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 […]

Natasha Richardson (1963 - 2009)

Natasha Richardson Richardson was born and raised in London, a member of the Redgrave family, known as a theatrical and film acting dynasty. She was the daughter of director and producer Tony Richardson and actress Vanessa Redgrave, granddaughter of actors Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson, sister of Joely Richardson, half-sister of Carlo Gabriel Nero […]

Betty Hutton (1921 - 2007)

Betty Hutton Ms. Hutton, a brassy, energetic performer with a voice that could sound like a fire alarm, had the lead role in the 1950 film version of Irving Berlin’s “Annie Get Your Gun” and a starring role in Cecil B. DeMille’s 1952 spectacular, “The Greatest Show on Earth.” She was known for her renditions […]

John Huston (1906 - 1987)

John Huston John Huston, the legendary director and scenarist who made such classic films as ”The Maltese Falcon,” ”The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” ”The Asphalt Jungle” and ”The African Queen,” died yesterday in Middletown, R.I., at the age of 81. Associates said he had died in his sleep of complications from emphysema. The film […]

Rock Hudson (1925 - 1985)

Rock Hudson He was the son of an auto mechanic and a telephone operator who divorced when he was eight years old. He failed to obtain parts in school plays because he couldn’t remember lines. After high school he was a postal employee and during WW II served as a Navy airplane mechanic. After the […]

Moe Howard (1897 - 1975)

Moe Howard From a very early age he was interested in acting, a talent that was helped along by his voracious memory and capacity for memorizing just about anything, including all of the many books he read and all of the plays he saw when he was skipping school. His parents, however, were displeased by […]

Jerome Howard (1903 - 1952)

Jerome Howard He was the youngest of Jennie and Solomon Horwitz’s five sons, and because of his status as family baby, his mother would often call him “My baby,” leading his four much-older brothers to tease him by calling him Baby and later Babe, a nickname he later grew to like so much he often […]

Edward Everett Horton (1886 - 1970)

Edward Everett Horton Horton started his stage career in 1906, singing and dancing and playing small parts in Vaudeville and in Broadway productions. In 1919, he moved to Los Angeles, California, where he began acting in Hollywood films. His first starring role was in the comedy Too Much Business (1922), and he portrayed the lead […]

Bob Hope (1903 - 2003)

Bob Hope Hope was born in Eltham, London, the fifth of seven sons. His English father, William Henry Hope, was a stonemason from Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, and his Welsh mother, Avis Townes, was a light opera singer from Barry who later worked as a cleaner. They married in April 1891 and lived at 12 Greenwood Street, […]

Darla Hood (1931 - 1979)

Darla Hood Darla Hood was born in a small rural Oklahoma town on Sunday, November 8th, 1931, she grew up as dark-banged cute girl, Darla Hood began her association with the motley “Our Gang” group at the tender age of 2 1/2, as she stated on the The Jack Benny Program (1950). Her father, James […]

William Holden (1918 - 1981)

William Holden Born William Franklin Beedle in O’Fallon, Illinois, he initially followed in his father’s footsteps by studying chemistry at Pasadena Junior College before he signed a contract with Paramount in 1937. His first role was an unaccredited appearance 1938’s “Prison Farm” but he became a star almost effortlessly by virtue of his starring role […]

Alfred Hitchcock (1899 - 1980)

Alfred Hitchcock Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, Essex, England. He was the son of Emma Jane (Whelan; 1863 – 1942) and East End greengrocer William Hitchcock (1862 – 1914). His parents were both of half English and half Irish ancestry. He had two older siblings, William Hitchcock (born 1890) and Eileen Hitchcock (born […]

Charlton Heston (1923 - 2008)

Charlton Heston Heston made his feature film debut as the lead character in a 16mm production of Peer Gynt (1941), based on the Henrik Ibsen play. Shortly thereafter, he played ‘Marc Antony’ in Julius Caesar (1950), however Heston firmly stamped himself as genuine leading man material with his performance as circus manager ‘Brad Braden’ in […]