2000-2009 RIP
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- Stocky, general purpose actor, a prolific face on the small screen during the 1960s and 1970s. Batanides got into acting after performing stand-up routines in front of fellow GI's in Europe during World War II. His training in dramatic art at the Actors Lab in Los Angeles was followed by extensive stage experience. He was more recently noted as "Mr. Kirkland" in four instalments of the popular "Police Academy" franchise but is remembered by older viewers chiefly as the ill-fated U.S.S. Enterprise geologist Lieutenant D'Amato who died rather badly (cellular disruption) in the Star Trek (1966) episode, That Which Survives (1969). Other notable appearances include one of dictator Clemente's (Peter Falk) henchmen in The Twilight Zone (1959) episode, The Mirror (1961); and the Mongol leader "Batu" in The Time Tunnel (1966) episode, Attack of the Barbarians (1967). Batanides regularly played heavies in shows like I Spy (1965) and Mission: Impossible (1966), or spoofed them (for instance, as a KAOS agent in Get Smart (1965)). He retired from acting in 1989.
- Director
- Actor
- Producer
Tall, dignified-looking Newland began in show business as a song-and-dance man with a vaudeville troupe ('The Vikings'), whose trade-mark was wearing gold capes. He acted in stock with the Stuart Walker Company, then found work on the New York stage in tandem with Milton Berle at the Roxy, Capitol and Loew's State Theatres. He also acted in radio and resumed touring nationally on the vaudeville circuit, as well as performing on the legitimate stage in such respected plays as "The Petrified Forest". After wartime service in the Army Air Corps, Newland embarked on a short film career under contract to Warner Brothers, which -- by his own account -- was an 'immediate failure'.
He instead turned his hand to directing early television and became best known for his paranormal anthology series One Step Beyond (1959), which he also hosted in his distinctively mellifluous voice and deadpan fashion. This was a good (though rather less well-known) contemporary of The Twilight Zone (1959). It was shot on the MGM lot with full access to the studio's wardrobe department and with a respectable budget of $30,000 to $50,000 per episode. In addition to high production values, the series consistently boasted good actors, including a young Warren Beatty, William Shatner and Suzanne Pleshette. An attempt to resurrect the franchise (The Next Step Beyond (1978)) nearly twenty years later with the same production team failed to re-ignite public interest.
Though he considered his work on 'One Step Beyond' as the highlight of his career, Newland continued to be in demand for many more years as a busy television director in a variety of other genres: from soap opera (Peyton Place (1964)), to espionage (The Man Who Never Was (1966)); from westerns (Daniel Boone (1964)) to cop shows (Police Woman (1974)). Until the mid-70's, his sonorous voice also continued to resound on radio's CBS Mystery Theater.- Of Irish descent, Helena Carter pursued a master's degree in English Literature at Columbia University with which she hoped to teach, but due to her striking beauty was sidetracked into modeling, signing with the Conover agency. Renowned photographer Dick Isaacs shot some magazine covers of her that drew the notice of film studios, and soon producer Leonard Goldstein at Universal Pictures offered her a contract. She made only thirteen films before leaving show business, her best-known the cult sci-fi classic Invaders from Mars (1953).
- Dan Kemp was born on 29 November 1927 in San Diego, California, USA. He was an actor, known for I Spy (1965), The High Chaparral (1967) and Run, Angel, Run! (1969). He was married to Rosalie Anne Buck. He died on 11 January 2000 in Nevada City, California, USA.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
As an American character actress, Fran Ryan was a familiar face on stage, screen and television from her theatrical stage debut in the 1950s and continuing for nearly three decades. Ryan's similarity to actress Marjorie Main was soon noticed in the late 1960s, and she frequently played tough, mean-lipped, earthy and gruff-but-lovable female characters.
One of Ryan's first major television roles was playing Aggie Thompson, the housekeeper on The Doris Day Show (1968) and quickly found her place as a last-minute replacement on several television shows. She replaced the late Barbara Pepper in playing Doris Ziffel on the final season of Green Acres (1965). She also successfully succeeded Amanda Blake to play Miss Hannah on the final season of Gunsmoke (1955). Ryan's best-known TV credits include General Hospital (1963) and No Soap, Radio (1982).
Ryan also had supporting roles in major motion pictures including Big Wednesday (1978), The Long Riders (1980), Stripes (1981), Savannah Smiles (1982), Private School (1983), Eyes of Fire (1983) and Pale Rider (1985). Although she was never far from television, she returned to play Hannah the Barbarian in the short lived animated series Little Dracula (1991).
Fran Ryan passed away at her home in Burbank, California on January 15, 2000 of natural causes.- Actor
- Stunts
- Producer
Chuck Courtney was born on 23 July 1930 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor and producer, known for Billy the Kid Versus Dracula (1966), The Rookie (1990) and Pet Sematary (1989). He was married to Geraldine Courtney. He died on 19 January 2000 in North Hollywood, California, USA.- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Hedy Lamarr, the woman many critics and fans alike regard as the most beautiful ever to appear in films, was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna, Austria. She was the daughter of Gertrud (Lichtwitz), from Budapest, and Emil Kiesler, a banker from Lemberg (now known as Lviv). Her parents were both from Jewish families. Hedwig had a calm childhood, but it was cinema that fascinated her. By the time she was a teenager, she decided to drop out of school and seek fame as an actress, and was a student of theater director Max Reinhardt in Berlin. Her first role was a bit part in the German film Geld auf der Straße (1930) (aka "Money on the Street") in 1930. She was attractive and talented enough to be in three more German productions in 1931, but it would be her fifth film that catapulted her to worldwide fame. In 1932 she appeared in a Czech film called Ekstase (US title: "Ecstasy") and had made the gutsy move to appear nude. It's the story of a young girl who is married to a gentleman much older than she, but she winds up falling in love with a young soldier. The film's nude scenes created a sensation all over the world. The scenes, very tame by today's standards, caused the film to be banned by the U.S. government at the time.
Hedy soon married Fritz Mandl, a munitions manufacturer and a prominent Austrofascist. He attempted to buy up all the prints of "Ecstasy" he could lay his hands on (Italy's dictator, Benito Mussolini, had a copy but refused to sell it to Mandl), but to no avail (there are prints floating around the world today). The notoriety of the film brought Hollywood to her door. She was brought to the attention of MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer, who signed her to a contract (a notorious prude when it came to his studio's films, Mayer signed her against his better judgment, but the money he knew her notoriety would bring in to the studio overrode any moral concerns he may have had). However, he insisted she change her name and make good, wholesome films.
Hedy starred in a series of exotic adventure epics. She made her American film debut as Gaby in Algiers (1938). This was followed a year later by Lady of the Tropics (1939). In 1942, she played the plum role of Tondelayo in the classic White Cargo (1942). After World War II, her career began to decline, and MGM decided it would be in the interest of all concerned if her contract were not renewed. Unfortunately for Hedy, she turned down the leads in both Gaslight (1940) and Casablanca (1942), both of which would have cemented her standing in the minds of the American public. In 1949, she starred as Delilah opposite Victor Mature's Samson in Cecil B. DeMille's epic Samson and Delilah (1949). This proved to be Paramount Pictures' then most profitable movie to date, bringing in $12 million in rental from theaters. The film's success led to more parts, but it was not enough to ease her financial crunch. She made only six more films between 1949 and 1957, the last being The Female Animal (1958).
Hedy retired to Florida. She died there, in the city of Casselberry, on January 19, 2000.- After wartime naval service, Alan North began his show business career as a stage manager in New York. He first worked on Broadway in "Plain and Fancy", doubling up as understudy for the small part of Isaac Miller. The play had a successful run between 1955 and 1956 (461 performances) and this led to further acting work in diverse productions, ranging from musical comedy to straight dramatic parts, both on and off Broadway. Alan last appeared as a quaint curmudgeonly character in "Lake Hollywood" at the Signature Theater in 1999.
Early in his career, Alan, an avid baseball fan, hosted a television program for the Baltimore Orioles as well as doing a regular sports broadcast at WRC-TV in Washington. However, he did not become a regular feature on the screen until the early 1970's, when he appeared in two big budget films, Plaza Suite (1971) and Serpico (1973). After that, Alan became a more familiar presence on the small screen, invariably portraying cops, priests and academics. He is most fondly remembered as the perpetually vague Chief Ed Hocken in the hilarious, sadly short-lived, spoof Police Squad! (1982), starring Leslie Nielsen. Alan was given some very funny lines to deliver and he did so in a perfect dead-pan manner. He was not afforded the chance to repeat his role for the 'Naked Gun' series (the studio insisted on a higher marquee value actor, casting Academy Award-winner George Kennedy instead).
Alan North died of cancer at the age of 79 in January 2000. - Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Ralph Manza was born on 1 December 1921 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was an actor and producer, known for Godzilla (1998), Get Shorty (1995) and Dave (1993). He was married to Catherine Antonette LaFata. He died on 31 January 2000 in Encinitas, California, USA.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
James Nelson Harrell, born in Waco, Texas to Margaret Teny and Jefferson Whitfield Harrell, Chair of the Baylor University Mathematics Department, graduated from Waco High School and Baylor University. He held a Master's Degree in Drama from Trinity University. He studied acting at the original Baylor Theater with Paul Baker in the 1930's and in 1940 was invited to join Michael Chekhov's Acting Studio in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Jim toured the East Coast with that company and was playing Twelfth Night when the attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II, and most plays closed. Jim served in the United States Army for four years in a tank company, in Headquarters Eighth Service Command, in Special Services, and in Occupied Japan. James Harrell, also known as "little Jimmy Harrell from Waco, Texas", appeared in over 75 film productions; feature films and television. James taught acting at the Dallas Theater Center and had leading roles in numerous productions, including 'Anse Bundren' in Journey to Jefferson, which toured Paris, Belgium and Germany. He also taught stage and film acting at Southwest Texas State University for 24 years, retiring in 1994 as an Associate Professor.- Will Disney was born on 6 October 1913 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The Crazies (1973). He died on 5 February 2000 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Todd Karns was born on 15 January 1921 in Hollywood, California, USA. He was an actor, known for It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Andy Hardy's Private Secretary (1941) and The Courtship of Andy Hardy (1942). He was married to Katherine Julia Flaten. He died on 5 February 2000 in Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexico.- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
James Albert Varney, Jr. was born in Lexington, Kentucky, to Nancy Louise (Howard) and James Albert Varney, Sr. He became interested in theater as a teenager, winning state titles in drama competitions while a student at Lafayette High School in Lexington, Kentucky. At age 15 he played Ebeneezer Scrooge in a local children's theater production of "A Christmas Carol", and by 17 was performing professionally in nightclubs and coffee houses. He chose Nashville rather than New York or Los Angeles as a place to pursue his acting career and, with advertising executive John R. Cherry III, turned "Ernest P. Worrell" into a cash cow, making commercials for clients ranging from soft drinks to food stores and, eventually, Disney. Even though Ernest's catchphrase "KnowhutImean?" became a national craze almost immediately, Jim worked in TV and film for more than a decade before his famous alter-ego hit the big screen in Ernest Goes to Camp (1987).- Actor
- Composer
- Music Department
Screamin' Jay Hawkins was best known for his song "I Put a Spell On You, " which he recorded on the Okeh label in 1956 and which helped win him cult status in the United States, Europe and Japan. He had originally planned the tune as a ballad, but after a night of heavy drinking he tried again--screaming, yelling and groaning--and never looked back. The snorting, some say "cannibalistic" delivery got "I Put A Spell On You" banned from radio stations across the country. Hawkins went on to use the same demented style again and again. An outrageous performer, he used bizarre stage props, often emerging out of coffins during shows. He would wield rubber snakes and fake tarantulas and wear a boar's tooth around his neck or a bone clipped to his nose. Jay Hawkins got his first break in 1951 as a pianist-valet to veteran jazz guitarist Tiny Grimes. His recording debut was 1952's "Why Did You Waste My Time, " backed by Grimes and his Rockin' Highlanders. In the 1960s, Ha!- Writer
- Producer
- Art Department
Charles Monroe Schulz (nicknamed "Sparky") was an American comic strip writer and artist from Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was primarily known for creating the long-running comic strip "Peanuts" (1950-2000), and serving as its sole artist for the strip's entire run. His comic strip was known for its "clean, minimalist drawings", its sarcastic humor, and the emotional honesty of its dialogue. By the time of Schulz's death in 2000, the comic strip had been published in 75 different countries, and had been translated into 21 languages. The comic strip has been adapted into 5 theatrical animated films, over 40 animated television specials, 6 television series, and 2 theatrical musicals. In addition, Schulz is credited with popularizing the format of the "four-panel gag strip". This format was eventually used by several comic strips of the post-World War II period.
In 1922, Schulz was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota,. The city is occupying both banks of the Mississippi River. Schulz was the only child of Carl Schulz and Dena Halverson. His ancestry was German and Norwegian. His favorite comic strip during his childhood was "Barney Google" (1919-) by Billy DeBeck (1890-1942). Schulz was nick-named "Sparky" by his family, named after the race horse Spark Plug (also nicknamed "Sparky") in his favorite comic strip. He kept the nickname throughout his life.
Schulz started drawing as a hobby during his childhood. His favorite subject for drawings was the family dog, Spike. In 1937, Schulz submitted a drawing about Spike's unusual eating habits to the newspaper panel "Ripley's Believe It or Not!". This drawing was the first work by Schulz to be published in his lifetime.
Schulz received his primary education at the Richards Gordon Elementary School, located in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He skipped two half-grades during his elementary school years. He subsequently was always the youngest student in his class while attending Central High School. The school was the oldest high school in the state of Minnesota, established in 1866. Schulz was reportedly a shy and timid adolescent boy.
In February 1943, Dena Halverson (Schultz's mother ) died due to cancer. Schulz was shocked, as he was particularly close to his mother. She had tried to keep her illness a secret, as she did not want her son to worry about her. Shortly after her death, Schulz was drafted for service in World War II. He served as a staff sergeant with the 20th Armored Division in Europe. , He was a squad leader on a .50 caliber machine gun team, but his team only experienced combat at the ending months of the war. At one point, Schulz realized that he had forgot to load his machine gun while noticing that a German soldier was approaching him. Fortunately for Schulz, the German soldier had no intention to fire at him, and voluntarily surrendered to the American unit.
Schulz returned to civilian life in Minnesota in late 1945. He was soon hired as a letterer by the comic magazine "Timeless Topix"'. In July 1946, Schulz was hired by the "Art Instruction Schools", a Minneapolis-based home study correspondence course. His job was to review and grade the work of the students. He continued doing so for several years.
Schulz created his first comic strip for "St. Paul Pioneer Press". It was the short-lived "Li'l Folks" (1947-1950). He introduced several ideas that he would later reuse in "Peanuts". The comic strip used the recurring name "Charlie Brown" for three different characters, featured a Snoopy-like dog called Rover, and introduced a well-dressed young boy who idolized Ludwig van Beethoven (like the "Peanuts" character Schroeder.) Schulz eventually quit working for this newspaper. His editors had repeatedly denied his requests for a pay rise, and had relegated the comic strip into the women's section of the newspaper (rather than publishing it alongside other comic strips). An attempted deal to syndicate the strip through the Newspaper Enterprise Association fell through.
In 1950, Schulz negotiated a deal for a new comic strip with the United Feature Syndicate. The Syndicate was interested in his ideas, but they rejected his proposed title of "Li'l Folks" for legal reasons. There was already a comic strip under the copyrighted title "Little Folks", and its writer Tack Knight had claimed exclusive rights. An executive came up with the idea to name the comic strip "Peanuts". The comic stream was named after the "peanut gallery", the audience of the television series "Howdy Doody" (1947-1960). Schulz agreed to the new name, though he grew to dislike it. He would prefer to name the strip after the name of one of its characters. But the name was kept.
The syndicated comic strip "Peanuts" was introduced on October 2, 1950, initially published by only 7 newspapers.: the "Chicago Tribune", the "Denver Post", the "Evening Chronicle", the "Globe-Times", the "Minneapolis Tribune," the "Seattle Times", and the "Washington Post". The first strip in the series introduced only three characters: the protagonist Charlie Brown and two female acquaintances, Shermy and Patty. The pet dog Snoopy was introduced on October 4, 1950., Most of the strips' regular characters were introduced in its first 25 years: Violet (in February 1951), Schroeder (in May 1951), Lucy (in March 1952), Linus (in September 1952), Pig-Pen (in July 1954), Sally (in August 1959), Frieda (in March 1961), Peppermint Patty (in August 1966), Franklin (in July 1968) Woodstock (introduced in March 1966; officially named in June 1970), Marcie (in July 1971), and Rerun (in March 1973).
Schulz started working on a Sunday version of "Peanuts" in January 1952. He created the religious-themed comic strip "Young Pillars" (1956-1965) for the magazine "Youth Magazine", a publication of the Church of God. Unusually for Scchulz's work, this strip featured adolescents instead of children.
Schulz and Jim Sasseville later co-created the sports-and-game-oriented comic strip "It's Only a Game" (1957-1959) in an art style similar to "Peanuts". The new strip was modestly successful, but Schulz found that in conflicted with his increasingly demanding schedule. He terminated the strip voluntarily.
In 1957, Schulz was hired as an illustrator for a volume of the book "Kids Say the Darndest Things" by Art Linkletter (1912-2010). He illustrated a second volume of the work in 1962. In 1964, Schulz illustrated a collection of letters, "Dear President Johnson" by Bill Adler. These were Schulz's only efforts as a book illustrator.
For most of the 1950s, Schulz and his first wife Joyce Halverson lived primarily in Minnesota and Colorado. He primarily worked from home, or from a rented office room. In 1958, Schulz and his family moved Sebastopol, California. There Schulz built his first artist's studio. That studio burned down in 1966. Schutz later relocated to Santa Rosa, California, where he build a second artist's studio in 1969. He continued working there for the rest of his life.
By the autumn of 1970, Schulz had started contemplating divorce. He had an extramarital affair with Tracey Claudius, a woman who was only 25-years-old and was 23 years younger than him. He eventually received his divorce in 1972, but by then his affair with Claudius had ended In 1973, Schutz married his second wife Jean Forsyth Clyde. She had a daughter from a previous wedding, whom Schulz had already met. Their marriage lasted for 27 years and ended with his death.
In 1981, Schulz underwent heart bypass surgery. His hospitalization was considered newsworthy, and President Ronald Reagan personally phoned him to wish for his recovery. During the 1980s, Schulz found his hands shaking while drawing. He was eventually diagnosed as suffering from "essential tremor", a neurological disorder involving involuntary rhythmic contractions and relaxations of muscle groups. He received medication for his condition, but he insisted on continuing to draw "Peanuts" without assistants. This resulted in changes in his drawing style, with increasingly shakier lines in the comic strip.
In May 1988, Schulz was in the news over his personal life, something unusual in his career. Two masked men had entered his home through an unlocked door and attempted to kidnap his wife Jean. They fled empty-handed when one of Schulz's daughters arrived for a visit. The police suspected that the criminals were interested in ransom money, but no arrests were made.
In November 1999, Schulz experienced several small strokes and a blocked aorta. While undergoing a medical examination, his doctors realized that he was suffering from a previously undiagnosed condition: colon cancer. He started treatment with chemotherapy, but this caused his vision to blur. He was unable to keep drawing, so he announced his retirement on December 14, 1999. United Features retained ownership of the comic strip "Peanuts", but Schulz did not want to be replace on the production of the strip. Based on his insistence, the strip was scheduled to end on February 13, 2000 (the publication date for the last available comic strip).
On February 12, 2000, Schulz died in his sleep at his home in Santa Rosa, California. He was 77-years-old, and his death was caused by colorectal cancer. His comic strip ended on February 13, as scheduled. On May 27, 2000, Schulz was honored with tributes in over 100 different comic strips. Cartoonists devoted the day to homages of Schulz's style or appearances by his famous characters.
Schulz is long gone, but his characters from "Peanuts" have remained popular. Several animated adaptations of the comic strip were created in the first decades of the 21st century, and reprints of his work were still available in various forms. Schulz has been cited as an influence by several younger cartoonists, such as Jim Davis and Matt Groening.- Actor
- Soundtrack
John Colicos was born on 10 December 1928 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was an actor, known for The Changeling (1980), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981) and Battlestar Galactica (1978). He was married to Mona McHenry. He died on 6 March 2000 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
The son of a surveyor, Charles Gray was born and raised in Queen's Park, Bournemouth. As a young actor, he received his vocal training from the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon and at the Old Vic, having long abandoned his first job as clerk for a real estate agent. His voice was to become one of his most valuable tools. In fact, from January 1966, he subtly, almost imperceptibly, dubbed for Jack Hawkins after this actor became unable to speak his lines due to throat cancer. In later years, Gray's trademark voice was regularly heard on television commercials.
Gray's theatrical debut came in 1952 in the part of Charles the Wrestler (he measured 6 foot, 1 inches in height) in "As You Like It", appearing under his original name, 'Donald Gray'. From 1956, as 'Charles' Gray (since there already was a one-armed actor named Donald Gray), he took to leading dramatic roles, and won critical plaudits as Achilles in "Troilus and Cressida", Macduff in "Macbeth" and as the gluttonous Sir Epicure Mammon in Tyrone Guthrie's up-dated version of "The Alchemist", in 1962. He repeated his Old Vic performance as Henry Bolingbroke for his Broadway debut at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1956. A notable later performance, while touring the U.S. and Canada, was as the Prince of Wales in Peter Stone's tale of the famous 19th century actor Edmund Kean ("Kean", 1961). In 1964, Gray won the Clarence Derwent Award as Best Supporting Actor for his part in the controversial play "Poor Bitos", by Jean Anouilh, co-starring Donald Pleasence. He was offered his first role on the big screen, reprising a success on the West End stage in 1958, as Captain Cyril Mavors,in the satirical musical Expresso Bongo (1959).
For the next forty years, heavy-set, silver-haired, jut-jawed Charles Gray used his imposing frame and mellifluous voice to great effect in creating for the screen a memorable gallery of egocentric, imperious toffs, and suave, sardonic super-villains. While his performances at times verged on the camp, Gray cheerfully allowed himself to be cast within his range of basically unsympathetic characters, which he could play well and with ease. He tended to favour television as his preferred medium, though some of his most popular roles were for the big screen. Among his niche of staple characters were the coldly pompous military heavies (General Gabler in The Night of the Generals (1967), or the perpetually sneering, overbearing upper-class twits (true-to-form, as defecting spy Hillary Vance in the Thriller (1973) episode "Night is the Time for Killing"). At his evil best, he was commanding as the demonic acolyte Mocata, in The Devil Rides Out (1968) and as the feline-stroking, velvety-voiced nemesis of James Bond, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, in Diamonds Are Forever (1971). He was also suitably sinister as Bates the Butler, one of the red herrings of Agatha Christie's The Mirror Crack'd (1980).
Gray's recurring roles included Lord Seacroft (senior, as well as junior) in the short-lived satirical miniseries The Upper Crusts (1973) as a down-on-his-heels aristocrat, keeping up appearances after being forced to live in a high-rise housing estate; and as the sedentary brother of the famous sleuth at 221b Baker Street, Mycroft, in The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976). Later, he was utilised as temporary replacement, first for Edward Hardwicke,and, subsequently, for the hospitalised star Jeremy Brett, in Granada Television's various instalments of the Sherlock Holmes saga (1985-1994). Gray died of cancer in March 2000, aged 71.- Richard Collier was born on 13 June 1919 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for Blazing Saddles (1974), Christine (1983) and Hello, Dolly! (1969). He died on 11 March 2000 in Calabasas, Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Rex Everhart was born on 13 June 1920 in Watseka, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for Friday the 13th (1980), Beauty and the Beast (1991) and Superman (1978). He was married to Claire Richard. He died on 13 March 2000 in Branford, Connecticut, USA.
- Adele Malis-Morey was born on 23 August 1927. She was an actress, known for The Black Cauldron (1985), Doc Hollywood (1991) and Critters (1986). She was married to Morey. She died on 16 March 2000 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- In the mid 1980s, while pursuing his acting career, Jeremy Applegate worked at Victoria Station in Universal City. He made fast friends, and, although his career was just beginning, he was considered by many to be an impressively talented impersonator. His characters were pursued with intense energy, and laced with dark humor. The result was a style all his own.
Jeremy loved entertaining his co-workers, and often had them in stitches with his impersonations of beloved characters from the TV shows and ads of everyone's childhood. Whenever Jeremy was around, it felt like a party. To be in his presence was truly a treat.
Like many young actors who are just starting out, Jeremy spent his twenties, and the first few years of his thirties, working to make ends meet. Despite having a fairly solid support system comprised of close friends and their families, Jeremy was under a great deal of pressure, and was troubled with depression. Unfortunately, his state of mind got the better of him, and Jeremy Applegate committed suicide in March of the year 2000, at the far too-young age of 34. - Music Department
- Writer
- Actor
Lew Lehman was born on 8 April 1933 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Search and Rescue: The Alpha Team (1977), South of Hell Mountain (1971) and Phobia (1980). He died on 25 March 2000 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.- Helen Martin was born on 23 July 1909 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. She was an actress and writer, known for Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood (1996), Death Wish (1974) and Bulworth (1998). She died on 25 March 2000 in Monterey, California, USA.
- Actor
- Music Department
- Composer
Ian Dury had to face polio at the age of 7, and consequently a string of institutions over the next few years. He joined The Walthamstow College of Art at 17, and from 1966-73 he worked as an art teacher in different schools. It was in the middle of this period he started his musical career with a band called Kilburn & The High Roads. The band - not altogether successful - finally released an ill-received album in 1977 and disbanded shortly afterwards. They subsequently started afresh as Ian Dury & The Blockheads, finding some success in the UK.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Christopher Cary was born on 16 June 1934 in Surrey, England, UK. He was an actor and director, known for The Time Tunnel (1966), Missing in Action 2: The Beginning (1985) and The Wild Wild West (1965). He was married to Elen Julie Orson, Victoria Judith Canning, Cheri Maugans, Loretta Elizabeth Dement and Maureen Bailey. He died on 1 April 2000 in Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Additional Crew
Chino 'Fats' Williams was born on 26 July 1933 in Louisiana, USA. He was an actor, known for The Terminator (1984), Weird Science (1985) and Road House (1989). He died on 5 April 2000 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Claire Trevor was born Claire Wemlinger in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, New York, the only child of Fifth Avenue merchant-tailor Noel Wemlinger, an immigrant Frenchman from Paris who lost his business during the Depression, and his Belfast-born wife, Benjamina, known as "Betty". Young Claire's interest in acting began when she was 11 years old. She attended high school in Mamaroneck, Westchester County, New York. After starting classes at Columbia University, she spent six months at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, also in New York. Her adult acting experience began in the late 1920s in several stock productions; she appeared with Robert Henderson's Repertory Players in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1930. That same year, aged 20, she signed with Warner Bros. Not too far from her home haunts was Vitagraph Studios in Brooklyn, the last and best of the early sound process studios, which had been acquired by Warner Bros. in 1925 to become Vitaphone. Trevor appeared in several of the nearly 2000 shorts cranked out by the studio between 1926 and 1930. Then she was sent west to do ten weeks of stock productions with other contract players in St. Louis. In 1931 she did summer stock with the Hampton Players in Southampton, Long Island. Finally, she debuted on Broadway in 1932 in "Whistling in the Dark".
Trevor moved to the silver screen, debuting in the western Life in the Raw (1933). There would be three more films (one more western) that year and six or more through the 1930s. Although she had been typed playing gun molls and hard-case women of the world, she displayed her already considerable versatility in these early films, often playing competent, take-charge professional women as well as "shady" ladies. There was a disappointed-pout-vulnerability in her face and that famous slightly New York-burred voice that cracked with a little cry when heightened by emotion that quickly revealed an unusual and sensitive performer. Many of her early films were "B" potboilers, but she worked with Spencer Tracy on several occasions, notably Dante's Inferno (1935).
Hollywood finally took notice of her talents by nominating her for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her standout performance as a slum girl forced by poverty into prostitution in Dead End (1937), opposite Humphrey Bogart. That same year she did the radio drama "Big Town" with Edward G. Robinson, then teamed with he and Bogart again for the slightly hokey but entertaining The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938). Director John Ford tapped her for his first big sound Western film, Stagecoach (1939), the film that made a star of John Wayne. All her abilities to bring complexity to a character showed in her kicked-around dance hall girl "Dallas", one of the great early female roles. She and Wayne were electric, and they were paired in three more films during their careers.
In the 1940s, Trevor began appearing in the genre that brought her to true stardom: "film noir". She started in a big way as killer Ruth Dillon in Street of Chance (1942) with Burgess Meredith. She was equally convincing as the more complex but nonetheless two-faced Mrs. Grayle in the Philip Marlowe vehicle Murder, My Sweet (1944). However, she was something very different and quite extraordinary as washed-up, hopelessly alcoholic former nightclub singer and moll Gaye Dawn in Key Largo (1948), for which she won an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress, again working with Bogart and Robinson. Her pitiful rendition of the torch song "Moanin' Low", which her character was forced to sing, humiliatingly, for the sadistic crime boss played by Robinson (to whom she is, figuratively speaking, permanently tethered) in exchange for a desperately needed drink. There were more quality movies and an additional Academy nomination (The High and the Mighty (1954)) into the 1950s,, but she also was doing work on stage and in television.
She was enthusiastic about live TV and appeared on several famous shows by the mid-1950s. She won an Emmy for Best Live Television Performance by an Actress as the flighty wife of Fredric March in NBC's Dodsworth (1956). She alternated her career among film, stage and TV roles. As she aged she easily transitioned into "distinguished matron" and mother roles, one of her most unusual ones being the murderous Ma Barker in Ma Barker and Her Boys (1959). Her final film role was as Sally Field's mother in Kiss Me Goodbye (1982).
Trevor and her third husband, producer Milton H. Bren, had long been residents of tony Newport Beach, California, to which they returned when she finally retired from screen work. However, she did maintain an active interest in stage work, and became associated with the University of California-Irvine's School of Arts. She and her husband contributed some $10 million to further its development for the visual and performing arts (that included three endowed professorships). After her passing in April 2000 at 90 years of age, the University renamed the school The Claire Trevor School of the Arts. Her presence on the UCI campus is in more than spirit alone. She donated her Oscar and her Emmy to UCI; both are on display in the arts plaza at the campus theatre that bears her name.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Larry Linville was born on 29 September 1939 in Ojai, California, USA. He was an actor, known for M*A*S*H (1972), Paper Dolls (1984) and Mannix (1967). He was married to Deborah Guydon, Susan Hagan, Melissa Gallant, Vaughn Taylor and Kate Geer. He died on 10 April 2000 in New York City, New York, USA.- Actor
- Stunts
John Pearce was born on 7 November 1927 in Gainesville, Georgia, USA. He was an actor, known for THX 1138 (1971), The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid (1972) and The Stunt Man (1980). He died on 29 April 2000 in West Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Writer
Handsome bodybuilder Steve Reeves certainly had an enviable Herculean physique, and made plenty good use of it in Europe during the late 1950s and early 1960s portraying some of filmdom's most famous bronzed gods. Reeves was originally a Montana boy born on a cattle ranch in 1926. His destiny was revealed early in the game when, at the age of six months, he won his first fitness title as "Healthiest Baby of Valley County." His father Lester died in a farming accident when Steve was just a boy, and his family moved to Oakland (California). He first developed an interest in bodybuilding while in high school.
Steve joined the Army in his late teens where his job was loading boxcars and trucks. He also worked out loyally at the gym during his free time and the combination helped develop his body quite rapidly. Following Army service (he served for a time in the Pacific), he decided to pursue bodybuilding professionally. In 1946, at the age of 20, he won "Mr. Pacific Coast" in Oregon, which led to his titles of "Mr. Western America" (1947), Mr. America" (1947), "Mr. World" (1948) and, ultimately, "Mr. Universe" (1950).
With all the body-worshiping publicity he garnered, he decided to travel to New York to study and pursue acting. He subsequently returned to California...and Hollywood. There were not huge opportunities for a muscleman in Tinseltown other than providing pectoral background. Steve was, however, considered for the lead role in Cecil B. DeMille's biblical costumer Samson and Delilah (1949), but refused when told by the legendary director he would have to lose some of his musculature (about 15 lbs.). The part instead went to Victor Mature. Steve did manage to snag the role of a detective in infamous director Edward D. Wood Jr.'s Jail Bait (1954). Small parts on TV also came his way, but they too were mostly posing bits or walk-ons. To the Hollywood power players, Steve was just a body. Whether he could act or not was not a concern or selling point. Fans just wanted to see him take his shirt off.
Down on his luck, Steve's fortunes change when Italian film director Pietro Francisci saw him play Jane Powell's boyfriend in the feature film Athena (1954) and persuaded him to go overseas to star in Hercules (1958) (US title: "Hercules"). Though critics dismissed the film as "muddled mythology" while denigrating its cheapjack production values (including a poorly-dubbed sound track), the public went crazy over the sword-and-sandal epic and, in particular, Steve's marvelous beefcake heroics. He became an "overnight" star. Sequels followed, none any better or worse, with him going through the paces as a number absurdly-muscled biblical and mythological figures. An able horseman, he also performed many of his own stunts. Moreover, he paved the way for other pumped-up acting hopefuls (Ed Fury, Mark Forest, Reg Park) to seek their fame and fortune in Italy as a feature-length Samson, Ursus or Colossus. Nobody, however, came close to topping Steve in popularity.
A shoulder injury forced Steve's retirement, spending the remainder of his life promoting steroid-free bodybuilding while living on a ranch and breeding horses. The more recent bodybuilders of fame such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno, both Hercules impersonators of yore, have given Steve significant credit for their respective acting successes. Married twice, Steve died in Southern California of lymphoma on May 1, 2000, at age 74.- Actor
- Producer
- Production Manager
Although he appeared in approximately 100 movies or TV shows, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. never really intended to take up acting as a career. However, the environment he was born into and the circumstances naturally led him to be a thespian. Noblesse oblige.
He was born Douglas Elton Fairbanks, Jr. in New York City, New York, to Anna Beth (Sully), daughter of a very wealthy cotton mogul, and actor Douglas Fairbanks (born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman), then not yet established as the swashbuckling idol he would become. Fairbanks, Jr. had German Jewish (from his paternal grandfather), English, and Scottish ancestry.
He proved a gifted boy early in life. To the end of his life he remained a multi-talented, hyperactive man, not content to appear in the 100 films mentioned above. Handsome, distinguished and extremely bright, he excelled at sports (much like his father), notably during his stay at the Military Academy in 1919 (his role in Claude Autant-Lara's "L'athlète incomplete" illustrated these abilities). He also excelled academically, and attended the Lycéee Janson de Sailly in Paris, where he had followed his divorced mother. Very early in his life he developed a taste for the arts as well and became a painter and sculptor. Not content to limiting himself to just one field, he became involved in business, in fields as varied as mining, hotel management, owning a chain of bowling alleys and a firm that manufactured popcorn. During World War II he headed London's Douglas Voluntary Hospital (an establishment taking care of war refugees), was President Franklin D. Roosevelt's special envoy for the Special Mission to South America in 1940 before becoming a lieutenant in the Navy (he was promoted to the rank of captain in 1954) and taking part in the Allies' landing in Sicily and Elba in 1943. A fervent Anglophile, was knighted in 1949 and often entertained Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip in his London mansion, "The Boltons".
His film career began at the age of 13 when he was signed by Paramount Pictures. He debuted in Stephen Steps Out (1923) but the film flopped and his career stagnated despite a critically acclaimed role in Stella Dallas (1925). Things really picked up when he married Lucille Le Sueur, a young starlet who was soon to become better known as Joan Crawford. The young couple became the toast of the town (one "Screen Snapshots" episode echoes this sudden glory) and good parts and success followed, such as the hapless partner of Edward G. Robinson in Little Caesar (1931) a favorably reviewed turn as the villain in The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) or more debonair characters in slapstick comedies or adventure yarns. The 1930s were a fruitful period for Fairbanks, his most memorable role probably being that of the British soldier in Gunga Din (1939); although it was somewhat of a "swashbuckling" role, Fairbanks made a point of never imitating his father. After the World War II, his star waned and, despite a moving part in Ghost Story (1981), he did not appear in a major movie. Now a legend himself, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. left this world with the satisfaction of having lived up to the Fairbanks name at the end of a life nobody could call "wasted".- Actor
- Soundtrack
Born in Liberty, Missouri, as Gail Shikles Jr., tall, suave Craig Stevens will forever be remembered for his role as the cool, laid-back private eye Peter Gunn (1958), a ground-breaking show that ushered in the era of tough but smooth private eyes who were handy with their fists and with the ladies, and which also pioneered the use of jazz as not only background music but its main theme song. Stevens was attending Kansas University and planning a career in dentistry when he began performing in student plays at the university. Bitten by the acting bug, he moved to California, and in 1941 was signed by Warner Bros., where he met his future wife, Alexis Smith. Although never a front-rank star, Stevens played many second-leads through the 1940s and 1950s. Sci-fi fans will know him best as the lead in the somewhat cult-classic The Deadly Mantis (1957). With his film career in a rut, he moved over to television, and it was there he made his mark in the landmark "Peter Gunn" series. He made many guest-starring appearances in TV series over the years, had recurring roles in such series as Dallas (1978) and starred in ITC's Man of the World (1962). He retired after a role in his old friend Blake Edwards' 1981 film S.O.B. (1981).- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Paul Bartel was born in Brooklyn in 1938. He decided he wanted to direct animated movies when he was 11 and by 13 had spent a summer working at New York's UPA animation studio. He majored in theater arts at UCLA, and received a Fulbright scholarship to study film direction in Rome, producing a short that was presented at the 1962 Venice Fiom Festival. He later was hired by Roger Corman's brother, Gene, to direct a low-budget horror featured called Private Parts (1972). Roger Corman hired him as a second unit director on Big Bad Mama (1974), which led to his directing Death Race 2000 (1975). He could not persuade Corman to finance his pet project, Eating Raoul (1982). The $500,000 black comedy was made after his parents sold their New Jersey home and gave him the money. Shot in 22 days, mostly weekends, over the course of a year, Eating Raoul (1982) starred Bartel and Mary Woronov as gourmet cannibals who lure sex swingers to their apartment, smack them with a skillet, rob them and use the proceeds to buy a restaurant.- Robert Burr was born on 5 March 1922 in Jersey City, New Jersey, USA. He was an actor, known for The Seven-Ups (1973), Out on a Limb (1992) and The ABC Afternoon Playbreak (1972). He was married to Jacqueline Britton. He died on 13 May 2000 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Director
- Sound Department
- Writer
Edward Bernds was born in 1905 in Chicago, Illinois. While in his junior year in Lake View High School, he and several friends formed a small radio club and obtained amateur licenses. In the early '20s there was considerable prestige for an amateur operator (a "ham") to have commercial radio licenses, and Bernds was in a good position to get into broadcasting when he graduated in 1923, a year when radio stations began popping up all over Chicago. He found employment--at age 20--as chief operator at Chicago's WENR. When talking pictures burst onto the scene in the late '20s, Bernds and broadcast operators like him relocated to Hollywood to work as sound technicians in "the talkies". After a brief stint at United Artists, Bernds quit and went to work at Columbia, where he worked as sound man on many of Frank Capra's '30s classics. He later graduated to directing two-reel shorts and then features.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Born in London, England, John Gielgud trained at Lady Benson's Acting School and RADA, London. Best known for his Shakespearean roles in the theater, he first played Hamlet at the age of 26. He worked under the tutelage of Lilian Bayliss with friend and fellow performer Laurence Olivier and other contemporaries of the National Theatre at the "Old Vic", London. He made his screen debut in 1924. Academy Award Best Supporting Actor, 1981, for Arthur (1981), Academy Award Nomination, 1964, for Becket (1964).- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Sô Yamamura was born on 24 February 1910 in Tenri, Japan. He was an actor and director, known for Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), Kuroi ushio (1954) and Gung Ho (1986). He was married to Yuriko Yamamura. He died on 26 May 2000 in Suginami, Tokyo, Japan.- Irving Hellman was born on 21 December 1912 in the USA. He was an actor, known for Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985) and Big Business (1988). He was married to Shirley Hellman. He died on 1 June 2000.
- Actor
- Composer
- Music Department
Ernest "Tito" Anthony Puente was the eldest son of Puerto Rican parents. His mother called him "Ernestito" which means "Little Ernest", which was later shortened to "Tito". His mother saw his musical potential and enrolled him in piano classes. Eventually he attended the Juilliard School of Music from 1945-47 on the GI bill. He would write a piece that would start off as jazz and then add a Latin beat to it. He recorded over 100 albums during his 60 years in the business and won 10 Grammy awards. He often joked that he was profiting off of Santana's hit recording of "Oye Como Va", which he had written. He said, "I get a nice royalty check." He appeared in several films, usually as himself.- Nancy Marchand's mother, a pianist, sent her shy daughter to acting classes in hopes of breaking her out of her shell. As a student at Carnegie Tech (Carnegie Mellon University), she studied the works of William Shakespeare and the other great playwrights and, upon graduation, set off for New York City. She received acclaim in the part of the tavern hostess in Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew" at the City Center in 1951. Her list of theater works include "The Cocktail Hour" and "The Balcony" (an Obie for both), "White Lies and Black Comedy" (Tony nominations for both), "The Octette Bridge Club" and "Morning's at Seven". She worked at many of the great theaters in the United States, including the Brattle Theatre, Long Wharf, Lincoln Center Repertory Company and the Goodman Theatre. During her illustrious theater career, she won the role of Mrs. Pynchon in the TV series Lou Grant (1977) with Ed Asner, for which she won four Emmys. Her last accolade was her role as Livia Soprano in HBO's The Sopranos (1999), for which she won a Golden Globe.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
David Tomlinson is best known for his role as George Banks in Walt Disney's Mary Poppins (1964). As a youth he spent a short spell in the guards. He joined the RAF in WW2 where he survived the trauma of a plane crash on his first solo flight due to engine failure, then becoming a flying instructor for the remainder of the war. He began his film career in the pre-war British film Quiet Wedding (1941) and followed that with Leslie Howard's 'Pimpernel' Smith (1941). Altogether he has made over 50 films and on stage he has had long-running successes in many plays including "The Little Hut" with Robert Morley and Roger Moore as his understudy. During the 1930s he understudied Alec Guinness. By the time he went to Hollywood to make Mary Poppins (1964) he was a veteran film and stage actor. David returned to Disney to great success in The Love Bug (1969) and Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). David was close friends with Errol Flynn, Robert Morley and Peter Sellers. He also spent time with Walt Disney whilst they discussed his role in Mary Poppins (1964). He retired in the early 1980s after an exemplary career on film and stage, and will always be remembered as one of the centuries greatest character actors.- Logan Ramsey was born on 21 March 1921 in Long Beach, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Walking Tall (1973), Part 2: Walking Tall (1975) and Scrooged (1988). He was married to Anne Ramsey. He died on 26 June 2000 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
The British character actor Michael Ripper was born in 1913 in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England. His father was a speech therapist and encouraged him to participate in diction and public speaking competitions. From this, the young Michael gained an interest in acting and got his first taste of the stage through his father's amateur dramatics company. At age 16, Ripper won a scholarship to drama school and began to appear in theater professionally. His stage career continued until 1952, when an operation for a thyroid condition left him unable to project his voice sufficiently for the stage, after which he concentrated on his film career. Ripper started his film career in numerous quota quickies, debuting in Twice Branded (1936). At one point in his early career, he also worked as an assistant director for a production company at Walton Studios. In the late 1940s, Ripper began a long association with Hammer Film Productions, which resulted in his face becoming well known not only in Britain, but also worldwide. During this 25-year association, which began with a role in There Is No Escape (1948) and ended with That's Your Funeral (1972), Ripper made a total of 35 appearances in Hammer films, playing an assortment of innkeepers, coachmen, gravediggers, poachers, and, occasionally, authority figures, usually with a comic twist. Although he made few films after his stint with Hammer, he continued his career with memorable television appearances, such as the chauffeur in Butterflies (1978) and Drones Porter in Jeeves and Wooster (1990), until his retirement in the early 1990s.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Walter Matthau was best known for starring in many films which included Charade (1963), The Odd Couple (1968), Grumpy Old Men (1993), and Dennis the Menace (1993). He often worked with Jack Lemmon and the two were Hollywood's craziest stars.
He was born Walter Jake Matthow in New York City, New York on October 1, 1920. His mother was an immigrant from Lithuania and his father was a Russian Jewish peddler and electrician from Kiev, Ukraine. As a young boy, Matthau attended a Jewish non-profit sleep-away camp. He also attended Surprise Lake Camp. His high school was Seward Park High School.
During World War II, Matthau served in the U.S. Army Air Forces with the Eighth Air Force in Britain as a Consolidated B-24 Liberator radioman-gunner, in the same 453rd Bombardment Group as James Stewart. He was based at RAF Old Buckenham, Norfolk during this time. He reached the rank of staff sergeant and became interested in acting.
Matthau appeared in the pilot of Mister Peepers (1952) alongside Wally Cox. He later appeared in the Elia Kazan classic, A Face in the Crowd (1957), opposite Patricia Neal and Andy Griffith, and then appeared in Lonely Are the Brave (1962), with Kirk Douglas, a film Douglas has often described as his personal favorite. Matthau then appeared in Charade (1963) with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. In 1968, Matthau made his big screen appearance as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple (1968) alongside Jack Lemmon. The two were also in the sequel (The Odd Couple II (1998)) as well as Grumpy Old Men (1993) and Grumpier Old Men (1995). Matthau was in Dennis the Menace (1993), alongside Mason Gamble. On July 1, 2000, Matthau died of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California. He was 79 years old.- Ángel Aranda was born on 18 September 1934 in Jaén, Andalucía, Spain. He is an actor, known for Javier y los invasores del espacio (1967), Planet of the Vampires (1965) and The Last Days of Pompeii (1959).
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Christmas trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, gained experience in English repertory theatre in 1936, and had a principal role in the London production of Noël Coward's "Bitter Sweet" in the 1930s. During the Second World War, he was a member of Royal Air Force production units and performed in the RAF's Gang Show. After moving to Canada in 1948, he started a long association with television comedians Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster, playing the character Madam Hooperdink. His own show "Christmas is Coming" toured Canada in the 1950s. He was artistic director at the Ottawa Repertory Company in 1954 and ran the Peterborough Summer Theatre that year. He began a long association with Canada's Stratford Festival in 1957, performing in 12 seasons and 21 Shakespearean productions until 1970. It was Christmas and a group of veteran actors like William Hutt, Tony Van Bridge, Jean Gascon, Douglas Rain, Amelia Hall, and Mervyn Blake (among others) who helped define Stratford in its early years. His final appearance at Stratford was 1987, when he played Dogberry in "Much Ado About Nothing." Christmas also had associations over the years with the Canadian Players, San Diego's Globe Theatre, and the drama department at the University of California at San Diego. He and his first wife had two children (Robin and Stephen) two children with his second wife, six grandchildren.- Actor
- Cinematographer
- Soundtrack
Harold Nicholas, the younger half of the world famous Nicholas Brothers dance team, is known as one of the world's greatest dancers. He and his brother Fayard Nicholas were established superstars at Twentieth Century Fox with their astounding dance numbers in the studios musicals features. Harold was known for "attributing spice to Fayard's grace," with his quick moves. Harold was a seasoned pro at age 7, appearing in everything from early 1930s Warner Bros. Vitaphone shorts with the great Eubie Blake, to receiving the prestigious Kennedy Center Honor in Washington in 1991. Carnegie Hall sold out for a tribute to he and his brother in 1998, who were both present that special night. Though he always made his astounding mid air splits and backwards somersaults seem effortless, Nicholas was much more though than a "specialty act" for 1940s Fox films. He was an incredible "dancer," one you could watch and never tire of. The man had a something no other dancer had. Always with a smile on his face, his special charm and style gave him that extra something no other dancer had.- Roberto Contreras was born on 12 December 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He was an actor, known for Blood In, Blood Out (1993), Scarface (1983) and Topaz (1969). He died on 18 July 2000 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Dubbed the Walter Cronkite of pro wrestling by the sport's most dedicated fans, Gordon Solie was one of the most respected commentators wrestling had ever been privy to for almost five decades. Solie first got into the wrestling game in Tampa, Florida in 1950, before moving on to primarily work for the NWA's Georgia & Florida territories. He briefly worked for WCW in the early 1990's, and was inducted into their Hall of Fame in 1995. Solie unofficially retired after that but continued to work for some of the smaller NWA territories' local broadcasts. He is often credited with teaching many wrestlers, including Dusty Rhodes and Hulk Hogan, how to talk and use adjectives and descriptive sentences. In 1999 he had surgery to remove the cancer that had formed in his throat and, in a cruel irony, lost his voice in the process. The surgery was not successful, and he succumbed to brain cancer a year later. He was 71.- Actor
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Born in Kansas, Max Showalter picked up the "acting bug" as a toddler when mother used to take him to the local theater where she played the piano for silent movies. He acted in 92 shows at the Pasadena Playhouse between 1935 and '38, made his Broadway debut under the aegis of Oscar Hammerstein II in "Knights of Song" and acted for two years in the cast of Irving Berlin's traveling musical "This Is the Army." In addition to his films, TV appearances (over 1000), and stage shows, Showalter was a composer, a songwriter, and pianist. In his later years he lived in an 18th-century farmhouse in the Connecticut town he fell in love with while shooting the movie It Happened to Jane (1959).- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Alec Guinness was an English actor. He is known for his six collaborations with David Lean: Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations (1946), Fagin in Oliver Twist (1948), Col. Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor), Prince Faisal in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), General Yevgraf Zhivago in Doctor Zhivago (1965), and Professor Godbole in A Passage to India (1984).
Guinness is really most remembered for his portrayal of Obi-Wan Kenobi in George Lucas' original Star Wars trilogy for which he receive a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
In 1959, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the arts. In the 1970s, Guinness made regular television appearances in Britain, including the role of George Smiley in the serialisations of two novels by John le Carré: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979) and Smiley's People (1982). In 1980 he received the Academy Honorary Award for lifetime achievement.
Guinness was also one of three British actors, along with Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud, who made the transition from Shakespearean theatre in England to Hollywood blockbusters immediately after the Second World War.
Guinness died on 5 August 2000, from liver cancer, at Midhurst in West Sussex.- Max Phipps was born on 18 November 1939 in Parkes, New South Wales, Australia. He was an actor, known for Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981), Nate and Hayes (1983) and Stir (1980). He died on 6 August 2000 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Sweet, sweeter, sweetest. No combination of terms better describes the screen persona of lovely Loretta Young. A&E's Biography (1987) has stated that Young "remains a symbol of beauty, serenity, and grace. But behind the glamour and stardom is a woman of substance whose true beauty lies in her dedication to her family, her faith, and her quest to live life with a purpose."
Loretta Young was born Gretchen Young in Salt Lake City, Utah on January 6, 1913, to Gladys (Royal) and John Earle Young. Her parents separated when Loretta was three years old. Her mother moved Loretta and her two older sisters to Southern California, where Mrs. Young ran a boarding house. When Loretta was 10, her mother married one of her boarders, George Belzer. They had a daughter, Georgianna, two years later.
Loretta was appearing on screen as a child extra by the time she was four, joining her elder sisters, Polly Ann Young and Elizabeth Jane Young (later better known as Sally Blane), as child players. Mrs. Young's brother-in-law was an assistant director and got young Loretta a small role in the film The Only Way (1914). The role consisted of nothing more than a small, weeping child lying on an operating table. Later that year, she appeared in another small role, in The Primrose Ring (1917). The film starred Mae Murray, who was so taken with little Loretta that she offered to adopt her. Loretta lived with the Murrays for about a year and a half. In 1921, she had a brief scene in The Sheik (1921).
Loretta and her sisters attended parochial schools, after which they helped their mother run the boarding house. In 1927, Loretta returned to films in a small part in Naughty But Nice (1927). Even at the age of fourteen, she was an ambitious actress. Changing her name to Loretta Young, letting her blond hair revert to its natural brown and with her green eyes, satin complexion and exquisite face, she quickly graduated from ingenue to leading lady. Beginning with her role as Denise Laverne in The Magnificent Flirt (1928), she shaped any character she took on with total dedication. In 1928, she received second billing in The Head Man (1928) and continued to toil in many roles throughout the '20s and '30s, making anywhere from six to nine films a year. Her two sisters were also actresses but were not as successful as Loretta, whose natural beauty was her distinct advantage.
The 17-year-old Young made headlines in 1930 when she and Grant Withers, who was previously married and nine years her senior, eloped to Yuma, Arizona. They had both appeared in Warner Bros.' The Second Floor Mystery (1930). The marriage was annulled in 1931, the same year in which the pair would again co-star on screen in a film ironically titled Too Young to Marry (1931). By the mid-'30s, Loretta left First National Studios for rival Fox, where she had previously worked on a loan-out basis, and became one of the premier leading ladies of Hollywood.
In 1935, she made Call of the Wild (1935) with Clark Gable and it was thought they had an affair where Loretta got pregnant thereafter. Because of the strict morality clauses in their contracts - and the fact that Clark Gable was married - they could not tell anybody except Loretta's mother. Loretta and her mother left for Europe after filming on The Crusades finished. They returned in August 1935 to the United States, at which time Gladys Belzer announced Loretta's 'illness' to the press. Filming on Loretta's next film, Ramona, was also cancelled. During this time, Loretta was living in a small house in Venice, California, her mother rented. On November 6, 1935, Loretta delivered a healthy baby girl whom she named Judith. It wasn't until the 1990s when she was watching Larry King Live where she first heard the word 'date rape' and upon finding out exactly what it was, professed to her friend and biographer Edward Funk and her daughter-in-law Linda Lewis, that she had gone through the same with Clark Gable. "That's what happened between me and Clark."
In 1938, Loretta starred as Sally Goodwin in Kentucky (1938), an outstanding success. Her co-star Walter Brennan won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Peter Goodwin.
In 1940, Loretta married businessman Tom Lewis, and from then on her child was called Judy Lewis, although Tom Lewis never adopted her. Judy was brought up thinking that both parents had adopted her and did not know, until years later, that she was actually the biological daughter of Loretta and Clark Gable. Four years after her marriage to Tom Lewis, Loretta had a son, Christopher Lewis, and later another son, Peter Charles.
In the 1940s, Loretta was still one of the most beautiful ladies in Hollywood. She reached the pinnacle of her career when she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in The Farmer's Daughter (1947), the tale of a farm girl who rises through the ranks and becomes a congresswoman. It was a smash and today is her best remembered film. The same year, she starred in the delightful fantasy The Bishop's Wife (1947) with David Niven and Cary Grant. It was another box office success and continues to be a TV staple during the holiday season. In 1949, Loretta starred in the well-received film, Mother Is a Freshman (1949) with Van Johnson and Rudy Vallee and Come to the Stable (1949). The latter garnered Loretta her second Oscar nomination, but she lost to Olivia de Havilland in The Heiress (1949). In 1953, Loretta made It Happens Every Thursday (1953), which was to be her final big screen role.
She retired from films in 1953 and began a second, equally successful career as hostess of The Loretta Young Show (1953), a half-hour television drama anthology series which ran on NBC from September 1953 to September 1961. In addition to hosting the series, she frequently starred in episodes. Although she is most remembered for her stunning gowns and swirling entrances, over the broadcast's eight-year run she also showed again that she could act. She won Emmy awards for best actress in a dramatic series in 1954, 1956 and 1958.
After the show ended, she took some time off before returning in 1962 with The New Loretta Young Show (1962), which was not so successful, lasting only one season. For the next 24 years, Loretta did not appear in any entertainment medium. Her final performance was in a made for TV film Lady in the Corner (1989).
By 1960, Loretta was a grandmother. Her daughter Judy Lewis had married about three years before and had a daughter in 1959, whom they named Maria. Loretta and Tom Lewis divorced in the early 1960s. Loretta enjoyed retirement, sleeping late, visiting her son Chris and daughter-in-law Linda, and traveling. She and her friend Josephine Alicia Saenz, ex-wife of John Wayne, traveled to India and saw the Taj Mahal. In 1990, she became a great-grandmother when granddaughter Maria, daughter of Judy Lewis, gave birth to a boy.
Loretta lived a quiet retirement in Palm Springs, California until her death on August 12, 2000 from ovarian cancer at the home of her sister Georgiana and Georgiana's husband, Ricardo Montalban.- Actor
- Soundtrack
John Milford was born on 7 September 1927 in Johnstown, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Homefront (1991), The Magical World of Disney (1954) and The Legend of Jesse James (1965). He was married to Susan Graw. He died on 14 August 2000 in Santa Monica, California, USA.- Director
- Writer
- Editor
John Patrick Hayes was a writer, director, editor, producer and occasional actor who made a wide variety of offbeat and interesting low-budget independent pictures throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Born in New York, he began his film career making short movies in the 1950s--his 1958 short "The Kiss" was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. John made his feature-length debut with the obscure drama The Grass Eater (1961). He went on to make a diverse array of drive-in exploitation outings in such sub-genres as World War II potboilers (Shell Shock (1964), The Cut-Throats (1971)), rowdy redneck romps (The Farmer's Other Daughter (1965), All the Lovin' Kinfolk (1970)), sleazy crime fare (Bust Out (1973), Mama's Dirty Girls (1974)), horror (Dream No Evil (1970), Garden of the Dead (1972), Grave of the Vampire (1972)), low-brow comedy (Up Yours (1979)) and even science-fiction (End of the World (1977)). In addition to directing, Hayes usually produced and edited, as well as often penning the scripts for his films. He pops up in bit parts in the wholesome Disney family features The Shaggy D.A. (1976) and Treasure of Matecumbe (1976) (he also has cameo roles in two of his own movies).
His last directing credit was an episode of the horror anthology TV series Tales from the Darkside (1983).- Actor
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Tomata Du Plenty was born on 28 May 1948 in Queens, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Population: 1 (1986), Underground U.S.A. (1980) and Tricia's Wedding (1971). He died on 21 August 2000 in San Francisco, California, USA.- Built like the proverbial Patton tank, Professor Toru Tanaka was arguably the successor to Harold Sakata as the archetypal Asian henchman who possessed incredible strength, and clobbered those foolish enough to tangle with him. Born Charles Kalani, he was a successful wrestler and served for over ten years in the US Armed Forces attaining the rank of sergeant. Tanaka first appeared playing a Japanese sumo wrestler on the TV series Little House on the Prairie, however his first film role pitched him as an insidious villain in the chop socky An Eye for an Eye (1981) in which he faces down Chuck Norris before being kicked through a large table. In total, Tanaka appeared in only 23 films including appearing alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger twice in The Running Man (1987) and Last Action Hero (1993).
Appearing in The Perfect Weapon (1991) with 6th degree Kempo black belt, Jeff Speakman, Tanaka comes to a fiery end courtesy of an LPG tank!! In reality, Tanaka was far removed from his own screen persona, and was known to be a kind & generous man to all who knew him. He passed away in August, 2000 from heart failure. - Shelagh Fraser was born on 25 November 1920 in Purley, Surrey, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), The History of Mr. Polly (1949) and Doomwatch (1970). She was married to Anthony Squire. She died on 29 August 2000 in London, England, UK.
- Patricia Owens was born in Golden, British Columbia, in 1925. When she was eight she moved to England, where she embarked on a number of stage plays. Later she was spotted by a Twentieth Century-Fox executive, who offered her a contract, and in 1956 she went to Hollywood. There she met Sy Bartlett, whom she married and later divorced in 1958. Warner Brothers spotted her acting abilities in the classic "Island in the Sun" and in 1957 asked Fox if she could be loaned out for a part in the Marlon Brando classic "Sayonara". She received kudos in that film for her performance as the distraught, scorned fiancée of Brando. It was not until 1958, though, when she achieved her greatest role, as the tormented Helene Delambre in the Fox classic "The Fly". The image of her as seen through the fly's compound eyes is considered one of the classic moments in the history of science fiction films. It was during the time that "The Fly" was being made that she was trying to reconcile with Bartlett, but it did not happen. Patricia went on to play in other films, but did not achieve the status she deserved and continued to star in B Pictures and television roles. In 1960 she married real estate developer Jerome "Jerry" Nathanson. The marriage was short-lived but produced Patricia's only child, Adam, who helped with this biography. Patricia was also married to John Austin for six years, from 1969 to 1975. Sadly, she died in 2000 from cancer.
- Jean Speegle Howard was born on 31 January 1927 in Duncan, Oklahoma, USA. She was an actress, known for Apollo 13 (1995), Scrooged (1988) and Cocoon (1985). She was married to Rance Howard. She died on 2 September 2000 in Burbank, California, USA.
- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Born in Dresden, Germany, in 1902, Curt Siodmak worked as an engineer and a newspaper reporter before entering the literary and movie fields. It was as a reporter that he got his first break (of sorts) in films: in 1926 he and his reporter-wife hired on as extras on Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) in order to get a story on the director and his film. One of Siodmak's first film-writing assignments was the screenplay for the German sci-fi picture F.P.1 Doesn't Answer (1932) (US title: "Floating Platform 1 Does Not Answer"), based on his own novel. Compelled to leave Germany after Adolf Hitler and the Nazis took power, Siodmak went to work as a screenwriter in England and then moved to Hollywood in 1937. He got a job at Universal through his director-friend Joe May, helping write the script for May's The Invisible Man Returns (1940). Because the film went over well, Siodmak says, he fell into the horror/science-fiction "groove."- Beah Richards left her native Vicksburg, Mississippi, for New York City in 1950. She would not acquire a significant role on stage until 1955,when she appeared in the off-Broadway show "Take a Giant Step" convincingly portraying an 84-year-old grandmother without using theatrical makeup. In 1962 she appeared in writer James Baldwin's "The Amen Corner" directed by noted actor/director/activist Frank Silvera, who told Richards "Don't act, just be." She credited Silvera with helping her further develop the subtlety and quiet dignity that distinguished all of her performances.
A prolific actress, poet and playwright, her first authored play was "All's Well That Ends" that delved into the issues of racial segregation. Always ahead of her time, she defined herself as "Black" when the term "Negro" was the preferred ethnic/racial label of Black Americans. Richards would bring her salutary satisfaction with being "Black" and her immense acting talents to the role of the peacemaking mother in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), a role for which she was nominated for an Oscar. Additionally, she appeared in "Purlie Victorious" by Ossie Davis and "The Little Foxes" by Lillian Hellman.
In 1988, she won an Emmy Award for her performance in Frank's Place (1987). Although stricken with emphysema, she delivered a tour-de-force performance on the ABC legal drama The Practice (1997) in 2000; she received her second Emmy Award for this performance three days before her death in her native Vicksburg. - Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Ann Doran appeared in over 500 motion pictures and 1000 television shows, by one count. Starting at the age of four, she appeared in hundreds of silent films under assumed names so her father's family wouldn't find out. Rarely a featured player (although Charles Starrett's Rio Grande (1938) is a notable exception), she provided many a wonderful performance in support of the leads.- Gloria Talbott was born in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale, a city co-founded by her great grandfather, Benjamin Franklin Nye Patterson. Growing up in the shadows of the Hollywood studios, her interests inevitably turned to acting, with the result that she participated in school plays and landed small parts in films such as "Maytime" (1937), "Sweet and Lowdown" (1943) and "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" (1945). After leaving school, she started her own dramatic group and played "arena"-style shows at various clubs. After a three-year hiatus (marriage, motherhood and divorce), Talbott resumed her career, working extensively in both TV and films. Her sister is actress Lori Talbott.
- Patti Jerome was born on 5 August 1925 in New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Alligator (1980), White House Madness (1975) and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978). She was married to Harry Balk. She died on 24 September 2000 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Originally a student of playwriting at Columbia University, Richard Mulligan began his acting career in regional theater and soon after made his Broadway debut in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play "All the Way Home". In addition to his continuing Broadway career, Mulligan had successfully transferred his unique comedic talents to film and television. On the big screen, he had appeared in such films as Little Big Man (1970), The Big Bus (1976), Teachers (1984) and The Heavenly Kid (1985). He had also performed in a number of Blake Edwards' films, including S.O.B. (1981), Trail of the Pink Panther (1982), Micki + Maude (1984) and A Fine Mess (1986). Mulligan had made numerous guest-starring television appearances, but it was his role as Burt Campbell in Witt-Thomas-Harris' offbeat sitcom Soap (1977) that earned him his first Emmy Award. He also starred in the short-lived sitcom Reggie (1983). His movie-of-the-week and miniseries credits include Pueblo (1973), Poker Alice (1987), Harvey (1996) and the acclaimed Guess Who's Coming for Christmas? (1990) with Beau Bridges. He was the brother of director Robert Mulligan.- Ted Gehring was born on 6 April 1929 in Bisbee, Arizona, USA. He was an actor, known for Bad Company (1972), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) and The Domino Principle (1977). He was married to Barbara Coates. He died on 28 September 2000 in Steelville, Missouri, USA.
- Richard Liberty was born on 3 March 1932 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Day of the Dead (1985), Flight of the Navigator (1986) and The Final Countdown (1980). He died on 2 October 2000 in Dania, Florida, USA.
- Actor
- Composer
Bassist and singer Ben Orr was born Benjamin Orzechowski on September 8, 1947 in Cleveland, Ohio. His Russian and Czechoslovakian parents actively encouraged his musical endeavors. Ben grew up in Lakewood and Parma Heights, Ohio. He played bass, keyboards, and percussion instruments in his teen years. Known locally as "Benny 11-Letters", Orr dropped out of Valley Forge High School to join the group, "The Grasshoppers", as both the lead singer and guitarist. "The Grasshoppers" were the house band on the local Cleveland TV music variety show, "Upbeat"; the group also released two singles on the Sunburst label and dissolved in 1967 after two members were drafted. Ben got drafted as well, but received a deferment after serving one and a half years in the Army. In 1970, Orr moved to Columbus, Ohio and met mellow musician, Ric Ocasek; the two formed a folk band called "Milkwood". "Milkwood" released an album, titled "How's the Weather?", in 1972. In the mid 70s, Ben became a member of the Boston, Massachusetts nightclub group, "Cap'n Swing"; two other members of this particular band were Ocasek and guitarist Elliot Easton. "Cap'n Swing" broke up in 1975. In 1976, Orr, Ocasek, Easton, drummer David Robinson, and keyboardist Greg Hawkes formed the hugely popular, successful and innovative New Wave synth-pop band, The Cars. Ben sang lead vocals on such hit "Cars" songs as "Bye, Bye Love", "Just What I Needed", "Let's Go", "Drive" and "Moving in Stereo". In 1986, he recorded the solo album, "The Lace", which beget the Top 40 hit song, "Stay the Night". Moreover, Orr was featured on Ocasek's solo album, "This Side of Paradise", and the Joni Mitchell albums, "Misses" and "Chalk Mark, in a Rain Storm". Ben left The Cars in 1987. From 1998 up until his death, Ben performed with his own band, "Orr", and the side bands, "Big People" and "the Voices of Classic Rock". He reunited with The Cars for the documentary The Cars: Live (2000) in the summer of 2000. Orr died at age 53 from pancreatic cancer on October 3, 2000 in Atlanta, Georgia.- Actor
- Stunts
- Soundtrack
An American stuntman who, after more than 30 years in the business, moved into acting and became an acclaimed and respected character actor, Richard Farnsworth was a native of Los Angeles. He grew up around horses and as a teenager was offered an opportunity to ride in films. He appeared in horse-racing scenes and cavalry charges unbilled, first as a general rider and later as a stuntman. His riding and stunting skills gained him regular work doubling stars ranging from Roy Rogers to Gary Cooper, and he often doubled the bad guy as well. Although. like most stuntmen, he was occasionally given a line or two of dialogue, it was not until Farnsworth was over 50 that his natural talent for acting and his ease and warmth before the camera became apparent. When he won an Academy Award nomination for his role in Comes a Horseman (1978), it came as a surprise to many in the industry that this "newcomer" had been around since the 1930s. Farnsworth followed his Oscar nomination with a number of finely wrought performances, including The Grey Fox (1982) and The Natural (1984). In 1999 he came out of semi-retirement for a tour-de-force portrayal in The Straight Story (1999).- David Dukes was born on 6 June 1945 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Gods and Monsters (1998), Rawhead Rex (1986) and A Little Romance (1979). He was married to Carol Muske-Dukes and Carolyn Lee McKenzie. He died on 9 October 2000 in Lakewood, Washington, USA.
- Actor
- Director
The only child of a stockbroker and well-to-do mother, Richard Jacobson (who changed his surname to "Jason") described himself as "second-generation nouveau riche" and a born romantic. His behavior got him expelled from eight prep schools before he managed to graduate from the Rhodes School. His father bought him a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, but Jason sold the seat and enlisted in the Army Air Corps (1943-45). After the war, he attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA) on the GI Bill. While attending a New York play, he was spotted by actor-director Hume Cronyn, who immediately cast him in "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep" in 1950 as "Anselmo". Although the play closed after a month, the role earned Jason a Theater World Award and a Hollywood contract with Columbia Pictures. For the first year he was under contract, a frustrated Jason did not work. Meanwhile, MGM was searching for an actor to replace the departed Fernando Lamas in Sombrero (1953). Jason, now released from Columbia, landed the role. This success led to The Saracen Blade (1954) and RKO's This Is My Love (1954).
Twentieth Century-Fox then signed him for the male lead in The Lieutenant Wore Skirts (1956), after which he was signed to a multi-picture contract. His first project, an adaptation of John Steinbeck's "The Wayward Bus" (The Wayward Bus (1957)), earned him critical acclaim; a string of strong performances, both in films and TV, followed. In 1960, he starred as suave insurance investigator Robin Scott in The Case of the Dangerous Robin (1960). The series ran 38 episodes and made Jason the first actor seen using martial arts (karate) on television. In September 1962 he exploded onto prime-time screens as the cool, calm, and collected Lt. Gil Hanley in ABC's hit series Combat! (1962), Five seasons and 152 episodes later, Jason was a household name.
After "Combat!", Jason returned to the stage. He also made films in Japan and Israel. In 1970 he took the lead in the 1970 pilot Prudence and the Chief (1970). His TV career remained strong, and in the 1970s and 1980s he appeared in Matt Houston (1982), Police Woman (1974), Murder, She Wrote (1984), Wonder Woman (1975), Fantasy Island (1977), Airwolf (1984) and Dallas (1978). In 1973, he was a regular on the then-new soap opera The Young and the Restless (1973). After retirement, he kept busy doing voice-overs for commercials and ran the Wine Locker, a 4,000-square-foot facility used to store fine wines under optimal conditions. Sadly, he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at age 77 in October 2000.- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Julie London recorded 32 albums during her career. Forced to give up band singing when her true age was discovered, she was primarily a torch singer. Her vocal range was described by "sultry" and "low-keyed". Her own favorite singers were Barbra Streisand and Roberta Flack.
She was known in some circles as "The Liberty Girl" for helping establish Liberty Records, where she began singing in 1955, as a successful label. Her many hit albums on that label include "Julie Is Her Name", "Calendar Girl" with some borderline erotic (for the time) cover photography by Gene Lester, "About the Blues", "Your Number, Please", "Send For Me", "Love Letters", "The End of the World", "In Person at the Americana", "The Wonderful World of Julie London" and the provocatively titled "Nice Girls Don't Stay for Breakfast".
Her most popular song, "Cry Me a River", was written by her former classmate/boyfriend Arthur Hamilton and produced by Bobby Troup. Her four most-sought-after and successful albums are "About the Blues (1957), "Feeling Good" (1965), "Easy Does It" (1968) and "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy" (1969). (Her version of "Yummy Yummy Yummy" was featured on the HBO television series Six Feet Under (2001).) Billboard Magazine named her the most popular female vocalist for 1955, 1956 and 1957".- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Art Department
Gwen Verdon was born to the theater. Her mother, Gertrude, was a vaudevillian and dancer. Her father, Joseph, was an MGM studio electrician. She had to wear corrective boots as a child to straighten out her legs, which were misshapen by childhood illness. Nonetheless, she first appeared as a tapper on stage at age 6. She got her break in Bob Fosse's "Damn Yankees" in 1955. She married Fosse in 1960 and separated from him, although never divorcing him, in the mid-'70s. More stage and screen work quickly followed with highlights in "New Girl In Town", "Redhead", "Sweet Charity", and "Chicago". She and her daughter, Nicole Fosse, created the current stage musical "Fosse". Upon her death, Broadway dimmed all of its marquee lights in tribute.- The man who would eventually become known as Yokozuna was born in San Francisco on October 22, 1966. He came from a wrestling family, as his uncles were Afa Anoai and Sika Anoai. He was trained by his uncles and Sam Fatu as a teenager and wrestled in Alabama and the USWA under the name Kokina Anoai. He already weighed 400 pounds.
In Japan, he would work in main events against Big Van Vader (Leon White), and there he met a contingent of sumo wrestlers, which led to the gimmick which would get him the most over, the character Yokozuna, or sumo grand champion. Vince McMahon brought him into the WWF and gave him a monster push in 1992. He wasn't even knocked off his feet for months, until finally Jim Duggan finally pulled it off, and he still won the match. He later won the Royal Rumble (1993), which allowed him to challenge for the WWF Title at WrestleMania IX (1993) against Bret Hart. Anoai won the match and the title, but immediately lost it at the same event to Hulk Hogan. Anoai won the title back at the King of the Ring (1993) and kept it for over 10 months, an incredible amount of time for a 'heel' wrestler. He lost it back to Hart at WrestleMania X (1994).
His weight was becoming a huge issue, and multiple attempts to get Anoai to lose it were failures. The WWF kept him off TV for awhile, then brought him back in as a tag team partner for Owen Hart, with whom he won the Tag Team Championship at WrestleMania XI (1995). His weight gain continued, and at his final appearance in the WWF, during the _Survivor Series (1996) (V)_, he weighed almost 800 pounds. This would make him the heaviest pro wrestler in history, but he was never officially weighed.
He wrestled in the main event of the Heroes of Wrestling pay per view in 1999 and went on a European tour in October 2000. It was during this tour that he died of a heart attack in his hotel room in Liverpool, England. He was only 34. - Writer
- Actor
- Producer
Steve Allen was born on 26 December 1921 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Casino (1995), The Player (1992) and College Confidential (1960). He was married to Jayne Meadows and Dorothy Goodman. He died on 30 October 2000 in Encino, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Casting Department
- Writer
Raymond Laine was born on 9 April 1936 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Sudden Death (1995), The Affair (1971) and The Devil and Sam Silverstein (1976). He was married to Pamela Murphy and Susan McGregor-Laine. He died on 1 November 2000 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.- 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.
- Rayford Barnes was born on 23 October 1920 in near Whitesboro, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for The Wild Bunch (1969), Death Hunt (1981) and Young Jesse James (1960). He was married to Debra ?. He died on 11 November 2000 in Santa Monica, California, USA.
- Robert Doyle was born on 22 September 1938 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Alligator (1980), Lancer (1968) and The Outer Limits (1963). He was married to Pamela Dunlap. He died on 16 November 2000 in Laguna Hills, California, USA.
- Anne Barton was born on 20 March 1924 in Evansville, Indiana, USA. She was an actress, known for What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), The Twilight Zone (1959) and Whirlybirds (1957). She was married to Dan Barton. She died on 27 November 2000 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Chris Rebello was born on 8 August 1963 in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for Jaws (1975). He was married to Lyn Wadsworth. He died on 30 November 2000 in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, USA.
- A classy, smart-looking African-American actress who broke racial barriers in 1970s Hollywood but suffered greatly in her private life years after her TV glory days, award-winning actress Gail Fisher was born on August 18, 1935, in Orange, New Jersey, the youngest of five children. Her father, a carpenter, died when she was only two years old and the family was destitute, living in the slums ("Potters Crossing") with their widowed mother Ona Fisher. Gail was a cheerleader as a teen and found some joy performing a leading role in one of her Metuchen High School plays in Metuchen, New Jersey. Beauty pageants became a source of pride during this period, earning distinction on the beauty-pageant circuit and becoming the first African-American semifinalist in the New Jersey State Fair beauty contest. A multiple pageant winner, among her titles were "Miss Transit," "Miss Black New Jersey" and "Miss Press Photographer."
Thanks to a contest sponsored by Coca-Cola, Gail won the chance to study acting at New York's American Academy of Arts for two years. She trained under Lee Strasberg for a time and subsequently became a member (the first African-American accepted) of the Repertory Theater at Lincoln Center, where she worked with Elia Kazan and Herbert Blau. The young serene beauty also worked as a model at the time and even worked in a factory to pay bills. In 1964 she married John Levy (1912-2012), a bassist and pioneer jazz talent manager whose clients included some of the jazz world's biggest names (Nancy Wilson, Joe Williams, Cannonball Adderley, Betty Carter, Freddie Hubbard, Herbie Hancock, Abbey Lincoln, Shirley Horn, Les McCann, Wes Montgomery). He also managed Gail's acting career. John and Gail, who was his second wife, had two children, Samara and Jole.
In 1965, teacher Herbert Blau cast Gail in a classical stage production of "Danton's Death" in 1965. Gail also understudied Ruby Dee in "Purlie Victorious" on Broadway and toured with a production of "A Raisin in the Sun". The 25-year-old broke into TV years earlier in 1959, appearing in the syndicated program "Play of the Week" entitled "Simply Heavenly," a musical starring Mel Stewart and Claudia McNeil, and also played a singer in the series "The Defenders" and a judge on daytime's "General Hospital". During the early part of the 1960s, she made history when she appeared in a nationally televised commercial for All laundry detergent and became the first black performer to be given dialogue.
The crime series Mannix (1967) starring Mike Connors was revamped in its second season due to mediocre ratings and Gail was added to the mix as Peggy Fair, Mannix's widowed secretary whose murdered husband, a cop, was a friend to the detective and who was now raising their small son alone. Sometimes Peggy would go undercover as a housekeeper or prostitute to help him solve crimes. The public immediately took to the dusky-voiced actress and the ratings soared. Any slight hint of romance between the Peggy Fair and Joe Mannix characters was never acted upon as CBS (who initially was hesitant in hiring a black woman in this role), or any other network for that matter, would not allow an interracial romance. Gail went on to win an Emmy (the first black actress to do so -- besting Susan Saint James of "McMillan and Wife" and Barbara Anderson of "Ironside") and two Golden Globe trophies (the first black actress to win this award) in the process. In between she made amiable guest appearances on such popular TV series as "My Three Sons," "Love, American Style" and "Room 222."
Once "Mannix" was canceled in 1975, however, acting offers slowed down considerably and chaos rose beneath her usually calm and controlled exterior. Not in keeping with her public image, she flew into a series of marriages and divorces and developed a major drug problem. She made tabloid headlines in 1978 when she was busted for possession of marijuana and cocaine and for using an illegal phone device. She entered rehab and eventually recovered but her career was irreparably damaged. Sporadic acting roles came in such series as "Medical Center," "Fantasy Island," "Knight Rider" and "Hotel," and the TV movie Donor (1990) and the grade-Z crime film Mankillers (1987) co-starring Edd Byrnes, but they were very few and far between. Fisher was married at least twice and had two daughters, Samara and Jole, from her marriage to John Levy, which ended in divorce in 1972 during the run of "Mannix". She briefly married second husband Robert A. Walker the following year.
Gail's battle with drug addiction contributed to her health decline. A diabetic as well, she was later diagnosed with emphysema. Gail died of renal failure in Los Angeles in 2000 at age 65 and was cremated. News of her death did not surface until four months later. Survived by brother Herbert and sister Ona, another brother, Clifton, died of heart failure twelve hours after Gail's passing. Gail was such a class act on TV. - Actor
- Casting Director
- Soundtrack
Werner Klemperer, everyone's favorite TV German Air Force colonel, was best known for his role as the bumbling Col. Wilhelm Klink on the comedy series Hogan's Heroes (1965). Although he'll forever be known as the blustering but inept German commandant of Stalag 13, Klemperer was in fact a talented dramatic actor, as evidenced by his acclaimed performance as an arrogant, unrepentant Nazi judge being tried for crimes against humanity in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). His identification with Nazi roles notwithstanding, Klemperer was in real life the son of a Jew who fled with his family from Nazi Germany in the 1930s. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II. When he was offered the Col. Klink role, Klemperer only agreed to do it if the show's producers promised that Klink would never succeed in any of his schemes. "Col. Klink" earned Klemperer five Emmy nominations, and he took home the trophy twice, in 1968 and 1969. After the series, Klemperer carved out an impressive musical career as a conductor and also served as a narrator with many major U.S. symphony orchestras. He was an accomplished concert violinist.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Marie Windsor (born Emily Marie Bertelsen) was born in Marysvale, Utah, and attended Brigham Young University. She trained for the stage under Maria Ouspenskaya before she began playing leading roles in B pictures in the late 1940s. So many B films in fact, that she garnered the title of 'Queen of the Bs'.
She was a talent - to paraphrase a cliché - of the right type and the right time. If film noir could have manufactured an archetype, it would most definitely have been Marie.
With Ms Windsor's bedroom eyes ('they didn't fit for a 'goody-goody wife, or a nice little girlfriend' ) she smouldered on screens, in scenes with John Garfield, and many others, in some of her best work. Marie's femme fatale (Ms Windsor was later quoted as saying a femme fatale is '...usually the woman who gets the man into bed... then into trouble') was on screen, most notably her role as the manipulative, double-crossing wife of Elisha Cook Jr. in The Killing (1956) (which earned her "Look" magazine's Best Supporting Actress award).
Marie later said she loved playing them because they're '... the type of character audience's never forget'.
Some of her favourites amongst her own films, in addition to The Killing (1956), are The Narrow Margin (1952) and Hellfire (1949).
Marie married was married twice before she met Jack Hupp, a realtor with whom she had a son. After retiring from films, Marie took up sculpting and painting.
Marie passed away one day before her 81st birthday. She's interred with her husband in her hometown.
Marie said audience's 'loved to hate her', and this is only partially true; audience's love Ms Windsor for the dynamism she portrayed, and as film noir gains new fans every day - more than 3/4 of a century since their heyday, it's a love affair which shows no signs of abating.- Actor
- Stunts
- Director
George Montgomery was boxing champion at the University of Montana where he majored in architecture and interior design. Dropping out a year later he decided to take up boxing more seriously. He moved to California where he was coached by ex-heavyweight world champion James J. Jeffries. While in Hollywood, he came to the attention of the studios (not least, because he was an expert rider) and was hired as a stuntman in 1935. After doing this for four years, George was offered a contract at 20th Century Fox in 1939, but found himself largely confined to leads in B-westerns. He did not secure a part in anything even remotely like a prestige picture until his co-starring role in Roxie Hart (1942), opposite Ginger Rogers. Next, in Orchestra Wives (1942), he played the perfunctory love interest for Ann Rutherford, though both, inevitably, ended up playing second trombone to Glenn Miller and His Orchestra.
In 1947, George got his first serious break, being cast as Raymond Chandler's private eye Philip Marlowe in The Brasher Doubloon (1947). Reviewers, however, compared his performance unfavorably with that of Humphrey Bogart and found the film "pallid" overall. So it was back in the saddle for George. Unable to shake his image as a cowboy actor he starred in scores of films with titles like Belle Starr's Daughter (1948), Dakota Lil (1950), Jack McCall, Desperado (1953), and Masterson of Kansas (1954) at Columbia, and for producer Edward Small at United Artists. When not cleaning up the Wild West with his six-shooter, he branched out into adventure films set in exotic locales (notably as Harry Quartermain in Watusi (1959)). During the 60s, he also wrote, directed and starred in several long-forgotten, low-budget wartime potboilers made in the Philippines.
At the height of his popularity, George attracted as much publicity for his acting as for his liaisons with glamorous stars, like Ginger Rogers, Hedy Lamarr (to whom he was briefly engaged) and singer Dinah Shore (whom he married in 1943). After his retirement from the film business, he devoted himself to his love of painting, furniture-making and sculpting bronze busts, including one of his close friend Ronald Reagan.- Trevor Adams was born on 19 May 1946. He was an actor, known for The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976), I Am a Groupie (1970) and Private Road (1971). He died on 15 December 2000 in Norwich, Norfolk, England, UK.
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Billy Barty was born William John Bertanzetti on October 25, 1924 in Millsboro, Pennsylvania. He began performing at age three and began making pictures in 1927. He played Mickey Rooney's little brother in the "Mickey McGuire" comedy shorts series. He was equally adept in both comedy and drama, and generally gives an added zest to any production he is associated with. He founded the Little People of America in 1957 and the Billy Barty Foundation in 1975. He possessed an immense talent and energetic charm that added a much needed shot in the arm to many series and films. Billy Barty died at age 76 of heart failure on December 23, 2000 in Glendale, California.- Actor
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Pianist, composer, songwriter, entertainer and actor, educated at Borgerdydskolen and the Conservatory of Copenhagen. He studied with Egon Petri and Frederic Lammond. His concert career began in 1922, and he performed in a musical revue in 1934, and in films by 1937. Arriving in the US in 1940, he made his American radio debut on the Bing Crosby show. He was featured in his own one-man show "Comedy in Music", plus concert appearances throughout the USA and Europe. Joining ASCAP in 1961, he composed "Blue Serenade".- Actor
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Big, burly character actor, one of the toughest of screen heavies. New York-born Leo Gordon's combination of a powerful physique, deep, menacing voice and icy, withering glare was guaranteed to strike fear into the heart of even the bravest screen hero. Director Don Siegel, who used Gordon in his prison film Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954), once said that "Leo Gordon was the scariest man I have ever met"--this coming from a man who had directed John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and Bette Midler! Siegel wasn't talking about just Gordon's screen presence. As a "heavy", Gordon was the real deal--before becoming an actor (he studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts), Gordon served five years in San Quentin State Prison for armed robbery (during which he was shot several times point-blank by police--and survived). "Riot in Cell Block 11" was filmed at Folsom State Prison--where Gordon also served time--and the Folsom warden remembered him as a troublemaker.At first he refused to allow the film to be shot there if Gordon was to be in it, but Siegel was able to convince him that Gordon was no threat to the prison.
Contrary to his image, though, Gordon was not just a one-note villain. He did play sympathetic parts on occasion, notably in the western Black Patch (1957)--which he also wrote--and in Roger Corman's civil rights drama The Intruder (1962), and turned in first-rate performances, especially in the latter film. Gordon was also a screenwriter, turning out several screenplays for Corman. He wasn't just limited to writing low-budget sci-fi films, either; he penned the screenplay for the WWII epic Tobruk (1967), writing in a meaty part for himself as Kruger, a tough sergeant in a platoon of German Jews masquerading as Nazi soldiers to help blow up a German oil storage facility.
Leo Gordon died in Los Angeles, CA, in 2000 at age 78 of heart failure.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Powerful and highly respected American actor Jason Nelson Robards, Jr. was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Hope Maxine (Glanville) and stage and film star Jason Robards Sr. He had Swedish, English, Welsh, German, and Irish ancestry. Robards was raised mostly in Los Angeles. A star athlete at Hollywood High School, he served in the U.S. Navy in World War II, where he saw combat as a radioman (though he is not listed in official rolls of Navy Cross winners, despite the claims he and his public relations personnel made. Neither was he at Pearl Harbor during the Dec. 7, 1941 attack, his ship being at sea at the time.) Returning to civilian life, he attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and struggled as a small-part actor in local New York theatre, TV and radio before shooting to fame on the New York stage in Eugene O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh" as Hickey. He followed that with another masterful O'Neill portrayal, as the alcoholic Jamie Tyrone in "Long Day's Journey Into Night" on Broadway. He entered feature films in The Journey (1959) and rose rapidly to even greater fame as a film star. Robards won consecutive Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor for All the President's Men (1976) and Julia (1977), in each case playing real-life people. He continued to work on the stage, winning continued acclaim in such O'Neill works as "Moon For the Misbegotten" and "Hughie." Robards died of lung cancer in 2000.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Ray Walston started his acting career as a spear carrier with a local stock company. When the family moved to Houston, Texas, Walston's father wanted to teach him the oil business, but Walston instead joined a traveling repertory company (selling tickets as well as acting). He went on to associate with Margo Jones at the Houston Civic Theater for six years, then spent three seasons with the Cleveland Playhouse before arriving in New York in 1945. He has won a Tony Award for his performance as the Devil in Broadway's "Damn Yankees", two Emmy Awards for Picket Fences (1992), and become a household name playing the extraterrestrial "Uncle Martin" on My Favorite Martian (1963). Ray Walston died at age 86 of lupus on New Year's Day 2001 in Beverly Hills, California.- Dario Michaelis was born on 29 March 1927 in Resistencia, Chaco, Argentina. He was an actor, known for Nana (1955), I briganti italiani (1961) and La strada dei giganti (1960). He died on 5 January 2001 in Rome, Italy.
- Nancy Parsons was born in Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota, to Mary Margaret née Samsa and Charles Walter Parsons. She had two siblings -- Mary Jean Parsons and Theresa Mae Macrae née Parsons. When she was seventeen, her father remarried Genevieve Stack and moved with the three girls to South Pasadena, California. It was here that the acting bug first bit, when she appeared in the senior play and was subsequently given a full scholarship to the famed Pasadena Playhouse; 1960-1962. In her two years there, she appeared in some of the great works of Edward Albee, Clifford Odets, Tennessee Williams, Max Bollinger, and William Shakespeare, among others. Nancy married Alan Hipwell immediately after graduation and gave birth to Elizabeth Hipwell, on November 3, 1964, and to Margaret Hipwell, on October 7, 1969.
She returned to acting after divorcing her husband. While at UCLA, completing a theatre degree, she won the Hugh O'Brien Award; an event that launched her career. This award drew her to her lifelong friend and agent Susan Smith. Throughout her career, she garnered a Family Film Award for Best Actress in Porky's Revenge (1985), an Academy of Science Fiction and Fantasy nomination for Best Supporting Actress in Motel Hell (1980), a Dramalogue Award for the play "Dead End At Sunset," and a woman of the year award from the Alumni Association of her alma mater, The Pasadena Playhouse.
These are all her career achievements, but we would say the greatest legacy she has left us is the ability to live passionately, as individuals. Nancy always believed that art was the noblest of paths one could follow -- that it took an immense amount of courage, stamina and chutzpah (one of her favorite words). Nancy is survived by Margot Hipwell and her children Cassidy Coulson, and Jasper Coulson, and me, Elizabeth Hipwell. Thank you Mom! You will never be forgotten! - Bryan Gregory was born on 20 February 1951 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He was an actor, known for The Foreigner (1978) and The Cramps: Human Fly (1978). He was married to Robyn Hunt. He died on 10 January 2001 in Anaheim, California, USA.
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He was born in 1918, although there isn't a consensus as some books date his birth in 1925. He was one of the main directors of the Spanish horror boom in the 70s, specially for his quartet of films about the living dead templars which started with Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972).- Richard Woods was born on 9 May 1923 in Buffalo, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Miller's Crossing (1990), The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) and I.Q. (1994). He died on 16 January 2001 in Englewood, New Jersey, USA.
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Al Waxman was born on 2 March 1935 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was an actor and director, known for Cagney & Lacey (1981), Heavy Metal (1981) and The Hurricane (1999). He was married to Sara. He died on 18 January 2001 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.- Actor
- Writer
Sandy Baron was born Sanford Beresofsky in Brooklyn, New York on May 5, 1936. Raised in Brooklyn's Brownsville neighborhood, the young Sandy attended public schools and participated in accelerated classes. A graduate of Brooklyn College, he spent his early years working summers in the Catskill Mountain resorts that were the breeding grounds of many Jewish comedians. Baron made his Broadway debut in "Tchin-Tchin" on Oct 25, 1962. His next play, Bertolt Brecht's "Arturo Ui" with Christopher Plummer in the title role, was a flop, lasting but eight performances in November 1963. His next appearance on the Great White Way, in the comedy "Generation," was more successful, playing for over half a year in the 1965-1966 season.
In 1964, Sandy -- already a seasoned Catskill comic and nightclub performer -- released a 13-track album on Roulette Records, "The Race! Race!" The album jacket pronounced it a "rollicking comedy album about hate, prejudice, bigotry and other such nonsense." He established a national reputation that year on the television comedy series That Was the Week That Was (1963), the American version of the hit British TV show, both of which starred David Frost. He followed it up with a lead role in the TV series Hey, Landlord (1966), playing a stand-up comedian.
In the 1970s, he made regular appearances on the The Mike Douglas Show (1961) and the The Merv Griffin Show (1962). Baron played Lenny Bruce in the show "Lenny" at Hollywood's Aquarius Theater in 1972, and eventually replaced Cliff Gorman in New York in what would prove to be his last Broadway appearance.
Baron appeared as himself in Woody Allen's Broadway Danny Rose (1984), the director's homage to borscht-belt comedy. In the 1990s, he appeared as Jack Klompus, the nemesis of Jerry Seinfeld's father on the hit TV series Seinfeld (1989). He replaced Al Lewis as Grandpa Munster in the TV movie The Munsters' Scary Little Christmas (1996). His last movie appearance was in Stephen Frears' The Hi-Lo Country (1998).
Sandy Baron died of emphysema on January 21, 2001 in a nursing home in Van Nuys, California. A memorial celebration was held on July 22, 2001 at Hollywood's Ivar Theater.- David Byrd was born on 3 September 1932 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Tango & Cash (1989), Lost Highway (1997) and The Hudsucker Proxy (1994). He was married to Anne Gee Byrd. He died on 26 January 2001 in Studio City, California, USA.