Lew Cody (1884 - 1934)

Lew Cody (February 22, 1884 – May 31, 1934) was an American stage and film actor whose career spanned the silent film and early sound film age. He gained notoriety in the late 1910s for playing “male vamps” in films such as Don’t Change Your Husband. Lew Cody was born Louis Joseph Côté to Joseph Côté […]

Steve Cochran (1917 - 1965)

From 1949–52 Steve Cochran worked for Warner Brothers in mostly supporting roles (often playing boxers and gangsters), and before that he was under contract to Samuel Goldwyn. He appeared in many films, including The Chase (1946), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Copacabana (1947), A Song Is Born (1948), Highway 301 (1950), The Damned […]

Lee Cobb (1911 - 1976)

Lee Cobb performed summer stock with the Group Theatre (New York) in 1936, when they summered at Pine Brook Country Club in Nichols, Connecticut. During World War II Cobb served in the First Motion Picture Unit of the United States Army Air Forces. Cobb entered films in the 1930s, successfully playing middle-aged and even older men […]

Del Close (1934 - 1999)

Del Close was born on March 9, 1934 in Manhattan, Kansas, the son of an inattentive alcoholic father. He ran away from home at the age of 17 to work in a traveling side show, but returned to attend Kansas State University. At age 19 he performed in summer stock with the Belfry Players at […]

Colin Clive (1900 - 1937)

Colin Clive was born in Saint-Malo, France, to an English colonel, Colin Philip Greig, and his wife, Caroline Margaret Lugard Clive. He attended Stonyhurst College and subsequently Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, where an injured knee disqualified him from military service and contributed to his becoming a stage actor. Clive created the role of Steve Baker, the […]

Stanley Clements (1926 - 1981)

Stanley Clements was born Stanislaw Klimowicz in Long Island, New York. Young Stan realized that he wanted a show-business career while he was in grammar school, and when he graduated from college, he toured in vaudeville for two years. He then joined the touring company of the Major Bowes Amateur Hour. In 1941, he was […]

Steve Clark (1960 - 1991)

Before joining Def Leppard in 1978, Steve Clark played cover songs with his small band, Electric Chicken, in Sheffield. Around that time, he met Pete Willis (Def Leppard’s original guitarist and founder). Clark asked for a spot in the band and joined Def Leppard in January 1978. According to Joe Elliott in Behind the Music, […]

Fred Clark (1914 - 1968)

Born in Lincoln, California, Fred Clark made his film debut in 1947 in The Unsuspected. His 20-year film career included nearly seventy films and numerous television appearances. As a supporting player, with his gruff voice, intimidating build, bald head and small moustache beneath an often scowling visage, he was often cast as a testy film […]

Buddy Clark (1912 - 1949)

Buddy Clark was born Samuel Goldberg to Jewish parents in Dorchester, Massachusetts. He made his Big Band singing debut in 1932 as a tenor, with Gus Arnheim’s orchestra, but was not successful. Singing baritone, he gained wider notice in 1934, with Benny Goodman on the Let’s Dance radio program. In 1936 he began performing on […]

Berton Churchill (1876 - 1940)

Born in Toronto, Ontario, as a young man interested in the theater, Berton Churchill appeared in stock companies as early as 1903 and later headed to New York City, where he worked as a newspaper pressman, eventually becoming a foreman and leader of his union. He began an acting career that saw him perform in 30 […]

Merle Haggard (1937 - 2016)

Merle Haggard Merle Haggard’s parents, Flossie Mae (Harp) and James Francis Haggard, moved to California from their home in Checotah, Oklahoma, during the Great Depression, after their barn burned in 1934. They settled with their children, Lowell and Lillian, in an apartment in Bakersfield, while James started working for the Santa Fe Railroad. A woman […]

Mady Christians (1892 - 1951)

Mady Christians was born on January 19, 1892 to Rudolph Christians, a well-known German actor, and his wife, Bertha. Her family moved to Berlin when she was one year old, and to New York in 1912, where her father became the Irving Place Theatre’s general manager. Five years later she returned to Europe to study […]

Alvin Childress (1907 - 1986)

Alvin Childress was born in Meridian, Mississippi. He was educated at Rust College, from which he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology. When he initially entered college, Childress intended to become a doctor, enrolling in typical pre-med courses. He had no thoughts of becoming involved in acting, but became involved in theater outside […]

Peter Cheyney (1896 - 1951)

Peter Cheyney wrote his first novel, the Lemmy Caution thriller This Man Is Dangerous in 1936 and followed it with the first Slim Callaghan novel, The Urgent Hangman in 1938. The immediate success of these two novels assured a flourishing new career, and Cheyney abandoned his work as a freelance investigator. Sales were brisk; in […]

Albert Chevalier (1861 - 1923)

Albert Chevalier born Albert Onésime Britannicus Gwathveoyd Louis Chevalier; (21 March 1861 – 10 July 1923), was an English music hall comedian, singer and musical theatre actor. He specialised in cockney related humour based on life as a costermonger in London during the Victorian era. Owing to this and his ability to write songs, he […]

Don Chastain (1935 - 2002)

  Don Chastain (September 2, 1935 – August 9, 2002) was an American actor, singer and screenwriter. He was married to Jill Diamond and had one son, Colin Chastain. He worked in television in Los Angeles and New York and toured the United States and Canada with major productions. Leading ladies included Katharine Hepburn; Lauren Bacall; […]

Lonny Chapman (1920 - 2007)

Lonny Chapman was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but lived thereafter in Joplin, Missouri. He graduated from Joplin High School and, in 1940, from Joplin Junior College, the predecessor institution of Missouri Southern. He enlisted in the United States Marine Corps served in the South Pacific during World War II. After the war, Chapman graduated from […]

Ben Chapman (1925 - 2008)

Born in Oakland, California, Ben Chapman spent much of his childhood in Tahiti and moved to San Francisco at age 12 or 13. A Marine Corps veteran of the Korean War, he was believed to have earned a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and two Purple Hearts for battle injuries. However, after his death, the Marine […]

Sydney Chaplin (1885 - 1965)

As Charlie was negotiating his Keystone contract, he suggested Sydney Chaplin be asked to join the company, and Syd and his wife Minnie Chaplin arrived in California in October 1914. Syd made a few comedies there, including the “Gussle” comedies, and the feature-length A Submarine Pirate in 1915, which, second to Tillie’s Punctured Romance, was […]

George Chandler (1898 - 1985)

George Chandler (June 30, 1898 – June 10, 1985) was an American actor best known for playing the character of “Uncle Petrie Martin” on the CBS television series, Lassie. He was born in Waukegan, Illinois on June 30, 1898. Chandler served in the United States Army during World War I. George Chandler appeared six times in Bill […]

Adolfo Celi (1922 - 1986)

Adolfo Celi became a film actor in post-war Italy. He left the Italian film industry when he emigrated to Brazil where he co-founded the Teatro Brasileiro de Comédia along with the Brazilian stage greats Paulo Autran and Tônia Carrero in São Paulo He was successful as a stage actor in Argentina and Brazil. He directed […]

Joseph Cawthorn (1868 - 1949)

Joseph Cawthorn (March 29, 1868, New York City, New York – January 21, 1949, Beverly Hills, California) was an American stage and film comic actor. Cawthorn started out in show business as a child, debuting at Robinson’s Music Hall in his hometown of New York in 1872. He appeared in minstrel shows and vaudeville as a […]

Hobart Cavanaugh (1886 - 1950)

Hobart Cavanaugh (September 22, 1886 – April 26, 1950) was an American character actor in films and on stage. He was born in Virginia City, Nevada on September 22, 1886. Cavanaugh attended the University of California. He worked in vaudeville, teaming with Walter Catlett at some point. He appeared in numerous Broadway productions, including the original 1919 […]

Walter Catlett (1889 - 1960)

Walter Catlett was born in San Francisco, California. He started out in vaudeville, teaming up with Hobart Cavanaugh at some point, with a detour for a while in opera, before breaking into acting. He started on stage in 1906 and made his Broadway debut in either The Prince of Pilsen (1911) or So Long Letty (1916). […]

Zachary Scott (1914 - 1965)

Born in Austin, Texas, Zachary Scott was a distant cousin of George Washington, and his grandfather had been a very successful cattle rancher. He was also of direct Greek descent, his full surname being Skotidis. Scott intended to be a doctor like his father, Zachary Scott Sr. (1880–1964), but after attending the University of Texas at […]

Jack Carson (1910 - 1963)

Jack Carson was born in Carman, Manitoba to Elmer and Elsa Carson. In 1914, the family moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which he always thought of as his home town. He attended high school at Hartford School, Milwaukee and St. John’s Military Academy, Delafield, but it was at Carleton College that he acquired a taste for […]

Leo Carrillo (1880 - 1961)

lthough he played many different ethnicities in his acting career, Leo Carrillo was Castillian Spanish and traced his ancestry in Spain to the year 1260. His great-great grandfather José Raimundo Carrillo (1749–1809), was a soldier in the Spanish Portolá expedition colonization of Las Californias, arriving in San Diego on July 1, 1769. Franciscan Friar Junípero […]

Jean Carmet (1920 - 1994)

Jean Carmet (25 April 1920 – 20 April 1994) was a French actor. Jean Carmet began working on stage and then in film in the early 1940s becoming a very popular comedic actor in his native country. He is best known internationally for his role as a French colonist in the 1976 film, La Victoire en […]

Roger Carmel (1932 - 1986)

Roger Carmel starred as milksop Roger Buell in the 1967 NBC sitcom The Mothers-in-Law, but was replaced by Richard Deacon after season 1. Officially, Carmel had a salary dispute with producer Desi Arnaz, although, according to rumors, he was fired because his drug use interfered with production. Carmel’s other guest roles included the accountant Doug Wesley […]

Ron Carey (1935 - 2007)

Ron Carey (December 11, 1935 – January 16, 2007) was an American film and television actor. The 5-foot 4-inch actor was best known for playing ambitious NYPD Police Officer Carl Levitt on TV’s Barney Miller, in which he was almost always surrounded by male actors (and sometimes female guest stars) who stood at least four […]