John Pinette (1964 - 2014)

John Pinette John Paul Pinette (/pɨˈnɛt/ pə-net; March 23, 1964 – April 5, 2014) was an American actor and stand-up comedian. He toured the comedy club circuit beginning in the 1980s and appeared in cinema and on television. Besides stand-up, Pinette did impressions of The Chipmunks, Elvis Presley, Gollum from The Lord of the Rings, […]

Rik Mayall (1958 - 2014)

Rik Mayall Richard Michael “Rik” Mayall (7 March 1958 – 9 June 2014) was an English comedian, writer, actor and voice-over artist. Mayall was best known for his comedy partnership with Ade Edmondson, for his energetic “post-punk” style of acting, and as a pioneer of alternative comedy in the early 1980s. He appeared in numerous […]

Bob Hastings (1925 - 2014)

Bob Hastings Robert “Bob” Francis Hastings (April 18, 1925 – June 30, 2014) was an American radio, film, and television character actor. He also provided voices for animated cartoons. He was best known for his portrayal of annoying suck-up Lt. Elroy Carpenter, on McHale’s Navy. Early life and career Hastings was born in Brooklyn, New […]

Gerard Parkes (1924 - 2014)

Gerard Parkes Gerard “Gerry” Parkes (October 16, 1924 – October 19, 2014) was an Irish Canadian actor who was born in Dublin, Ireland, and moved to Toronto in 1956. Career His acting career spanned film, radio, television, and the stage. Parkes worked often on CBC radio, beginning in 1959, and shifted into television and film, […]

Richard Kiel (1939 - 2014)

Richard Kiel Richard Dawson Kiel (September 13, 1939 – September 10, 2014) was an American actor, voice artist, and comedian, best known for his role as Jaws in the James Bond franchise; he also had cameos in many other James Bond video games. He was also known for roles in The Longest Yard (1974), Silver […]

Sherman Hemsley (1938 - 2012)

Hemsley was born and raised around 22nd and Christian streets in South Philadelphia by his mother, who worked in a lamp factory. He did not meet his father until he was 14. He attended Barrat Middle School, Central High School for 9th grade and Bok Technical High School for 10th, when he dropped out of […]

Sally Ride (1951 - 2012)

The elder child of Dale Burdell Ride and Carol Joyce (née Anderson), Ride was born in Los Angeles, California. She had one sibling, Karen “Bear” Ride, who is a Presbyterian minister. Both parents were elders in the Presbyterian Church. Ride’s mother had worked as a volunteer counselor at a women’s correctional facility. Her father had […]

Stephen Lee (1955 - 2014)

The man who played the annoying but thorough cabinet installer/nap-desk modifier on Seinfeld has died. Stephen Lee died August 14 of a heart attack in his Los Angeles home, police said. He was 58. The veteran character actor racked up scores of credits, Stephen Leemostly TV shows but also on the big screen. The Englewood, […]

Mike Nichols (1931 - 2014)

Mike Nichols Mike Nichols (born Mikhail Igor Peschkowsky; November 6, 1931 – November 19, 2014) was a German-born American film and theatre director, producer, actor and comedian. He began his career in the 1950s with the improv troupe The Compass Players, predecessor of the Second City in Chicago, and as one half of the comedy […]

Sylvia Woods (1926 - 2012)

Sylvia Woods (February 2, 1926 – July 19, 2012) was an American restaurateur who co-founded the landmark restaurant Sylvia’s in Harlem on Lenox Avenue, New York City with her husband, Herbert Woods, in 1962. The soul food eatery is a popular gathering place for Harlem residents and tourists not far from the Apollo Theater. Sylvia […]

Omar Suleiman (1936 - 2012)

Suleiman was born in Qena in Upper Egypt. In 1954 at the age of 18, he moved to Cairo to enroll in Egypt’s prestigious Military Academy. He received additional military training in the Soviet Union at Moscow’s Frunze Military Academy. He participated in both the Six-Day and October wars. In the mid-1980s, Suleiman earned additional […]

William Raspberry (1935 - 2012)

William Raspberry (October 12, 1935 – July 17, 2012) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated American public affairs columnist. He was also the Knight Professor of the Practice of Communications and Journalism at the Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University. An African American, he frequently wrote on racial issues.  In 1999, Raspberry received the […]

Celeste Holm (1917 - 2012)

Born and raised in Manhattan, Holm was an only child. Her mother, Jean Parke, was an American portrait artist and author; her father, Theodor Holm, was a Norwegian businessman whose company provided marine adjustment services for Lloyd’s of London. Because of her parents’ occupations, she traveled often during her youth and attended various schools in […]

Marion Cunningham (1922 - 2012)

She was born February 11, 1922 in Los Angeles. Her parents were Joseph Enwright and Maryann (née Spelta) Enright. Her mother was frail. Her father later became an invalid and an alcoholic. She graduated from high school in Los Angeles. She met her future husband in kindergarten. After her 1942 marriage to medical malpractice lawyer […]

Marvin Traub (1925 - 2012)

Marvin Traub was born to a Jewish family on April 14, 1925 in New York City. Traub’s father Sam D. was an executive of a corset company and his mother Bea (née Bruckman), a saleswoman at Bonwit Teller. Traub graduated from Harvard University in 1947, although his studies were interrupted by service in Europe during […]

Nora Ephron (1941 - 2012)

Ephron was born in New York City, eldest of four daughters, in a Jewish family, and grew up in Beverly Hills. Her parents, Henry and Phoebe Ephron (née Wolkind), were both East Coast-born and raised screenwriters. Her sisters Delia and Amy are also screenwriters. Her sister Hallie Ephron is a journalist, book reviewer, and novelist […]

Herb Reed (1928 - 2012)

Herb Reed Herb Reed was an American musician, vocalist and founding member of The Platters, who were known for their hits during the 1950s and 1960s. Reed, who was the last surviving original member of the group, which he co-founded with four other musicians in 1953, is credited with creating The Platters’ name. Reed thought […]

Rosa Cuthbert Guy (1922 - 2012)

Rosa Cuthbert was born in 1922 in Diego Martin, on the Caribbean island of Trinidad. She and her younger sister Ameze were left with relatives when their parents Audrey and Henry Cuthbert emigrated in 1927 to the United States. The children did not join their parents in Harlem until 1932. The following year their mother […]

Richard Dawson (1932 - 2012)

Dawson was born in Gosport, Hampshire, England, on November 20, 1932 to Arthur and Josephine Emm. At the age of 14 he ran away from home to join the British Merchant Navy, where he pursued a boxing career. After his discharge, he pursued a comedy career using the stage name Dickie Dawson; when he reached […]

Jack Twyman (1934 - 2012)

Twyman, a 6’6″ forward from the University of Cincinnati, spent eleven seasons in the NBA as a member of the Rochester/Cincinnati Royals. Twyman and Wilt Chamberlain became the first players in NBA history to average more than 30 points per game in a single season when they both accomplished that feat during the 1959–60 season. […]

Harold Jackson (1915 - 2012)

Jackson was born in Charleston, South Carolina and grew up in Washington, D.C. where he was educated at Howard University.  Jackson began his broadcasting career as the first African-American radio sports announcer, broadcasting Howard’s home baseball games and local Negro league baseball games.  In 1939, he became the first African American host at WINX/Washington with […]

Paul Fussell (1924 - 2012)

Born and raised in Pasadena, California, Fussell was the second of three children. His father, Paul Fussell (1895–1973), son of a widowed schoolteacher, became a corporate lawyer in Los Angeles with the firm of O’Melveny & Myers. His mother, Wilhma Wilson Sill (1893–1971), was the daughter of a carriage trimmer in Illinois. His brother, Edwin […]

Donna Summer (1948 - 2012)

LaDonna Adrian Gaines (December 31, 1948 – May 17, 2012), known by her stage name, Donna Summer, was an American singer, songwriter, and painter. She gained prominence during the disco era of the late 1970s. A five-time Grammy Award winner, she was the first artist to have three consecutive double albums reach No. 1 on […]

Carlos Fuentes (1928 - 2012)

Fuentes was born in Panama City to Berta Macías and Rafael Fuentes, the latter of whom was a Mexican diplomat. As the family moved for his father’s career, Fuentes spent his childhood in various Latin American capital cities, an experience he later described as giving him the ability to view Latin America as a critical […]

Carroll Hall Shelby (1923 - 2012)

Shelby was born on January 11, 1923, in Leesburg, Texas, to Warren Hall Shelby, a rural mail carrier, and his wife, Eloise (Lawrence) Shelby. Shelby suffered heart valve leakage problems by age 7 and spent most of his childhood in bed. By age 14, Shelby’s health improved and he was subsequently declared to have “outgrown” […]

Vidal Sassoon (1928 - 2012)

Sassoon was born in Hammersmith, London, and lived in Shepherd’s Bush. His parents were Sephardic Jews. His mother, Betty (Bellin), came from a family of immigrants from Spain, and his father, Jack Sassoon, was from Thessaloniki, Greece.[citation needed] Sassoon had a younger brother, Ivor, who died from a heart attack at the age of 46. […]

Nicholas Katzenbach (1922 - 2012)

Katzenbach was born in Philadelphia and raised in Trenton. His parents were Edward L. Katzenbach, who served as Attorney General of New Jersey, and Marie Hilson Katzenbach, who was the first female president of the New Jersey State Board of Education. His uncle, Frank S. Katzenbach, served as mayor of Trenton and as a Justice […]

Maurice Sendak (1928 - 2012)

Sendak was born in New York City in the borough of Brooklyn to Polish Jewish immigrant parents named Sadie (née Schindler) and Philip Sendak, a dressmaker. Sendak described his childhood as a “terrible situation” due to the death of members of his extended family during the Holocaust which exposed him at a young age to […]

Adam Yauch (1964 - 2012)

Born in Brooklyn, New York City, Adam Yauch was the only child of a social worker and a painter and architect. Yauch had a non-religious upbringing. His father had been raised a Catholic and his mother was Jewish.  Yauch attended Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn’s Midwood neighborhood. In high school, he taught himself […]

Bill Skowron (1930 - 2012)

Skowron was born in Chicago, Illinois, and was of Polish descent. His father was a garbage collector. After his grandfather gave the seven-year-old Skowron a haircut that looked like the dictator’s and his friends jokingly called him “Mussolini”, his family shortened the nickname to “Moose.” The name stuck throughout his career.  Skowron attended Weber High […]