Men on IMDB Who Had Been Cremated
"I would rather be ashes than dust!"
-Jack London, Writer and Social Activist
I don't know what other IMDB users think, yet I now find cremation to be quite humbly (I used to be against it and now am for it) and wish for my body to go through the same process as these men on IMDB when I eventually pass.
The list is still in progress. Updates can be quite sporadic.
-Jack London, Writer and Social Activist
I don't know what other IMDB users think, yet I now find cremation to be quite humbly (I used to be against it and now am for it) and wish for my body to go through the same process as these men on IMDB when I eventually pass.
The list is still in progress. Updates can be quite sporadic.
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Long acknowledged as one of the best "straight men" in the business, Bud Abbott was born William Alexander Abbott in Reading, Pennsylvania to Rae (Fisher) and Harry Abbott, who had both worked for the Barnum and Bailey Circus. When Bud was three his family moved to Asbury Park, New Jersey, which he later, erroneously, listed as his place of birth. He himself worked in carnivals while still a child and dropped out of school in 1909. He worked as assistant treasurer for the Casino Theater in Brooklyn, then as treasurer and/or manager of various theaters around the country. He worked as the straight man to such vaudeville and burlesque comics as Harry Steepe and Harry Evanson while managing the National Theater in Detroit. In 1931 while cashiering at the Brooklyn theater, he substituted for comic Lou Costello's ill straight-man. The two clicked almost immediately and formed their famous comedy team. Throughout the 1930s they worked burlesque, minstrel shows, vaudeville and movie houses. In 1938 they got national exposure through the Kate Smith radio show "The Kate Smith Hour", and signed with Universal Pictures the next year. They made their film debut in One Night in the Tropics (1940), and, while the team wasn't the film's stars, it made money for Universal and they got good enough notices to convince Universal to give them their own picture. Their first starring film, Buck Privates (1941), with The Andrews Sisters, grossed what was then a company-record $10 million (on a $180,000 budget) and they were on their way to stardom and a long run as the most popular comedy team in America. In 1942 they topped a poll of Hollywood stars. They had their own radio show (ABC, 1941-6, NBC, 1946-9) and TV show (The Abbott and Costello Show (1952)). After the war their careers stalled and the box-office takes for their films started slipping. However, they made a big comeback in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), which raked in huge profits and even got the team good notices from critics who normally wouldn't even review their films. The movie's success convinced Universal to embark on a series of films in which the team met various monsters or found themselves in exotic locations. Their film career eventually petered out and the team split up in 1957. Costello embarked on a series of TV appearances and even made a film, without Abbott, called The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock (1959), but it was a flop. He received good notices after a dramatic performance in an episode of Wagon Train (1957) and was in discussion to star in a biography of famed New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, a project Costello had been trying to get off the ground for years, when he died. Both Abbott and Costello had major tax problems with the Internal Revenue Service and wound up virtually broke. Abbott started over with a new partner, Candy Candido, in the 1960s and set off on a national tour, including Las Vegas, but the act failed. In 1966 he voiced his character in a cartoon version of their television show. His health deteriorated badly in the late 1960s, he had always suffered from epilepsy, and he died in 1974.Ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean.- Writer
- Director
- Additional Crew
Legendary Broadway writer/producer/director George Abbott was born in 1887 in Forestville, New York. His father was mayor of Salamanca, New York, for two terms. In 1898 his family moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Abbott attended Kearney Military Academy. The family returned to New York, where Abbott attended Hamburg High School, graduating in 1907, and the University of Rochester (BA degree in 1911). He wrote the play "Perfectly Harmless" for University Dramatic Club. He attended Harvard University from 1911-1912, studying play writing under George Pierce Baker, and wrote "The Head of the Family" for Harvard Dramatic Club. In 1912 he won $100 in a play contest sponsored by the Bijou Theatre in Boston, Massachusetts, for "The Man in the Manhole", and worked at the Bijou for a year as assistant stage manager. He made his Broadway debut as an actor in 1913 in "The Misleading Lady" (as Babe Merrill, a drunken student), followed by "The Yeoman of the Guard" (1915), "The Queen's Enemies" (1916), "Daddies" (1918), "The Broken Wing" (1920), "Dulcy" (on tour) (1921), "Zander the Great" (1923), "White Desert" (1923), "Hell-Bent for Heaven" (1924), "Lazybones" (1924), "Processional" (1925) and "Cowboy Crazy" (1926). From that point he concentrated on writing and directing, with "The Fall Guy" (his Broadway's debut, 1925), "Three Men on a Horse" (1935), "Jumbo" (1935), "On Your Toes" (1936), "The Boys from Syracuse" (1938), "Too Many Girls" (1939), "Pal Joey" (1940), "Best Foot Forward" (1941), "On the Town" (1944), "High Buttom Shoes" (1947), "Where's Charley?" (1948), "Call Me Madam" (1950), "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" (1951), "Wonderful Town" (1953), "The Pajama Game" (1954), "Damn Yankees" (1955), "New Girl Town" (1957), "Fiorello!" (1959), "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Forum" (1962), "Flora, the Red Menace" (1965; Liza Minnelli's Broadway debut).
He won five Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize (for "Fiorello!"). He was nominated for an Oscar for writing All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). His daughter, Judith Abbott, is a stage actress/director and was married (1946-49) to Tom Ewell.Ashes given to Abbott's family or (a) friend[s].- Shinzo Abe was born on 21 September 1954 in Tokyo, Japan. He was married to Akie Abe. He died on 8 July 2022 in Kashihara, Nara, Japan.A Tsuya ceremony was held on July 11, 2022 for the former Japanese Prime Minister. Abe's funeral was held in Tokyo's Zojoji Temple, a cultural landmark that has housed the bodies of generals from the Edo period, early July 12, 2022 where the former Prime Minister of Japan's body was taken to be cremated at the Kirigaya Funeral Hall.
After Abe's funeral the body was travelled in a Hearse to the Japanese Parliament, the Prime Minister's Office and Liberal Democratic Party Headquarters so the late Politician's former colleagues could pay tribute. - Actor
- Soundtrack
A familiar character face in movies and television, Walter Abel was a dedicated stage actor who had studied at the prestigious American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York before moving on to a progression of stage work that culminated in his first appearance on Broadway in the original play "Forbidden" in late 1919. The year before he had just dabbled in the relatively new film industry doing Out of a Clear Sky (1918) directed by prolific silent actor and director Marshall Neilan. Abel did just one other silent and then moved back into serious stage work for ten years (including doing some road productions in 1924) before once again surfacing in film for the first sound version of the play Liliom (1930). Perhaps he was enticed with doing the play on film, but his was a small part and the sound of early talkies - as usual - was lousy. Once again Abel returned to Broadway and worked steadily from late 1930 into part of the 1934 season. He would have some 40 Broadway roles in his career.
About that time his stage success was noticed by Hollywood, and he was signed with RKO. The studio had decided to do the first sound version of Alexander Dumas' The Three Musketeers (1935) which first appeared as a silent in 1922 with Douglas Fairbanks. The part of the enthusiastic but novice D'Artagnan really called for a younger actor reflecting those traits, and RKO decided to go with Abel. He had a bright voice and an animated style of theater acting that seemed a good bet. It was all the more impressive considering Abel was in his mid 30s - but he looked younger. RKO did not skimp on the film. The director was Rowland Lee, who had just finished another Dumas filming, The Count of Monte Cristo (1934) with Robert Donat. The rousing music was composed by Max Steiner, and the costumes were gloriously rendered by Walter Plunkett.
Abel had a strong supporting cast in the three musketeers: Paul Lukas, Moroni Olsen, and Onslow Stevens. Imposing European leading man Lukas and LA native Stevens had transitioned from silent films. This was Olsen's first movie, but he was a stage actor with his own acting troupe and some Broadway experience. As Porthos he had the opportunity to boom and bellow with hammy 19th century theatrics that fit the part. Abel's competence and an experienced cast showed in an enthusiastic rendition of the story with dueling set ups by first-time fencing choreographer Ralph Faulkner that would be taken to heart by later productions. So those who have tended to hindsight this film as a pale forerunner of later versions really do it a contextual injustice.
The movie did well enough, and Abel moved among second tier RKO leads through 1938, while playing support to bigger names. But that is showbiz - obviously he was destined as a supporting actor, and he handled both comedy and drama with a self-assured style that kept him very busy through the 1940s. He was back on Broadway occasionally as well, with a last appearance in 1975. By 1949 he quickly embraced early TV playhouse productions and would appear in some 30 roles by 1960. He transitioned to being a familiar face on episodic TV along with a few more film roles through the 1960s and up to just a few years before his passing.Ashes scattered off a boat in Long Island Sound- Actor
- Additional Crew
Brian Adams was born on 31 January 1963 in Kona, Hawaii, USA. He was an actor, known for WWE Smackdown! (1999), WCW Saturday Night (1985) and Saturday Night's Main Event (1985). He was married to Irene Yumiko. He died on 13 August 2007 in Tampa, Florida, USA.Ashes sent to Adams's family in Kona, Hawaii.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Born c. 1888. A slight, short, slapstick comedian who starred in two-reel comedies for Mermaid, Educational, and Christie Film Company in the 1920's. Died in 1933 at age 45 in Glendale, California.
In 1921 Adams starred in two-reel comedies for Educational Pictures and Al Christie. The slightly built, pencil-mustached Adams has been described by historian Kalton C. Lahue as "a poor man's Charley Chase." Like Chase, and unlike the other comics at Educational, Adams favored situation comedy over slapstick.
He briefly replaced Mack Sennett comic Harry McCoy in the cartoon-inspired Hall Room Boys series (produced by Harry Cohn and Jack Cohn, later of Columbia Pictures). By 1924 Adams was back with Educational.
Christie hired Adams for six comedies released in 1926 and 1927. The Christie comedies were more polite and less extreme than the slam-bang comedies of other studios, but Christie's soft-pedal comedy style did find an audience. Star comedians Jimmie Adams, Bobby Vernon, Lige Conley, Neal Burns, and Billy Dooley constituted a lineup that was no threat to Hal Roach, but nevertheless entertained millions with a style than neither Roach or Mack Sennett could or would provide.
Adams was also a singer. In 1930 he co-starred with burly comic Bud Jamison as "The Rolling Stones," a pair of singing vagabonds touring America. Adams also sang with The Ranch Boys, a musical group featured in Charley Chase comedies.According to his FindAGrave.com Profile, his ashes were given to his family or (a) friend[s].- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Mason Adams was well known for playing Pepper Young on the popular radio soap opera series Pepper Young's Family throughout the 1940 and 1950s. He was also heard on most of the successful radio programs during radio's "Golden Age." In the 1970s, Adams was frequently heard on Himan Brown's CBS Mystery Theater radio series. He had a regular running role on the Lou Grant TV series for several seasons and appeared in hundreds of other television series throughout the 1950s, '60s, '70s and '80s and '90s and can still can be seen playing featured roles in films and on TV.- Actor
- Writer
Stanley Adams (born Abramowitz) had a lengthy career on both stage and screen, the majority of which was spent playing minor supporting roles. A possible exception was the part of Rusty Trawler, a pint sized millionaire in the classic romantic comedy Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961). Otherwise, he portrayed innumerable minor ethnic villains, bartenders and avuncular, fast-talking characters, known in the credits only by their first names. On television, conversely, he proved himself more of a scene stealer, particularly in the 1960s and early '70s, when his face popped up on just about every major prime time show. He was at his best as pool hustler Sure-shot Wilson in an episode of The Odd Couple (1970), Rollo, a quirky time-traveling scientist on The Twilight Zone (1959), and - famously - as 'asteroid detecting', tribble-dispensing galactic entrepreneur Cyrano Jones on Star Trek (1966). Alas, he may also be remembered as a sentient space carrot named Tybo on Lost in Space (1965)....
His suicide in April 1977 has been attributed to severe depression as a result of a back injury, sustained earlier in the decade. Apart from the obvious pain, it would almost certainly have limited his employment opportunities.According to the Scott Wilson book "Resting Places: The Burial Sites of 14000 Famous Persons", the actor was cremated through Los Angeles's Rosedale Cemetery and the cremains were scattered into the Pacific Ocean.- The son of vaudeville performers, Richard Theodore "Ted" Adams was part of his parents' troupe before attending Cornell University at the age of 18. After college he did stock work for three years before going on to New York City and stage work there. For more than half his life he performed on the stage before coming to films around 1926. He and his good friend Leo Carrillo performed together in Porter Emerson Browne's play "The Bad Man" in 1920, and Adams was also in the Broadway production of "Kongo", which starred Walter Huston, in 1926.
His earliest documented film role was as the doctor in Rayart's The Road Agent (1926), starring Al Hoxie, and he made his sound-film debut in 1930's Under Texas Skies (1930), starring Bob Custer. Adams quickly established himself in westerns, in which he worked almost exclusively for 25 years in over 200 films. He was a mainstay performer (mostly lead villains) for the low-budget films cranked out by independents such as Supreme, Metropolitan, Puritan, Colony and Victory in the 1930s and PRC and Monogram in the 1940s, in addition to appearing in films from Republic, Columbia, Paramount and Universal.
Following a role in Bill Elliott's Kansas Territory (1952) for Monogram Pictures, and some TV work on Russell Hayden's Cowboy G-Men (1952) TV series, Ted Adams hung up his spurs at the age of 62, then lived quietly in retirement until his death from heart disease at the age of 83. A widower at the time of his death, September 24, 1973, he was at Braewood Convalescence Hospital in South Pasadena, his place of residence prior to his death. His cremated remains were placed at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles.Cremated at Chapel of the Pines Crematory which also is a Columbarium located at 1605 South Catalina St., Los Angeles, CA. - Music Artist
- Actor
- Producer
Meat Loaf was born Marvin Lee Aday in Dallas, Texas, to Wilma Artie (Hukel), a teacher and gospel singer, and Orvis Wesley Aday, a police officer. He moved to Los Angeles in 1967 to play in local bands. In 1970, he moved to New York and appeared in the Broadway musicals "Hair", "Rockabye Hamlet" and "The Rocky Horror Show," and Off Broadway in "Rainbow", "More Than You Deserve", "National Lampoon Show" and the New York Shakespeare Festival's production of "As You Like it;" as well as other productions at the famed New York Public Theatre. He made his film debut with a memorable role in the cult film The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975).
In 1977, he and lyricist Jim Steinman released an operatic rock album called "Bat Out Of Hell"; the record was huge and has sold 50,000,000 copies worldwide and is tied with AC/DC for the 2nd best selling record of all time. The tour and promoting the album took a toll on Meat Loaf's voice and left him unable to sing for 2 years, but with months of rehabilitation, he was able to get back in the studio and record the album "Dead Ringer". Meat Loaf stayed in the dark through the 1980s in the US, recording 4 records which got very little airplay or high chart positions in the US but continued to have major chart success in Europe and Australia. The 1981 Single "Dead Ringer for Love", a duet with Cher, was a top 10 single in many countries outside the US, but which American radio refused to play.
Meat Loaf had many film and TV roles, including the lead character Travis Redfish in Roadie (1980); a pilot in Out of Bounds (1986); in The Squeeze (1987) with Michael Keaton; and Fred in Focus (2001) (based on the Arthur Miller book by the same name), with Laura Dern and William H. Macy. When Meat Loaf and Steinman got back together in 1993, they delivered a powerful sequel, "Bat Out Of Hell II", which went to #1 in the US and UK and 26 other countries. Bat II sold over 22,000,000 copies.
He appeared in many films, including Crazy in Alabama (1999), Formula 51 (2001) (with Samuel L. Jackson), and Fight Club (1999) (with Brad Pitt). TV credits included guest starring roles as a soldier being held prisoner in Vietnam in Lightning Force (1991), a newspaper reporter in the hit series Glee (2009), a slick landlord of a restaurant who ends up on the menu in HBO series Tales from the Crypt (1989) a blacksmith on Showtime's Dead Man's Gun (1997), as fur trader Jake in Masters of Horror (2005) episode Pelts (2006), in House (2004) as caring husband Eddie, and, most recently, in the supporting role of Doug in the SYFY series Ghost Wars (2017). Hugh Laurie (star of "House") played piano on the song "If I Can't Have You" on Meat Loaf's album "Hang Cool Teddy Bear", which was produced by award-winning music producer Rob Cavallo. (Jack Black also sang on the album.)
Marvin Lee Aday died on January 20, 2022 in Austin, Texas from COVID-19 complications.Cremains given to Deborah Gillespie, the late singer's second wife.- Writer
- Actor
- Animation Department
Charles Samuel Addams, or Chill as his friends called him, was born on January 7, 1912, in Westfield, New Jersey. Records show at the time of his birth the Addams' lived on Summit Avenue. They moved several times before taking up permanent residence in 1920 on Elm Street and stayed there until 1947. He attended public school in Westfield and was fond of visiting the Presbyterian cemetery on Mountain Avenue. When he was a youngster, he was caught by the police for breaking into a house on Dudley Avenue. On the second floor of the garage behind the main house there is a chalk drawing of a skeleton that is believed to have been drawn by Charles Addams. That house on Dudley and one on Elm Street is said to be the inspiration for the famous Addams Family house.
At Westfield High School, Charles became the art editor for the Weather Vane and drew many cartoons. He graduated in 1929 and attended Colgate University for one year. He switched to the University of Pennsylvania and then studied at Grand Central School of Art in New York City. His dream was to work for the New Yorker Magazine and started submitting cartoons as early as 1935, his very first one had the caption "I forgot my Skates." In 1940, he submitted "Downhill Skier," and that got him an offer to come on board full time for New York's premier literary magazine. He continued there until his death in 1988, drawing over 1,300 cartoons.Per the Cartoonist's request, instead of a Funeral, a Wake was held for the late Artist and his body was cremated and his cremains were interred in his estate's grounds "The Swamp's" pet cemetery in Sagaponeck, Suffolk County, NY, US.- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
Larry Adler was born on 10 February 1914 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. He was a composer and actor, known for Genevieve (1953), The Hellions (1961) and The House in the Woods (1957). He was married to Sally Irene Cline and Eileen Walser. He died on 6 August 2001 in Lambeth, London, England, UK.Cremated by Golders Green Crematorium., Borough of Barnet, Greater London, England.
Golders Green Crematorium was the first Crematorium to be opened in London way back in the 20th century in 1902.- Spiro Agnew was a Greek-American politician from Baltimore, Maryland. He served as the Governor of Maryland from 1967 to 1969. He became a national celebrity for his "law and order" rhetoric in response to nationwide civil unrest. He was chosen by Richard Nixon as his running mate for the presidential election of 1968. Agnew served as the 39th Vice President of the United States from 1969 to 1973, easily winning re-election in 1972. He was forced to resign after a criminal investigation in Maryland uncovered evidence of Agnew's involvement in criminal conspiracy, bribery, extortion and tax fraud. Agnew eventually pleaded no contest to a single felony charge of tax evasion, and the other charges were dropped. He spend the rest of his life in retirement. A number of historians have cited Agnew as one of the founders of the "New Right" movement, which went on to dominate the Republican Party in the 1980s.
In 1918, Agnew was born in Baltimore. His father was restaurant owner Theodore Agnew (born Theophrastos Anagnostopoulos ). Theodore was from the small town of Gargalianoi in Messenia, Greece, located about 18 km (11 mi) north of the historic town of Pylos. His family were olive growers , but were impoverished during a financial crisis in the 1890s. Theodore emigrated to the United States in 1897., and had managed to open his own restaurant by 1908. Agnew's mother was Margaret Marian Akers, a retired government worker from Virginia. She was the widow of a close friend of Theodore who had died in 1917. She had a young child from her previous marriage.
During the 1920s, the Agnew family was relatively affluent, and Theodore acquired a larger restaurant. The restaurant closed shortly following the Wall Street Crash of 1929, due to financial problems. In 1931, the Agnew family's savings were wiped out in a bank failure. The family was forced to sell their private house and moved to a small apartment. Theodore sold fruit and vegetables from a roadside stall. Spiro helped financially support his family by taking part-time jobs, such as delivering groceries and distributing leaflets.
In 1937, Agnew started his college education at Johns Hopkins University. He pursued studies in chemistry, but found academic life to be stressful. He dropped out of his chemistry studies in 1939, then decided to pursue legal studies instead. He enrolled at the University of Baltimore School of Law, taking night classes. To financially support himself during his college years, he started working as an insurance clerk for the Maryland Casualty Company. Agnew pursued a romantic relationship with Elinor Isabel "Judy" Judefind, his co-worker at the insurance company. They were married in May 1942. By coincidence, her father was a chemist.
Agnew was drafted into the United States Army in December 1941. He completed his basic training at Camp Croft in South Carolina, which he credited with breaking him out of his previously sheltered life. He was sent for further training to the Officer Candidate School at Fort Knox, Kentucky. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in May, 1942, a few days before his wedding.
From May 1942 to March 1944, Agnew served in various administrative positions at both Fort Knox and Fort Campbell. In March 1944, Agnew was transferred to England. His transfer was part of the build-up of forces for the upcoming Normandy landings (June, 1944). Agnew spend several months on standby in Birmingham, West Midlands, before being assigned to a combat role. He was assigned as a replacement officer for the 54th Armored Infantry Battalion in France. His unit saw action at the Battle of the Bulge (December, 1944-January 1945). Agnew took part in the Siege of Bastogne (December, 1944), defending the Belgian city against a German attempt to recapture it.
In the early months of 1945, Agnew and his unit fought their way into Germany. By the end of the war in Europe, the unit had managed to capture the ski town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Bavaria. The town had previously hosted the 1936 Winter Olympic Games. Agnew was awarded the Combat Infantryman Badge and the Bronze Star for his combat service. He was discharged from the Army in November 1945.
By the winter of 1945, Agnew resumed his legal studies. He was also hired as a law clerk by the Baltimore-based law firm of Smith and Barrett. His boss Lester Barrett noted Agnew's political ambitions, and advised him to join the Republican Party. Barrett had noted that the Democratic Party in Baltimore had numerous young and ambitious political hopefuls, while the Republican Party was suffering from a scarcity of competent recruits. According to Barrett, it would be easier for Agnew to stand out in the Party that offered less competition for elected positions. Agnew took the advise, and became a registered Republican in 1947.
In 1947, Agnew graduated with a Bachelor of Laws. After passing the bar examination in Maryland, he opened his own legal office in Baltimore. His business soon failed, but Agnew found work as an insurance investigator. In 1948, he was hired as a store detective for the supermarket chain Schreiber's. In 1951, Agnew was briefly recalled for Army service due to the outbreak of the Korean War. He then resumed working for Schreiber's. He resigned in 1952, opening another legal office. He specialized in labor law.
By 1955, Agnew was prosperous enough to move with his family to the suburb of Loch Raven, Baltimore. He became the president of the local school district's Parent-Teacher Association. He also joined the service club Kiwanis, whose members volunteered for community service. His biographers have noted that Agnew had become "an almost compulsive conformist", and already professed a love for "law and order".
In 1956, Agnew unsuccessfully sought nomination as a Republican candidate for the Baltimore County Council. He campaigned vigorously for other Republican candidates, and the Party gained a majority on the council seats at the election. To reward his loyalty to the Party, party officials appointed Agnew for a one-year term to the county Zoning Board of Appeals. The job came with a respectable salary and some political prestige. In 1958, Agnew was reappointed to the Board for a full three-year term. He soon became the Board's chairman.
In 1960, Agnew unsuccessfully sought election to the county circuit court. He finished last among the five candidates of the election, but his campaign made him a target for the Democratic Party which regained control of the county council in the election. The new council quickly removed Agnew from his position at the Zoning Appeals Board, in what was seen as an unfair act of retaliation.
In 1962, Agnew was an unsuccessful candidate for nomination to a Congress seat. Party officials noted that Agnew had loyal followers, and encouraged him to seek election as the county's chief executive officer. All holders of this position were members of the Democratic Party since 1895. But in the 1962 elections, there was a feud between rival factions of the local Democratic Party. The Democratic candidate chosen was the elderly Michael Birmingham, who was seen as out of touch with the public's wishes. Agnew chose to run as a reformist candidate, campaigning for an anti-discrimination bill which would require public amenities such as parks, bars and restaurants be open to all races. Agnew easily won the election, surpassing his supposedly racist rival by over 18, 000 votes. Agnew became the highest-ranking Republican in Maryland.
Agnew spend 4 years as a county executive. He succeeded in having his anti-discrimination bill pass as official legislation in the county. His administration build new schools, increases the teachers' salaries, reorganized the police department, and improved the water and sewer system. While he was seen as a moderately progressive administrator, Agnew's "law and order" rhetoric led him to denounce all demonstrations in the area, regardless of their cause. More controversial was Agnew's newfound reputation for cronyism. He bypassed the normal bidding procedures to appoint political allies in lucrative positions as the county's insurance brokers of record.
In the 1964 presidential elections, Agnew was a vocal critic of the Republican front-runner Barry Goldwater. In his view, Goldwater's extremist views would deprive the Republicans of any chance of victory. He was proven correct, as Goldwater lost the election and only won about 38.5% of the popular vote.
In the elections of 1966, Agnew decided to seek nomination for the position of the Governor of Maryland. He easily won the Republican primary, as he was the highest-profile candidate for the nomination. The Democratic candidate for this year was the segregationist George P. Mahoney. Liberal Democrats refused to vote for Mahoney, and flocked to support Agnew. Agnew easily won the election, gaining 49.5 percent of the popular vote. He had campaigned as the anti-Ku Klux Klan candidate.
Shortly after the election of 1966, allegations of corruption surfaced against Agnew. He had reportedly been offered three different bribes by the slot-machine industry in order to prevent him from vetoing legislation favorable to the industry. He had kept silent about the matter, though he had apparently declined to take the bribes. Agnew was also found to have partial ownership in a business venture, and his partners were businessmen who had ongoing business deals with Agnew's county administration. In both cases, Agnew publicly denied that he had broken the law.
Agnew's agenda as a governor included tax reforms, clean water regulations, and the repeal of laws against interracial marriage. He expanded community health programs, and passed legislation offering higher educational and employment opportunities for low-income voters. He took steps to desegregate Maryland's schools. He introduced fair housing legislation, but only for new building projects and only for those projects above a certain size. Agnew's reputation for cronyism expanded, as he had close ties with an ever-increasing number of businessmen.
Despite his own support for civil rights legislation, Agnew vocally opposed the militant tactics used by African-American leaders. He denounced protest leaders as professional agitators, and criticized the administration of Lyndon Johnson for its "misguided compassion" for radicals. In 1968, there were student protest at Bowie State College, a historically black institution. Agnew responded by closing the college and ordering more than 200 arrests.
On April 6, 1968, riots broke out in Baltimore in response to the then-recent assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. As the city burned, Agnew decided to declare a state of emergency and requested an intervention by the National Guard. By the time the riots ended, 6 people were dead and 4,000 people were under arrest. Agnew summoned moderate African-American leaders to the state capitol, where he castigated them for their perceived failure to control radical protesters. Agnew's criticisms for the African-American leadership gained him additional support from white suburbanites. Republican conservative leaders throughout the country increasingly lauded Agnew, while Agnew's African-American supporters felt betrayed by him.
As the 1968 presidential elections were approaching, Agnew declared his support for Nelson Rockefeller. When Rockefeller decided to discontinue his political campaign, Agnew was disappointed. Soon afterwards, Agnew started being courted as a political ally by Richard Nixon. Nixon had been impressed with his "law and order" rhetoric. At the Republican National Convention (August, 1968) in Miami Beach, Agnew declared his support for Nixon. On August 8, 1968, Nixon chose Agnew as his running mate for the election. Agnew himself felt surprised, as he was not among the highest-profile candidates for the position. He had only known Nixon for a few months.
During the election campaign of 1968, Agnew's "law and order" rhetoric impressed voters in the Southern United States. Liberal Republicans in the Northern United States were , however, alarmed by his increasingly belligerent views and statements. Agnew criticized the Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey as overly soft on communism, and compared his political views to those of Neville Chamberlain. Agnew's vocal support for "orderliness, personal responsibility, the sanctity of hard work, the nuclear family, and law and order" impressed suburban voters across the country. The Republican Party easily won the Presidential elections, gaining 43, 2% of the popular vote and carrying 32 states. Maryland voted for the Democratic Party, but Agnew was largely credited for the Republican victories in South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky. He was more popular in these states than Nixon himself.
As Vice President, Agnew was initially granted his own office in the West Wing of the White House. In December 1969, Agnew moved to another office in the Executive Office Building. As the Vice President had no official residence at the time, Agnew and his wife moved secured a suite at the Sheraton Hotel in Washington, D. C. The same suite had been used by Lyndon Johnson when he was Vice President. Nixon appointed Agnew as the new head of the "White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs", in charge of overseeing coordination between state, local, and tribal governments and the federal government. Agnew was not part of Nixon's inner circle of advisers, and Nixon often ignored Agnew's opinions on foreign policy matters.
Agnew took his duties in the Senate seriously, personally opening every session for the first two months of his term. In the first year of his term in office, he spend more time presiding in the Senate than any vice president since Alben Barkley's term in office (term 1949-1953). Agnew lunched with small groups of senators, in an attempt to build good relations with them. Nixon appointed him as the chair of various government commissions, but many of these positions were sinecures. Agnew hoped for a more active role in politics.
Agnew's speeches in 1969 warned that there was "a vast faceless majority of the American public in quiet fury" over the continued unrest in the country. In October 1969, Agnew gave a press conference where he denounced the apparent political ties between American protesters and the government of North Vietnam. Nixon was rather impressed with Agnew's approach, and tasked Agnew with attacking the Democrats in general. Nixon could thus appear to avoid mudslinging, while Agnew would become the president's "attack dog". Agnew found his new role to be enjoyable.
By late October 1969, Agnew started blaming "liberal elites" for condoning violence by demonstrators. Agnew's anti-intellectual speeches and newfound support for the South, further attracted Southern whites to the Republican Party. Agnew played a large role in Nixon's Southern Strategy, an attempt to turn the Southern United States into a Republican stronghold. Agnew kept attacking the Democrats as supposedly soft on crime, unpatriotic, and favoring flag burning over flag waving. His speeches attracted enthusiastic crowds, but liberal Republicans complained to the Republican National Committee that Agnew's attacks had a detrimental effect to the party's support.
After Nixon's own Silent Majority speech (November 1969) met with a hostile reception by the American press, Agnew was encouraged to verbally attack the press itself as overly liberal and biased. Agnew drew praise from the conservative factions of both major parties, but alienated the press. Media executives started perceiving Agnew as a threat to the freedom of the press. Agnew singled out "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post" for criticism, as they were among the most vocal critics of Nixon's administration. By the end of November, Agnew enjoyed an approval rating of 64%. He had never been more popular in his political career.
In early 1970, Agnew became a popular speaker at Republican fund-raising events. He traveled over 25,000 miles (40,000 km) on behalf of the Republican National Committee. Agnew replaced Ronald Reagan as the party's leading fundraiser. He kept praising "the everyday law-abiding American", in an attempt to attract votes. In April 1970, Agnew finally managed to have one of his ideas about foreign policy heard by Nixon. Agnew's preferred solution for the Viet Cong strongholds in Cambodia was to launch an American attack on Cambodia. Nixon found the idea sound, approving it over the "dovish" advice from Secretary of State William P. Rogers and Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird.
In early May, 1970, Nixon cautioned Agnew to cease the verbal attacks on the student protest movement. Agnew had delivered an anti-student speech in reaction to the Kent State shootings. Nixon feared that the speech would backfire, and would cost a loss of support for Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections. In September of the same year, Agnew became the main speaker of the party's election campaign. Nixon also entrusted Agnew to verbally attack dissenting voices within the Republican Party, such as the novice senator Charles Goodell. The results of this election was disappointing for the Republicans. They gained two more seats in the Senate, but lost 11 governorships. Agnew was frustrated that Maryland had become a Democratic stronghold.
During 1971, the relationship between Agnew and Richard Nixon deteriorated considerably. Agnew was too independent and outspoken for Nixon's tastes, and he was popular with factions of the party which were hostile to Nixon. Agnew typically disapproved on Nixon's foreign policy decisions, and he felt that Nixon was insufficiently committed to winning the Vietnam War. Nixon seriously considered replacing Agnew as his running mate in the 1972 presidential elections, but eventually decided against it.
On July 21, 1972, Nixon officially asked Agnew to become his running mate again. Agnew was mildly surprised, but he took the offer. Agnew was given a hero's welcome at the 1972 Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, by delegates who viewed him as the party's future leader. His acceptance speech focused on praising the administration's accomplishments. Despite Nixon's instructions to the contrary, Agnew launched verbal attacks on George McGovern (the Democratic candidate of the election). During the election campaign, Nixon repeatedly instructed Agnew to tone down his verbal attacks on Democratic candidates. Meanwhile, Agnew was informed that administration officials were responsible for the Watergate break-in. He had no personal involvement in the matter, but felt that the break-in was a foolish decision.
Nixon and Agnew easily achieved re-election in the 1972 presidential elections. They won 60.7% of the popular vote, and carried 49 states. Massachusetts and the District of Columbia were the only areas who voted for the Democratic ticket. To Agnew's disappointment, Democrats dominated both houses of Congress after the election.
Back in Maryland, there was an ongoing criminal investigation on long-term corruption in Baltimore County. Among those investigated by the authorities were public officials, architects, engineering firms, and paving contractors. While investigating the engineering firm of Lester Matz, the authorities learned that Matz had won many of his contracts through the direct influence of Agnew. And Agnew was paid 5% of the value of each contract, in a bribery scheme that had lasted for most of his political career. Agnew learned of this investigation in February 1973, but district attorney George Beall assured him that he would do his best to protect Agnew's name.
By June 1973, evidence surfaced that Agnew had continued to receive bribes during his term as a vice president. Unlike previous charges against him, he was not protected by the statute of limitations. Further witnesses came forward to report criminal transactions with Agnew. Nixon himself was informed of the case in July 1973. By August 1973, the first press reports on Agnew's criminal activities surfaced. In October 1973, Agnew entered into negotiations for a plea bargain on the condition that he would not serve jail time. Agnew pleaded no contest to a tax evasion charge on October 10, 1973. As part of the plea bargain, the other charges against him were dropped. Agnew was fined 10,000 dollars, and was placed on three years' unsupervised probation. He officially resigned from the vice presidency on October 10. Nixon replaced him as vice president with Gerald Ford. Unlike Agnew, Ford had a reputation for personal honesty.
Following his resignation, Agnew moved to his summer home at Ocean City. He was initially unable to pay for his legal bills. He received a loan of 200,000 dollars from singer Frank Sinatra (1915-1998), who he had befriended during his political career. Agnew hoped that he would be able to resume his career as a lawyer. The Maryland Court of Appeals disbarred him in 1974, due to surfacing evidence about his crimes.
Agnew eventually secured enough funds to establish his own business consultancy, Pathlite Inc. He attracted an international clientele. Among his early successes was preparing a contract that would provide new uniforms for the Iraqi Army. Agnew lost money when he invested in a beer distributionship in Texas. In 1976, he published his debut novel "The Canfield Decision". Based on his own political career, it depicted an American vice president who has a troubled relationship with his president. The book was a best seller, and earned Agnew 100,000 dollars for serialization rights alone. But it attracted considerable controversy for its supposed anti-Semitism. Agnew had used the novel to publicize his views that the American news media were controlled by (in his words) "Zionist lobbies". He made further statements to the press against Israel and its influence on the United States.
In 1977, Agnew was wealthy enough to purchase a new home in Rancho Mirage, California. He also fully repaid Frank Sinatra's loan. In the same year's "Nixon interviews", Richard Nixon publicly defended Agnew's reputation. Nixon stated that Agnew must have been unaware that he was breaking the law by receiving bribes.
In 1980, Agnew claimed to be facing new financial problems. He secured an interest-free loan from Fahd bin Abdulaziz, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. He claimed that they had a common enemy in Israel, and voiced support for Saudi Arabia's anti-Israel policies. Also in 1980, Agnew published his memoir: "Go Quietly ... or Else". The book claimed that Agnew had never taken a bribe, and that the charges against him were unjust. The book was discredited when George White (Agnew's former lawyer) testified that Agnew had confessed to him about his many years of receiving bribes. The book also claimed that Agnew had unwillingly resigned in 1973, because Nixon administration officials had threatened him with assassination. The officials named in the book later denied that they had ever threatened Agnew.
In 1980, Agnew gave his first television interview in several years. He advised young people never to seek a political career, because high public office came at the price of overwhelming expectations. In 1981, legal students of the "George Washington University Law School" launched a lawsuit against Agnew. Agnew had been found to have received 268,482 dollars in bribes, and they argued that he should fully repay that sum to the state. In 1981, a court sentenced Agnew to pay the state 147,500 dollars for the kickbacks, and 101,235 dollars in interest. He fully repaid the debt in 1983. He then launched a legal case in an attempt to declare the payments as tax-deductible. He lost his case in 1989.
In 1987, Agnew was the plaintiff in a court case in Brooklyn. He was forced to disclose information about the business activities of his company, Pathlite, Inc.. He was found to have various business activities in Argentina, France, Greece, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan, and West Germany. The court found no evidence of illegal activities. Agnew claimed at the time that his business success was based on his ability "to penetrate to the top people".
In 1994, Agnew was invited to Richard Nixon's funeral at Yorba Linda, California. He decided to attend it, though he had intentionally avoided all contact with Nixon and his family for two decades. He received a warm welcome by former colleagues from the Nixon administration. In 1995, Agnew was invited to the Capitol in Washington D.C. for the dedication ceremony of a bust of him. He gave his first speech in many years, in order to address his poor reputation.
On September 16, 1996, Agnew suddenly collapsed at his summer home in Ocean City, Maryland. He was transferred to a hospital, and he died there on September 17. He was 77-years-old. An autopsy revealed that he was suffering from untreated acute leukemia. His death came as a surprise to his family and friends. Agnew had remained fit and active into his seventies, and regularly played golf and tennis. He had no visible signs of poor health.
Agnew was buried at Timonium, Maryland, in a ceremony primarily attended by members of his family. Among his former political allies, only Pat Buchanan bothered to attend the funeral. Buchanan had written some of Agnew's speeches. There was also an honor guard of the combined military services at the funeral. Agnew was survived by his wife Judy Agnew, who died in 2012. They had 4 children. Agnew is considered among the most controversial American politicians of the 20th century, but he is also counted among the influential founders of the New Right movement. Some of Agnew's political tactics have been imitated by other Republican politicians, particularly his attacks on the press.Honor Guard that was made up of members of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard marched his ashes to his grave beside that of his father and fired a 21 gun salute. His ashes are located, near that of his father, at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens, Timonium, Maryland, US. - Actor
- Production Manager
- Soundtrack
John Vernon was a prolific stage-trained Canadian character player who made a career out of convincingly playing crafty villains, morally-bankrupt officials and heartless authority figures in American films and television since the 1960s. Vernon was directed by some stellar filmmakers, including Alfred Hitchcock (Topaz (1969)); George Cukor (Justine (1969)); Don Siegel (Dirty Harry (1971)) and Clint Eastwood (The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)). After training at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and honing his skills in Canadian theatre and television, Vernon made his US film debut in John Boorman's noir/gangster classic Point Blank (1967) as a trusted friend who betrays Lee Marvin. He again failed to inspire confidence as the ineffectual mayor of San Francisco in Dirty Harry (1971). Vernon may be best remembered as the sinister Dean Vernon Wormer in John Landis' National Lampoon's Animal House (1978), a role he reprised for the TV spin-off Delta House (1979). This led to more film comedy roles, a highlight being Mr. Big in the blaxploitation spoof I'm Gonna Git You Sucka (1988).Cremated after a private funeral service and his ashes were given to be taken by family or (a) friend.- Music Artist
- Actor
- Composer
Juan Gabriel was born on 7 January 1950 in Parácuaro, Michoacán, Mexico. He was a music artist and actor, known for 30 Minutes or Less (2011), Roma (2018) and Te sigo amando (1996). He died on 28 August 2016 in Santa Monica, California, USA.Remains were cremated Monday Night on August 29, 2016 in Anaheim, CA and his ashes were returned to his Ciudad Juarez home in Chihuahua, Mexico after a Funeral in Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Brian Aherne was an Oscar-nominated Anglo-American stage and screen actor who was one of the top cinema character actors in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Born on May 2, 1902, in Kings Norton, Worcestershire, England, Aherne performed as an actor as a child. At age 18, he made his debut as an adult with the company that would evolve into the world-famous Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Three years later, he made his debut in London's West End, the English equivalent of Broadway. After his experience in Birmingham, Aherne studied architecture, but a life as an actor was too strong to resist, so he returned to the theater in 1923. For the next eight years, he toured the provinces and appeared in the West End in various productions. In 1931, he made his Broadway debut playing Robert Browning in "The Barretts of Wimpole Street." He alternated between the New York and London stage in the early 1930s. Aherne made his movie debut in 1924, and in the mid-1930s, he moved to Hollywood. In 1940, he was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor for Juarez (1939) for playing the Emperor Maximilian. Brian Aherne published his autobiography in 1969, and 10 years later, he published a biography of his friend George Sanders, entitled "A Dreadful Man." He died at age 83 of heart failure on February 10, 1986, in Venice, Florida.According to his FindAGrave.com Profile, his ashes were given to family or (a) friend.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Danny Aiello was an American actor of Italian descent, and enjoyed a lengthy career in film. He was once nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for his role as Salvatore "Sal" Frangione in the comedy-drama film "Do the Right Thing" (1989).
Aiello was born in Manhattan, New York City on June 20, 1933. His parents were laborer Daniel Louis Aiello and seamstress Frances Pietrocova. Frances eventually lost her eyesight, and became legally blind.. In response, Daniel abandoned his wife and six children. Danny resented his father's actions and would later refuse relations with him for decades. The two reconciled in 1993, when Danny was 60-years-old.
In 1940, Aiello moved to South Bronx. He was educated at James Monroe High School, located in the Soundview section of the Bronx. In 1949, Aiello dropped out of school and joined the United States Army. He was only 16-years-old, and lied about his age in order to enlist. Aiello served in the army for 3 years, and he was discharged in 1952. He returned to New York City, where he supported himself through various jobs.
In 1955, Aiello married Sandy Cohen. They had four children, including actor Danny Aiello III (1957-2010). In the 1960s, Aiello worked for Greyhound Lines, an intercity bus common carrier. He served as president of New York Local 1202 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, a labor organization representing the company's workers.
In 1967, Greyhound Lines changed its bus driver schedules, and Aiello led the workers to protest in a wildcat strike. The strike lasted for a single day. It lacked the authorization by the parent labor union, and Aiello was suspended for his actions.
Aiello eventually pursued an acting career, and started appearing in films during the early 1970s. His earliest credited role was playing baseball player Horse in the sports drama "Bang the Drum Slowly" (1973), at the age of 40. He worked alongside up-and-coming actor Robert De Niro (1943-), who gained acclaim for his performance in the film.
Aiello had a minor role as small-time gangster Tony Rosato in the crime film "The Godfather Part II" (1974). His one scene had him performing a hit on high-ranking gangster Francesco "Frank" Pentangeli (played by Michael V. Gazzo), who had betrayed the Corleone family. Aiello ad-libbed the line "Michael Corleone says hello!"
Aiello eventually had a co-lead role in the neo-noir "Defiance" (1980), as one of of several people who join forces against a powerful gang. Also in 1980, he played Dominic Ginetti in "A Family Of Strangers", an ABC Afterschool Special. For his role, he won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in Children's Programming, the first of several awards in his acting career.
He gained further acclaim for his role as the cop Morgan in the crime drama "Fort Apache, The Bronx" (1981). He played a corrupt police chief in the crime drama "Once Upon a Time in America" (1984), and the character was named after him as "Vincent Aiello". In this role, Aiello performer along Robert De Niro again, as De Niro was the film's lead actor.
Aiello performed in two films directed by Woody Allen (1935-). The first was the fantasy comedy "The Purple Rose of Cairo" (1985), where Aiello played the abusive husband Monk. The second was the comedy-drama "Radio Days" (1987).
Aiello gained a supporting role in the detective television series "Lady Blue" (1985-1986). He played police lieutenant Terry McNichols, a leading member of the Violent Crimes Division of the Chicago Police Department, and the boss of protagonist Katy Mahoney (played by Jamie Rose). McNichols was portrayed as a boss appreciative of Mahoney's unorthodox methods of investigation, but concerned by her overly violent behavior.
The series initially received high-ratings, but was considered as too violent for television. It attracted protests by watchdog organization, such as the National Coalition on Television Violence. When ratings fell, the series was canceled. The series lasted for a single season, and 14 episodes. Aiello would not gain a recurring television role again until the late 1990s.
Aiello played the protagonist's father in the video clip "Papa Don't Preach" (1986), based on a hit song by Madonna (1958-). He then recorded his own answer song, called , "Papa Wants the Best for You".
In 1987, Aiello played the protagonist's fiance Johnny Cammareri in the romantic comedy "Moonstruck. It was a then-rare sympathetic role for him. His role was critically well-received.
Aiello gained his most acclaimed role when cast as pizzeria owner Salvatore "Sal" Fragione in the comedy-drama film "Do the Right Thing" (1989), concerning racial tensions in Brooklyn,. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, but the award was won by rival actor Denzel Washington (1954-). He was also nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture, but this award was also won by Denzel Washington., The film critics' associations of Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles each named Aiello the best supporting actor of the year.
Aiello following roles included appearances in the horror film "Jacob's Ladder" (1990) and the comedy-drama "29th Street" (1991). He played nightclub owner and assassin Jack Ruby (1911-1967) in the biographical film "Ruby" (1992). He played film director Harry Stone in the film "The Pickle", a satire of big-budget Hollywood films. He appeared dressed in drag in "Prêt-à-Porter", a satire of the fashion industry.
He next had the lead roe of Joe Lieberman in the award-winning short film "Lieberman in Love" (1995), and politician Frank Anselmo in the thriller "City Hall" (1996),
Aiello had a notable television role as crime lord Don Domenico Clericuzio in the mini-series "The Last Don" (1997), an adaptation of a 1996 crime novel by Mario Puzo. The series depicts Domenico as an aging mafia leader, who oversees plans for his succession. Aiello returned to the role in the sequel miniseries "The Last Don II", where Domenico dies and is succeeded by a much younger relative.
Aiello remained active as an actor through the 2000s and 2010s, although this period had few highlights for his career. He died in December 2019 at hospital, following a short illness. He was 86-years-old. His funeral was held at the Riverside Memorial Chapel on the Upper West Side. Director Spike Lee (1957-) delivered an eulogy at the funeral, remarking on his love for Aiello despite their political differences.Public Memorial Service was held for Aiello at The Riverside Memorial Chapel, Upper West Side NY at 2:30 PM, where Spike Lee and John Turturro who had worked with Aiello attended and spoke during the service.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Broad-shouldered and beefy Claude Akins had wavy black hair, a deep booming voice and was equally adept at playing sneering cowardly villains as he was at portraying hard-nosed cops. The son of a police officer, Akins never seemed short of work and appeared in nearly 100 films and 180+ TV episodes in a career spanning over 40 years. He originally attended Northwestern University, and went on to serve with the US Army Signal Corps in World War II in Burma and the Phillipines. Upon returning, he reignited his interest in art and drama and first appeared in front of the camera in 1953 in From Here to Eternity (1953). He quickly began notching up roles in such TV shows as Dragnet (1951), My Friend Flicka (1955), Gunsmoke (1955) and Zane Grey Theatre (1956). He also turned in several strong cinematic performances, such as gunfighter Joe Burdette in the landmark western Rio Bravo (1959), Mack in the excellent The Defiant Ones (1958), Sgt. Kolwicz in Merrill's Marauders (1962) and Earl Sylvester in the gripping The Killers (1964). In the early 1970s Akins turned up in several supernatural TV films playing "no-nonsense" sheriffs in both The Night Stalker (1972) and The Norliss Tapes (1973), and was unrecognizable underneath his simian make-up as war-mongering Gen. Aldo in Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973). Akins continued starring in films and TV right up until the time of his death from cancer in 1994. By all reports a very gregarious, likable and friendly person off screen, Akins was married for over 40 years to Theresa "Pie" Fairfield, and had three children, Claude Marion Jr., Michele & Wendy.According to his FindAGrave.com Page, his ashes were given to family or (a) friend[s].- Writer
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Edward Albee was born on 12 March 1928 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. He was a writer, known for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), A Delicate Balance (1973) and Qui a peur de Virginia Woolf? d'Edward Albee (2011). He died on 16 September 2016 in Montauk, New York, USA.Albee's ashes were scattered over his estate in Montauk. NY.- Actor
- Soundtrack
A former song-and-dance man and veteran of vaudeville, burlesque and Broadway, Jack Albertson is best known to audiences as "The Man" in the TV series Chico and the Man (1974), for which he won an Emmy. In 1968 Albertson, the brother of actress Mabel Albertson, won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in The Subject Was Roses (1968), a part which also won him the Tony award during its Broadway run.Ashes were scattered at sea.- Camera and Electrical Department
- Cinematographer
John Alcott, the Oscar-winning cinematographer best known for his collaboration with director Stanley Kubrick, was born in 1931, in Isleworth, England, the son of movie executive Arthur Alcott, who would become the production controller at Gainsborough Studios during the 1940s.
Alcott began his film career as a clapper boy, the lowest member of a camera crew. By the early 1960s he had worked his way up to focus puller, the #3 position on a camera crew after the lighting cameraman and camera operator. As a focus puller Alcott was responsible for measuring the distances between the camera and the subject being shot, which is critical during traveling shots, and more vitally, he was tasked with adjusting the lens when the camera is following a subject.
By the mid-'60s Alcott was a member of the camera team of master cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth, working on Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). When Unsworth had to leave the project during its two-year-long shoot to meet other commitments, Alcott was elevated to lighting cameraman by Kubrick. Thus began a collaboration that would reach its zenith a decade later with Barry Lyndon (1975). His association with Kubrick propelled him to the top of his craft, in terms of both style and in pushing the technical aspects of the discipline.
Alcott preferred lighting that appeared natural and did not draw attention to itself. His ideas meshed perfectly with those of Kubrick, and the two developed their ideas about "natural" lighting in two landmark films, A Clockwork Orange (1971) and "Barry Lyndon", which incorporated scenes shot entirely by candlelight. The idea of using candlelight solely for illumination was discussed by Alcott and Kubrick after the wrap of "2001" for Kubrick's planned film about the life of Napoleon, but there wasn't a fast-enough lens in existence then.
After a search, Kubrick located three unique 50mm f/0.7 still-camera camera lenses designed by the Zeiss Corporation for use by NASA in its Apollo moon-landing program in order to shoot still pictures in the low light levels of outer space. The lens was 2 f stops faster than the fastest movie camera lens made at the time.
Kubrick tasked Cinema Products Corp. to adapt a standard 35mm non-reflexed Mitchell BNC movie camera so that the camera could accept the lens. The camera was outfitted with a side viewfinder from one of the old Technicolor three-strip cameras that used mirrors rather than prisms (like a modern camera) to show what it "sees", the mirrors providing a much brighter image than did a prism-based single-lens reflex system, which could not obtain enough light to register an image. There was no real problem with parallax, as the viewfinder was mounted close to the lens.
Cinema Products also created two special lenses by mating a 70mm projection lens with the remaining 0.7 Zeiss 50mm lenses. This battery of three lenses allowed Kubrick and Alcott to shoot the indoor scenes using nothing but candlelight. It was a formidable task, as the lenses could not be focused by eye. Metal shields also had to be installed above the sets, which were filmed in actual castles and manor houses in Ireland and England, to keep the heat and smoke from the candles from damaging the ceilings. Fortitously, the shields also reflected the candlelight back into the scene (this approach was later used successfully by lighting cameraman Alwin H. Küchler on the western The Claim (2000), which shot its saloon interiors in very low light). The candles had to be constantly replaced to keep continuity during the scenes, and shooting was hampered by the fact that many of the manor houses were open to the public and the crew had to wait until the intervals between tours to film a scene.
Alcott told "American Cinematographer" in a December 1975 interview that the ultra-fast lens had no depth of field at all. This necessitated the scaling of the lens by doing hand tests. Alcott's focus puller, Douglas Milsome (who would succeed him as Kubrick's cinematographer), used a closed-circuit video camera at a 90-degree angle to the film camera to keep track of the distances to maintain focus. A grid was placed over the TV screen and, by taping the various actors' positions in the set, the distances could be transferred to the TV grid to allow the actors a limited scope of movement during the scene, while keeping in focus.
Alcott won an Academy Award for his work on "Barry Lyndon", which is considered one of the most visually beautiful movies ever made. (Three of Alcott's movies were ranked in the top 20 of "Best Shot" movies in the period after 1950-97 by the American Society of Cinematographers: "2001" at #3, "Barry Lyndon" at #16, and "A Clockwork Orange", for which he won the British Academy Award, at #19.) Alcott realized Kubrick's vision by evoking the paintings of Corot, Gainsborough, and Watteau, creating gorgeous tableaux. It was the aesthetic opposite of the cubism evoked by "A Clockwork Orange",
While shooting what would turn out to be his last film for Kubrick, The Shining (1980), Alcott lit the hotel sets with "practicals" (sources of lighting that are visible on screen as part of the set, such as lighting fixtures). As on "Barry Lyndon", Alcott supplemented the lighting with illumination coming into the set from outside the windows, though the "windows" on "The Shining" were part of a set. The high temperatures (110 degrees Fahrenheit) caused by the 700,000 watts of illumination outside the set's "windows" Alcott used to create the high white effect favored by Kubrick caused the set to burn down.
Alcott, who shot films and TV commercials for other directors in the UK, moved to the US in 1981 in order to obtain more steady work than was possible in the ailing British film industry. His non-Kubrick projects as a cinematographer included three films with director Stuart Cooper and two with Roger Spottiswoode. Alcott could not shoot Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (1987), which commenced shooting in 1985 and -- like any Kubrick shoot -- would involved a substantial commitment of time, as Alcott was committed to other projects (Kubrick hired Douglas Milsome, who had been Alcott's focus puller on "Barry Lyndon" and "The Shining", to shoot "Jacket"). His non-Kubrick oeuvre was eccentric, and included the Canadian slasher film My Bloody Valentine (1981), but he was able to bring his outstanding visual quality to such movies as Fort Apache the Bronx (1981), The Beastmaster (1982), Under Fire (1983) and Hugh Hudson's Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984).
Alcott suffered a massive heart attack and died on July 28, 1986, in Cannes, France. At the time of his death he was considered one of the film industry's great artist-technicians, someone who through his ability to push back the boundaries of what was technically possible, linked technology to aesthetic needs and contributed to the development of cinema as an art form. His last film, No Way Out (1987), was dedicated to his memory. The British Society of Cinematographers named one of its awards the "BSC John Alcott ARRI Award" in his honor to commemorate his role as a lighting cameraman in the development of film as an art form.Alcott's ashes are interred in the "Columbarium of Remembrance & Radiance" located in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Los Angeles, CA, US.- Actor
- Additional Crew
Born Norman Adelberg in 1924, he served in the Army during World War II. At the end of the conflict he had the opportunity to benefit from the GI Bill program meant to help returning soldiers to start or resume studying. That is how, while attending Texas Christian University, he discovered on the boards of on-campus theater that he had a talent for acting. This was the beginning of a long, long career. Though most of the time in small or even bit parts, Alden, worked for such big names as Howard Hawks, Jerry Lewis, Walt Disney, Woody Allen and Tim Burton. He might have become a major star himself after Richard C. Sarafian chose him for the title role of Andy (1965). The director must have been very pleased with Alden for, as Andy Chadakis - the retarded son of elderly Greek immigrants - he showed remarkable acting ability . Unfortunately, the film was little seen and the gifted actor landed no other parts of such importance and quality afterward.Ashes were given to his family to be interred in Crypt G-130, Elevation 3 in the South Wall of the "Beth Olam Mausoleum" at Hollywood Forever in Hollywood, Los Angeles County, California, US.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Gale Gordon was born on 20 February 1906 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Our Miss Brooks (1952), Here's Lucy (1968) and The 'Burbs (1989). He was married to Virginia Gordon. He died on 30 June 1995 in Escondido, California, USA.According to the actor's FindAGrave.com Profile, Gordon's ashes were given to family or (a) friend[s].- Actor
- Music Department
- Writer
Rex Allen started out as a singer in vaudeville, and sang on numerous radio shows before hooking up with a traveling rodeo show. He signed with Republic Pictures and became a popular singing cowboy, and was often paired with sidekick Slim Pickens. He starred in his own western TV series, Frontier Doctor (1956) and in the 1960s was the narrator on many nature documentaries for Walt Disney.Ashes where scattered near the Rex Allen Museum and Willcox Cowboy Hall Of Fame (in the aforementioned city in AZ, US.)
The Latter location is where a lot of Allen's memorabilia is displayed.
What is typed up on the Actor/Singer's Wikipedia And FindAGrave.com Page alleges that is cremains may have also or really may have been scattered Willcox, Arizona's "Railroad Park" located in Cochise County.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Fernando Almada was born on 26 February 1929 in Mexico, D.F., Mexico. He was an actor and writer, known for El hechizo del pantano (1978), Un mulato llamado Martín (1975) and Pasaporte a la muerte (1988). He died on 30 October 2023 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico.Cremains were given to Almada Otero's family or (a) friend[s].- Cinematographer
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One of the highest appraised contemporary cinematographers. He was born in Spain but moved to Cuba by age 18 to join his exiled anti-Franco father. In Havana, he founded a cineclub and wrote film reviews. Then, he went on to study in Rome at the Centro Sperimentale. He directed six shorts in Cuba and two in New York. After the 1959 Cuban revolution, he returned and made several documentaries for the Castro-regime. But after two of his shorts (Gente en la playa (1960) and La Tumba Francesca) had been banned, he moved to Paris. There he became the favourite cameraman of Éric Rohmer and François Truffaut. In 1978, he started his impressive Hollywood-career. In his later years, he co-directed two documentaries about the human rights situation in Cuba: Improper Conduct (1984) (about the persecution of gay people) and Nadie escuchaba (1987). He shot several prestigious commercials for Giorgio Armani and Calvin Klein. Nestor Almendros died of cancer.Cremains were scattered around Barcelona, Spain.- Actor
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Rafael Alonso was born on 5 July 1920 in Madrid, Spain. He was an actor and director, known for The Grandfather (1998), La colmena (1982) and El baile (1959). He died on 24 October 1998 in Madrid, Spain.- Director
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Robert Altman was born on February 20th, 1925 in Kansas City, Missouri, to B.C. (an insurance salesman) and Helen Altman. He entered St. Peters Catholic school at the age six, and spent a short time at a Catholic high school. From there, he went to Rockhurst High School. It was then that he started exploring the art of exploring sound with the cheap tape recorders available at the time. He was then sent to Wentworth Military Academy in Lexington, Missouri where he attended through Junior College. In 1945, he enlisted in the US Army Air Forces and became a copilot of a B-24. After his discharge from the military, he became fascinated by movies and he and his first wife, LaVonne Elmer, moved to Hollywood, where Altman tried acting (appearing in the film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947)), songwriting (he wrote a musical intended for Broadway, "The Rumors are Flying"), and screen-writing (he co-wrote the screenplay for the film Bodyguard (1948) and wrote the story (uncredited) for Christmas Eve (1947)), but he could not get a foot hold in Tinseltown. After a brief fling as publicity director with a company in the business of tattooing dogs, Altman finally gave up and returned to his hometown of Kansas City, where he decided he wanted to do some serious work in filmmaking. An old friend of his recommended him to a film production company in Kansas City, the Calvin Co., who hired him in 1950. After a few months of work in writing scripts and editing films, Altman began directing films at Calvin. It was here (while working on documentaries, employee training films, industrial and educational films and advertisements) that he learned much about film making. All in all, Altman pieced together sixty to sixty-five short films for Calvin on every subject imaginable, from football to car crashes, but he kept grasping for more challenging projects. He wrote the screenplay for the Kansas City-produced feature film Corn's-A-Poppin' (1955), he produced and directed several television commercials including one with the Eileen Ford Agency, he co-created and directed the TV series The Pulse of the City (1953) which ran for one season on the independent Dumont network, and he even had a formative crack at directing local community theater. His big-screen directorial debut came while still at Calvin with The Delinquents (1957) and, by 1956, he left the Calvin Co., and went to Hollywood to direct Alfred Hitchcock's TV show. From here, he went on to direct a large number of television shows, until he was offered the script for M*A*S*H (1970) in 1969. He was hardly the producer's first choice - more than fifteen other directors had already turned it down. This wasn't his first movie, but it was his first success. After that, he had his share of hits and misses, but The Player (1992) and, more recently, Gosford Park (2001) were particularly well-received.Ashes scattered at sea.- One of Japan's most distinctive character actors, Eisei Amamoto is one of their cinema's few personalities who is easily recognizable to Western movie buffs. Tall (six feet) and skeletal of build, bony-faced and wild-haired (when not ensconced in a vast silver wig), Amamoto's persona inspired Woody Allen to dub him with an imitation Peter Lorre voice in What's Up Tiger Lily? (1966). He was better served by Paul Frees' menacing tones in King Kong Escapes (Kingukongu no gyakushu, 1967). But neither voice matches Amamoto's own, surprisingly deep and resonant for his scrawny, sunken-chested frame. It might have served him well had he pursued his original career choice: politics. He barely managed to dodge the draft into Japan's Pacific War, through acceptance to Tokyo University, his nation's most prestigious school. He studied law, for he wished to become a diplomat, but he soon grew disillusioned in his studies, his world view darkened by the mire into which his country was plunging through its disastrous war. A sympathetic older sister rescued him from his self-confessed nihilism by introducing him to friends in the entertainment field who encouraged Amamoto to become an actor. Through these connections, Amamoto landed a place in the highly regarded Hayuza group of stage actors, where in an early bit of what would become typecasting, he portrayed a knife-wielding madman in the play "Dojinkai". There he was spotted by director Keisuke Kinoshita, who observed "THERE'S an interesting-looking guy", and promptly cast him in a small but pivotal role in his classic Twenty-Four Eyes (1954). Amamoto later joined Toho Studios, where he was at first nothing more than a background player in the likes of Nippon Tanjo (1959). His parts grew steadily larger and more showy in the likes of Denso ningen (The Secret of the Telegian, 1960) and Yojinbo (1961). By the late 1960s he was equally recognized for samurai films like Sword of Doom and science fiction/fantasy projects like Kingukongu no gyakushu (1967). Though he could hardly be less similar to Peter Lorre, he is at least as big a cult figure in present-day Japan, lending his name and presence to any number of films, TV shows and animated productions. As well, he has cultivated a reputation as an eccentric TV talkshow presence. Always fascinated by the country of Spain, he has also played flamenco guitar on the stage, sometimes in collaboration with his friend and fellow actor Yoshio Tsuchiya. He has written several books about Spain, and spends as much time living there as he can.
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Don Ameche was a versatile and popular American film actor in the 1930s and '40s, usually as the dapper, mustached leading man. He was also popular as a radio master of ceremonies during this time. As his film popularity waned in the 1950s, he continued working in theater and some TV. His film career surged in a comeback in the 1980s with fine work as an aging millionaire in Trading Places (1983) and a rejuvenated oldster in Cocoon (1985).
Ameche was born Dominic Felix Amici in Kenosha, Wisconsin, to Barbara Edda (Hertel) and Felice Amici, a bartender.Ashes given to his family to be buried at Resurrection Catholic Cemetery, in Asbury, Iowa.- Kingsley Amis was born on 16 April 1922 in London, England, UK. He was a writer, known for The New Adventures of Lucky Jim (1982), The Further Adventures of Lucky Jim (1967) and Take a Girl Like You (1970). He was married to Elizabeth Jane Howard and Hilary Ann Bardwell. He died on 22 October 1995 in London, England, UK.Cremated through Golders Green with the ashes buried there.
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One of the most beloved, charismatic and accomplished actors as well as one of the most imaginative and pathbreaking directors in the history of Indian cinema, Dev Anand was a leading man for more than five decades in over 110 motion pictures and continues to bestride Indian film fraternity even after his passing. He gave a new dimension to that magical state known as Stardom. And for his exemplary work he was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2001 by the President of India. From the time he embarked on his career as a Film Actor in the mid-forties till his demise, his movies had been a journey filled with enriching experiences for the 'Evergreen Living Legend' of Indian Cinema. And he had always remained eternally youthful by his remarkable ability to live always in the present and the future; never in the past.
Also, as head of his film production company Navketan International Films, which was founded in 1949, Anand introduced a multitude of talent to the Indian Film Industry by way of actors, directors, music composers and cinematographers. He introduced new talent to cinema and experimented with new ideas for movies. He also headed one of the finest Film Sound Post-Production facilities in India - Anand Recording Studios - which has to its credit more than 3,000 Indian feature films that have been mixed/ surround mixed for worldwide release.
Anand won two Filmfare Awards - India's equivalent of the Oscars - in 1958 for his performance in the film "Kala Paani" (Black Water) and in 1966 for his performance in Navketan International Films' "Guide". "Guide" went on to win Filmfare Awards in five other categories including 'Best Film' and 'Best Director' and was sent as India's entry for the Oscars in the foreign film category that year. He co-produced the English Version of "Guide" with the Nobel Laureate Pearl S. Buck ("The Good Earth"). Eventually, his creative sensibilities got the better of him and he started writing and directing his own movies.
In 1993, he received a Filmfare 'Lifetime Achievement Award' and in 1996 he received a Screen Videocon 'Lifetime Achievement Award'. Then in 1997 he was given the Mumbai Academy of Moving Images Award for his Outstanding Services to the Indian Film Industry. In 1998, he was given a 'Lifetime Achievement Award' by the Ujala Anandlok Film Awards Committee in Calcutta. In 1999, he received the Sansui 'Lifetime Achievement Award' for his 'Immense Contribution to Indian Cinema' in New Delhi. In the year 2000, he was awarded the Film Goers' 'Mega Movie Maestro of the Millenium' Award in Mumbai. And then in July 2000, in New York City, he was honored by an Award at the hands of the then First Lady of the United States of America - Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton - for his 'Outstanding Contribution to Indian Cinema'. And again Anand was awarded the Indo-American Association 'Star of the Millennium' Award in the Silicon Valley, California. The President of India honored Anand with the prestigious Padma Bhushan Award on India's Republic Day - January 26th, 2001. And yet again, Donna Ferrar, Member New York State Assembly, honored him with a New York State Assembly Citation for his 'Outstanding Contribution to the Cinematic Arts Worthy of the Esteem and Gratitude of the Great State of New York' on May 1st, 2001.
Most recently, in April 2003, Anand was given a 'Lifetime Achievement Award' by the F.I.F.A. Committee in Johannesburg, South Africa. For an Indian Movie Icon who has hobnobbed with royalty, heads of State and celebrities, he did it all.
Anand passed away on December 3rd, 2011 in London's Washington Hotel, aged 88.
There are some who might remember Anand for not hanging his boots at the right time like his rival Dilip Kumar. But for millions of his admirers, both India and overseas, he shall remain the embodiment of someone who just never learnt to give up and being one of the pivotal figures who shaped the destiny of Indian Cinema in its formative years post independence and with his peerless intellect combined with his killer good looks gave it a footing on the map of world.Last rites were performed at the Putney Vale Crematorium with a service held at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, both in London on a Saturday. A Memorial Service was held on a Friday at Bandra, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India's "Mehboob Studios".
The cremains were poured into the Godavari river by the late Actor's son Suniel, accompanied by family friend, Nashik- Director
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American actor-director-writer-producer Gilbert M. Anderson, father of the movie cowboy and the first Western star, was born Maxwell Henry Aronson in Little Rock, Arkansas. His parents, Esther (Ash) and Henry Aronson, were from New York. His father was from a German Jewish family, and his mother was the daughter of Russian Jewish parents. He had worked as a photographer's model and newspaper vendor before drifting into acting. He performed in vaudeville before joining forces with Edwin S. Porter as an actor and occasional script collaborator. In Porter's startling early film The Great Train Robbery (1903), Anderson played several roles (among them, the train passenger shot by bandits as he tries to escape). The success of that film prompted Anderson to begin writing, directing and starring in his own series of Westerns. In 1907 he and George K. Spoor founded Essanay Film Manufacturing Co., destined to be one of the predominant early film studios. Anderson gained enormous popularity in hundreds of Western shorts, playing the first real cowboy hero, "Broncho Billy." Writing and directing most of the films, Anderson also found time to direct a series of "Alkali Ike" comedy Westerns starring Augustus Carney. In 1916 Anderson sold his ownership in Essanay and retired from acting. He returned to New York and bought the Longacre Theatre and produced plays there, though not achieving the same kind of success he enjoyed in films. He made a brief comeback as a producer with a series of shorts starring Stan Laurel for Metro Pictures. However, a series of conflicts with the studio led him retire again after 1920. He continued to produce films as owner of Progressive Pictures into the 1950s. In his 70s, he came out of retirement for a cameo role in The Bounty Killer (1965). He had been presented with an honorary Oscar in 1957 as a "motion picture pioneer, for his contributions to the development of motion pictures as entertainment." Anderson died in 1971 at the age of 90.Cremated at Chapel of the Pines Crematory. Plot: Vaultage- Actor
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Herbert Anderson was born on 30 March 1917 in Oakland, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Battleground (1949), The Bride Came C.O.D. (1941) and Dennis the Menace (1959). He was married to Mary Virginia Palmer. He died on 11 June 1994 in Palm Springs, California, USA.According to the Third Edition of "Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons", his body was cremated through the Palm Springs mortuary and the ashes were given to his family.- Actor
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A tall, sinewy, austere-looking character actor with silver hair, rugged features and a distinctive voice, John Robert Anderson appeared in hundreds of films and television episodes. Immensely versatile, he was at his best submerging himself in the role of historical figures (he impersonated Abraham Lincoln three times and twice baseball commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, men whom he strongly resembled). He was a familiar presence in westerns and science-fiction serials, usually as upstanding, dignified and generally benign citizens (a rare exception was his Ebonite interrogator in The Outer Limits (1963) episode "Nightmare"). He had a high opinion of Rod Serling and was proud to be featured in four episodes of The Twilight Zone (1959), most memorably as the tuxedo-clad angel Gabriel in "A Passage for Trumpet" (doing for Jack Klugman what Henry Travers did for James Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life (1946)).
Known to other youths as 'J.R.', Anderson had a happy childhood, growing up first on a small farm near Clayton, Illinois, and then in the mid-sized town of Quincy where his mother operated a cigar stand. A rangy, outdoorsy type, he excelled at various sports, was a drum major, a member of the track team and the Boy Scouts. During World War II, he served in the Coast Guard, mainly involved in helping protect convoys from U-boat attacks. In 1946, he commenced studies at the University of Iowa, eventually graduating with a Master's degree in Drama. His acting career began on the riverboat 'Goldenrod' (now the oldest surviving Mississippi River Basin showboat in America) and proceeded from there to the Cleveland Playhouse for a year, then the New York stage and summer stock with parts in prestigious plays like "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "Home of the Brave". He also occasionally doubled up as a singer on Broadway ("Paint Your Wagon" (1951), "The Emperor's Clothes" (1953)).
Anderson began as a regular television actor during that medium's formative years. In the course of the next four decades, his appearance barely changing, he was consistently excellent wherever he popped up, be it as western lawmen (including a recurring role as Virgil Earp in The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (1955)), as cops, governors, judges and army officers; hard-nosed oil executive Herbert Styles in Dallas (1978), or as kindly patriarch of the Hazard clan in North & South: Book 1, North & South (1985). Though less traveled on the big screen, Anderson was particularly impressive as the furtive second-hand car dealer, 'California Charlie', in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), the ruthless leader of the renegades, Addis, in Day of the Evil Gun (1968) and, reprising his role as Lincoln, in The Lincoln Conspiracy (1977). One of the best all-rounders in the business, Anderson died of a heart attack at his home in Sherman Oaks in August 1992, aged 69.Cremated by the Neptune Society. Ashes brought to his residence on August 18, 1992 in Sherman Oaks, CA, US.- Director
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Lindsay was born in Bangalore, India but educated in England at Cheltenham College and Wadham College, Oxford where he was a classical scholar. He then spent 3 years war time service in the Kings Royal Rifle Corps. His career in the theatre started at the Royal Court in the late 1950's where he was responsible for the premiere productions of The Long and the Short and the Tall, Sergeant Musgrave's Dance, Billy Liar and The Bed Before Yesterday. His collaboration with David Storey began with the film This Sporting Life followed by the plays In Celebration, Home, The Changing Room, Early Days and his last, in 1992, Stages He also contributed to the Times, Observer and New Statesman newspapers.Cremains were given to family or (a) friend.- Actor
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Iconic comedian Louie Anderson, the three-time Emmy®-Award winner, was one of the country's most recognized and adored comics; named by Comedy Central as "One of 100 Greatest Stand-Up Comedians of All Time." His career spanned more than 30 years. He was a best-selling author, star of his own stand up specials and sitcoms, and toured, performing to standing-room only crowds worldwide.
Louis Perry Anderson was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, the son of Ora Zella (Prouty) and Louis William Anderson, a trumpet player. He was of Swedish, Norwegian, and English descent. Sharing the ups and downs of his childhood experiences as one of eleven children, Louie crafted comedy routines that rang true for his early club audiences while reducing them to helpless fits of laughter, routines that led him from his career as a counselor to troubled children to the first-place trophy at the 1981 Midwest Comedy Competition. Henny Youngman, who hosted the competition, recognized the diamond-in-the-rough genius of the young comic and hired him as a writer, providing invaluable experience that soon put Louie in his own spotlight on comedy stages all over the country.
Johnny Carson, the comedy icon for generations of rising stars, invited Louie to make his national television debut on the "The Tonight Show" in 1984, and the rest is history. Leno, Letterman, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, "Comic Relief" and Showtime, HBO and CMT specials followed, including hosting the legendary game show, Family Feud, making Louie a household name and opening doors for him as an actor. He guest-starred in sitcoms like "Grace Under Fire" and dramas like "Touched by an Angel" and "Chicago Hope," and had memorable featured roles in film comedies like "Coming to America," opposite of Eddie Murphy, and the classic "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." In 2013, he took a dive on the ABC reality series, "Splash" where he conquered his own fears while becoming an inspiration of hope. His stand up Special, "Big Baby Boomer" premiered on CMT, in 2013. Also in that year, he competed and inspired on the ABC reality competition show, Splash.
In 1995 Louie put his creative energies to work on the Saturday morning animated series "Life with Louie." The long-running series based on Louie's own childhood and his life with his father won three Humanitas Prizes for writing on a children's' animated series, making him the only three-time recipient of this award. It also earned a Genesis Award for its depiction of the proper treatment of animals and, most significantly, two Emmy Awards.
His best selling books included Dear Dad - Letters From An Adult Child, a collection of alternately touching and outrageous letters from Louie to his late father, and Good-bye Jumbo...Hello Cruel World, self-help for those who struggle with self-esteem issues, and his latest installment on family, The F Word, How To Survive Your Family.
In 2016, Louie was cast to co-star along with Zach Galifianakis and Martha Kelly in the hit FX series, "Baskets." Anderson's extraordinary new role is Christine Baskets, the matriarch of the Baskets clan. The character is based on both his mother and his five sisters, who were a major presence in his life; "I'm not as nice in the character as my mom was as a person. It really is an extension of my mom, Anderson says, adding that he always aims to make his performance "as real as possible" without "affecting or cartooning it up. It felt like it was divine intervention when I got the call to be on the show, that somehow my mom, from the great beyond, was finally getting herself into show business where she truly belonged in the first place."
When not in production, Louie traveled the States doing what he loved to do, stand-up comedy, and again delivered to his fans his inimitable brand of humor and warmth. He died on January 21, 2022, in Las Vegas, of large B-cell lymphoma.Cremains were given to Anderson's family so that they could be taken to to the South side of Acacia Park Cemetery located in Mendota Heights, Dakota County, Minnesota to be placed in Niche 5, "R-3", 01.- Writer
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James Maxwell Anderson was born in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, on December 15, 1888 to William Lincoln Anderson and Charlotte Perrimela (Stephenson) Anderson. The second child born to the couple, Anderson spent his formative years on his maternal grandmother's farm in Atlantic before the family moved to Andover, Ohio when he was three years old. His father attended a seminary at night to study for the ministry while he supported the family as a railroad fireman.
His father took up the life of a traveling minister, moving his family frequently until Anderson was in his late teens. Anderson attended schools in Ohio, Iowa, North Dakota, and Pennsylvania. The Anderson family's life was a vagabond one until they settled in Jamestown, North Dakota in 1907.
After graduating from Jamestown High School, Anderson went to the University of North Dakota in 1908. He worked his way through college as a waiter and serving on the night copy desk of the newspaper "The Grand Forks Herald." He was a member of the literary society Ad Altiora at UND and helped put together the "Dacotah" Annual. He also participated in college theatrics, serving as assistant director for the Sock and Buskin Dramatic Society.
Graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature in June 1911, Anderson married his UND classmate Margaret Haskett, a farmer's daughter, on August 1, 1911. They eventually had three sons, Quentin, Alan, and Terence.
His first job after college was serving as the principal of the Minnewaukan, North Dakota high school, where he doubled as an English teacher. After making pacifist comments to his students, his contract was not renewed, and he moved to Palo Alto, California, where he enrolled in a master's program in English Lit at Stanford University. After graduating from Stanford in 1914, he spent three years as a high school English teacher in San Francisco before accepting an offer to become chairman of Whittier College's English Department in 1917. Once again he got in trouble with his pro-pacifist statements, and he was fired after his first year for speaking out publicly on behalf of a student seeking conscientious objector status during World War I.
Moving back to San Francisco, he worked as a journalist on the "San Francisco Chronicle" and the "San Francisco Bulletin," then moved to New York City to take an editorial position on the liberal periodical "The New Republic." He continued his work as a newspaperman, becoming a stringer for the "New York Globe" and the New York World." He also found time to help launch the poetry magazine "Measure."
Turning his interest to the theater, he wrote his first play in 1923. Written in verse, "White Desert" was a flop, lasting only 12 performances, but it attracted the attention of "New York World" critic Laurence Stallings. Stallings chose Maxwell as his collaborator on his World War One play "What Price Glory?" Opening on September 3, 1924, the play was one of the stage sensations of the decade, earning kudos and running for 430 performances. The financial rewards of helping create such a big boffo box office blockbuster enabled Anderson to retire from journalism and become a full-time dramatist.
Many of his plays were written in verse, and they typically touch on social and moral problems, such as "Winterset" (1935), which addressed the Sacco & Vanzetti trials in fictional form. The play, which won the first New York Critics Circle Award, is about a gangster who visits the children of the anarchists executed for the murder he himself committed. Anderson won the 1933 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play "Both Your Houses," and repeated as the New York Critics Circle Award winner for "High Tor" in 1936. He wrote many historical dramas and two librettos for Kurt Weill, "Knickerbocker Holiday" (1938) and "Lost in the Stars" (1940). He was also a lyricist, his most famous creation being "September Song" from "Knickerbocker Holiday."
His plays included "Elizabeth the Queen" (1930), "Mary of Scotland " (1933), "Key Largo" (1939); "Truckline Café" (1945), "Joan of Lorraine" (1946), "Anne of the Thousand Days" (1947), and "The Bad Seed" (1954). Anderson also worked on numerous screenplays, including All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), for which he received an Academy Award nomination, Washington Merry-Go-Round (1932), Rain (1932) , Death Takes a Holiday (1934), and So Red the Rose (1935).
Plays of his that were turned into movies were "Mary of Scotland (1936), "Saturday's Children," which was filmed three times (once as "Maybe It's Love"), Winterset (1936), "Elizabeth the Queen", which became The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), The Eve of St. Mark (1944), Knickerbocker Holiday (1944). Key Largo (1948), "Joan of Lorraine," which became Joan of Arc (1948), The Bad Seed (1956), "The Devil's Hornpipe", which became Never Steal Anything Small (1959), and Anne of the Thousand Days (1969). "What Price Glory?" was made into a silent film in 1926 and was remade by John Ford in 1952.
He published two books of poetry, "You Who Have Dreams" in 1925, and "Notes on a Dream," published posthumously in 1972. Anderson also published two collections of essays, "The Essence of Tragedy and Other Footnotes and Papers" (1939) and "Off Broadway Essays About the Theatre" (1947).
His wife Margaret died on February 26, 1931, and he remarried in 1933, taking Gertrude "Mab" Higger as his second wife. They had a daughter, Hesper, born on August 12, 1934, and when Gertrude died on March 21, 1953, he married Gilda Hazard on June 6, 1954.
Among his many honors were honorary Doctor of Literature degrees from Columbia University in 1946 and the University of North Dakota in 1958, and the National Institute of Arts and Letters' Gold Medal in Drama in 1954.
Maxwell Anderson had a stroke on February 26, 1959 and died two days later in Stamford, Connecticut. His oeuvre included over thirty published plays and over a dozen unpublished ones.Half of Anderson's cremains were poured into the sea by the Playwright's Home and the other half were buried at Cochranton, Pennsylvania's "Anderson Family Cemetery" in Crawford County with the inscription, "Children of dust astray among the stars Children of earth adrift upon the night What is there in our darkness or our light To linger in prose or claim a singing breath Save the curt history of life isled in death".- Actor
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Adam West was born William West Anderson on September 19, 1928 in Walla Walla, Washington, to parents Otto West Anderson, a farmer, and his wife Audrey V. (Speer), an opera singer. At age 10, in 1938, West had a cache of comic books; and starting in 1939, Batman, who appeared in Detective Comics, made a big impression on him--the comic hero was part bat-man (a la Count Dracula) and part world's greatest detective (a la Charlie Chan and Sherlock Holmes). When his mother remarried to a Dr. Paul Flothow, she took West and his younger brother, John, to Seattle. At age 14, West attended Lakeside School, then went to Whitman College, where he got a degree in literature and psychology. During his last year of college, he married 17-year-old Billie Lou Yeager.
West got a job as a disc jockey at a local radio station, then enrolled at Stanford for post-grad courses. Drafted into the army, he spent the next two years starting military television stations, first at San Luis Obispo, California, then at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Afterwards, West and his wife toured Europe, visiting Germany, Switzerland and Italy's Isle of Capri. When the money ran out, he joined a childhood and college buddy, Carl Hebenstreit, who was starring in the kiddie program "The Kini Popo Show" in Hawaii. West would eventually replace Carl but not the other star, Peaches the Chimp. In 1956, he got a divorce and married a beautiful girl, originally from Tahiti, named Ngatokoruaimatauaia Frisbie Dawson (he called her "Nga" for short). They had a daughter, Jonelle (born 1957), and a son, Hunter (born 1958). In 1959, West came to Hollywood. He adopted the stage name "Adam West", which fit his roles, as he was in some westerns.
After seven years in Tinseltown, he achieved fame in his signature role as Bruce Wayne / Batman, on the wildly popular ABC-TV series Batman (1966) (though he has over 60 movie and over 80 television guest appearance credits, "Batman" is what the fans remember him for). The series, which lasted three seasons, made him not just nationally but internationally famous. The movie version, Batman: The Movie (1966), earned West the "Most Promising New Star" award in 1967. The downside was that the "Batman" fame was partly responsible for ruining his marriage, and he was typecast and almost unemployable for a while after the series ended (he did nothing but personal appearances for two years).
In 1970, he met and then married Marcelle Tagand Lear, and picked up two stepchildren, Moya and Jill. In addition, they had two children of their own: Nina West in 1976 and Perrin in 1979. You can't keep a good actor down--West's career took off again, and he appeared in 50 projects after that: movies, television movies and sometimes doing voices on television series. West wrote his autobiography, "Back to the Batcave" (1994). One of his most prized possessions was a drawing of Batman by Bob Kane with the inscription "To my buddy, Adam, who breathed life into my pen and ink creation". Beginning in 2000, West made guest appearances on the animated series Family Guy (1999), on which he played Mayor Adam West, the lunatic mayor of Quahog, Rhode Island.
On June 9, 2017, Adam West died at age 88 after a brief battle with leukemia in Los Angeles, California. On June 15, 2017, Los Angeles shone the bat-signal on City Hall, and Walla Walla shone the bat-signal on the Whitman Tower, both as a tribute to West.Ashes scattered into the Pacific Ocean.- Actor
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Leif Erickson was born on 27 October 1911 in Alameda, California, USA. He was an actor, known for The High Chaparral (1967), On the Waterfront (1954) and Show Boat (1951). He was married to Annie Ruth Diamond, Margaret Hayes and Frances Farmer. He died on 29 January 1986 in Pensacola, Florida, USA.Cremains scattered- Actor
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Valeriano Andrés was born on 1 July 1922 in Madrid, Spain. He was an actor, known for Don Quijote cabalga de nuevo (1973), Estudio 1 (1965) and El último café (1970). He died on 21 April 2005 in Madrid, Madrid, Spain.- Actor
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American leading man of the 1940s and 1950s, Dana Andrews was born Carver Dana Andrews on New Years Day 1909 on a farmstead outside Collins, Covington County, Mississippi. One of thirteen children, including fellow actor Steve Forrest, he was a son of Annis (Speed) and Charles Forrest Andrews, a Baptist minister.
Andrews studied business administration at Sam Houston State Teachers College in Texas, but took a bookkeeping job with Gulf Oil in 1929, aged 20, prior to graduating. In 1931, he hitchhiked to California, hoping to get work as an actor. He drove a school bus, dug ditches, picked oranges, worked as a stock boy, and pumped gas while trying without luck to break into the movies. His employer at a Van Nuys gas station believed in him and agreed to invest in him, asking to be repaid if and when Andrews made it as an actor. Andrews studied opera and also entered the Pasadena Community Playhouse, the famed theatre company and drama school. He appeared in scores of plays there in the 1930s, becoming a favorite of the company. He played opposite future star Robert Preston in a play about composers Gilbert and Sullivan, and soon thereafter was offered a contract by Samuel Goldwyn.
It was two years before Goldwyn and 20th Century-Fox (to whom Goldwyn had sold half of Andrews' contract) put him in a film, but the roles, though secondary, were mostly in top-quality pictures such as The Westerner (1940) and The Ox-Bow Incident (1942). A starring role in the hit Laura (1944), followed by one in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), made him a star, but no later film quite lived up to the quality of these. During his career, he had worked with with such directors as Otto Preminger, Fritz Lang, William Wyler, William A. Wellman, Jean Renoir, and Elia Kazan.
Andrews slipped into a steady stream of unremarkable films in which he gave sturdy performances, until age and other interests resulted in fewer appearances. In addition, his increasing alcoholism caused him to lose the confidence of some producers. Andrews took steps to curb his addiction and in his later years was an outspoken member of the National Council on Alcoholism, who decried public refusal to face the problem. He was probably the first actor to do a public service announcement about alcoholism (in 1972 for the U.S. Department of Transportation), and did public speaking tours. Andrews was one of the first to speak out against the degradation of the acting profession, particularly actresses doing nude scenes just to get a role.
Andrews was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild in 1963, serving until 1965. He retired from films in the 1960s and made, he said, more money from real estate than he ever did in movies. Yet he and his second wife, actress Mary Todd, lived quietly in a modest home in Studio City, California. Andrews suffered from Alzheimer's disease in his later years and spent his final days in a nursing facility. He died of congestive heart failure and pneumonia in 1992, aged 83.According to his FindAGrave.com Profile, his ashes were given to family or (a) friend[s].- Actor
- Soundtrack
The son of a Georgia minister, Edward Andrews debuted on stage in 1926 at age 12. By 1935, he had landed on Broadway. A solid character actor, his amiable demeanor made him a natural for the jovial, grandfatherly types and genial, small-town businessmen he often played, but his very large physique and peering eyes, partially hidden behind ever-present large-framed eyeglasses, served him well when cast as a heavy, i.e. a sinister character like a corrupt businessman or official, or worse. He was memorable as the glad-handing, charming but murderous leader of a corrupt political machine in The Phenix City Story (1955) and, later in his career, as Molly Ringwald's solicitous grandfather in Sixteen Candles (1984).Likely cremated by Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary in the Westwood Village area of Los Angeles and his ashes were later given to his family to be scattered at sea.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Character actor Anthony James was born on July 22, 1942 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Unusually tall (6' 6½) and lanky, with a rough, pockmarked face, a lean, stringy build, and an extremely intense screen presence, James was often cast in Westerns as scary, sleazy villains. He was especially memorable as the racist diner counterman in the outstanding In the Heat of the Night (1967). Other noteworthy parts include a gay hitchhiker in the cult classic Vanishing Point (1971), a priest in The Culpepper Cattle Co. (1972), an outlaw in High Plains Drifter (1973), a deranged psycho in The Teacher (1974), the chauffeur from hell in the chiller Burnt Offerings (1976), and the vicious leader of a gang of ferocious barbarians in the science fiction film Ravagers (1979).
James was hilarious in a rare change-of-pace good guy role as a heroic cannibal (!) in the post-nuke sci-fi romp World Gone Wild (1987), and also parodying his evil persona in The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991). Among the many television shows in which he appeared in guest roles were Married... with Children (1987), Beauty and the Beast (1987), Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), Simon & Simon (1981), The A-Team (1983), Riptide (1984), The Fall Guy (1981), Hunter (1984), Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979), Quincy M.E. (1976), Charlie's Angels (1976), Vega$ (1978), Starsky and Hutch (1975), S.W.A.T. (1975), Ironside (1967), Hawaii Five-O (1968), Bonanza (1959), Gunsmoke (1955) and The Big Valley (1965).
James's last film appearance to date was as the owner of a seedy bordello in Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992). After quitting acting in the early 1990s, he pursued a successful career as an artist. His paintings have been exhibited in galleries in such major cities as New York, Boston and Miami.According to his "FindAGrave.com" Profile, his Ashes were scattered into Spy Pond located in Arlington, Massachusetts.- In the mid 1980s, while pursuing his acting career, Jeremy Applegate worked at Victoria Station in Universal City. He made fast friends, and, although his career was just beginning, he was considered by many to be an impressively talented impersonator. His characters were pursued with intense energy, and laced with dark humor. The result was a style all his own.
Jeremy loved entertaining his co-workers, and often had them in stitches with his impersonations of beloved characters from the TV shows and ads of everyone's childhood. Whenever Jeremy was around, it felt like a party. To be in his presence was truly a treat.
Like many young actors who are just starting out, Jeremy spent his twenties, and the first few years of his thirties, working to make ends meet. Despite having a fairly solid support system comprised of close friends and their families, Jeremy was under a great deal of pressure, and was troubled with depression. Unfortunately, his state of mind got the better of him, and Jeremy Applegate committed suicide in March of the year 2000, at the far too-young age of 34.Applegate was cremated through Aftercare Cremation and Burial Society and his ashes were scattered two months later on May 26, 2000 at sea off Orange County, CA. - Applewhite was born in Spur, Texas the son of a Presbyterian Minister. He graduated from high school in Corpus Christi, Texas in 1948. Applewhite briefly enrolled to study as a Minister but changed his mind and went into Music. In 1952 he graudated from Austin College. He then did a brief stint in the US army corps from 1954 to '56. By 1959 he had obtained his Masters in Music from the Univ. of Colorada at Boulder. He was hired as choral director at Univ. of Alabama in 1961. From 1966 to '70 he taught music at Houston's Univ. of St. Thomas. Applewhite even played leading roles at the Houston Grand Opera. However, in 1970 he was dismissed for 'health reasons of an emotional nature'. He even underwent some psychotherapy but of no avail. By 1972 he had divorced his wife and was estranged from his 2 children. During this period in his life he met divorceé Bonnie Lu Nettles a former nurse and mother of 4 who was now interested in astrology. The 2 lived as common-law partners and moved to Las Vegas and Oregon looking for 'spiritual awakening'. In 1974 Applewhite was jailed in Texas for auto theft and credit card fraud. In the period after his release Applewhite and Nettles began calling themselves "the Two" and "Bo" and "Peep" (respectively) and also "Do" and "Ti" (like the musical notes). They began to collect a group of disillusioned followers preaching that the body was just a 'container' and that a great big 'mother ship' would come from outer space to collect the true believers before the end of the world. The press initially dubbed them as a 'UFO cult'! In 1985 when Bonnie died from cancer, Applewhite said that she had been collected by the 'mother ship' and only her container (body) was left behind. By 1993 they were called 'Total Overcomers Anonymous'. On January 17, 1994 when an earthquake rocked California they claimed that it was a sign that the end was near. Applewhite and his followers now needed another sign. They got it, in March 1997 when comet Halle Bopp appeared in the night skies. Applewhite along with 38 other followers made a videotape recording their last messages for loved ones. At their 'ranch' - Rancho Sant Fe (30 miles north of San Deigo, California) they committed mass suicide by consuming vodka laced with phenobarbital and covering their heads with plastic bags. They were all dressed in black with new nike shoes - a uniform by which the 'aliens' who would pick them up could identify them by. They were found a few days later in their bunk beds. Applewhite would not have said it was suicide - they had simply "moved on".While there were reports that he was buried beside his father at Mission Burial Park, San Antonio, TX, he was actually cremated by Caring Cremation Services and his ashes were sent to his son in Corpus Christi.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Allan Arbus was born on 15 February 1918 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for M*A*S*H (1972), Coffy (1973) and Damien: Omen II (1978). He was married to Mariclare Costello and Diane Arbus. He died on 19 April 2013 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Ashes given to family or (a) friend[s].- Actor
- Director
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Alan Arkin was an Academy Award-winning American actor who was also an acclaimed director, producer, author, singer and composer.
He was born Alan Wolf Arkin on March 26, 1934, in Brooklyn, New York. His family were Jewish emigrants from Russia and Germany. In 1946, the Arkins moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, California. His father, David I. Arkin, was an artist and writer, who worked as a teacher, and lost his job for merely refusing to answer questions about his political affiliation during the 1950s Red Scare. His father challenged the politically biased dismissal and eventually prevailed, but unfortunately it was after his death. His mother, Beatrice (Wortis) Arkin, a teacher, shared his father's views. Young Arkin was fond of music and acting, he was taking various acting classes from the age of 10. He attended Franklin High School, in Los Angeles, then Los Angeles City College from 1951 - 1953, and Bennington College in Vermont from 1953 - 1954. He sang in a college folk-band, and was involved in a drama class. He dropped out of college to form the folk music group The Tarriers, in which Arkin was the lead singer and played guitar. He co-wrote the 1956 hit "The Banana Boat Song" - a Jamaican calypso folk song, which became better known as Harry Belafonte's popular version, and reached #4 on the Billboard chart. At that time Arkin was a struggling young actor who played bit parts on television and on stage, and made a living as a delivery boy, repairman, pot washer and baby sitter. From 1958 - 1968 he performed and recorded with the children's folk group, The Babysitters. He has also recorded an entire album for the Elektra label titled "Folksongs - Once Over Lightly."
In 1957 Arkin made his first big screen appearance as a lead singer with The Tarriers in Calypso Heat Wave (1957). Then he made his Off-Broadway debut as a singer in "Heloise" (1958). Next year he joined the Compass Theatre in St. Louis, Missouri. There he caught the eye of stage director Bob Sills and became the original member of the "Second City" troupe in Chicago. In 1961 Arkin made his Broadway debut in musical "From the Second City", for which he wrote lyrics and sketches, then starred as David Kolowitz in the Broadway comedy "Enter Laughing" (1963), for which he won a Tony Award. He starred in a Broadway musical "From the Second City production, then returned to Broadway as Harry Berlin in "Luv" (1964). Arkin made his directorial debut with an Off-Broadway hit called "Eh?" (1966), which introduced the young actor, named Dustin Hoffman. He won a Drama Desk Award for his direction of the Off-Broadway production of "Little Murders" (1969), and another Drama Desk Award for "The White House Murder Case" (1970). He also directed the original version of Neil Simon's hilarious smash, "The Sunshine Boys" (1972), which ran over 500 performances.
Arkin earned his first Academy Award nomination as Best Actor for his feature acting debut in a comedy The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming (1966), by director Norman Jewison, co-starring as Lt. Rozanov, a Soviet submariner who is mistaken for a spy after his boat accidentally wrecks aground in New England. Arkin demonstrated his dramatic range as the psychopathic killer Roat in suspense film Wait Until Dark (1967), opposite Audrey Hepburn. He reinvented himself as the sensitive deaf-mute in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968), for which he received his second Academy Award Nomination as Best Actor in the Leading role. He followed with what remained his best known role as Captain Yossarian in Catch-22 (1970), directed by Mike Nichols and based on the eponymous anti-war novel by Joseph Heller. In it Arkin arguably gave his strongest performance, however, his career suffered because the film initially did not live up to expectations. After a few years of directorial work on television, Arkin made a comeback with an impressive portrayal of doctor Sigmund Freud in The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976). In the early 1980s he acted in three movies that were family affairs, written by his wife, Barbara Dana, and co-starring his son, Adam Arkin.
During the 1990s he turned out several notable performances, such as a bitter former baseball player in TNT's Cooperstown (1993), and as a hilarious psychiatrist opposite John Cusack in Grosse Pointe Blank (1997). He won raves for his portrayal of a divorced father who struggles to keep his kids enrolled in the Beverly Hills school system in Slums of Beverly Hills (1998). Arkin gave a brilliant performance opposite Robin Williams in Jakob the Liar (1999), a film about the Nazi occupation of Poland. He also returned to the New York stage co-starring with his son, Tony Arkin and Elaine May in "Power Plays", which he also co-authored. His most recent comeback as a heroin-snorting, sex-crazed, foul-mouthed grandfather in Little Miss Sunshine (2006), earned him his third Academy Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, and his first Academy Award.
Alan Arkin had been a modern Renaissance man. In addition to his achievements as an actor, director, and producer, he made his mark as a singer-songwriter with his popular-song compositions "Banana Boat Song", "Cuddle Bug," "That's Me," and "Best Time of the Year." Arkin also authored several books, including science-fiction and some children's stories, such as "The Clearing", "The Lemming Condition" and "Cassie Loves Beethoven" among his other publications. He was a father of three sons, Adam Arkin, Matthew Arkin, and Anthony Arkin, and a grandfather of Molly Arkin.
Alan Arkin was a strong supporter of an organic way of living and also a proponent for preservation of the environment and natural habitat. He avoided the show-biz-milieu and was known as an actor who does not really care about prestigious awards, but values having a good job and being acknowledged by his peers. In Arkin's own words he wanted to "Stay home for three months. Living as quietly as humanly possible." Arkin was given an Indian name, Grey Wolf, by his Native American friends in New Mexico.
Alan Arkin died in California on June 29, 2023 at the age of 89. He is survived by his three sons - Adam, Matthew, and Anthony Dana Arkin, and with Dana, Alan Arkin is survived by third wife, Suzanne Newlander Arkin, whom he married in 1999.- Actor
- Additional Crew
Tony Armatrading was born on 30 November 1961 in Birmingham, West Midlands, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Saint (1997), Now You See Me 2 (2016) and Notting Hill (1999). He was married to Suzan Crowley. He died on 10 May 2021 in the UK.According to his FindAGrave.com Profile, his ashes were given to family or (a) friend[s].- Actor
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Soundtrack
Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 - August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and aeronautical engineer, and the first person to walk on the Moon. He was also a naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor.
Armstrong was born and raised in Wapakoneta, Ohio. A graduate of Purdue University, he studied aeronautical engineering; his college tuition was paid for by the U.S. Navy under the Holloway Plan. He became a midshipman in 1949 and a naval aviator the following year. He saw action in the Korean War, flying the Grumman F9F Panther from the aircraft carrier USS Essex. In September 1951, while making a low bombing run, Armstrong's aircraft was damaged when it collided with an anti-aircraft cable, strung across a valley, which cut off a large portion of one wing. Armstrong was forced to bail out. After the war, he completed his bachelor's degree at Purdue and became a test pilot at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) High-Speed Flight Station at Edwards Air Force Base in California. He was the project pilot on Century Series fighters and flew the North American X-15 seven times. He was also a participant in the U.S. Air Force's Man in Space Soonest and X-20 Dyna-Soar human spaceflight programs.
Armstrong joined the NASA Astronaut Corps in the second group, which was selected in 1962. He made his first spaceflight as command pilot of Gemini 8 in March 1966, becoming NASA's first civilian astronaut to fly in space. During this mission with pilot David Scott, he performed the first docking of two spacecraft; the mission was aborted after Armstrong used some of his re-entry control fuel to stabilize a dangerous roll caused by a stuck thrust. During training for Armstrong's second and last spaceflight as commander of Apollo 11, he had to eject from the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle moments before a crash. On July 20, 1969, Armstrong and Apollo 11 Lunar Module (LM) pilot Buzz Aldrin became the first people to land on the Moon, and the next day they spent two and a half hours outside the Lunar Module Eagle spacecraft while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the Apollo Command Module Columbia. When Armstrong first stepped onto the lunar surface, he famously said: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." It was broadcast live to an estimated 530 million viewers worldwide. Apollo 11 effectively proved US victory in the Space Race, by fulfilling a national goal proposed in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy "of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" before the end of the decade. Along with Collins and Aldrin, Armstrong was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon and received the 1969 Collier Trophy. President Jimmy Carter presented him with the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978, he was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1979, and with his former crew-mates received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009.
After he resigned from NASA in 1971, Armstrong taught in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Cincinnati until 1979. He served on the Apollo 13 accident investigation and on the Rogers Commission, which investigated the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. In 2012, Armstrong died due to complications resulting from coronary bypass surgery, at the age of 82.Memorial Service was held at the Camargo Country Club in Indian Hill, Cincinnati, where he lived, and at the National Cathedral on September 13, 2012 where Diana Krall sang "Fly Me To The Moon". With a Bugler and a rifle salute, his ashes were scattered in the Atlantic by the Navy from the U.S.S. Philippine Sea.- Russell Armstrong was born on 21 December 1963 in Dallas, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for The Ring of the Musketeers (1992), The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (2010) and American Justice (1992). He was married to Taylor Armstrong. He died on 15 August 2011 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Before Armstrong's funeral, the estranged husband of Taylor Armstrong, the "Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills" was cremated with the cremains split between Armstrong's estranged wife, Taylor and the late Armstrong's parents.
Allegedly, Taylor and her lawyer didn't tell Armstrong's sister and parents about what time and what location the funeral service was held at. - Actor
- Soundtrack
Robert Armstrong is familiar to old-movie buffs for his case-hardened, rapid-fire delivery in such roles as fast-talking promoters, managers, FBI agents, street cops, detectives and other such characters in scores of films--over 160--many of them at Warner Brothers, where he was part of the so-called "Warner Brothers Stock Company" that consisted of such players as James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Frank McHugh, Alan Hale and Humphrey Bogart, among others.
Although he could easily be taken for having grown up in a tough area of Brooklyn or the Bronx, he was actually from the Midwest. He was born in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1890, and his father owned a small and profitable flotilla of boats for use on Lake Michigan. Hearing the Siren call of the gold fields in late 19th-century Alaska, however, he packed up the family and headed west. A typical staging place to start north was in Washington state, and the family settled in Seattle. Robert spent a short hitch in the infantry during World War I. Afterwards he decided to go into law and started to study at the University of Washington. However, it wasn't long before that he decided he had a gift for acting and--perhaps influenced by his uncle, playwright and producer Paul Armstrong--decided to follow that path. He hooked up with future Hollywood character actor James Gleason, known to everyone as "Jimmy", who worked for a variety of playhouses in California and Oregon and who was heir to his parents' stock company, which toured across the US. Armstrong joined Gleason's company and returned with them to New York. He started from the bottom up, learning the craft of acting. After moving on to leading roles, he received the prime part in Gleason's own play "Is Zat So?" (1925-1926), a particularly successful play among several he had written (he also directed and produced plays on Broadway into 1928).
Hollywood scouts were watching, and Armstrong found himself with a film contract. He appeared in approximately 10 films in 1928 alone, and after the first five he was able, with the advent of sound, to give voice to the take-charge, mile-a-minute, clenched-teeth delivery that would make him one of the busiest character men in Hollywood--and right alongside him in several of his early 1930s features was his old friend and boss Jimmy Gleason.
It was in 1932 that Armstrong became acquainted with an ambitious and adventurous pair of Hollywood filmmakers. Both were World War I fliers, big-game hunters and animal trappers, and partners in high adventure documentaries, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack had found a friend in rising producer David O. Selznick, who brought them on board at RKO, with Cooper as production idea man. Schoedsack was the technical side of the pair, knowledgeable about the actual physical and technical side of filmmaking, , and became the actual director of their projects, with Cooper as an associate producer and sometime co-director. They turned out what would be the first of a string of horror-tinged adventure movies, The Most Dangerous Game (1932), with Armstrong having a part in it. He got in his usual wisecrack lines but from a less dimensioned character who had an early demise--the film centered on Joel McCrea and still young silent screen veteran Fay Wray. Cooper saw much of himself in Armstrong's general personality and wanted him for a film that he had been wanting to make for quite a few years, an adventure yarn dealing with the stories he had heard during his years making films in jungles all over the world of giant, vicious apes. The resulting film, King Kong (1933), would put Armstrong at stage center as big-time promoter Carl Denham (very much Cooper himself). The film also began co-star Fay Wray on the road to stardom. With Copper and Schoedsack co-directing and the legendary Willis H. O'Brien heading up a visual effects team supporting his for-the-time astounding animated miniature sequences, the film was a treasure trove for RKO, bringing newfound respect for a studio known mostly for its "B" action films and westerns. It was Armstrong's defining moment and set the stage for the plethora of leading man and second lead roles he would play through the 1930s.
A sequel, Son of Kong (1933), followed almost immediately with the same production team and, though not achieving the critical or box-office acclaim as its predecessor, showcased another Armstrong strength--a great sense of comedic timing that had been evident, but not really traded upon, in previous films. The Cooper/Schoedsack team got in one more for 1933, with Armstrong as an uncommon--for him--romantic lead in Blind Adventure (1933), a fast-paced but but often uneven adventure yarn. All the studios wanted him, and what followed was a flood of usually good, crowd-pleasing roles, although still in "B" pictures. Among the better ones were Palooka (1934) and 'G' Men (1935), with Armstrong playing a hard-nosed FBI agent who is mentor and partner to a young James Cagney. With a full menu of adventure yarns and colorful cop and military roles, at the end of the decade Armstrong even played one of America's great folk heroes - Jim Bowie - in Man of Conquest (1939), this time at Republic Pictures.
Armstrong got more of the same in the decade of World War II--although with age he started to slip down the cast list--with some variety, playing a Nazi agent in the spoof My Favorite Spy (1942) and--in somewhat ridiculous "Japanese" makeup--as a Japanese secret-police colonel (named Tojo) with former co-star James Cagney in the escapist romp Blood on the Sun (1945). Finally, Cooper--gorillas still on his mind--came calling for Armstrong again for his Mighty Joe Young (1949), which he made about midway in his association with partner John Ford in their Argosy Pictures venture under the wing of RKO. Armstrong was again a reincarnation of Carl Denham as Max O'Hara, a fast-talking promoter looking for a sensation in "Darkest Africa". The Ford touch is perhaps seen in the cowboys who go along with young Ben Johnson as romantic lead to enthusiastic--to say the least--Terry Moore with her pet gorilla Joe (about half as big as King Kong but definitely no ordinary gorilla). It is a great little movie, with more light-hearted tone than "Kong" and a red-tinted fire scene recalling the silents. It was a Saturday matinée favorite for at least a decade afterward (this writer enjoyed it as his first movie theater adventure as a small child).
Armstrong increasingly went to the small screen through the 1950s. He was a familiar face on most of the TV playhouse programs of the period and did many of the series oaters and crime shows of the period. He received a great send-up as a guest on Red Skelton's variety show when the oft giggling host asked him, "Say, did you ever get that monkey off that building?" Armstrong liked keeping busy and helping friends. One of the latter was Cooper--still promoting as his alter ego Carl Denham in his old age. The two passed away within 24 hours of one another in April of 1973.Ashes buried in an unidentifiable communal space at Pierce Bros., Westwood Memorial Park.- Actor
- Soundtrack
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.Cremated through the Neptune Society with his ashes brought to his son on August 2, 2012 in Studio City, CA.- Producer
- Actor
- Production Manager
Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III was born in Santiago, Cuba on March 2, 1917. His father was the mayor of Santiago. The 1933 revolution led by Fulgencio Batista had landed his father in jail and stripped the family of its wealth, property and power. His father was released because of the intercession of U.S. officials who believed him to be neutral during the revolt. The family fled to Miami, Florida. One of Desi's first jobs in America consisted of cleaning canary cages. However, after forming his own small band of musicians, he was hired by Xavier Cugat, the "king" of Latin music.
Desi soon left Cugat, formed his own Latin band, and literally launched the conga craze in America. He was cast in the Broadway play "Too Many Girls" and then brought to Hollywood to make the film version of the play. It was on the set of Too Many Girls (1940) that he and Lucille Ball met. They soon married and approximately 10 years later formed Desilu Productions and began the I Love Lucy (1951) shows. Desi and Lucille had two children, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr.. At the end of the I Love Lucy (1951) run, which included The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1957), the two divorced. Desi later wrote an autobiography entitled "A Book." In 1986 he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He died on December 2, 1986 at age 69.According to an Associated Press article by Dennis Georgatos dating from December 4, 1986 a Memorial Service was held at St. James Roman Catholic Church in Del Mar, CA and was later cremated through Cypress View Crematory in San Diego through Encinitas mortuary with his ashes delivered to his daughter to be scattered into the Pacific from their home in Baja, Mexico. Ashes scattered.- Actor
- Director
Sig Arno was born on 27 December 1895 in Hamburg, Germany. He was an actor and director, known for The Palm Beach Story (1942), Die Nacht ohne Pause (1931) and La gloire du régiment (1937). He was married to Kitty Mattern, Barbara Kiranoff and Caroline Dahms. He died on 17 August 1975 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.Cremated at Rosedale Cemetery, Los Angeles and his ashes were scattered in the Pacific.- Director
- Editorial Department
- Actor
Hal Ashby was born the fourth and youngest child in a Mormon household, in Ogden, Utah, to Eileen Ireta (Hetzler) and James Thomas Ashby, on September 2, 1929. His father was a dairy farmer. After a rough childhood that included the divorce of his parents, his father's suicide, his dropping out of high school, getting married and divorced all before he was 19, he decided to leave Utah for California. A Californian employment office found him a printing press job at Universal Studios. Within a few years, he was an assistant film editor at various other studios. One of his pals while at MGM was a young messenger named Jack Nicholson. He moved up to being a full fledged editor on The Loved One (1965) and started editing the films of director Norman Jewison.
A highlight of his film editing career was winning an Oscar for the landmark In the Heat of the Night (1967). Itching to become a director, Jewison gave him a script he was too busy to work on called The Landlord (1970). It became Ashby's first film as a director. From there he delivered a series of well-acted, intelligent human scaled dramas that included The Last Detail (1973), Shampoo (1975), Bound for Glory (1976), Coming Home (1978) and Being There (1979). Great reviews and Oscar nominations became common on Ashby films.
Ashby was always a maverick and a contrary person and success proved difficult for Ashby to handle. He became unreliable due to his dependence on drugs and a reclusive lifestyle. He actually collapsed while making The Rolling Stones concert film Let's Spend the Night Together (1982) in Arizona. Although he recovered, he was never the same after that. He began taking too much time in post production on his films and actually had a couple of his later projects taken away from him to be edited by others. He tried to straighten himself out, but in the 1980s, he was considered by many to be unemployable. Just when he felt he was turning a corner in his life, he developed cancer that spread to his liver and colon. He died on December 27, 1988. Actor Sean Penn dedicated his first film as a director, The Indian Runner (1991) to Ashby and John Cassavetes, even though Penn was never directed by either one. Because he did not have a set visual style, many mistake this for no style at all. His career is not discussed as often as the careers of some of his contemporaries.Ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean.- Director
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William Asher was born on 8 August 1921 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. He was a director and producer, known for Bewitched (1964), Fireball 500 (1966) and Beach Blanket Bingo (1965). He was married to Meredith Coffin, Joyce Bulifant, Elizabeth Montgomery and Danni Sue Nolan. He died on 16 July 2012 in Palm Desert, California, USA.According to his "FindAGrave.com" Page, Asher's ashes were given to family (or) a friend.- Writer
- Additional Crew
Isaac Asimov was born Isaak Judah Ozimov, on January 2, 1920, in Petrovichi shtetl, near Smolensk, Russia. He was the oldest of three children. His father, named Judah Ozimov, and his mother, named Anna Rachel Ozimov (nee Berman), were Orthodox Jews. Ozimov family were millers (the name Ozimov comes from the eponymous sort of wheat in Russian). In 1923 Isaac with his parents immigrated to the USA and settled in Brooklyn, New York. There his parents temporarily changed his birthday to September 7, 1919, in order to send him to school a year earlier. Their family name was changed from Ozimov to Asimov.
Asimov was an avid reader before the age of 5. He spoke Yiddish and English at home with his parents and spoke only a few word in Russian. He began his formal education in 1925 in the New York Public School system. From 1930-1932 he was placed in the rapid advance course. In 1935 he graduated from high school, in 1939 received a B.S. and in 1941 he earned his M. Sc. in Chemistry from Columbia University. From 1942-1945 Asimov was a chemist at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard's Naval Air experimental station. After the war ended, he was drafted into the U.S. Army and was transfered to the island of Oahu and was destined to participate in the atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll in July 1946. He narrowly avoided that by receiving an honorable discharge in May 1946. In 1948 he completed his post-graduate studies and earned his Ph. D. in Chemistry. In 1949 he began his teaching career at the Medical School of Boston University, becoming assistant professor in 1951, and associate professor in 1955. In 1958 Asimov became a full-time writer and gave up his teaching duties because his income from his literary works was much greater than his professor's salary. He was fired, but he retained his title and later returned as a lecturer and was promoted to the rank of full professor in 1979. Asimov was considered one of the best lecturers at Boston University.
Young Isaac Asimov was raised as a non-religious person. His parents observed the Orthodox Judaism, but did not force their belief upon young Asimov. He did not have affiliation with a temple, did not have a bar mizvah and called himself an atheist, then used the term "humanist" in his later life. He did not oppose genuine religious convictions in others but opposed superstitious or unfounded beliefs. Asimov defined his intellectual position as a Humanist and rationalist. He opposed the Vietnam war in the 1960s and was a supporter of the Democratic party. He embraced environmental issues, and supported feminism, joking that he wished women to be free "because I hate it when they charge". He was also humorous about many of his memberships in various clubs and foundations. Asimov did not approve exclusionary societies, he left Mensa after he found that many of the members were arrogant. He liked individuality and stayed in groups where he enjoyed giving speeches. As a free thinker, Asimov saw sci-fi literature serving as a pool where ideas and hypotheses are expressed with unrestricted intellectual freedom.
Young Asimov was fascinated with science fiction magazines which were sold at his parent's general store. Around the age of 11 he wrote eight chapters of a fiction about adventures of young boys in a small town. His first publication was "Marooned Off Vesta" in the Amazing Stories magazine in 1939. Asimov shot to fame in 1941 with 'Nightfall', a story of a planet where night comes once every 2049 years. 'Nightfall' has been described as one of the best science fiction stories ever written. Asimov wrote over five hundred literary works. He is credited for introducing the words "positronic", "psychohistory", and "robotics" into the English language. He penned such classics as "I, Robot" and the "Foundation" series, which are considered to be the most impressive of his writings. He also founded "Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine", which became a best-selling publication.
Asimov was afraid of needles and the sight of blood. Although he had the highest score on the intelligence test he had the lowest score on the physical-conditioning test. He never learned how to swim or ride a bicycle. The author who described spaceflights suffered from fear of flying. In his entire life he had to fly only twice during his military service. Acrophobia was revealed when he took his date and first love on a roller coaster in 1940, and was terrified. This phobia complicated the logistics and limited the range over which he traveled; it also found reflection in some of his literary works. He avoided traveling long distances. Instead he enjoyed cruise ships like the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2, where he occasionally entertained passengers with his science-themed talks. He impressed public with his highly entertaining speeches as well as with his sharp sense of timing; he never looked at the clock, but he spoke for precisely the time allocated. Asimov's sense of time prevented him from ever being late to a meeting. Once he discovered that his parents changed his date of birth, he insisted that the official records of his birthday be corrected to January 2, 1920, the date he personally celebrated throughout his life.
Asimov met Gertrude Blugherman on a blind date on Valentine's Day in February of 1942, they got married in July of the same year. The Asimovs had two children, son David (born in 1951), and daughter Robyn Joan (born in 1955). Asimov had known Janet Opal Jeppson since 1959. She was a psychoanalyst and also a writer of science fiction for children. Correspondence with her convinced Asimov that she was the right kind of person for him. He and Gertrude were separated in 1970, and he moved in with Janet Jappeson almost at once. His first marriage ended in divorce in 1973. That same year he and Janet Jeppson were married at Janet's home by an official of Ethical Culture Society. Asimov had no children by his second marriage.
In 1983 Asimov contracted HIV infection from a tainted blood transfusion received during a triple bypass surgery. He eventually developed AIDS and wanted to go public about his AIDS but his doctors convinced Asimov to remain silent. The specific cause of death was heart and renal failure as complications of AIDS. He died on April 6, 1992, in Boston, Massachussets, and was cremated. His ashes were scattered.
Ten years after Asimov's death, his widow, Janet Jeppson Asimov, revealed that his death was a consequence of an unfortunately contracted AIDS.Ashes scattered- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Richard Attenborough, Baron Attenborough of Richmond-upon-Thames, was born in Cambridge, England, the son of Mary (née Clegg), a founding member of the Marriage Guidance Council, and Frederick Levi Attenborough, a scholar and academic administrator who was a don at Emmanuel College and wrote a standard text on Anglo-Saxon law. The family later moved to Leicester where his father was appointed Principal of the university while Richard was educated at Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys in Leicester and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).
His film career began with a role as a deserting sailor in In Which We Serve (1942), a part that contributed to his being typecast for many years as a coward in films like Dulcimer Street (1948), Operation Disaster (1950) and his breakthrough role as a psychopathic young gangster in the film adaptation of Graham Greene's novel, Brighton Rock (1948). During World War II, Attenborough served in the Royal Air Force.
He worked prolifically in British films for the next 30 years, and in the 1950s appeared in several successful comedies for John Boulting and Roy Boulting, including Private's Progress (1956) and I'm All Right Jack (1959). Early in his stage career, Attenborough starred in the London West End production of Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap", which went on to become one of the world's longest-running stage productions. Both he and his wife were among the original cast members of the production, which opened in 1952 and (as of 2007) is still running.
In the 1960s, he expanded his range of character roles in films such as Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) and Guns at Batasi (1964), for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of the regimental Sergeant Major. He appeared in the ensemble cast of The Great Escape (1963), as Squadron Leader "Roger Bartlett" ("Big X"), the head of the escape committee.
In 1967 and 1968, he won back-to-back Golden Globe Awards in the category of Best Supporting Actor, the first time for The Sand Pebbles (1966), starring Steve McQueen, and the second time for Doctor Dolittle (1967), starring Rex Harrison. He would win another Golden Globe for Best Director, for Gandhi (1982), in 1983. Six years prior to "Gandhi", he played the ruthless "Gen. Outram" in Indian director Satyajit Ray's period piece, The Chess Players (1977). He has never been nominated for an Academy Award in an acting category.
He took no acting roles following his appearance in Otto Preminger's The Human Factor (1979), until his appearance as the eccentric developer "John Hammond" in Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park (1993). The following year, he starred as "Kris Kringle" in Miracle on 34th Street (1994), a remake of the 1947 classic. Since then, he has made occasional appearances in supporting roles, including the historical drama, Elizabeth (1998), as "Sir William Cecil".
In the late 1950s, Attenborough formed a production company, "Beaver Films", with Bryan Forbes and began to build a profile as a producer on projects, including The League of Gentlemen (1960), The Angry Silence (1960) and Whistle Down the Wind (1961), also appearing in the first two of these as an actor.
His feature film directorial debut was the all-star screen version of the hit musical, Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), and his acting appearances became more sporadic - the most notable being his portrayal of serial killer "John Christie" in 10 Rillington Place (1971). He later directed two epic period films: Young Winston (1972), based on the early life of Winston Churchill, and A Bridge Too Far (1977), an all-star account of Operation Market Garden in World War II. He won the 1982 Academy Award for Directing for his historical epic, Gandhi (1982), a project he had been attempting to get made for many years. As the film's producer, he also won the Academy Award for Best Picture. His most recent films, as director and producer, include Chaplin (1992), starring Robert Downey Jr. as Charles Chaplin, and Shadowlands (1993), based on the relationship between C.S. Lewis and Joy Gresham. Both films starred Anthony Hopkins, who also appeared in three other films for Attenborough: "Young Winston", "A Bridge Too Far" and the thriller, Magic (1978).
Attenborough also directed the screen version of the hit Broadway musical, "A Chorus Line" (A Chorus Line (1985)), and the apartheid drama, Cry Freedom (1987), based on the experiences of Donald Woods. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Director for both films. His most recent film as director was another biographical film, Grey Owl (1999), starring Pierce Brosnan.
Attenborough is the President of RADA, Chairman of Capital Radio, President of BAFTA, President of the Gandhi Foundation, and President of the British National Film and Television School. He is also a vice patron of the Cinema and Television Benevolent Fund.
He is also the patron of the UWC movement (United World Colleges), whereby he continually contributes greatly to the colleges that are part of the organization. He has frequented the United World College of Southern Africa(UWCSA) Waterford Kamhlaba. His wife and he founded the "Richard and Sheila Attenborough Visual Arts Center". He also founded the "Jane Holland Creative Center for Learning" at Waterford Kamhlaba in Swaziland in memory of his daughter, who died in the Tsunami on Boxing Day, 2004. He passionately believes in education, primarily education that does not judge upon color, race, creed or religion. His attachment to Waterford is his passion for non-racial education, which were the grounds on which Waterford Kamhlaba was founded. Waterford was one of his inspirations for directing Cry Freedom (1987), based on the life of Steve Biko.
He was elected to the post of Chancellor of the University of Sussex on 20 March 1998, replacing the Duke of Richmond and Gordon. A lifelong supporter of Chelsea Football Club, Attenborough served as a director of the club from 1969-1982 and, since 1993, has held the honorary position of Life Vice President. He is also the head of the consortium, "Dragon International", which is constructing a film and television studio complex in Llanilid, Wales, often referred to as "Valleywood".
In 1967, he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). He was knighted in 1976 and, in 1993, he was made a life peer as Baron Attenborough, of Richmond-upon-Thames in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames.
On 13 July 2006, Attenborough and his brother, David Attenborough, were awarded the titles of Distinguished Honorary Fellows of the University of Leicester "in recognition of a record of continuing distinguished service to the University". Lord Attenborough is also listed as an Honorary Fellow of Bangor University for his continued efforts to film making.
Attenborough has been married to English actress Sheila Sim, since 1945. They had three children. In December 2004, his elder daughter, Jane Holland, as well as her daughter Lucy and her mother-in-law, also named Jane, were killed in the tsunami caused by the Indian Ocean earthquake. A memorial service was held on 8 March 2005, and Attenborough read a lesson at the national memorial service on 11 May 2005. His grandson, Samuel Holland, and granddaughter, Alice Holland, also read in the service.
Attenborough's father was principal of University College, Leicester, now the city's university. This has resulted in a long association with the university, with Lord Attenborough a patron. A commemorative plaque was placed on the floor of Richmond Parish Church. The university's "Richard Attenborough Centre for Disability and the Arts", which opened in 1997, is named in his Honor.
His son, Michael Attenborough, is also a director. He has two younger brothers, the famous naturalist Sir David Attenborough and John Attenborough, who has made a career in the motor trade.
He has collected Pablo Picasso ceramics since the 1950s. More than 100 items went on display at the New Walk Museum and Art Gallery in Leicester in 2007; the exhibition is dedicated to his family members lost in the tsunami.Per his request, a third of Attenborough's cremains were taken to the late Director's estate in France and 1/3 to be interred at the late Actor's Scottish estate.- Actor
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Barry Atwater was born on 16 May 1918 in Denver, Colorado, USA. He was an actor, known for Star Trek (1966), One Step Beyond (1959) and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964). He died on 24 May 1978 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Cremains were scattered- Philadelphia native Malcolm Atterbury was born into a wealthy family - his father was president of the Pennsylvania Railroad - but he himself had no desire to go into the family business. He had always wanted to be an actor, and to that end got himself a job managing a radio station. From there he went into vaudeville, then into stage work in both musicals and dramas, gaining a reputation as a solid and reliable stage actor. He made his film debut in Dragnet (1954). Although he soon became a busy supporting actor in films, he still kept his hand in the theater world; he owned two theaters in upstate New York. A versatile actor, he could play anything from a priest to a senator to a hotel clerk to a gunfighter to a cranky, cantankerous old codger. His last film was Emperor of the North (1973). He died in Beverly Hills of old age in 1992.Cremains were scattered into the sea
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Lionel Atwill was born into a wealthy family and was educated at London's prestigious Mercer School to become an architect, but his interest turned to the stage. He worked his way progressively into the craft and debuted at age 20 at the Garrick Theatre in London. He acted and improved regularly thereafter, especially in the plays of Henrik Ibsen and George Bernard Shaw. Atwill came to the US in 1915 and would appear in some 25 plays on Broadway between 1917 and 1931, but he was already trying his hand in silent films by 1918. He had a sonorous voice and dictatorial British accent that served him well for the stage and just as well for sound movies. He did some Vitaphone short subjects in 1928 and then his first real film role in The Silent Witness (1932) (also titled "The Verdict").
That voice and his bullish demeanor made Atwill a natural for a spectrum of tough-customer roles. As shady noblemen and mad doctors, but also gruff military men and police inspectors (usually with a signature mustache), he worked steadily through the 1930s. He had the chance to show a broader character as the tyrannical but unforgettable Col. Bishop in Captain Blood (1935). It's hard to forget his Inspector Krogh in Son of Frankenstein (1939), wherein he agrees to a game of darts with Basil Rathbone and proceeds to impale the darts through the right sleeve of his uniform (the character sported a wooden right arm). And he sends himself up with rolling and blustering dialogue as the glory-hog ham stage actor Rawitch in the classic To Be or Not to Be (1942) with Jack Benny. However, Atwill effectively ruined his burgeoning film career in 1943 after he was implicated in what was described as an "orgy" at his home, naked guests and pornographic films included--and a rape perpetrated during the proceedings. Atwill "lied like a gentleman," it was said, in the court proceedings to protect the identities of his guests and was convicted of perjury and sentenced to five years' probation.
He was thereafter kept employed on Poverty Row with only brief periods of employment by Universal Pictures, while the rest of Hollywood turned its collective back on him. He is more remembered for the horror films generally than for better efforts, but they have fueled his continued popularity and a bid by the Southern California Lionel Atwill Fan Club to petition for a Hollywood Blvd. star (he never received one).Cremated at Chapel of the Pines Crematory. Ashes once laid rest there, yet were taken by his family to be moved to an unknown location.- Producer
- Writer
James T. Aubrey was born on 14 December 1918 in La Salle, Illinois, USA. He was a producer and writer, known for Hostage (1986), Futureworld (1976) and Kleptomania (1993). He was married to Phyllis Thaxter. He died on 3 September 1994 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Aubrey's Ashes are interred in the Urn Garden located at the Westwood Memorial Park, Los Angeles.- Actor
- Producer
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Although known as the uncle/patriarch and judge "Philip Banks" on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990), James Avery was a classically trained actor and scholar. A native of Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA, he joined the US Navy after graduating high school and served in Vietnam from 1968 to 1969. Upon leaving the military, he moved to San Diego, California and began writing TV scripts and poetry for PBS. He won an Emmy for production during his tenure there and deservedly won a scholarship to the University of California at San Diego, from which he earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Drama and Literature. (Sidenote: His wife Barbara is the Dean of Student Life at California's Loyola Marymount University.) In addition to his sitcom popularity, he lent his voice to over a dozen animated television series and features. He was also the primary host of the popular PBS travel and adventure series Going Places (1997). Armed with a diverse resume of credits, James Avery remained a unique creative force as convincing a comedian as he was a Shakespearean character.According to his Death Certificate, his ashes were scattered off the coast of Los Angeles, CA.- Actor
- Additional Crew
Val Avery was born on 14 July 1924 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an actor, known for The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Amityville Horror (1979) and Cobra (1986). He was married to Margot Stevenson. He died on 12 December 2009 in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.- Writer
- Producer
- Director
George Axelrod was born on 9 June 1922 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) and The Seven Year Itch (1955). He was married to Joan Axelrod and Gloria Washburn. He died on 21 June 2003 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Ashes were scattered at sea- Actor
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Born in London, England and son of a British World War I hero, Lawford had spent most of his childhood in Paris, France and began his acting career at a very young age. His parents were not married when their son was born. As a result of the scandal, The Lawfords fled to America.
As a young child, the young Peter injured his arm by in his own words, "attempt to run through a glass door." Lawford's arm was badly injured however, the doctors could save it. The injury was so bad, it was slightly deformed and bothered him throughout life. But such was his luck, the injury kept him off the draft for World War II, which became the biggest boon of his acting career.
When Lawford was signed to MGM, his mother approached studio head, Louis B. Mayer, to pay her a salary as her son's personal assistant. However, Mayer declined. She then claimed that her son was "homosexual" and needed to be "supervised". This damaged the relationship between her and her son.
Lawford starred in his first major movie called A Yank at Eton (1942) , co-starring Mickey Rooney, Ian Hunter and Freddie Bartholomew. His performance was widely praised. During this time, Lawford started to get more leads when major MGM star Clark Gable was drafted into the war. Later, it was Good News (1947), co-starring June Allyson that became Lawford's greatest claim to fame.
Probably Lawford's most controversial affair, amongst many, was with African-American actress Dorothy Dandridge. It was rumored that both Lawford and Dandridge were planning to get married but canceled fearing it would jeopardize their careers.
Besides his successful career and being a socialite, Lawford was also part of the Rat Pack, with Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Joey Bishop and Sammy Davis Jr. .Ashes later taken from the crypt at Westwood Village Cemetery over a refusal from the children of the actor who didn't want to pay off the $10,000 funeral bill. His widow, Patricia Seaton Lawford later scattered his ashes in the Pacific Ocean off Marina del Rey.- Arthur Aylesworth was born on 12 August 1881 in Apponaugh, Rhode Island, USA. He was an actor, known for Brigham Young (1940), King of the Underworld (1939) and The Plot Thickens (1936). He was married to Sadie Harris and Elizabeth. He died on 26 June 1946 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Cremated at Chapel of the Pines Crematory
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Peter Graves was born Peter Duesler Aurness on March 18, 1926 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. While growing up in Minnesota, he excelled at sports and music (as a saxophonist), and by age 16, he was a radio announcer at WMIN in Minneapolis. After two years in the United States Army Air Force, he studied drama at the University of Minnesota and then headed to Hollywood, where he first appeared on television and later made his film debut in Rogue River (1951). Numerous film appearances followed, especially in Westerns. However, Graves is primarily recognized for his television work, particularly as Jim Phelps in Mission: Impossible (1966). Peter Graves died of a heart attack on March 14, 2010, just four days before his 84th birthday.Cremains were given to the late Actor's family or (a) friend[s].- Writer
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Composer, prolific songwriter ("Come On-a My House", "Witch Doctor", "Chipmunk Song"), author, actor, producer, impressionist, educated at Coll. Writer, and has made many records. He joined ASCAP in 1951, and specialized in catchy, hummable melodies. Some of his other popular-song compositions include "Armen's Theme"; "Safari"; "Freddy, Freddy"; "Copyright 1960"; "Medicore"; "Sack Time"; "A Little Beauty"; "The Prom"; "Bagdad Express"; "Little Brass Band"; "Maria from Madrid"; "Gotta Get to Your House"; "The Donkey and the School Boy", and many more.Cremated at Chapel of the Pines Crematory- David Bailie was born in 1937 in South Africa, going to boarding school in Swaziland and immigrating to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) with his family in 1952. His first acting experience soon after school in 1955, was an amateur production of 'Doctor in the House' which persuaded him he wanted to be an actor. After leaving school he worked in a bank and then for Central African Airlines. In 1958, he made his first trip from Rhodesia to England to get a lie of the land.
In 1960 he moved to England and landed his first small role in the film Flame in the Streets (1960) and then played on of the bells boys in Arthur Koppits "Oh Dad Poor Dad Mama's hung you in the Closet and I'm Feeling so Sad" (1961) with Stella Adler playing Madame Rosepettle. He then bluffed his way into Weekly Repertory in Barrow-in-Furness as Juvenile lead - terrified the while that he would be exposed as totally inexperienced.
Recognising the need for training he auditioned three times for a bursary to RADA - each time only being accepted as a fee paying student which he couldn't afford - he finally sent for the last of his standby money (£200) he had left in Rhodesia and paid for the first term (1963) - at the end of term he approached John Fernald who relented and he was given free tuition from the next two years.
Terry Hands was also a student at the same time but had left a little earlier than Bailie and formed the Everyman Theatre with Peter James In Liverpool - On leaving RADA Bailie was invited to join the Everyman (1964). Amongst other roles he played Tolen in The Knack, Becket in Murder in the Cathedral, Dion in The Great God Brown, MacDuff in Macbeth and Lucky in Waiting for Godot. After a year there, he came back to London and auditioned for and was accepted by Laurence Olivier joining the National Theatre. He played minor roles and also understudied Sir Laurence Olivier in Love for Love.
Terry Hands, who had by now joined the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) at Stratford-upon-Avon (and later became its artistic director), invited Bailie to join them as an associate artist (1965). There he portrayed i.a. Florizel opposite Dame Judi Dench's Perdita in 'A Winter's Tale' along with Valentine in Two Gentlemen of Verona, Kozanka in The Plebeians Rehearse the Uprising and Leslie in The Madness of Lady Bright.
During the early 1970s he worked with Stomu Yamashta at his Red Buddha Theatre. He was cast as the lead in a show called 'Raindog', requiring him to do everything from singing (writing his own songs) and dancing, to performing Martial Arts and gymnastics - which he frankly admits was a demand too far and when Yamashta offered him a paltry sum for performing the opportunity was there to depart which he did.
He was now cast by director Michael E. Briant for the part of the villain Dask in The Robots of Death: Part One (1977), which has remained a particularly popular serial of the long-running cult TV series of the 1960/70/80s. He also played in a number of other series prominent at the time.
For personal reasons Bailie now had a long recess in his acting career. Between 1980 and 1989 he ran a furniture-making business. In 1990 he closed that down and returned to acting, having in fact to virtually restart his career. It didn't help that at exactly this point he had to have a cancer removed from his lip which required learning to speak again.
Whilst awaiting work in the acting field he busied himself with Cad design, self-training and writing computer programs and also doing Health and Safety work in the building industry - in fact busking for a living.
In the mid 1990s after playing alongside Brian Glover in Canterbury Tales he made a comeback in the movie business as 'Skewer' in Cutthroat Island (1995), then played an English Judge in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999), and also the engineer in Gladiator (2000).
Bailie's best known work in film is the role of Cotton, a speechless pirate who has his tongue cut out, so he miraculously trained his parrot, also named Cotton, to read his mind and speak on his behalf. Bailie first appears as Cotton in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) as one of the pirates Jack Sparrow chooses in Tortuga. He is one of the Black Pearl crew-members to survive the Kracken attack in the sequel Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006). Bailie is also plays Cotton in the third installment of 'Pirates' Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End (2007).
David Bailie also emerged as a radio actor. He played the mad scientist Taren Capel, a re-incarnation of his earlier work from the 60s cult series 'Doctor Who'. He was involved in two audio DVDs playing the memorable character of the 'Celestial Toymaker' from Dr Who. He also worked as a Professional Photographer! Portraiture and Landscapes being his speciality. He travels nowhere unless his destination offers good Photo opportunities.
In addition he developed his skills as a video maker using his Canon 5d Mk2 to shoot a number of short HD videos.
David had two children from his first marriage. He lived in London England and married Egidija in 2002
He listed amongst his skills Acting, Furniture Making, Furniture & Interior Design, CAD Design, Computer Programming, Photography, Health and Safety Executive, Video Making, Property Developing, Restauranteur - virtually all of which afforded him a living at one or the same time or another - but principally acting is where he still felt the ambition.Cremains were given to Bailie's family and/or friend(s). - Actor
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Raymond Bailey was a great example of "If at first you don't succeed..." After high school, Bailey headed for Hollywood with the intent on becoming a movie star, but soon found it tougher than he thought. Instead Bailey went into a high finance career working as stockbroker and banker. He made a second stab at Hollywood, and again had no success. He then became a seaman, working on various freighters and travelling all over the world. Bailey also worked on a pineapple plantation in Hawaii, and tried his luck in the local theatre. Deciding to give Hollywood one more try in 1938, he got lucky getting several small parts in the movies which eventually evolved into bigger character roles. When television became big, Bailey was in demand for parts and it was there he got his most famous part on the hit sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies (1962), as (ironically) banker Milburn Drysdale, whose fists were tighter than Elly May's pants. After the show ended, he did a few movie roles.Cremains were scattered into the sea.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Kenny Baker was born on 30 September 1912 in Monrovia, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Silver Skates (1943), Hit Parade of 1941 (1940) and The Mikado (1939). He was married to Geraldyne Louise Churchill. He died on 10 August 1985 in Solvang, California, USA.Cremains scattered- Actor
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Kenny Baker was born on 24 August 1934 in Birmingham, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Time Bandits (1981), Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) and The Elephant Man (1980). He was married to Eileen Baker. He died on 13 August 2016 in Preston, Lancashire, England, UK.Cremated through "Lytham Park Cemetery and Crematorium" in Lytham Saint Annes, Flyde Borough, Lancashire, England.- Actor
- Music Department
- Composer
Ginger Baker was born on 19 August 1939 in Lewisham, London, England, UK. He was an actor and composer, known for The Harder They Fall (2021), Casino (1995) and Gonks Go Beat (1964). He was married to Kudzai Machokoto, Karen Loucks Rinedollar, Sarah Dixon and Elizabeth Ann Finch. He died on 6 October 2019 in Canterbury, Kent, UK.Cremains given to Baker's family or (a) friend[s].- Walter Baldwin was born on 2 January 1889 in Lima, Ohio, USA. He was an actor, known for The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Winter Meeting (1948) and Ride, Vaquero! (1953). He died on 27 January 1977 in Santa Monica, California, USA.Cremains were given to Baldwin's family or (a) friend[s] of the late Actor.
- Actor
- Make-Up Department
Los Angeles-born Holly Bane (who later changed his name to the more macho-sounding Mike Ragan) didn't start out to be an actor--he wanted to be a big-band musician. That didn't work out for him, unfortunately, so he wound up getting a job as an office boy at MGM at age 15. From there he worked his way into the makeup department, working on such productions as The Good Earth (1937) and under the tutelage of famed make-up artist Jack Dawn. He soon began working in front of the camera, first in bit parts in action pictures, but service in the US Marine Corps during World War II put the brakes on his acting career. Upon his return to civilian life at war's end he went back to his make-up job, but eventually decided to trade it for work as a full-time actor. His stocky build and somewhat menacing attitude got him a lot of work in westerns as a heavy, usually a gunfighter or henchman, often at Republic Pictures.
He actually divided his time between acting and make-up work, and in the 1960s, when westerns began to fade from the scene, he went back to make-up full time, eventually working on many prominent TV shows, such as Welcome Back, Kotter (1975), Barney Miller (1975) and Fish (1977).
He died in 1995 in Los Angeles of complications from emphysema.Cremains were scattered- Actor
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- Producer
Julien began his career in New York's Off-Broadway circuit including Joseph Papp's Shakespeare in the Park. Moving westward, he landed co-starring roles with Jack Nicholson in Psych-Out (1968) and Candice Bergen in Columbia's box-office hit, Getting Straight (1970).
In Uptight (1968), New York Times critic Judith Crist considered him a standout in a standout cast. The Santa Monica Evening Outlook's Raoul Gripenwaldt predicted that Julien's portrayal of Johnny Wells in Paramount's Uptight (1968) could well result in an Academy Award nomination. Julien was invited to Europe to discuss film possibilities. He went on to write the screenplay for and subsequently co-produce Warner Brothers' Cleopatra Jones (1973).
In a joint venture with Columbia Pictures, Julien wrote, produced, and starred in Thomasine & Bushrod (1974). Assuming responsibility for the final look of the film, he assisted in the direction, supervised the editing and created the design concept for the costumes. The New York Times declared it a western of considerable freshness. The film garnered him a NAACP Image Award Nomination for Best Writer of the year. He then took a sabbatical from film, landing on several other continents, exploring the political developments of their cultures and writing poetry. He completed a novel, Dark Clowns Kickin' Ass, and finished 13 pieces of sculpture exhibited in galleries throughout the United States including Los Angeles' prestigious Pacific Design Center. Julien was dubbed one of the most popular and important filmmakers in the United States (L.A. Times), and graced the covers of such magazines as Ebony and Jet.
A group of Nigerian businessmen commissioned Julien to do a feasibility study for the development of a West African Film Colony. He selected a crew from Europe, Australia and the United States, and for a two-month period trained local craftsmen in the art of filmmaking. As a tribute to his accomplishments and international profile, a year later he was invited to return to co-write and star in Bisi & The Sun God.
In the early 1990s, Julien wrote, directed and essayed the title role in the docudrama Sketches Of A Man/The Charles Drew Story, about the African-American doctor who invented blood plasma. The mid-1990s returned him to West Africa starring, writing, executive-producing and directing Sangu, The Silent One. Nigeria's Ibaden Tribune said "Max Julien's Sangu is a masterpiece, a must for every Third World human being; more appropriately, every spiritual, peace loving person on the globe. This gifted, connected thread (Julien) will do much to keep the continents from colliding." Nigeria's Daily Times echoed "The Silent One speaks loudly; Julien's wisdom has not tarnished, his eyes and his words address the inner feelings of the common man of color. He's a joy to look upon, he is to be cherished."
In the billion dollar consumer market of hip hop, Julien became a Brand Name in hot demand by Rap, R&B and Pop entertainers to write and deliver his uniquely lyrical expressions including: Do Or Die's CD featuring Kanye West and R. Kelly, and Houston blues singer Rue Davis's Legends Are Forever album in early 2007. Around the same time he was writing dialogue for a Warner Brothers video game based on Clint Eastwood's iconic "Dirty Harry" character that ended when the studio shelved the project. He was also a sought-after guest speaker.
On May 13, 2011, on Yahoo News, Nick Cannon was being interviewed for his upcoming Showtime comedy special Mr. Showbiz, which included poking fun at his then-wife, Mariah Carey. Earlier reviews indicate one of the most hilarious bits involved him accusing Mariah of pimping him like Julien ("Goldie" from The Mack (1973)).
Despite being notoriously reclusive, in 2012 Julien's popularity reached cult-like proportions. His face hangs in the lobby Walls of Fame in Magic Johnson's Theatres from L.A. to Atlanta to Harlem.
Stevie Wonder included Julien in the dedications on his classic album "Songs In The Key of Life". Dick Kleiner wrote a chapter about him in his book ESP & The Stars. In Miramax's book on 1970s films, What It Is & What It Was, Academy Award nominee Samuel L. Jackson complimented the actor/filmmaker, saying "I always went to see whatever Max Julien was doing." In a February 2008 interview on Fadar-TV, mega Hip-hop star Rick Ross removed his t-shirt and revealed Julien's face tattooed on his body.
Ninety percent of the world's rappers have sampled his voice and the music from The Mack (1973) (Outkast, 50-Cents, Three 6 Mafia etc.) familiarizing him among the 75% male and female consumers between 15 and 25 years of age, who happen to be white.
Quentin Tarantino scripted a film, True Romance, that shows Julien in a clip while Christian Slater says "I know that film. It's The Mack (1973) starring Max Julien." Although he declined a writing credit, Julien co-wrote the script along with co-star Richard Pryor and director Michael Campus. He also made major contributions in designing the costumes. It remains one of the leading DVD rentals/sellers in the world, recently cited by Entertainment Weekly as the 20th top cult film of all times, on a list of 50.
Julien had a starring cameo and wrote his own role in Def Jam's comedy hit, "How To Be A Player", then wrote and performed the intro, 19 interludes and the final recording on the film's platinum selling soundtrack album. He wrote and performed on Rap-A-Lot artist Tela's Gold Now or Never CD; was highlighted throughout The Hughes Brothers' documentary "The American Pimp"; starred in Bradley Smith's award-winning film short film "Restore"; and featured in N.Y.'s 2002 Urban World Film Festival as well as on Russell Simmons' Hip-Hop Channel.Cremains were given to the late Actor's family.- Writer
- Producer
- Actor
Russell Banks was born on 28 March 1940 in Newton, Massachusetts, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for The Sweet Hereafter (1997), Affliction (1997) and American Darling. He was married to Chase Twichell, Kathy Walton, Mary Gunst and Darlene Bennett. He died on 7 January 2023 in Saratoga Springs, New York, USA.Cremains scattered- Actor
- Soundtrack
Trevor Bannister was born on 14 August 1934 in Durrington, Wiltshire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Are You Being Served? (1972), Are You Being Served? (1977) and The Tomorrow People (1973). He was married to Pam Carson and Kathleen Cravos. He died on 14 April 2011 in Thames Ditton, Surrey, England, UK.Ashes given to family or friend.- Alexander Crichlow Barker Jr. was a direct descendant of the founder of Rhode Island, Roger Williams, and of Sir William Henry Crichlow, historical Governor-General of Barbados. Barker attended the Fessenden School and Phillips-Exeter Academy, where he excelled in football and track. He went to Princeton, but left to become an actor. A year later he was spotted while working in summer stock theatre, and received a contract offer from 20th Century Fox. World War II intervened; he enlisted as an infantry private, and rose to the rank of major.
Although later signed by Fox and then Warner Bros, he was too tall for supporting parts and too unknown for leads. Tarzan's Magic Fountain (1949) (RKO) provided his first starring role. After five Tarzan films, he went into other adventure films. After 16 non-Tarzan films, mostly westerns, he went to Europe in 1957 (he spoke French, Spanish, Italian, and German). He went on to make more than 50 more films worldwide: Brazil, Germany, Spain, Yugoslavia, Italy, Lebanon, France, as well as the USA. He became very popular in Germany owing to his roles as "Old Shatterhand", "Kara Ben Nemsi", and "Dr. Karl Sternau", in films based on books written by Karl May, a popular German writer of adventure literature. Barker won Germany's Bambi Award as Best Foreign Actor of 1966.Urn was last said to be with Barker's widow Carmen "Tita" Cervera. - Actor
- Writer
Peter Barkworth was born on 14 January 1929 in Margate, Kent, England, UK. He was an actor and writer, known for Where Eagles Dare (1968), Patton (1970) and BBC2 Play of the Week (1977). He died on 21 October 2006 in Hampstead, London, England, UK.Cremated through Golders Green.- Composer
- Actor
- Music Department
Syd Barrett was born on 6 January 1946 in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, UK. He was a composer and actor, known for Doctor Strange (2016), Mysterious Skin (2004) and The X-Files (1993). He died on 7 July 2006 in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, UK.Cremated, July 17, 2006 after a family funeral held in the East Chapel of Cambridge Crematorium the same day with around a dozen members of family and closest friends with three poignant wreaths laid in his memory where his ashes were later given to family or a friend.- Actor
- Director
American actor with a sporadic career, the son of stage and screen legend John Barrymore. His father and mother, actress Dolores Costello divorced in his infancy and he claimed to remember seeing his father only once. His mother attempted to keep him from the acting life, sending him to St. John's Military Academy and intending that he attend college. But young Barrymore rebelled and signed a movie contract at 17. He chose not to apprentice in the theatre in small roles, leaping blindly into leading roles then bailing out of them at least twice before ever managing to make his stage debut. Although his family, especially his aunt Ethel Barrymore, was humiliated by the embarrassment these failures brought to the Barrymore name, he received encouragement from them as well. His rebellious nature began to cause him great personal and professional difficulty. He had repeated scrapes with the law and was jailed numerous times for drunkenness and spousal abuse. (He had married actress Cara Williams.) In 1958 he changed his name to John Drew Barrymore and had a brief resurgence in film, appearing in leading roles in several not completely uninteresting projects. But his social behavior continued to derail any professional progress and he had further incarcerations in the Sixties for drug activity. Although he continued to appear occasionally onscreen, he became more and more reclusive, eventually disappearing into the wilderness to live a mystical existence that has also been described as derelict. He was long estranged from his family, including his son John Blyth Barrymore (who has repeated many of his father's career and personal patterns) and daughter, actress Drew Barrymore.Per Barrymore's request, Drew, John's daughter spread his ashes at the Joshua Tree in Twentynine Palms, CA, USA.- Music Department
- Writer
- Actor
The son of a Jewish Tailor in London's working class East End young Lionel had no formal musical education and never learned musical notation but his music teacher at school declared him to be a genius. He gained a scholarship to St Martin's School of Art at age 16 and started work as a set painter in the theatre. When he saw a notice asking for song writers it was to change his life. His new name was inspired on a bus journey past St. Bartholomew's Hospital (affectionately known as Barts). He wrote his first musical in 1958, Wally Pone of Soho. It was not a success. However, the songs he wrote for the early British rock'n'rollers Tommy Steele (Rock With the Caveman and Little White Bull) and Cliff Richard (Living Doll - at No. 1 for 6 weeks in 1959) brought Lionel his first taste of success. His first musical success was with "Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be". By the end of 1959 both "Fings" and "Lock Up Your Daughters" were running successfully in London's West End. In June 1960 he opened "Oliver!" which had been turned down by a dozen promoters and had to be financed by Bart himself. An immediate hit it received 16 curtain calls on the opening night and had advanced sales of 30,000 in the first week. Oliver! was followed by other fairly successful shows such as Blitz and Maggie May. Bart was just 30 and earning £16 a minute! To finance his next musical "Twang!!" (based on the Robin Hood story) he signed away all rights to Oliver! The new show flopped badly and Bart estimated he lost about one million pounds in that and in the lost rights to Oliver! He filed for bankruptcy in 1972 with debts of £73,000. By the late 1970s his heavy drinking had brought on diabetes. He stopped drinking but one third of his liver had been destroyed. Lionel Bart died aged 68 after suffering cancer for 6 months.Cremated by Golders Green Crematorium.- Music Department
- Actor
- Composer
The famed composer ("One O'Clock Jump", "Two O'Clock Jump", "Jumpin' at the Woodside"), pianist, songwriter and bandleader began as an accompanist to vaudeville acts. He joined the Bennie Moten orchestra in Kansas City, later organizing his own orchestra and performing on radio. In 1936 he came to New York, appearing in hotels, night clubs, theatres and jazz festivals. He toured the US, and also, in 1954, Europe. He was elected to the Down Beat Magazine's Hall of Fame in 1958, and has made many records. Joining ASCAP in 1943, his chief musical collaborators included Mack David, Jerry Livingston, James Rushing, Andy Gibson, Eddie Durham, and Lester Young. His songs and instrumentals also include "Good Morning Blues"; "Every Tub"; "John's Idea"; "Basie Boogie"; "Blue and Sentimental"; "Gone With the Wind"; "I Ain't Mad at You"; "Futile Frustration"; "Good Bait"; "Don't You Miss Your Baby?"; "Miss Thing" "Riff Interlude"; "Panassie Stomp: "Shorty George"; "Out the Window"; "Hollywood Jump: "Nobody Knows"; "Swinging at the Daisy Chain"; and "I Left My Baby".According to a "New York Times" Article by Samuel G. Freedman published on May 1, 1984, his Funeral was held at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, and was so packed it overflew into West 138th St. in New York, NY.
His body was cremated in a Private Ceremony after his funeral with the Ashes interred on May 1, 1984 at the Pine Lawn Cemetery in Farmingdale, L.I.- Actor
- Director
- Additional Crew
Despite many a powerful performance, this actor's actor never quite achieved the stardom he deserved. Ultimately, Richard Basehart became best-known to television audiences as Admiral Harriman Nelson, commander of the glass-nosed nuclear submarine 'S.S.R.N Seaview' in Irwin Allen's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964), shown on ABC from 1964 to 1968. Basehart's distinctively deep, resonant voice also provided narrations in feature films, TV mini-series and for documentaries.
Born in Zanesville, Ohio, on August 14 1914, Basehart was one of four siblings born to a struggling and soon-to-be widowed editor of a local newspaper. Upon leaving college, he worked briefly as a radio announcer and then attempted to follow in his father's journalistic footsteps as a reporter. Controversy over one of his stories led to his departure from the paper and cleared the path to pursue acting as a career. In 1932, Basehart made his theatrical bow with the Wright Players Stock Company in his home town and subsequently spent five years playing varied and interesting roles at the Hedgerow Theatre in Philadelphia. From 1938, he began to work in New York on and off-Broadway. Seven years later he received the New York Drama Critics Circle Best Newcomer Award for "The Hasty Heart", a drama by John Patrick, in which Basehart played a dying Scottish soldier. In 1945, he received his first film offers. When he heard director Bretaigne Windust was seeking an authentic Scot for the lead role in The Hasty Heart, Basehart not only effected an authentic enough burr to win the part, but won also the 1945 New York Critic's Award as the most promising actor of the year. His accent was so good that a visiting leader of a Scottish clan told the actor he knew his clan.
Basehart made his debut on the big screen with Repeat Performance (1947) at Eagle-Lion, a minor film noir with Joan Leslie, followed at Warner Brothers with the Gothic Barbara Stanwyck thriller Cry Wolf (1947). His third picture finally got him critical plaudits for playing a sociopathic killer, relentlessly hunted through drainage tunnels in He Walked by Night (1948), a procedural police drama shot in a semi-documentary style. Variety gave a positive review, commenting "With this role, Basehart establishes himself as one of Hollywood's most talented finds in recent years. He heavily overshadows the rest of the cast..."
It was the first of many charismatic performances in which Basehart would excel at tormented or introverted characters, portraying angst, foreboding or mental anguish. His gallery of characters came to include the notorious Robespierre, chief architect of the Reign of Terror (1949), set during the French Revolution. He was one of the feuding Hatfields in Roseanna McCoy (1949) and in Fourteen Hours (1951) (based on a real 1938 Manhattan suicide) had a tour de force turn as a man perched on the high ledge of an office building threatening to jump. For much of the film's duration, the camera was firmly focused on the actor's face. Basehart later recalled "It was an actor's dream, in which I hogged the camera lens, and the role called on me to act mostly with my eyes, lips and face muscles". The New York Times reviewer Bosley Crowther called his performance 'startling and poignant'.
Eschewing conventional movie stardom, Basehart meticulously selected and varied his roles, avoiding, as he put it, "stereotyping at the expense of not amassing an impressive bank account.'' In the wake of the sudden death of his first wife, Basehart left the U.S. for Italy. In March 1951, he got married a second time (to the actress Valentina Cortese) and appeared in a succession of European movies, playing the ill-fated clown Il Matto in Federico Fellini's classic The Road (1954); against type, essayed a swashbuckling nobleman reclaiming his titles and estate in Cartouche (1955), and (again for Fellini), played a member of a gang of grifters in The Swindle (1955). He was also ideally cast as the mild-mannered Ishmael in John Huston's excellent version of Moby Dick (1956) and as Ivan, one of The Brothers Karamazov (1958).
By 1960, Basehart's second marriage had ended in divorce and the actor returned to America where he found movie opportunities few and far between. The small screen to some extent reinvigorated his career with numerous series guest appearances and his lengthy stint in the popular Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. He also received critical praise for his role as Henry Wirtz, commandant of the Confederacy's most infamous prison camp, in the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning television drama The Andersonville Trial (1970).
Not only an active human rights campaigner, Basehart was also strongly opposed to the experimental use of animals. With his third wife Diana Lotery he set up the animal welfare charity, Actors and Others for Animals, in 1971. He died after suffering a series of strokes in Los Angeles on September 17 1984 at the age of 70.Basehart's ashes are interred in the smaller, central "Ash Garden", three plaques down on the right, located at Westwood Memorial Park, Los Angeles with the marker stating "Richard Basehart - His Like Shall Never Come Again".- Producer
- Actor
- Director
One of the most popular child actors in film history, Child superstar Freddie Bartholomew was born Frederick Cecil Bartholomew in Harlesden, London, the son of Lilian May (Clarke) and Cecil Llewellyn Bartholomew. From age three, he grew up in the town of Warminster under the care of his father's unmarried sister Millicent. A precocious lad, Freddie was reciting and performing on stage at three years of age, and was soon singing and dancing as well. By age six he had appeared in his first movie, a short called Toyland (1930). Three other British film appearances and the recommendation of his teacher Italia Conti led him to be cast in the MGM film David Copperfield (1935), as the title character, resulting in a seven-year MGM contract and a move to Hollywood with his aunt. The illustrious, star-studded and highly successful David Copperfield (1935) made Freddie an overnight sensation, and he went on to star in a succession of high-quality films through 1937, including Anna Karenina (1935); Professional Soldier (1935); the riveting Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936); Lloyd's of London (1936); The Devil Is a Sissy (1936); and Freddie's biggest success, Captains Courageous (1937), opposite Spencer Tracy.
Following the success of Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936), Freddie's birth parents, who were strangers to him, stepped in and attempted for seven years to gain custody of him and his fortune. His aunt Millicent attempted to offset these legal expenses and payouts by demanding a raise in Freddie's MGM salary in 1937. Another slew of court cases ensued, this time over the MGM contract, and Freddie missed a critical year's work and some golden film opportunities. By the time he resumed acting work in 1938, he was well into his teens, and audiences grew less interested in literary period pieces as World War II erupted in Europe. Following Kidnapped (1938), many of his ten remaining films through 1942 were knock-offs or juvenile military films, and only two were for MGM. The best of the films after Kidnapped (1938) were Swiss Family Robinson (1940), Lord Jeff (1938), Listen, Darling (1938), and Tom Brown's School Days (1940). His salary soared to $2,500 a week making him filmdom's highest paid child star after Shirley Temple.
In 1943, Freddie enlisted in the U.S. Air Force for a year to work in aircraft maintenance, exiting with both a back injury and American citizenship.
The additional time away from the screen had not done him any favors, though, and efforts to revive his career on film were unsuccessful. His efforts performing in regional theaters and vaudeville did not spark a comeback either. Aunt Millicent left for England when Freddie married publicist Maely Daniele in 1946 against her wishes. Freddie toured a few months in Australia doing nightclub singing and piano, but when he returned to the U.S. in 1949 he switched to television, making a gradual move from performer to host to director, at New York station WPIX. In 1954, re-married to TV cookbook author Aileen Paul, he moved to Benton & Bowles advertising agency, as a television director and producer. He remarked at the time that the millions he had earned as a child had been spent mostly on lawsuits, many of which involved headline court battles between his parents and his aunt for custody of young Freddie and his money. "I was drained dry," he said.
He became vice president of television programming in 1964, directing and producing several prominent long-running soap operas. Bartholomew retired due to emphysema by the late 1980s, and eventually moved with his third wife Elizabeth to Florida, where he died in 1992, but not before being filmed in several lovely interview segments for the lengthy 1992 documentary, MGM: When the Lion Roars (1992).- He first made a name for himself in the late 1970s and early 1980s, performing several shows of raunchy comedy a day at outdoor parks in New York City, most notably in Washington Square Park, where he competed for crowds with musicians, Frisbees players, jugglers and other entertainers. Charlie was one of the only street performers able to 'fill the fountain' (an amphitheater in a large circular fountain) in Washington Square Park. In September 1980, Barnett auditioned for Saturday Night Live and producer Jean Doumanian was ready to hire him, but after a last-minute audition, Barnett's spot in the cast was given to Eddie Murphy.
Barnett's last film role was in 1996 in the film 'They Bite'. He died that year of AIDS. He contracted HIV through heroin abuse.
Comedian Dave Chappelle has acknowledged Barnett as an influence.Cremains were given to Barnett's Mother. - Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Eric Morecambe was born on 14 May 1926 in Buxton Street, Morecambe, Lancashire, England, UK. He was an actor and writer, known for The Morecambe & Wise Show (1968), Night Train to Murder (1984) and The Intelligence Men (1965). He was married to Joan Morecambe. He died on 28 May 1984 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England, UK.Morecambe's Funeral was held on June 4, 1984 at St. Nicholas Church, Harpenden, St. Albans District, Hertfordshire, England with the Principal Address delivered by Dickie Henderson with a private cremation service at Garston where the Cremains were later scattered in the Churchyard's "Garden of Remembrance".- Actor
- Soundtrack
Harry Bartell was born on 28 November 1913 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. He was an actor, known for Dragnet (1951), The Adventures of Jim Bowie (1956) and Bonanza (1959). He died on 26 February 2004 in Ashland, Oregon, USA.Cremains were given to Bartell's family or (a) friend[s].- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Amiable and handsome James Garner had obtained success in both films and television, often playing variations of the charming anti-hero/con-man persona he first developed in Maverick, the offbeat western TV series that shot him to stardom in the late 1950s.
James Garner was born James Scott Bumgarner in Norman, Oklahoma, to Mildred Scott (Meek) and Weldon Warren Bumgarner, a carpet layer. He dropped out of high school at 16 to join the Merchant Marines. He worked in a variety of jobs and received 2 Purple Hearts when he was wounded twice during the Korean War. He had his first chance to act when a friend got him a non-speaking role in the Broadway stage play "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (1954)". Part of his work was to read lines to the lead actors and he began to learn the craft of acting. This play led to small television roles, television commercials and eventually a contract with Warner Brothers. Director David Butler saw something in Garner and gave him all the attention he needed when he appeared in The Girl He Left Behind (1956). After co-starring in a handful of films during 1956-57, Warner Brothers gave Garner a co-starring role in the the western series Maverick (1957). Originally planned to alternate between Bart Maverick (Jack Kelly) and Bret Maverick (Garner), the show quickly turned into the Bret Maverick Show. As Maverick, Garner was cool, good-natured, likable and always ready to use his wits to get him in or out of trouble. The series was highly successful, and Garner continued in it into 1960 when he left the series in a dispute over money.
In the early 1960s Garner returned to films, often playing the same type of character he had played on "Maverick". His successful films included The Thrill of It All (1963), Move Over, Darling (1963), The Great Escape (1963) and The Americanization of Emily (1964). After that, his career wandered and when he appeared in the automobile racing movie Grand Prix (1966), he got the bug to race professionally. Soon, this ambition turned to supporting a racing team, not unlike what Paul Newman would do in later years.
Garner found great success in the western comedy Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969). He tried to repeat his success with a sequel, Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971), but it wasn't up to the standards of the first one. After 11 years off the small screen, Garner returned to television in a role not unlike that in Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969). The show was Nichols (1971) and he played the sheriff who would try to solve all problems with his wits and without gun play. When the show was canceled, Garner took the news by having Nichols shot dead, never to return in a sequel. In 1974 he got the role for which he will probably be best remembered, as wry private eye Jim Rockford in the classic The Rockford Files (1974). This became his second major television hit, with Noah Beery Jr. and Stuart Margolin, and in 1977 he won an Emmy for his portrayal. However, a combination of injuries and the discovery that Universal Pictures' "creative bookkeeping" would not give him any of the huge profits the show generated soon soured him and the show ended in 1980. In the 1980s Garner appeared in few movies, but the ones he did make were darker than the likable Garner of old. These included Tank (1984) and Murphy's Romance (1985). For the latter, he was nominated for both the Academy Award and a Golden Globe. Returning to the western mode, he co-starred with the young Bruce Willis in Sunset (1988), a mythical story of Wyatt Earp, Tom Mix and 1920s Hollywood.
In the 1990s Garner received rave reviews for his role in the acclaimed television movie about corporate greed, Barbarians at the Gate (1993). After that he appeared in the theatrical remake of his old television series, Maverick (1994), opposite Mel Gibson. Most of his appearances after that were in numerous TV movies based upon The Rockford Files (1974). His most recent films were My Fellow Americans (1996) and Space Cowboys (2000) .According to his Death Certificate, obtained by TMZ, for their report on Garner's passing, his body was cremated at Forest Lawn in Los Angeles most likely on July 23, 2014, License No. FD904.- Peter Bayliss was born on 27 June 1922 in Kingston upon Thames, England, UK. He was an actor, known for From Russia with Love (1963), Please Sir! (1971) and Merlin (1998). He died on 29 July 2002 in London, England, UK.According to his Obituary that was used in the Report of his passing, he left instructions that his body be cremated and wished for his ashes to be placed in a shoebox.
- Additional Crew
- Art Department
- Animation Department
Saul Bass was born in New York City in 1920 and is a widely acclaimed graphic designer with a career spanning over 40 years. Among his most famous works are the title sequences for such classic films as The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), North by Northwest (1959), and Psycho (1960). Bass used his innovative ideas and unique perspective of the world to influence his art, engaging his audiences and developing the graphic design industry in the process. Hitchcock's famous shower-murder scene in Psycho owes its success to the design work of Bass' storyboards. Bass' short documentary Why Man Creates (1968) was spotlighted on the premiere episode of 60 Minutes (1968) in 1968. He is also responsible for the logos of many prominent corporations like AT&T, United Airlines, and Dixie. Bass died in Los Angeles in 1996.Cremation arranged by the Burbank Neptune Society and his Ashes were given to his wife, Elaine, in Los Angeles on May 6, 1996 to be scattered at sea.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Henry Gibson was born on 21 September 1935 in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Before appearing in films and television series, he was a child star on the stage during the 1940s and during the late 1950s he was an intelligence officer in the U.S. Air Force. His screen debut came in 1963 when he was cast in the Jerry Lewis film The Nutty Professor (1963). He made two other small film appearances in the early 1960s in Kiss Me, Stupid (1964) and The Outlaws Is Coming (1964), in which he played a rather hip Indian named Charlie Horse. His breakthrough came in 1968 when he was cast as a member of the regular cast of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (1967). He stayed with the show until 1971, when he left and continued his career as a character actor. His best known film role was probably his performance in Nashville (1975). He played Haven Hamilton, a smarmy Country and Western singer. For this role he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and was awarded the National Film Critics Award for best supporting actor. Gibson's career carried on through the 1980s and 1990s when he appeared in many films, such as The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981) and The 'Burbs (1989). He also provided voice-overs for many children's animated series like The Smurfs (1981), The Wuzzles (1985) and Galaxy High School (1986). His most recent appearance have been in the Paul Thomas Anderson drama Magnolia (1999) and the independent film The Year That Trembled (2002).Cremated through Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery with Gibson's ashes given to family or (a) friend[s].- Music Artist
- Composer
- Writer
Franco Battiato was born on 23 March 1945 in Jonia, Sicily, Italy. He was a music artist and composer, known for Lost Love (2003), Children of Men (2006) and Musikanten (2005). He died on 18 May 2021 in Milo, Sicily, Italy.According to his Will, he was cremated and his ashes will be kept in the family chapel, allegedly to be scattered at his residence in Villa Grazia, where his funeral was also held in a Chapel located there.- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Orson Bean, the American actor, television personality and author, was born Dallas Frederick Burrows on July 22, 1928 in Burlington, Vermont to George Frederick Burrows, a policeman who later went on to become the chief of campus police at Harvard University, and the former Marion Ainsworth Pollard. He was of Irish, Scottish, and English descent. Through the latter, the newborn Dallas Burrows was a first cousin, twice removed, to Calvin Coolidge, who was President of the United States at the time of his birth. The young Dallas, an amateur magician with a taste for the limelight, graduated from Boston's prestigious Latin School in 1946. Too young to see military service during World War II, the future Orson Bean did a hitch in the U.S. Army (1946-47) in occupied Japan.
After the war, he launched himself onto the nightclub circuit with his new moniker, the "Orson" borrowed from reigning enfant terrible Orson Welles. His comedy act premiered at New York City's Blue Angel nightclub, and the momentum from his act launched him into the orbit of the legitimate theater. He made his Broadway debut on April 30, 1954 in Stalag 17 (1953) producer Richard Condon's only Broadway production as a playwright, "Men of Distinction", along with Robert Preston and Martin Ritt. The play flopped and ran only four appearances.
The following year was to prove kinder: he hosted a summer-replacement television series produced at the Blue Angel, and won a Theatre World Award for his work in the 1954 music revue "John Murray Anderson's Almanac", which co-starred Harry Belafonte, Polly Bergen, Hermione Gingold and Carleton Carpenter. It was a hit that ran for 229 performances. He followed this up with an even bigger hit, the leading role in "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter". Next up was a succès d'estime as the leading man in Herman Wouk's comic play "Nature's Way", which co-starred Bea Arthur, Sorrell Booke and Godfrey Cambridge. Though the play lasted but 67 performances, Orson Bean had established himself on the Broadway stage.
He enjoyed his greatest personal success on Broadway in the 1961-62 season, in the Betty Comden and Adolph Green musical "Subways are for Sleeping", which was directed and choreographed by Michael Kidd and featured music by Jule Styne. Bean received a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Musical (his co-star Phyllis Newman won a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Musical). The following season, he was in a bigger hit, the comedy "Never Too Late", which would go on to play for 1,007 performances. After appearing in the flop comedy "I Was Dancing" in November 1964, Bean made his last Broadway appearance in the musical "Illya Darling" in 1967 with Melina Mercouri, directed by fellow blacklister Jules Dassin; it played 320 performances. He also toured in the Neil Simon-Burt Bacharach musical "Promises, Promises".
Bean made an impression as the Army psychiatrist in Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder (1959). But it was as a television personality that he made his biggest inroads into the popular consciousness, as well as the popular culture. He appeared in numerous quiz and talk shows, becoming a familiar face in homes as a regular panelist on To Tell the Truth (1956). He also appeared on Norman Lear's cult favorite Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976) and its sequel, Forever Fernwood (1977), as "Reverend Brim", and as store owner "Loren Bray" on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993). Much of his role as 105-year-old "Dr. Lester" in the cult film Being John Malkovich (1999) wound up the cutting room floor, but audiences and critics welcomed back his familiar presence.Allegedly stated with regards to what should be done with the late Actor's body, "I'm torn between (sic) two things when I die. I've always felt I'd like to be cremated.. -put in a Mason jar and let the city get rid of me, with the garbage. I could leave all the good parts - eyes, kidney, etc. - to -'medical research and the rest of it to some needy necrophiliac (sic)"
What is known according to Bean's IMDB Page Trivia is that his body was cremated through Hollywood Forever Cemetery with his Cremains spread into the Pacific Ocean.- Actor
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Stocky, genial-looking supporting actor Ned Beatty was once hailed by Daily Variety as the "busiest actor in Hollywood."
Ned Thomas Beatty was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Margaret (Fortney) and Charles William Beatty. He grew up fishing and working on farms. His hometown of St. Matthews, Kentucky, is hardly the environment to encourage a career in the entertainment industry, though, so when asked, "How did you get into show business?" Beatty responded, "By hanging out with the wrong crowd." That "crowd" includes some of the industry's most prominent names, such as John Huston, Steven Spielberg, Robert Altman, Paul Newman, Richard Burton, Charlton Heston, Marlon Brando and Robert Redford.
Beatty garnered praise from both critics and peers as a dedicated actor's actor. He started as a professional performer at age ten, when he earned pocket money singing in gospel quartets and a barber shop. The big city and bright lights did not come easy, though. The first ten years of Beatty's career were spent at the Barter Theater in Abingdon, Virginia. He then moved on to the Erie Playhouse in Pennsylvania, the Playhouse Theater in Houston, Texas, and the prestigious Arena Stage Company in Washington, D.C. He was also a member of Shakespeare in Central Park, Louisville, Kentucky. Later, he appeared in the Broadway production of "The Great White Hope". At the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, he won rave reviews when he starred in "The Accidental Death of an Anarchist."
In 1971, Beatty was chosen by director John Boorman for the role of Bobby Trippe in the hit film/backwoods nightmare Deliverance (1972). Co-star Burt Reynolds and Beatty struck up a friendship, and Ned was then cast by Burt in several other films together, including White Lightning (1973), W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings (1975), and the abysmal Stroker Ace (1983). Ned's talents were also noticed by others in Hollywood and he was cast in many key productions of the 1970s turning in stellar performance, including an Academy Award nomination of Best Supporting Actor for his role in Network (1976). Beatty was also marvelous in Nashville (1975), under fire from a crazed sniper in The Deadly Tower (1975), an undercover FBI man in the action comedy Silver Streak (1976), as Lex Luthor's bumbling assistant, Otis, in the blockbuster Superman (1978) ... and he returned again with Gene Hackman to play Otis and Lex Luthor again in Superman II (1980).
Beatty continued to remain busy throughout the 1980s with appearances in several big budget television productions including The Last Days of Pompeii (1984). However, the overall caliber of the productions in general did not match up to those he had appeared in during the 1970s. Nonetheless, Beatty still shone in films including The Big Easy (1986) and The Fourth Protocol (1987). Into the 1990s, Beatty's work output swung between a mixture of roles in family orientated productions (Gulliver's Travels (1996), Back to Hannibal: The Return of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn (1990), etc.) taking advantage of his "fatherly" type looks, but he could still accentuate a hard edge, and additionally was cast in Radioland Murders (1994) and Just Cause (1995). His many other films include The Toy (1982), All the President's Men (1976), Wise Blood (1979), Rudy (1993), Spring Forward (1999), Hear My Song (1991) -- for which he earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor -- Prelude to a Kiss (1992), He Got Game (1998) and Cookie's Fortune (1999). Beatty's numerous television credits include three years on the NBC series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993), Streets of Laredo (1995) and The Boys (1993).
Beatty received an Emmy Award nomination for Best Actor for his performance in Friendly Fire (1979) opposite Carol Burnett, and a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Family Channel's Magic Hour: Tom Alone (1989). Other notable credits include The Wool Cap (2004), The Execution of Private Slovik (1974), A Woman Called Golda (1982), Pray TV (1982), the miniseries Robert Kennedy and His Times (1985), Lockerbie: A Night Remembered (1998) and T Bone N Weasel (1992). He also had a recurring role on Roseanne (1988) and performed musically on television specials for Dolly Parton and The Smothers Brothers.
In 2001, Beatty returned to his theatrical roots starring in London's West End revival production of Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" with Brendan Fraser. He also appeared in the production on Broadway in 2003/2004 with Jason Patric and Ashley Judd. In 2006, Beatty completed three features to be released next year: The Walker (2007); Paul Schrader's film also starring Woody Harrelson, Kristin Scott Thomas and Lily Tomlin; Paramount Pictures' Shooter (2007) starring Mark Wahlberg; and Charlie Wilson's War (2007), Mike Nichols's film with Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Julia Roberts. Also in the 21st century, Beatty turned out a terrific performance in the popular Where the Red Fern Grows (2003). Blessed with eight children, Ned Beatty enjoyed golf and playing the bass guitar. He gave himself until the age of 70 to become proficient at both. He died at age 83 of natural causes on June 13, 2021 in Los Angeles, California.Confirmed by his surviving family, Beatty's cremains were given to the late actor's widow, Sandra Johnson.- Actor
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Beaumont began his career in show business by perfoming in theatres, nightclubs, and on the radio in 1931. He attended the University of Chattanooga, but left when his position on the football team was changed. He later attended the University of Southern California, and graduated with a Master of Theology degree in 1946. He was visiting his son Hunter, a Psychology Professor in Munich, at the time of his sudden death.Cremains scattered on the once family-owned Balgillo Island, a Summer Retreat of Beaumont's, Lake Wabana, Minnesota.- Actor
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American actor-director-writer-producer of silent pictures, formerly a singer and vaudevillian. A native of San Francisco's Telegraph Hill, he was one of four sons born to Rocco Beban, a Dalmatian immigrant, and Johanna Dugan, from County Cork, Ireland.
He exhibited singing talent at an early age and was known in San Francisco theater circles as "The Boy Baritone." By age 8, according to a 1920 newspaper interview, "[his] first professional job was singing at $8 a week at the Vienna Garden on Stockton Street. Then came boy parts with the McGuire, Rial and Osborne stock company at the Grand Opera house and the McKee Rankin stock company at the old California, where I used the name of George Dinks."
After his father continued to block his career choice, getting him fired from every one of those jobs, he ran away from home at the age of 14. He appeared in light opera and on stage with vaudevillians Weber & Fields. He recalled in the same 1920 interview that, "Marie Cahill offered me my first chance on Broadway, when I was about 22, in her first starring vehicle, the musical comedy 'Nancy Brown,' at the Bijou."
He played in vaudeville and legit theater for a number of years, primarily doing caricatured Frenchmen, before making his film debut in 1915. In his play (later film) "Sign of the Rose," (A.K.A. "The Alien") and in Thomas Ince's "The Italian," he sought to change the stereotype of Italian immigrants as all being members of The Black Hand (mafioso).
He told the San Francisco Examiner in 1910 that he "learned how to imitate Italian speech and talk Italian dialect with a proper accent," from his childhood days spent teasing and stealing fruit from local Italian gardeners and grape growers. "Also that was where I first learned to appreciate Italian character, to recognize that honesty and industry and gentleness of spirit are its attributes."
He wrote and/or directed many of his later films, few of which survive.
He retired in late 1926 following the death of his wife, the stage actress Edith Ethel MacBride, and by midsummer, 1928, completed work on his dream home on a bluff overlooking the Pacific in Playa del Rey, California. His August 19 housewarming became international news when two guests, the Western star Tom Mix and the vaudevillian William Morrissey, duked it out over Morrissey's comment that Mix's horse, Tony, would have a career in the talkies, because at least he could snort, but what could Mix do?
Five weeks later, while vacationing at June Lodge Dude Ranch at Big Pine, California, Beban was thrown from a horse and seriously injured on September 29, 1928. He died in Los Angeles several days later, from the effects of the fall and from uremic poisoning. His remains were cremated.
He was survived by his 14-year-old son, George Beban Jr., who had appeared with his father (using the stage name Bob White) in a few films, and who would have a short career in the 1940's playing supporting roles.
George Beban, Sr. was the grandfather of the cinematographer Richard Beban, and great-granduncle of the screen and TV writer Richard W. Beban.