Mae Young (1923 - 2014)

Mae Young Mae Young — make that the Great Mae Young — who pulled hair and took cheap shots, who preferred actually fighting to pretending, who was, by her own account and that of many other female wrestlers, the greatest and dirtiest of them all, died on Tuesday in Columbia, S.C. She was 90, and […]

Morley Safer (1931 - 2016)

Morley Safer Morley Safer, the globe-trotting CBScorrespondent who had filed more than 900 reports for the network’s TV news magazine 60 Minutes, died Thursday at his home in Manhattan,CBS Corp. confirmed. He was 84. The network didn’t immediately release a cause of death, but said “Safer was in declining health.” The Toronto native was the longest-serving correspondent of the venerable news […]

Julius La Rosa (1930 - 2016)

Julius La Rosa Julius La Rosa, the celebrated 1950s singer who reinvented himself as a television, stage and nightclub performer after his young career was thrown into turmoil by a bizarre and humiliating on-the-air firing by Arthur Godfrey before a national audience, died on Thursday at his home in Crivitz, Wis. He was 86. His […]

Rhys Jones (1995 - 2007)

Rhys Jones was the son of Stephen (born in Liverpool) and Melanie Jones (née Edwards; born in Wrexham). They have an older son, Owen (born 1990). Jones, who would have turned 12 one month after his death, had just left Broad Square Primary School on the Norris Green housing estate, and was due to start […]

Sophie Lancaster (1986 - 2007)

Sophie Lancaster (born 26 November 1986) was a former pupil at Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School, Haslingden High School and a gap year student planning to attend Accrington and Rossendale College to do an English degree. She had been dating Maltby, a 21-year-old art student at Manchester, for three years, and they both had a […]

Kriss Donald (1988 - 2004)

On 15 March 2004, Kriss Donald was abducted from Kenmure Street by five men associated with a local Pakistani gang led by Imran Shahid. The kidnapping was ostensibly revenge for an attack on Shahid at a nightclub in Glasgow city centre the night before by a local white gang, and Donald was chosen as an […]

Milly Dowler (1988 - 2002)

Amanda Jane “Milly” Dowler (25 June 1988 – 22 March 2002) was a 13-year-old English girl who was abducted on her way home from school in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, on 21 March 2002, and subsequently murdered. Her body was discovered on 18 September 2002. On 23 June 2011, Levi Bellfield, who was already serving three life sentences […]

Damilola Taylor (1989 - 2000)

Damilola Taylor (7 December 1989 – 27 November 2000) was a ten-year-old Nigerian schoolboy who died in England in what became one of the country’s most high-profile killings. Several young boys were cleared of murder charges after a lengthy trial, and later two brothers were convicted of manslaughter. Damilola Taylor was born in Lagos, Nigeria, to […]

Lotta Crabtree (1847 - 1924)

Her father, John Ashworth Crabtree, a book seller, left for San Francisco in 1851 to join those seeking fortune in the California Gold Rush. Lotta and her mother, Mary Ann (née Livesey) Crabtree, followed two years later, joining John in the boomtown of Grass Valley. While in Grass Valley, the Crabtree’s ran a boarding house. […]

Gene Gutowski (1925 - 2016)

Gene Gutowski Producer Gene Gutowski, who collaborated with writer-director Roman Polanski, a fellow Holocaust survivor, on five films, including the 2002 Oscar-winning wartime drama The Pianist, has died. He was 90. Gutowski died Tuesday of pneumonia in a hospital in Warsaw, Poland, his son, Adam Bardach, told the Associated Press. Gutowski, born in Lwow, Poland, […]

Nick Lashaway (1988 - 2016)

Nick Lashaway Actor Nick Lashaway, who appeared on an episode of HBO’s Girls, died in a car crash in Framingham, Massachusetts on Sunday. A Hopkinton man died in a three-car crash on Badger Road on Sunday, police said. Nicholas Lashaway, 28, was taken to the MetroWest Medical Center in Framingham after the 6:30 p.m. crash, […]

Billy Paul (1934 - 2016)

Billy Paul Billy Paul, a pioneer of the Philadelphia Sound who recorded the 1972 number one hit  “Me and Mrs. Jones,” a smoky ode to an extramarital affair, died Sunday at his home in Blackwood, N.J. He was 80. His co-manager Beverly Gray told the Associated Press that Paul, born Paul Williams in Philadelphia, had been diagnosed […]

Lonnie Mack (1941 - 2016)

Lonnie Mack Lonnie Mack, the blues-rock pioneer who influenced an entire generation of guitarists like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Duane Allman, Eric Clapton and Keith Richards, died Thursday at a medical facility near his home in Smithville, Tennessee. Mack was 74. Alligator Records confirmed the guitar great’s death, adding that Mack had died of natural causes. In […]

William Keeler (1908 - 1987)

Both of William Keeler’s paternal and maternal grandfathers, George B. Keeler and Nelson F. Carr, were white men who had settled in Cherokee territory and married Cherokee women. They were notable for their roles in founding the community that is now Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Carr owned the sawmill and grist mill in town. George Keeler was […]

Frank Grouard (1850 - 1905)

Frank Grouard’s origins are the center of much speculation and controversy. He is variously described as having been American Indian, half-Indian, French-Creole or half-Black, the son of the early Black American Fur Company mountain man, John Brazeau. Grouard himself, in his biography dictated to journalist Joseph DeBarthe in 1891, was born in the Society Islands […]

Helen Jackson (1830 - 1885)

Helen Jackson was born Helen Maria Fiske in Amherst, Massachusetts, the daughter of Nathan Welby Fiske and Deborah Waterman Vinal Fisk. Helen’s father was a minister, author, and professor of Latin, Greek, and philosophy at Amherst College. She had two brothers, both of whom died soon after birth, and a sister Anne. They were raised […]

Chief Seattle (1786 - 1866)

Chief Seattle’s mother Sholeetsa was Dkhw’Duw’Absh (Duwamish) and his father Shweabe was chief of the Dkhw’Suqw’Absh (the Suquamish tribe). Seattle was born around 1780 on or near Blake Island, Washington. One source cites his mother’s name as Wood-sho-lit-sa. The Duwamish tradition is that Seattle was born at his mother’s village of Stukw on the Black […]

Black Kettle (1803 - 1868)

Little is known of chief Black Kettle’s life prior to 1854, when he was made a chief of the Council of Forty-four, the central government of the Cheyenne tribe. The Council met regularly at the Sun Dance gatherings, where they affirmed unity. After 1850, Cheyenne-US relations were conducted under the Treaty of Fort Laramie. But, the […]

Black Elk (1863 - 1950)

Black Elk was born into an Oglala Lakota family in December 1863 along the Little Powder River (at a site thought to be in the present-day state of Wyoming). According to the Lakota way of measuring time (referred to as Winter counts), Black Elk was born “the Winter When the Four Crows Were Killed on […]

Chief Joseph (1840 - 1904)

Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, Hinmatóowyalahtq̓it in Americanist orthography, popularly known as Chief Joseph or Young Joseph (March 3, 1840 – September 21, 1904), succeeded his father Tuekakas (Chief Joseph the Elder) as the leader of the Wal-lam-wat-kain (Wallowa) band of Nez Perce, a Native American tribe indigenous to the Wallowa Valley in northeastern Oregon, in the interior Pacific […]

Guy Hamilton (1922 - 2016)

Guy Hamilton Guy Hamilton, who directed four James Bond films, has died aged 93. Former 007 actor Sir Roger Moore tweeted that he was “incredibly, incredibly saddened to hear the wonderful director Guy Hamilton has gone to the great cutting room in the sky. 2016 is horrid”. Hamilton directed Sir Roger in Live and Let […]

David Gest (1953 - 2016)

David Gest David Gest was spotted looking frail and tired as he sat anxiously on the tube last week – days before he was found dead in a London hotel room. The 62-year-old, whose body was found at the Four Seasons hotel in Canary Wharf yesterday morning, was photographed after getting on a tube at […]

Blackjack Mulligan (1942 - 2016)

Blackjack Mulligan Blackjack Mulligan, a former professional wrestler and a member of the WWE Hall of Fame, has died. He was 73. Robert Windham, better known as Blackjack Mulligan, the patriarch of the Windham wrestling family that includes three performers on the current WWE roster, passed away. Windham had been in poor health for some […]

Ronnie Corbett (1930 - 2016)

Ronnie Corbett Ronnie Corbett, one of Britain’s most popular entertainers, who was a regular television fixture for more than 50 years, has died aged 85. Corbett first came to fame on The Frost Report in the 1960s but was best known as one half of The Two Ronnies with his comedy partner, Ronnie Barker, who […]

James Noble (1922 - 2016)

James Noble James Noble, the actor best known for his role as the absent-minded governor on the hit 1980s sitcom “Benson,” died on Monday in Norwalk, Conn. He was 94. Douglas Moser, a family spokesman, said Mr. Noble, who lived in Norwalk, had a stroke a few days before his death, in a hospital. Mr. […]

Ken Howard (1944 - 2016)

Ken Howard  Ken Howard, the current national president of SAG-AFTRA who came to fame as the supportive inner-city high school basketball coach on the 1970s CBS drama The White Shadow, died Wednesday. He was 71. Howard, who got laughs as Hank Hooper, the CEO of Kabletown, the cable company that buys NBC from General Electric, […]

Joe Garagiola Sr (1926 - 2016)

Joe Garagiola Sr Joe Garagiola, who spent nine forgettable seasons in the major leagues as a weak-hitting catcher and then parlayed his witty tales of life as a baseball underachiever into a far more notable career as a folksy broadcaster and television personality, died on Wednesday in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was 90. Major League Baseball […]

Tommy Dorsey (1905 - 1956)

Tommy Dorsey’s first band was formed out of the remains of the Joe Haymes band, and so began Dorsey’s long-running practice of raiding other bands for talent. If he admired a vocalist, musician or arranger, he would think nothing of taking over their contracts and careers.[citation needed] Dorsey had a reputation for being a perfectionist. […]

Al Bowlly (1898 - 1941)

Al Bowlly was born in Lourenço Marques in the then Portuguese colony of Mozambique, to Greek and Lebanese parents who met en route to Australia and moved to South Africa, where he was brought up in Johannesburg. After a series of odd jobs across South Africa in his youth, namely as a barber and jockey, […]

Red Nichols (1905 - 1965)

Red Nichols was born on May 8, 1905 in Ogden, Utah, United States. His father was a college music professor, and Nichols was a child prodigy, because by twelve he was already playing difficult set pieces for his father’s brass band. Young Nichols heard the early recordings of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, and later […]