularity. Cato never made records, but Nedra managed to […]

Dick Cusack (1925 - 2003)

Cusack was born in New York City, the son of Margaret (née McFeeley) and Dennis Joseph Cusack. His family was of Irish Catholic background. He served with the U.S. Army in the Philippines in World War II. After the war Cusack attended College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he played basketball with […]