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- Actor
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Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude McDowall was born in Herne Hill, London, to Winifriede Lucinda (Corcoran), an Irish-born aspiring actress, and Thomas Andrew McDowall, a merchant seaman of Scottish descent. Young Roddy was enrolled in elocution courses at age five. By age 10, he had appeared in his first film, Murder in the Family (1938), playing Peter Osborne, the younger brother of sisters played by Jessica Tandy and Glynis Johns.
His mother brought Roddy and his sister to the U.S. at the beginning of World War II, and he soon got the part of "Huw", the youngest child in a family of Welsh coal miners, in John Ford's How Green Was My Valley (1941), acting alongside Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara and Donald Crisp in the film that won that year's best film Oscar. He went on to many other child roles, in films like My Friend Flicka (1943) and Lassie Come Home (1943) until, at age eighteen, he moved to New York, where he played a long series of successful stage roles, both on Broadway and in such venues as Connecticut's Stratford Festival, where he did Shakespeare. He became a naturalized United States citizen in 1949.
In addition to making many more movies (over 150), McDowall acted in television, developed an extensive collection of movies and Hollywood memorabilia, and published five acclaimed books of his own photography. He died at his Los Angeles home, aged 70, of cancer. He never married and had no children.- Actor
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Soundtrack
Anton Yelchin was an American actor, known for playing Bobby in Hearts in Atlantis (2001), Chekov in the Star Trek (2009) reboot, Charlie Brewster in the Fright Night (2011) remake, and Jacob in Like Crazy (2011).
He was born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia, USSR, to a Jewish family. His parents, Irina Korina and Viktor Yelchin, were a successful pair of professional figure skaters in Leningrad, and his grandfather was also a professional sportsman, a soccer player. Anton was a six-month-old baby when he immigrated to the United States, where his parents settled in California and eventually developed coaching careers. He demonstrated his strong personality from the early age of four, and declined his parents' tutelage in figure skating because he was fond of acting and knew exactly what he wanted to do in his life.
Yelchin attended acting classes in Los Angeles, and eventually was noticed by casting agents. In 2000, at the age of 10, he made his debut on television, appearing as Robbie Edelstein in the medical drama ER (1994). At the age of 11, he shot to fame as Bobby Garfield, co-starring opposite Anthony Hopkins in Hearts in Atlantis (2001), and earning himself the 2002 Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Feature Film as Leading Young Actor. Over the course of his acting career, Yelchin has already played roles in more than 20 feature films and television productions, including Pavel Chekov in the hugely successful reboot Star Trek (2009), and its sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness (2013).
Outside of his acting profession, Anton loved reading, and was also fond of playing chess. He wrote music and performed with a band, where he also played piano and guitar.
Anton lived in Los Angeles, California, until his death on the evening of June 19, 2016, outside his LA home, when his parked Jeep Grand Cherokee rolled backward on his steep driveway, pinning him against a brick pillar and security fence. This was due to badly designed shifter that indicated park when it was in neutral. This death, along with reports of other near-misses, resulted in a recall of that model.- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Burt Lancaster, one of five children, was born in Manhattan, to Elizabeth (Roberts) and James Henry Lancaster, a postal worker. All his grandparents were immigrants from the north of Ireland. He was a tough street kid who took an early interest in gymnastics. He joined the circus as an acrobat and worked there until he was injured. In the Army during WWII he was introduced to the USO and to acting. His first film was The Killers (1946), and that made him a star. He was a self-taught actor who learned the business as he went along. He set up his own production company in 1948 with Harold Hecht and James Hill to direct his career. He played many different roles in pictures as varied as The Crimson Pirate (1952), From Here to Eternity (1953), Elmer Gantry (1960) and Atlantic City (1980).
His production company, Hecht-Hill-Lancaster, produced such films as Paddy Chayefsky's Marty (1955) (Oscar winner 1955) and The Catered Affair (1956). In the 1980s he appeared as a supporting player in a number of movies, such as Local Hero (1983) and Field of Dreams (1989). However, it will be the sound of his voice, the way that he laughed, and the larger-than-life characters he played that will always be remembered.- Actor
- Music Department
- Producer
Carroll was born in Manhattan and raised in Forest Hills, a heavily Jewish community in New York City's borough of Queens. After graduating from high school in 1942, O'Connor joined the Merchant Marines and worked on ships in the Atlantic. In 1946, he enrolled at the University of Montana to study English. While there, he became interested in theater. During one of the amateur productions, he met his future wife, Nancy Fields, whom he married in 1951. He moved to Ireland where he continued his theatrical studies at the National University of Ireland. He was discovered during one of his college productions and was signed to appear at the Dublin Gate Theater. He worked in theater in Europe until 1954 when he returned to New York. His attempts to land on Broadway failed and he taught high school until 1958. Finally in 1958, he landed an Off-Broadway production, "Ulysses in Nighttown". He followed that with a Broadway production that was directed by 'Burgess Meredith', "God and Kate Murphy", in which he was both an understudy and an assistant stage manager. At the same time, he was getting attention on TV. He worked in a great many character roles throughout the 1960s. A pilot for "Those Were The Days" was first shot in 1968 based on the English hit, "Till Death Do Us Part", but was rejected by the networks. In 1971, it was re-shot and re-cast as All in the Family (1971) and the rest is history.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
The son of a sales clerk and a department store owner, Bill Bixby was the sixth-generation Californian born as Wilfred Bailey Bixby, on January 22, 1934, in San Francisco, California. An only child growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, he attended schools in the same area, took ballroom dance lessons, before attending Lowell High School, where he excelled in drama. After his graduation from high school, he attended San Francisco City College, where he majored in drama. He transferred to the University of California-Berkeley, where he majored in the pre-law program, but never stopped falling in love with his interest in acting. After almost graduating, he left his native San Francisco, to travel to Los Angeles, where he became a lifeguard and a bellhop.
Two years later, in 1959, two executives noticed him and hired him immediately for commercial work and modeling, in Detroit, Michigan. At the same time, he auditioned for theater roles. He joined the Detroit Civic Theatre Company and made his professional stage debut in the musical, "The Boy Friend." Long after his trip to Michigan, he continued doing commercial work and made numerous guest appearances on popular TV sitcoms.
He made his TV debut in an episode of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959). He also did many other roles, most notably as "Charles Raymond" in The Joey Bishop Show (1961). After many guest and recurring roles, he landed a co-starring role opposite Ray Walston in My Favorite Martian (1963), in which he portrayed a newspaper reporter playing host to a visitor from another planet. After the first season, it became a hit and Bixby became a household name to millions of fans who liked the show. The show was going well until its cancellation in 1966, which left Bixby in the dark, for the time being. However, he finally got the chance to go onto the big screen. The first of the four post-"Martian" 60s movies he played in was the Western, Ride Beyond Vengeance (1966). The following year, he played in Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding! (1967) and, soon after, he was approached by Elvis Presley to appear in both Clambake (1967), and Speedway (1968). Afterwards, he once again returned to series television, this time playing widowed father, "Tom Corbett", on The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1969), based on the popular 1963 movie. After its first season, it became a much bigger hit than his first show and Bixby, heretofore one of Hollywood's most confirmed bachelors, changed his views on marriage and family, subsequently taking actress Brenda Benet as his bride and fathering a son. He also tried his hand at directing an episode of the series, called "Gifts Are For Giving," about Norman's highly treasured gift. After completing its second season, Bixby received an Emmy nomination for Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, but didn't win. By its third season in 1972, the show had bad scripts and ABC decided to pull the plug.
Once again, Bixby was not long out of work and was offered a chance to star in a lead role as "Anthony Dorian/Anthony Blake," on his first and only NBC dramatic series called, The Magician (1973). The show focused on Anthony performing magic tricks which helped people who were in trouble, and in real-life, Bill became a fine magician, performing to both children and adults. But sadly, the show was canceled after one season due to its expensive costs.
After a seven-year absence from the big screen, he co-starred in another western, opposite Don Knotts and Tim Conway, in The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975). Like most of the theatrical movies he did, it was not a blockbuster at the box office, but was still an average hit. In late 1977, he was offered the role of "Dr. David Bruce Banner," in a two-hour pilot called, The Incredible Hulk (1977). About a physician/scientist who turned into a green monster whenever he became angry, the idea appealed to CBS, and several months later, they premiered a new science fiction-dramatic series, called, The Incredible Hulk (1978). When it debuted as a mid-season replacement, it became the #1 show in the United States, and in many other countries. His character became famous for ripping up shirts each time he turned into the Hulk, played by bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno. Bixby had wanted to direct some episodes, but the time he had to spend in the make-up chair for the transformation sequences made that problematical, and he managed to helm only one segment, "Bring Me the Head of the Hulk," in the fourth season. The series was canceled in 1981 (although the last few episodes didn't air until 1982).
Bixby, once again, came back to series television, acting in, producing and directing his last sitcom, Goodnight, Beantown (1983), on which he played "Matt Cassidy." Chosen for the role of "Jennifer Barnes," was one of Bixby's old friends, Mariette Hartley, who had won an Emmy for her guest appearance in The Incredible Hulk (1978) as Banner's second wife. The two played co-anchor newscasters of a Boston television station whose sparring on and off the air developed into friendship and respect. Discounting a brief, inconsequential return to the network's schedule in the summer of 1984, the series lasted for less than a year, from April 1983 to January 1984.
Bixby now decided to concentrate on directing and worked on Wizards and Warriors (1983), Goodnight, Beantown (1983) and Sledge Hammer! (1986). He also directed the pilot for a New York spy series, "Rockhopper." He also appeared in front of the camera as the host of the daytime anthology series, True Confessions (1985), which dealt with real-life crises of everyday people. Bixby additionally served as host for two shows targeting younger viewers: "Against the Odds," a series of biographies of prominent people, frequently from history, for the Nickelodeon cable channel; and "Once Upon a Classic," a collection of British TV adaptations of literary classics on PBS.
He came back to reprise his role of "Dr. David Banner" from The Incredible Hulk (1978) by acting in, producing, and directing the three spin-off movies: The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988), The Trial of the Incredible Hulk (1989) and The Death of the Incredible Hulk (1990). He also directed TV movies such as Baby of the Bride (1991) and Another Pair of Aces: Three of a Kind (1991).
In April 1991, while directing one of his last movies, he became very ill and was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He underwent surgery and by December, his cancer seemed to be in remission, so he came back to guest star as "Nick Osborne" in a two-hour TV movie/pilot called Diagnosis Murder: Diagnosis of Murder (1992). In mid-1992, while his cancer continued to be in remission, Bixby returned to work as a director to direct several episodes of the popular NBC sitcom, Blossom (1990), where he became the main director of the show. At first, he hid his illness from the cast and crew, until one of the producers found out, and then he announced publicly that he wanted to continue working until he could no longer do so. Prior to going public with his cancer, he directed a TV movie starring Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold, The Woman Who Loved Elvis (1993), which was his final directing project.
Unfortunately, the cancer returned by mid-1993 and, on November 21, 1993, six days after directing his last episode on "Blossom" (1991), Bill Bixby died at age 59 in his home after a two-year battle with cancer. For over 30 years, he was in great demand and his big roles and directing credits have been a personal testimony to his fans. His life is gone, but his legacy lives on for years to come.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Of Greek descent on both sides, the son of immigrants, Savalas was a soldier during World War II, although most of his enlistment records were destroyed in a fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1973. He later studied psychology at Columbia University under the GI Bill.
Iconically bald, he often played character roles, sometimes as sadists or psychotics. He became famous in the 1970s when his role as Det. Theo Kojak in the TV movie The Marcus-Nelson Murders (1973) was expanded into the gritty Kojak (1973) TV series (1973-78).- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Lana Turner had an acting ability that belied the "Sweater Girl" image MGM thrust upon her, and even many of her directors admitted that they knew she was capable of greatness (check out The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)). Unfortunately, her private life sometimes overshadowed her professional accomplishments.
Lana Turner was born Julia Jean Mildred Francis Turner in Wallace, Idaho. There is some discrepancy as to whether her birth date is February 8, 1920 or 1921. Lana herself said in her autobiography that she was one year younger (1921) than the records showed, but then this was a time where women, especially actresses, tended to "fib" a bit about their age. Most sources agree that 1920 is the correct year of birth. Her parents were Mildred Frances (Cowan) and John Virgil Turner, a miner, both still in their teens when she was born. In 1929, her father was murdered and it was shortly thereafter her mother moved her and the family to California where jobs were "plentiful". Once she matured into a beautiful young woman, she went after something that would last forever: stardom. She wasn't found at a drug store counter, like some would have you believe, but that legend persists. She pounded the pavement as other would-be actors and actresses have done, are doing and will continue to do in search of movie roles.
In 1937, Lana entered the movie world, at 17, with small parts in They Won't Forget (1937), The Great Garrick (1937) and A Star Is Born (1937). These films didn't bring her a lot of notoriety, but it was a start. In 1938 she had another small part in Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938) starring Mickey Rooney. It was this film that made young men's hearts all over America flutter at the sight of this alluring and provocative young woman--known as the "Sweater Girl"--and one look at that film could make you understand why: she was one of the most spectacularly beautiful newcomers to grace the screen in years. By the 1940s Lana was firmly entrenched in the film business. She had good roles in such films as Johnny Eager (1941), Somewhere I'll Find You (1942) and Week-End at the Waldorf (1945). If her career was progressing smoothly, however, her private life was turning into a train wreck, keeping her in the news in a way no one would have wanted.
Without a doubt her private life was a threat to her public career. She was married eight times, twice to Stephen Crane. She also married Ronald Dante, Robert Eaton, Fred May, Lex Barker, Henry Topping and bandleader Artie Shaw. She also battled alcoholism. In yet another scandal, her daughter by Crane, Cheryl Crane, fatally stabbed Lana's boyfriend, gangster Johnny Stompanato, in 1958. It was a case that would have rivaled the O.J. Simpson murder case. Cheryl was acquitted of the murder charge, with the jury finding that she had been protecting her mother from Stompanato, who was savagely beating her, and ruled it justifiable homicide. These and other incidents interfered with Lana's career, but she persevered. The release of Imitation of Life (1959), a remake of a 1934 film (Imitation of Life (1934)), was Lana's comeback vehicle. Her performance as Lora Meredith was flawless as an actress struggling to make it in show business with a young daughter, her housekeeper and the housekeeper's rebellious daughter. The film was a box-office success and proved beyond a doubt that Lana had not lost her edge.
By the 1960s, however, fewer roles were coming her way with the rise of new and younger stars. She still managed to turn in memorable performances in such films as Portrait in Black (1960) and Bachelor in Paradise (1961). By the next decade the roles were coming in at a trickle. Her last appearance in a big-screen production was in Witches' Brew (1980). Her final film work came in the acclaimed TV series Falcon Crest (1981) in which she played Jacqueline Perrault from 1982-1983. After all those years as a sex symbol, nothing had changed--Lana was still as beautiful as ever.
She died on June 25, 1995, in Culver City, California, after a long bout with cancer. She was 74 years old.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Jeff was born in Brooklyn and attended Erasmus High School. After high school, he took a drama course and worked in stock companies for two years. His next role was that of an officer in World War II. After he was discharged from the service, he became busy acting in radio dramas and comedies until he was signed by Universal. It was in the fifties that Jeff would become a star, making westerns and action pictures. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as Cochise in Broken Arrow (1950). He followed this by playing the role of Cochise in two sequels: The Battle at Apache Pass (1952) and Taza, Son of Cochise (1954). While his premature gray hair and tanned features served him well in his westerns and action pictures, the studio also put him into soaps and costume movies. In his films, his leading ladies included Maureen O'Hara, Rhonda Fleming, Jane Russell, Joan Crawford, and June Allyson. Shortly after his last film Merrill's Marauders (1962), Jeff died, at 42, from blood poisoning after an operation for a slipped disc.- Anne Haney held prominent roles acting on stage, on the screen, and on TV. All these achievements came in her mid-40s, after she had raised a daughter and buried a husband. It wasn't until after she had packed her daughter off to college and "the maid quit", as she said, that she decided to try her hand at acting. She was born in Memphis, Tennessee and studied drama, radio and TV at the University of North Carolina, where she met her husband, John Haney. She did apply her schooling briefly at a Memphis television station, but soon settled down with her husband and devoted herself to family life. "I was a lovely faculty wife. We made ambrosia salad. We did good works. We played a lot of bridge", she said of those times. By the 1970s, however, Haney began seeking work in local theatre productions and television commercials. Soon, she was traveling with a touring company performing as the maid in Noël Coward's "Fallen Angels". She toured for two years. Eventually, she joined the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of T.V. and Radio Artists. She and her husband had, in fact, planned to move to Southern California after his retirement. She was eager to experience and, she hoped, benefit from the variety and prestige available only in Hollywood. Those plans changed when Mr. Haney died of kidney disease in 1980; Anne Haney made the trek to California, alone. Not long after arriving, she had an agent and a part in the Walter Matthau vehicle Hopscotch (1980). As her career took off, she also secured roles on stage, notably the role of Margaret Fielding in the Theatre West production of "Verdigris". When asked whether she ever dwelled on the prospect that had she begun her career too late, she replied that "this is gravy to me. It's a wonderful way to spend the last third of my life".
- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Donald Jay Rickles was born May 8, 1926 in New York. Following the Golden Era of Hollywood, he remained active until early 2017. He got his start in night clubs, toiling for over 20 years, until 1958, when he made his film debut in Run Silent Run Deep (1958). The movie was a big hit. Afterward, Rickles continued acting, starring in films like X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963), Bikini Beach (1964), Enter Laughing (1967), and Kelly's Heroes (1970). In 1973, Don became a regular on Dean Martin's Celebrity Roasts.
From 1973-84, he appeared frequently on Dean's show, paying tribute to some of his friends, like Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball, and was even the roast master on the roast for Dean Martin himself. In 1976, he had his own TV series CPO Sharkey (1976), which enjoyed a two year run. After 1984, he slowed down, appearing in a few minor film roles. In 1995, he made a comeback, appearing with Tom Hanks and Tim Allen in Toy Story (1995) in the role of the grouchy Mr. Potato Head. In 1999, he returned as Mr. Potato Head in Toy Story 2 (1999). He died on April 6, 2017, in Los Angeles, California, aged 90. He is interred at Mount Sinai Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California, in the Courts of Tanach.- Tough, gruff, thick-browed, volatile-looking character actor Alex Rocco was born Alessandro Federico Petricone, Jr. on February 29, 1936, to Italian immigrants in Cambridge, Mass. He grew up a member of Boston's Winter Hill gang (his nickname was "Bobo") and was briefly detained regarding a murder at one point after an alleged personal incident triggered the Boston Irish Gang War (1961-1967). Rocco decided to straighten his life and relocated to Hollywood in 1962 following his detainment and release.
Developing an interest in acting, Alex initially trained with such notable teachers as Leonard Nimoy and Jeff Corey in order to curb his thick Boston accent. Working as a bartender during the lean years, his film and TV career finally kick-started in 1965, immediately relying on his sly, lethal menace, toothy toughness, and prior gangland past to realistically portray gritty anti-heroes and villains. He made an effective movie debut, co-starring as a vengeful veterinarian and Vietnam vet who goes after motorcycle "bad boys" following his wife's beating and rape in the exploitation flick Motorpsycho! (1965) directed by Russ Meyer. Despite this bold beginning, it was followed by a disappointing gangster bit in The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967) and a nothing role as a police Lieutenant in The Boston Strangler (1968). On TV, he found sporadic work playing thugs and other unsavory types on such TV shows as "Run for Your Life," "Batman" and "Get Smart."
Rocco came into his own in the early 1970s. After featured roles in such violent exploitation like Blood Mania (1970) and Brute Corps (1971), he received a huge boost in an Oscar-winning "A" film. He made a brief but potent impact essaying the role of Las Vegas syndicate boss Moe Green who gets a bullet in the eye during the violently explosive "christening sequence" of Mario Puzo's The Godfather (1972). From there he found a comfortable supporting niche playing various swarthy-looking cronies, hoods and cops in such crime films as The Outside Man (1972), Slither (1973), The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) (in which he made good use of his Boston criminal past), Freebie and the Bean (1974), Three the Hard Way (1974) and A Woman for All Men (1975). Similar urban roles followed him on TV with yeoman work on such 1970s cop shows as "The Rookies", "Get Christie Love", "Kojak", "Cannon", "The Blue Knight", "Police Story", "The Rockford Files", "Barnaby Jones", "Dog and Cat", "Baretta", "Starsky and Hutch", "Delvecchio", "CHiPs", "Matt Houston", "Hardcastle and McCormick", and "Simon & Simon", along with the TV movies or miniseries A Question of Guilt (1978), The Gangster Chronicles (1981) and Badge of the Assassin (1985).
In the midst of all this, Alex was handed the starring role of his own series Three for the Road (1975) in which he played a new widower photographer with two teenage sons (played by Vincent Van Patten and Leif Garrett) who assuage their grief by leaving town and "discovering America" together. Although well-received, it was short-lived (13 episodes) as a result of poor scheduling. The actor returned to series TV in the late 1980s and was much more successful as a slick Hollywood agent in The Famous Teddy Z (1989) for which he won a "Supporting Actor" Emmy Award. Other regular comedy series work, such as Sibs (1991), The George Carlin Show (1994), The Division (2001) and Magic City (2012), added to his healthy resume over the years, with over 400 TV appearances racked up in all. Recurring roles on such programs as The Simpsons (1989) and The Facts of Life (1979) (as Nancy McKeon's father) also kept his career going at a steady pace. Other memorably flashy film roles include Freebie and the Bean (1974), The Stunt Man (1980), Lady in White (1988), Get Shorty (1995) and Just Write (1997).
Twice married, Rocco's first wife, Sandra Garrett, a nightclub performer and screenwriter, died of cancer in 2002. He married actress Shannon Wilcox in 2005 and together they appeared in the film Scammerhead (2014). Rocco appeared in two films helmed by his adopted son, screenwriter and director Marc Rocco: Scenes from the Goldmine (1987) and Dream a Little Dream (1989), who died in 2009. Two other children by his first wife were Lucian, a poet, and Jennifer, an attorney. Alex Rocco died of pancreatic cancer on July 18, 2015 at age 79. - Actor
- Producer
- Director
Sage Stallone was an American actor and film director from Los Angeles. His best known role was Robert Balboa, Jr. (Rocky Balboa's son) in the sports drama film "Rocky V" (1990).
Stallone was the eldest son of actor Sylvester Stallone (1946-) and his first wife Sasha Czack. His parents married in 1974, and divorced in 1985. Sage's paternal grandfather was hairdresser and beautician Frank Stallone Sr. (1919-2011). Sage's paternal grandmother was the astrologer Jackie Stallone (1921-). Through his father's side of the family, Sage had Italian, French, and Ukrainian-Jewish ancestry.
Stallone made his film debut in "Rocky V" (1990), when 14-years-old. From 1994 to 1995, Stallone studied filmmaking at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, a public art school located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In 1996 Stallone and film editor Bob Murawski became the founders of the film preservation company Grindhouse Releasing. The company preserved, digitally restored and distributed exploitation films, B-movies, and cult films. It was also known for the restoration of Italian horror films directed by Lucio Fulci, Ruggero Deodato, and other horror directors.
In 2006, Stallone directed the drama film "Vic", concerning a down-on-his-luck actor who struggles to make a career comeback. For this film, Stallone won the Best New Filmmaker at the Boston Film Festival .
In 2010, Stallone played an unnamed Mafioso in the drama film "Promises Written in Water". The film did not receive distribution, and was mainly exhibited in film festivals. Stallone's last film appearance was a role in the short film "The Agent" (2010).
Stallone died in July 2012,at his home in Studio City, Los Angeles. His autopsy indicated that the cause of death was coronary artery disease, caused by atherosclerosis. He was 36-years-old at the time of death. His funeral was held at the St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church in Los Angeles. Stallone was buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery.- Pretty, auburn-haired actress Aneta Louise Corsaut was born in Hutchinson, Kansas on November 3, 1933. She majored in drama at Northwestern University and studied acting with Lee Strasberg, considered by some to be the father of method acting in America. Aneta dropped out in her junior year to pursue a career in acting.
Aneta guest-starred in two TV shows during 1955: live program Producers' Showcase (1954) and the Robert Montgomery-hosted drama Robert Montgomery Presents (1950). She didn't make her feature film debut until 1958, when she starred in the cult science fiction favorite The Blob (1958) opposite Steve McQueen.
Aneta's best-known role came about in 1963, when she first appeared on The Andy Griffith Show (1960) as independent and self-sufficient schoolteacher Helen Crump. Aneta stayed on the show until its end in 1968, and reprised her role in the spin-off series Mayberry R.F.D. (1968), the made-for-TV movie Return to Mayberry (1986), and the reunion special Andy Griffith Show Reunion (1993).
Besides her role as the heroine in 'The Blob', Anita Corsaut regrettably didn't appear in many feature films. She had a role in video nasty The Toolbox Murders (1978), as well as uncredited appearances in Good Neighbor Sam (1964), A Rage to Live (1965), and Blazing Saddles (1974). She did, however, appear in many TV shows, including The Blue Knight (1975), Adam-12 (1968), House Calls (1979), Matlock (1986) (starring none other than Andy Griffith!), and General Hospital (1963), as well as guest appearances on a dozen others.
Ms. Corsaut battled cancer in her later years, and sadly died of the disease on November 6, 1995 at the age of 62. She will be remembered as Helen Crump. - Actor
- Soundtrack
Tom Conway played "The Falcon" in ten of that series' entries. He starred in three Val Lewton horror classics. He appeared in comedies, musicals, two Tarzan films and even science fiction films.
He was early television's Detective Mark Saber, but Conway will probably be best remembered as George Sanders' brother.
Born into a wealthy family in pre-Bolshevik Revolution Russia, Thomas Charles Sanders might have followed his father as a rope manufacturer and inherited several estates. Had the family not been forced to flee to England, the brothers Sanders may never have added their names to the Hollywood saga.
But the Russian Revolution came, and Tom (age 13), George (age 11), sister Margaret (age 5), together with their parents, fled to England, leaving most of their wealth in the hands of the Bolsheviks.
The brothers attended Dunhurst and Bedales, private schools, and eventually Brighton College.
After college, Tom went to Northern Rhodesia where he worked in gold, copper and asbestos mines and even attempted ranching. Frustrated and "pretty well fed up to the teeth" with his failures, he borrowed passage home. In England, Conway worked as an engineer in a carburetor company and later sold safety glass.
He was discovered by a representative from a little theater group who persuaded him to join them. Conway eventually worked for the Manchester Repertory Company and toured with them in over twenty-five plays. He also appeared in BBC radio broadcasts.
Brother George persuaded him to come to Hollywood. To prevent confusion on the part of the public, they tossed a coin to see who would have to change his name. Tom lost, thereby becoming Tom Conway.
Conway began work at MGM, eventually appearing as a contract player in twelve films there, including a bit part in Mrs. Miniver (1942).
Brother George, tiring of B-film appearances in RKO's Falcon series and with better roles at two studios looming on the horizon, offered Tom his first big break. In The Falcon's Brother (1942), George was conveniently eliminated by a Nazi sniper so that Tom, as Tom Lawrence, could inherit the role. Conway played the role with even greater success than that of his brother in the next ten installments, concluding with The Falcon's Adventure (1946).
During those years, he also appeared in Val Lewton's Cat People (1942), I Walked with a Zombie (1943) and The Seventh Victim (1943). These led to two major film appearances, Universal's One Touch of Venus (1948), with Ava Gardner and Eve Arden and Warner Brothers' Painting the Clouds with Sunshine (1951).
Amidst the collapse of the studio system, Tom found his opportunities shrinking. There were to be no further major roles for him. His next film was Bride of the Gorilla (1951).
Alert to new possibilities for work, he accepted the part of homicide detective Mark Saber in the television series, Mark Saber (1951). Conway also made several mystery films in England during the same period. He played a cameo role as a bearded and be-wigged Sir Kay in Prince Valiant (1954) with two brief lines.
Back in the states, there were guest appearances on TV's Rawhide (1959), Adventures in Paradise (1959), and Perry Mason (1957).
In October, 1957, Tom turned in a brilliant performance as ventriloquist Max Collodi in Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955) chilling tale "The Glass Eye". He appeared regularly as the boyfriend on the The Betty Hutton Show (1959).
Conway also lent his voice to One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961). His final appearance was an uncredited part, in What a Way to Go! (1964).
Failing eyesight and prolonged bouts with alcohol took their toll on Conway in his last years. His second wife, Queenie Leonard divorced him in 1963. George Sanders broke off all contact with him over his drinking.
Conway underwent cataract surgery during the winter of 1964/65. In September of 1965 Tom briefly returned to the headlines when he was discovered living in a $2-a-day room in a Venice, California flophouse. Gifts, contributions and offers of aid poured in - for a time. Conway, still standing tall and trim, his hair now white, peered owl-like through thick-lensed glasses at the newspaper cameras.
His last years were marked with further visits to the hospital. It was there that former sister-in-law Zsa Zsa Gabor visited him one day and gave him $200. "Tip the nurses a little bit so they'll be good to you," she told him. The following day, the hospital called her to say that Conway had left with the $200, gone to his girlfriend's and died in her bed.- Actor
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A golden career was reflected in his name. Robert Golden Armstrong ("Bob" to his friends) was born in Birmingham, Alabama on April 7, 1917. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While there, he was frequently performing on stage with the Carolina Playmakers. After graduating, R.G. headed to New York, where his acting career really took off. In 1953, along with many of his Actors Studio buddies, he was part of the cast of "End As a Man" -- this became the first play to go from off-Broadway to Broadway. The following year, R.G. got his first taste of movies, appearing in Garden of Eden (1954). However, he returned to New York and the live stage. He received great reviews for his portrayal of Big Daddy in the Broadway production of "Cat On a Hot Tin Roof" in 1955.
In 1958, R.G. took the plunge to Hollywood -- he appeared in two movies, a television series, and did numerous guest appearances on television series that year, usually in Westerns such as The Rifleman (1958), Have Gun - Will Travel (1957) and Zane Grey Theatre (1956), among others. He would go on to appear in 80 movies and three television series in his career, and guest-starred in 90 television series, many of them Westerns, often as a tough sheriff or a rugged land baron. R.G. was a regular cast member in the television series T.H.E. Cat (1966), playing tough, one-handed Captain MacAllister. During the filming of Steel (1979) in Kentucky, watching the mammoth Kincaid Tower being built, he made some good friends in the cast: "You become a family on the set," he said in an interview at the time.
Even though he had a long, versatile career, the younger generation knows him as the demonic Lewis Vandredi (pronounced VON-drah-dee), who just would not let the main characters have a good night's sleep on the television series Friday the 13th: The Series (1987). Finally retiring after six successful decades in show business -- his last film appearance was Purgatory (1999) -- R.G. and his lovely wife Mary Craven were mostly just enjoying life in California, and still traveled and vacationed in Europe occasionally. His upbeat, fun-loving personality made him a delight for all who came in contact with him. R.G. Armstrong died at age 95 of natural causes in Studio City, California on July 27, 2012.- Actor
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Nicholas Colasanto, the actor and television director who achieved his greatest success as "Coach" on the TV series Cheers (1982) at the end of his career, was born January 19, 1924 in Providence, Rhode Island, one of seven children. He attended Providence's Central High School but did not graduate due to World War II, as he joined the Navy. After being discharged at the end of the war, Colasanto returned to Little Rhody and finished his high school education, then went on to Bryant College, earning money for tuition and board by working construction jobs. He worked as an accountant for an oil company after graduating from Bryant in 1949.
At the age of 28, he saw Henry Fonda perform on Broadway and was infected by the acting bug. He joined a theater company in Phoenix, Arizona before moving back to New York, where he performed in off-Broadway productions and appeared in TV commercials. He relocated to Hollywood in 1965 and began to appear on TV, were he also made his mark as a TV director. Eventually, he directed over 100 episodes of series TV in the 1960s and 70s, including episodes of Bonanza (1959), Columbo (1971), S.W.A.T. (1975) and Starsky and Hutch (1975). His two most memorable film roles were the the boxing manager in John Huston's Fat City (1972) and the mob boss in Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull (1980).
Colasanto was primarily a dramatic actor but the producers of the TV comedy Cheers (1982) cast him as Ernie "Coach" Pantusso, the absent-minded and dumb but lovable bartender. The role made him famous and he earned an Emmy nomination as Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series each of the three years that he appeared on the show.
Sadly, at the height of his fame, he died from a heart ailment at his home on February 12th, 1985. Much beloved by the cast, the picture of the Apache warrior Geronimo that Colasanto had kept in his dressing room as a good luck charm was hung on the wall of the primary set of Cheers (1982). The picture of was not only a tribute to "Nicky", as he was known to his friends and co-workers, but was a reminder that "Coach" was still around. On the final episode of Cheers (1982), eight years after his death, Nicky Colasanto was acknowledged when series star Ted Danson, in the final scene, straightens the Geronimo picture before walking off stage for the last time.- Actress
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Whether portraying a glum, withering wallflower, a drab and dowdy housewife, a klutzy maid or a cynical gossip, eccentric character comedienne Alice Ghostley had the ability to draw laughs from the skimpiest of material with a simple fret or whine. Making a name for herself on the Tony-winning Broadway stage, her eternally forlorn looks later evolved as an amusingly familiar plain-Jane presence on TV sitcoms and in an occasional film or two during the 50s, 60s and 70s.
Alice was born in a whistle-stop railroad station in the tiny town of Eve, Missouri, where her father was employed as a telegraph operator. She grew up in various towns in the Midwest (Arkansas, Oklahoma) and began performing from the age of 5 where she was called upon to recite poetry, sing and tap-dance. Spurred on by a high school teacher, she studied drama at the University of Oklahoma but eventually left in order to pursue a career in New York with her sister Gladys.
Teaming together in an act called "The Ghostley Sisters", Alice eventually went solo and developed her own cabaret show as a singer and comedienne. She also toiled as a secretary to a music teacher in exchange for singing lessons, worked as a theater usherette in order to see free stage shows, paid her dues as a waitress, worked once for a detective agency, and even had a stint as a patch tester for a detergent company. No glamourpuss by any stretch of the imagination, she built her reputation as a singing funny lady.
The short-statured, auburn-haired entertainer received her star-making break singing the satirical ditty "The Boston Beguine" in the Broadway stage revue "New Faces of 1952", which also showcased up-and-coming stars Eartha Kitt, Carol Lawrence, Hogan's Heroes co-star Robert Clary and Paul Lynde to whom she would be invariably compared to what with their similarly comic demeanors. The film version of New Faces (1954)_ featured pretty much the same cast. She and "male counterpart" Lynde would appear together in the same films and/or TV shows over the years.
With this momentum started, she continued on Broadway with the short-lived musicals "Sandhog" (1954) featuring Jack Cassidy, "Trouble in Tahiti" (1955), "Shangri-La" (1956), again starring Jack Cassidy, and the legit comedy "Maybe Tuesday" (1958). A reliable sketch artist, she fared much better on stage in the 1960s playing a number of different characterizations in both "A Thurber Carnival" (1960), and opposite Bert Lahr in "The Beauty Part" (1962), for which she received a Tony nomination. She finally nabbed the Tony trophy as "featured actress" for her wonderful work as Mavis in the comedy play "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window" (1965).
By this time Alice had established herself on TV. She and good friend Kaye Ballard stole much of the proceedings as the evil stepsisters in the classic Julie Andrews version of Cinderella (1957), and she also recreated her Broadway role in a small screen adaptation of _Shangri-La (1960) (TV)_. Although it was mighty hard to take away her comedy instincts, she did appear in a TV production of "Twelfth Night" as Maria opposite Maurice Evans' Malvolio, and graced such dramatic programs as "Perry Mason" and "Naked City", as well as the film To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). She kept herself in the TV limelight as a frequent panelist on such game shows as "The Hollywood Squares" and "The Match Game".
Enjoying a number of featured roles in such lightweight comedy fare as My Six Loves (1963) with Debbie Reynolds, With Six You Get Eggroll (1968) starring Doris Day, and the Joan Rivers starrer Rabbit Test (1978), she also had a small teacher role in the popular film version of Grease (1978). Alice primarily situated herself, however, on the sitcom circuit and appeared in a number of recurring 'nervous Nellie" roles, topping it off as the painfully shy, dematerializing and accident-prone witch nanny Esmeralda in Bewitched (1964) from 1969-1972 (replacing the late Marion Lorne, who had played bumbling Aunt Clara), and as the batty friend Bernice in Designing Women (1986).
In 1978 Alice replaced Dorothy Loudon as cruel Miss Hannigan in "Annie", her last Broadway stand. Alice would play the mean-spirited scene-stealer on and off for nearly a decade in various parts of the country. Other musicals during this time included "Take Me Along", "Bye, Bye Birdie" (as the overbearing mother), and the raucous revue "Nunsense".
A series of multiple strokes ended her career come the millennium and she passed away of colon cancer on September 21, 2007. Her long-time husband of fifty years, Italian comedic actor Felice Orlandi died in 2003. The couple had no children.- Actor
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One of the movies' most memorable tough guys, Simon Oakland actually began his career as a concert violinist, turning to acting in the late 1940s. After a long string of roles in Broadway hits, including "Light Up the Sky," "The Shrike" and "Inherit the Wind," Oakland made his film debut as the tough but compassionate journalist who speaks up for Susan Hayward's "Barbara Graham" in I Want to Live! (1958). He would go on to play a long series of tough guy types, albeit usually on the right side of the law, in such films as The Sand Pebbles (1966), Tony Rome (1967), Psycho (1960), and, most notably, nasty Lieutenant Schrank in West Side Story (1961). He was also a frequently seen face on TV, at one point serving as a regular or semi-regular on four different series at once. Much respected by his co-workers as a total professional, he died, after a long battle with cancer, one day after his 68th birthday.- Actor
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Although Red Buttons is best known as a stand-up comic, he is also a successful songwriter, an Academy Award-winning actor (and has been nominated for two Golden Globe awards) and an accomplished singer. Born Aaron Chwatt in New York City's Lower East Side, Buttons (who got his name from a uniform he wore while working as a singing bellhop) started his show-business career singing on street corners as a child. At 16 he got a job as part of a comedy act playing the famed Catskills resort area in upstate New York (his partner was future actor Robert Alda). Buttons worked the burlesque circuit as a comic and even landed a role in a Broadway play, "Vicki", in 1942. He soon joined the U.S. Marine Corps, and in 1943 was picked for a role in Moss Hart's service play "Winged Victory" on Broadway, and soon afterwards journeyed to Hollywood to make the film version. After his discharge from the service he returned to Broadway, both in plays and as a comic with several big-band orchestras. He was successful enough that he got his own TV series, The Red Buttons Show (1952), on CBS. It lasted three years and won Buttons an Emmy for Best Comedian. He worked steadily for the next several years, and in 1957 got his big film break in the drama Sayonara (1957) with Marlon Brando, in which he played an American soldier stationed in Japan who struggled against the societal and racist pressures of both American and Japanese cultures because of his love for a Japanese woman. His performance garnered him an Academy Award, and more film roles followed. He played a paratrooper in The Longest Day (1962), was nominated for a Golden Globe for Harlow (1965) and again for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969). He had a part in the TV series The Double Life of Henry Phyfe (1966) and has done pretty much every kind of TV show there is, from variety to comedy to soap operas. He gained further renown in the 1970s for his appearances on the "Dean Martin Celebrity Roast" where he performed his "Never Got a Dinner" act to great acclaim. He has played Las Vegas for years, has a star on Hollywood Boulevard (corner of Hollywood and Vine) and has appeared in numerous telethons and charitable events, for which he has been honored by such organizations as the Friars Club and the City of Hope Hospital.- Actor
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Bill Erwin was born on 2 December 1914 in Honey Grove, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987), Somewhere in Time (1980) and Home Alone (1990). He was married to Lucy Frances MacLachlan. He died on 29 December 2010 in Studio City, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Carolyn Craig was born Adele Ruth Crago on October 27, 1934, in Green Acres, New York. Her father, Clarence, was an engineer and her mother, Ruth, was a housewife. The family moved to Santa Barbara, California, when she was child. Carolyn started her career acting at the Santa Barbara Community playhouse. In 1955 she appeared in the television movie Edgar Allan Poe At West Point. The beautiful brunette also modeled for series of photos where she portrayed a "healthy housewife". Her big break came when she played Elizabeth Taylor's sister in the 1956 drama Giant. Then she had the leading role in the film noir Portland Expose. On September 30, 1957 she married businessman Charles Graham. The couple had a son named Charles Edward. Carolyn costarred with Vincent Price in the 1959 horror film House On Haunted Hill.
She also appeared on numerous television shows including Perry Mason, The Rifleman, and The Life And Legend Of Wyatt Earp. Because she looked so young she was often cast as teenagers. Her marriage to Charles ended in 1961. Although many of her performances got good reviews, she never became an A-list star. She joined the cast of the soap opera General Hospital in 1963. The following year Carolyn married Arthur France Bryden, the manager of a car dealership. Her final acting role was in a 1967 episode of the TV show T.H.E. Cat. She divorced Arthur in the spring of 1970 and fell into a deep depression. On December 12, 1970, she committed suicide by shooting herself in her Culver City home. She was thirty-six years old. Carolyn was buried in an unmarked grave at Inglewood Cemetery in Inglewood, California. - Actor
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When amiable Columbia Pictures actor Larry Parks was entrusted the role of entertainer Al Jolson in the biopic The Jolson Story (1946), his career finally hit the big time. Within a few years, however, his bright new world crumbled courtesy of the House Un-American Activities Committee after the actor admitted under pressure that he was once affiliated with the Communist Party. Although he unwillingly testified in 1951, he was still (unofficially) blacklisted. Never-say-die Larry managed to continue his career in years to come - both here and abroad, on stage and in nightclubs - alongside steadfast wife Betty Garrett. His film career, however, literally came to a standstill and would never be the same again.
Samuel Klausman Lawrence Parks was born in Olathe, Kansas, on December 13, 1914, of German and Irish descent. As a child growing up in Joliet, Illinois, he was plagued by a variety of illnesses, including rheumatic fever, but persevered with physical exercise and sheer strength of will. Majoring in science at the University of Illinois, his plans to become a doctor dissolved when, to the dismay of his parents, he found a passionate sideline in college dramatics.
He began appearing in touring shows, then made the big move to New York, finding initial employment as an usher at Carnegie Hall and a tour guide at Radio City. Following a number of summer stock shows, he made an inauspicious 1937 Broadway debut with a minor role in the Group Theatre's presentation of "Golden Boy". Developing a close-knit relationship with the Group, he was just beginning to build up his resumé in such Broadway outings as "All the Living", "My Heart's in the Highlands" and "Pure in Heart" when he had to return to his Illinois home following the death of his father.
He toiled for a time in Chicago as a Pullman inspector on the New York Central Railroad until the possibility of a film role had him re-setting his acting sights on Los Angeles. Although the film deal fell through, Larry stayed in L.A. and somehow made ends meet working construction. Columbia expressed interest in the fledgling actor and signed him up in 1941 after a favorable screen test. He stayed for nine years. His buildup was slow-moving, taking his first small step with a minor role in Mystery Ship (1941). Time, however, did not increase the tempo or quality of his movies. Either he was oddly cast, such as his role as an Indian opposite exotic Yvonne De Carlo in The Deerslayer (1943), or completely dismissed, as co-star of such obscurities as The Black Parachute (1944), Sergeant Mike (1944) or She's a Sweetheart (1944).
His association with the Group Theatre back in New York led to a chance introduction to musical actress Betty Garrett and the couple married in 1944. Larry had settled by this time in Hollywood but Betty was a hot item on Broadway. MGM finally offered her a contract and she relocated to Los Angeles to join her husband. The couple eventually had two children, one of whom, Andrew Parks, became a fine actor in his own right. Their other son, Garrett Parks, served as composer for the film Diamond Men (2000).
Larry scored an Oscar nomination playing Jolson (which was originally offered to both James Cagney and Danny Thomas), and hoped for equally challenging roles. His hopes were dashed as the studio instead continued casting him haphazardly in mild-mannered comedies and swashbuckling adventures. Other than the box-office sequel Jolson Sings Again (1949), most of Larry's films were hardly worthy of his obvious talent. To compensate somewhat, he managed to find a creative outlet in summer stock, and both he and Betty put together a successful vaudeville act with one tour ending up playing London's Palladium.
Following the completion of Love Is Better Than Ever (1952) with Elizabeth Taylor, the political scandal erupted and erased all of his chances to do film. One of many casualties of Hollywood "blacklisting", he was forced to end his association with Columbia, and he and Betty, whose own career was damaged, traveled to Europe to find work.
He found some TV parts after the controversy died down, and Betty and Larry were a delightful replacement for Judy Holliday and Sydney Chaplin on Broadway in "Bells Are Ringing". During the many meager times, he concentrated on becoming a successful businessman, including building apartment complexes. He made only two more films, last playing a doctor in the Montgomery Clift starrer Freud (1962). By the time he died of a heart attack on April 13, 1975, at age 60, Larry had long faded from view. Betty, however, managed to revitalize her career on TV sitcoms with regular roles on All in the Family (1971), Laverne & Shirley (1976), and roles on numerous other TV series before passing on February 12, 2011.- Actor
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Barney Martin was born on 3 March 1923 in Queens, New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Arthur (1981), The Producers (1967) and Seinfeld (1989). He was married to Catherine Martin. He died on 21 March 2005 in Studio City, California, USA.- Actress
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Barbara Pepper's signature roles were as worldly "dames" during the Hollywood's 1930s and 1940s Golden Era, fitting snugly alongside other flashy broads of that period such as Iris Adrian, Joan Blondell and Veda Ann Borg. Barbara patented her own unique, hard-boiled style, however, and should have gone further than she did. Most people who remember this fine character actress today as Doris Ziffel, the shrill, slovenly barnyard neighbor of Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor on TV's highly popular bucolic Green Acres (1965) series.
Barbara was born Marion Pepper in New York City in 1915. By age 16, her mind was already set for a show biz career. Within a short time, and against her parents' wishes, she nabbed a show girl spot in Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.'s Follies and changed her first name to Barbara. Here is where she met fellow chorine Lucille Ball and the two became lifetime, dedicated friends. After appearing as a member of the "George White's Scandals" on Broadway, Barbara soon integrated radio and film work as well, paying her dues primarily in bit parts as saloon girls, clerks, chippies, and the like. Her film debut was as a slave girl extra (along with Lucy) in Eddie Cantor's Roman Scandals (1933). A couple of movies gave her the chance for brassy stardom, including Our Daily Bread (1934) as a floozie named Sally, and a love interest role opposite comedian Bert Wheeler (of Wheeler and Woolsey) in Mummy's Boys (1936), but the roles were basically one-dimensional and she remained in the secondary ranks for the rest of her career. Her father, Dave Pepper, a non-professional, put together a brief, minor character career when he visited his daughter on the film set of Wanted! Jane Turner (1936) and was cast by director Edward Killy in the unbilled role of a detective. Father and daughter both also appeared in another movie the following year: The Outcasts of Poker Flat (1937).
Trained by acting guru Maria Ouspenskaya at one stage, she married actor Craig Reynolds (ne Harold Hugh Enfield) in 1943 and the marriage proved a loving one despite later financial hardships when both could only find sporadic work. On stage in 1944, they appeared together in a modern version of "Lady Chatterly's Lover" at the Geary Theater in San Francisco. They went on to have two sons, Dennis Michael and John Hugh Enfield.
In 1949, however, her husband died tragically in a motorcycle accident. Barbara was absolutely devastated. Overwhelmed with her loss and the prospect of raising two sons alone, severe depression and a debilitating alcohol problem set in and she was forced to find work as a laundress and waitress in between sparse acting parts. During this period she could only muster up tiny roles on film and TV as various comic snoops and harridans.
Friends like Lucy stepped in to help. Over the years, Barbara would be glimpsed several times on I Love Lucy (1951), including the classic episode "Friends of the Friendless" and as a frightened hospital nurse who is taken aback by Ricky Ricardo's severe voodoo make-up when Lucy gives birth to Little Ricky. Barbara also brightened up other TV comedies with small parts on Jack Benny's program as well as George Burns and Gracie Allen's popular show. She could also be found occasionally on the Perry Mason (1957) series playing minor but colorful characters.
In the 1960s, Barbara was glimpsed as a minor, plus-sized foil for Jerry Lewis in several of his slapstick film vehicles (Rock-a-Bye Baby (1958), Who's Minding the Store? (1963), The Patsy (1964) and Hook, Line and Sinker (1969), the last mentioned released posthumously). One bright respite from all her financial miseries during this time came with a steady paycheck and her semi-regular series role as "mother" to a TV-watching pig on the popular Green Acres (1965) series.
While Barbara was quite fun in her cranky bucolic role, the fun wouldn't last very long. Her health began to deteriorate rapidly during the run of this sitcom and she was eventually forced to relinquish the part during the 1968-1969 season, with actress Fran Ryan taking over the part. Plagued by a heart condition, Barbara died of a coronary in July, 1969, at the age of 54.- Don Megowan was born on 24 May 1922 in Inglewood, California, USA. He was an actor, known for The Creation of the Humanoids (1962), The Werewolf (1956) and Blazing Saddles (1974). He was married to Alva Megowan and Betty Eleanor Wright. He died on 26 June 1981 in Panorama City, California, USA.