Don Knotts (1924 - 2006)

Don Knotts Born Jesse Donald Knotts in Morgantown, West Virginia, he is best known for his roles as ‘Deputy Barney Fife’ in the 1960s television series the “Andy Griffith Show,” and as landlord ‘Ralph Furley’ from the late 1970s television situation comedy series “Three’s Company.” He began his career as a ventriloquist and comedian in […]

Dorian Leigh (1917 - 2008)

Dorian Leigh Parker was born in San Antonio, Texas, to George and Elizabeth Parker. Her parents married when they were around 17 or 18 years old and Elizabeth promptly gave birth to three daughters in quick succession: Dorian (1917–2008), Florian (Cissie) (1918–2010), and Georgiabell. Thirteen years after the birth of her last daughter, Elizabeth thought […]

George Furth (1932 - 2008)

Furth was born George Schweinfurth in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Evelyn (née Tuerk) and George Schweinfurth. He received a Bachelor of Science in Speech at Northwestern University in 1954 and received his master’s degree from Columbia University.  A life member of the Actors Studio, Furth made his Broadway debut as an actor in the […]

Robert Prosky (1930 - 2008)

Prosky, a Polish American, was born Robert Joseph Porzuczek in the Manayunk neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Joseph and Helen Porzuczek. His father was a grocer and butcher. He was raised in a working-class neighborhood and studied at the American Theatre Wing, later graduating from Temple University. He performed at Old Academy Players, a small […]

Gary Gilmore (1940 - 1977)

Gilmore was born in McCamey, Texas, on December 4, 1940, the second of four sons to Frank and Bessie Gilmore. Frank Gilmore Sr. (1890–1962), an alcoholic con man, had numerous wives and families, none of whom he supported. He married Bessie (née Brown) (1914 – June 1980), a Mormon outcast from Provo, Utah, in Sacramento, […]

Tommy Lynn Sells (1964 - 2014)

Sells and his twin sister, Tammy Jean, contracted meningitis[citation needed] when they were 18 months old; Tammy died from the illness. Shortly thereafter, Sells was sent to live with his aunt, Bonnie Woodall, in Holcomb, Missouri, where he lived until he was five years old. When Sells was eight, he began spending time with a […]

Charles Starkweather (1938 - 1959)

Starkweather was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, the third of seven children born to Guy and Helen Starkweather. The Starkweathers were a respectable family with well-behaved children of working class background. The family was poor, but they always had the basics. Guy Starkweather was by all accounts a mild-mannered man; he was a carpenter who was […]

Ted Knight (1923 - 1986)

Ted Knight Born to a Polish American family in Terryville, Connecticut. Some sources list his real name as Tadeus Wladyslaw Konopka, however, his gravestone reads, Theodore C. Konopka. He dropped out of high school to join the military during World War II. He received five battle stars during his Army service in World War II. […]

Eartha Kitt (1927 - 2008)

Eartha Kitt Kitt was active in numerous social causes in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1966, she established the Kittsville Youth Foundation, a chartered and non-profit organization for underprivileged youth in the Watts area of Los Angeles. She was also involved with a group of youth in the area of Anacostia in Washington, D.C., who […]

Bruno Hauptmann (1899 - 1936)

Hauptmann was born Richard Hauptmann in Kamenz, near Dresden in what was then the German Empire, the youngest of five children. (The name “Bruno,” used sometimes by prosecutors in the Lindbergh kidnapping trial was not used by family or friends.) He had three brothers and a sister. At age 11, he joined the Boy Scouts […]

Charles Arthur Floyd (1904 - 1934)

Charles Arthur Floyd was born in Bartow County, Georgia in 1904. His family moved to Oklahoma in 1911, and he grew up there. As a youth, he spent considerable time in nearby Kansas, Arkansas and Missouri.  Floyd was first arrested at age 18 after he stole $3.50 in coins from a local post office. Three […]

Mabel King (1932 - 1999)

Mabel King      She started acting in the early seventies, her first movie appearance being Don’t Play Us Cheap in 1973 as a house guest. Estelle Rolle also appeared in the movie. She also played Evillene, the evil witch of the west, in both the movie and broadway versions of Diana Ross’ The Wiz. She […]

Estelle Getty (1923 - 2008)

Getty was born Estelle Scher in New York City, the daughter of Sarah and Charles Scher, Polish immigrants of the Jewish faith. They worked in the glass business. She had a sister, Roz, and a brother, David. Getty got her start in the Yiddish theater and also as a comedian in the Catskills borscht belt […]

Brad Renfro (1982 - 2008)

Renfro was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. He was the son of Angela Denise Olsen (née McCrory) and Mark Renfro, who was a factory worker. He was raised from the age of five by his paternal grandmother, Joanne (Barron) Renfro, a church secretary.  When he was ten, Renfro was discovered by Mali Finn, a casting director […]

Ron Silver (1946 - 2009)

Silver was born in New York City, the son of May (née Zimelman), a substitute teacher, and Irving Roy Silver, a clothing sales executive. Silver was raised Jewish on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and attended Stuyvesant High School.  Silver went on to graduate from SUNY at Buffalo, with a Bachelor of Arts in […]

Wendy Richard (1943 - 2009)

Richard, an only child, was born in Middlesbrough in 1943. Her parents, Henry and Beatrice Reay (née Cutter) Emerton, were publicans and ran the Corporation Hotel in the town. Emerton and Cutter married in Paddington in 1939. While Richard was a baby, her family moved to Bournemouth. They later moved to the Isle of Wight […]

Collin Paxton (1935 - 2009)

She was born in Cincinnati and moved with her family to Highlands, North Carolina, as a baby. She made her professional debut in Chicago as part of the improvisational group, The Compass Players, which included Mike Nichols, Elaine May, and Shelley Berman. Playing opposite Richard Basehart, Kevin McCarthy and William Hansen, Wilcox won the Clarence […]

Karl Malden (1912 - 2009)

Karl Malden, the eldest of three sons, was born Mladen Sekulovich in Chicago, Illinois on March 22, 1912, he was born on his mother’s 20th birthday and was raised in Gary, Indiana. His Bosnian Serb father, Petar Sekulović (1886–1975), worked in the steel mills and as a milkman, and his mother, Minnie (née Sebera) Sekulovich […]

Spike Jones (1911 - 1965)

Spike Jones Lindley Armstrong Jones was a musical genius. In the wild and woolly days before multi-track recording, MTV, and certainly digital entertainment content, Spike Jones put together a top-flight musical organization that the world has not seen the likes of since. Known as the City Slickers, the emphasis was on comedy, primarily doing dead-on […]

Jennifer Jones (1919 - 2009)

Jennifer Jones Best known for her performance in “A Song for Bernadette,” for which she won the Academy Award in 1944. She was born Phyllis Lee Isley, the only child of Phillip and Flora Mae Isley, owners and stars of a theatrical stock company. Her family traveled the country performing plays under a tent. Phyllis […]

Davy Jones (1945 - 2012)

Davy Jones Davy Jones, whose charming grin and British accent won the hearts of millions of fans on the 1960s television series “The Monkees,” died Wednesday, according to the Martin County, Florida, sheriff’s office. He was 66. A witness told authorities he was with Jones in Indiantown, Florida, when Jones “began to complain of not […]

Anissa Jones (1958 - 1976)

Anissa Jones She is best remembered for her role of ‘Buffy’ on the television series “Family Affair”. Born in West Lafayette, Indiana, her parents moved to San Diego County, California, when she was a small girl, settling in Playa del Rey, where she grew up. In 1966 she was cast as ‘Elizabeth “Buffy” Patterson-Davis’ in […]

Al Jolson (1886 - 1950)

Al Jolson Legendary singer, actor, entertainer. Al Jolson was one of the greatest entertainers of the first half of the 20th century, referred to as the World’s Greatest Entertainer in his time. A singer and dancer of boundless energy and expressive face, Jolson’s greatest claim to fame was starring in the first talking motion picture, […]

Michael Jeter (1952 - 2003)

Michael Jeter Jeter’s body was found in his Hollywood Hills home Sunday, publicist Dick Guttman said. Friends said they had communicated with him as recently as Saturday, Guttman added. An autopsy was planned to determine the cause of death. Guttman said Jeter, who was HIV-positive but had been in good health, apparently died of natural […]

George Jessel (1898 - 1981)

George Jessel Known as “The Toastmaster General of the United States.” He was born to a poor Jewish family in Harlem, New York . His father was an unsuccessful playwright who declared that George would “…never be an actor as long as I live.” His father died by the time he was 9, when George […]

David Janssen (1931 - 1980)

David Janssen He is best remembered for his role as ‘Dr. Richard Kimble’ in the ABC television drama series “The Fugitive,” about a Midwest doctor falsely convicted of murdering his wife and his escape from custody, followed by his intense search for the actual killer, which aired from 1963 until 1967. At the time, the […]

Isabel Sanford (1917 - 2004)

Sanford was born Eloise Gwendolyn Sanford in Harlem, New York, to James Edward and Josephine Sanford (née Perry). She was the youngest of seven children and was the only child to survive beyond infancy. Sanford’s mother Josephine was devoutly religious and insisted that her daughter attend church every Sunday and occasionally made her attend on […]

Marilyn Chambers (1952 - 2009)

Born Marilyn Ann Briggs in Providence, Rhode Island, Chambers was raised in Westport, Connecticut, in a middle-class household. It is often reported that she was born in Westport; however, in a 2007 interview Chambers confirmed she was born in Providence but grew up in Westport. Her father was in advertising and her mother was a […]

Dom DeLuise (1933 - 2009)

Dom DeLuise DeLuise was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Italian American parents Vincenza “Jennie” (née DeStefano), a homemaker, and John DeLuise, a public employee (garbage collector). He was the youngest of three children, having an older brother, Nicholas “Nick” DeLuise, and an older sister, Antoinette DeLuise-Daurio. DeLuise graduated from Manhattan’s High School of Performing […]

Michael Jackson (1958 - 2009)

Michael Jackson He was called the “King of Pop,” and is best remembered for his revolutionary videos such as “Thriller” (1982), and “Dangerous” (1991), as well as two Guinness World Records: Most successful entertainer of all time (with 13 Grammy Awards, 13 Number One single hits in a solo career, and sales of over 750 […]