John R. Silber (1926 - 2012)

Silber was born in San Antonio, Texas, the second son of Paul George Silber, an immigrant architect from Germany, and Jewell (née Joslin) Silber, a Texas-born elementary school teacher. Both of his parents were Presbyterians. As an adult, he learned that his father’s side of the family was Jewish and that his aunt had been […]

Andy Williams (1927 - 2012)

Andy Williams Williams was born in Wall Lake, Iowa, the son of Jay Emerson and Florence (née Finley) Williams. Williams attended Western Hills High School in Cincinnati, Ohio; he finished high school at University High School, in West Los Angeles, because of his family’s move to California. He had three older brothers—Bob, Don, and Dick […]

Steve Sabol (1942 - 2012)

As president of the most honored filmmaker in sports, Sabol continued to be the artistic vision behind the studio that revolutionized the way America watches football. Sabol and his father, Ed, who was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on February 5, 2011, were honored in 2003 with the Lifetime Achievement Emmy from […]

J. Christopher Stevens (1960 - 2012)

Stevens was born on April 18, 1960 in Grass Valley, California, the eldest of three siblings born to Jan S. Stevens, a California Assistant Attorney General, and his wife Mary J. Stevens née Floris. from a West Coast of the United States family of French, Swedish and Chinook ancestry. Stevens was raised in Northern California […]

Hal David (1921 - 2012)

David was born in New York City, a son of Austrian Jewish immigrants Lina (née Goldberg) and Gedalier David, who owned a delicatessen in Brooklyn, and younger brother of American lyricist and songwriter Mack David. He is credited with popular music lyrics, beginning in the 1940s with material written for bandleader Sammy Kaye and for […]

Steve Van Buren (1920 - 2012)

Van Buren was born in La Ceiba, Honduras but, after he was orphaned as a boy, he was sent to live with relatives in New Orleans. From Warren Easton High School in New Orleans, he received an athletic scholarship to Louisiana State University, where he led the nation in points (110) and touchdowns (16) as […]

Dom Mintoff (1916 - 2012)

Mintoff was born in Bormla. He attended a seminary before enrolling at the University of Malta. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science and, later, as an architect and civil engineer (1937). That same year he received a Rhodes Scholarship and pursued his studies at Hertford College, Oxford, where he received a Masters in Science […]

Phyllis Diller (1917 - 2012)

Diller was born Phyllis Ada Driver in Lima, Ohio on July 17, 1917, the only child of Perry Marcus Driver (June 13, 1862 – August 12, 1948), an insurance agent, and Frances Ada (née Romshe; January 12, 1881 – January 26, 1949). She had German and Irish ancestry (the surname “Driver” had been changed from […]

Meles Zenawi (1955 - 2012)

Meles was born in Adwa, Tigray, in northern Ethiopia, to an Ethiopian father Zenawi Asres from Adwa and Alemash Guebreluel from Adi Quala, Eritrea. He was the third of six children in the family. His first name at birth was “Legesse” (thus Legesse Zenawi, Ge’ez: ለገሰ ዜናዊ legesse zēnāwī). However, he eventually became better known […]

Susan Tyrrell (1945 - 2012)

Susan Tyrrell Susan Tyrrell (born Susan Jillian Creamer; March 18, 1945 – June 16, 2012), was an American actress who appeared in dozens of film, stage and television productions over a forty-year career. Her performance as Oma in John Huston’s Fat City (1972) earned her a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. […]

Doris Singleton (1919 - 2012)

Doris Singleton Dorthea “Doris” Singleton (September 28, 1919 – June 26, 2012) Early life and career Singleton, born in New York City, trained as a classical ballerina, dancing for three seasons in the mid-1930s with the newly formed “Ballet Theatre”, later to become the American Ballet Theatre. She began her career in show business as […]

Susanne Lothar (1960 - 2012)

Susanne Lothar Susanne Lothar (15 November 1960 – 21 July 2012) was a German film, television and stage actress. Early life and education Susanne Lothar was born on 15 November 1960 in Hamburg, Germany. She was the daughter of actors Hanns Lothar and Ingrid Andree, who divorced in 1965, the year before her father’s death. […]

William Windom (1923 - 2012)

Windom was born on September 28, 1923, in New York City. He was the son of Isobel Wells (née Peckham) and Paul Windom, an architect. He was the great-grandson of the United States Secretary of the Treasury of the same name. He served in the United States Army in the European Theater of Operations in […]

Martine Franck (1938 - 2012)

Franck was born in Antwerp to a Belgian banker and his British wife, and after her birth the family moved almost immediately to London. A year later, her father joined the British army, and the rest of the family was evacuated to the United States, spending the remainder of the Second World War in Long […]

John Pesky (1919 - 2012)

Pesky was born in Portland, Oregon, the son of Croat immigrants Jakov and Marija (Bajama) Paveskovich. (Major League Baseball has his date of birth as September 27, 1919, an adjustment made by Pesky in 1939 to meet baseball scouting age limits for tryouts.)  Pesky played for Lincoln High School, and spent several years playing for […]

Helen Gurley Brown (1922 - 2012)

Brown was born Helen Marie Gurley in Green Forest, Arkansas, the daughter of Cleo Fred (Sisco) and Ira Marvin Gurley. Her mother was born in Alpena, Arkansas, and died in 1980. Her father was once appointed Commissioner of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. The family moved to Little Rock, Arkansas after Ira won election […]

Anna Piaggi (1932 - 2012)

Anna Maria Piaggi (22 March 1931 – 7 August 2012) was an Italian fashion writer and style icon.  Piaggi was born in Milan on 22 March 1931. She worked as a translator for an Italian publishing company Mondadori, then wrote for fashion magazines such as the Italian edition of Vogue and, in the 1980s, the […]

Judith Crist (1922 - 2012)

Crist was born Judith Klein in The Bronx, borough of New York City, New York, the daughter of Helen (née Schoenberg), a librarian, and Solomon Klein, a manufacturing jeweler. She attended Morris High School in The Bronx, and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Hunter College and a Master of Science degree from the […]

Lupe Ontiveros (1942 - 2012)

Lupe Ontiveros Guadalupe “Lupe” Ontiveros (September 17, 1942 – July 26, 2012) was an American film and television actress of Mexican descendent, best known for playing Yolanda Saldívar in the film Selena. Ontiveros acted in numerous films and television shows, often playing a maid or, more recently, an all-knowing grandmother. She was nominated for an […]

Susan Luckey (1938 - 2012)

Susan Luckey Suzanne Dolores Luckey (April 4, 1938 – November 29, 2012) was an American actress, best known for her roles in the musical films Carousel, released in 1956, and The Music Man, which opened in 1962. Luckey performed on Broadway during the 1950s, including the original 1954 adaptation of Peter Pan and Take Me […]

Fran Warren (1926 - 2013)

Fran Warren Frances Wolfe (March 4, 1926 – March 4, 2013), known by her stage name, Fran Warren, was an American popular singer. Life and career She was born into a Jewish family in the New York City borough of the Bronx. After some time on a chorus line at New York’s Roxy Theater, she […]

Chrissy Amphlett (1959 - 2013)

Chrissy Amphlett   Christine Joy “Chrissy” Amphlett (/æmflət/; 25 October 1959 – 21 April 2013) was an Australian singer who was the frontwoman of the Australian rock band Divinyls. Amphlett grew up in her home town of Geelong in Victoria, Australia as a singer and dancer. She left home as a teenager and travelled to […]

Chavela Vargas (1919 - 2012)

Although the name Chavela Vargas is associated with México and its culture, she was born in Costa Rica, in San Joaquín de Flores, as Isabel Vargas Lizano, daughter of Francisco Vargas and Herminia Lizano. She was baptized on 15 July 1919 with the forenames “María Isabel Anita Carmen de Jesús.” She had a difficult childhood: […]

Marvin Hamlisch (1944 - 2012)

Hamlisch was born in Manhattan, to Viennese-born Jewish parents Lilly (née Schachter) and Max Hamlisch. His father was an accordionist and bandleader. Hamlisch was a child prodigy, and, by age five, he began mimicking the piano music he heard on the radio. A few months before he turned seven, in 1951, he was accepted into […]

Sir Bernard Lovell (1913 - 2012)

Lovell was born at Oldland Common, Bristol in 1913, the son of Gilbert and Emily Laura Lovell. His childhood hobbies and interests included cricket and music – mainly the piano. He attended Kingswood Grammar School, now King’s Oak Academy.  Lovell studied physics at the University of Bristol obtaining a bachelor of science degree in 1934, […]

Robert Hughes (1938 - 2012)

Hughes was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1938. His father and paternal grandfather were lawyers. Hughes’ father, Geoffrey Forrest Hughes, was a pilot in the First World War, with later careers as a solicitor and company director. He died from lung cancer when Robert was aged 12. His mother was Margaret Eyre Sealy, née Vidal. […]

Martin Segal (1916 - 2012)

Martin Eli Segal (July 4, 1916 – August 5, 2012) was a Russian-born American businessman. He was born in Vitebsk, Russian Empire (now Belarus). Segal co-founded the Film Society of Lincoln Center in 1969 with two other Lincoln Center executives, William F. May and Schuyler G. Chapin. he also served as the Film Society’s founding […]

John Keegan (1934 - 2012)

Keegan was born in Clapham, London, on 15 May 1934, to a family of Irish Catholic extraction. His father saw active service in the First World War.  At the age of 13 Keegan contracted orthopaedic tuberculosis, which subsequently affected his gait. The long-term effects of his tuberculosis rendered him unfit for military service, and the […]

Jeanne Cooper (1928 - 2013)

Jeanne Cooper Wilma Jeanne Cooper (October 25, 1928 – May 8, 2013), best known as Jeanne Cooper, was an American actress, best known for her Emmy Award winning role as Katherine Chancellor on the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless (1973–2013). At the time of her death, she was eighth on the all-time […]

Christine White (1926 - 2013)

Christine White Christine Lamson White (May 4, 1926 – April 14, 2013) was an American actress, most noted for her role in the television show Twilight Zone episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”. Early life White was born in Washington, D.C. to parents Lucia W. and James Andrew White. While studying English at the University of […]