Anita Louise (1915 - 1970)

Anita Louise (January 9, 1915 – April 25, 1970) was an American film actress best known for her performances in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935), The Story of Louis Pasteur (1935), and Anthony Adverse (1936). Anita Louise Fremault was born on January 9, 1915 in New York City. She made her acting debut on Broadway at […]

Gypsy Rose Lee (1911 - 1970)

Gypsy Rose Lee Gypsy Rose Lee was born in Seattle, Washington, on January 8, 1911, as Rose Louise Hovick; she always gave January 9 as her date of birth. Louise’s sister, actress June Havoc, born Ellen June Hovick or Ellen Evangeline Hovick, was born on November 8, 1912. Their mother, Rose (née Rose Evangeline Thompson), […]

Inger Stevens (1934 - 1970)

Inger Stevens was born Ingrid Stensland in Stockholm, Sweden. As a child she was often ill. When she was nine, her mother abandoned the family and her father moved to the United States, leaving Inger and her sister in the custody first of the family maid and then an aunt in Lidingo, near Stockholm. In […]

Brian Epstein (1934 - 1967)

Brian Samuel Epstein (/ɛpstaɪn/; 19 September 1934 – 27 August 1967) was an English music entrepreneur, best known for managing the Beatles. Brian Epstein first discovered the Beatles in November 1961 during a lunchtime Cavern Club performance. He was instantly impressed and saw great potential in the group. Epstein was rejected by nearly all major recording […]

Cilla Black (1943 - 2015)

Priscilla Maria Veronica White OBE (27 May 1943 – 1 August 2015), known by her stage name Cilla Black, was an English singer, television presenter, actress, and author. Championed by her friends the Beatles, she began her career as a singer in 1963, and her singles “Anyone Who Had a Heart” and “You’re My World” both […]

Telly Savalas (1922 - 1994)

Telly Savalas Telly Savalas was born as Aristotelis Savalas on January 21, 1922, in Garden City, New York, to Greek American parents Christina (née Kapsalis), a New York City artist who was a native of Sparta, and Nick Savalas, a Greek restaurant owner. Savalas and his brother Gus sold newspapers and shined shoes to help […]

Joe Strummer (1952 - 2002)

John Graham Mellor (21 August 1952 – 22 December 2002), known by his stage name Joe Strummer, was a British musician, singer, actor and songwriter who was the co-founder, lyricist, rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist of The Clash, a punk rock band that was formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British […]

Juano Hernandez (1896 - 1970)

Juano Hernández (birth name: Juan G. Hernández) was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico to a Puerto Rican father and a Brazilian mother. With no formal education, he worked as a sailor and settled in Rio de Janeiro. He was hired by a circus and become an entertainer, making his first appearance as an acrobat […]

Glenn Frey (1948 - 2016)

Glenn Frey Glenn Frey was an all-American rock star determined to make it and certain he knew how. “He was the first guy to say, ‘If you don’t get the business right and the music right, you’re screwed,’” said Eagles manager Irving Azoff, clearly shaken by the death of his longtime friend on Monday. “Early […]

Spiro Agnew (1918 - 1996)

Spiro Agnew Spiro Agnew, Governor of Maryland, US Vice President. A member of the Republican Party, he served a Maryland’s 55th governor from January 1967 Until January 1969 and then as US Vice President under President Richard M. Nixon from January 1969 until October 1973. Spiro Agnew  is remembered as having to resign the vice […]

Jim O Toole (1937 - 1970)

Jim O Toole  Jim O’Toole was born on January 10, 1937 on the South Side of Chicago.  He was one of five children and his father, a Chicago police officer, taught him boxing.  But Jim O’Toole  preferred baseball, which he learned on neighborhood sandlots growing up.  He had a tryout with his hometown Chicago White Sox […]

Lemmy Kilmister (1945 - 2015)

Lemmy Kilmister Heavy Metal Musician. Born Ian Fraser Kilmister, he was a founding member and frontman of the heavy metal rock group “Motörhead”. Inspired to become a musician after seeing the Beatles perform in concert, he spent his early years playing in a variety of bands, as well as working on the road crew for […]

Lizzie Lawlers (1897 - 1973)

Lizzie Lawlers Musician. Going by her nickname, Memphis Minnie, she was a blues vocalist, blues guitarist, and influential blues songwriter. Her career, which spans from the 1920s to the 1950s, shaped the face of music. Writing and singing nearly 200 songs, perhaps her best known being “Bumble Bee”, “Nothing in Rambling”, and “Me and My […]

Natalie Cole (1950 - 2015)

Natalie Cole Natalie Cole, the award-winning singer and daughter of jazz legend Nat King Cole, has died. Cole, whose hits included This Will Be and Unforgettable, died aged 65 on Thursday night, according to her publicist Maureen O’Connor. Her family said she died at Cedars-Sinai medical centre in Los Angeles due to complications from ongoing […]

Otis Clay (1942 - 2016)

Otis Clay Hall of fame rhythm and blues artist Otis Clay, who scored a string of hits with Memphis-based Hi Records in the early 1970s, died Friday. He was 73. The Mississippi-born Clay — whose gruff, tenor-tinged voice on blues songs such as “Trying to Live My Life Without You” varied from his haunting but […]

David Bowie (1947 - 2016)

David Bowie Singer David Bowie has died at age 69 following “a courageous 18-month battle with cancer,” the pop icon’s website said.  He died Sunday, two days after his birthday, when his album “Blackstar” was released. “David Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family,” the site said. “While many of you will share in […]

Dan Haggerty (1942 - 2016)

Dan Haggerty Dan Haggerty, who played mountain man Grizzly Adams in a hit movie followed by a TV show in the 1970s, has died. He was 74. Haggerty died Friday morning at a Burbank, California, hospital after battling cancer for five months. Doctors discovered the cancer after he had surgery for back pain, Haggerty’s family […]

Alan Rickman (1946 - 2016)

Alan Rickman…Born February 21, 1946, in West London, England.   Alan Rickman showed an early penchant for the performing arts. He cut his teeth as an actor in 1978, when he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company. He earned a Tony Award nomination as the star of 1988’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses, then came to American consciousness […]

Charles Winninger (1884 - 1969)

He began as a vaudeville actor. His most famous stage role was as Cap’n Andy Hawks in the original production of the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II musical classic Show Boat in 1927, a role that he reprised – to great acclaim – in the 1932 stage revival and the 1936 film version of the show. […]

Miles Malleson (1888 - 1969)

Miles Malleson was born in Croydon, Surrey, England, the son of Edmund Taylor Malleson (1859-1909), a manufacturing chemist, and Myrrha Bithynia Frances Borrell (1863-1931), a descendant of the numismatist Henry Perigal Borrell and the inventor Francis Maceroni. He was educated at Brighton College and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. At Cambridge, he created a sensation when it […]

Mildred Davis (1901 - 1969)

Mildred Davis Mildred Davis was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and educated at the “Friends School” there. After several years spent studying, she traveled to Los Angeles in the hopes of securing a role in a film. After appearing in several small roles, she caught the attention of Hal Roach, who pointed her out to comedian […]

Tom Perry (1922 - 2015)

Tom Perry was born in Logan, Utah, to Leslie Thomas Perry and his wife, Elsie Nora Sonne. Perry, Utah is named for Perry’s ancestor, Gustavus Adolphus Perry and his family, who were among the first settlers in that area. From the time of Perry’s birth until he was eighteen, his father was bishop of their LDS […]

Boyd Packer (1924 - 2015)

Boyd Packer was born on September 10, 1924, in Brigham City, Utah, the tenth of eleven children born to Ira Wight Packer and Emma Jensen. As a young boy, he contracted polio. After graduating from high school, he enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces in the spring of 1943. He graduated as a […]

Elisabeth Bing (1914 - 2015)

Elisabeth Bing was born on 8 July 1914, in a suburb of Berlin. Hers was a home birth, and she was delivered before the doctor could arrive. Her family were of Jewish descent, but converted to Protestantism years before her birth, and on sensing danger with the rise of Nazi Germany, they decided to leave […]

Arnold Klein (1945 - 2015)

Arnold Klein was born on February 27, 1945, in Mt. Clemens, Michigan, the son of a Jewish Orthodox rabbi. He was raised in Michigan and North Miami, Florida, graduating from North Miami High School in 1963. In 1967, Arnold Klein earned his Bachelor’s degree in Biology from the University of Pennsylvania. He attended the University of […]

Irwin Rose (1926 - 2015)

Irwin Rose was born in Brooklyn, New York, into a secular Jewish family, the son of Ella (Greenwald) and Harry Royze, who owned a flooring store. Irwin Rose attended Washington State University for one year prior to serving in the Navy during World War II. Upon returning from the war he received his Bachelor of […]

Jack King (1931 - 2015)

Jack King grew up in Boston, the son of a local sportswriter, and attended Boston College. Prior to joining NASA, King worked for the Associated Press. He opened the AP’s Cape Canaveral bureau in 1958, when he was 27 years old. Jack King joined NASA in 1960, and served as the Kennedy Space Center’s Chief […]

Claudia Alexander (1959 - 2015)

Claudia Alexander was born in Canada but raised in Santa Clara, California by her mother, Gaynelle, and father, Harold. She had two siblings: Suzanne and David. Claudia Alexander wanted to be a journalist but her parents—who were paying for her education—wanted her to become an engineer. After a summer job at the Ames Research Center, […]

Ian Keith (1899 - 1960)

Born Keith Ross in Boston, Massachusetts, Ian Keith was a veteran character actor of the legitimate theater, and appeared in a variety of colorful roles in silent features of the 1920s. His stage training made him a natural choice for the new “talking pictures”; he played John Wilkes Booth in D. W. Griffith’s first talkie, […]

Hope Emerson (1897 - 1960)

Hope Emerson was born in Hawarden, Iowa. Following her graduation from West High School in Des Moines in 1916, she moved to New York City, where she performed in vaudeville. Hope Emerson made her Broadway début in Lysistrata in 1930, when theatrical producer Norman Bel Geddes cast her for the role of the amazonian Lamputo. She […]