Deaths: December 9
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Marie Fredriksson was born on 30 May 1958 in Östra Ljungby, Skåne län, Sweden. She was an actress and composer, known for Arn: The Knight Templar (2007), Marie Fredriksson: Sista sommarens vals (2013) and The Master Plan (2015). She was married to Mikael Bolyos. She died on 9 December 2019 in Djursholm, Sweden.- Alberto Podestá was born on 22 September 1924 in San Juan, Argentina. He died on 9 December 2015 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- Alicia Aller was born on 11 November 1940 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She was an actress, known for Profesión, ama de casa (1979), El amor tiene cara de mujer (1994) and La banda del Golden Rocket (1991). She died on 9 December 2008 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- Alma Bressan was born on 7 April 1928 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She was a writer, known for Llévame contigo (1982), Una Vida Para Amarte (1971) and Un elefante color ilusión (1970). She died on 9 December 1999 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- Alvaro Tarcisio was born on 2 December 1934 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. He was an actor, known for El trailer asesino (1986), La dinastía de Dracula (1980) and Papá soltero (1987). He died on 9 December 1999.Alvaro Tarcicio
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Archie Moore (born Archibald Lee Wright; December 13, 1913 or 1916- December 9, 1998) was an American professional boxer and the longest reigning World Light Heavyweight Champion of all time (December 1952 - May 1962). He had one of the longest professional careers in the history of the sport, competing from 1935 to 1963. Nicknamed "The Mongoose", and then "The Old Mongoose" in the latter half of his career, Moore was a highly strategic and defensive boxer, with a strong chin and unusual resilience. As of December 2020, BoxRec ranks Moore as the third greatest pound-for-pound boxer of all time. He also ranks fourth on The Ring's list of "100 greatest punchers of all time". Moore was also a trainer for a short time after retirement, training Muhammad Ali, George Foreman and James Tillis.- A native of Westlake Village, Los Angeles, he was a popular child actor in the '80s, although he only had very small roles in nearly all but two of the movies he appeared in. He can be seen playing the (almost) central character "Horace" or "Fat Kid" in The Monster Squad (1987). He appeared in TV roles such as Quantum Leap and Dance Til Dawn in 1988 and 1989. His career as an adult never took off after the '80s, and he began to study law whilst working for a legal firm in the United States. On the 9th December 1997, he died of pneumonia in Las Vegas, Nevada at the age of just 22.
- Damian Le Bas was an actor, known for Sleeping Dogs (2013). He was married to Delaine Le Bas. He died on 9 December 2017 in Worthing, West Sussex, England, UK.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Eleanor Jean Parker was born on June 26, 1922, in Cedarville, Ohio, the last of three children born to a mathematics teacher and his wife. Eleanor caught the acting bug early and began performing in school plays. She was was so serious about becoming an actor, that she attended the Rice Summer Theatre on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, beginning when she was 15 years old. She was offered her first screen test by a 20th Century-Fox talent scout while attending Rice, but turned the opportunity down to gain professional stage experience in Cleveland after graduating from high school.
She moved on to California to continue her acting studies at the Pasadena Playhouse. It was there, while sitting in the audience of a play being put on at the Playhouse, that she was again offered a screen test - this time from a Warner Brothers' scout - and again declined, wanting to finish her first year at the Playhouse. When the year was up, Eleanor contacted Warner Brothers to take them up on their offer of a screen test and was signed as a contract player two days after it was shot.
She was cast in Raoul Walsh's They Died with Their Boots On (1941), but her performance was left on the cutting room floor.
She was then cast in short subjects and given other assignments typical of novice film actors, to enable them to learn their craft, such as voice-acting and appearances in other actors' screen tests. Finally, she was promoted to the B-picture unit, making her feature debut in Busses Roar (1942).
Her beauty meant she was not forgotten, and she was cast in one of Warner Brothers' biggest productions for the 1943 season, the pro-Soviet Mission to Moscow (1943), directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Walter Huston as the U.S. ambassador to the USSR. Eleanor played his daughter in the film, which became notorious in the McCarthy era for its glorification of "Uncle Joe" Stalin. The film proved significant to Eleanor, as she met a future husband on the set, Navy Lieutenant. Fred L. Losse, Navy dentist. The marriage was a brief wartime affair, lasting from March 21, 1943, to December 5, 1944.
She went back to the B's with The Mysterious Doctor (1943), then bounced back to the A-list for Between Two Worlds (1944), a remake of the Leslie Howard vehicle Outward Bound (1930) in which she played Paul Henreid's fiancee (both die from suicide, but in Hollywood logic that didn't mean they couldn't frolic together on the silver screen). Eleanor then made two more B-quickies in 1944, Crime by Night (1944) and The Last Ride (1944), before graduating to the A-list for good with Pride of the Marines (1945) with John Garfield.
In the 1946 Warner Bros. remake of Of Human Bondage (1946), she took the role that Bette Davis had made good in 1934 (ironically, at rival RKO). Though Parker would be gaining kudos and Oscar nominations by the beginning of the next decade, her portrait of Mildred was weak in comparison with Davis's dynamic performance.
Parker received the first of her three Best Actress Oscar nominations for playing a prisoner in Caged (1950), and won the best actress award at the Venice Film Festival. She was also nominated the next year for playing the cop's wife who shared a secret with the neighborhood abortionist in William Wyler's Detective Story (1951). Her third and last Oscar nod came for Interrupted Melody (1955), wherein she played an opera singer struck down by polio. She could easily have been nominated that same year for her portrayal of Frank Sinatra's faux crippled wife in Otto Preminger's brooding masterpiece The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), adapted from the novel by Nelson Algren.
Parker proved herself to be a supremely talented and very versatile lead actress. The versatility was likely one of the reasons she never quite became a major star. Audiences attending a movie starring Parker never knew quite what to expect of her; if they even remembered she was the same actress they had seen before in a different type of role in another picture. Her turns in Detective Story (1951) and The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) could not have been more different. Parker's stardom and subsequent fame (and remembrance) suffered from her focusing on being a serious actress and creating a character who fit the motion picture she was in, rather than playing a character over and over, as most actors do. She probably best remembered for the relatively tame part as the Baroness in The Sound of Music (1965).
She received an Outstanding Lead Actress Emmy nomination in 1963 for her appearance in The Eleventh Hour (1962) episode Why Am I Grown So Cold? Despite the success of The Sound of Music (1965) being completely attributed to #1 box office sensation Julie Andrews, it's probably Parker's best-remembered role.
Her appearances in such fare as The Oscar (1966) (the cast of which the Playboy Magazine reviewer derided as "has-beens and never-will-bes") and the movie adaptation of Norman Mailer's indescribable existential potboiler An American Dream (1966) with fellow Oscar-nominee Stuart Whitman signaled that Miss Parker was now inscribed on the list of the has-beens.
She had one last hurrah, winning a Golden Globe nomination in 1970 as best lead actress for her role in the TV series Bracken's World (1969), but unfortunately times had changed during the tumultuous 1960s. Her last film role was in a Farrah Fawcett bomb, Sunburn (1979). Subsequently, she appeared very infrequently on TV, most recently in Dead on the Money (1991).
Eleanor Parker retired far too soon for those who were her fans, and those who appreciated a superb actress.- Frances Ensemplare was born on 3 September 1934 in New York, USA. She was an actress, known for The Sopranos (1999), Sue (1997) and The Immaculate Misconception (2006). She was married to Gaetano Ensemplare. She died on 9 December 2017 in Staten Island, New York City, New York, USA.
- Actor
- Writer
- Music Department
With to Totò and Peppino De Filippo, Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia has been the best couple of the Italian comic cinema. Both sicilian, of Palermo, began on the roads of sicilian city, in the tradition of the ballad singer and the actors of the Comedy of the Art. Scenes, imitations, witticism, movements of puppet that entertained the public gather around they. One of the interpretations more celebrates of Franco Franchi was the parody of Hitler: years after, in 1967, will re-propose it in the movie "Due marines e un generale", with Buster Keaton to his last film. The debut of the couple happens in 1954, to the theatre "Costa" of Castelvetrano (Trapani, Sicily). The execute a parody centralized on the song "Core 'ngrato". Ciccio tries to sing the song but he's often interrupted by Franco. The sketch collects much success because has got all the necessary one to true comic actor - the mimic art, the ability to invent witticismes, the comic times - and also for the scene in which Franco transformed him in the precisest balance.
To the definition of the two personages has contributed Lucio Fulci, that directed them for the first time in 1962, in "I due della legione straniera". Was their first movie as protagonists, but - like the director in an interview has remembered - the film-producer, the Titanus, in that moment in phase of relaunching, did not think that it could to meet with success; for this reason don't appear like film-producer. The film instead obtained very success and so the producer decide to appear in the new edition of the movie. Franco and Ciccio are launched in a series of movies and many parodies of every kind: from the Western to the Action, the Thriller to the Comedy. When Sergio Leone direct "Per un pugno di dollari" and "Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo", Franco and Ciccio are the protagonists of "Per un pugno nell'occhio" and "Il bello, il brutto, il cretino". To the movie "Indovina chi viene a cena", a manifesto of the antiracism in the American society, of the end of the Sixty, Franco and Cicco answer with "Indovina chi viene a merenda". In 1972, they play the parody the Thriller; that one of the DarioArgento of "Il gatto a nove code" (more "the American" of "the animal" trilogy). Directed by Richard Kean (Osvaldo Civirani), is "Due gattoni a nove code... e mezzo ad Amsterdam", in the part of two photographers to the center of an intrigue, after to have photographed a man. In 1973, Franco, directed by Nando Cicero, is the protagonist of "Ku fu? Dalla Sicilia con furore", parody of "Dalla Cina con furore", the movie with Bruce Lee.
In 1975, Ciccio directs and interprets "L'Esorciccio", parody of "L'Esorcista", whose popularity and consideration from part of the critic increase proportionally with pass of the years. Beside he there is not Franco; to his place Lino Banfi, that began to define the personage with which has become famous. To part the surrealistic scene of beginning, with Ciccio, archaeologist, that discovers the famous medallion, from which part all the vicissitude, the movie is characterized from a series of original ideas - the location in the Latium province, the passage of the object, the final scene - than renders one of the more amazing parodies in the italian cinematography, and initiator of a kind ("Frankenstein Junior", by Mel Brooks, is of some year after). Their cinematographic activity has been frantic, above all from the half to the end of Sixties. Between 1964 and the 1966 interpreted approximately forty films. To this purpose, they did not lack to remember the frenzy during this period, when they were found again to work also in three movies in the same day and to change the dresses of scene in car, during the movement from a set to the other. In kind it was be a matter of movie in which the script was reduced to the minimum and the film-producer counted on their ability to make all the movie, in order to reduce the costs and therefore the financings, knowing that then however at least it would have tripled to box-office the investment. Franco and Ciccio worked very much, accepting all the script proposed. Because - they remembered with pride and bitterness - feared to remain without job. They knew the value of the job, because had known the poverty.
Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia, have the first role to outside of the sort until then followed. With to Totò, they recite in "Che cosa sono le nuvole?", third episode of the movie "Capriccio all'italiana" (1967). Ciccio had all the characteristics for being also interpreter of personages different from those of Italian comedy. In "Amarcord", Federico Fellini entrust to him the part of a man with a from the troubled destiny, perhaps the personage more famous of this movie. The face of Ciccio Ingrassia was a commutabile mask from the comicality to the drama, natural, whose distinguishing features seemed remodeled with the life, from first part of the his existence, that one of the poverty of never "calm" people, never "normal" ("La violenza: Quinto potere", direct by Florestano Vancini, 1972). A awfully sicilian face, popular and aristocratic. To half of Seventies, Franco and Ciccio had a period in which the their careers will proceed in separate way. But soon they resumed the way in common, landing in television, where they were protagonists of many varieties of success to the beginning of Eighties.
In 1985, the director Jean Jacques Annaud, for the selection of the actors for "Il nome della rosa", had chosen FrancoFranchi in order to interpret the part of "Salvatore", deformed monk, former follower of a heretic, then ends again in the presence of Inquisition. Franco refused the part - great opportunity of international renown - because did not want the public, accustomed to his traditional image, saw he in the cloth of a personage that must to be repulsive to the limits of the horror. Like for every other naturally comic actor, the art by Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia was founded on a complex articulation, derived from their history and from their experiences, which, also develop on the side of the irony, were also the premise for the ability to recite in dramatic or surrealist contexts. Franco died on the 9 December 1992, and his funeral happened in the historical center of Palermo, and was attended by many citizens. Ciccio died on the 28 April 2003.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
With effortless class and elegant charm Gene Barry took '50s and '60s TV by storm, after a rather lackluster start on the musical stage and in films. Born Eugene Klass in New York City on June 14, 1919, to Martin (an amateur violinist), and Eva (an amateur singer), he showed a gift at an early age as a violin virtuoso, obviously inherited from his father. After attending various public schools, he graduated Valedictorian from New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn, New York.
Possessing an impressive baritone voice, he concentrated on singing after breaking his arm playing football in school ended any thoughts of a symphonic career. At age 17 he earned a singing scholarship awarded by David Sarnoff (the head of RCA at the time), to the Chatham Square School of Music, and studied there for two years. In the meantime Gene found work in nightclubs, choirs, fairs and emceeing variety shows, and briefly appeared on the vaudeville stage and on radio, winning a prize on Arthur Godfrey's "Talent Scouts" program.
The young actor made it to Broadway in 1942 with the musical "New Moon", and went on to appear in the 1944 Mae West vehicle "Catherine Was Great", where he met and subsequently married chorus girl Betty Barry, whose stage name was Julie Carson at the time. For the rest of the decade, Gene appeared in a random selection of plays and musicals, which did little to elevate his Broadway standing. Hollywood finally beckoned in the 1950's, after gaining some notice on the program "Hollywood Screen Test", and Paramount signed him to a contract.
Gene had stoic co-starring roles in such dramatic "B" films as The Atomic City (1952) (his debut movie), Those Redheads from Seattle (1953), and Alaska Seas (1954), none of which capitalized on his singing ability. The one movie in which he did sing, Red Garters (1954), did not fare well with the public. His most recognizable role during this period was as Dr. Clayton Forrester, a scientist who finds himself in the midst of a Martian invasion in the cult science-fiction classic The War of the Worlds (1953).
Television became his preferred medium after being offered the title role in Bat Masterson (1958), and he quickly established a very successful niche as a suave, dapper gentleman in this and other TV productions. Despite the elegant, globe-trotting typecast that befell him, his other TV characters proved just as well-received: jet-setting detective Amos Burke in Burke's Law (1963), for which he won a Golden Globe, and the impeccably dressed publishing tycoon Glenn Howard in The Name of the Game (1968). Gene revisited the stage and cabaret venues in the 1970's when his on-camera career hit a lull, appearing frequently with his wife as his leading lady.
The singer/actor made a triumphant return to Broadway in 1983, starring as a wealthy gay socialite in the musical version of the popular French film La Cage aux Folles (1978), earning him a Tony nomination - but he lost the award to his more flamboyant co-star George Hearn. After a year on Broadway, he joined the road company in San Francisco, and played Los Angeles for a lengthy run. Other musicals included "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever", "Watergate: The Musical" (as Nixon), "Fiddler on the Roof" (with his wife) and "No, No, Nanette". Gene also appeared in his one-man cabaret show entitled "Gene Barry in One" from time to time.
In later years he made only occasional TV and stage appearances (bringing back his famous characters Bat Masterson and Amos Burke, much to the enjoyment of his fans), preferring to indulge in his favorite hobby - painting. He made a very brief return to feature films, sharing a cameo scene with one-time co-star Ann Robinson in Steven Spielberg's epic remake of The War of the Worlds (2005), with both of them playing the Tom Cruise character's mother and father in-law.
Gene was a political activist, a passion he shared with his wife Betty, who died in 2003 after an almost 60 year marriage. The couple had two sons of their own, and later in life they adopted a daughter. Gene passed away on December 9, 2009 at the age of 90.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Georgia Gibbs was born on 17 August 1919 in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. She was an actress, known for Carol (2015), Cruella (2021) and Wonder Wheel (2017). She was married to Frank Henry Gervasi. She died on 9 December 2006 in New York City, New York, USA.- Director
- Animation Department
- Producer
Grant Munro was born on 25 April 1923 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He was a director and producer, known for Canon (1964), The Animal Movie (1966) and Toys (1967). He died on 9 December 2017 in Montréal, Québec, Canada.- Music Department
- Actor
- Soundtrack
A graduate of East Side High School in Newark, New Jersey, James Moody took up the alto saxophone at the age of sixteen, and after serving in the U.S. Air Force Band, he joined Dizzy Gillespie and was associated with him and with Milt Jackson throughout the '40's; at the end of the decade he moved to Sweden where he became known for his "Moody's Mood for Love", his take on the standard "I'm In The Mood For Love". He continued his association with Gillespie, and also headlined his own band. In 1985, he received a Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance on Manhattan Transfer's "Vocalese" album. A jazz stalwart for several decades, Moody is still active in the field, and is proficient on tenor, alto and soprano sax as well as the flute.- Music Artist
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- Actress
Dolores Janney "Jenni" Rivera was a Mexican-American actress, singer-songwriter, T.V. producer, spokesperson, philanthropist & entrepreneur known for her work within the banda and norteña music genres. She began recording in 1992, and her recordings often have themes of social issues, infidelity & relationships. Her tenth studio album, Jenni (2008), became her first number-one album in the Billboard Top Latin Albums chart in the United States. In 2010, she appeared in and produced the reality TV show Jenni Rivera Presents: Chiquis & Raq-C. She also appeared in and produced I Love Jenni starting in 2011 and Chiquis 'n Control in 2012. Rivera, along with six others, died in a plane crash at Iturbide, Nuevo León, Mexico on December 9, 2012.- Joey Forman was an American actor and comedian. Early in his career, he worked as a performer in local radio shows.
Forman was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the largest and most populous city in Pennsylvania. During his school years, Forman befriended his schoolmate Eddie Fisher (1928-2010), the future singer.
In the late 1940s, Forman and Singer performed together in the local radio show "Magic Lady Supper Club". Later, Forman was hired as an athletic director for Grossinger's Catskill Resort Hotel, located in the Catskill Mountains of New York. However, Forman's funny remarks impressed his superiors, and they re-assigned him as a comedian and entertainer for the hotel's stage shows.
Forman attempted to become a professional comedian, and was one of the winners of the talent show "Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts" (1946-1956). While performing in Las Vegas, Nevada, Forman provided an opening act for the famous actor Mickey Rooney (1920-2014). He later formed a comedy duo with Rooney, acting as Rooney's "straight man". This partnership with Rooney led to the co-starring role of Freddy Devlin in the sitcom "The Mickey Rooney Show" (1954-1955), and acting roles in Rooney's films "Andy Hardy Comes Home" (1958) and "The Big Operator" (1959). However, both films were box office flops, and the partners split up.
In the 1960s, Forman appeared regularly on stage and television as a comedian. He also appeared frequently as a guest star in various sitcoms. He played the antagonists Captain Crocodile and Dragonman in "The Monkees", Charlie-Chan parody "Harry Hoo" in "Get Smart", and Ho Ho the Clown in "Bewitched".
In 1968, Forman created a new comedy routine, playing the character "The Mashuganishi Yogi", a parody version of the Indian guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1918-2008). He released a comedy album with this premise, co-operating with fellow comedian Bill Dana (1924-2017).
Forman was relatively prominent in the 1970s, but his career was slowing down by the early 1980s. Among his last notable film roles were the spy comedy "The Nude Bomb" (1980) and the science fiction film "Earthbound" (1981). "The Nude Bomb" was one of several films based on "Get Smart". Instead of reprising his role as Harry Hoo, Forman replaced David Ketchum in the role of supporting character "Agent 13".
In 1982, Forman died due to pulmonary fibrosis, a respiratory disease in which scars are formed in the lung tissues. There is no known cure for this disease. It is a relatively common disease for patients over 40-years-old. - Kevin Robinson was born on 19 December 1971 in Barrington. Rhode Island, USA. He was an actor, known for Youngblood (1986), Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX (2001) and Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX 2 (2002). He was married to Robin Adams. He died on 9 December 2017 in East Providence, Rhode Island, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Seemingly suave, cultivated actor by nature, definitely huge in both talent and girth, and capable of playing much older than he was, Hollywood of the early '40s tragically lost Laird Cregar before it could fully comprehend on how to best utilize his obvious gifts. He was born Samuel Laird Cregar in a well-to-do section of Philadelphia, eventually dropping his first name after forging an acting career. At age eight his parents sent him to England and enrolled him at the Winchester Academy. During his school's off time, his pique in acting escalated after being employed as a page boy with the Stratford-on-Avon Players. Thereafter, his mind was set to become a professional actor. Returning to the U.S., he attended Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia and the Douglas Adams School in Longport, New Jersey. Again, he found meager jobs, such as an usher, in order to stay close to the theater. Awarded a scholarship to the Pasadena Community Playhouse, he trained there for two years before going out on his own and finding minor work on the bi-coastal stage and finding minuscule parts in films.
Laird's break came of his own making. After witnessing Robert Morley's triumph in the title role of "Oscar Wilde" on Broadway, Laird set upon finding backing for his own version of the play. Debuting in Los Angeles and finding resounding success there as well as in San Francisco, film studios began competing for his services with Twentieth Century-Fox winning out. He made his feature debut opposite Paul Muni in Hudson's Bay (1940) in the boisterous role of a fur trapper and solidified his movie standing by appearing flamboyantly as a bullfighting critic at odds with Tyrone Power's matador in the popular Technicolor classic Blood and Sand (1941). He then went on to show a scene-stealing prowess for stylish farce as one of Jack Benny "suitors" in the drag comedy Charley's Aunt (1941).
By the time Laird cut a mean, sinister path in I Wake Up Screaming (1941), playing a detective so insanely hung up on a murdered girl (Carole Landis) that he deliberately frames an innocent man (Victor Mature) for her crime, it was obvious films could rely on him for any of their comedic or dramatic ventures. There seemed nothing he couldn't do, but it was obvious audiences loved him as the 300 lb. man you love to hate - goaded on by his nefarious doings in the film noir classic This Gun for Hire (1942) starring Alan Ladd and Rings on Her Fingers (1942) with Gene Tierney.
On the Los Angeles theater front he gave Monty Woolley a run for the money in Woolley's signature stage role of Sheridan Whiteside in "The Man Who Came to Dinner". Along with the good came some contrived roles in a few mediocre films ranging from training officers to hammy-styled pirates. Even so, he usually stood out among the other actors in some fashion. He even played the Devil himself in the exquisitely humor-laced Ernst Lubitsch comedy Heaven Can Wait (1943).
His film career was capped by his definitive Jack the Ripper in The Lodger (1944). Investing the psychotic role with an intense, gripping realism and off-putting, oily charm, he led a brilliantly seasoned cast and relished a death scene in the film (in truth, the real-life serial killer was never caught) that dared to forever stereotype him as a Sydney Greenstreet-like villain. Unfortunately, his early death robbed film audiences of seeing what course Laird's career would have taken. Sure enough, his last celluloid offering in Hangover Square (1945) was as another despicable character with murder on its maniacal mind. Top-lining a cast that included Linda Darnell (as an object of his affection), and George Sanders, he this time portrayed a temperamental composer who suffers from a split personality disorder and, prone to periodic blackouts, commits brutal murders. Another compelling death scene had his mad character wildly pounding out a concerto while the room around him goes up in flames and the ceiling crashes down on him.
Laird's obsession with avoiding the inevitable stereotype as a "heavy heavy" and wistful pursuit of a romantic leading man career compelled him to go on a reckless, unsupervised crash diet (from 300 lbs to 200 lbs), which is evident by his drastically trimmed-down look in his last film. This proved too strenuous on his system and he was forced to undergo surgery for a severe stomach disorder. His 30-year-old heart gave out on the morning of December 9, 1944, only days after his operation. He was survived by his mother.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Lando Fiorini was born on 27 January 1938 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He was an actor, known for Highest Pressure (1965), Storia di fifa e di coltello - Er seguito d'er più (1972) and Sing Sing (1983). He died on 9 December 2017 in Rome, Italy.- Leonid Bronevoy, one of Russian cinema's most famous faces who survived the traumatic experience under dictatorship of Stalin during his childhood, is now a film star and a hero in popular jokes.
He was born Leonid Solomonovich Bronevoy on December 17, 1928, in Kiev, Ukraine, Soviet Union (now Kiev, Ukraine). Young Bronevoy was fond of music; he was inspired by his grandfather, a fiddler, and studied violin at Kiev Conservatory School of Music, and his future looked bright. His father and uncle were high ranking officers in the secret service of NKVD (predecessor of KGB) in Kiev. His uncle was shot in his office by an unknown person. His father was arrested in 1937, and exiled for 10 years during the repressions known as the "Great Terror" under the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin. Leonid Bronevoy was a young 9-year-old boy, when he was separated from his father. Bronevoy and his mother, Bella Lvovna, were forcefully uprooted from their native city of Kiev and were exiled to the remote town of Malmysh, Kirov region in Northern Russia. During the Second World War Bronevoy was evacuated in Uzbekistan. He was not allowed to enter any school because of political prosecution of his father. However, his mother arranged that he studied acting at the Tashkent State Theatre Institute, from which he graduated in 1950 as an actor. He worked on stage at many provincial theatres in such cities as Tashkent, Irkutsk, Orenburg, Voronezh, Grozny, and in other cities of the former Soviet Union. In 1953, after the death of Stalin, Bronevoy went to Moscow. There he was auditioned by the famous actor Aleksey Gribov and was admitted to the Acting School of the Moscow Art Theatre (MKhAT), from which he graduated in 1955 as an actor.
Bronevoy became an instant celebrity after his portrayal of the notorious Gestapo Boss 'Muller' in popular TV series _"Semnadtsat mgnoveniy vesny" (1973)_. Bronevoy and his partner in that film, Vyacheslav Tikhonov, became the talk of the country of the Soviet Union. The amount of popular jokes about them and their characters in the film had soon exceeded those about Chapaev. Bronevoy's acting talent allowed him to overcome the drawback of his popularity in the character of 'Muller', the Gestapo Boss, whose image got stuck in the public perception of actor Bronevoy. He demonstrated his range and his multifaceted talent as satirical, sarcastic, dramatic and even as a fine comic actor in more than 50 roles in film and on television. He worked with such notable film directors as Venyamin Dorman, Mark Zakharov, Anatoli Efros, Semyon Aranovich and others.
Bronevoy's film partners were such stars as Aleksandr Abdulov, Oleg Basilashvili, Valentin Gaft, Rolan Bykov, Aleksandr Kalyagin, Georgi Zhzhyonov, Donatas Banionis, and other distinguished actors. From 1962-1988 he has been working together with his film partner, Lev Durov, at the Moscow Theatre Na Maloi Bronnoi. Since 1988 he has been a permanent member of the troupe at the Moscow Lenkom Theatre under directorship of Mark Zakharov. Leonid Bronevoy's stage career is spanning almost 60 years and listing over 150 stage works in several theatre companies of the former Soviet Union. He was awarded and decorated by the governments of the USSR and Russia. He was honored with titles of People's Actor of Russia and People's Actor of the USSR. He also made successful international concert tours in many countries.
Leonid Bronevoy is currently residing and working in Moscow. - Liana Lombard was born on 10 November 1932 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She was an actress, known for Concierto de bastón (1951), La vendedora de fantasías (1953) and De fulanas y menganas (1988). She died on 9 December 2009 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- Actress
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Louella Parsons was born on 6 August 1881 in Freeport, Illinois, USA. She was an actress and writer, known for Hollywood Hotel (1937), Without Reservations (1946) and Starlift (1951). She was married to Dr. Henry Watson Martin, John McCaffrey Jr. and John Demont Parsons. She died on 9 December 1972 in Santa Monica, California, USA.- Composer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Luisito Rey was born on 28 June 1945 in Cádiz, Cádiz, Andalucía, Spain. He was a composer, known for Fiebre de amor (1985), Siempre en Domingo (1970) and Festival de la canción OTI (1972). He was married to Marcela Basteri. He died on 9 December 1992 in Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.- Marshall Loeb was born on 30 May 1929 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was married to Irmingard "Peggy" Loewe. He died on 9 December 2017 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Born on February 17, 1937 in Biloxi, Mississippi, Mary Ann Mobley is one of the few Miss Americas to have true success as an actress or television personality (the others are Barnaby Jones (1973) beauty Lee Meriwether, television hostess Phyllis George, Consumer advocate/game show panelist Bess Myerson and Eraser (1996) heroine Vanessa Williams). After serving as Miss America 1959, Mobley soon became a sought-after guest star in episodic television of the 1960s, appearing on many hit series of that era - Perry Mason (1957), Mission: Impossible (1966), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964), The Virginian (1962), to name a few. Her most important contribution to 1960s popular culture, though, was appearing opposite Elvis Presley in two films - Harum Scarum (1965) and Girl Happy (1965). Her success in film led to a 1965 Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer, an award she shared with Mia Farrow and Celia Milius. She also starred in a number of other B-movies of the 1960s, such as Get Yourself a College Girl (1964) and For Singles Only (1968).
Her television and film output decreased in the 1970s as she raised her daughter, Clancy Collins White, with her husband, Gary Collins. During that decade, her television appearances were mostly guest roles on series such as the iconic series Love, American Style (1969), Fantasy Island (1977), The Love Boat (1977) and the game show Match Game (1973), on which she was a frequent panelist alongside such other famous wiseacres as Betty White, Brett Somers, Patti Deutsch and Charles Nelson Reilly. She and Collins also appeared a number of times performing death-defying high-wire acts and other athletic, outrageous stunts on the annual television event Circus of the Stars (1977).
In the 1980s, she starred as stepmother "Maggie McKinney" in the final season of Diff'rent Strokes (1978), appeared in a recurring role as alcoholism counselor "Dr. Beth Everdene" on the prime-time soap opera Falcon Crest (1981) and continued to pop-up as a guest star on series like Hotel (1983) and Matt Houston (1982) and game shows like The Hollywood Squares (Daytime) (1965) and Body Language (1983). She also acted as her husband's frequent guest co-host on his successful talk shows Hour Magazine (1980) and The Home Show (1988), as well as on installments of the Miss America Pageant. In the 1990s, she made guest appearances on the sitcoms Designing Women (1986), Hearts Afire (1992), Hardball (1994) and Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996). She and Collins were also hosts of an oft-run late 1990s television infomercial for "SelectComfort", a specialty bed product. Also during the 1990s, she toured in the popular play, "Love Letters", with her husband, and performed a cabaret act at the Cinegrill in Hollywood.
Mary Ann and other "Match Game"/"Hollywood Squares" regulars of the 1970s and 1980s (such as Charo, Nipsey Russell, Paul Lynde and Jo Anne Worley) were riotously spoofed on Saturday Night Live (1975) in a 2002 game show sketch called "Super Buzzers" with Tina Fey playing Mary Ann. Mary Ann and her husband soon got a chance to demonstrate their own good humor, appearing as themselves in a satiric infomercial parody on the Showtime series Dead Like Me (2003) in 2003 (the fake infomercial was for a no-effort body-toning contraption - which spontaneously combusts!).- Actress
- Writer
Mary Fuller's entrance into motion pictures was quite accidental. She was with a theatrical troupe that was on its way to tour the South in 1908 when, during a short stopover in New York City, the company broke up. Stranded, Mary made her way to the Vitagraph film studio looking for a job and, with her experience and attractiveness, was put to work in action and comedy one-reelers. By 1914 she had achieved enough recognition for Edison to give her the lead in a serial, which was a big hit. Universal Pictures took notice of her, and she headed west. However, two years later she just packed up and walked away from Hollywood. She made one picture in 1917, then disappeared. A magazine writer found her in 1924, living in Washington, DC, with her mother. She said that she had tired of the hard work involved in making pictures, that she had invested her money and was living comfortably. She mentioned that she was thinking of going back to making films, but soon after the interview was published, she disappeared again. Nothing was ever heard from her until 1973, when it was discovered that she had died, of natural causes, in a Washington, DC, mental hospital. No one had ever been able to find out for certain what happened to her between her 1924 interview and her death in 1973.- May Stevens was born on 9 June 1924 in Dorchester, Massachusetts, USA. She was married to Rudolf Baranik. She died on 9 December 2019 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA.
- Production Designer
- Art Department
- Art Director
Michael Seymour was born in 1932 in Southampton, Hampshire, England, UK. He was a production designer and art director, known for Alien (1979), Beverly Hills Cop III (1994) and Revenge (1990). He was married to Linda Seaward. He died on 9 December 2018 in the UK.- Actor
- Additional Crew
With an intimidating face like craggy granite and a towering 6'5" solid frame, Mike Mazurki (born Mikhail Mazuruski or Mikhail Mazurkiewicz) was one of cinema's first serial thugs and specialized in playing strongarm men, gangsters and bullies for over 50 years on screen. Nearly always portrayed as a lowbrow muscle, in real life Mazurski was highly intelligent, very well read and a witty conversationalist. He was also an accomplished sportsman, having been a football player and a professional wrestler. He first appeared onscreen in uncredited roles in films such as Gentleman Jim (1942) and About Face (1942); however, his daunting bruiser looks were soon noticed and he became phenomenally busy in the 1940s, appearing in nearly 50 movies during the decade, including his well remembered performance as ex-con "Moose Malloy" in the film noir thriller Murder, My Sweet (1944) and as the gruesome "Splitface" in Dick Tracy (1945).
He continued his menacing onscreen presence throughout the 1950s and 1960s, often showing he could be quite adept at deadpan comedy in films including Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in Hollywood (1945), It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963), Donovan's Reef (1963) and The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin (1967). Demand for his talents slowed down in the late 1970s and most of the 1980s, as younger villains came to the fore; however, he still turned up in support roles and was still acting at the age of 83 when he passed away in December, 1990.- Mico Palanca was born on 3 February 1978 in the Philippines. He was an actor, known for Bituing walang ningning (2006), Ang probinsyano (2015) and Yamashita: The Tiger's Treasure (2001). He died on 9 December 2019 in San Juan City, Metro Manila, Philippines.Miko Palanca
- Singer Patricia Jean Donahue was born on March 29, 1956 in Akron, Ohio. Donahue's parents divorced when she was only two years old and she was raised by her mother Joan to be an independent woman. Patty attended St. Joseph Academy in Cleveland. Following graduation from high school, Donahue went on to study at Ohio State University, but had to drop out for financial reasons. However, Patty did eventually graduate from Kent State University. Donahue worked as a waitress prior to becoming the lead singer for the New Wave group The Waitresses. Patty was much loved by fans of The Waitresses for her deliciously deadpan monotone vocals on the band's signature songs "I Know What Boys Like" and "Christmas Wrapping." Moreover, Donahue did a duet of sorts with Alice Cooper on the witty tune "I Like Girls." After The Waitresses split up in late 1984, Patty went on to work as a talent scout for MCA Publishing and as an A&R rep for MCA Records. A heavy smoker through most of her adult life, Donahue died from lung cancer at the tragically young age of 40 on December 9, 1996 in New York.
- Actor
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
- Art Director
Rodney Kageyama was born on 1 November 1941 in San Mateo, California, USA. He was an actor and art director, known for Pretty Woman (1990), Teen Wolf (1985) and Quantum Leap (1989). He was married to Ken White. He died on 9 December 2018 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Director
Santiago Bal was born on 5 January 1936 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was an actor and director, known for Vale, vale (1990), Yo tengo fe (1974) and Contigo y aquí (1974). He was married to Carmen Barbieri, Thelma del Río and Silvia Pérez. He died on 9 December 2019 in Buenos Aires, Federal District, Argentina.- Tom Zenk was born on 30 November 1958 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. He was an actor, known for WCW Worldwide (1975), Saturday Night's Main Event (1985) and Best of the WWF Volume 11 (1987). He died on 9 December 2017 in Robbinsdale, Minnesota, USA.
- Actor
- Writer
Tor Fretheim was born on 13 May 1946 in Norway. He was an actor and writer, known for A Kiss in the Snow (1997) and Petter fra Ruskøy (1960). He died on 9 December 2018 in Norway.- Actor
- Soundtrack
He was honored twice off-Broadway with Distinguished Performance OBIE Award, first in 1960 for "Machinal" and again in 1969 for "Passing Through From Exotic Places." In 1972 he won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a play for "Prisoner on 2nd Avenue." In 1979 he was nominated for Best Actor in a musical for "Ballroom." Gardenia was twice nominated with an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, first in 1974 "Bang the Drum Slowly" and again in 1988 for "Moonstruck." He won an Emmy Award in 1990 for Best Supporting Actor in a movie made for television, "Age Old Friends." In 1988 he was honored to be named the Grand Marshal of the Columbus Day Parade in New York City.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Ms. Blaine is most noted for having portrayed Miss Adelaide, the long-suffering, perpetually engaged chorus girl, in the Broadway and film versions of Guys and Dolls (1955). She originated the role in 1950 on Broadway and stopped the show each night with her rendition of "Adelaide's Lament," in which she complains about having a bad cold because of her long engagement to gambler Nathan Detroit. Ms. Blaine also originated roles on Broadway in "Say Darling" and "Enter Laughing." She also starred on Broadway in "Hatful of Rain," "Company," and, briefly, in "Zorba." She starred in many national tours, including "A Streetcar Named Desire," "Don't Drink the Water," "Hello Dolly," and "Gypsy." Before going to Broadway, Ms. Blaine was a starlet at 20th Century-Fox, appearing in many musical comedy films, including Jitterbugs (1943), Greenwich Village (1944), and State Fair (1945). In the mid 1950s, Ms. Blaine reprised her role as Adelaide in the film version of Guys and Dolls (1955) with Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando. After her Broadway appearance in "Company" in 1972, she appeared on national television at the 25th Tony anniversary special. This led to a revival of her TV career, and she continued to appear in guest roles on TV and in independent films and theater until her retirement in 1984.- Wendy Ramshaw was born on 26 May 1939 in Sunderland, Tyne & Wear, England, UK. She was married to David Watkins,. She died on 9 December 2018 in the UK.
- Director
- Writer
- Producer
William Wellman, the Oscar-winning screenwriter-director of the original A Star Is Born (1937), was called "Wild Bill" during his World War I service as an aviator, a nickname that persisted in Hollywood due to his larger-than-life personality and lifestyle.
A leap-year baby born in 1896 on the 29th of February in Brookline, MA, Wellman was the great-great-great grandson of Francis Lewis, one of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence. Wellman's father was a stockbroker and his mother, the former Cecilia McCarthy, was born in Ireland. Despite an upper-middle-class upbringing, the young Wellman was a hell-raiser. He excelled as an athlete and particularly enjoyed playing ice hockey, but he also enjoyed joyriding in stolen cars at nights.
Cecilia Wellman served as a probation officer for "wayward boys" (juvenile delinquents) for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and was such a success in her field that she was asked to address Congress on the subject of delinquency. One of her charges was her own son, as the young Bill was kicked out of school at the age of 17 for hitting his high school principal on the head with a stink bomb. He tried making a living as a candy salesman and a cotton salesman, but failed. He worked for a lumber yard but was fired after losing control of a truck and driving it through the side of a barn. Eventually he wound up playing professional ice hockey in Massachusetts. While playing at the Colonial Theatre in Boston, an actor named Douglas Fairbanks took note of him. Impressed by Wellman's good looks and the figure he cut on ice, the soon-to-be silent-film superstar suggested to him that he had what it took to become a movie actor. Wellman's dream was to become an aviator, but since his father "didn't have enough money for me to become a flier in the regular way . . .I went into a war to become a flier."
When he was 19 years old, through the intercession of his uncle, Wellman joined the air wing of the French Foreign Legion, where he learned to fly. In France he served as a pilot with the famous Lafayette Flying Corps (better known as the Lafayette Escadrille), where he won his nickname "Wild Bill" due to his devil-may-care style in the air. He and fellow pilot Tom Hitchcock, the great polo player, were in the Black Cat group. Wellman was shot down by anti-aircraft fire and injured during the landing of his plane, which had lost its tail section. Out of 222 Escadrille pilots 87 were killed, but Wellman was fated to serve out the duration of the war. In the spring of 1918 he was recruited by the US Army Air Corps, joining "because I was broke, and they were trying to get us in." Commissioned an officer, he was sent back to the US and stationed at Rockwell Field, in San Diego, CA, to teach combat fighting tactics to the new AAC pilots.
Wellman would fly up to Hollywood and land on Fairbanks' polo fields to spend the weekend. Fairbanks told the returning hero that he would help him break into the movies when the war was over, and he was as good as his word. Fairbanks envisioned Wellman as an actor and cast him as the juvenile in The Knickerbocker Buckaroo (1919) and as a young officer in Evangeline (1919), but acting was something Wellman grew to hate, a hatred he later transferred to actors in his employ. He was fired by fellow macho director Raoul Walsh from "Evangeline" for slapping the lead actress, who Wellman didn't know was Walsh's wife. Disgusted with acting, Wellman told Fairbanks he wanted to be a director, and Fairbanks helped him into the production end of the business. It was a purely financial decision, he later recalled, as directors made more money than supporting actors at the time.
Goldwyn Pictures hired him as a messenger in 1920 and he soon worked his way up the ladder, first as an assistant cutter, then as an assistant property man, property man, assistant director and second-unit director before making his uncredited directorial debut later that year at Fox with Twins of Suffering Creek (1920) starring Dustin Farnum (the silent film B-Western star whom Dustin Hoffman's star-struck mother named the future double-Oscar winner after). Wellman later remembered the film as awful, along with such other B-Westerns as Cupid's Fireman (1923), starring Buck Jones, whose westerns he began directing in 1923 after serving his apprenticeship.
Fox Films gave Wellman his first directing credit in 1923 with the Buck Jones western Second Hand Love (1923) and, other than the Dustin Farnum picture The Man Who Won (1923), he turned out Jones pictures for the rest of his time at Fox. The studio fired him in 1924 after he asked for a raise after completing The Circus Cowboy (1924), another Buck Jones film. Moving to Columbia, he helmed When Husbands Flirt (1925), then went over to MGM for the slapstick comedy The Boob (1926) before landing at Famous Players-Lasky (now known as Paramount Pictures after its distribution unit), where he directed You Never Know Women (1926) and The Cat's Pajamas (1926). It was as a contract director at the now renamed Paramount-Famous Players-Lasky Corp. that he had his breakout hit, due to his flying background. Paramount entrusted its epic WW I flying epic Wings (1927) to Wellman, and the film went on to become the first Academy Award-winning best picture.
Paramount paid Wellman $250 a week to direct "Wings". He also gave himself a role as a German pilot, and flew one of the German planes that landed and rolled over. The massive production employed 3,500 soldiers, 65 pilots and 165 aircraft. It also went over budget and over schedule due to Wellman's perfectionism, and he came close to being fired more than once. The film took a year to complete, but when it was released it turned out to be one of the most financially successful silent pictures ever released and helped put Gary Cooper, whom Wellman personally cast in a small role, on the path to stardom. "Wings" and Wellman's next flying picture, The Legion of the Condemned (1928)--in which Cooper had a starring role--initiated the genre of the World War One aviation movie, which included such famous works as Howard Hughes' Hell's Angels (1930) and Howard Hawks' The Dawn Patrol (1930). Despite his success in bringing in the first Best Picture Oscar winner, Paramount did not keep Wellman under contract.
Wellman's disdain for actors already was in full bloom by the time he wrapped "Wings". Many actors appearing in his pictures intensely disliked his method of bullying them to elicit an performance. Wellman was a "man's man" who hated male actors due to their narcissism, yet he preferred to work with them because he despised the preparation that actresses had to go through with their make-up and hairdressing before each scene. Wellman shot his films fast. The hard-drinking director usually oversaw a riotous set, in line with his own lifestyle. He married five women, including a Ziegfeld Follies showgirl, before settling down with Dorothy Coonan Wellman, a former Busby Berkeley dancer. Wellman believed that Dorothy saved him from becoming a caricature of himself. She appeared as a tomboy in Wild Boys of the Road (1933), a Depression-era social commentary picture made for the progressive Warner Bros. studio (and which is a favorite of Martin Scorsese). It came two years after Wellman's masterpiece, The Public Enemy (1931), one of the great early talkies, one of the great gangster pictures and the film that made James Cagney a superstar. Scorsese says that Wellman's use of music in the film influenced his own first gangster picture, Mean Streets (1973) .
Wellman was as adept at comedy as he was at macho material, helming the original A Star Is Born (1937) (for which he won his only Oscar, for best original story) and the biting satire Nothing Sacred (1937)--both of which starred Fredric March--for producer David O. Selznick. Both movies were dissections of the fame game, as was his satire Roxie Hart (1942), which reportedly was one of Stanley Kubrick's favorite films.
During World War Two Wellman continued to make outstanding films, including The Ox-Bow Incident (1942) and Story of G.I. Joe (1945), and after the war he turned out another war classic, Battleground (1949). In the 1950s Wellman's best later films starred John Wayne, including the influential aviation picture The High and the Mighty (1954), for which he received his third and last best director Oscar nomination. His final film hearkened back to his World War One service, Lafayette Escadrille (1958), which featured the unit in which Wellman had flown. He retired as a director after making the film, reportedly enraged at Warner Bros.' post-production tampering with a film that meant so much to him.
Other than David O. Selznick, not many people in Hollywood particularly liked the hell-raising iconoclast Wellman. Louis B. Mayer's daughter Irene Mayer Selznick, the first wife of David O. Selznick, said that Wellman was "a terror, a shoot-up-the-town fellow, trying to be a great big masculine I-don't-know-what". The Directors Guild of America in 1973 honored him with its Lifetime Achievement Award.
William Wellman died (from leukemia) in 1975.- William Blum was born on 6 March 1933 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He died on 9 December 2018 in Virginia, USA.
- William Luce was born on 16 October 1931 in Portland, Oregon, USA. He was a writer, known for Barrymore (2011), The Prophet and Brontë (1983). He died on 9 December 2019 in Green Valley, Arizona, USA.
- Composer
- Actor
- Music Department
Yigal Bashan was born on 11 September 1950 in Rishon Le-Zion, Israel. He was a composer and actor, known for Tzanani Family (1976), Hayeh Ahaltah Otah (1980) and Sarit (1974). He was married to Mika Meridor. He died on 9 December 2018 in Tel Aviv, Israel.- Zoran Rankic was born on August 9, 1935 in Derventa, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Yugoslava, is a Serbian actor, champion of the Belgrade Drama Theatre, playwright, director and poet aphorist. The public is best known for his role as Nikola Kalabic in documentary TV-series Poslednji cin (1981), which is the beginning of the 1980s sparked controversy in the former Yugoslav public..Also known for Srecni ljudi (1993), Afera Saint-Fiacre (1963).