Advanced search

The only child of Jozsef Barsi and Maria Benko, Judith Eva Barsi beat 10,000-to-1 odds when she was discovered at a San Fernando Valley skating rink at age 5 1/2 in 1983 and mistaken for a three-year-old. Her first commercial was for Donald Duck Orange Juice and she went on to appear in anywhere between fifty and a hundred commercials, several episodes of various T.V. series, and three major motion pictures. Her mother Maria was the main thrust of her career as a Hollywood starlet, but also took great pains to try to give her a normal, happy childhood; bringing her Hungarian meals like duck for her school lunch. But this happy childhood did not last long. Beginning in 1985, Jozsef would often be home drunk instead of working as a plumber, and he refused to let Maria work. As a result, the family briefly went on welfare until Judith's career took off in 1986 and 1987. By the time she entered fourth grade, she was pulling in an estimated $100,000 a year, which bought her family a nice four-bedroom house on a quiet street in West Hill. As her career soared, her father became an increasingly abusive recluse who constantly threatened to kill his wife and daughter. In stressful moods Judith bit her nails and plucked out her eyebrows and eyelashes and her cats' whiskers. C.P.S. was called in numerous times, but as Maria was reluctant to press charges and many of the reports/accounts were emotional and not physical abuse, the case was not pursued.

On Wednesday, July 27th, Eunice Daly, a next-door neighbor, heard a loud bang next door while watering her plants. The house had been set on fire, and later the Barsis' bodies were discovered shot dead. All of Judith's toys that were not destroyed by the fire were given to the local Goodwill, and her best friend continued to feed her cats for months afterward.

Karen Steele was born on March 20, 1931, in Honolulu, Hawaii. A former cover girl and model, she was one of the most strikingly beautiful actresses to ever work in film and television. She went to the University of Hawaii and to Rollins College in Florida before gracing our film screens with her first film in 1952. Rumor has it she was mistaken for another actress by producer Delbert Mann when he cast her as a hard case in the drama film Marty (1955). Like many actresses, as she got older, she turned to television commercials for income. She also became involved in charitable causes and community service. Karen Steele died of cancer in Kingman, Arizona, on March 12, 1988, little more than a week before her 57th birthday.

American character actress Anne Ramsey was born Anne Mobley in Omaha, Nebraska to Eleanor (Smith), a national treasurer of the Girl Scouts, and Nathan Mobley, an insurance executive. Her uncle was U.S. Ambassador David S. Smith. An ancestor was Mayflower Pilgrim William Brewster. She attended Rosemary Hall (then an elite girls' school in Greenwich, Connecticut) and Bennington College, and was active in numerous on- and off-Broadway productions. After she married actor Logan Ramsey, the couple founded Philadelphia's Theatre of the Living Arts. In the early 1970s she began her lengthy film career. In 1971 she starred opposite her husband in The Sporting Club (1971), then settled into bit parts.

Eventually, she was noticed for her trademark brusque, gruff, usually comedic roles, after which she received more film offers, notably Goin' South (1978), Any Which Way You Can (1980), The Goonies (1985), and Deadly Friend (1986). Unfortunately, in the mid-1980s she discovered she was suffering from throat cancer and was forced to have parts of both her tongue and jawbone removed, which obviously affected how she spoke and the effects of which are evident in Throw Momma from the Train (1987). She received an Academy Award nomination in 1987 for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Danny DeVito's inimitably nightmarish mother in Throw Momma from the Train (1987) which she managed to finish by bravely soldiering on even as her cancer remorselessly worsened. She died in 1988, aged 59, just weeks after Throw Momma from the Train (1987) was released.

John Carradine, the son of a reporter/artist and a surgeon, grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York. He attended Christ Church School and Graphic Art School, studying sculpture, and afterward roamed the South selling sketches. He made his acting debut in "Camille" in a New Orleans theatre in 1925. Arriving in Los Angeles in 1927, he worked in local theatre. He applied for a job as as scenic designer to Cecil B. DeMille, who rejected his designs but gave him voice work in several films. His on-screen debut was in Tol'able David (1930), billed as Peter Richmond. A protégé and close friend of John Barrymore, Carradine was an extremely prolific film character actor while simultaneously maintaining a stage career in classic leading roles such as Hamlet and Malvolio. In his later years he was typed as a horror star, putting in appearances in many low- and ultra-low-budget horror films. He was a member of the group of actors often used by director John Ford that became known as "The John Ford Stock Company". John Carradine died at age 82 of natural causes on November 27, 1988.

Raj Kapoor was the son of well-known Indian actor Prithviraj Kapoor, who acted both in film and on stage. After apprenticing in the Bollywood production studios of the 1940's, at 24 years of age Raj Kapoor produced, directed and acted in Aag (1948), with his new company, RK Films. His next production, Barsaat (1949), was a smash hit. In 1951, he also produced, directed and starred in Awaara (1951), which was another megahit, and costarred Nargis, who had appeared in Aag and Barsaat. Awaara also gained popular acclaim in Russia, where the movie and songs were dubbed into Russian. The theme song, Awaara Hoon, was popular in the East for many years. Kapoor has been dubbed "a great showman," and a filmmaker in the purest Romantic tradition, as he strove to entertain as well as address social themes close to his heart. Awaara dealt with the question of what forms an individual's moral grounding, ("nurture or nature") while incorporating comedy and stirring love scenes; in Shree 420 (1955) he addressed issues of poverty, unemployment and national pride in the new Indian state at the same time maintaining the audience's interest in the romantic plot. While never revolutionary in tone, many of his films explore the ability of the individual to overcome economic and environmental injustice while maintaining his/her innocence and integrity. He is quoted as believing that the individual's struggles ultimately lead to the desire for love, to care and be cared for. This is consistent with his admiration of Charles Chaplin, and Kapoor's own "tramp" (Awaara, Shree 420, Mera Naam Joker (1970) is modeled somewhat on his mentor, though with a definite individual flair.

His films demonstrate an understanding of music and direction that continue to influence Bollywood filmmaking today. Also a musician, his understanding of the musical feel of his movies gives them a storytelling fluidity equal to that of the best American movie musicals. He surrounded himself with the foremost talents in filmmaking, acting, writing (Kwaja Ahmad Abbas'), music composition (Jaikishan Dayabhai Panchal, 'Shankarsinh Raguwanshi'), and playback singers, including Mukesh, 'Mohamed Rafi', and Lata Mangeshkar. Kapoor continued to make films of varying critical and popular success up until his death in 1988, and apparently considered Mera Naam Joker his personal favorite. He is still a well-known name not only in India, but in the Middle East, SE Asia, and Eastern Europe. His descendants have attempted to continue the RK Films banner.

Heather Michele O'Rourke was born on December 27, 1975 in Santee, San Diego, California, to Kathleen, a seamstress, and Michael O'Rourke, a construction worker. She had German, Danish, English, and Irish ancestry.

Heather entered American cinematic pop-culture before first grade. She was sitting alone in the MGM Commissary waiting for her mother when a stranger approached her asking her name. "My name is Heather O'Rourke," she said. "But you're a stranger, and I can't talk to you". When her mother returned, the stranger introduced himself as Steven Spielberg. She failed her first audition when she laughed at a stuffed animal Spielberg presented her with. He thought she was just too young (she had just turned five), and he was actually looking for a girl at least 6 years old, but he saw something in her and asked her to come in a second time with a scary story book. He asked her to scream a lot. She screamed until she broke down in tears. The next day at the commissary, Spielberg told her and her family, "I don't know what it is about her, but she's got the job." She instantly became a star overnight and was easily recognized at her favorite theme park, Disneyland, and everywhere in California. In the years that followed, Heather was a familiar face on TV in Happy Days (1974) (1982-1983), Webster (1983) (1983-1984), and The New Leave It to Beaver (1983) (1986-1987), three shows in which she had recurring roles. In 1986, the highly anticipated sequel to her first movie, Poltergeist (1982), Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986) debuted in theaters; it was her riveting performance in this film that cemented her a place in Hollywood history. In January 1987, Heather began to have flu-like symptoms and her legs and feet swelled. She was taken to Kaiser Hospital, and they confirmed it was only the flu, but when symptoms continued, they diagnosed her as having Crohn's Disease, a chronic inflammation of the intestine. She was on medication throughout the filming of her next project, Poltergeist III (1988), and her cheeks were puffy in some scenes. She never complained during filming and did not appear sick to fellow cast members.

When filming was completed in June, Heather and her family went on a road trip from Chicago, to New Orleans, to Orlando and all the way back to Lakeside where they lived at the time. Heather was well until January 31, 1988, Super Bowl Sunday. She was unable to keep anything in her stomach and crawled into bed with her parents that night, saying that she didn't feel well. The next morning, February 1, sitting at the breakfast table, she couldn't swallow her toast or Gatorade. Her mother noticed her fingers were blue and her hands were cold. Kathleen called the doctor's and was getting ready to put her clothes on when Heather fainted on the kitchen floor. When the paramedics came in, Heather insisted that she was "really okay" and was worried about missing school that day. In the ambulance, Heather suffered cardiac arrest and died on the operating table at 2:43 p.m. at the tender age of 12. Of all her achievements, Heather was proudest of being elected student body president of her 5th grade class in 1985.

Academy Award-winning actor John Houseman's main contribution to American culture was not his own performances on film but rather, his role as a midwife to one of the greatest actor-directors-cinematic geniuses his adopted country ever produced (Orson Welles) and as a midwife to a whole generation of actors as head of the drama division of the Juilliard School.

Houseman was born Jacques Haussmann on September 22, 1902 in Bucharest, Romania, to May (Davies) and Georges Haussmann, who ran a grain business. His father was from an Alsatian Jewish family, and his mother, who was British, was of Welsh and Irish descent. John was raised in England, where he was educated. He emigrated to America in 1925, establishing himself in New York City, where he directed "Four Saints in Three Acts" for the theater in 1934. He founded the Mercury Theatre along with Orson Welles (whom he affectionately called "The Dog-Faced Boy"). Their most important success was a modern-dress version of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar", in which the spectre of Hitler and Mussolini's Fascist states were evoked.

As a producer assigned to Unit 891 of the Federal Theater Project funded by the government's Works Progress Administration, he produced the legendary production "Cradle Will Rock", a musical about the tyranny of capitalism, with music by Marc Blitzstein, creative input from Welles, and starring leftists Howard Da Silva and Will Geer. The production was so controversial, it was banned before its debut, although the did manage to stage one performance. On Broadway, apart from the Mercury Theatre and the WPA, Houseman directed "The Devil and Daniel Webster" (1939) and "Liberty Jones" and produced "Native Son" (1941). During World War II, Houseman went to work for the Office of War Information and was involved in broadcasting radio propaganda for the Voice of America. After the war, Houseman returned to directing and produced Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's version of Julius Caesar (1953).

He had produced his first film, Orson Welles' Too Much Johnson (1938), while with the Mercury Theatre. He was involved with the pre-production of Citizen Kane (1941) but fell out with Welles due to Welles' already legendary ego. He produced a score of major films and was involved in three television series before devoting his life to teaching. He helped establish the acting program at New York's famous Julliard School for the Arts, where he influenced a new generation of actors. Ironically, he had appeared in only one major movie, in a supporting role, before being tapped to replace James Mason in The Paper Chase (1973). He won an Academy Award for the role and began a 15-year career as a highly sought after supporting player.

John Houseman, who wrote three volumes of memoirs, "Run-Through" (1972), "Front and Center" (1979) and "Final Dress" (1983), died at age 86 on October 31, 1988 after making major contributions to the theater and film.

Originally born Harris Glen Milstead just after the end of WWII, Baltimore's most outrageous resident eventually became the international icon of bad taste cinema, as the always shocking and highly entertaining transvestite performer, Divine.

Milstead met maverick film director & good friend, John Waters, at high school in Baltimore, and the two combined to star in and direct several ultra low budget, taboo breaking cult films of the early 1970s. Their first efforts included Roman Candles (1967), Eat Your Makeup (1968) and Mondo Trasho (1969)....however, their most infamous work together was the amazing Pink Flamingos (1972), in which Divine starred as "Babs Johnson", the "filthiest person alive" living in a pink trailer with her egg-eating grandmother, chicken-loving son and voyeuristic daughter.

Divine also starred as career criminal Dawn Davenport in Female Trouble (1974), as bored housewife Francine Fishpaw in Polyester (1981), as outlaw gal Rosie Velez in Lust in the Dust (1984) and in Waters' loving (but still slightly bizarre) salute to teen dance TV shows as Ricki Lake's mother in the superb Hairspray (1988).

Milstead's health deteriorated due to to his obese frame, and he passed away in his sleep from a combination of heart attack and apnea in 1988.

Charles Smith was born on 13 September 1920 in Flint, Michigan, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for The Shop Around the Corner (1940), Everglades! (1961) and Target (1958). He died on 26 December 1988 in Burbank, California, USA.

The son of an insurance underwriter who represented Lloyd's of London in Ceylon, Trevor Wallace Howard-Smith was born in Margate, Kent. He spent his early childhood globetrotting with his mother, frequently left in the care of strangers. After attending private school he went on to study drama at RADA (due to his mother's insistence) and was voted best in his class following a performance in "Much Ado About Nothing". Spurning a Hollywood contract with Paramount he acted on the West End stage and with the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon from the mid-1930s, specialising in classical plays ranging from "Hamlet" and "Coriolanus" to "French without Tears", by Terence Rattigan. Howard was initially turned down for military service by both the RAF and the British Army but shortage of manpower led to his being called up in 1940 to serve as a second lieutenant with the Army Signal Corps. However, he neither saw action nor accumulated the illustrious wartime record (including winning the Military Cross) invented for him by his publicists. A 2001 biography by Terence Pettigrew claimed to have unearthed files from his war record which alleged that he was dismissed from service in 1943 due to 'mental instability'. Ironically, on screen, the actor was often cast as solid, unflappable British officers, perhaps reflecting his own personal credo of always feeling best when impersonating someone else.

Howard's career in films began quietly with small roles in The Way Ahead (1944) and Johnny in the Clouds (1945). He unexpectedly leapt to stardom in just his third outing as the stoic, decent Dr. Alec Harvey in David Lean's melancholic story of middle-class wartime romance, Brief Encounter (1945). Howard's mannered performance perfectly suited the required stiff-upper-lip mood of the film, his intensity and projected integrity more than compensating for his average looks. That 'jolly decent chap' persona continued on in another 'woman's picture', The Passionate Friends (1949), but Howard soon found his niche in more determined, worldly roles. He later admitted that "for years I was practically hounded by my first part in Brief Encounter. I loved the film, mind you, but the role wasn't me, at all" (Ottawa Citizen, February 17 1961). As a screen actor, Howard came of age in crime thrillers and war films, delivering his first genuine tour de force performance as a battle-hardened, cynical ex-pilot caught up in the world of post-war black market racketeering in I Became a Criminal (1947). His efficient, by-the-book intelligence officer, Major Calloway, in Carol Reed's The Third Man (1949) put him firmly on the map as a star character player.

Rasping-voiced and becoming increasingly craggy as the years went by, Howard contrasted archetypal authoritarians (seasoned army veteran Captain Thomson of The Cockleshell Heroes (1955), Captain William Bligh in the remake of Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), Lord Cardigan in The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968)) with weaklings (best exemplified by morally corrupt, degenerate expatriate trader Peter Willems in Outcast of the Islands (1951) -- arguably one of Howard's finest performances); sympathetic victims (colonial cop Scobie, tormented by religious guilt in The Heart of the Matter (1953)) and obsessive, driven eccentrics (crusading elephant preservationist Morel in The Roots of Heaven (1958), the alcoholic, haunted Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (1980), and the weird Russian recluse of Light Years Away (1981)). In the midst of angst-ridden heroes, drunken clerics and assorted historical characters, ranging from Napoleon Bonaparte to Sir Isaac Newton, Howard even essayed a Cheyenne warrior returning from the dead to defend his family in Windwalker (1980). Remarkably, though he took on a score of eminently forgettable projects, it is difficult to fault a single one of his performances. Throughout his entire career he was never out of favour with audiences and never out of work.

As becoming one of the most British of actors, Howard was an ardent cricket supporter, member of the prestigious Marylebone Cricket Club. He insisted on having a clause inserted in his contracts which allowed him leave from filming to attend test matches. A rather solitary man, he had few other hobbies (except, perhaps, a fondness for alcohol, which likely contributed to his death at the age of 74) and was reputedly modest about his accomplishments as an actor. He once declared "we don't have the Method School of acting in England. We simply read the script, let it seep in, then go put on whiskers - and do it" (New York Times, January 8 1988).

Tall, portly built German born actor (and talented violinist) who notched up over 100 film appearances, predominantly in German-language productions. He will forever be remembered by Western audiences as the bombastic megalomaniac "Auric Goldfinger" trying to kill Sean Connery and irradiate the vast US gold reserves within Fort Knox in the spectacular "James Bond" film Goldfinger (1964). However, due to Fröbe's thick German accent, his voice was actually dubbed by English actor, Michael Collins.

While commonly perceived as cold hearted & humourless from his Goldfinger (1964) portrayal, quite to the contrary, Fröbe was a jovial man and a wonderful comedic performer. His light hearted talents can be best viewed in The Ballad of Berlin (1948), Der Tag vor der Hochzeit (1952), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), and Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes (1965). Fröbe also portrayed dogged detective Kriminalkommissar Kras/Lohmann pursuing the evil Dr. Mabuse in The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960), The Return of Dr. Mabuse (1961) and The Terror of Doctor Mabuse (1962).

After his schooling in Edinburgh, the British character actor Roy Kinnear attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Following national service, Kinnear appeared on stage, radio, and television in Scotland before becoming a household name in Britain in the early 1960s as one of the original members of the television series That Was the Week That Was (1962). Around this time, he also established his film career, specializing in jovial, yet sometimes slightly sinister, characters, such as Finney, Moriarty's henchman, in The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother (1975). Another characteristic role was that of Planchet in the Musketeer movies, a role that tragically led to his death from a riding accident during the filming of The Return of the Musketeers (1989).

Jean Gale was born on 23 October 1936 in the USA. She was an actress, known for It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Woman Who Came Back (1945) and Space Patrol (1950). She was married to Paul E. Gifford. She died on 6 February 1988 in Monterey, California, USA.

Ella Raines was born in Snoqualmie Falls, Washington, in 1920. After graduating from high school, she enrolled at the University of Washington as a drama student and participated in many plays. Following graduation, she traveled to New York and the lights of Broadway. She was eventually signed by Howard Hawks and played in Corvette K-225 (1943) as the love interest of Randolph Scott. She appeared in many A pictures very quickly, including Tall in the Saddle (1944) opposite John Wayne. She co-starred in many other films opposite such stars as Vincent Price, William Powell and Brian Donlevy (turning in a good performance as a spunky garage owner in director Arthur Lubin's underrated Impact (1949)). In the early 1950s she had her own TV series, Janet Dean, Registered Nurse (1954), and also had a short-lived recording career during that period. She died in 1988.

Bronx born, stocky Italian-American actor who only appeared in a handful of films, yet earned some degree of immortality for his role as the loyal Corleone capo Peter Clemenza teaching Al Pacino how to shoot a crooked police captain in the iconic gangster film The Godfather (1972). He was originally a construction company manager, then he gained work with the New Yiddish Theatre, before breaking into film near his thirtieth birthday. However in 1970, in only his fourth film, Castellano received a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his performance in Lovers and Other Strangers (1970) and came to the attention of casting agents for The Godfather (1972). After his strong showing as a tough hoodlum in The Godfather (1972), he became somewhat typecast as a screen criminal and appeared in further crime films including Honor Thy Father (1973) and Gangster Wars (1981).

He died in December 1988 from a heart attack at the age of 55.

A reliable featured player and occasional co-star, actress Jeff Donnell was born Jean Marie Donnell in a boys' reformatory in South Windham, Maine in 1921, the younger of schoolteacher Mildred and penologist Howard's two daughters. She took piano and dance lessons during her childhood in Maryland; she loved the popular "Mutt and Jeff" cartoon strip so much that she gave herself the nickname "Jeff."

She studied at the Yale School of Drama and performed briefly in summer stock before marrying her first husband at 19: Bill Anderson, a drama teacher from her Boston alma mater, Leland Powers Drama School. Together they started the Farragut Playhouse in Rye, New Hampshire. Almost immediately a Columbia Studios talent scout noticed her in a play there and quickly signed her.

Whisked to Los Angeles, Jeff made her first appearance in the war-era movie My Sister Eileen (1942) while husband Bill was hired on as a dialogue director. Hardly the chic, glamour-girl type, Jeff possessed a perky, unpretentious, tomboyish quality that worked comfortably in unchallenging "B" escapism --usually the breezy girlfriend or spirited bobbysoxer. Typical of her movie load at the time were the fun but innocuous Doughboys in Ireland (1943), What's Buzzin', Cousin? (1943), Nine Girls (1944), A Thousand and One Nights (1945), Carolina Blues (1944), and Eadie Was a Lady (1945). She also enlivened a number of musical westerns that prominently featured Ken Curtis (Festus of "Gunsmoke").

On a rare occasion, Jeff found herself in "A" pictures, most notably the Bogart film noir classic In a Lonely Place (1950), but more often than not she played the obliging or supportive friend of the leading lady. Unable to break away from her established "B" ranking, she later tried a move to RKO Studios (1949) but fared no better or worse. She did make a successful move to TV in the early 50s and was seen in a number of comedy and dramatic parts.

Long separated from and finally divorcing her first husband in 1953 (they had one son, Michael, and an adopted daughter, Sarah Jane), she married rising film actor Aldo Ray in 1954, but the marriage crumbled within two years, beset by drinking problems; she also suffered a miscarriage. She went on to marry and divorce twice more. As the 1950s rolled on, she earned steady work on TV, bringing to life comedian George Gobel's often-mentioned wife Alice on the sitcom The George Gobel Show (1954) for four seasons. She also had the opportunity to play Gidget's mom in a couple of the popular lightweight movies of the early 1960s -- Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961) and Gidget Goes to Rome (1963).

Most daytime fans will remember Jeff's long-running stint on the soap drama General Hospital (1963) as Stella Fields, the Quartermain housekeeper, which started in 1979 and lasted until her death in 1988. Dogged by ill health in later years (including a serious bout with Addison's disease), Jeff died peacefully of a heart attack in her sleep at age 66.

Born in Franklin, Indiana on December 28, 1923, he was raised in Texas and went to college at Indiana University. There, on a speech and drama scholarship, he began to act and perform however this was interrupted by being called into the service. In World War II where he saw action overseas, he was befriended by actor Melvyn Douglas, who led his division. With such encouragement, as well as meeting and becoming familiar with some Broadway folks, Duggan went into acting. From 1953 onward, he was a fixture in both movies and television.

Most notably, he played General Ed Britt on 12 O'Clock High (1964), he was Cal Calhoun in Bourbon Street Beat (1959) and his most famous role as "Murdoch Lancer" in Lancer (1968) and the original John Walton opposite Patricia Neal in The Homecoming: A Christmas Story (1971). He was "Howitzer Al Houlihan", the father of "Hotlips Houlihan" (Loretta Swit) in M*A*S*H (1972). In 1954, he wed Broadway actress Elizabeth "Betty" Logue. After their deaths, they were cremated and their ashes scattered at Lake Arrowhead, California.

Leonard Frey originally wanted to become an artist, but in college he became interested in acting. He made his stage debut in an off-Broadway production of "Little Mary Sunshine" and his film debut as a celebrant in Passages from James Joyce's Finnegans Wake (1966), but he first rose to prominence in the role of Harold, the self-proclaimed "Jew fairy", in both the stage and screen versions of The Boys in the Band (1970). Frey is probably best known for the role of Motel, the timid tailor, in Fiddler on the Roof (1971); this performance landed him a nomination for a Supporting Actor Oscar. He continued to work on stage, in films and on TV throughout the 1970s and 1980s, but he never again attained the level of critical success he enjoyed in "Fiddler on the Roof". In 1988 he died from complications related to AIDS.

A tall, distinguished-looking English character actor with aristocratic bearing and a precisely modulated voice, Alan William Napier-Clavering was born in Kings Norton, Worcestershire, England. A cousin of the former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, he studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (graduating in 1925) and spent his formative years as an actor with Oxford Repertory and, from 1924, on the London stage. During the 1930s, he found his niche in Shakespearean roles. His characterisation of Menenius in a 1954 Boston revival of "Coriolanus" was described in the Christian Science Monitor (January 23, 1954) as imbued with "benevolent distinction and with some of the comic quality of the part". However, by that time, Napier had largely forsaken the stage for the screen.

In 1939, Alan Napier immigrated to America and, in the course of nearly five decades, appeared in film and on television as noblemen, manservants and doctors. His gaunt, suave, sometimes bespectacled characters could be kindly or nefarious. He gave good support in the supernatural thriller The Uninvited (1944) and lent gravitas to his role of Cicero in Julius Caesar (1953). Baby boomer TV audiences will remember him fondly as Bruce Wayne's ever reliable, and very English, butler Alfred Pennyworth in Batman (1966), starring Adam West. Napier's second wife, Aileen Dickens Bouchier Hawksley (nicknamed "Gypsy"), was a great-granddaughter of Charles Dickens. Alan Napier died at age 85 of pneumonia in Santa Monica, California on August 8, 1988.

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.

Christopher Connelly was born on 8 September 1941 in Wichita, Kansas, USA. He was an actor, known for Benji (1974), Atlantis Interceptors (1983) and Peyton Place (1964). He was married to Cindy Carol. He died on 7 December 1988 in Burbank, California, USA.

Angela Aames grew up in Pierre, South Dakota. She acted in high school and attended the University of South Dakota before coming to Hollywood in 1978 to begin her acting career. Her first film role was as Little Bo Peep in the film Fairy Tales (1978). She followed that up by playing Linda "Boom-Boom" Bang in H.O.T.S. (1979). Other film roles included ...All the Marbles (1981), Scarface (1983), Bachelor Party (1984), The Lost Empire (1984), Basic Training (1985), and Chopping Mall (1986). She did guest appearances on several television shows, including Cheers (1982) and Night Court (1984). Her last role was as Penny, a fitness instructor, on The Dom DeLuise Show (1987). Angela was found dead at a friend's home in West Hills in the San Fernando Valley on November 27, 1988. The coroner later ruled that her death was a result of a deterioration of the heart muscle, probably caused by a virus. She was 32 at the time.

Burly American character actor Ralph Meeker first acted on stage at his alma mater, Northwestern University, alongside other budding performers Charlton Heston and Patricia Neal. He graduated as a music major because his dean had discouraged him from pursuing a theatrical career. Ignoring that advice, Meeker nevertheless moved to New York to study method acting and performing in local stock companies. After being injured during a brief wartime stint with the navy and consequently discharged from active duty, Meeker went overseas to play his part in entertaining the troops as a member of the USO. He finally arrived on Broadway in 1945 and was given small roles in two plays produced by José Ferrer, making his stage debut in "Strange Fruit". He was still relatively unknown in 1947 when he replaced Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski in "A Streetcar Named Desire" two years later, in the process giving a commanding and critically acclaimed performance. After playing Kowalski in the touring company of 'Streetcar', Meeker was again critically acclaimed for his part in the original production of "Mister Roberts" . As a result, he had several European motion picture offers and elected to play the role of an army sergeant in Teresa (1951), co-starring Pier Angeli. That same year, he was in another continental drama shot on location in Switzerland, entitled Four in a Jeep (1951). After a two-year sojourn at MGM, Meeker returned to Broadway to star as the swaggering, likable, larger-than-life rogue Hal Carter in William Inge's play "Picnic" on Broadway. His performance not only was highly praised by reviewers like Brooks Atkinson but also won him the New York Critics Circle Award. In later years, Meeker claimed to have spurned Columbia's offer of reprising his role on screen because he disdained being shackled by a studio contract. In any case, the prize role went to William Holden, and Meeker ended up being consigned for the next thirty years to provide support (with the odd exception) as hard- nosed guys on either side of the law (or bullies with a yellow streak). He did, nonetheless, leave his mark with several top-notch performances.

One of his best early screen roles was that of the disgraced ex-Union officer Roy Anderson in Anthony Mann's brilliant revenge western The Naked Spur (1953). As one of four men stripped of humanity by greed and hatred (the others were James Stewart, Robert Ryan and Millard Mitchell), Ralph Meeker gave a convincing portrayal of a cynical and callous opportunist.

Meeker's defining role was that of Mike Hammer in Kiss Me Deadly (1955). The film was unusual in that Hammer was played -- unlike the gumshoes of previous films noir -- as a basically unsavoury character. His was one of the first antiheroes who began to appear in films of the 1960s. Under the direction of Robert Aldrich, Meeker's characterisation as Mike Hammer effectively contrasted a smooth, handsome facade with an undercurrent of arrogance, unmitigated ruthlessness and greed. After the film was released, it ran into censorship trouble, the Kefauver Commission labelling it the Number One Menace to American Youth for 1955. While "Kiss Me Deadly" acquired a cult following over the years, it certainly failed to advance the career of Ralph Meeker.

He did, however, manage to get second billing for the part of Corporal Paris, one of three World War I French infantry men randomly selected for execution (because their regiment had refused a suicidal mission) in Stanley Kubrick's harrowing anti-war drama Paths of Glory (1957). He gave another finely etched performance through his character's gradual deterioration from swaggering bravado to abject fear. Also that year, Meeker played a snarling, Indian-hating Yankee officer in Run of the Arrow (1957) and co-starred as Jane Russell's unlikely kidnapper in the failed Norman Taurog comedy The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown (1957).

In between numerous television appearances during the '60s, Meeker returned to the stage as member of the Lincoln Centre Repertory Theatre, where he was reunited with Elia Kazan (who had directed him in 'Streetcar') to act in Arthur Miller's play "After the Fall" (1964-65). He also worked with Robert Aldrich again in "The Dirty Dozen" and that same year with Roger Corman playing George 'Bugs' Moran (who Meeker allegedly resembled), the Chicago mobster whose gang was famously 'rubbed out' by Al Capone in The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967).

After the decline of the studio system, Meeker found much gainful employment in television and even had his own syndicated series, Not for Hire (1959), playing a tough Honolulu investigator. However, the show came up against the similarly themed Hawaiian Eye (1959) and only ran to 39 episodes. Meeker then guest-starred on numerous other shows and had noteworthy roles as, among others, a boorish tycoon who discovers a prehistoric amphibious creature in The Outer Limits (1963) episode "The Tourist Attraction", an ex-cop turned derelict in Ironside (1967) ('Price Tag: Death Details'), and FBI agent Bernie Jenks in the TV pilot of The Night Stalker (1972). Add to that a gallery of snarling or harassed law enforcers from The Girl on the Late, Late Show (1974) to Brannigan (1975) and episodes of Harry O (1973), The Rookies (1972) and Police Story (1973). Ralph Meeker remained a much-in-demand character actor until his death of a heart attack in August 1988.

Dorothy Adams was born on 8 January 1900 in Hannah, North Dakota, USA. She was an actress, known for The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), The Killing (1956) and The Ten Commandments (1956). She was married to Byron Foulger. She died on 16 March 1988 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.

Victoria Shaw was born on 25 May 1935 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. She was an actress, known for Westworld (1973), The Crimson Kimono (1959) and To Trap a Spy (1964). She was married to Elliott Alexander and Roger Smith. She died on 17 August 1988 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.