People from showbusiness born before 1920 that are still alive
If i forgot anyone, please let me know
R.I.P.
Carla Laemmle, October 20, 1909 - June 12, 2014
Eli Wallach, December 7, 1915 - June 24, 2014
Louis Zamperini, January 26, 1917 - July 2, 2014
Zohra Segal, April 27, 1912 - July 10, 2014
Don Pardo, February 22, 1918 - August 18, 2014
Don Keefer, August 18, 1916 - September 7, 2014
Renée Asherson, May 19, 1915 - October 30, 2014
Phil Stern, September 3, 1919 - December 13, 2014
Arthur Gardner, June 7, 1910 - December 19, 2014
Luise Rainer, January 12, 1910 - December 30, 2014
Robert Boon, October 26, 1916 - January 13, 2015
Ed Sabol, September 11, 1916 - February 9, 2015
Movita, April 12, 1916 - February 12, 2015
Richard L. Bare, August 12, 1913 - March 28, 2015
Manoel de Oliveira, December 11, 1908 - April 2, 2015
Jayne Meadows, September 27, 1919 - April 26, 2015
Patachou, June 10, 1918 - April 30, 2015
Ellen Albertini Dow, November 16, 1913 - May 4, 2015
R.I.P.
Carla Laemmle, October 20, 1909 - June 12, 2014
Eli Wallach, December 7, 1915 - June 24, 2014
Louis Zamperini, January 26, 1917 - July 2, 2014
Zohra Segal, April 27, 1912 - July 10, 2014
Don Pardo, February 22, 1918 - August 18, 2014
Don Keefer, August 18, 1916 - September 7, 2014
Renée Asherson, May 19, 1915 - October 30, 2014
Phil Stern, September 3, 1919 - December 13, 2014
Arthur Gardner, June 7, 1910 - December 19, 2014
Luise Rainer, January 12, 1910 - December 30, 2014
Robert Boon, October 26, 1916 - January 13, 2015
Ed Sabol, September 11, 1916 - February 9, 2015
Movita, April 12, 1916 - February 12, 2015
Richard L. Bare, August 12, 1913 - March 28, 2015
Manoel de Oliveira, December 11, 1908 - April 2, 2015
Jayne Meadows, September 27, 1919 - April 26, 2015
Patachou, June 10, 1918 - April 30, 2015
Ellen Albertini Dow, November 16, 1913 - May 4, 2015
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65 people
- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Born in Oaxaca, Mexico, Lupita Tovar appeared first in silent Fox films before making the move to Universal and co-starring in the Spanish-language version of 1930's "The Cat Creeps" (La voluntad del muerto (1930)). For the same producer, Czech-born Paul Kohner, she appeared as Eva Seward (the Spanish-language counterpart of Helen Chandler's Mina) in Universal's Spanish Dracula (1931). In 1932, she married Kohner, who later became one of the top agents in Hollywood. (Their actress-daughter, Susan Kohner, was Oscar-nominated for her performance in Universal's 1959 Imitation of Life (1959); their son, Pancho Kohner, is a producer). Tovar gave up films in the 1940s and has been widowed since 1988.July 27, 1910- Yutaka Sada was born on 30 March 1911 in Tokyo, Japan. He was an actor, known for High and Low (1963), Yojimbo (1961) and The Hidden Fortress (1958). He died in 2017.March 30, 1911
- Urho Harkola was born on 13 September 1911 in Tampere, Finland. He is an actor, known for Huijarien huvittavat huiputtajat (1945), Katariina kaunis leski (1961) and Rakas Wenander (1966).September 13, 1911
- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Additional Crew
Wolfgang Suschitzky was born on 29 August 1912 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. He was a cinematographer, known for Get Carter (1971), Ulysses (1967) and Worzel Gummidge (1979). He was married to Beatrice Cunningham, Ilona Suschitzky and Helena "Puck" Voute. He died on 7 October 2016 in London, England, UK.August 29, 1912- Connie Sawyer was born on 27 November 1912 in Pueblo, Colorado, USA. She was an actress, known for Dumb and Dumber (1994), Pineapple Express (2008) and Out of Sight (1998). She was married to Marshall Schacker. She died on 21 January 2018 in Woodland Hills, California, USA.November 27, 1912
- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
London-born Douglas Slocombe has long been regarded as one of the film industry's premiere cinematographers, but he began his career as a photojournalist for Life magazine and the Paris-Match newspaper before World War II. During the war he became a newsreel cameraman, and at war's end he went to work for Ealing Studios as a camera operator, making his debut as a full-fledged cinematographer on Ealing's Dead of Night (1945). Slocombe is credited with giving Ealing's films the unique, realistic look it was famous for. He left Ealing and went freelance, not wanting to be tied down to a single studio, and divided his time between England and America. He won the BAFTA--the British equivalent of the Oscar--three times, for The Servant (1963), The Great Gatsby (1974) and Julia (1977). A favorite of director Steven Spielberg, he was noted for never having used a light meter while shooting Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), an almost indispensable tool for most cinematographers.February 10, 1913- Editor
- Producer
- Director
Elmo Williams was born James Elmo Williams in Lone Wolf, Oklahoma. Orphaned at 16, he attended schools in Oklahoma and New Mexico before moving to Los Angeles. In 1933 he struck up a relationship with film editor Merrill G. White, who hired Williams as his assistant on a business trip to England. He learned the basics of film editing from White and soon gained a reputation as a first-rate editor, doing much work at RKO. In 1947 Williams edited the documentary Design for Death (1947), which earned an Oscar as Best Documentary, and in 1952 he received an Oscar for his editing of the western classic High Noon (1952). He soon branched out into directing, turning out several low-budget efforts for Lippert Pictures and Republic Pictures. Williams journeyed to Europe in 1958 to work as editor and second-unit director on The Vikings (1958) and wound up staying there for several years when he was hired to produce and direct the TV series Tales of the Vikings (1959).
Upon his return to the US, Williams was hired by 20th Century-Fox as a second-unit director. In that capacity, and as associate producer, he was sent back to Europe to work on the WW II epic The Longest Day (1962), helping to stage the film's spectacular battle scenes. He had another extended stay in Europe when he was given the job of Managing Director of European Production for Fox, a position he held until 1966, when he returned to the US to work on another World War II epic, Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970). In 1970 Williams was appointed Vice President in charge of Worldwide Production at Fox, a job he left in 1973 to go into independent production.April 30, 1913- Actress
- Soundtrack
She was the standard prototype of the porcelain-pretty collegiate and starry-eyed romantic interest in a host of Depression-era films and although her name may not ring a bell to most, Mary Carlisle enjoyed a fairly solid decade in the cinematic limelight.
The petite Boston-born, blue-eyed blonde was born on February 3, 1914, and brought to Hollywood in 1918, at age 4, by her mother after her father passed away. The story goes that the 14-year-old and her mother were having lunch at the Universal commissary when she was noticed by producer Carl Laemmle Jr., who immediately gave her a screen test. Her age was a hindering factor, however, and Mary completed her high school studies before moving into the acting arena. An uncle connected to MGM helped give the young hopeful her break into the movies as a singer/dancer a few years later.
Mary started out typically as an extra and bit player in such films as Madam Satan (1930), The Great Lover (1931) and in Grand Hotel (1932) in which she played a honeymooner. The glamorous, vibrant beauty's career was given a build-up as a "Wampas Baby Star" in 1933 and soon she began finding work in films playing stylish, well-mannered young co-eds. Although she performed as a topline actress in a number of lightweight pictures such as Night Court (1932) with Anita Page, Murder in the Private Car (1934) starring Charles Ruggles, and It's in the Air (1935) alongside Jack Benny, she is perhaps best remembered as a breezy co-star to Bing Crosby in three of his earlier, lightweight '30s musicals: College Humor (1933), Double or Nothing (1937) and Doctor Rhythm (1938). In the last picture mentioned she is the lovely focus of his song "My Heart Is Taking Lessons". Her participation in weightier material such as Kind Lady (1935) was often overshadowed by her even weightier co-stars, in this case Basil Rathbone and Aline MacMahon.
Disappointed with the momentum of her career and her inability to extricate herself from the picture-pretty, paragon-of-virtue stereotype, Mary traveled and lived in London for a time in the late '30s. Following her damsel-in-distress role in the horror opus Dead Men Walk (1943) with George Zucco and Dwight Frye, Mary retired from the screen, prompted by her marriage to James Blakeley, a flying supervisor, the year before. The Beverly Hills couple had one son. Her husband, a former actor who also appeared in '30s musicals with Crosby as a dapper second lead (e.g., in Two for Tonight (1935)), later became an important executive (producer, editor, etc.) at Twentieth Century-Fox.
In later years Mary managed an Elizabeth Arden Salon in Beverly Hills and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Her husband passed away in 2007. Mary herself lived to the ripe old age of 104 on August 1, 2018.February 3, 1914- Actor
- Writer
- Director
He was born in Parkstone, Dorset, England. His father was English and his mother was Danish. Olaf was a student of architecture at the Architectural Association, London, and of painting at the Chelsea School of Art. In Paris, he studied under the tutelage of Marcel Grommaire, at the Acedemie Colorossi. He has exhibited in Europe, including with the London Group and the Bloomsbury Gallery, London; in Paris at the Gallerie d'Alsace, the Centre Culturel Saint Severin, and L'Imagerie - and in Mallorca, at La Residencia and the Galleria Ortez, Palma de Mallorca. Alongside his work as a painter, he has been a working actor since his days in England. His first full time employment was in the Design Department at Pinewood Film Studios in England. He subsequently worked in Theatre Décor. He was a member of the BBC Radio Drama Reparatory Company. He went onto working successfully as an actor in London's West End Theatre and the various alternative media.
Upon immigrating to the United States in 1986, Olaf continued his acting career while his second wife, Gabrielle Beaumont, pursued a very successful TV Director career. He had a reoccurring role as Professor Stahlman in the Doctor Who television series. He is one of only 25 actors to have speaking roles in both the "Star Trek" and the "Doctor Who" franchises. He still receives mail from fans around the world who follow the Dr. Who series and admire his work. He has written numerous screen plays and was a close friend of Sir Alec Guinness for many years.
Olaf Pooley's current studio location is at the Santa Monica Art Studios located at 3026 Airport Drive, Santa Monica, CA 90405. For more information about his paintings, email: inharmony@aol.com.March 13, 1914- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Stunts
Born George Shephard Houghton on June 4, 1914, in Salt Lake City, Utah, Shep is the youngest of two sons born to George Henry Houghton and Mabell Viola Shephard. Far from being born into show business, his father was an insurance company representative who moved his family to Hollywood for business reasons in 1927. As luck would have it, they rented a house on Bronson Avenue just two blocks from Paramount Studio's iron front gate, and not far from the Edwin Carreau studio. Picked off the street by an assistant producer, Shep's first work in the movie industry was in 1927 as a Mexican youngster in Carreau's production of Ramona, released in 1928. As a thirteen-year old he also worked in Emil Janning's The Last Command, and continued to work for director Josef von Sternberg in several subsequent pictures. He found movie work to his liking, and out of high school he worked through Central Casting for Mascot Productions, Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, Fox Film Corporation, and Warner Brother's, where he became a favorite in the Busby Berkeley musicals as a dancer and chorus singer. In 1935 he married Jane Rosily Kellog, his high school sweetheart. Together they had one child, Terrie Lynn, born on September 22, 1939. They were divorced in October, 1945. In 1946 he married Geraldine Farnum, daughter of featured actor Franklin Farnum. They had also one child, Peter William, born August 19, 1947. He and Gerry were divorced in 1948.
Shep was a talent in television from its earliest days. He acted in many recurring roles, beginning with the Jack Benny Program in 1950. That show, and Shep's work in it, lasted until 1965. He worked on many programs through their entire runs, with the notable exception of the original Star Trek of 1966, in which he appeared in only the first three episodes. In addition to these productions, he worked on the I Love Lucy show from 1951 to 1957, and Wagon Train, Perry Mason, The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, Mr. Lucky, The Untouchables, and The Twilight Zone, all in the 1950s.
The 1960s brought him steady work in My Three Sons, The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Loretta Young Show, both The Lucille Ball Show and the renewed Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, Hogan's Heroes, Mannix, and Marcus Welby. In the 1970s he worked on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Shep was a charter member of both SAG and SEG, and continued to work in both movies and television until his retirement in 1976. He and Mel Carter Houghton were married in 1975, and continue to live happily ever after. She lets him play golf very nearly every day.June 4, 1914- Gisèle Casadesus was born on 14 June 1914 in Paris, France. She was an actress, known for Loves of Casanova (1947), Paméla (1945) and Sous le figuier (2012). She was married to Lucien Pascal. She died on 24 September 2017 in Paris, France.June 14, 1914
- Professor Irwin Corey, "The World's Foremost Authority," was born on July 29, 1914, in Brooklyn, New York. He and his five siblings were wards of the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum, and during the Great Depression, he worked for the Civilian Conservation Corp. Possessing brawn as well as brains, Professor Irwin Corey is proud to tell anyone who will listen that he was the C.C.C.'s boxing champ in the 112-pound weight class.
Before becoming certified (as a professor purveying the surreal), the young Irwin caught the performing bug by appearing in a borscht belt show, "Pots and Pans," in a bit part. He made his debut in a musical comedy in a U.S.O. presentation of "Oklahoma" in Europe, in which he played the part of the Arab peddler Ali Hakim.
Perfecting his crazy professor shtick, who always appeared in an old-fashioned tuxedo with tails like Groucho Marx, Corey broke through as a stand-up comic at San Francisco's "hungry i" and New York City's Copacabana and Village Vanguard nightclubs. His lectures, characterized by a constant barrage of non-sequitur and double-talk, were rooted in the word-play epitomized by Groucho Marx and Chico Marx in such classic routines as "Why a Duck?" However, whatever "logic" The Marx Brothers might display (at least in exasperated double takes by Groucho) was missing in the Professor's shtick. Before the Talking Heads ever sang about it, Professor Irwin Corey made an art form out of "Stop Making Sense."
Theater critic Kenneth Tynan said of the Professor, "[Corey is] a cultural clown, a parody of literacy, a travesty of all that our civilization holds dear and one of the funniest grotesques in America. He is Chaplin's clown with a college education."
Corey thrived on the radio, memorably appearing on Edgar Bergen's radio show as a tutor to Charlie McCarthy. Television was another natural medium for the professor, and he appeared as a regular on The Jackie Gleason Show (1952) and also made the rounds of the talk show circuit of the 1950s, '60s and '70s, appearing with 'Steve Allen', Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett, Merv Griffin, and Mike Douglas. He also was on "The Ed Sullivan Show" (aka The Ed Sullivan Show (1948)) as well as appeared with the new lessor of the Ed Sullivan Theater, David Letterman.
Irwin Corey also has appeared on Broadway, in "Heaven on Earth," "Happy as Larry," "Fla-hooley," and "Mrs. McThing," as well as recent productions of "The Taming of the Shrew" and "Hamlet." Off-Broadway, he appeared as the eponymous lead in "The Good Soldier Schweik" and as Marlo Thomas' father in Herb Gardner's play "Thieves," reprising the role in the film (Thieves (1977)). He also appeared in numerous episodes of series television, including The Andy Griffith Show (1960), "Doc" (with Barnard Hughes), The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (1967), and Pat Paulsen's Half a Comedy Hour (1970).
The Professor's last film was Woody Allen's The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001). At 91, and still going strong, Professor Irwin Corey truly is the dean of stand-up comedians, if not quite at the head of his class.Juy 29, 1914 - Producer
- Actor
- Director
Norman Lloyd was born Norman Perlmutter in Jersey City, New Jersey, to Sadie (Horowitz), a housewife and singer, and Max Perlmutter, a furniture store manager. His family was Jewish (from Hungary and Russia). He began his acting career in the theater, first "treading the boards" at Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory in New York. Aspiring to work as a classical repertory player, he gradually shed his Brooklyn accent and became a busy stage actor in the 1930s; he next joined the original company of the Orson Welles-John Houseman Mercury Theatre. Lloyd was brought to Hollywood to play a supporting part (albeit the title role) in Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942). Hitchcock, who later used the actor in Spellbound (1945) and other films, made him an associate producer and a director on TV's long-running Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955) (then in its third year). In the course of his eight years on the series, Lloyd became a co-producer (with Joan Harrison) and then executive producer. He has since directed for other series (including the prestigious Omnibus (1952)) and for the stage, produced TV's Tales of the Unexpected (1979) and Journey to the Unknown (1968), and played Dr. Auschlander in TV's acclaimed St. Elsewhere (1982).November 8, 1914- Meg Mundy was born on 4 January 1915 in London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Fatal Attraction (1987), The Doctors (1963) and Ordinary People (1980). She was married to Konstantinos "Dino" Yannopoulos. She died on 12 January 2016 in The Bronx, New York, USA.January 4, 1915
- Director
- Script and Continuity Department
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Leslie H. Martinson was born on 16 January 1915 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He was a director and assistant director, known for Batman: The Movie (1966), Mission: Impossible (1966) and Hot Rod Girl (1956). He was married to Connie Martinson. He died on 3 September 2016 in Los Angeles, California, USA.January 16, 1915- Wally Cassell was born on 3 March 1912 in Agrigento, Sicily, Italy. He was an actor, known for White Heat (1949), Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) and Story of G.I. Joe (1945). He was married to Marcy McGuire. He died on 2 April 2015 in Palm Desert, California, USA.March 3, 1915
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Woefully misused while in her prime screen years at Paramount during the late '30s and '40s, Patricia Morison, lovely and exotic with Rapunzel-like long, dark hair, nevertheless became a star in her own right -- as a supremely talented diva on the singing stage.
Born on March 19, 1915, in New York City, her father, William Morison, was a playwright and occasional actor who billed himself under the name Norman Rainey. Patricia's mother worked for British Intelligence during WWI. Graduating from Washington Irving High School in New York, Patricia studied at the Art Students League and proceeded to take acting classes at the Neighborhood Playhouse while also studying dance with the renowned Martha Graham. She earned a steady check at the time as a dress shop designer.
At age 19 Patricia made her Broadway debut in the short-lived play "Growing Pains" and proceeded to understudy the legendary Helen Hayes in her classic role of "Victoria Regina". She never went on. In 1938, shortly after opening in the musical "The Two Bouquets" opposite musical star Alfred Drake, Paramount talent scouts, looking for exotic, dark-haired glamour types then to rein in their star commodity, Dorothy Lamour, scoped Patricia out and tested her. The blue-eyed beauty who indeed resembled Lamour was signed and made her film debut the following year, showing bright promise in the "B" film Persons in Hiding (1939).
Patricia's stock did not improve, however, despite such promise, and she was relegated to such second-string westerns as I'm from Missouri (1939), Rangers of Fortune (1940), Romance of the Rio Grande (1940), and The Round Up (1941). When things didn't improve with such stilted fare as Night in New Orleans (1942), Beyond the Blue Horizon (1942), and Are Husbands Necessary? (1942), she left Paramount. She freelanced in 'other woman' roles which included the Tracy/Hepburn vehicle Without Love (1945) and The Fallen Sparrow (1943), and played Empress Eugenie in The Song of Bernadette (1943), but the focus was seldom on her. Overlooked when cast in top leads at 'poverty row' programmers, her best chance at film stardom came as Victor Mature's despairing wife who takes her own life (which was to have been shown on screen) in Kiss of Death (1947), but her juicy role was excised from the film by producers (or, more likely, the Breen Commission) who felt audiences weren't ready for such shocking displays.
During the war years, Patricia had trained her voice and performed in USO tours. Cole Porter heard her sing in Hollywood one evening and decided she had the right tenacity, feistiness and vocal expertise to play the female lead in his new show. In 1948, over the objections of both the producer and director, stardom was clenched in the form of Porter's classic musical-within-a-musical "Kiss Me Kate." As the sweeping, vixenish Lilli Vanessi, a severe-looking stage diva whose own volatile personality coincided with that of her onstage role (Kate from "The Taming of the Shrew"), Patricia found THE role of her career, giving over 1,000 performances in all. Playing again alongside her former Broadway co-star Alfred Drake, Patricia basked in the multitude of glowing reviews, and such songs as "I Hate Men," "Wunderbar" and "So In Love" rightfully became signature songs. Following this triumph, film work never became a top priority again.
Patricia continued on successfully in the London version of "Kate" and went on to conquer other classic leads in the musicals "The King and I," "Kismet," "The Merry Widow," "Song of Norway" and Pal Joey," among others. Her last movie role was a cameo part as writer George Sand in the mildly received biopic Song Without End (1960) starring Dirk Bogarde as composer Franz Liszt.
On TV Patricia recreated her Kate role with Mr. Drake and made a few scattered but lively appearances over the years. One of her later guest shots was on a 1989 episode of "Cheers" and a 1991 episode of "Gabriel's Fire." In later years the never-married actress devoted herself to painting (an early passion) and enjoyed many showings in the Los Angeles area. The lovely lady with the trademark long hair died in L.A. at the age of 103, on May 20, 2018.March 19, 1915- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Writer
Pierre Chevalier was born on 23 March 1915 in Orbec, Calvados, France. He was a director and assistant director, known for The Panther Squad (1984), Pigalle carrefour des illusions (1973) and House of Cruel Dolls (1974). He was married to Brigitte Leleu, Dominique Lubin and Colette Desboeuf. He died on 12 February 2005 in Vaugrigneuse, Essonne, France.March 23, 1915- James Edmond was born on 7 February 1924 in Walkerton, Ontario, Canada. He was an actor, known for Black Christmas (1974), Devil Girl from Mars (1954) and ABC Weekend Specials (1977). He was married to Shirley Faessler. He died on 4 November 2000 in Paris, Ontario, Canada.February 9, 1916
- Beverly Cleary was born on 12 April 1916 in McMinnville, Oregon, USA. She was a writer, known for Ramona and Beezus (2010), Ramona (1988) and ABC Weekend Specials (1977). She was married to Clarence Thomas Cleary. She died on 25 March 2021 in Carmel, California, USA.April 12, 1916
- Kevin O'Morrison was born on 25 May 1916 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Funny Farm (1988) and Dear Ruth (1947). He was married to Linda Soma. He died on 11 December 2016 in Lynnwood, Washington, USA.May 25, 1916
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Olivia Mary de Havilland was born on July 1, 1916 in Tokyo, Japan to British parents, Lilian Augusta (Ruse), a former actress, and Walter Augustus de Havilland, an English professor and patent attorney. Her sister Joan, later to become famous as Joan Fontaine, was born the following year. Her surname comes from her paternal grandfather, whose family was from Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Her parents divorced when Olivia was just three years old, and she moved with her mother and sister to Saratoga, California.
After graduating from high school, where she fell prey to the acting bug, Olivia enrolled in Mills College in Oakland, where she participated in the school play "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and was spotted by Max Reinhardt. She so impressed Reinhardt that he picked her up for both his stage version and, later, the Warner Bros. film version in 1935. She again was so impressive that Warner executives signed her to a seven-year contract. No sooner had the ink dried on the contract than Olivia appeared in three more films: The Irish in Us (1935), Alibi Ike (1935), and Captain Blood (1935), this last with the man with whom her career would be most closely identified: heartthrob Errol Flynn. He and Olivia starred together in eight films during their careers. In 1939 Warner Bros. loaned her to David O. Selznick for the classic Gone with the Wind (1939). Playing sweet Melanie Hamilton, Olivia received her first nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, only to lose out to one of her co-stars in the film, Hattie McDaniel.
After GWTW, Olivia returned to Warner Bros. and continued to churn out films. In 1941 she played Emmy Brown in Hold Back the Dawn (1941), which resulted in her second Oscar nomination, this time for Best Actress. Again she lost, this time to her sister Joan for her role in Suspicion (1941). After that strong showing, Olivia now demanded better, more substantial roles than the "sweet young thing" slot into which Warners had been fitting her. The studio responded by placing her on a six-month suspension, all of the studios at the time operating under the policy that players were nothing more than property to do with as they saw fit. As if that weren't bad enough, when her contract with Warners was up, she was told that she needed to make up the time lost because of the suspension. Irate, she sued the studio, and for the length of the court battle she didn't appear in a single film. The result, however, was worth it. In a landmark decision, the court said that not only would Olivia not need to make up the time, but also that all performers would be limited to a seven-year contract that would include any suspensions handed down. This became known as the "de Havilland decision": no longer could studios treat their performers as chattel. Olivia returned to the screen in 1946 and made up for lost time by appearing in four films, one of which finally won her the Oscar that had so long eluded her: To Each His Own (1946), in which she played Josephine Norris to the delight of critics and audiences alike. Olivia was the strongest performer in Hollywood for the balance of the 1940s.
In 1948 she turned in another strong showing in The Snake Pit (1948) as Virginia Cunningham, a woman suffering a mental breakdown. The end result was another Oscar nomination for Best Actress, but she lost to Jane Wyman in Johnny Belinda (1948). As in the two previous years, she made only one film in 1949, but she again won a nomination and the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Heiress (1949). After a three-year hiatus, Olivia returned to star in My Cousin Rachel (1952). From that point on, she made few appearances on the screen but was seen on Broadway and in some television shows. Her last screen appearance was in The Fifth Musketeer (1979), and her last career appearance was in the TV movie The Woman He Loved (1988).
Her turbulent relationship with her only sibling, Joan Fontaine, was press fodder for many decades; the two were reported as having been permanently estranged since their mother's death in 1975, when Joan claimed that she had not been invited to the memorial service, which she only managed to hold off until she could arrive by threatening to go public. Joan also wrote in her memoir that her elder sister had been physically, psychologically, and emotionally abusive when they were young. And the iconic photo of Joan with her hand outstretched to congratulate Olivia backstage after the latter's first Oscar win and Olivia ignoring it because she was peeved by a comment Joan had made about Olivia's new husband, Marcus Goodrich, remained part of Hollywood lore for many years.
Nonetheless, late in life, Fontaine gave an interview in which she serenely denied any and all claims of an estrangement from her sister. When a reporter asked Joan if she and Olivia were friends, she replied, "Of course!" The reporter responded that rumors to the contrary must have been sensationalism and she replied, "Oh, right--they have to. Two nice girls liking each other isn't copy." Asked if she and Olivia were in communication and spoke to each other, Joan replied "Absolutely." When asked if there ever had been a time when the two did not get along to the point where they wouldn't speak with one another, Joan replied, again, "Never. Never. There is not a word of truth about that." When asked why people believe it, she replied "Oh, I have no idea. It's just something to say ... Oh, it's terrible." When asked if she had seen Olivia over the years, she replied, "I've seen her in Paris. And she came to my apartment in New York often." The reporter stated that all this was a nice thing to hear. Joan then stated, "Let me just say, Olivia and I have never had a quarrel. We have never had any dissatisfaction. We have never had hard words. And all this is press." Joan died in 2013.
During the hoopla surrounding the 50th anniversary of GWTW in 1989, Olivia graciously declined requests for all interviews as the last of the four main stars. She enjoyed a quiet retirement in Paris, France, where she resided for many decades, and where she died on 26 July, 2020, at the age of 104.
As well as being the last surviving major cast member of some of cinema's most beloved pre-war and wartime film classics (including The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and Gone with the Wind (1939)), and one of the longest-lived major stars in film history, Olivia de Havilland was unquestionably the last surviving iconic figure from the peak of Hollywood's golden era during the late 1930s, and her passing truly marked the end of an era.July 1, 1916- Writer
- Actress
- Additional Crew
Jean Rouverol was born on 8 July 1916 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. She was a writer and actress, known for It's a Gift (1934), Bar 20 Rides Again (1935) and Guiding Light (1952). She was married to Hugo Butler. She died on 24 March 2017 in Wingdale, New York, USA.July 8, 1916- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Cleft-chinned, steely-eyed and virile star of international cinema who rose from being "the ragman's son" (the name of his best-selling 1988 autobiography) to become a bona fide superstar, Kirk Douglas, also known as Issur Danielovitch Demsky, was born on December 9, 1916 in Amsterdam, New York. His parents, Bryna (Sanglel) and Herschel Danielovitch, were Jewish immigrants from Chavusy, Mahilyow Voblast (now in Belarus). Although growing up in a poor ghetto, Douglas was a fine student and a keen athlete and wrestled competitively during his time at St. Lawrence University. Professional wrestling helped pay for his studies as did working on the side as a waiter and a bellboy. However, he soon identified an acting scholarship as a way out of his meager existence, and was sufficiently talented to gain entry into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He made his Broadway debut in "Spring Again" before his career was interrupted by World War II. He joining the United States Navy in 1941, and then after the end of hostilities in 1945, returned to the theater and some radio work. On the insistence of ex-classmate Lauren Bacall, movie producer Hal B. Wallis screen-tested Douglas and cast him in the lead role in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946). His performance received rave reviews and further work quickly followed, including an appearance in the low-key drama I Walk Alone (1947), the first time he worked alongside fellow future screen legend Burt Lancaster. Such was the strong chemistry between the two that they appeared in seven films together, including the dynamic western Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), the John Frankenheimer political thriller Seven Days in May (1964) and their final pairing in the gangster comedy Tough Guys (1986). Douglas once said about his good friend: "I've finally gotten away from Burt Lancaster. My luck has changed for the better. I've got nice-looking girls in my films now."
After appearing in "I Walk Alone," Douglas scored his first Oscar nomination playing the untrustworthy and opportunistic boxer Midge Kelly in the gripping Champion (1949). The quality of his work continued to garner the attention of critics and he was again nominated for Oscars for his role as a film producer in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and as tortured painter Vincent van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956), both directed by Vincente Minnelli. In 1955, Douglas launched his own production company, Bryna Productions, the company behind two pivotal film roles in his career. The first was as French army officer Col. Dax in director Stanley Kubrick's brilliant anti-war epic Paths of Glory (1957). Douglas reunited with Kubrick for yet another epic, the magnificent Spartacus (1960). The film also marked a key turning point in the life of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who had been blacklisted during the McCarthy "Red Scare" hysteria in the 1950s. At Douglas' insistence, Trumbo was given on-screen credit for his contributions, which began the dissolution of the infamous blacklisting policies begun almost a decade previously that had destroyed so many careers and lives.
Douglas remained busy throughout the 1960s, starring in many films. He played a rebellious modern-day cowboy in Lonely Are the Brave (1962), acted alongside John Wayne in the World War II story In Harm's Way (1965), again with The Duke in a drama about the Israeli fight for independence, Cast a Giant Shadow (1966), and once more with Wayne in the tongue-in-cheek western The War Wagon (1967). Additionally in 1963, he starred in an onstage production of Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," but despite his keen interest, no Hollywood studio could be convinced to bring the story to the screen. However, the rights remained with the Douglas clan, and Kirk's talented son Michael Douglas finally filmed the tale in 1975, starring Jack Nicholson. Into the 1970s, Douglas wasn't as busy as previous years; however, he starred in some unusual vehicles, including alongside a young Arnold Schwarzenegger in the loopy western comedy The Villain (1979), then with Farrah Fawcett in the sci-fi thriller Saturn 3 (1980) and then he traveled to Australia for the horse opera/drama The Man from Snowy River (1982).
Unknown to many, Kirk has long been involved in humanitarian causes and has been a Goodwill Ambassador for the US State Department since 1963. His efforts were rewarded with the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1981), and with the Jefferson Award (1983). Furthermore, the French honored him with the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. More recognition followed for his work with the American Cinema Award (1987), the German Golden Kamera Award (1987), The National Board of Reviews Career Achievement Award (1989), an honorary Academy Award (1995), Recipient of the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award (1999) and the UCLA Medal of Honor (2002). Despite a helicopter crash and a stroke suffered in the 1990s, he remained active and continued to appear in front of the camera. Until his passing on February 5 2020 at the age of 103, he and Olivia de Havilland were the last surviving major stars from the Golden Years of Hollywood.December 9, 1916- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Edward Burnham was born on 25 December 1916 in Lincolnshire, England, UK. He was an actor and director, known for To Sir, with Love (1967), Quatermass and the Pit (1958) and Little Dorrit (1987). He was married to Lucille. He died on 30 June 2015 in the UK.December 25, 1916- Venezuelan veteran actress Elisa Stella was born on June 15, 1933 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She spent many years working in theatre and made her film debut in 1971 and TV debut in 1975. Through the years she gave some of the finest performances in series such as Mi Gorda Bella (as Dona Elena), Soberana (as Inginia Dominguez) and La Mujer de Judas (as Isabel). In Mi Gorda Bella, telenovela with huge success in general, she played the mayordoma Elena. In la mujer de judas, she portrayed Isabel, small role, but vital to the story, since her testimony was crucial for imprisoning main character for the crime she didn't commit. She often portrays ominous old ladies or quiet housekeepers, but in a way she just catches the public's attention, no matter if her role is large or not.1916
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Shannon Bolin was born on 1 January 1917 in Spencer, South Dakota, USA. She was an actress, known for Damn Yankees (1958), If Ever I See You Again (1978) and The Children (1980). She was married to Milton Kaye. She died on 25 March 2016 in New York City, New York, USA.January 1, 1917- Elaine was born in East Liverpool, Ohio, to the engineer Allen B. Riley (owner of the local Riley Electrical Company) and his wife Pearl, on January 15 1917. Like other aspiring starlets, she took the route to Hollywood via beauty contests. She was elected 'Miss Chic' at the Cleveland exposition and was runner-up to the 'Miss Ohio' title in 1937. For a while Elaine performed as a vocalist with a dance band in and around Pittsburgh, billed as 'Elaine Gray'. Aged eighteen, she made her way to New York and started as a model for fashion designer G.W. Cohen, appearing for the first time on the cover of Glamour magazine. During the six years which followed, Elaine completed studies in dress design at the prestigious Traphagen School of Fashion, modelled for John Robert Powers and Hattie Carnegie and worked her way up from secretary to personnel manager of New York radio station WINS.
Hollywood inevitably beckoned. In 1943, Elaine was spotted by a talent scout and signed by RKO. Her first year in pictures proved relatively unremarkable, consisting mainly of uncredited bits as hat check girls, secretaries and chorines - a far cry from her stated ambition to star in musical comedy, to become a second Carole Lombard! Paramount picked her up next. By the mid-40's, Elaine had found her niche as leading lady in Hopelong Cassidy westerns like The Devil's Playground (1946). On rarer occasions were supporting roles in A-grade features, such as the superior thriller The Big Clock (1948), starring Ray Milland. Being on the cover of Yank magazine as a popular wartime pinup certainly did Elaine's career no harm and she maintained a high profile by appearances at Hollywood Canteen, visits to army camps and by entertaining wounded servicemen at the Birmingham hospital in Van Nuys. From the early 50's, she remained comfortably ensconced in horse operas -- albeit on the small screen -- guesting frequently on series like The Gene Autry Show (1950), The Range Rider (1951) and, of course, Hopalong Cassidy (1952).
When not in front of the cameras, Elaine enjoyed horse riding, swimming and golf. Until his death in 1994, she was married to the actor Richard Martin, best remembered as comic sidekick to actor Tim Holt in a long-running western series at RKO. She was a recipient in 2004 of the Golden Boot Award for distinguished contributions to the western genre. Elaine died in December 2015 at the great age of 98.January 15, 1917 - Actress
- Soundtrack
Undoubtedly the woman who had come to epitomize what we recognize today as "celebrity," Zsa Zsa Gabor, is better known for her many marriages, personal appearances, her "dahlink" catchphrase, her actions, gossip, and quotations on men, rather than her film career.
Zsa Zsa was born as Sári Gabor on February 6, 1917 in Budapest, Hungary, to Jolie Gabor (née Janka Tilleman) and Vilmos Gabor (born Farkas Miklós Grün), both of Jewish descent. Her siblings were Eva Gabor and Magda Gabor. Zsa Zsa studied at a Swiss finishing school, was second runner-up in the fifth Miss Hungary pageant, and began her stage career in Vienna in 1934. In 1941, the year she obtained her first divorce, she followed younger sister Eva to Hollywood.
A radiant, beautiful blonde, Zsa Zsa began to appear on television series and occasional films. Her first film was at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Lovely to Look At (1952), co-starring Kathryn Grayson and Red Skelton. She next made a comedy called We're Not Married! (1952) at 20th Century Fox with Ginger Rogers. It was far from a star billing; she appeared several names down the cast as a supporting actress. But in 1952 she broke into films big time with her starring role opposite José Ferrer in Moulin Rouge (1952), although it has been said that throughout filming, director John Huston gave her a very difficult time.
In the following years, Zsa Zsa slipped back into supporting roles in films such as Lili (1953) and 3 Ring Circus (1954). Her main period of film work was in the 1950s, with other roles in Death of a Scoundrel (1956), with Yvonne De Carlo, and The Man Who Wouldn't Talk (1958) with Anna Neagle; again, these were supporting roles. By the 1960s, Zsa Zsa was appearing more as herself in films. She now appeared to follow her own persona around, and cameo appearances were the order of the day in films such as Pepe (1960) and Jack of Diamonds (1967). This continued throughout the 1970s.
She was memorable as herself in The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991), in which she humorously poked fun at a 1989 incident where she was convicted of slapping a police officer (Paul Kramer) during a traffic stop. She spent three days in jail and had to do 120 hours of community service. Such infamous incidents contributed to her becoming one of the most all-time recognizable of Hollywood celebrities, and sometimes ridiculed as a result. She was also memorable to British television viewers on The Ruby Wax Show (1997).
In 2002, Gabor was reported to be in a coma in a Los Angeles hospital after a horrifying car accident. The 85-year-old star was injured when the car she was traveling in hit a utility pole in West Hollywood, California. The reports about her coma eventually proved to be inaccurate.
Zsa Zsa's life, spanning two continents, nine husbands, and 11 decades, came to an end on December 18, 2016, when she died of cardiac arrest in Los Angeles, California. She was 99.February 6, 1917- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Vera Lynn was born on 20 March 1917 in East Ham, London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Hellboy (2004), Lolita (1997) and Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982). She was married to Harry Lewis. She died on 18 June 2020 in Ditchling, East Sussex, England, UK.March 20, 1917- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Danielle Darrieux was born in 1917 in Bordeaux, France, to Marie-Louise (Witkowski) and Germain Jean Darrieux, a physician. She was raised in Paris. She was only fourteen when she auditioned for a secondary role in Le bal (1931): she got the part, and the producer offered her a five-year contract. She had her first romantic lead in La crise est finie (1934) and scored an international hit with the historical drama Mayerling (1936) in which she played Marie Vetsera opposite Charles Boyer. In 1938, she went to Hollywood to appear in the fine comedy The Rage of Paris (1938) but quickly returned to Paris.
Darrieux remained in France during the Occupation and was one of the leading actresses during this period, starring in major hits such as Premier Rendez-Vous (1941). In 1945, she appeared both on stage (in "Tristan et Isolde") and on screen (in Au petit bonheur (1946)). In the next three decades, she found several important roles, in films like La Ronde (1950), The Earrings of Madame De... (1953) -- in which she gave her best performance, as a society lady torn between her husband and her lover -- and The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967).
In 1970, she replaced Katharine Hepburn on Broadway in "Coco." Afterwards, she made occasional screen and stage appearances. But she made a triumphant comeback in 2002, playing Catherine Deneuve's mother in the international hit 8 Women (2002).
She died on October 17, 2017 in Bois-le-Roi, Eure, France. She was 100.May 1, 1917- Actor
- Director
- Soundtrack
George Gaynes was born in Helsinki in May, 1917, which was then the capital of the Grand Duchy of Finland. The Grand Duchy was part of the Russian Empire, which was in a state of collapse at the time of Gaynes' birth. The Emperor Nicholas II of Russia had abdicated the throne on March 15, two months prior to Gaynes' birth, and the Empire was in the process of splintering.
His family left the country, and George was primarily raised in France, England, and Switzerland. Neither of his parents was Finnish. His father Gerrit Jongejans was a Dutch businessman, and his mother Iya Grigorievna de Gay was a Russian artist. George attended college in the vicinity of Lausanne, Switzerland and graduated in 1937. He then attended a music school in Milan, Italy for about a year.
In 1940, George Gaynes was living in France, during the time of the Battle of France in World War II. The Battle ended in defeat for the French Third Republic and the country was occupied by Nazi Germany. George attempted to flee the occupation authorities, by crossing the Pyrenees mountains into neutral Spain. He was arrested by the Spanish authorities for illegally crossing the border, but was soon released.
In 1943, George joined the Royal Netherlands Navy. With the Netherlands under German occupation, the headquarters of the Navy had moved to London, in the United Kingdom. George had no previous military experience, but he was noticed for multilingual skills. He fluently spoke Dutch, English, French, Italian and Russian. He was soon detached to the (British) Royal Navy to serve as a translator.
During his naval service in World War II, George took part in the Allied invasion of Sicily, the Battle of Anzio in the Italian Campaign, and the Adriatic Campaign. The War ended in 1945 and George was honorably discharged in July, 1946. His highest military rank was that of a sergeant.
In 1946, George briefly returned to living in France. He was approached by an American theater director with the offer to play a part in a musical. He took the offer and moved to New York City, where he started appearing in Broadway musicals. He applied for American citizenship and officially became a citizen in 1948.
From the late 1940s to the early 1960s, George Gaynes was primarily a theatrical actor. His roles included various musicals, dramas, and comedies. One of his better-known roles was that of Henry Higgins in the theatrical version of ''My Fair Lady'', which went on a successful tour in 1964.
In the early 1960s, George started appearing as a character actor in various television series. He was also offered a number of film roles. His career unexpectedly took off in the 1980s, with a major part in the television series Punky Brewster (1985) and another one in the then-popular film series "Police Academy" from 1984 to 1994. In Police Academy (1984), his role was that of Commandant Eric Lassard, the titular leader of the Academy. He played the role in all 7 films of the series, though he only had a featured part in the fifth film. This was probably his most memorable role and gained him celebrity recognition for the first time.
In the 1990s, his career slowed down again, with only a few film appearances. He only played in a single film through the 2000s, Just Married (2003), and then retired. He was 86-years-old and could no longer play physically demanding roles. He spend 13 years in retirement before he died of natural causes in 2016.May 16, 1917- Lee Miller was born on 21 March 1918 in Hollywood, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Perry Mason (1957), Please Murder Me! (1956) and Vacation Playhouse (1963). He was married to Bertha Maxine Lynch and Bertha Elizabeth McClean. He died on 26 July 2002 in Los Angeles, California, USA.May 18, 1917
- Harvey Pierce was born on 24 June 1917 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Deadtime Stories (1986). He died on 22 March 2017 in Larchmont, New York, USA.June 24, 1917
- He was the narrator of the famous TV series The Invaders, an American science fiction television program created by Larry Cohen that aired on ABC for two seasons, from January 10, 1967 to March 26, 1968. Dominic Frontiere, who had provided scores for Twelve O'Clock High and The Outer Limits, provided scores for The Invaders as well. The series was later shown in reruns on the Sci Fi Channel. The series was a Quinn Martin Production (season one was produced in association with the ABC Television Network - or as it was listed in the end credits, "The American Broadcasting Company Television Network").July 16, 1917
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Born Virginia Pound, Lorna Gray was "discovered" by an agent while modeling in a fashion show. She was given a screen test, and Columbia was impressed enough to sign her to a contract. (It was at this time that she was given the name "Lorna Gray", which she kept until 1945, when she changed it to "Adrian Booth".) She was put in the studio's B unit, occasionally loaned out to Republic or Monogram, and when not making features was used in Columbia's comedy shorts, supporting such performers as The Three Stooges and Buster Keaton (where she actually acquitted herself quite well). She left Columbia and began her long career with Republic Pictures in 1941, appearing in westerns, thrillers, horror pictures, and especially the serials in which the studio specialized. She married David Brian in 1948, and after making films for a few more years, retired from the screen in 1951.July 26, 1917- Earl Cameron did not set out to be an actor. Bermudian by birth, Cameron joined the British Merchant Navy in the 1930s for the travel opportunities that it afforded. By the early 1940s, with World War II in full swing, Cameron found himself in London working menial jobs to survive. After seeing a West End revival of the musical comedy Chu Chin Chow, he got the acting bug. When an actor didn't show up for a performance, Cameron replaced the actor in the production. This was followed by a series of roles on the London stage.
In 1951, he received a big break when he was cast in Pool of London (1951). The film directed by Basil Dearden in which Cameron played a dockworker who falls in love with a local woman, was significant in that it was one of the first British films to feature a Black man in a non-stereotypical role. He was essentially the UK counterpart to Sidney Poitier, who made his film debut around the same time, although equally talented, he never became a star. Toward the end of the decade, he would work with Dearden again in Sapphire (1959), where he would play a physician who is the brother of the title character, who was murdered while passing for White.
Other significant film film roles in Cameron's career include Thunderball (1965) where he played opposite Sean Connery as Pinder, Bond's Bahamian assistant. Cameron played an ambassador in A Warm December (1973), a film starring and directed by Poitier. In The Interpreter (2005), a film directed by Sydney Pollack , in which he played Edmond Zuwanie, a dictator loosely based on Robert Mugabe.
Cameron continued to work steadily in film and television into his nineties. One of his last appearances was in They've Gotta Have Us (2018), a documentary on Black actors in Hollywood produced by BBC Two.
He died in 2020 at the age of 102.August 8, 1917 - Actress
- Additional Crew
- Writer
Legendary voice actress June Foray was born June Lucille Forer on September 18, 1917 in Springfield, Massachusetts, to Maurice Forer and Ida Edith Robinson, who wed in Hampden, Massachusetts. Her father, who was Jewish, emigrated from Novgorod, Imperial Russia, while her Massachusetts-born mother was of Lithuanian Jewish and French-Canadian descent. Her mother converted to Judaism to marry, and took the name Sarah.
At age 12, young June was already doing "old lady" voices. She had the good fortune of having a speech teacher who also had a radio program in the Springfield area. This teacher became her mentor, and added June to the cast of her show. Eventually her family moved to Los Angeles, where she continued in radio. By age fifteen, she was writing her own show for children, "Lady Makebelieve", in which she also provided voices. June dabbled in both on-camera acting and voice work, but was particularly talented in voice characterizations, dialects and accents. Just like Daws Butler, one of her later co-stars, she was a "voice magician" and worked steadily in radio from the 1930s into the 1950s.
June branched out from radio and began providing voices for cartoon characters. In the 1940s, she provided the voices for a live-action series of shorts, "Speaking of Animals", in which she dubbed in voices for real on-screen animals, a task she was to repeat many years later in an episode of The Magical World of Disney (1954). In the late 1940s June, Stan Freberg, Daws Butler, Pinto Colvig and many others recorded hundreds of children's and adult albums for Capitol Records. Her female characterizations on these records ran the entire gamut from little girls to middle-aged women, old ladies, dowagers and witches. No one seemed to be able to do these same voices with the warmth, energy and sparkle that June did.
In the 1950s June's star in animation not only began to rise but soared when Walt Disney sought her out and hired her to do the voice of Lucifer the cat in Cinderella (1950). The Disney organization continued to use June many times over, well into the 21st century. Warner Brothers also hired her to replace Bea Benaderet and do all of its "Looney Tunes" and "Merrie Melodies" cartoons. June has done many incidental characters for Warners, but her most famous voice has been that of Granny (in the "Tweety and Sylvester" series). Unfortunately, since Mel Blanc's contract called for exclusive voice credit on these cartoons, June never received credit for all the voices she did. During this time she also appeared on [error].
In 1957, Jay Ward met with June to discuss her voicing the characters of "Rocky the Flying Squirrel" and "Natasha Fatale" in a cartoon series. On November 19, 1959, the show debuted as The Bullwinkle Show (1959), later changing its name to The Bullwinkle Show (1959). June provided many other voices for this show, especially its "side shows" such as "Fractured Fairy Tales" and "Aesop and Son". She did fewer voices for the "Peabody's Improbable History" segment, but she did appear in at least three of those episodes. After the show had been successful for a few years, Ward added one of its most popular segments, "Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties". June was a regular in this side show as Dudley's girlfriend Nell Fenwick.
Since Ward used June exclusively for nearly all his female voices, he showcased her talents as no other producer had before. June missed out on doing voices for three of the show's "Fractured Fairy Tales" because she could not reschedule some bookings to do recording work with Stan Freberg, so Julie Bennett filled in for her on those occasions. Dorothy Scott--co-producer Bill Scott's wife--also filled in for June a few times for "Peabody's Improbable History". Her collaboration with Ward made her incredibly famous, and "Rocky the Flying Squirrel" became her signature voice. To this day June regularly wears a necklace with the figure of Rocky sculpted by her niece Lauren Marems.
Ward later produced two other cartoon series, Hoppity Hooper (1964) and George of the Jungle (1967). June's appearances on "Hoppity Hooper" were limited to the segments of "Fractured Fairy Tales", "Dudley Do-Right" and "Peabody" that aired during its run. On "Fractured Fairy Tales" June did a whole montage of voices similar to those from her Capitol Records days. Her witch voices were so incredibly funny and magnificently done that Disney and Warner Brothers tapped her to provide that same voice for the character of Witch Hazel. She was once again the lone female voice artist, this time on "George of the Jungle". Included on that show were the "Super Chicken" and "Tom Slick" side shows.
In the 1960s, June lost out to Bea Benaderet when she auditioned for the voice of "Betty Rubble" on The Flintstones (1960). June appeared numerous times during the decade in holiday specials such as Frosty the Snowman (1969) and The Little Drummer Boy (1968)). In the 1960s and 1970s, June dubbed in voices for full-length live-action feature films many times. Jay Ward and Bill Scott also had her dub in dialogue for silent movies in their non-animated series Fractured Flickers (1963).
In the early 1970s, June tried her hand at puppetry. She became the voice of an elephant, an aardvark and a giraffe on Curiosity Shop (1971). Around this time she also recorded various voices for the road shows of "Disney on Parade", which toured the US and Europe for several years.
She acted on-camera occasionally over the years, primarily on talk shows, game shows and documentaries; in the early years of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962), she performed a 13-week stint as a little Mexican girl. However, June had said that she prefers to record behind the scenes because she jokingly said "She can earn more money in less time."
June Foray died on July 26, 2017, in Los Angeles, California, U.S. She was ninety nine years old.September 18, 1917- Mary Brodel was born on 27 September 1916 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. She was an actress, known for Sunset Murder Case (1938), Down the Wyoming Trail (1939) and Signing Off (1936). She died on 3 June 2015.September 27, 1917
- Prince C. Spencer was born on 3 October 1917 in Jenkinsville, South Carolina, USA. He was an actor, known for Harlem Nights (1989), Sanford and Son (1972) and The Redd Foxx Show (1986). He was married to Gerri. He died on 29 October 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.October 3, 1917
- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Stardom somehow eluded this vastly gifted actress. Had it not perhaps been for her low-level profile compounded by her McCarthy-era blacklisting in the early 1950s, there is no telling what higher tier Marsha Hunt might have attained. Perhaps her work was not flashy enough, or too subdued, or perhaps her intelligence too often disguised a genuine sex appeal to stand out among the other lovelies. Two studios, Paramount in the late 1930s and MGM in the early 1940s, failed to complete her star. Nevertheless, her talent and versatility cannot be denied. This glamorous, slimly handsome leading lady offered herself to well over 50 pictures during the 1930s and 1940s alone.
Christened Marcia Virginia Hunt, the Chicago-born actress was the younger of two girls born to an attorney and voice teacher/accompanist. The family relocated to New York when she was quite young and she attended such schools as PS #9 and Horace Mann School for Girls. She developed an interest in acting at an early age (3), performing around and about in school plays and at church functions. Following her high school graduation the young beauty found work as a John Powers model and as a singer on radio, a gift obviously inherited from her mother. Marcia (she later changed the spelling of her first name to Marsha) studied drama at the Theodora Irvine Drama School (one of her fellow students was Cornel Wilde).
Encouraged to try Hollywood by various New York people in the business, the young photogenic hopeful moved there in 1934. She was only 17 but was accompanied by her older sister. It didn't take long for the studios to take an interest in her and she was signed up by Paramount not long after. Marsha's very first movie was in a featured role opposite Robert Cummings and Johnny Downs in the old-fashioned The Virginia Judge (1935). Displaying an innate, fresh-faced sensitivity, she moved directly into her second film, playing the title role in Gentle Julia (1936), this time with Tom Brown as her romantic interest.
Marsha continued to show promise but these well-acted roles were, more often than not, overlooked in mild "B"-level offerings. Appearing in co-starring roles in everything from westerns (Desert Gold (1936) and Thunder Trail (1937)) to folksy or flyweight comedy (Easy to Take (1936) and Murder Goes to College (1937)), she could not find decent enough scripts at Paramount. Though she was once deemed one of the studio's promising starlets, one of her last films there was another prairie flower role--[error]--with cowboys John Wayne and Johnny Mack Brown vying for her attention. At about this time (1938) she married Jerry Hopper, a Paramount film editor who turned to directing in the 1950s. This marriage lasted but a few years.
Freelancing for a time for many studios, Marsha's more noticeable war-era work in sentimental comedy and staunch war dramas came from MGM, and she finally signed with the studio in 1939. The roles offered, which included a featured part as one of the sisters in Pride and Prejudice (1940) starring Greer Garson, and again as a sister to Garson in Blossoms in the Dust (1941), which showed much more promise. Some of her better war-era roles came in the films Cheers for Miss Bishop (1941), Kid Glove Killer (1942) and The Affairs of Martha (1942). During this time she also sang on extended USO tours and stayed busy on radio. Her best known film is arguably The Human Comedy (1943) but she wasn't the star. Other film roles had her in support of others, such as Margaret Sullavan in Cry 'Havoc' (1943), little Margaret O'Brien in Lost Angel (1943) and Garson again in The Valley of Decision (1945). Leading roles did not come in "A" pictures.
Her MGM contract was allowed to lapse in 1945 and a second marriage in 1946, to screenwriter Robert Presnell Jr., became a higher priority. The marriage was long and happy (exactly 40 years) and lasted until his passing in June of 1986. The few pictures she made were, again, uneventful or in support of the star, although she did have a catchy, unsympathetic role in the Susan Hayward starrer Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman (1947) as a scheming secretary. In Raw Deal (1948), starring Dennis O'Keefe, she got the "raw deal" being overshadowed as a "good girl" by the "bad girl" posturings of Claire Trevor. At this point of her career she decided to try the stage and made her Broadway debut in "Joy to the World" (1948). Other plays down the road would include "The Devil's Disciple" with Maurice Evans, "The Lady's Not for Burning" with Vincent Price and "The Little Hut" with Leon Ames. She even had a chance to return to her beloved singing as Anna in a production of "The King and I" and (much later) in productions of "State Fair" and "Meet Me in St. Louis". TV also yielded some new work opportunities, including a presentation of "Twelfth Night" in which she portrayed Viola.
The seams of her film career fell apart in the early 1950s. During the late 1930s and into the 1940s she signed a number of petitions promoting liberal ideals, and was a member of the Committee for the First Amendment. A strong supporter of freedom of speech, these associations led to her name appearing in the pamphlet "Red Channels", a McCarthy-era publication that "exposed" alleged Communists and "subversives". Although she and her husband were never called before the House Un-American Activities Commission, their names were nevertheless smeared all over Hollywood as "Reds". While she still found film work on occasion, it was rare. Although she had worked steadily from 1935 until 1949, appearing in over 50 films, she made only three films in the next eight years. Her screenwriter husband would be credited for only one film from 1948 to 1955.
Semi-retired by the early 1960s, stage and TV became Marsha's focal points. She also devoted herself to civil rights causes and such humanitarian efforts as UNICEF, The March of Dimes and The Red Cross. She became actively involved with the United Nations. On the acting front she appeared only in smaller roles in five films but in numerous TV programs and made-for-TV movies, playing everything from judges to grandmas. She became the Honorary Mayor of Sherman Oaks, California, in 1983, and published a book on fashion entitled "The Way We Wore" in 1993. Widowed in 1986, the ever-vibrant Marsha, in her 90s, continues to serve on the Advisory Board of Directors for the San Fernando Valley Community Mental Health Center, a large non-profit that advocates for adults and children affected by homelessness and mental illness. As recently as 2006, she appeared to good advantage in the movie Chloe's Prayer (2006) and, at age 91, was seen in Empire State Building Murders (2008).October 17, 1917- Actress
- Soundtrack
Fay Eunice McKenzie was born February 19, 1918 into a show business family where she was the youngest of two sisters and an actress cousin, and made her screen debut at only ten weeks old in "Station Content" (1918) in which she was carried in the arms of Gloria Swanson. Her parents, Eva & Bob "Pops" McKenzie were already veteran performers and apparently wanted their daughter to get an early start in films. She nearly stole the show from Oliver Hardy as "the baby" in the Alice Howell short "Distilled Love" (filmed in 1918 but released two years later). By the time she was six, Fay was considered an old hand, having played diverse parts in her father's stock company. Among her early films was the 1924 Photoplay Medal Winner, "The Dramatic Life of Abraham Lincoln."
A native of Hollywood, she got most of her schooling on movie sets including the famous Little Red Schoolhouse at MGM. Her classmates included Betty Grable, Ann Rutherford and June Storey. As a teenager in the early 1930's Fay appeared in a number of low budget westerns with Wally Wales and Buddy Roosevelt as well as the all-star MGM musical "Student Tour" (1934). In 1937 she starred in the cult propaganda film about the dangers of marijuana entitled "Assassin of Youth". She also had a small part in the 1939 classic "Gunga Din". Her first Broadway venture was at age 17 and in 1940 she appeared as Miss Hollywood in "Meet the People", a popular review of that season starring Jack Gilford and Jack Albertson.
But she is probably best remembered for her work with Gene Autry at Republic Studios, where she was the feminine interest in "Down Mexico Way" (1941), "Sierra Sue" (1941), "Home in Wyomin'" (1942), "Heart of the Rio Grande" (1942) and "Cowboy Serenade" (1942). Finally getting the leading lady roles she deserved, the raven-haired beauty was an immediate hit with audiences. In 1942 Republic co-starred her with Don 'Red' Barry in the war-time flag waver, "Remember Pearl Harbor!" During WWII she toured with the Hollywood Victory Caravan and appeared in dozens of USO shows with various show biz legends including Frank Sinatra, Phil Silvers and Desi Arnaz. At the same time she could be heard on radio in "Pabst's Blue Ribbon Town" starring Groucho Marx. Featured film roles continued to come her way with Universal's "The Singing Sheriff" (1944), Warner Bros' "Night and Day" (1946) and "Murder in the Music Hall" (1946), the latter filmed at her home studio of Republic.
In 1946 she married the dark, husky actor Steve Cochran, but their union was short lived and they divorced two years later. She went back to Broadway to appear opposite comedian Bert Lahr (best known as The Cowardly Lion in "The Wizard of Oz") in the 1946 revival of "Burlesque." During the 1950's she studied with Sanford Meisner and at The Actor's Studio with Lee Strasberg in NYC. She was seen to favorable advantage on a number of TV shows including "The Millionaire" (1959), "Mr. Lucky" (1960), "Bonanza" (1961), and "Experiment in Terror" (1962).
She also appeared in a number of films for close friend and director Blake Edwards, including "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (1961) as the party guest laughing in the mirror, "The Party" (1968) and "S.O.B." (1981). She was especially proud of "The Party" with Peter Sellers and agreed to play the cameo role of Alice Clutterbuck (the hostess of the party) because the script was co-written by her husband, Tom Waldman. She and Waldman married in 1949 and had two children Tom Jr. and Madora. Waldman Sr. passed away in 1985. Her older sister Ella "Lolly" McKenzie was also an actress and was married to well-known comedian Billy Gilbert. Her other sister Ida Mae McKenzie started in silent films as well and went on to work behind the scenes of popular game shows including the original "Hollywood Squares".
McKenzie traveled extensively as a Christian Science Practitioner, lecturing all over the country and in Europe. In 2012 she received the Career Achievement Award at the Cinecon Classic Film Festival and in 2017 she was on-hand to present some of her family's home movies at the TCM Film Festival (those films are now housed the Academy Film Archive in Hollywood). During the summer of 2018 she made a cameo appearance alongside her son Tom as Mrs. Van Proosdy in the film "Kill A Better Mousetrap". Her performance marks the first century-spanning career in motion picture history. She passed away peacefully in her sleep on the morning of April 16th at the age of 101. She is survived by her son, actor Tom Waldman, Jr., daughter Madora McKenzie Kibbe and her two grandchildren.February 19, 1918- Murray Westgate was born on 16 April 1918 in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. He was an actor, known for Countdown to Looking Glass (1984), Happy Birthday to Me (1981) and Blue City Slammers (1988). He was married to Alice Hill. He died on 27 August 2018 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.April 16, 1918
- Ivy Bethune was born on 1 June 1918 in Sevastopol, Russia [now Crimea, Ukraine]. She was an actress, known for Back to the Future (1985), Get Smart (2008) and Will to Die (1971). She was married to Stuart Lancaster and William Charles Bethune. She died on 19 July 2019 in Woodland Hills, California, USA.June 1, 1918
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Poised and lovely Marjorie Lord started her long and varied career on the Broadway stage and in "B" films as a sweet-natured ingénue. Born Marjorie F. Wollenberg, of German and Czech heritage, on July 26, 1918 in San Francisco, California, her family transported themselves to New York City when she was 15. Here she enrolled in both acting and ballet at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and the Chaliff School of Dance, respectively.
Marjorie's first job (billed as Marjorie Lord) was as a 17-year-old replacement on Broadway in "The Old Maid" starring Judith Anderson in 1935. Film parts from recently-signed RKO Studio started coming her way in 1937 with the Harry Carey western Border Cafe (1937); the murder mystery Forty Naughty Girls (1937); the Wheeler & Woolsey musical comedy High Flyers (1937); and a top role in the family drama The Middleton Family at the New York World's Fair (1939).
She met actor John Archer after they appeared together in the stage production of "The Male Animal" and married at the end of 1941, they settled in Hollywood after playing Los Angeles in a stage tour of "Springtime for Henry" with Edward Everett Horton in 1942. The couple had two children before divorcing in 1953. Son Gregg avoided show business and became an airline pilot while daughter Anne Archer followed in her parents' footsteps as an actress.
Marjorie earned a Universal contract in the process and throughout the 1940s and 1950s and would alternate between theater and film assignments. She returned to Broadway with the plays "Signature" in 1945 and "Little Brown Jug" a year later, returning a decade later as a replacement in the popular Moss Hart comedy "Anniversary Waltz" in the mid-1950s. Most of Marjorie's films were inconsequential and set her up as a pretty diversion -- Escape from Hong Kong (1942), Moonlight in Havana (1942) and The Adventures of Smilin' Jack (1943). Some of her better films of that period included a loan-out, Johnny Come Lately (1943), with James Cagney, and Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943) starring the irrepressible sleuthing team of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce.
Freelancing from the late 1940s on, Marjorie was the co-star or second lead in such films as the jazzy musical drama New Orleans (1947) for Hal Roach Studios; the Universal crimers The Strange Mrs. Crane (1948) and The Argyle Secrets (1948) as a femme fatale; the Columbia action adventure Air Hostess (1949); the Tim Holt RKO western Masked Raiders (1949) in an interesting shady role; Monogram's Bomba the Jungle Boy offering The Lost Volcano (1950); the Columbia action drama Chain Gang (1950); and the amusing crime comedy Stop That Cab (1951).
Moving more into the new 1950s medium of TV, Marjorie had guest parts on such shows as "Racket Squad," "The Adventures of Kit Carson," "China Smith," "Ramar of the Jungle," "Hopalong Cassidy," "The Loretta Young Show" and "Wagon Train," along with the anthology series "Four Star Playhouse," "Schlitz Playhouse," "Fireside Theatre," and "'Cavalcade of America." Marjorie greatest exposure, however, came in 1957 when she was cast as the second wife of widower/entertainer Danny Thomas in the long-established comedy hit The Danny Thomas Show (1953). She lucked into the role when Danny's "first wife" (played by actress Jean Hagen, best known for her classic role as screechy "Lina Lamont" in Singin' in the Rain (1952)) asked to leave the series and the writer had her character "die." Marjorie proved an able sparring partner for the comedian for seven more seasons, but was unsparingly typecast as the wholesome wife thereafter.
Following this Marjorie appeared in a number of dinner theater productions for work, but would indelibly remain Kathy ("Clancy") Williams in the public eye and appeared very sparsely on TV ("Love, American Style") and film (fifth billed as the wife of Bob Hope in the comedy Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number! (1966)). As a result, she graciously returned to Danny Thomas and her famous TV wife role in the sequel series Make Room for Granddaddy (1970).
Marjorie gently phased her career out for the most part after her third marriage in 1977, but could be seen from time to time in such programs as "Fantasy Island" and "The Love Boat." In 1987, she returned for a short-lived run on the domestic sitcom Sweet Surrender (1987) starring Dana Delany and Mark Blum, as the latter's mother. Her last camera appearance was a featured part in the "grumpy old men"-styled TV movie Side by Side (1988) starring Milton Berle, Sid Caesar and her TV husband Danny Thomas.
Made a widow by her second and third husbands, Marjorie published her memoir, "A Dance and a Hug," in 2005. She died on November 28, 2015, age 97, in Beverly Hills, California, of natural causes.July 26, 1918- Rosanna Carter was born on 20 September 1918 in Rolle Town, Bahamas. She was an actress, known for I'll Fly Away (1991), Night of the Juggler (1980) and American Playhouse (1980). She died on 30 December 2016 in Pompano Beach, Florida, USA.September 20, 1918
- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
John Zacherle (later known as John Zacherley) was born September 26, 1918 in Philadelphia, PA, the youngest of four children. He went to high school in the Germantown area, then enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania, receiving a Bachelor's Degree. During World War II, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and served as a quartermaster in North Africa and Europe, and after the war he returned to Philadelphia, joining a local repertory theater company.
In 1954, he appeared as an actor at WCAU-TV in the western "Action in the Afternoon," playing several roles (including an undertaker). It was produced by the station and aired in the New York City market. Three years later, he was hired as the host of WCAU's "Shock Theater," which debuted on October 7, 1957. As the host, Zacherle appeared as the character Roland (pronounced Ro-LAND), wearing a long black undertaker's coat and who lived with his wife (known as "My Dear") and his lab assistant, Igor. It involved numerous stylized horror-comedy gags that have since become a standard to countless horror film hosts. In the opening sequence, Zacherle would descend a long staircase to the crypt. The producers erred on the side of goriness, showing fake severed heads with chocolate syrup blood. The show sometimes featured live "cut-ins" during the movie, in which the soundtrack continued to play on the air, while the visual feed switched briefly to a shot of Zacherle in the middle of a humorous stunt, such as riding a tombstone. The show ran for 92 broadcasts until 1958.
He was a close colleague of "American Bandstand" host Dick Clark, and he sometimes filled in on road touring shows of "Bandstand" in the 1960s. Dick reportedly gave Zacherle the nickname of "The Cool Ghoul," and in 1958, partly with the assistance of Clark, he recorded "Dinner with Drac" for Cameo Records, backed by Dave Appell. At first, it was thought that the recording was too gory to play on "Bandstand," and Zacherle returned to the studio to cut a second, tamer version. Eventually, both versions was released simultaneously as backsides of the same 45rpm record, and it broke the top ten nationally. Zacherle later released several LPs mixing horror sound effects with novelty songs.
In 1958, CBS purchased WCAU-TV, which prompted Zacherle to leave Philadelphia for WABC-TV in New York. He continued in the same format as "Shock Theater," but the studio added a "y" to the end of his name (to help with pronunciation), and in March 1958, they changed the title to "Zacherley at Large." His Roland character became Zacherley and "My Dear" became Isobel. He also began appearing in motion pictures, including "Key to Murder" (1958), alongside several of his "Action in the Afternoon" colleagues.
In 1960, Zacherley moved to WOR-TV, and in a promotional gimmick, he staged a presidential campaign. His "plaform" recording can be found on the album "Spook Along with Zacherley" (1960), which originally included a "Zacherley for President" book and poster set, which is highly collectible today. He's the only horror host to appear on the cover of "Famous Monsters of Filmland" twice.
In 1963, he was the first host/performer of WPIX-TV, Channel 11, New York City, hosting "Chiller Theater," "The Mighty Hercules Cartoon Show" (seen weekday evenings from September to November, 1963), and "The Three Stooges Show" until January of 1964. He then moved to WNJU-TV in Newark and hosted a teenage dance show called "Disc-O-Teen," appearing in full costume and using the teenage participants in his skits, attracting bands like The Lovin' Spoonful, The Young Rascals and The Doors (Zacherle recalls, "Jim Morrison looked at our weird set and mumbled, 'This is the damnedest TV show I've ever seen.'") He was a morning radio host for WNEW-FM in 1967, and two years later he became the station night broadcaster (10pm-2am) with a progressive rock format. The success of the show led to the use of the same format in Philadelphia.
As "Zacherley," he hosted several rock concerts in New York City's Central Park in the 60's and 70's. On February 14, 1970, he appeared at Fillmore East music hall in New York to introduce The Grateful Dead, and his introduction of the band can be heard on their album "Dick's Picks - Volume 4." In 1971, he switched his show to WPLJ-FM in New York, where he stayed for ten years.
In the early 1980's, he played a wizard on Captain Kangaroo, appearing without his costume and makeup. He continued to perform in character at Halloween broadcasts in the New York and Philadelphia areas throughout the 80's and 90's, and once narrated Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" which was backed up by the Philadelphia Orchestra. In 1986, he hosted a direct-to-video program called "Horrible Horror," where he performed monologues between clips from public domain sci-fi and horror films.
In 1988, he struck up a friendship with B-movie horror director Frank Henenlotter, and voiced one of the lead characters in his horror comedy "Brain Damage," playing Aylmar, a slug-like, drug-dealing, brain-eating parasite. He also a cameo in Henelotter's "Frankenhooker," appropriately playing a TV weatherman who specializes in forecasts for mad scientists.
In late 1992, Zacherley joined the staff of "K-Rock," WXRK-FM, at a time when the roster included other free-form luminaries as Vin Scelsa (with whom he'd worked at WPLJ) and Meg Griffin. However, in January of 1996, the station switched to an alternative rock format and hired all new disc jockeys.
He was inducted into the Horror Host Hall of Fame in 2011, and has lived in a one-bedroom, rent-controlled apartment in Manhattan for the past 50 years.September 26, 1918- Actress
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Silent moppet star Jackie Coogan, immortalized as Charles Chaplin's The Kid (1921), had only one screen rival during the early 1920s, and that was none other than Baby Peggy. She was "discovered" while visiting the Century Studios lot on Sunset Boulevard with her mother when she was a mere 19 months old and went on to appear in nearly 150 shorts (between 1920 and 1923) and nine feature films during her silent heyday. Often considered a precursor to Shirley Temple, Baby Peggy's most popular film vehicle was the child classic Captain January (1924), which would be made a decade later as a vehicle for Temple.
She was born Peggy-Jean Montgomery in 1918 in San Diego, California, of acting stock. She was the daughter of Marian (Baxter), from Wisconsin, and Jack Montgomery, a Nebraska-born cowboy for years all over the western states. He ended up in the movies as a stuntman and extra, driving stagecoaches and buckboards. He supported himself as Tom Mix's double, but never achieved the rugged stardom he yearned for. In fact, his daughter was the one who became the celebrity and chief breadwinner for the family.
Many of Baby Peggy's popular comedies were parodies of movies that grown-up stars had made, and she delightfully imitated such legends as Rudolph Valentino, Pola Negri, Mary Pickford and Mae Murray. Her first feature-length film was Penrod (1922); her first film with Universal, The Darling of New York (1923), shot when she was 3-1/2 years old, was a solid hit. A few more, including Helen's Babies (1924), were also certifiable winners. However, by the age of 8, she was finished.
Her fortune reportedly was depleted by her father Jack's stepfather, a banker to whom she had entrusted all her money. Within a short time, she was forced to turn to the vaudeville circuit for survival. A comeback in early talkies with the new moniker Peggy Montgomery was very short-lived. Her credits, as a result, are often mixed up with another actress named Peggy Montgomery, who was a western ingénue for many years.
The former child star lived in dire straits and suffered from nervous breakdowns and near poverty for many years until she found a new and unexpectedly successful career as a book publisher and writer, using the pseudonym "Diana Serra Cary". As the author of "Hollywood Posse" (1975) and (later) "Hollywood's Children", she wrote about her youthful career, post-stardom years, child stars in general, and Hollywood history in all its fascinating glory. Her own autobiography, "Whatever Happened to Baby Peggy?", was released in 1996.
In 2016, Diana was inducted into the Classic Film Hall of Fame at the Rheem Theater in Moraga, CA. Diana was present, at age 98, to receive the honor and answer questions. She is considered to have been the last living star of the silent film era. Per Robert Garfinkle, a board member of the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum in Fremont, CA, Diana now has the longest acting career of all time, from 1920 to 2015. Her last film was a silent film she made at the above-referenced museum. The film was actually made using one of their antique hand-cranked cameras!
Baby Peggy died on February 24, 2020 in Gustine, California. She was 101.October 29, 1918- Producer
- Additional Crew
- Actor
A native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Jack H. Harris first entered show business by way of vaudeville, singing and dancing with Cliff Edwards' (aka "Ukeleke Ike") Kiddie Revue at age six. Working his way up from an early job as a theater usher, Harris went into publicity and learned distribution, eventually opening his own offices. Dissatisfied with the minor black-and-white films foisted upon him, he quickly developed an itch to produce his own pictures. Linking up with the moviemaking ministers of Pennsylvania's Valley Forge Film Studios, Harris collaborated on The Blob (1958), a film that eventually grossed more than a hundred times its $240,000 cost. In the decades since, Harris has followed up on this early success with 4D Man (1959), Dinosaurus! (1960), Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) and a "Blob" sequel (Beware! The Blob (1972)) and a remake (The Blob (1988)).November 28, 1918- Dorothy Morrison was born on 3 January 1919 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She was an actress, known for Hearts in Dixie (1929), Sleepless Hollow (1936) and The Champeen (1923). She died on 18 October 2017 in the USA.January 3, 1919
- A statuesque and striking actress with vaguely reptilian aspects, at once sinister and alluring; a smile never more than a whisker away from a sneer and a commanding, imperious presence suggesting innate superiority. Difficult to cast, Patricia Laffan seemed destined to portray the villainous or the eccentric. The daughter of Irish rubber planter Arthur Charles Laffan (1870-1948) and London-born Elvira Alice née Vitali (1896-1979), Patricia was schooled at the Institut français du Royaume-Uni in London and trained in dramatic arts at the prestigious Douglas-Webber School. She emerged on stage in 1937 and made her screen debut by 1945. In between a cluster of nondescript or uncredited roles, we remember her for two indelible cinematic performances: first, as that sumptuously decadent, scheming, malicious Empress Poppaea in MGM's epic blockbuster Quo Vadis (1951) -- sardonic and disdainful in her delivery, at times running close to overshadowing even the great Peter Ustinov in his most famous role as Nero. One of her lavish outfits included a 14 carat gold dress designed by Herschel McCoy. A contemporary BBC interview with Laffan also recounts an incident during the making of Quo Vadis. In this, the actress, while reclining on a divan next to a couple of cheetahs at the end of a love scene with Robert Taylor, was set upon by one of the not so tame cats but managed to escape with a torn dress (the gold one ?) -- "on the other hand, the lions in the arena scene were so bored that they went to sleep in the shade instead of looking hungrily at the Christians".
Laffan's other fondly remembered showing on screen was in the campy Devil Girl from Mars (1954), a typically low-budget Danziger Brothers attempt at emulating the success of The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). Justifiably derided at the time (for such valid reasons as inane writing, lacklustre direction and props acutely reminiscent of kitchen appliances), it has become a surprising cult touchstone for sci-fi aficionados. Why? Certainly because of the picture's sole meritorious component: Patricia Laffan as the Martian invader Nyah, exotically made up, outfitted in PVC jumpsuit, miniskirt, Darth Vader-style cape and skullcap and making the most of her scenes, delivering her lines with practised cold, languid authority.
Sadly underused, there were to be few other roles of note for this commanding actress in the wake of 'Devil Girl', except, perhaps, for an integral bit in the enjoyable psychological thriller 23 Paces to Baker Street (1956). Subsequent TV appearances saw her mostly confined to conventional aristocratic ladies in period or crime dramas. Patricia Laffan retired from the screen in 1965, apparently to a quiet life in Chelsea, London, where she may have pursued her passions for fast cars, story-writing and breeding bull terriers.March 19, 1919 - Joachim Tomaschewsky was born on 1 April 1919 in Chemnitz, Saxony, Germany. He was an actor, known for The Reader (2008), Archiv des Todes (1980) and Jeder stirbt für sich allein (1970). He was married to Gisela Morgen. He died on 8 February 2019 in Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany.March 31, 1919
- Actress
- Additional Crew
Caren Marsh was born in Los Angeles. Her sister, actress Dorothy Morris, was born Feb. 23, 1922. Getting into show business in 1937, Caren changed her name to Marsh because "there were too many people named Morris at the time." Caren's parents wanted her to go to college but she wanted to be a dancer. Learning of an audition for dancers at MGM she tried out and was cast in Eleanor Powell's "Rosalie" in '37. This led to more and more pictures as a dancer. "Being tiny (Caren is 5 ft.), I was a 'pony'. The tall girls are called showgirls." While working with great choreographers such as Busby Berkerley, Nick Castle and Hermes Pan, she was spotted at Metro and cast as Judy Garland's stand-in in "The Wizard of Oz" ('39). Her first real acting part was in an Army Signal Corps Hygiene film, "Pickup Girl" in '44. After gaining a foothold in Hollywood, Caren went to New York in '49 to work with ventriloquist Paul Winchell at the Capitol Theatre. Flying home to visit her parents, the plane went too low and crashed into a mountain.The aircraft was in level flight on its initial approach to Burbank, with its landing gear extended, when it descended below the officially prescribed altitude of 5,000 feet while flying in patchy fog. As a result, the plane's right wingtip struck a mountain ridge near Box Canyon in the northwest corner of the San Fernando Valley, near Santa Susana Pass and the Los Angeles County-Ventura County border. The Curtiss C-46E-1-C airliner (N79978) spun 90 degrees, struck the ground, bounced back into the air and then crashed on a rugged hillside of the Simi Hills at an altitude of about 1,890 feet just north of the Chatsworth Reservoir. Both pilots, a flight attendant, and 32 passengers died in the crash, including two young children. The remaining flight attendant and 12 passengers escaped with moderate to serious injuries. Fortunately, Caren was one of those 12. In 1950 Caren married Bill Doll, producer Mike Todd's press agent, and traveled all over the world. Today, Caren lives in Palm Springs, has taught dancing and attends both western film festivals and "Wizard of Oz" reunions when she can.April 6, 1919- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Albert was born on June 24, 1919 to Raffaele Molinaro and Teresa Marrone. His father was born in Calabria, Italy and immigrated to the US when he was 15 years old and worked as a water boy with a railroad crew going west from New York. He ended up in Kenosha Wisconsin where he met and married Albert's mother Teresa on December 22, 1901. His father named Albert after his favorite Italian Prince, Umberto II who was born 15 years earlier. A school teacher later suggested that "Albert" might be more suitable. His mother chose his middle name Fransico after Santo Francisco since he was born on Saint Francis Day. The midwife who's English was only slightly better than Albert's parents spelled his middle name with a feminine "A" at the end which was never corrected. His legal named remained Umberto Francisca Molinaro. He was the ninth child of what would later become a family of ten children, eight boys and 2 girls. At 19 years of age Albert became a union leader at the Vincent-McCall furniture spring factory after working there for only 4 months. He later became the special assistant to the Kenosha City Manager when he was 20. At this time Albert's best friend from Kenosha, Mills Tenuta, who had moved to Southern California to work in an aircraft plant, began harassing him to come out to Hollywood. He was sure that Albert could be a movie star. Albert left a promising career with the city after only a year to head to Hollywood to become an actor. Albert had many jobs while pursuing his acting career. His first job was at Reginald Denny's Hobby shop in Hollywood. He spent 2 years as a live action animator at George Pal's studios. If Technicolor hadn't gone on a sympathy strike with the Studio Carpenters union he might have spent his career as an animator. He managed the M&G Grand Variety Store for a year and then became a bill collector for the "Collection Agency of America" in downtown LA. He quickly learned the art of bill collecting and was able to become a salesman who procured collection accounts for another agency which he later purchased. This gave him flexible hours and a steady income so he could focus again on his dreams of Hollywood. Even after his acting career took off he kept his Bill Collection business until he retired. Albert married Jacqueline Martin in 1948. They moved into a home in Granada Hills, CA and adopted their son Michael Molinaro. Albert and Jacqueline were divorced in 1980. Albert then married Betty Sedillos in 1981 and they lived in Glendale CA until his death in 2015. Albert had two step children, Jim Sedillos & Victoria Sedillos and a total of 6 grandchildren and 2 great-grand children. Albert's movie debut happened when he was 25 years old. After appearing as the lead in a Chekhov play called "The Bear" at the old Sartu Theater that used to be on the corner of Hollywood Blvd. and La Brea Ave. A movie producer saw the performance and cast him in a picture that had three separate stories, one of the stories was Chekhov's play "The Bear" but changed from a Russian setting to a Spanish locale. The movie was titled "Love Me Madly". Albert was not told that some of the scenes they shot without him were R rated in today's standards but X rated for 1954's standards. He was surprised and upset during the movies premiere and vowed to never again be in a film that his mother couldn't watch. During the early 1950's Albert began producing live television shows for local televisions stations channel 5 KTLA, channel 9 KHJ & channel 11 KTTV. He Co-created "Insomnia" a late night live show and a "Ski Show" in which Warren Miller allowed him to use some of his skiing footage. He created "Star Finder" a pre-teen amateur show, "Square Dance Party" and "The Tiny Late Show" which was his own late night one man show that filled the few minutes of time between the end of the late night movie and the station signing off for the night.
All the time Albert was working to pay his bills he was also acting in small plays in theaters all over Hollywood. After 25 years of theater acting he was convinced to play a small part in a play directed by his friend, Leo Matranga, at the Hollywood Horseshoe Theater. After the show, a commercial agent named Don Schwartz offered to represent him. Albert swore off acting and never called Don. One year later, Don called Albert telling him that he already set up an appointment for him and convinced him to audition for a national commercial. Albert got the commercial for the Volvo 140. You can see his commercial debut on youtube "Volvo 140 advertising". It's 3 min. & 30 seconds into the video (they have strung many vintage Volvo ads together). Take a look at his first commercial and you will see the face that went on to land over 100 commercials. 42 of them were nationals. He also landed a 10 year deal with "Encore" frozen dinners becoming their spokesperson. A friend from George Pal's Studios named Glenn Grossman cast Albert whenever he could in the industrial films that he would make from time to time. It was while working on one of Glenn's films that Albert met another working actor named Harvey Lembeck. When Harvey wasn't acting he ran an actor's workshop. Harvey convinced Albert that he could help him with his comedy timing. Gary Marshall's sister Penny was also a member of Harvey's workshop. One night Penny asked her brother to come down and see Albert. Gary was in the process of producing a movie starring Jacquiline Bissett called "The Grasshopper" and wanted Al to play the part of a truck driver. Albert did not play the part because the shooting dates conflicted with a Pepto-Bismol commercial he was scheduled to shoot in Phoenix. A year later, when Albert learned from his writer friend, John Rappaport, that Garry Marshall was casting for The Odd Couple TV show, John convinced him that he would be perfect to play one of the poker players. Albert first refused to call Gary but John badgered him enough to finally make him call. Albert made numerous phone calls but got no response so he decided to dress up like a delivery man and deliver a 2'x3' card with many pictures of himself glued to it stating that "Al Molinaro is a Poker Player. ...Assorted Poker Faces ... More faces available upon demand. Just Call (his Phone #) Dear Gary, If you don't call me for an audition, I'll put a curse on you to make you sterile for life. Sincerely, Al Molinaro. The delivery outfit did not get him past the guard at the Paramount gate but it did get the card delivered and Albert got an audition and landed the part of Murray the Cop. Later, Gary stated that, "Although we thought Albert was wrong for the part, we decided to take a chance on Al because of all the men who we auditioned, he was the funniest. Albert spent 5 years on The Odd Couple and when it finished, due to the fact that Jack Klugman wanted to do drama, he was offered the roll of the Malt Shop Owner on Gary's new show "Happy Days". Albert turned down the role feeling he did not want to work with a "bunch of kids". After the first season of Happy Days, Pat Morita, who was cast in the role of the malt shop owner, was offered his own show so Gary once again asked Albert to work on the show. Albert asked Gary that if he didn't like working on the show, could he quit whenever he wanted. Gary said he couldn't put that in writing but that they would shake on it. Albert enjoyed 10 years on "Happy Days" from 1974 to 1984 and 1 more year on "Joanie Loves Chachi. He guest starred on many television shows during and after the filming of the Odd Couple and Happy Days. He also worked on a short lived sitcom called "The Family Man" from 1990-1991 but decided to stop taking roles by the mid 90's. He completed his 10 year contract with Encore Frozen Foods and as his last job he surprisingly accepted an offer to be in a music video with Wheezer.
Albert was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in the mid 90's and lived with the illness for 20 years. Early diagnosis and careful medication allowed Albert to enjoy life until he had a small heart attack in May of 2015. He was a wonderfully kind man. He taught himself to play the piano, clarinet and ukulele and even had a few real gigs in Reno playing the clarinet in his youth. His family believes that his improvisational skills allowed him to mask his Alzheimer's disease from most people until just before he died. He continued to personally answer his fan mail until his health did not allow it. In June he celebrated his 96th birthday but he was declining quickly. He developed a gall stones and due to his age and the recent heart attack, surgery was not recommended. Albert died on October 30th 2015.June 24, 1919- Actor
- Soundtrack
Born in 1919 in Jerusalem, Nehemiah Persoff emigrated with his family to America in 1929.
Following schooling at the Hebrew Technical Institute of New York, he found a job as a subway electrician doing signal maintenance until an interest in the theater altered the direction of his life.
He joined amateur groups and subsequently won a scholarship to the Dramatic Workshop in New York. This led to what would have been his Broadway debut in a production of "Eve of St. Mark", but he was fired before the show opened. He made his official New York debut in a production of "The Emperor's New Clothes" in 1940.
WWII interrupted his young career in 1942, when he was inducted into the United Sates Army, returning to the stage after his hitch was over in 1945, three years later. He sought work in stock plays and became an intern of Stella Adler and, as a result, a strong exponent of the Actor's Studio. Discovered by Charles Laughton and cast in his production of "Galileo" in 1947, Persoff made his film debut a year later with an uncredited bit in The Naked City (1948).
Short, dark, chunky-framed and with a distinct talent for dialects, Persoff became known primarily for his ethnic villainy, usually playing authoritative Eastern Europeans.
In a formidable career which had him portraying everything from cab drivers to Joseph Stalin, standout film roles would include Leo in The Harder They Fall (1956) with Humphrey Bogart, Gene Conforti in Alfred Hitchcock's The Wrong Man (1956), Albert in This Angry Age (1958) and gangster Johnny Torrio in Al Capone (1959). That same year he played another gangster, the small role of Little Bonaparte, in Some Like It Hot (1959).
He was a durable performer during TV's "Golden Age" (Gunsmoke (1955), The Twilight Zone (1959)) and well beyond (Chicago Hope (1994), Law & Order (1990)), playing hundreds of intense, volatile and dominating characters.
In later years, his characters grew a bit softer as Barbra Streisand's Jewish father in Yentl (1983) and the voice of Papa Mousekewitz in the An American Tail (1986) will attest. Later stage work included well-received productions of "I'm Not Rappaport" and his biographical one-man show "Sholem Aleichem".
After declining health and high blood pressure forced him to slow down, Persoff took up painting in 1985, studying sketching in Los Angeles. Specializing in watercolor, he created more than 100 works of art, many of which have been exhibited up and down the coast of California. He celebrated his 100th birthday in 2019.August 2, 1919- Grace Albertson was born on 4 August 1918 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, USA. She was an actress, known for Arson Squad (1945), Unmasked (1950) and Mission: Impossible (1966). She was married to Robert E. Meredith and Frank Albertson. She died on 3 November 2014 in the USA.August 4, 1919
- Actor
- Camera and Electrical Department
Philip Perlman was born on 15 August 1919 in Poland. He was an actor, known for Throw Momma from the Train (1987), Out of Sight (1998) and The War of the Roses (1989). He was married to Adele Perlman. He died on 29 April 2015 in Los Angeles, California, USA.August 15, 1919- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Blacklisted writer in the 1950s, a victim of the HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee), he still continued to write under pseudonyms as did many other blacklisted writers such as Ring Lardner Jr. and Dalton Trumbo, and his biggest contribution during that time was probably his writing work with other blacklisted writers Arnold Manoff & Abraham Polonsky on the You Are There (1953) TV segments starring Walter Cronkite. Of large importance is his screenplay for the dark comedy about blacklisted screenwriters, The Front (1976) starring Woody Allen. The blacklisted writers in the deli are based on a composite of him, Manoff & Polonsky. After he graduated from Dartmouth, he wrote for The New Yorker magazine and also the G.I. weekly "Yank" during World War II. He had barely started working in Hollywood when he was blacklisted. He is a recipient of The Writers Guild of America East Lifetime Achievement Award and he also wrote the book "Inside Out: A Memoir of the Blacklist". Though unfairly blacklisted by Hollywood for his political alliances, luckily he recovered to have a long remarkable career.August 20, 1919- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
One of the great dancer and choreographers in both movies and stage, Marge Champion was best known as the former wife of Gower Champion, when they worked together as a highly successfully dancing team in the MGM musical years. After retiring from movies, Champion worked as a dance teacher and as a choreographer in New York.September 2, 1919- Rico Alaniz was born on 25 October 1919 in Juarez, Mexico. He was an actor, known for The Magnificent Seven (1960), War of the Colossal Beast (1958) and Wolf Larsen (1958). He died on 9 March 2015 in Los Angeles, California, USA.October 25, 1919
- Actress
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Nova Pilbeam was a famous child actress on stage and screen in the UK. Her biggest successes were her two movies directed by Alfred Hitchcock: The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) and this film. She married director Pen Tennyson in 1939, but unfortunately she was widowed less than two years later when he died in WWII. She retired from movies in 1951.November 15, 1919- Joseph Wapner was born on 15 November 1919 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor, known for The People's Court (1981), Sliders (1995) and Malcolm & Eddie (1996). He was married to Mildred (Mickey) Nebenzahl. He died on 26 February 2017 in Los Angeles, California, USA.November 15, 1919
- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Alan Young was born in Northern England in 1919, but his Scots father moved the family to Edinburgh, Scotland, when Young was a toddler and then to Canada when Young was about 6 years old. As a boy, he suffered from severe asthma, which kept him bedridden for long periods of time but encouraged his love of radio. By age 13, Young had become a radio performer, and by age 17, he was writing and performing in his own radio show for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The show was broadcast in the U.S. and led to an invitation to New York, initiating Young's career as an "All-American boy," despite his non-American origins and a vestigial Scots accent. He became popular on American radio from 1944 to 1949 with his "Alan Young Radio Show," but when radio began to lose its popularity and his show was canceled, Young decided to put together a comedy act and tour the U.S. theater circuit. After this experience, he wrote a television pilot for CBS in 1950, which resulted in The Alan Young Show (1950). The show was a well-received live revue that ran for 3 years, earned a couple of Emmy Awards, and garnered Young a star on the "Walk of Fame." However, the strain of writing and performing a weekly show got to Young, and the quality of the show declined, leading to his departure from the show and its cancellation. In the meantime, based on his popularity on radio and television, Young had established a film career, starting with his debut in Margie (1946) followed by Chicken Every Sunday (1949), Mr. Belvedere Goes to College (1949), Aaron Slick from Punkin Crick (1952), Androcles and the Lion (1952), Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1955), Tom Thumb (1958), and The Time Machine (1960).
In the early 1960s, Young landed his best-known role, Wilbur Post, in the popular television series Mister Ed (1961), which ran for 5 years. Since then, Young has made a number of television and film appearances but is known primarily for his voice characterizations in cartoons, especially as Scrooge McDuck in DuckTales (1987).November 19, 1919- Louise Watson was born on 22 November 1919 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She was an actress, known for Bingles (1992), Angel Baby (1995) and Stark (1993). She died on 5 June 2018 in Burbank, California, USA.November 22, 1919
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Elizabeth (Betty) Ann Brodel Franzalia, older sister to actress, Joan Leslie, turned 100 years old on February 5, 2020. Betty along with sisters Mary and Joan were actresses in Hollywood and Betty was in the following movies: 'Swing Hostess' (1944), 'Too Young to Know' (1945), 'Cinderella Jones' (Uncredited)(1946), 'Hollywood Canteen' (Uncredited)(1944), 'Cover Girl' (1944) and other roles. In 1948, Betty married Joe Franzalia. He passed away in 1999. Elizabeth "Betty" Ann Brodel Franzalia passed away early Sunday morning, March 3, 2024, peacefully, at age 104.November 25, 1919