Mantan Moreland (1902 - 1973)

Born in Monroe, Louisiana, to Frank, an old-time Dixie band leader, and Marcella, Mantan Moreland began acting by the time he was an adolescent, running away to join a minstrel show in 1910. By the late 1920s, he had made his way through vaudeville, working with various shows and revues, performing on Broadway and touring […]

Edna Best (1900 - 1974)

Edna Best (3 March 1900 – 18 September 1974) was a British actress. Born in Hove, Sussex, England, she was educated in Brighton and later studied dramatic acting under Miss Kate Rorke who was the first Professor of Drama at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London. Best was known on the London stage […]

Clive Brook (1887 - 1974)

Clive Brook (born Clifford Hardman Brook, 1 June 1887 – 17 November 1974) was a British film actor. After making his first screen appearance in 1920, Brook emerged as a leading British actor in the early 1920s. After moving to the United States, Brook became one of the major stars for Paramount Pictures in the late […]

Johnny Mack Brown (1904 - 1974)

Born and raised in Dothan, Alabama, Johnny Mack Brown was a star of the high school football team, earning a football scholarship to the University of Alabama. His little brother Tolbert “Red” Brown played with “Mack” in 1925. His good looks and powerful physique saw him portrayed on Wheaties cereal boxes and in 1927, brought an […]

Patricia Collinge (1892 - 1974)

Eileen Cecilia Collinge was born in Dublin, Ireland to F. Channon Collinge and Emmie (née Russell) Collinge. Patricia Collinge was educated first by a visiting governess and then at a girls’ school. She took dancing and piano lessons none of which interested her. She finally settled on being an actress. She made her first stage […]

Stafford Repp (1918 - 1974)

Born and raised in California, Stafford Repp was educated at Lowell High School, in San Francisco, California. Soon after the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Repp served a stint in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II. After military service, he began his acting career in mid-life. He was first […]

Bobby Buntrock (1952 - 1974)

Bobby Buntrock was born in Denver, Colorado, to Robert and Maxine Buntrock. He had a younger sister, Stella. When he was three, the family moved to Whittier, California, where neighbors urged Buntrock’s parents to get their son into acting. After submitting Buntrock’s picture to various agents, he was signed by Marcella Bell. Shortly after signing […]

Candy Darling (1944 - 1974)

Candy Darling was born James Lawrence Slattery in Forest Hills, Queens, the child of Theresa (née Phelan 1911–2014), a bookkeeper at Manhattan’s Jockey Club, and James “Jim” Slattery, who was described as a violent alcoholic. There is controversy surrounding the year of birth. According to former Warhol associate, Bob Colacello, Darling was born in 1946, while […]

Otto Kruger (1885 - 1974)

Otto Kruger was of German descent. He was the grandnephew of South African pioneer and president Paul Kruger. Otto was musically trained, but switched careers and became an actor. He studied briefly at Columbia University. Making his Broadway debut at the age of fifteen, Kruger quickly became a matinee idol. Though he started to get noticed in […]

Anna Q. Nilsson (1888 - 1974)

Anna Q. Nilsson was born in Ystad, Skåne County, Sweden in 1888. Her middle name, “Quirentia ” is derived from her date of birth, March 30 Saint Quirinius’ Day. When she was 8 years old her father got a job at the local sugar factory in Hasslarp, a small community outside Helsingborg in Sweden where […]

Chubby Johnson (1903 - 1974)

Charles “Chubby” Johnson (August 13, 1903 – October 31, 1974) was an American film and television supporting character actor with a genial demeanor and warm country-accented voice perfect for westerns. A native of Terre Haute, Indiana, Johnson was a journalist and radio announcer before he entered film and television when he was past forty years of […]

Barbara Ruick (1930 - 1974)

Barbara Ruick was the daughter of actors Lurene Tuttle and Melville Ruick. She grew up acting out scenes with dolls, employing her mother as an audience. She attended Roosevelt High School, Burbank High School in Burbank, and North Hollywood High School. She did little acting in high school but joined a school band at the […]

Sara Berner (1912 - 1969)

Born Lillian Herdan in Albany, New York, the first of the five children of Sam Herdan and Sarah Herdan (née Berner), Sara Berner was a drama student at University of Tulsa for two years. Described as having “an extensive knowledge of dialects,” Berner was also active as a radio and cartoon voice talent, working primarily with […]

Mari Blanchard (1927 - 1970)

Mari Blanchard was born on April 13, 1927 in Long Beach, California. A polio victim at age 9, Blanchard’s health eventually improved enough that she ran away from home and joined a circus in her teens. She then attended the University of Southern California, getting her degree. In the late 1940s, Blanchard became a successful print […]

Georgine Darcy (1931 - 2004)

Georgine Darcy (January 14, 1931 – July 18, 2004) was an American dancer and actress best known for her role as “Miss Torso” in the 1954 Alfred Hitchcock film Rear Window. She also had a regular role in the 1960–1961 ABC sitcom Harrigan and Son. Born in Brooklyn, Darcy’s mother urged her to become a stripper […]

Judith Evelyn (1909 - 1967)

Judith Evelyn (March 20, 1909 – May 7, 1967) was an American stage and film actress who appeared in as many as fifty films and television series. She was born Evelyn Morris in Seneca, South Dakota. All of the four plays were made into films, but Evelyn did not appear in any of them. She did […]

Patricia Cutts (1926 - 1974)

Born in London, Patricia Cutts was the daughter of the writer-director Graham Cutts. Her first roles were small parts in American films such as I Was a Male War Bride and The Man Who Loved Redheads and the television shows Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Perry Mason, where she played defendant Sylvia Oxman in the 1959 […]

Betty Compson (1897 - 1974)

Compson began in silents with her first film in November 1915. She made 41 films in 1916 alone, although all of them were shorts for Al Christie with the exception of one feature Almost a Widow. She continued this pace of making numerous short films well into the middle of 1918 when after a long […]

Mark Frechette (1947 - 1975)

Mark Frechette (December 4, 1947 – September 27, 1975) was an American film actor. He is best known for his lead role in the 1970 film Zabriskie Point, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, in which he was cast despite his lack of previous acting experience. He appeared in two other films made in Italy and Yugoslavia, Many […]

Michel Simon (1895 - 1975)

Michel Simon used to say about himself that he was born in 1895 and, “as misfortune never comes singly, cinema was born the same year”. Son of a Protestant sausage maker, Simon soon left his family and town to go to Paris, where he first lived at the Hotel Renaissance, Saint-Martin Street, then in Montmartre. He […]

Sheila Ryan (1921 - 1975)

Ryan had brown hair, was 5 feet, 2 inches tall, and weighed 107 pounds. A 1940 newspaper story included her in a group of actresses “whose alluring curves alone might have disqualified them from screen careers not so long ago,” in the words of Travis Banton, a Hollywood stylist. Born as Katherine Elizabeth McLaughlin in Topeka, […]

Philip Dorn (1901 - 1975)

Philip Dorn (30 September 1901 – 9 May 1975), born Hein van der Niet and sometimes billed as Frits van Dongen, was a Dutch actor who had a career in Hollywood. Dorn was born in Scheveningen, The Hague, South Holland and made his stage debut at age 14 in Dutch productions. By the 1930s, he was […]

Moms Mabley (1894 - 1975)

Loretta Mary Aiken was born in Brevard, North Carolina on March 19, 1894 to James Aiken and Mary Smith, who married on May 21, 1891, in Transylvania County, North Carolina  Moms Mabley was one of a family of 16 children. Her father owned and operated several businesses, while her mother kept house and took in […]

Evelyn Brent (1901 - 1975)

Born Mary Elizabeth Riggs in Tampa and known as Betty, she was a child of 10 when her mother Eleanor died, leaving her father Arthur to raise her alone. After moving to New York City as a teenager, her good looks brought modeling jobs that led to an opportunity to become involved in the still […]

George Stevens (1904 - 1975)

George Stevens was born in Oakland, California, and his family included his father Landers Stevens and his mother Georgie Cooper, both stage actors. His uncle was drama critic Ashton Stevens. He also had two brothers, Jack and writer Aston Stevens. He learned about the stage from his parents and worked and toured with them on […]

Mary Ure (1933 - 1975)

Born in Glasgow, Mary Ure was the daughter of civil engineer Colin McGregor Ure and Edith Swinburne. She went to the independent Mount School in York, and trained for the stage at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Known for her beauty, Ure began performing on the London stage and quickly developed […]

Roy Roberts (1906 - 1975)

Born Roy Barnes Jones in Dade City in Pasco County, near Tampa, Florida, Roy Roberts began his acting career on the stage, first appearing on Broadway in May 1931 before making his motion picture debut in Gold Bricks, a 1936 two-reel comedy short released by 20th Century-Fox. He appeared in numerous films in secondary parts […]

John McGiver (1913 - 1975)

McGiver was born in New York City, the son of Irish immigrants. He graduated from the Jesuit-run Regis High School in Manhattan in 1932. He received a B.A. in English from Fordham University in 1938 and master’s degrees from Columbia University and Catholic University. He became an English teacher and worked as an actor and […]

Robert Strauss (1913 - 1975)

Robert Strauss began his career as a classical actor, appearing in The Tempest and Macbeth on Broadway in 1930. Comedy became his speciality, and he was known best as Stalag 17’s Stanislas “Animal” Kuzawa, a role he created in the original 1951 Broadway production and reprised in the 1953 film adaptation, for which he was […]

Richard Conte (1910 - 1975)

Richard Conte was born Nicholas Peter Conte on March 24, 1910, in Jersey City, New Jersey, the son of Italian-Americans Julia (Fina), a seamstress, and Pasquale Conte, a barber. He graduated from William L. Dickinson High School in Jersey City. Conte worked as a truck driver, messenger, shoe salesman and a singing waiter before starting his […]