Forever Young
by Varla_Kicked_Ass | created - 15 Jun 2014 | updated - 15 Jun 2014 | PublicSome of the actors and actresses who died before or at the age of 40.
1. Aaliyah
Soundtrack | Romeo Must Die
Talented. Beautiful. Modest. These three words described R&B singer-turned-actress Aaliyah perfectly.
Aaliyah Dana Haughton was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Diane (Hankerson) and Michael Haughton. Her uncle was music manager Barry Hankerson and her brother is director Rashad Haughton. Aaliyah was ...
2. Bridgette Andersen
Actress | Savannah Smiles
Bridgette Andersen was born on July 11, 1975 to Frank Glass and Teresa Andersen in Inglewood, California and grew up in Malibu. She always considered it good luck to have her birthday read as 7-11 rather than as July 11th. She would always kiss the first two fingers on her right hand and then touch...
3. Pier Angeli
Actress | Battle of the Bulge
Anna Maria Pierangeli was born June 19, 1932, in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy. Anna and her twin sister, Marisa Pavan, both had their eyes on becoming film stars, since that was one of the big Italian pastimes. Anna adopted her surname and split it in half, and it was as Pier Angeli that she would ...
4. Judith Barsi
Actress | The Land Before Time
The only child of Jozsef Barsi and Maria Benko, Judith Eva Barsi beat 10,000-to-1 odds when she was discovered at a San Fernando Valley skating rink at age 5 1/2 in 1983 and mistaken for a three-year-old. Her first commercial was for Donald Duck Orange Juice and she went on to appear in anywhere ...
5. John Belushi
Actor | Saturday Night Live
John Belushi was born in Chicago, Illinois, USA, on January 24, 1949, to Agnes Demetri (Samaras) and Adam Anastos Belushi, a restaurant owner. His father was an Albanian immigrant, from Qytezë, and his mother was also of Albanian descent. He grew up in Wheaton, where the family moved when he was ...
6. Jonathan Brandis
Actor | The Neverending Story II: The Next Chapter
Born in Danbury, Connecticut, USA, to Greg and Mary, Jonathan Brandis began his career at age 5, acting in several television commercials. He also appeared in small parts in several films and TV shows before his first starring role in the 1990 film The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter (1990). ...
7. Zbigniew Cybulski
Actor | Popiól i diament
Won international fame with the leading role of Maciek Chelmicki in Andrzej Wajda's Ashes and Diamonds (1958). He created a character which was imitated not only in Poland; often compared with James Dean.
Graduated from the Higher State School of Acting in Cracow; also studied journalism. From 1953 ...
8. James Dean
Actor | East of Eden
James Byron Dean was born February 8, 1931 in Marion, Indiana, to Mildred Marie (Wilson) and Winton A. Dean, a farmer turned dental technician. His mother died when Dean was nine, and he was subsequently raised on a farm by his aunt and uncle in Fairmount, Indiana. After grade school, he moved to ...
9. Dorothy Dell
Actress | Little Miss Marker
Dorothy Dell was born to Elbert and Lillan Goff in Hattiesburg, Mississippi on January 30, 1915. She won the most beautiful baby in Hattiesburg beauty contest when she was thirteen months old. She lived in New Orleans from the age of ten. She attended the Sophie Wright High School for girls. ...
10. Guillaume Depardieu
Actor | Ne touchez pas la hache
Guillaume Depardieu was born on April 7, 1971 in Paris, France. He was an actor, known for The Duchess of Langeais (2007), Tous les matins du monde (1991) and Pola X (1999). He was married to Elise Ventre. He died on October 13, 2008 in Garches, Hauts-de-Seine, France.
11. Patrick Dewaere
Actor | Un mauvais fils
Popular but troubled renegade French actor Patrick Dewaere was christened Jean-Marie Patrick Bourdeaux on January 26, 1947, at Saint-Brieuc in Britanny in the north-west region of France. The third of six children born to actress Mado Maurin (1915-2011), his mother made acting a family affair. All ...
12. Bobby Driscoll
Actor | Peter Pan
Bobby Driscoll was a natural-born actor. Discovered by chance at the age of five-and-a-half in a barber shop in Altadena, CA. and then convincing in anything he ever undertook on the movie screen and on television throughout his career spanning 17 years (1943-1960). Includes such notable movie ...
13. Dominique Dunne
Actress | Poltergeist
Dominique Dunne was born in Santa Monica, California, the daughter of Ellen Beatriz Griffin Dunne and Dominick Dunne, a producer, actor, and writer. Actor Griffin Dunne is her brother. After her parents' divorce, she moved first to New York, and then to Beverly Hills. Upon graduation from high ...
14. Peg Entwistle
Actress | Thirteen Women
Peg Entwistle was born on February 5, 1908 in Port Talbot, Wales at the home of her maternal grandparents, John and Caroline Stevenson because Caroline was to act as midwife. Peg's mother was Emily Stevenson Entwistle and her father was actor/ stage manager Robert Symes Entwistle (1872-1922). They ...
15. Chris Farley
Actor | Tommy Boy
Christopher Crosby Farley was born on February 15, 1964, in Madison, Wisconsin, to Mary Anne (Crosby) and Thomas Farley, who owned an oil company. Among his siblings are actors Kevin P. Farley and John Farley. He was of Irish heritage. Farley studied theatre and communications on Marquette ...
16. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Writer | Faustrecht der Freiheit
Above all, Rainer Werner Fassbinder was a rebel whose life and art was marked by gross contradiction. Openly homosexual, he married twice; one of his wives acted in his films and the other served as his editor. Accused variously by detractors of being anticommunist, male chauvinist, antiSemitic and...
17. Mark Frechette
Actor | Zabriskie Point
Mark Frechette, a high school dropout of Quebecois ancestry from Fairfield, Connecticut, made his acting debut in Michelangelo Antonioni's controversial Zabriskie Point (1970). As Antonioni toured the U.S., experiencing cultural clash firsthand and shooting background footage, a talent scout saw ...
18. Lucy Gordon
Actress | Spider-Man 3
Lucy Gordon was born on May 22, 1980 in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Spider-Man 3 (2007), The Four Feathers (2002) and Serendipity (2001). She died on May 20, 2009 in Paris, France.
19. Corey Haim
Actor | The Lost Boys
Corey Haim was born in Toronto, Ontario, to Judy Haim, an Israeli-born data processor, and Bernie Haim, a clothing sales representative. He has a sister, Carol, and a half-brother, Daniel. His family is Jewish. He was raised mostly in Willowdale.
Corey appeared in 26 episodes of the early 1980s ...
20. Jean Harlow
Actress | China Seas
Harlean Carpenter, who later became Jean Harlow, was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on March 3, 1911. She was the daughter of a successful dentist and his wife. In 1927, at the age of 16, she ran away from home to marry a young businessman named Charles McGrew, who was 23. The couple pulled up ...
21. Jon-Erik Hexum
Actor | Voyagers!
In the early 1980s, this ruggedly handsome young American actor of Norwegian parentage was seen as the "next big thing", and then suddenly he was dead from an accident via a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The son of Thorleif Hexum (born in Norway) and Gretha Paulsen (born in Minnesota), Jon-Erik ...
22. Sunny Johnson
Actress | Flashdance
Sunny Johnson was born on September 21, 1953 in San Bernardino County, California, USA. She was an actress, known for Flashdance (1983), The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia (1981) and Where the Buffalo Roam (1980). She died on June 19, 1984 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
23. Anissa Jones
Actress | To Rome with Love
Anissa Jones was an American child actress of Lebanese descent. She is primarily remembered for the role of the orphan girl Buffy Davis in the hit sitcom "Family Affair" (1966-1971). The series lasted for 5 seasons and 138 episodes. Jones' career rapidly declined following the end of the sitcom. ...
24. Andy Kaufman
Actor | Taxi
Referred to by some as a dadaistic comedian, Andy Kaufman took comedy and performance art to the edges of irrationality and blurred the dividing line between reality and imagination. Born in New York City on January 17, 1949, the first son of Stanley and Janice Kaufman, Andy grew up on New York in ...
25. Heath Ledger
Actor | Brokeback Mountain
When hunky, twenty-year-old heart-throb Heath Ledger first came to the attention of the public in 1999, it was all too easy to tag him as a "pretty boy" and an actor of little depth. He spent several years trying desperately to sway this image, but this was a double-edged sword. His work comprised ...
26. Brandon Lee
Actor | The Crow
Born on February 1, 1965 to Bruce Lee (Martial Arts idol) and Linda Lee Cadwell. Brother to Shannon Lee. In 1970-71, they moved to Hong Kong, where Brandon lived until age eight, becoming fluent in Cantonese. By the time he was able to walk, he was already involved in learning about martial arts ...
27. Bruce Lee
Actor | Jing wu men
Bruce Lee remains the greatest icon of martial arts cinema and a key figure of modern popular media. Had it not been for Bruce Lee and his movies in the early 1970s, it's arguable whether or not the martial arts film genre would have ever penetrated and influenced mainstream North American and ...
28. Carole Lombard
Actress | My Man Godfrey
Carole Lombard was born Jane Alice Peters in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on October 6, 1908. Her parents divorced in 1916 and her mother took the family on a trip out West. While there they decided to settle down in the Los Angeles area. After being spotted playing baseball in the street with the ...
29. Jayne Mansfield
Actress | The Girl Can't Help It
One of the leading sex symbols of the 1950s and 1960s, film actress Jayne Mansfield was born Vera Jayne Palmer on April 19, 1933 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, the only child of Vera J. (nee Palmer; later Peers) and Herbert W. Palmer. Her parents were well-to-do, with her father a successful attorney ...
30. Martha Mansfield
Actress | Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Stunning silent screen actress Martha Mansfield was a musical comedy star in New York City by the time she entered films in 1916 for Max Linder. Before long she advanced to second leads in features, including the role of Millicent Carew in the John Barrymore starrer Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920), ...
31. Sal Mineo
Actor | Exodus
Salvatore (Sal) Mineo Jr. was born to Josephine and Sal Sr. (a casket maker), who emigrated to the U.S. from Sicily. His siblings were Michael, Victor and Sarina. Sal was thrown out of parochial school and, by age eight, was a member of a street gang in a tough Bronx neighborhood. His mother ...
32. Marilyn Monroe
Actress | Some Like It Hot
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, comedienne, singer, and model. Monroe is of English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh descent. She became one of the world's most enduring iconic figures and is remembered both for her winsome embodiment of the Hollywood sex symbol and her tragic personal and ...
33. Cory Monteith
Actor | Glee
Cory Monteith was born on May 11, 1982 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada as Cory Allan Michael Monteith. He was an actor, known for playing the singing jock Finn on the American TV show Glee (2009) and films such as Monte Carlo (2011), and Final Destination 3 (2006). He died on July 13, 2013 in Vancouver...
34. Ashleigh Aston Moore
Actress | Now and Then
Ashleigh Aston Moore was born as Ashley MacMillan (first stage name Ashley Rogers) on September 30, 1981. Her parents were Maryanna Aston Moore, an interior designer, and Dennis MacMillan, who wasn't around for much of her life. She grew up in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada. Her first acting ...
35. Brittany Murphy
Actress | Clueless
Brittany Murphy was born Brittany Anne Bertolotti on November 10, 1977 in Atlanta, Georgia, to Sharon Kathleen Murphy and Angelo Joseph Bertolotti. Her father's ancestry is Italian, and her mother is of Irish and Slovak descent. Her father moved the family back to Edison, New Jersey as a native New...
36. Heather O'Rourke
Actress | Poltergeist
Heather Michele O'Rourke was born on December 27, 1975 in Santee, San Diego, California, to Kathleen, a seamstress, and Michael O'Rourke, a construction worker. She had German, Danish, English, and Irish ancestry.
Heather entered American cinematic pop-culture before first grade. She was sitting ...
37. Yong-ha Park
Actor | Namja-I-Yaki
Yong-ha Park was born on August 12, 1977 in Seoul, South Korea. He was an actor, known for The Slingshot (2009), All In (2003) and On Air (2008). He died on June 30, 2010 in Seoul, South Korea.
38. Chris Penn
Actor | Reservoir Dogs
Christopher Shannon Penn was born on October 10, 1965 in Los Angeles, California, the third son of actress Eileen Ryan (née Annucci) and director, actor, and writer Leo Penn. His siblings are musician Michael Penn and actor Sean Penn. His father was from a Lithuanian Jewish/Russian Jewish family, ...
39. Tyron Perez
Actor | Kung mahawi man ang ulap
Tyron Perez was born on September 14, 1985 in Bulacan, Philippines. He was an actor, known for Kung mahawi man ang ulap (2007), Kilig... Pintig... Yanig... (2004) and Pipo (2009). He died on December 29, 2011 in Barangay Ugong, Valenzuela City, Philippines.
40. Susan Peters
Actress | Random Harvest
War-era MGM had a lovely, luminous star in the making with Susan Peters. She possessed a creative talent and innate sensitivity that would surely have reigned as a leading Hollywood player for years to come had not a tragic and cruel twist of fate taken everything away from her.
She was born Suzanne...
41. River Phoenix
Actor | My Own Private Idaho
River Phoenix was born River Jude Bottom in Madras, Oregon. His mother, Arlyn (Dunetz), a Bronx-born secretary, and his father, John Bottom, a carpenter, met in California in 1968. They worked as itinerant fruit pickers, and later joined the Children of God religious group (John was originally ...
42. Dana Plato
Actress | Diff'rent Strokes
Dana Michelle Plato was born in Maywood, California, on Saturday, November 7, 1964. Her first excursion into the film world occurred when she was 11 in the television film Beyond the Bermuda Triangle (1975). Dana never made an impact on the TV screen until she landed the role of Kimberly Drummond ...
43. Elvis Presley
Soundtrack | Girls! Girls! Girls!
Elvis Aaron Presley was born on January 8, 1935 in East Tupelo, Mississippi, to Gladys Presley (née Gladys Love Smith) and Vernon Presley (Vernon Elvis Presley). He had a twin brother who was stillborn. In 1948, Elvis and his parents moved to Memphis, Tennessee where he attended Humes High School. ...
44. Freddie Prinze
Actor | Chico and the Man
Freddie Prinze was born Frederick Karl Pruetzel in New York City, New York, to a Puerto Rican mother, Aurea Elena Ruiz, and a German immigrant father, Edward Karl Pruetzel. Freddie grew up in the Washington Heights section of New York City. As a chubby child, he was often bullied, but was quite ...
45. Julien Rassam
Director | Jour de colère
Julien Rassam was born on June 14, 1968 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France. He was an actor and director, known for Jour de colère (1992), Queen Margot (1994) and The Accompanist (1992). He died on February 3, 2002 in Paris, France.
46. Brad Renfro
Actor | The Client
Brad Renfro was born on July 25, 1982 in Knoxville, Tennessee, to Angela Denise McCrory and Mark Renfro, a factory worker. He was discovered at age 10 by director Joel Schumacher and was cast in the motion picture The Client (1994), which starred Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones. Although this ...
47. Sabu
Actor | The Thief of Bagdad
Sabu Dastagir (or Selar Shaik Sabu, depending on your resource) was born on January 27, 1924, in the little town of Mysore, India, which is nestled in the jungles of Karapur. The son of an elephant driver (mahout) in service for the Maharajah of his town, the young stable boy learned responsibility...
48. Jean Seberg
Actress | À bout de souffle
Jean Dorothy Seberg was born in Marshalltown, Iowa, to substitute teacher Dorothy Arline (Benson) and pharmacist Edward Waldemar Seberg. Her father was of Swedish descent and her mother was of English and German ancestry.
One month before her 18th birthday, Jean landed the title role in Otto ...
49. Tupac Shakur
Actor | Juice
Born in New York City, Tupac grew up primarily in Harlem. In 1984, his family moved to Baltimore, Maryland where he became good friends with Jada Pinkett Smith. His family moved again in 1988 to Oakland, California. His first breakthrough in music came in 1991 as a member of the group Digital ...
50. Soundarya
Actress | Aapthamitra
K. S. Sowmya, better known by her screen name Soundarya, was a yesteryear superstar. She worked in more than 100 films over 12 years in Telugu, Kannada, Tamil, Hindi, and Malayalam cinema.
She worked with top directors and the best actors in the industry and is considered one of the most successful ...
51. Sage Stallone
Actor | Rocky V
Sage Stallone was an American actor and film director from Los Angeles. His best known role was Robert Balboa, Jr. (Rocky Balboa's son) in the sports drama film "Rocky V" (1990).
Stallone was the eldest son of actor Sylvester Stallone (1946-) and his first wife Sasha Czack. His parents married in ...
52. Inger Stevens
Actress | Hang 'Em High
This enigmatic Stockholm-born beauty had everything going for her, including a rapidly rising film and TV career. Yet on April 30, 1970, at only 35, Inger Stevens would become another tragic Hollywood statistic -- added proof that fame and fortune do not always lead to happiness. Over time, a ...
53. Gerry Sundquist
Actor | The Siege of Golden Hill
Actor Gerry Sundquist was born Gerald Christopher Sundquist in Manchester. He was known professionally as Gerry Sundquist, but always affectionately known as Ged to his friends.
He grew up in Chorlton with his older brother and younger sister. He developed an interest in acting at primary school and...
54. Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer
Actor | Second Childhood
Carl Switzer was an American child actor, singer, dog breeder, and hunting guide from Paris, Illinois. He became famous for portraying Alfalfa in the film series "Our Gang" during the 1930s. His character was one of the most memorable characters ever portrayed in the series. Later in his career, ...
55. Sharon Tate
Actress | Valley of the Dolls
Sharon's early life was one of constant moving as her father served in the military. When she lived in Italy, she was voted "Homecoming Queen" of her high school. After being an extra in a few Italian films, Sharon headed to Hollywood where she would again start as an extra. Her first big break ...
56. Thuy Trang
Actress | Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
Thuy Trang was born on December 14th of 1973 in Saigon, Vietnam. After the fall of Saigon in 1975 to Communist forces, her father who had fought in the Vietnam War, traveled to the United States to seek political asylum. However, his entire family, unable to follow, were left behind.
In 1979, Thuy ...
57. Rudolph Valentino
Actor | The Eagle
Hollywood's original Latin Lover, a term that was invented for Rudolph Valentino by Hollywood moguls. Alla Nazimova's friend Natacha Rambova (nee Winifred Hudnut) became romantically involved with Rudy and they lived together in her bungalow from 1921 (during the filming of Camille) until they ...
58. Paul Walker
Actor | The Fast and the Furious
Paul William Walker IV was born in Glendale, California. He grew up together with his brothers, Caleb and Cody, and sisters, Ashlie and Amie. Their parents, Paul William Walker III, a sewer contractor, and Cheryl (Crabtree) Walker, a model, separated around September 2004. His grandfather, William ...
59. Andy Whitfield
Actor | Spartacus: Blood and Sand
Andy Whitfield was born on October 17, 1971 in Amlwch, Anglesey, Wales, UK. He was an actor, known for Spartacus (2010), Gabriel (2007) and Spartacus: Gods of the Arena (2011). He was married to Vashti Whitfield. He died on September 11, 2011 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
60. Lee Thompson Young
Actor | Friday Night Lights
Lee Thompson Young was born as the son of Velma Love and Tommy Scott Young. When he was in second grade his parents split up and he went to live with his mother. At age ten, he portrayed Dr. Martin Luther King in a play called "A Night of Stars and Dreams". That's when Lee decided he wanted to be ...
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