Ferlin Husky (1925 - 2011)

Ferlin Husky Country Musician, Actor. Born Ferlin Eugene Husky, he was raised on a Missouri farm and learned how to play the guitar from an uncle at the age of ten. Following service with the US Merchant Marines (he served as a troop ship gunner in the European Theater) during World War II, he worked […]

Dorothy Stratten (1960 - 1980)

Dorothy Stratten Stratten was born in a Salvation Army hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia, to Simon and Nelly Hoogstraten, who were Dutch immigrants. In 1961 her brother John Arthur was born. Her sister Louise Stratten followed in May 1968. In 1977 she was attending Centennial High School in Coquitlam when, while working part-time at a […]

Zig Ziglar (1926 - 2012)

Zig Ziglar was born in Coffee County in southeastern Alabama to John Silas Ziglar and Lila Wescott Ziglar. He was the tenth of twelve children.  In 1931, when Ziglar was five years old, his father took a management position at a Mississippi farm, and his family moved to Yazoo City, Mississippi, where he spent most […]

Dave Brubeck (1920 - 2012)

David Warren “Dave” Brubeck (December 6, 1920 – December 5, 2012) was an American jazz pianist and composer, considered to be one of the foremost exponents of cool jazz. He wrote a number of jazz standards, including “In Your Own Sweet Way” and “The Duke”. Brubeck’s style ranged from refined to bombastic, reflecting his mother’s […]

Jack Klugman (1922 - 2012)

Jack Klugman Klugman was born in Philadelphia, the son of Rose, a hat maker, and Max Klugman, a house painter. His parents were Russian Jewish immigrants, though the family name is German in origin. He attended Carnegie Institute of Technology, now Carnegie Mellon University, from which he graduated in 1948. While there his drama teacher […]

Charles Durning (1923 - 2012)

Durning was born in Highland Falls, New York, the ninth of ten children. His three brothers and sister, James (Roger) (1915–2000), Clifford (1916–1994), Frances (born 1919) and Gerald (born 1926), survived to adulthood but five sisters lost their lives to scarlet fever and smallpox as children. He was the son of Louise (née Leonard; 1894–1982), […]

Jean Harlow (1911 - 1937)

Jean Harlow Jean suffered from scarlet fever at the age 15 in 1926. This may have contributed to her untimely death from kidney disease on June 7, 1937 at the age of 26. Production for Harlow’s final film Saratoga, co-starring  Clark Gable, was scheduled to begin filming in March 1937. However, production was delayed when […]

Jayne Mansfield (1933 - 1967)

Jayne Mansfield In Biloxi, Mississippi, for an engagement at the Gus Stevens Supper Club, Mansfield stayed at the Cabana Courtyard Apartments near the club. After an evening appearance on June 28, 1967, Mansfield, her lover Sam Brody, their driver, Ronnie Harrison, with three of her children – Miklós, Zoltán and Mariska – set out in […]

Molly Glynn (1968 - 2014)

Molly Glynn (June 14, 1968 – September 6, 2014) was an American actress: She was a well-known Chicago stage actress, and also played several roles in film and television, including a recurring role on the television series Chicago Fire.  Glynn, the youngest of five children, grew up as part of a prominent family in Hartford, […]

Polly Bergen (1930 - 2014)

Bergen was born in Knoxville, Tennessee to Lucy (née Lawhorn) and William Hugh Burgin, a construction engineer. “Bill Bergen”, as he was later known, had singing talent and appeared with his daughter in several episodes of her 18-episode NBC comedy/variety show, The Polly Bergen Show, which aired during the 1957-1958 television season.  Bergen appeared in […]

Elizabeth Pena (1959 - 2014)

Elizabeth Peña Peña was born and raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey on September 23, 1959 to Mario Peña, an actor, director, and writer who co-founded the Latin American Theatre Ensemble, and Estella Margarita (Toirac) Peña, an arts administrator and producer.  She was of Cuban descent and spent her early years in Cuba. At age 8, […]

Christine Cavanaugh (1963 - 2014)

Cavanaugh was born to Rheta Mason (née Sharky) and Waldo Eugene Sandberg. She graduated from Layton High School in 1981. She first attended Utah State University, then the University of Hawaii, where she met her future husband, Kevin Cavanaugh. The couple married in 1985 but divorced in 1988.  In 1991, Cavanaugh voiced Gosalyn Mallard, the […]

Edward Herrmann (1943 - 2014)

Edward Kirk Herrmann was born on July 21, 1943 in Washington, D.C., the son of Jean Eleanor (née O’Connor) and John Anthony Herrmann. Of German and Irish descent, Herrmann grew up in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and graduated from Bucknell University in 1965, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi. He studied acting at […]

Little Jimmy Dickens (1920 - 2015)

Little Jimmy Dickens Toward the end of his life, Dickens made appearances in a number of music videos by fellow country musician and West Virginia native Brad Paisley. He was also featured on several of Paisley’s albums in bonus comedy tracks, along with other Opry mainstays such as George Jones and Bill Anderson. They were […]

Greg Page (1958 - 2009)

Greg Page Professional Boxer. He was the former WBA Heavyweight Champion from 1984 to 1985. He defeated Gerrie Coetzee to win the title and relinquished it to Tony Tubbs. Prior to turning professional, Page was a two-time National AAU Heavyweight Champion (1977 and 1978), and the National Golden Gloves Heavyweight Champion in 1978. He compiled […]

Sheb Wooley (1921 - 2003)

Sheb Wooley Wooley was born in Erick, Oklahoma, and was raised on a farm. He learned to ride horses at an early age and was a working cowboy and rodeo rider. He also played in a country-western band. Wooley tried to enlist during World War II, but was turned down for military service because of his rodeo injuries. Instead, […]

Johnny Russell (1940 - 2001)

Johnny Russell Russell penned the country standard “Act Naturally,” which Buck Owens recorded in 1963 and took to No. 1. Two years later, the Beatles cut the song with Ringo Starr on vocals. Artists such as Burl Ives, George Strait, Bobby Vinton, Patti Page, George Jones, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, and Del Reeves also recorded […]

Joe Louis (1914 - 1981)

Joe Louis Professional Boxer. Heavyweight Champion of the World from 1937 to 1949. He began his pro career in 1934, and by 1936 he had beaten such great heavyweights as Stanley Poreda, Natie Brown, and Rosco Toles. He was seemingly invincible, until his meeting with Max Schmeling on June 19, 1936. Schmeling was the underdog […]

Floyd Patterson (1935 - 2006)

Floyd Patterson He was a good guy in the bad world of boxing. He was mild, sweet, retiring, reclusive, impassive and ascetic. He spoke softly and never lost his boyhood shyness. Constantine (Cus) D’Amato, who died in 1985, trained Patterson throughout his professional career and called him “a kind of a stranger.” Red Smith, The […]

Freddy Fender (1937 - 2006)

Freddy Fender Country Singer, Musician. Born Baldemar Huerta Spouse Evangelina (Vangie) Huerta, his best known hit song was “Before the Next Teardrop Falls,” a No. 1 hit on both Billboard magazine’s country and Hot 100 charts in 1975. The song sold one million copies and was awarded the Country Music Association’s Single of the Year […]

Hugo Chávez (1954 - 2013)

Hugo Chávez Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈuɣo rafaˈel ˈtʃaβes ˈfɾi.as]; 28 July 1954 – 5 March 2013) was a Venezuelan politician and the President of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013. He was the leader of the Fifth Republic Movement from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when it merged with several other […]

Eric Hill (1927 - 2014)

He was born in Holloway, London, and left school at 14. He first worked as an errand boy in an illustration studio where he was encouraged to draw cartoons and comic strips in his spare time. Following National Service, he produced sketches for magazines, and later worked as a freelance designer and illustrator in advertising. […]

Simone Battle (1989 - 2014)

Battle made her television debut in 2006, having small roles on shows including Zoey 101 and Everybody Hates Chris. In 2010, Battle was a background dancer in the Cali Swag District music video “Teach Me How to Dougie”.  In 2011, Battle auditioned for the American singing competition The X Factor in front of judges Simon […]

Dave Brockie (1963 - 2014)

Dave Brockie Brockie portrayed Oderus Urungus, Gwar’s lead singer, from Gwar’s inception in 1982 until his death. Oderus appeared as an intergalactic humanoid barbarian with devil horns and a meaty-looking face, and carried a long sword named “Unt Lick” and a cuttlefish around his loins.  In 1990, Brockie was arrested by police for “obscenity” after […]

Marian Seldes (1928 - 2014)

Seldes was born in Manhattan, the daughter of Alice Wadhams Hall, a socialite, and Gilbert Seldes, a journalist, author and editor. Her uncle was journalist George Seldes. Seldes’s paternal grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants, and her mother was from a “prominent WASP family,” the “Episcopalian blue-blooded Halls.” She had a brother, Timothy, and grew up […]

Luise Rainer (1910 - 2014)

Luise Rainer (12 January 1910 – 30 December 2014) was a German-born Austrian and American film actress. She was the first person to win multiple Academy Awards and the first person to win them consecutively. At the time of her death, she was the longest-lived actress ever to have received an Academy Award. Rainer began […]

Paco de Lucia (1947 - 2014)

Francisco Gustavo Sánchez Gomes (21 December 1947 – 25 February 2014), known as Paco de Lucía [ˈpako ðe luˈθia], was a Spanish virtuoso flamenco guitarist, composer and producer. A leading proponent of the New Flamenco style, he helped legitimize flamenco among the establishment in Spain, and was one of the first flamenco guitarists to have […]

Jamie Coots (1971 - 2014)

Coots grew up in Middlesboro, Ky. He was a third-generation snake handler. He was the pastor of Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name, a church founded by his grandfather, Tommy Coots, in 1978. He began handling snakes at age 23. His son, Cody “Little Cody” Coots, is also active in his father’s church. Coots primarily […]

Sid Caesar (1922 - 2014)

Sid Caesar Isaac Sidney “Sid” Caesar (September 8, 1922 – February 12, 2014) was an American comic actor and writer, best known for the pioneering 1950s live television series Your Show of Shows, a 90-minute weekly show watched by 60 million people, and its successor Caesar’s Hour, both of which influenced later generations of comedians. […]

Bob Casale (1952 - 2014)

Casale was originally trained as a medical radiation technologist, but was recruited by his brother Gerald Casale to join his band. After a few line-up changes, Bob Casale would be part of the most popular five-piece incarnation, which included the Casale brothers: Jerry and Bob (“Bob 2”), and the Mothersbaugh brothers: Mark and Bob (“Bob […]