Death Actor/Actress in 2010
by elias_michelg | created - 19 May 2011 | updated - 19 May 2011 | Public1. Jean Simmons
Actress | Guys and Dolls
Demure British beauty Jean Simmons was born January 31, 1929, in Crouch End, London. As a 14-year-old dance student, she was plucked from her school to play Margaret Lockwood's precocious sister in Give Us the Moon (1944). She had a small part as a harpist in the high-profile Caesar and Cleopatra (...
2. Pernell Roberts
Actor | Bonanza
Best recalled as the eldest son and first member of the "Bonanza" Cartwright clan to permanently leave the Ponderosa in the hopes of greener acting pastures, dark, deep-voiced and durably handsome Pernell Roberts' native roots lay in Georgia. Born Pernell Elvin Roberts, Jr. on May 18, 1928, in ...
3. Zelda Rubinstein
Actress | Poltergeist
A marvelously quirky and distinctive 4' 3" character actress, with a larger-than-life presence on film and TV, Zelda Rubinstein gave up a long and stable career in the medical field as a lab technician in order to strive for something more self-fulfilling as middle age settled in. At the age of 45,...
4. Justin Mentell
Actor | G-Force
Justin Mentell was born on December 16, 1982 in Austin, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for G-Force (2009), Boston Legal (2004) and 5-25-77 (2008). He died on February 1, 2010 in Blanchardville, Wisconsin, USA.
5. Kathryn Grayson
Actress | Kiss Me Kate
Kathryn Grayson was born Zelma Kathryn Elisabeth Hedrick in Winston-Salem, NC, on February 9, 1922. This pretty, petite brunette with a heart-shaped face was discovered by MGM talent scouts while singing on the radio. The studio quickly signed her to a contract, and she was given acting lessons ...
6. Lionel Jeffries
Actor | Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
With his bald head, firm jawline and bristling moustache, Lionel Jeffries played a nice line of English eccentrics. This belied his RADA training. Following military service in WWII, he played his major roles - everything from Grandpa Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) to the Marquis of ...
7. 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 ...
8. Peter Graves
Actor | Stalag 17
Peter Graves was born Peter Duesler Aurness on March 18, 1926 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. While growing up in Minnesota, he excelled at sports and music (as a saxophonist), and by age 16, he was a radio announcer at WMIN in Minneapolis. After two years in the United States Army Air Force, he studied...
9. Fess Parker
Actor | The Great Locomotive Chase
A former college athlete at the University of Texas, Fess studied drama in the early fifties and debuted in Springfield Rifle (1952). He made only a handful of movies until he was signed by Walt Disney to star in the "Davy Crockett" series. When Walt was looking for an actor to play the part of ...
10. Robert Culp
Actor | I Spy
Tall, slim and exceedingly good-looking American leading man Robert Culp, a former cartoonist in his teen years, appeared off-Broadway in the 1950s before settling into polished, clean-cut film leads and "other man" supports a decade later. Hitting the popular TV boards in the hip, racially ...
11. John Forsythe
Actor | The Trouble with Harry
John Forysthe was born Jacob Lincoln Freund in Penns Grove, New Jersey, the son of Blanche Materson (Blohm) and Samuel Jeremiah Freund, a Wall Street businessman. He chose to pursue acting over the objections of his father. He did some work in radio soaps and on Broadway before signing a movie ...
12. Christopher Cazenove
Actor | A Knight's Tale
Christopher Cazenove was born on December 17, 1943 in Winchester, Hampshire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for A Knight's Tale (2001), Three Men and a Little Lady (1990) and Dynasty (1981). He was married to Angharad Rees. He died on April 7, 2010 in Lambeth, London, England, UK.
13. Meinhardt Raabe
Self | Little People
Raabe was born in Watertown, Wisconsin, in 1915. In 1934, he was a member of the Midget City cast at the Chicago World's Fair. The money from his appearances at the fair and other places was how he paid for his bachelor's in accounting and master's in business administration.
His wife, Marie ...
14. Dixie Carter
Actress | Designing Women
Dixie is the middle of three children. Her father owned several small retail stores. Early on, she dreamed of being an opera singer, but a botched tonsillectomy at age 7 spoiled any chances for that dream. Still, she sang regularly and studied classical music. She can play the piano, trumpet, and ...
15. Shay Duffin
Actor | Memoirs of an Invisible Man
Shay Duffin was born on February 26, 1931 in Dublin, Ireland. He was an actor and writer, known for Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992), Leprechaun (1992) and Seabiscuit (2003). He died on April 23, 2010 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
16. Dorothy Provine
Actress | The Great Race
Flashy, leggy, bouffant blonde Dorothy Provine was a solid screen representation of the Kennedyesque era when life seemed so full of fun, so innocent and so optimistic. This sparkling beauty also gave TV audiences a double dose blast to the past via her popular co-starring roles on late 50s/early ...
17. Lynn Redgrave
Actress | Gods and Monsters
Actress of both the English and American stage and screen, Lynn Redgrave was born in Marylebone, London, England, into one of the world's most famous acting dynasties. As the daughter of Rachel Kempson and Sir Michael Redgrave, sister of Vanessa Redgrave and Corin Redgrave, and granddaughter of Roy...
18. Lena Horne
Soundtrack | Cabin in the Sky
Lena Calhoun Horne was born June 30, 1917, in Brooklyn, New York. In her biography she stated that, on the day she was born, her father was in the midst of a card game trying to get money to pay the hospital costs. Her parents divorced while she was still a toddler. Her mother left later in order ...
19. Art Linkletter
Actor | Champagne for Caesar
Art Linkletter was born on July 17, 1912 in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada. He was an actor and producer, known for Champagne for Caesar (1950), Philippine Adventure (1964) and The Jack Benny Program (1950). He was married to Lois Marguerite Foerster. He died on May 26, 2010 in Bel-Air, California...
20. Gary Coleman
Actor | Diff'rent Strokes
Without a doubt Gary Coleman was THE child TV star of the late 1970s and early 1980s. A refreshingly confident little tyke with sparkling dark, saucer-like eyes and an ingratiating, take-on-anyone burst of personality, the boy charmed the pants right off of TV viewers the minute he was glimpsed in ...
21. Dennis Hopper
Actor | Easy Rider
Multi-talented and unconventional actor/director regarded by many as one of the true "enfant terribles" of Hollywood who led an amazing cinematic career for more than five decades, Dennis Hopper was born on May 17, 1936, in Dodge City, Kansas. The young Hopper expressed interest in acting from a ...
22. Rue McClanahan
Actress | The Golden Girls
A New York stage actress in the 1950s, McClanahan was plucked from the stage by Norman Lear for roles on All in the Family (1971) and later Maude (1972). For two years (1982 - 1984), she played "Aunt Fran" on Mama's Family (1983) until her character was killed off and she joined the cast of The ...
23. Tracy Wright
Actress | Trigger
Tracy Wright was born on December 7, 1959 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She was an actress, known for Trigger (2010), Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005) and Blindness (2008). She was married to Don McKellar. She died on June 22, 2010 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
24. Vonetta McGee
Actress | Repo Man
Born Lawrence Vonetta McGee, she got her break in Melinda (1972) and Hammer (1972) and hit paydirt as the love interest of the vampire in Blacula (1972), then starred with her then-boyfriend Max Julien in Thomasine & Bushrod (1974). In 1978 she starred opposite Bernie Casey and Ron O'Neal in ...
25. Robert Spillane
Actor | The Thomas Crown Affair
Robert Spillane was born on September 21, 1964 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The Thomas Crown Affair (1999), EZ Streets (1996) and Law & Order (1990). He died on July 10, 2010 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.
26. James Gammon
Actor | Major League
Rugged-looking James Gammon first broke into the entertainment industry not as an actor but as a TV cameraman. From there, his weatherbeaten features, somewhat menacing attitude and a tough-as-nails voice--the kind that used to be described in detective novels as "whiskey-soaked"--reminiscent of '...
27. Maury Chaykin
Actor | My Cousin Vinny
The award-winning Canadian-American character actor Maury Chaykin was born on July 27, 1949 in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Professor Irving J. Chaykin and his wife Clarice. Irving Chaykin, an American citizen, taught accountancy at the City College of New York. The former Clarice Bloomfield, his...
28. Patricia Neal
Actress | The Day the Earth Stood Still
Patricia Neal, the Oscar and Tony Award-winning actress, was born Patsy Louise Neal in Packard, Kentucky, where her father managed a coal mine and her mother was the daughter of the town doctor. She grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she attended high school. She was first bit by the acting bug...
29. Harold Gould
Actor | Patch Adams
Harold Gould earned a Ph.D. in theater and taught speech and drama at Cornell University.
Pursuing off-Broadway work in the 1950s, he decided to practice what he preached and became a full-time professional actor in the 1960s.
He appeared in hundreds of TV programs during his distinguished performing...
30. Kevin McCarthy
Actor | Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Handsome, chisel-jawed character actor Kevin McCarthy appeared in nearly 100 movies in a career that spanned seven decades. He also had some starring roles, most notably the horror cult classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). He played the disillusioned son Biff Loman in the 1951 screen ...
31. Gloria Stuart
Actress | Titanic
Gloria Stuart was born on a dining room table on 4th Street in Santa Monica, California on July 4, 1910. Her early roles as a performing artist were in plays she produced in her home as a young girl. She was the star of her senior class play at Santa Monica High School in 1927. Attending the ...
32. Tony Curtis
Actor | Some Like It Hot
Tony Curtis was born Bernard Schwartz, the eldest of three children of Helen (Klein) and Emanuel Schwartz, Jewish immigrants from Hungary. Curtis himself admits that while he had almost no formal education, he was a student of the "school of hard knocks" and learned from a young age that the only ...
33. Norman Wisdom
Actor | A Stitch in Time
Sir Norman Wisdom has become the great British clown in the mold of Sir Charles Chaplin with his little man in the ill fitting suit and cloth cap. His character is an everyman, much put upon but struggling through to a (usually) happy ending. He was brought up in an orphanage after his mother died ...
34. Simon MacCorkindale
Actor | Jaws 3-D
Born in Ely, Cambridgeshire, England, the light-haired, aristocratically handsome Simon MacCorkindale's first career choice was to follow in his Air Force pilot father Peter's bootsteps by joining the Air Training Corps., but his deteriorating eyesight forced him to choose an alternative vocation. ...
35. Barbara Billingsley
Actress | Airplane!
Born Barbara Lillian Combes, she attended Los Angeles Junior College in the mid-1930s and then moved to New York City, where she worked as a model. In 1945, she received a contract from MGM, and she appeared in several films during the late 1940s and 1950s, sometimes without screen credit. In the ...
36. Tom Bosley
Actor | Happy Days
Tom Bosley was born on October 1, 1927 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for Happy Days (1974), The Back-up Plan (2010) and Yours, Mine and Ours (1968). He was married to Patricia Carr and Jean Eliot. He died on October 19, 2010 in Rancho Mirage, California, USA.
37. Lisa Blount
Actress | An Officer and a Gentleman
Lisa Blount was an actress who appeared in numerous films and television shows, most notably as Lynette Pomeroy in An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. Along with her husband, actor Ray McKinnon, she received an Academy Award for the 2002 short ...
38. James MacArthur
Actor | Hang 'Em High
In a career spanning more than four decades, James MacArthur developed a body of work which is wonderfully dynamic in both scope and range. Portraying everything from crazed killer to stalwart defender of law and order, frustrated teenager to cynical senior supervisor, he has appeared in numerous ...
39. Jill Clayburgh
Actress | Bridesmaids
It came as no surprise to film aficionados when, in 1999, Entertainment Weekly named Jill Clayburgh on its list of Hollywood's 25 Greatest Actresses. For decades, she delivered stellar performances in a wide variety of roles.
Jill Clayburgh was born in 1944 in New York City, into a wealthy family, ...
40. Ingrid Pitt
Actress | Where Eagles Dare
Best known as Hammer Films' most seductive female vampire of the early 1970s, the Polish-born Pitt possessed dark, alluring features and a sexy figure that made her just right for Gothic horror! Ingrid Pitt (born Ingoushka Petrov) survived World War II and became a well-known actress on the East ...
41. Leslie Nielsen
Actor | Airplane!
Leslie William Nielsen was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, and raised in Tulita (formerly Fort Norman), Northwest Territories. His mother, Mabel Elizabeth (Davies), was Welsh. His father, Ingvard Eversen Nielsen, was a Danish-born Mountie and a strict disciplinarian. Leslie studied at the Academy of ...
42. Ted Sorel
Actor | From Beyond
Ted Sorel was born on November 14, 1936 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was an actor, known for From Beyond (1986), Network (1976) and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993). He was married to Jacqueline Coslow. He died on November 30, 2010 in Englewood, New Jersey, USA.
43. Blake Edwards
Writer | The Pink Panther Strikes Again
Blake Edwards' stepfather's father J. Gordon Edwards was a silent screen director, and his stepfather Jack McEdward was a stage director and movie production manager. Blake acted in a number films, beginning with Ten Gentlemen from West Point (1942) and wrote a number of others, beginning with ...
44. Steve Landesberg
Actor | Barney Miller
Steve Landesberg was born on November 23, 1936 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Barney Miller (1975), Wild Hogs (2007) and Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008). He was married to Nancy Ross. He died on December 20, 2010 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
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