Rick Jason (1923 - 2000)

An only child of Jewish parents, Jason was expelled from several prep schools before graduating from Rhodes Preparatory School in Manhattan. Jason served in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II from 1943 to 1945. He also visited American troops serving in Vietnam on several USO tours in the late 1960s and early 1970s. After […]

Gwen Verdon (1925 - 2000)

Verdon was born in Culver City, California, the second child of Gertrude Lilian (née Standring; October 24, 1896 – October 16, 1956) and Joseph William Verdon (December 31, 1896 – June 23, 1978), British immigrants to the United States by way of Canada. Her brother was William Farrell Verdon (August 1, 1923–June 10, 1991). The […]

Beah Richards (1920 - 2000)

She was born Beulah Elizabeth Richardson in Vicksburg, Mississippi; her mother was a seamstress and PTA advocate and her father was a Baptist minister. In 1948, she graduated from Dillard University in New Orleans and two years later moved to New York City. Her career started to take off in 1955 when she portrayed an […]

Francis Lederer (1899 - 2000)

Lederer fell in love with acting when he was young, and was trained at the Academy of Music and Academy of Dramatic Art in Prague. After service in the Austrian-Hungarian Imperial Army in World War I, he made his stage debut as an apprentice with the New German Theater, a walk-on in the play Burning […]

George Montgomery (1916 - 2000)

Montgomery was born George Montgomery Letz, the youngest of fifteen children of Ukrainian immigrant parents, in Brady, in Pondera County, northern Montana. He was reared on a large ranch where as a part of daily life he learned to ride horses and work cattle. Letz studied at the University of Montana in Missoula for a […]

Paul Bartel (1938 - 2000)

Bartel was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Jesse and William Bartel, who was an advertising executive. Bartel was openly gay; this influenced his career choice, as he found himself more accepted and afforded more opportunities within the independent film industry than he would have in Hollywood. In 1979, he was a member of […]

Kemal Sunal (1944 - 2000)

Kemal Sunal graduated from Vefa Lisesi (Vefa High School). In his early ages, he started pursuing what was to become a long and successful acting career, in minor roles in theatres. For a brief period, he worked in the Kenterler Theatre and took part in his first play Zoraki Takip. He was later transferred to […]

Eric Christmas (1916 - 2000)

Christmas was born in London, England, and later emigrated to Canada. His role as a priest in the 1971 film Harold and Maude includes a memorable monologue to an off-camera Harold, in which he discusses, with increasing nausea and disgust, how the thought of Harold’s sexual affair with a much older woman “makes [him] want…to […]

Russell Hayden (1912 - 1981)

Hayden worked behind the scenes in films in jobs such as sound recorder, film cutter, and assistant cameraman before he became an actor in the mid-1930s. At the beginning of his acting career, he mainly starred in Westerns and was voted one of the Top Ten cowboy stars. He played Lucky Jenkins, one of a trio […]

Wanda Hendrix (1928 - 1981)

Born Dixie Wanda Hendrix in Jacksonville, Florida, Hendrix was performing in her local amateur theater when she was seen by a talent agent who signed her to a Hollywood contract. She made her first film, Confidential Agent, in 1945 and for the first few years of her career was consistently cast in “B” pictures. By […]

Harold Bennett (1899 - 1981)

Bennett was born in Hastings, Sussex. After leaving school at the age of twelve, in his early life he toured America as a clown with a circus, and later taught English at the Working Men’s College in London. During World War I he served as a courier, initially on horseback, then on motorcycle. After the […]

Allen Ludden (1917 - 1981)

Allen Ludden, born Allen Packard Ellsworth, was the first child of Elmer Ellsworth, a Nebraska native living in Mineral Point, Wisconsin and working as an ice dealer; and his wife Leila M. Allen, a Wisconsin native and housewife. Elmer Ellsworth died the next winter at age 26, a victim of the worldwide Spanish flu epidemic, […]

Madge Evans (1909 - 1981)

Born in Manhattan as Margherita Evans, Madge Evans was featured in print ads as the ‘Fairy Soap girl’ as an infant. She made her professional debut at the age of six months, posing for artist’s models. As a youth, her playmates included Robert Warwick, Holbrook Blinn, and Henry Hull. When she was four years old, […]

Lotte Lenya (1898 - 1981)

In 1922 Lenya was seen by her future husband, German composer Kurt Weill, during an audition for his first stage score Zaubernacht but because of his position behind the piano, she did not see him. She was cast but owing to her loyalty to her voice coach she declined the role. She accepted the part […]

Patsy Kelly (1910 - 1981)

Kelly was born Sarah Veronica Rose Kelly in Brooklyn to Irish immigrants parents John (died 1942) and Delia Kelly (1875-1930). She began her career in vaudeville as a dancer at the age of 12. While in vaudeville, she performed in Frank Fay’s act, first in a song-and-dance routine and later as Fay’s comic foil. In […]

Jessie Matthews (1907 - 1981)

Jessie Margaret Matthews was born in a flat behind a butcher’s shop at 94 Berwick Street, Soho, London, in relative poverty, the seventh of sixteen children (of whom eleven survived) of a fruit-and-vegetable seller. She took dancing lessons as a child in a room above the local public house at 22 Berwick Street. She went on […]

René Clair (1898 - 1981)

René Clair was born and grew up in Paris in the district of Les Halles, whose lively and picturesque character made a lasting impression on him. His father was a soap merchant; he had an elder brother, Henri Chomette (born 1896). He attended the Lycée Montaigne and the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. In 1914 he was studying […]

Don Megowan (1922 - 1981)

Don Megowan was born in Inglewood, California to Robert and Leila (nee Dale) Megowan. Leila was a negative cutter for Pathé, possibly what interested him in acting. At 6’7″ he was very active in sports, playing baseball, football, and throwing discus. He went to the University of California on a football scholarship, before serving in […]

Maria Palmer (1917 - 1981)

Palmer was born and raised in Vienna, Austria-Hungary (now Vienna, Austria) on 5 September 1917. She first appeared on stage as a child actor, in various Max Reinhardt productions. She trained as a dancer, and was a member of the Bodenwieser Ensemble. She later studied drama and voice at the Vienna Conservatory. At the outbreak of […]

Jack Warner (1895 - 1981)

Warner was born in London, his real name being Horace John Waters. His sisters Elsie and Doris Waters were well-known comediennes who usually performed as “Gert and Daisy”. Warner attended the Coopers’ Company’s Grammar School for Boys in Mile End, while his sisters both attended the nearby sister school, Coborn School for Girls in Bow. […]

Marie Ney (1895 - 1981)

As a young child Ney went with her family to live in New Zealand. She began her acting career in that country and continued it in Australia. After several years of performing in those two countries she moved back to Britain, where she acted at the Old Vic with many famous actors of the day […]

Charlotte Henry (1914 - 1980)

Charlotte Virginia Henry was born in Brooklyn and began modelling at a very early age and was always fascinated by the theatre. Her family were astonished when, at only 14 years of age, she was cast in an important role in Courage, a hit Broadway play in 1928. The following year, Charlotte’s mother brought her […]

Peggy Knudsen (1923 - 1980)

Born Margaret Ann Knudsen in Duluth, Minnesota, she made her Broadway debut in My Sister Eileen. She began her film career in 1946 in A Stolen Life opposite Bette Davis. That same year, she appeared in bit parts in several films including The Big Sleep and Humoresque with Joan Crawford.  Despite appearing in big budget […]

Dore Schary (1905 - 1980)

Schary had his first success as a writer when a play he wrote, Too Many Heroes, ran on Broadway for 16 performances in the fall of 1937. He worked in Hollywood, Los Angeles, and in 1938 won the Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Story as co-writer of the screenplay for Boys Town. From 1942 […]

Ian Curtis (1956 - 1980)

Curtis was born at the Memorial Hospital in Stretford, Lancashire. He grew up in Macclesfield in Cheshire, and from an early age he exhibited talent as a poet. He was awarded a scholarship at the age of 11 by the King’s School, Macclesfield. Despite this, he was not a dedicated pupil and did not further […]

Wilson Pickett (1941 - 2006)

Wilson Pickett Wilson Pickett, the soul music pioneer whose insistent wail turned songs like “In the Midnight Hour” into hits, died yesterday in Virginia. He was 64. The cause was a heart attack, Margo Lewis, his manager, said. She added that Mr. Pickett had spent the twilight of his career playing dozens of concert dates […]

Gale Robbins (1921 - 1980)

Gale Robbins (born Betty Gale Robbins, May 7, 1921 – February 18, 1980) was an American actress and singer.  Born in Chicago, Illinois, Robbins graduated from high school in June 1939 and began her career with the Phil Levant band in 1940. She married her high school sweetheart, Robert Olson, in November 1944 when he […]

Romain Gary (1914 - 1980)

Gary was born in Vilna, Russian Empire (now Vilnius, Lithuania) under the name Roman Kacew (Yiddish: קצב‎, Russian: Рома́н Ка́цев). In his books and interviews, he presented many different versions of his parents’ origins, ancestry, occupation and his own childhood. His mother, Mina Owczyńska, was a Litvak actress from Švenčionys and his father was a […]

Teddy Pendergrass (1950 - 2010)

Teddy Pendergrass Teddy Pendergrass, the Philadelphia soul singer whose husky, potent baritone was one definition of R&B seduction in the 1970s but whose career was transformed in 1982 when he was severely paralyzed in an auto accident, died on Wednesday night in Bryn Mawr, Pa. He was 59. His death was confirmed by his publicist, […]

Lillian Randolph (1898 - 1980)

Born Castello Randolph in Knoxville, Tennessee, she was the younger sister of actress Amanda Randolph. Another member of this talented family is Steve Gibson, brother to Lillian and Amanda, with his Rhythm and Blues group, The Five Red Caps. However, new research shows that, although the preceding statement is widely quoted and believed, it isn’t […]