Dack Rambo (1941 - 1994)

Dack Rambo Born in Earlimart, California, Rambo had a twin brother, Orman Ray Rambeau, who would ultimately go professionally as Dirk Rambo. After moving to Los Angeles in the 1960s, the brothers were discovered by actress Loretta Young and cast in her CBS series, The New Loretta Young Show. On 5 February 1967, Dirk was […]

Jack Dodson (1931 - 1994)

Jack Dodson (May 16, 1931 – September 16, 1994) (born John S. Dodson in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) was an American television actor best remembered for the milquetoast character Howard Sprague in The Andy Griffith Show and its spin-off Mayberry R.F.D. From 1959 until his death in 1994, Dodson was married to television art director Mary Dodson. […]

Timothy Carey (1929 - 1994)

Timothy Agoglia Carey (March 11, 1929 – May 11, 1994) was an American film and television character actor. He was born in Brooklyn, New York. Carey was best known for portraying manic or violent characters who are driven to extremes.  One of his best remembered early roles was in the Stanley Kubrick film The Killing […]

Sylva Koscina (1933 - 1994)

She was born “Silvija Košćina” (Σύλβα Κοσκινού in Greek) to a Greek father, who had a hotel in the “West Coast” section of Split, Croatia and a Polish mother. She may be best-remembered for her role as Iole, the bride of Hercules (Steve Reeves) in Hercules (1958) and Hercules Unchained (1960). She also played Paul […]

Bill Travers (1922 - 1994)

Travers was born in Sunderland, Tyne & Wear, the son of Florence (née Wheatley) and William Halton Lindon-Travers. He and his sister Linden (1913–2001) both became actors. Linden’s daughter Susan Travers also became an actress.  William Ingle Linden-Travers enlisted as a Private in the British Army at the age of eighteen, a few months after […]

Barry Sullivan (1912 - 1994)

Born in New York City, Sullivan was a law student at New York University and Temple University. He fell into acting when in college playing semi-pro football. During the later Depression years, Sullivan was told that because of his 6 ft 3 in (1.9 m) stature and rugged good looks he could “make money” simply […]

Melina Mercouri (1920 - 1994)

After her graduation, Mercouri joined the National Theatre of Greece and played the role of Electra in Eugene O’Neill’s play Mourning Becomes Electra in 1945. In 1949, she had her first major success in the theatre playing Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, written by Tennessee Williams and staged by Karolos Koun’s Art Theatre. […]

Cameron Mitchell (1918 - 1994)

Born Cameron McDowell Mitzell in Dallastown, Pennsylvania to Rev. Charles and Kathryn Mitzell, young Cameron moved to Chicora, Pennsylvania in 1921 when his father was accepted as pastor of the St. John’s Reformed Church of Donegal Township, Butler County, Pennsylvania.  Between the first and second world wars, during his years as a young actor in […]

Claude Akins (1926 - 1994)

Claude Akins was born in Nelson, Georgia, and grew up in Bedford, Indiana. He served with the U.S. Army Signal Corps in World War II in Burma and the Philippines. After the war, he was a 1949 graduate of Northwestern University, where he studied Theatre and became a member of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. […]

Dick Sargent (1930 - 1994)

Born Richard Stanford Cox in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, on April 19, 1930 to mother, Ruth McNaughton, daughter of John McNaughton who founded Los Angeles famed Union Stockyards. She appeared under the ‘nom-de-arte’ (stage name) of Ruth Powell, and had important supporting bit roles in such screen classics as The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and Hearts […]

Peter Cushing (1913 - 1994)

Cushing was born in Kenley, London, the second son of George Edward Cushing and Nellie Maria (née King) Cushing. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Dulwich, South London. After the end of the First World War, they returned close to Kenley; this time to neighbouring Purley, Surrey, where in 1926 his quantity surveyor […]

Cesar Romero (1907 - 1994)

Romero was born Cesar Julio Romero, Jr. in New York City on February 15, 1907, the son of Cesar Julio Romero, Sr. and Maria Mantilla (daughter of Cuban national hero José Martí). His father was an Italian-born importer-exporter of sugar refining machinery, and his mother was a Cuban concert singer. He grew up in Bradley […]

Jessica Tandy (1909 - 1994)

The youngest of three siblings, Tandy was born in Geldeston Road in Hackney, London. Her mother, Jessie Helen (née Horspool), was the head of a school for mentally handicapped children, and her father, Harry Tandy, was a travelling salesman for a rope manufacturer. Her father died when Tandy was 12, and her mother subsequently taught […]

Pat Buttram (1915 - 1994)

Buttram was born in Addison in Winston County, Alabama, to Wilson McDaniel Buttram, a Methodist minister, and his wife Mary Emmett Maxwell. He had an older brother, Augustus McDaniel Buttram, and five other elder siblings. When “Pat” Buttram was a year old, his father was transferred to Nauvoo, Alabama. Buttram graduated from Mortimer Jordan High […]

George Peppard (1928 - 1994)

George Peppard, Jr. was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of building contractor George Peppard, Sr. and opera singer Vernelle Rohrer. He graduated from Dearborn High School in Dearborn, Michigan.  Peppard enlisted in the United States Marine Corps July 8, 1946, and rose to the rank of Corporal in the 10th Marines, leaving the Corps […]

Raúl Juliá (1940 - 1994)

Juliá was born in Floral Park, a subsector of San Juan, to Olga Arcelay and Raúl Juliá. He was the oldest of four brothers and sisters. His mother was a mezzo-soprano who sang at a church choir before marrying Juliá’s father, who was an electrical engineer graduated from Tri-State University. Some relatives were also musicians, […]

John Bindon (1943 - 1993)

John Bindon was born in Fulham, London, and was the son of Dennis Bindon, a merchant seaman and engineer, turned cab driver. The second eldest in a working-class family of three children, Bindon went to St Mark’s Church School in Fulham where he became a noted rugby union junior, but left at the age of […]

Evelyn Venable (1913 - 1993)

Evelyn Venable was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the only child of Emerson and Dolores Venable. She graduated from Walnut Hills High School (class of 1930), where her father and grandfather William Henry Venable taught English. She performed in several plays at Walnut Hills, as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, the Dream Child in Dear Brutus […]

William Bakewell (1908 - 1993)

Bakewell, educated at Los Angeles Harvard Military School, began his film career as an extra in the silent movie Fighting Blood (1924), and went on to appear in some 170 films and television shows. He had supporting roles at the end of the silent era and reached the peak of his career around 1930. He […]

Mary Philbin (1902 - 1993)

Born in Chicago, Illinois into a middle-class Irish American Catholic family, she began her acting career after winning a beauty contest sponsored by Universal Pictures. Her father John Philbin was born in Ballinrobe, County Mayo, Ireland.  Mary Philbin made her screen debut in 1921 and during the 1920s she became a highly successful film actress […]

Willoughby Gray (1916 - 1993)

Willoughby was born in London, his mother Mary Henderson had married John Gray, who was killed in action in Iraq soon after his birth. (Though several sources suggest he was born in Aberdeen, Scotland). In 1918 Mary re married and Willoughby became the stepson of Lieutenant General Henry Pownall.  He achieved popularity in the mid-1950s […]

Eddie Constantine (1917 - 1993)

Edward Constantinowsky was born in Los Angeles to immigrant parents, a Russian father and Polish mother. In pursuit of a singing career, he went to Vienna for voice training, but when he returned to America his career didn’t take off and he started taking work as a film extra. Having failed to make a career […]

Moses Malone (1955 - 2015)

Moses Malone American professional basketball player, who was the dominating centre and premier offensive rebounder in the National Basketball Association (NBA) during the 1980s. He led the Philadelphia 76ers to a championship in 1983. Malone, who led Petersburg High School to 50 consecutive victories and two state championships, was one of the most sought-after college […]

Ruby Keeler (1910 - 1993)

Keeler was born in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada, to an Irish Catholic family, one of six siblings. Two sisters, Helen and Gertrude, had brief performing careers. Her father was a truck driver, and when she was three years old, her family packed up and moved to New York City where he knew he could get […]

Charles Aidman (1925 - 1993)

Aidman was born in Frankfort in Clinton County, Indiana. After graduating from Frankfort High School he served in the United States Navy from 1946-1948 attending officer’s training at DePauw University. He attended Indiana University in Indianapolis.  Among his many television credits, Aidman guest starred on NBC’s The Virginian (in the episode “The Devil’s Children”), and […]

Jackie Collins (1937 - 2015)

Collins was born in 1937 in Hampstead, London, the younger daughter of Elsa (née Bessant) Collins (died 1962) and Joseph William Collins (died 1988), a theatrical agent whose clients later included Shirley Bassey, the Beatles and Tom Jones.  Collins’ South African-born father was Jewish and her British mother was Anglican. A middle child, Collins had […]

James Griffith (1916 - 1993)

James Griffith Born in Los Angeles, Griffith aspired to be a musician rather than an actor. Instead, he managed to find work in little theatres around Los Angeles, where the budding musician eased into a dual career of acting. He found success in the production They Can’t Get You Down in 1939, but put his […]

Leon Ames (1902 - 1993)

Leon Ames was born Harry Wycoff on January 20, 1902 in Portland, Indiana, son of Charles Elmer Wycoff and his wife Cora A. De Moss.. Some sources list his original last name as “Wykoff” or “Waycoff,” and in his early films he acted under the name Leon Waycoff.  Ames made his film debut in Quick […]

Sam Wanamaker (1919 - 1993)

Wanamaker was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants from Nikolayev, tailor Maurice Wattenmacker (Manus Watmakher) and Molly (Bobele). He was the younger of two brothers, the elder being William Wanamaker, long-term cardiologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Wanamaker trained at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and began working with […]

Moses Gunn (1929 - 1993)

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Mary and George Gunn, he was the oldest of seven children. After his mother died, his family separated. Moses left home and rode the railroad at just 12 years old. He returned to St. Louis and attended school while living at the home of Jewel Richie, his […]