Bernard Bresslaw (1934 - 1993)

Bernard Bresslaw was born the youngest of three boys into a Jewish family in Stepney, London, on 25 February 1934. He attended the Coopers’ Company’s School in Tredegar Square, Bow, London E3. His father was a tailor’s cutter and he became interested in acting after visits to the Hackney Empire. London County Council awarded him […]

Alexis Smith (1921 - 1993)

Born in Penticton, British Columbia, to Gladys and Alexander Smith, her family relocated to Los Angeles when she was about a year old. Smith grew up in Southern California, attending Hollywood High School. When she was 13 she made her professional debut, performing ballet at the Hollywood Bowl. She was discovered in 1940 at Los […]

Howard Caine (1926 - 1993)

Howard Caine was born on January 2, 1926, in Nashville, Tennessee, into a Jewish family. At the age of 13, Cohen moved with his family to New York City, where he began studying acting. Learning to erase his Southern accent, he went on to became a master of 32 foreign and American dialects. Caine served […]

James Donald (1917 - 1993)

James Donald (18 May 1917 – 3 August 1993) was a Scottish actor. Tall and thin, he specialised in playing authority figures.  Donald was born in Aberdeen, and made his first professional stage appearance in the late-1930s, having been educated at Rossall School on Lancashire’s Fylde coast. During World War II he had minor roles […]

James Hunt (1947 - 1993)

James Hunt James Simon Wallis Hunt (29 August 1947 – 15 June 1993) was a British racing driver who won the Formula One World Championship in 1976. After retiring from racing in 1979, Hunt became a media commentator and businessman.  Beginning his racing career in touring car racing, Hunt progressed into Formula Three where he […]

Anne Shirley (1918 - 1993)

Born as Dawn Evelyeen Paris, in New York City, she began acting under the name of Dawn O’Day. She began acting at the age of five, and had a highly successful child star career in Pre-Code movies, appearing in such films as the 1930 version of Liliom, Tom Mix’s Riders of the Purple Sage, So […]

Janet Margolin (1943 - 1993)

Margolin was born in New York City, the daughter of Benjamin Margolin, an accountant who was born in Russia and was the founder and president of the Nephrosis Foundation, now the Kidney Foundation of New York. Her mother was Annette Margolin (née Lief, the daughter of Abraham and Nina Lief).  She attended the High School […]

Cyril Cusack (1910 - 1993)

Cusack was born in Durban, Natal, South Africa. His mother, Alice Violet (née Cole), was an English Cockney actress and chorus girl, and his father, James Walter Cusack, was an Irish mounted policeman in Natal Province, South Africa. His parents separated when he was young and his mother took him to England, and then to […]

Helen Hayes (1900 - 1993)

Helen Hayes was born in Washington D.C. on October 10, 1900. Her mother, Catherine Estelle (née Hayes), or Essie, was an aspiring actress who worked in touring companies. Her father, Francis van Arnum Brown, worked at a number of jobs, including as a clerk at the Washington Patent Office and as a manager and salesman […]

Kate Reid (1930 - 1993)

Daphne Kate Reid was born in London, England, the daughter of Canadian parents, Helen Isabel (née Moore) and Walter Clarke Reid, who was a former Bengal Lancer in the Indian army and a retired colonel. Reid attended Havergal College locally and university in London, and then studied acting at a performance art school in Canada. She […]

Glenn Corbett (1933 - 1993)

An American lead actor and supporting actor, Glenn Corbett was born Glenn Edwin Rothenburg on August 17, 1933, the son of a garage mechanic. After serving time in the United States Navy as a Seabee, he met his wife Judy at Occidental College, and with her encouragement, he began acting in campus theater plays. He […]

Raymond Burr (1917 - 1993)

Raymond William Stacey Burr was born in New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada, to William Johnston Burr (1889–1985), a hardware salesman, and his wife, Minerva Annette (née Smith, 1892–1974), a concert pianist and music teacher. His mother was born in Chicago, Illinois; Burr’s ancestry included Irish, English, Scottish, and German. After his parents divorced, Burr, then […]

River Phoenix (1970 - 1993)

Phoenix was born River Jude Bottom on August 23, 1970, in Madras, Oregon, the first child of Arlyn Sharon Dunetz (born 1944) and John Lee Bottom (born 1947). Phoenix’s parents named him after the river of life from the Hermann Hesse novel Siddhartha, and he received his middle name from the Beatles’ song “Hey Jude”. […]

Robert Shayne (1900 - 1992)

Robert Shayne Shayne originally worked as a journalist before becoming an actor, and his first stage appearances were with repertory companies in Alabama. By 1931, he had established the first of many Broadway credits in The Rap.  His other Broadway shows include Yellow Jack (1934), The Cat and the Canary (1935), Whiteoaks (1938), with Ethel […]

Allan Jones (1907 - 1992)

Jones, of Welsh ancestry, was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Pennsylvania. His father and grandfather were coal miners, and he worked in coal mines early in his adult life. He left that occupation to study voice at New York University.  In an interview in 1973, Jones recalled that his father and grandfather […]

John Lund (1911 - 1992)

John Lund’s father was a Norwegian immigrant and glassblower in Rochester, New York. Lund did not finish high school, and he tried several businesses before settling on advertising in the 1930s. His jobs included being “a soda-jerk, carpenter and timekeeper.”  While working for an advertising agency, he was asked by a friend to appear in […]

Robert Beatty (1909 - 1992)

Robert Beatty Born in Hamilton, Ontario, Beatty began his acting career in Britain in 1939.  Beatty’s film credits include: San Demetrio London (1943), Another Shore (1948), Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. (1951), The Square Ring (1953), The Amorous Prawn (1962), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Where Eagles Dare (1968), The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976), Superman […]

Molly Picon (1898 - 1992)

Picon was born as Małka Opiekun in New York City, the daughter of Polish Jewish emigrants: Clara (née Ostrow), a wardrobe mistress, and Louis Opiekun, a shirtmaker. Opiekun is a Polish language name meaning “guardian” or “caretaker”. Her surname was later changed to Picon. Her career began at the age of six years in the […]

Arletty (1898 - 1992)

Arletty was born Léonie Marie Julie Bathiat in Courbevoie (near Paris), to a working-class family. After her father’s death, she left home and pursued a modeling career. She took the stage name “Arlette” based on the heroine of a story by Guy de Maupassant. She was not interested in acting until she met Paul Guillaume, […]

Michael Gothard (1939 - 1992)

Michael Gothard was born in London in 1939. As a small child, he lived in both Wales and London. After leaving Haverstock School, he travelled in France for several months before returning home. He went through various jobs, including being a building labourer and a trainee reporter. He even had a brief spell as a […]

Brenda Marshall (1915 - 1992)

Born in Negros, Philippines, Marshall made her first film appearance in the 1939 Espionage Agent. The following year, she played the leading lady to Errol Flynn in The Sea Hawk. After divorcing actor Richard Gaines in 1940, she married the actor William Holden in 1941 and her own career quickly slowed. She starred opposite James […]

Angelique Pettyjohn (1943 - 1992)

Pettyjohn was born Dorothy Lee Perrins in Los Angeles, California, and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her first credited film appearances were in 1967 under the name Angelique. They include The Touch of Her Flesh and The Love Rebellion. Her big break came that same year in the Elvis Presley film, Clambake. Pettyjohn was […]

Robert Morley (1908 - 1992)

Morley was born in Semley, Wiltshire, England, the son of Gertrude Emily (née Fass) and Robert Wilton Morley, a Major in the British Army. His mother came from a German family that had emigrated to South Africa. Morley attended Wellington College, Berkshire, which he hated, followed by RADA. As he was a famous “Old Wellingtonian”, […]

Mae Clarke (1910 - 1910)

Clarke was born Violet Mary Klotz in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her father was a theater organist. She studied dancing as a child and began on stage in vaudeville and also worked in night clubs.  Clarke started her professional career as a dancer in New York City, sharing a room with Barbara Stanwyck. She subsequently starred in […]

Ray Danton (1931 - 1992)

Danton was born Raymond Caplan in New York City, the son of Myrtle (née Menkin) and Jack Caplan. His family was Jewish, and he was a descendant of the Vilna Gaon.  Danton entered show business as a child radio actor on NBC radio’s Let’s Pretend show in 1943. Danton did many stage roles whilst attending […]

Diane Varsi (1938 - 1992)

Varsi was born in San Mateo, California, a suburb of San Francisco. There she unsuccessfully tried to become a model and a restaurant hostess. While in high school, she was called an “oddball” by her classmates. She often played truant from school to visit San Francisco and was therefore labeled a “rebel”. She dropped out […]

Jack Kelly (1927 - 1992)

Born John Augustus Kelly, Jr. in Astoria, Queens, New York, one of four children, to Ann Mary “Nan” (née Walsh) and John Augustus Kelly, Sr. “Jackie,” as he was called as a child, came from a prominent theatrical family. His mother, Nan Kelly, had been a popular stage actress and John Robert Powers model. Kelly’s […]

John Dehner (1915 - 1992)

Dehner was born in Staten Island, New York. He had an extensive career as a radio actor, appearing as a lead or supporting player in such series as Gunsmoke and Philip Marlowe. He starred as Paladin in the radio version of Have Gun – Will Travel, one of the few times a show began on […]

Hank Worden (1901 - 1992)

Worden was raised on a cattle ranch near Glendive, Montana and was educated at Stanford University and the University of Nevada as an engineer. He enlisted in the U.S. Army hoping to become an Army pilot, but washed out of flight school. An expert horseman, he toured the country in rodeos as a saddle bronc […]

Paul Henreid (1908 - 1992)

Born in the city of Triest, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Trieste, Italy), Henreid was the son of Maria-Luise (Lendecke) and Baron Carl Alphons, an aristocratic Viennese banker. He studied theatre in Vienna and debuted on the stage under the direction of Max Reinhardt. He began his film career acting in German films […]