Tamara Toumanova (1919 - 1996)

After moving to Paris, Toumanova was given piano lessons and studied ballet with Olga Preobrajenska, who she described as her “first and only permanent teacher” and an “immortal friend”. At the age of six, the ballerina Anna Pavlova invited young Toumanova to perform in one of her gala concerts (08.06.1925). Toumanova danced a polka choreographed […]

Tommy Rettig (1941 - 1996)

Rettig was born to a Jewish father, Elias Rettig, and a Christian Italian-American mother, Rosemary Nibali, in Jackson Heights in the Queens borough of New York City. He started his career at the age of six, on tour with Mary Martin in the play Annie Get Your Gun, in which he played Little Jake. Before his […]

Ted Bessell (1935 - 1996)

Born in Flushing, New York, Bessell grew up in Manhasset on Long Island, New York. He was originally gearing up for a career as a classical musician. As a 12-year-old child prodigy, he performed a piano recital at Carnegie Hall. Bessell played lacrosse in high school with future football star and actor Jim Brown. However, after […]

Mark Lenard (1924 - 1996)

Lenard was born Leonard Rosenson in Chicago, Illinois, the son of a Russian Jewish immigrant, Abraham, and his wife, Bessie, but was raised in the small town of South Haven, Michigan, where his family owned a tourist resort. He joined the United States Army in 1943 and trained to be a paratrooper during World War […]

Juliet Prowse (1936 - 1996)

Prowse was born in Bombay, British India to South African parents and reared in South Africa. She began studying dance at the age of four. In her early twenties she was dancing at a club in Paris when she was spotted by a talent agent and eventually signed to play the part of “Claudine” in […]

Joe Seneca (1919 - 1996)

Joe Seneca (January 14, 1919 – August 15, 1996) was an American film and television actor who had a lengthy Hollywood career, portraying bit parts in many major films and television sitcoms spanning from the 1970s to the 1990s. He played the father of Danny Glover’s character in the film Silverado. Seneca was born Joel McGhee […]

Whit Bissell (1909 - 1996)

Born in New York City, Bissell was the son of prominent surgeon Dr. J. Dougal Bissell. He trained with the Carolina Playmakers, a theatrical organization associated with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He had a number of roles in Broadway theatre, including the Air Force show Winged Victory, when he was an […]

Ronald Howard (1918 - 1996)

Howard was born in South Norwood, London, the son of Ruth Evelyn (Martin) and film actor Leslie Howard. He attended Tonbridge School. After graduating from Jesus College, Cambridge, Ronald Howard became a newspaper reporter for a while but decided to become an actor. His first film role was an uncredited bit part in Pimpernel Smith (1941), […]

Vince Edwards (1928 - 1996)

Edwards was born in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, New York City, New York, to Julia and Vincento Zoino. He and his twin brother, Anthony, were the youngest of seven children. He was a standout on his high school swim team and went on to study at Ohio State University on an athletic scholarship. He […]

Haing S. Ngor (1940 - 1996)

Born in Samrong Young, Cambodia, Ngor trained as a surgeon and gynecologist. He was practicing in the capital, Phnom Penh, in 1975 when Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge seized control of the country and proclaimed it Democratic Kampuchea. He was compelled to conceal his education, medical skills, and even the fact that he wore glasses to […]

Hiram Keller (1944 - 1997)

Keller received his dramatic training at Lee Strasberg’s prestigious Actors Studio in New York. His first stage engagement took him to Broadway. From 1968 until his departure to appear in Fellini Satyricon, he was a member of the tribe in the original line-up stage production of Hair, directed by Tom O’Horgan, written by Gerome Ragni […]

Jean Engstrom (1920 - 1997)

Jean Engstrom was born Flora Jean Bovie,  in Michigan on July 25, 1920, the eldest of two children  born to Clarence Augustus Bovie (1892-1928), an artist  and commercial illustrator,  and Nona Iola Cochrun (1895-1976) After her father’s death due to a cerebral hemorrhage in 1928, 1930 census records show that she and her mother and […]

Allan Edwall (1924 - 1997)

Johan Allan Edwall (25 August 1924 – 7 February 1997) was a Swedish actor, director, author, composer and singer, best-known outside Sweden for the small roles he played in some of Ingmar Bergman’s films, such as Fanny and Alexander (1982). He found his largest audience in the Scandinavian countries for playing lovable characters in several […]

James Cossins (1933 - 1997)

James Cossins (4 December 1933 – 12 February 1997) was an English character actor. Born in Beckenham, Kent, he became widely recognised as the abrupt, bewildered Mr Walt in the Fawlty Towers episode “The Hotel Inspectors” and as Mr Watson the frustrated Public Relations training course instructor in an episode of Some Mothers Do ‘Ave […]

John Beal (1970 - 1997)

Beal was born James Alexander Bliedung in Joplin, Missouri. He originally went to New York to study art but a chance to understudy in a play made him change his mind. He began acting in the 1930s, opposite Katharine Hepburn (in the 1934 RKO film The Little Minister),[1] among others; one of his notable screen […]

Barry Evans (1943 - 1997)

Born in Guildford, Surrey, and abandoned as a baby, Evans was educated at the orphanage boarding schools run by the Shaftesbury Homes, first at Fortescue House School in Twickenham and then at Bisley Boys’ School in Bisley, Surrey. His acting ability was recognised at an early age and he often played the leading roles in […]

Charles Hallahan (1943 - 1997)

Charles John Hallahan (July 29, 1943 – November 25, 1997) was an American film, television and stage actor known for his performances in Going in Style, The Thing, Cast a Deadly Spell, and Dante’s Peak. Hallahan was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and graduated from Rutgers University, then going on to Temple University to earn a Master’s […]

Adriana Caselotti (1916 - 1997)

Caselotti was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut to an Italian American family. Her father, Guido Caselotti (1884-1978), was an immigrant from Udine, and worked as a teacher of music and a vocal coach. Her mother, Maria Orefice (1893-1961), from Naples, was a singer in the Royal Opera Theatre of Rome. Her older sister, Louise, sang opera […]

Brian Glover (1934 - 1997)

Glover was born in Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, but grew up in Barnsley. His father was a wrestler, performing as the “Red Devil”. He attended Barnsley Grammar School and the University of Sheffield, where he supplemented his student grant with appearances as a professional wrestler, going under the ring name “Leon Arras the Man […]

Jesse White (1917 - 1997)

White was born as Jonah Marcus Weidenfeld in Buffalo, New York, and was reared in Akron, Ohio. He was called “Jesse” as a nickname. He made his first amateur appearance in local stage productions at the age of fifteen. Though aspiring to be an actor, he worked at many different jobs during the 1930s, including […]

Rosalie Crutchley (1920 - 1997)

Rosalie Crutchley (4 January 1920 – 28 July 1997) was an English actress. Trained at the Royal Academy of Music, Crutchley was known for her television performances, but had a long and successful career in theatre and films, making her stage début at least as early as 1932 and her screen début in 1947. She […]

Don Bexley (1910 - 1997)

Bexley was born on March 10, 1910 in either Jamestown, Virginia or Detroit, Michigan to the late Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Bexley. His father was a Bible scholar and teacher and his mother a classical vocalist. “I was born with a flair for the stage, as I had always been a clown – even during […]

Stubby Kaye (1918 - 1997)

Directors viewed Kaye as a master of the Broadway idiom during the last phase of the musical comedy era. This was evidenced by his introduction of three show-stopping numbers of the era: “Fugue for Tinhorns” and “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat” from Guys and Dolls (1950) and “Jubilation T. Cornpone” from Li’l Abner (1956). […]

Diana Lewis (1919 - 1997)

Diana “Mousie” Lewis (September 18, 1919 – January 18, 1997) was an American film actress and a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract star. Born in Asbury Park, New Jersey, Lewis began her film career in All the King’s Horses (1934) and worked steadily over the next few years, usually in minor roles. Her more notable films include It’s a […]

Don Porter (1912 - 1997)

Donald Porter (September 24, 1912 – February 11, 1997) was an American actor who appeared in a number of films in the 1940s, including Top Sergeant and Eagle Squadron, but is perhaps best known for his role as Russell Lawrence, the widowed father of 15-year-old Frances “Gidget” Lawrence (Sally Field) in the 1965 ABC situation […]

Joyce Compton (1907 - 1997)

Joyce Compton (January 27, 1907 – October 13, 1997) was an American actress. She was born Olivia Joyce Compton in Lexington, Kentucky. (Despite frequent erroneous statements to the contrary, her name was not originally “Eleanor Hunt”; she had appeared in the film Good Sport (1931) with Hunt and this confusion in an early press article followed […]

Sally Blane (1910 - 1997)

Blane was born in Salida, Colorado. She was the sister of actresses Polly Ann and Loretta Young, and half-sister of actress Georgiana Young. Blane had her film debut at the age of seven when she appeared in Sirens of the Sea in 1917. She returned to the film business as an adult in the 1920s, playing […]

Irene Hervey (1909 - 1998)

Born Beulah Irene Herwick in Venice, Los Angeles, California. She began her acting career after being introduced to a casting agent from MGM. After a successful screen test, she was signed by the studio and made her screen debut in the 1933 film The Stranger’s Return, opposite Lionel Barrymore. Though signed by MGM, Hervey was loaned […]

Michael Zaslow (1944 - 1998)

Zaslow was born in Inglewood, California. He played Dick Hart on the CBS soap opera Search for Tomorrow and Dr. Peter Chernak on Love Is a Many Splendored Thing. He also played David Renaldi on ABC’s One Life to Live from 1983 to 1986, and in 1998. Zaslow was also a writer for the NBC […]

Daniel Massey (1933 - 1998)

Massey was born in London in 1933. He was educated at Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge. He was a member of the noted Massey family, which included his father, Raymond Massey, his sister, Anna Massey and his uncle Vincent Massey, the first Canadian-born Governor General of Canada. His mother was the actress Adrianne Allen. Living […]