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One of the brightest, most tragic movie stars of Hollywood's Golden Era, Judy Garland was a much-loved character whose warmth and spirit, along with her rich and exuberant voice, kept theatre-goers entertained with an array of delightful musicals.

She was born Frances Ethel Gumm on 10 June 1922 in Minnesota, the youngest daughter of vaudevillians Ethel Marian (Milne) and Francis Avent "Frank" Gumm. She was of English, along with some Scottish and Irish, descent. Her mother, an ambitious woman gifted in playing various musical instruments, saw the potential in her daughter at the tender age of just 2 years old when Baby Frances repeatedly sang "Jingle Bells" until she was dragged from the stage kicking and screaming during one of their Christmas shows and immediately drafted her into a dance act, entitled "The Gumm Sisters," along with her older sisters Mary Jane Gumm and Virginia Gumm. However, knowing that her youngest daughter would eventually become the biggest star, Ethel soon took Frances out of the act and together they traveled across America where she would perform in nightclubs, cabarets, hotels and theaters solo.

Her family life was not a happy one, largely because of her mother's drive for her to succeed as a performer and also her father's closeted homosexuality. The Gumm family would regularly be forced to leave town owing to her father's illicit affairs with other men, and from time to time they would be reduced to living out of their automobile. However, in September 1935 the Gumms', in particular Ethel's, prayers were answered when Frances was signed by Louis B. Mayer, mogul of leading film studio MGM, after hearing her sing. It was then that her name was changed from Frances Gumm to Judy Garland, after a popular '30s song "Judy" and film critic Robert Garland.

Tragedy soon followed, however, in the form of her father's death of meningitis in November 1935. Having been given no assignments with the exception of singing on radio, Judy faced the threat of losing her job following the arrival of Deanna Durbin. Knowing that they couldn't keep both of the teenage singers, MGM devised a short entitled Every Sunday (1936) which would be the girls' screen test. However, despite being the outright winner and being kept on by MGM, Judy's career did not officially kick off until she sang one of her most famous songs, "You Made Me Love You," at Clark Gable's birthday party in February 1937, during which Louis B. Mayer finally paid attention to the talented songstress.

Prior to this her film debut in Parade du football (1936), in which she played a teenage hillbilly, had left her career hanging in the balance. However, following her rendition of "You Made Me Love You," MGM set to work preparing various musicals with which to keep Judy busy. All this had its toll on the young teenager, and she was given numerous pills by the studio doctors in order to combat her tiredness on set. Another problem was her weight fluctuation, but she was soon given amphetamines in order to give her the desired streamlined figure. This soon produced the downward spiral that resulted in her lifelong drug addiction.

In 1939, Judy shot immediately to stardom with Le Magicien d'Oz (1939), in which she portrayed Dorothy, an orphaned girl living on a farm in the dry plains of Kansas who gets whisked off into the magical world of Oz on the other end of the rainbow. Her poignant performance and sweet delivery of her signature song, 'Over The Rainbow,' earned Judy a special juvenile Oscar statuette on 29 February 1940 for Best Performance by a Juvenile Actor. Now growing up, Judy began to yearn for meatier adult roles instead of the virginal characters she had been playing since she was 14. She was now taking an interest in men, and after starring in her final juvenile performance in La danseuse des Folies Ziegfeld (1941) alongside glamorous beauties Lana Turner and Hedy Lamarr, Judy got engaged to bandleader David Rose in May 1941, just two months after his divorce from Martha Raye. Despite planning a big wedding, the couple eloped to Las Vegas and married during the early hours of the morning on July 28, 1941 with just her mother Ethel and her stepfather Will Gilmore present. However, their marriage went downhill as, after discovering that she was pregnant in November 1942, David and MGM persuaded her to abort the baby in order to keep her good-girl image up. She did so and, as a result, was haunted for the rest of her life by her 'inhumane actions.' The couple separated in January 1943.

By this time, Judy had starred in her first adult role as a vaudevillian during WWI in Pour moi et ma mie (1942). Within weeks of separation, Judy was soon having an affair with actor Tyrone Power, who was married to French actress Annabella. Their affair ended in May 1943, which was when her affair with producer Joseph L. Mankiewicz kicked off. He introduced her to psychoanalysis and she soon began to make decisions about her career on her own instead of being influenced by her domineering mother and MGM. Their affair ended in November 1943, and soon afterward Judy reluctantly began filming Le chant du Missouri (1944), which proved to be a big success. The director Vincente Minnelli highlighted Judy's beauty for the first time on screen, having made the period musical in color, her first color film since Le Magicien d'Oz (1939). He showed off her large brandy-brown eyes and her full, thick lips and after filming ended in April 1944, a love affair resulted between director and actress and they were soon living together.

Vincente began to mold Judy and her career, making her more beautiful and more popular with audiences worldwide. He directed her in L'horloge (1945), and it was during the filming of this movie that the couple announced their engagement on set on January 9, 1945. Judy's divorce from David Rose had been finalized on June 8, 1944 after almost three years of marriage, and despite her brief fling with Orson Welles, who at the time was married to screen sex goddess Rita Hayworth, on June 15, 1945 Judy made Vincente her second husband, tying the knot with him that afternoon at her mother's home with her boss Louis B. Mayer giving her away and her best friend Betty Asher serving as bridesmaid. They spent three months on honeymoon in New York and afterwards Judy discovered that she was pregnant.

On March 12, 1946 in Los Angeles, California, Judy gave birth to their daughter, Liza Minnelli, via cesarean section. It was a joyous time for the couple, but Judy was out of commission for weeks due to the cesarean and her postnatal depression, so she spent much of her time recuperating in bed. She soon returned to work, but married life was never the same for Vincente and Judy after they filmed Le pirate (1948) together in 1947. Judy's mental health was fast deteriorating and she began hallucinating things and making false accusations toward people, especially her husband, making the filming a nightmare. She also began an affair with aspiring Russian actor Yul Brynner, but after the affair ended, Judy soon regained health and tried to salvage her failing marriage. She then teamed up with dancing legend Fred Astaire for the delightful musical Parade de printemps (1948), which resulted in a successful comeback despite having Vincente fired from directing the musical. Afterwards, Judy's health deteriorated and she began the first of several suicide attempts. In May 1949, she was checked into a rehabilitation center, which caused her much distress.

She soon regained strength and was visited frequently by her lover Frank Sinatra, but never saw much of Vincente or Liza. On returning, Judy made Amour poste restante (1949), which was also Liza's film debut, albeit via an uncredited cameo. She had already been suspended by MGM for her lack of cooperation on the set of Entrons dans la danse (1949), which also resulted in her getting replaced by Ginger Rogers. After being replaced by Betty Hutton on Annie, la reine du cirque (1950), Judy was suspended yet again before making her final film for MGM, entitled La jolie fermière (1950). At 28, Judy received her third suspension and was fired by MGM, and her second marriage was soon dissolved.

Having taken up with Sidney Luft, Judy traveled to London to star at the legendary Palladium. She was an instant success and after her divorce from Vincente Minnelli was finalized on March 29, 1951 after almost six years of marriage, Judy traveled with Sid to New York to make an appearance on Broadway. With her newfound fame on stage, Judy was stopped in her tracks in February 1952 when she became pregnant by her new lover, Sid. At the age of 30, she made him her third husband on June 8, 1952; the wedding was held at a friend's ranch in Pasadena. Her relationship with her mother had long since been dissolved by this point, and after the birth of her second daughter, Lorna Luft, on November 21, 1952, she refused to allow her mother to see her granddaughter. Ethel then died in January 1953 of a heart attack, leaving Judy devastated and feeling guilty about not reconciling with her mother before her untimely demise.

After the funeral, Judy signed a film contract with Warner Bros. to star in the musical remake of Une étoile est née (1937), which had starred Janet Gaynor, who had won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Actress in 1929. Filming soon began, resulting in an affair between Judy and her leading man, British star James Mason. She also picked up on her affair with Frank Sinatra, and after filming was complete Judy was yet again lauded as a great film star. She won a Golden Globe for her brilliant and truly outstanding performance as Esther Blodgett, nightclub singer turned movie star, but when it came to the Academy Awards, a distraught Judy lost out on the Best Actress Oscar to Grace Kelly for her portrayal of the wife of an alcoholic star in Une fille de la province (1954). Many still argue that Judy should have won the Oscar over Grace Kelly. Continuing her work on stage, Judy gave birth to her beloved son, Joey Luft, on March 29, 1955. She soon began to lose her millions of dollars as a result of her husband's strong gambling addiction, and with hundreds of debts to pay, Judy and Sid began a volatile, on-off relationship resulting in numerous divorce filings.

In 1961, at the age of 39, Judy returned to her ailing film career, this time to star in Jugement à Nuremberg (1961), for which she received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, but this time she lost out to Rita Moreno for her performance in West Side Story (1961). Her battles with alcoholism and drugs led to Judy's making numerous headlines in newspapers, but she soldiered on, forming a close friendship with President John F. Kennedy. In 1963, Judy and Sid finally separated permanently, and on May 19, 1965 their divorce was finalized after almost 13 years of marriage. By this time, Judy, now 41, had made her final performance on film alongside Dirk Bogarde in L'ombre du passé (1963). She married her fourth husband, Mark Herron, on November 14, 1965 in Las Vegas, but they separated in April 1966 after five months of marriage owing to his homosexuality. It was also that year that she began an affair with young journalist Tom Green. She then settled down in London after their affair ended, and she began dating disk jockey Mickey Deans in December 1968. They became engaged once her divorce from Mark Herron was finalized on January 9, 1969 after three years of marriage. She married Mickey, her fifth and final husband, in a register office in Chelsea, London, England on March 15, 1969.

She continued working on stage, appearing several times with her daughter Liza. It was during a concert in Chelsea, London, England that Judy stumbled into her bathroom late one night and died of an overdose of barbiturates, the drug that had dominated her much of her life, on June 22, 1969 at the age of 47. Her daughter Liza Minnelli paid for her funeral, and her former lover James Mason delivered her touching eulogy. She is still an icon to this day with her famous performances in Le Magicien d'Oz (1939), Le chant du Missouri (1944), Parade de printemps (1948), and Une étoile est née (1954).

Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee was perhaps the only actor of his generation to have starred in so many films and cult saga. Although most notable for personifying bloodsucking vampire, Dracula, on screen, he portrayed other varied characters on screen, most of which were villains, whether it be Francisco Scaramanga in the James Bond film, L'Homme au pistolet d'or (1974), or Count Dooku in Star Wars, épisode II : L'Attaque des clones (2002), or as the title monster in the Hammer Horror film, La Malédiction des pharaons (1959).

Lee was born in 1922 in London, England, where he and his older sister Xandra were raised by their parents, Contessa Estelle Marie (Carandini di Sarzano) and Geoffrey Trollope Lee, a professional soldier, until their divorce in 1926. Later, while Lee was still a child, his mother married (and later divorced) Harcourt George St.-Croix (nicknamed Ingle), who was a banker. Lee's maternal great-grandfather was an Italian political refugee, while Lee's great-grandmother was English opera singer Marie (Burgess) Carandini.

After attending Wellington College from age 14 to 17, Lee worked as an office clerk in a couple of London shipping companies until 1941 when he enlisted in the Royal Air Force during World War II. Following his release from military service, Lee joined the Rank Organisation in 1947, training as an actor in their "Charm School" and playing a number of bit parts in such films as Corridor of Mirrors (1948). He made a brief appearance in Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948), in which his future partner-in-horror Peter Cushing also appeared. Both actors also appeared later in Moulin Rouge (1952) but did not meet until their horror films together.

Lee had numerous parts in film and television throughout the 1950s. He struggled initially in his new career because he was discriminated as being taller than the leading male actors of his time and being too foreign-looking. However, playing the monster in the Hammer film Frankenstein s'est échappé (1957) proved to be a blessing in disguise, since the was successful, leading to him being signed on for future roles in Hammer Film Productions.

Lee's association with Hammer Film Productions brought him into contact with Peter Cushing, and they became good friends. Lee and Cushing often than not played contrasting roles in Hammer films, where Cushing was the protagonist and Lee the villain, whether it be Van Helsing and Dracula respectively in Le Cauchemar de Dracula (1958), or John Banning and Kharis the Mummy respectively in La Malédiction des pharaons (1959).

Lee continued his role as "Dracula" in a number of Hammer sequels throughout the 1960s and into the early 1970s. During this time, he co-starred in Le Chien des Baskerville (1959), and made numerous appearances as Fu Manchu, most notably in the first of the series Le masque de Fu Manchu (1965), and also appeared in a number of films in Europe. With his own production company, Charlemagne Productions, Ltd., Lee made Nothing But the Night (1973) and Une fille... pour le diable (1976).

By the mid-1970s, Lee was tiring of his horror image and tried to widen his appeal by participating in several mainstream films, such as La vie privée de Sherlock Holmes (1970), Les trois mousquetaires (1973), On l'appelait Milady (1974), and the James Bond film L'Homme au pistolet d'or (1974).

The success of these films prompted him in the late 1970s to move to Hollywood, where he remained a busy actor but made mostly unremarkable film and television appearances, and eventually moved back to England. The beginning of the new millennium relaunched his career to some degree, during which he has played Count Dooku in Star Wars, épisode II : L'Attaque des clones (2002) and as Saruman the White in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Lee played Count Dooku again in Star Wars, épisode III : La Revanche des Sith (2005), and portrayed the father of Willy Wonka, played by Johnny Depp, in the Tim Burton film, Charlie et la Chocolaterie (2005).

On 16 June 2001, he was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of his services to drama. He was created a Knight Bachelor on 13 June 2009 in the Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to drama and charity. In addition he was made a Commander of the Order of St John on 16 January 1997.

Lee died at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital on 7 June 2015 at 8:30 am after being admitted for respiratory problems and heart failure, shortly after celebrating his 93rd birthday there. His wife delayed the public announcement until 11 June, in order to break the news to their family.

Rory Calhoun was born Francis Timothy McCown in Los Angeles, the son of Elizabeth Cuthbert and Floyd McCown. Rory starred in over 80 films and 1,000 television episodes. Before becoming an actor he worked as a boxer, a lumberjack, a truck driver and a cowpuncher. Tall and handsome, he benefited from a screen test at 20th Century-Fox, arranged for him by Sue Carol, a Hollywood agent and the wife of actor Alan Ladd, who is said to have spotted Calhoun while he was riding a horse in a Los Angeles park. He debuted on screen in Something for the Boys (1944), with Carmen Miranda, billed as "Frank McCown". David O. Selznick changed his name to Rory Calhoun, and after playing small parts for a while, he graduated to starring in western films, including La rivière sans retour (1954) with Marilyn Monroe and Robert Mitchum. Calhoun's better-known pictures include Comment épouser un millionnaire (1953) with Lauren Bacall, Monroe and Betty Grable, and Un refrain dans mon coeur (1952) with Susan Hayward.

From 1959 to 1960 he starred in the CBS television series The Texan (1958). More than two decades later he returned to CBS for five years as Judge Judson Tyler on the daytime serial Capitol (1982). His final appearance, 70 years old but handsome as ever, was as Ernest Tucker in Coeur de cowboy (1992). Calhoun has two stars on Hollywood's Walk of Fame: one for motion pictures, and one for television.

Betty White was born in Oak Park, Illinois, to Christine Tess (Cachikis), a homemaker, and Horace Logan White, a lighting company executive for the Crouse-Hinds Electric Company. She was of Danish, Greek, English, and Welsh descent.

Although she was best known as the devious Sue Ann Nivens on the classic sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) and the ditzy Rose Nylund on Les craquantes (1985), Betty White had been in television for a long, long time before those two shows, having had her own series, Life with Elizabeth (1952) in 1952.

She was married three times, lastly for eighteen years, until widowed, to TV game-show host Allen Ludden.

She was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame and she was known for her tireless efforts on behalf of animals.

Betty White died on 31 December 2021, at the age of 99.

Stan Lee was an American comic-book writer, editor, and publisher, who was executive vice president and publisher of Marvel Comics.

Stan was born in New York City, to Celia (Solomon) and Jack Lieber, a dress cutter. His parents were Romanian Jewish immigrants. Lee co-created Spider-Man, the Hulk, Doctor Strange, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Daredevil, Thor, the X-Men, and many other fictional characters, introducing a thoroughly shared universe into superhero comic books. In addition, he challenged the comics' industry's censorship organization, the Comics Code Authority, indirectly leading to it updating its policies. Lee subsequently led the expansion of Marvel Comics from a small division of a publishing house to a large multimedia corporation.

He had cameo appearances in many Marvel film and television projects, with many yet to come, posthumously. A few of these appearances are self-aware and sometimes reference Lee's involvement in the creation of certain characters.

On 16 July 2017, Lee was named a Disney Legend, a hall of fame program that recognizes individuals who have made an extraordinary and integral contribution to The Walt Disney Company.

Stan was married to Joan Lee for almost 70 years, until her death. The couple had two children. Joan died on July 6, 2017. Stan died on November 12, 2018, in LA.

Actress-comedienne Bea Arthur was born Bernice Frankel on May 13, 1922 in New York City to a Jewish family. She grew up in Maryland, where her parents ran a dress shop. At 12 years old, she was the tallest girl in her school at 5'9".

She earned the title of "Wittiest Girl" in her school, and her dream was to be in show business, but she didn't think her family would support her. She then worked as a laboratory technician, and in the Marine Corps; she drove a truck, and worked as a typist. Her brief first marriage ended in divorce. Afterwards, she told her parents that she wanted to pursue a career in show business, and they supported her decision to join the New York's Dramatic Workshop for the New School for Social Research.

Arthur (her acting name based on a variation of her first husband's surname) played classical and dramatic roles, but it would be years before she found her niche in comedy. Her breakthrough came on stage while appearing in the musical play "The Threepenny Opera," with Lotte Lenya. For one season in the 1950's, she was a regular on Sid Caesar's television show,Caesar's Hour (1954). In 1964, she became truly famous as Yente the Matchmaker, in the original Broadway production of "Fiddler on the Roof". Despite this being a small supporting role, Arthur stole the show night after night.

In 1966, she went to work on a new Broadway musical, "Mame", directed by her second husband, Gene Saks, winning a Tony Award for the featured role of Vera Charles. The show's star, Angela Lansbury, also won a Tony Award, and she and Bea became lifelong friends. In 1971, Arthur appeared on the hit sitcom All in the family (1971) as Maude Findlay, Edith Bunker's cousin, who was forever driving Archie Bunker crazy with her liberal politics. The guest appearance led to Arthur's own series, Maude (1972). The show was a hit, running for six years, during which many controversial topics of the time, including abortion, were tackled, and Bea won her first Emmy Award. While doing Maude (1972), Arthur repeated the role of Vera Charles in the film version of Mame (1974), again directed by Gene Saks, but it was a dismal flop. She also appeared on Au temps de la guerre des étoiles (1978). While appearing in Maude (1972), she raised her two sons, whom she had adopted with husband Gene Saks. After the show ended, so did her marriage to Saks. She never remarried. She became a lifelong animal rights' activist.

In 1983, she started working on a new sitcom, Amanda's (1983), patterned after Britain's L'hôtel en folie (1975) but it was short-lived. In 1985, Les craquantes (1985) made its debut. Co-starring Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty, the show was about the lives of three middle-aged women, and one elderly mother, (played by Getty, who was actually younger than White and Arthur), living in Miami. It was an immediate hit, running for seven seasons. All of the cast members, including Arthur, won Emmy Awards during the show's run. She left when she thought each show was at its peak. The producers realized the shows wouldn't be the same without her. In 1992, Les craquantes (1985) was canceled. Arthur kept a low profile, appearing in only two movies: Un cœur en balance (1995) and Enemies of Laughter (2000).

In 1999, Arthur made an appearance at The N.Y. Friars Club Roast of Jerry Stiller (1999). She did a one-woman stage show in 2001, for which she received a Tony Award nomination. In 2003, she reunited with Betty White and Rue McClanahan for Les craquantes (1985) reunion special on the Lifetime Channel. Noticeably absent was supporting actress Estelle Getty, who was ill. The three lead actresses made appearances together for the rest of the decade to promote DVD releases of Les craquantes (1985). They appeared together for the last time in 1998, at the TV Land Awards, receiving a standing ovation as they accepted the Pop Culture Award. She attended her induction into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame, with Angela Lansbury.

On April 25, 2009, at home with her family, Arthur died of cancer. She was 86. She was survived by her two sons, Matthew and Daniel, and her grandchildren, Kyra and Violet. In her will, she left $300,000 to New York's Ali Forney Center, an organization supporting homeless LGBT youths.

Ava Lavina Gardner was born on December 24, 1922 in Grabtown, North Carolina, to Mary Elizabeth (née Baker) and Jonas Bailey Gardner. Born on a tobacco farm, where she got her lifelong love of earthy language and going barefoot, Ava grew up in the rural South. At age 18, her picture in the window of her brother-in- law's New York photo studio brought her to the attention of MGM, leading quickly to Hollywood and a film contract based strictly on her beauty. With zero acting experience, her first 17 film roles, 1942-1945, were one-line bits or little better. After her first starring role in B-grade Flamingo bar (1946), MGM loaned her to Universal for her first outstanding film Les tueurs (1946). Few of her best films were made at MGM which, keeping her under contract for 17 years, used her popularity to sell many mediocre films. Perhaps as a result, she never believed in her own acting ability, but her latent talent shone brightly when brought out by a superior director, as with John Ford in Mogambo (1953) and George Cukor in La Croisée des destins (1956).

After three failed marriages, dissatisfaction with Hollywood life prompted Ava to move to Spain in 1955; most of her subsequent films were made abroad. By this time, stardom had made the country girl a cosmopolitan, but she never overcame a deep insecurity about acting and life in the spotlight. Her last quality starring film role was in La nuit de l'iguane (1964), her later work being (as she said) strictly "for the loot". In 1968, tax trouble in Spain prompted a move to London, where she spent her last 22 years in reasonable comfort. Her film career did not bring her great fulfillment, but her looks may have made it inevitable; many fans still consider her the most beautiful actress in Hollywood history. Ava Gardner died at age 67 of bronchial pneumonia on January 25, 1990 in Westminister, London, England.

Ruby Dee was an American actress, poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist and civil rights activist. She is best known for originating the role of "Ruth Younger" in the stage and film versions of Un raisin au soleil (1961).

She also starred in The Jackie Robinson Story (1950), La Féline (1982), Do the Right Thing (1989), and American Gangster (2007).

Her film debut was That Man of Mine (1946).

For her performance as Mahalee Lucas in American Gangster (2007), she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. As of 2019, she stands as the second oldest nominee for Best Supporting Actress, behind Gloria Stuart who was 87 when nominated for her role in Titanic for the 70th Academy Awards, 1998.

Dee died on June 11, 2014, at her home in New Rochelle, New York, from natural causes at the age of 91.

Yvonne De Carlo was born Margaret Yvonne Middleton on September 1, 1922 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She was three when her father abandoned the family. Her mother turned to waitressing in a restaurant to make ends meet--a rough beginning for an actress who would, one day, be one of Hollywood's elite. Yvonne's mother wanted her to be in the entertainment field and enrolled her in a local dance school and also saw that she studied dramatics. Yvonne was not shy in the least. She was somewhat akin to Colleen Moore who, like herself, entertained the neighborhood with impromptu productions. In 1937, when Yvonne was 15, her mother took her to Hollywood to try for fame and fortune, but nothing came of it and they returned to Canada. They came back to Hollywood in 1940, where Yvonne would dance in chorus lines at night while she checked in at the studios by day in search of film work. After appearing in unbilled parts in three short films, she finally got a part in a feature.

Although the film Harvard, Here I Come! (1941) was quite lame, Yvonne glowed in her brief appearance as a bathing beauty. The rest of 1942 and 1943 saw her in more uncredited roles in films that did not quite set Hollywood on fire. In The Deerslayer (1943), she played Wah-Tah. The role did not amount to much, but it was much better than the ones she had been handed previously. The next year was about the same as the previous two years. She played small parts as either secretaries, someone's girlfriend, native girls or office clerks. Most aspiring young actresses would have given up and gone home in defeat, but not Yvonne. She trudged on. The next year, started out the same, with mostly bit parts, but later that year, she landed the title role in Les amours de Salomé (1945) for Universal Pictures. While critics were less than thrilled with the film, it was at long last her big break, and the film was a success for Universal. Now she was rolling.

Her next film was the western comedy La taverne du cheval rouge (1945) as Lorena Dumont. After a year off the screen in 1946, she returned in 1947 as Cara de Talavera in Schéhérazade (1947), and many agreed that the only thing worth watching in the film was Yvonne. Her next film was the highly regarded Burt Lancaster prison film Les Démons de la liberté (1947). Time after time, Yvonne continued to pick up leading roles, in such pictures as La belle esclave (1947), Bandits de grands chemins (1948), Casbah (1948) and Le barrage de Burlington (1948). She had a meaty role in Pour toi j'ai tué (1949), a gangster movie, as the ex-wife of a hoodlum. At the start of the 1950s, Yvonne enjoyed continued success in lead roles. Her talents were again showcased in movies such as L'aigle du désert (1950), La ville d'argent (1951) and Une fille à bagarres (1952). Her last film in 1952 was Maître après le diable (1952), a picture most fans and critics agree is best forgotten.

In 1956, she appeared in the film that would immortalize her best, Les Dix Commandements (1956). She played Sephora, the wife of Moses (Charlton Heston). The film was, unquestionably, a super smash, and is still shown on television today. Her performance served as a springboard to another fine role, this time as Amantha Starr in L'Esclave libre (1957). In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Yvonne appeared on such television series as Bonanza (1959) and Le Virginien (1962). With film roles drying up, she took the role of Lily Munster in the smash series Les monstres (1964). However, she still was not completely through with the big screen. Appearances in such films as Le grand McLintock (1963), La guerre des cerveaux (1968), The Seven Minutes (1971) and La casa de las sombras (1976) kept her before the eyes of the movie-going public. Yvonne De Carlo died at age 84 of natural causes on January 8, 2007 in Woodland Hills, California.

Jackie Cooper was born John Cooper in Los Angeles, California, to Mabel Leonard, an Italian-American stage pianist, and John Cooper. Through his mother, he was the nephew of actress Julie Leonard, screenwriter Jack Leonard, and (by marriage) director Norman Taurog. Jackie served with the Navy in the South Pacific toward the end of World War II. Then, quietly and without publicity or fanfare, compiled one of the most distinguished peacetime military careers of anyone in his profession. In 1961, as his weekly TV series Hennesey (1959) was enhancing naval recruiting efforts, accepted a commission as a line officer in the Naval Reserve with duties in recruitment, training films, and public relations. Holder of a multi-engine pilot license, he later co-piloted jet planes for the Navy, which made him an Honorary Aviator authorized to wear wings of gold-at the time only the third so honored in naval aviation history. By 1976 he had attained the rank of captain, and was in uniform aboard the carrier USS Constellation for the Bicentennial celebration on July 4. In 1980 the Navy proposed a period of active duty at the Pentagon that would have resulted in a promotion to rear admiral, bringing him even with Air Force Reserve Brigadier General James Stewart. Fresh on the heels of a second directing Emmy, he felt his absence would impact achieving a long-held goal of directing motion pictures, and reluctantly declined. (The opportunity in films never materialized.) Holds Letters of Commendation from six secretaries of the Navy. Was honorary chairman of the U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation and a charter member of VIVA, the effort to return POW-MIAs from Vietnam. Upon retirement in 1982, he was decorated with the Legion of Merit by Navy Secretary John F. Lehman Jr.. Other than Stewart, no performer in his industry has achieved a higher uniformed rank in the U.S. military. (Glenn Ford was also a Naval Reserve captain, and director and Captain John Ford was awarded honorary flag rank upon his 1951 retirement from the Naval Reserve).

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 La Charge fantastique (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 à Moscou (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 La route des ténèbres (1945) with John Garfield.

In the 1946 Warner Bros. remake of Servitude humaine (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 Femmes en cage (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 Histoire de détective (1951). Her third and last Oscar nod came for Mélodie interrompue (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 L'homme au bras d'or (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 Histoire de détective (1951) and L'homme au bras d'or (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 La Mélodie du bonheur (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 La Mélodie du bonheur (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 La statue en or massif (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, coup de soleil (1979). Subsequently, she appeared very infrequently on TV, most recently in Echec et meurtre (1991).

Eleanor Parker retired far too soon for those who were her fans, and those who appreciated a superb actress.

Carl Reiner is a legend of American comedy, who achieved great success as a comic actor, a director, producer and recording artist. He won nine Emmy Awards, three as an actor, four as a writer and two as a producer. He also won a Grammy Award for his album "The 2,000 Year Old Man", based on his comedy routine with Mel Brooks.

Reiner was born in The Bronx, to Bessie (Mathias) and Irving Reiner, a watchmaker. His father was an Austrian Jewish immigrant and his mother was a Romanian Jewish immigrant. At the age of sixteen, while working as a sewing machine repairman, he attended a dramatic workshop sponsored by the Works Progress Administration. The direction of his life was set.

In the 1970s, some sources claimed that Reiner made his movie debut in New Faces of 1937 (1937), but that is unlikely as he would have only been fifteen years old at the time. (the movie shares the same plot as his erstwhile partner Mel Brooks' classic Les Producteurs (1967), with a crooked producer planning to fleece his "angels" by producing a flop and absconding with the money). He didn't appear on screen, silver or small, until he made his television debut in 1948 in the short-lived television series, The Fashion Story (1948), then became a regular, the following year, on The Fifty-Fourth Street Revue (1949), another television series with a brief life.

Reiner made his Broadway debut in 1949 in the musical "Inside U.S.A.", a hit that ran for 399 performances. His next Broadway show, the musical revue "Alive and Kicking" (1950) was a flop, lasting just 43 performances. Max Liebman, the producer/director/writer/composer, had been called in to provide additional material after the show's troubled six week out-of-town preview in Boston. It didn't help -- the show closed after six weeks on Broadway -- but an important contact had been made.

Leibman was a producer-director on Your Show of Shows (1950), one of the great television series, and he hired Reiner to appear on the show in the middle of its first season. Reiner's first gig on the revue-like show was interviewing The Professor, a character played by Sid Caesar. He became central to the comedy portions of the show and, in 1953, he racked up the first of six Emmy Award nominations for acting. (In all, he was nominated for an Emmy Award a total of 13 times). When, in 1954, "Your Show of Shows" was split up by the network into its constituent parts, Reiner continued on with Sid in Caesar's Hour (1954). (Imogene Coca was given her own show, which lasted one season, and Leibman was allowed to produce specials).

"Your Show or Shows" had been a Broadway-style revue, featuring skits such as dancing (including a young Bob Fosse) whereas "Caesar's Hour" was pure comedy. "Your Show of Shows" had had a great cast, another other than Coca, most of the cast, including Reiner, Howard Morris, and Nanette Fabray (who went on to win an Emmy Award) moved over to "Caesar's Hour". In his three seasons on the show, he was nominated three more times for an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor, winning twice in 1957 and 1958. But it was its stable of comedy writers that was essential to the great success of both "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour". In addition to Mel Brooks, the writing staff included Neil Simon, his brother Danny Simon, Larry Gelbart and Mel Tolkin. (There are rumors that the young Woody Allen served as the writing staff's typist).

Reiner had sat in informally with the writers during "Your Show of Shows", but he began writing formally for "Caesar's Hour", having learned his craft from all of the other writers. As a self-described uncredited "writer without portfolio", he was able to leave writers' meetings at 6 P.M., if he wanted to. This gave him the time to work on a semi-autobiographical novel. Published in 1958, Enter Laughing (1967) is about a young man in 1930s New York trying to make it in show business. It was transformed into a play and, eventually, adapted into a movie in 1967, and a musical, many years later.

In 1959, he created the pilot for a television series, "Man of the House", in which he would play a writer, Rob Petrie, who balanced his family life with the demands of working as a writer for a comedy show headlined by an egotistical comedic genius modeled after Sid Caesar (a "benign despot" who lacked social skills, according to Reiner). The series was rooted in his experience on "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour". The network didn't pick up the pilot at first, as CBS executives claimed the main character, which was clearly autobiographical on Reiner's part, was too New York, too Jewish and too intellectual. In 1960, Reiner teamed up with Mel Brooks on The Steve Allen Show (1956), and their routine "The 2000 Year Old Man" was a huge success. Reiner played the straight man to Brooks in the routine, which was spun-off into five comedy albums, bringing them a Grammy Award. They also made an animated television special based on their shtick in 1975.

Though CBS turned down "Man of the House", with the two-time Emmy Award-winning comedian Reiner as the lead, it was still interested in the series. However, they wanted a different actor in the lead role, and the casting of the protagonist came down to Johnny Carson and Dick Van Dyke. Carson was a game show host of no great note at the time, but Van Dyke was in the smash Broadway musical Bye Bye Birdie (1963), for which he won a Tony Award. He got the role and another chapter of television history was made, when Mary Tyler Moore, Rose Marie and Morey Amsterdam all were cast in leading roles. Reiner, himself, would eventually play the role of Alan Brady, the abrasive Sid Caesar-like comic convinced of his own genius, in the last few seasons of the series' five-year run.

Another milestone in television comedy, The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961), brought Reiner five more Emmy Awards, three for writing and two as the producer of the series. In 1966, Reiner and the other principals, including executive producer Sheldon Leonard and Dick Van Dyke, decided to end the series at the height of its popularity and critical acclaim. (The show won Emmy Awards as best show and best comedy in 1965 and 1966, respectively). Twenty-nine years after the show was ended, Reiner reprised the role of Alan Brady on Dingue de toi (1992), winning his eighth (and so far, last) Emmy Award, this time as Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series.

It was on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" that Reiner first became a director. His feature film debut, as a director, was with the film adaptation of the play Joseph Stein had adapted from his 1958 novel, Enter Laughing (1967). His work as a writer-director, with Dick Van Dyke, in creating a Stan Laurel-type character in The Comic (1969) was not a success, but Where's Poppa? (1970) became a cult classic and Bon Dieu! (1977), with George Burns, and Un vrai schnock (1979), with Steve Martin, were smash hits. The last film he directed was the romantic comedy C'est ça l'amour! (1997).

Reiner's career continued into the 21st century, when most of his contemporaries had retired or passed. He was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2000 and acted in the remake of Ocean's Eleven (2001) and its two sequels. He also appeared as a voice artist in the film Mon chien, ce héros! (2003), and the animated series The Cleveland Show (2009) (he even wrote an episode for the series rooted in his "Your Show of Shows" experience). He was also a regular on the series Hot in Cleveland (2010) (with fellow nonagenarian Betty White), and appeared on an episode of Parks and Recreation (2009) in 2012. His last film role was as the voice of Carl Reineroceros in Toy Story 4 (2019), opposite his old compatriot Mel Brooks.

Carl Reiner died at age 98 of natural causes on June 29, 2020, in Beverly Hills, California.

Barbara Hale was born on April 18, 1922 in DeKalb, Illinois, to Wilma (née Colvin) and Luther Ezra Hale, a landscape gardener. She had one sister, Juanita. As a young girl, she intended to major in art and drawing but to work her way through The Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, she began her professional career as a model for a comic strip called "Ramblin' Bill."

Hale is best remembered as Della Street, long-time secretary to attorney Perry Mason on the TV series Perry Mason (1957) from 1957 to 1966 and again in over 25 Perry Mason TV movies from 1985 to 1995. She married actor Bill Williams in 1946. He was best remembered for his portrayal of Kit Carson in The Adventures of Kit Carson (1951) from 1951 to 1955. The couple had three children - two daughters: Jody (born in 1947), Juanita (born in 1953), and, in 1951, a son, William Katt (the spitting image of his father), and actor in his own right, probably best known as the titular character's ill-fated prom date in the film Carrie au bal du diable (1976) and, later, as Ralph Hinkley, the klutzy superhero on the quirky 1980s adventure series Ralph Super-héros (1981) (from 1981 to 1986).

One of America's most loved actresses was born Doris Mary Kappelhoff on April 3, 1922, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Alma Sophia (Welz), a housewife, and William Joseph Kappelhoff, a music teacher and choir master. Her grandparents were all German immigrants. She had two brothers, Richard, who died before she was born and Paul, a few years older.

Her parents divorced while she was still a child, and she lived with her mother. Like most little girls, Doris liked to dance. At fourteen, she formed a dance act with a boy, Jerry Doherty, and they won $500 in a local talent contest. She and Jerry took a brief trip to Hollywood to test the waters. They felt they could succeed, so she and Jerry returned to Cincinnati with the intention of packing and making a permanent move to Hollywood. Tragically, the night before she was to move to Hollywood, she was injured riding in a car hit by a train, ending the possibility of a dancing career.

It was a terrible setback, but after taking singing lessons she found a new vocation, and at age 17, she began touring with the Les Brown Band. She met trombonist Al Jorden, whom she married in 1941. Jorden was prone to violence and they divorced after two years, not long after the birth of their son Terry. In 1946, Doris married George Weidler, but this union lasted less than a year. Day's agent talked her into taking a screen test at Warner Bros. The executives there liked what they saw and signed her to a contract (her early credits are often confused with those of another actress named Doris Day, who appeared mainly in B westerns in the 1930s and 1940s).

Her first starring movie role was in Romance à Rio (1948). The next year, she made two more films, Il y a de l'amour dans l'air (1949) and Les travailleurs du chapeau (1949). Audiences took to her beauty, terrific singing voice and bubbly personality, and she turned in fine performances in the movies she made (in addition to several hit records). She made three films for Warner Bros. in 1950 and five more in 1951. In that year, she met and married Martin Melcher, who adopted her young son Terry, who later grew up to become Terry Melcher, a successful record producer.

In 1953, Doris starred in La blonde du Far-West (1953), which was a major hit, and several more followed: Mademoiselle Porte-bonheur (1954), Les pièges de la passion (1955), L'homme qui en savait trop (1956) and what is probably her best-known film, Confidences sur l'oreiller (1959). She began to slow down her filmmaking pace in the 1960s, even though she started out the decade with a hit, Ne mangez pas les marguerites (1960).

In 1957, her brother Paul died. Around this time, her husband, who had also taken charge of her career, had made deals for her to star in films she didn't really care about, which led to a bout with exhaustion. The 1960s weren't to be a repeat of the previous busy decade. She didn't make as many films as she had in that decade, but the ones she did make were successful: Ne pas déranger S.V.P. (1965), La blonde défie le FBI (1966), Que faisiez-vous quand les lumières se sont éteintes? (1968) and Il y a un homme dans le lit de maman (1968). Martin Melcher died in 1968, and Doris never made another film, but she had been signed by Melcher to do her own TV series, Doris comédie (1968). That show, like her movies, was successful, lasting until 1973. After her series went off the air, she made only occasional TV appearances.

By the time Martin Melcher died, Doris discovered she was millions of dollars in debt. She learned that Melcher had squandered virtually all of her considerable earnings, but she was eventually awarded $22 million by the courts in a case against a man that Melcher had unwisely let invest her money. She married for the fourth time in 1976 and since her divorce in 1980 has devoted her life to animals.

Doris was a passionate animal rights activist. She ran Doris Day Animal League in Carmel, California, which advocates homes and proper care of household pets.

Doris died on May 13, 2019, in Carmel Valley Village, California. She was 97.

The son of Edwin Schallert, drama editor of the "Los Angeles Times" and the dean of West Coast critics, William Schallert became interested in an acting career while at UCLA in 1942. After graduation, he became involved with the Circle Theater (eventually becoming one of its owners) and made his film debut in La fière créole (1947). He then became ubiquitous in movies and TV ever since, and from 1979 to 1981, he was president of the Screen Actors Guild. He stayed active with SAG projects and said he never gave retirement a thought.

Denholm Elliott was a much-loved character actor who specialized in playing slightly sleazy or slightly eccentric and often flawed upper middle class English gentlemen. His career spanned nearly 40 years, becoming a well-known face both in Britain and in the States. After being educated at the private school Malvern College, he entered RADA at the age of 17, but dropped out after a year, having hated every minute being there. He joined the RAF in 1940, trained as a gunner/radio operator, and was shot down over Germany in 1942. In the POW camp he and his fellow prisoners staged various productions in a theatre constructed out of old packing cases.

After the war he joined a London repertory company, and his career took off particularly when Laurence Olivier chose him for the starring role in Venus Observed, for which he won a Clarence Derwent award. When another Olivier production, Ring Around the Moon, transferred to New York, Elliott replaced Paul Scofield in what became a Broadway hit. Returning to Britain, he was signed to a film contract and appeared in such movies as La mer cruelle (1953) and Le mur du son (1952). In the 1960s he appeared in Un Caïd (1965) and Alfie le dragueur (1966) among others, in addition to appearing on television and making countrywide theatre tours. He won an Evening Standard Best Actor award for Nicolas Roeg's film Enquête sur une passion (1980). He won a BAFTA Best Supporting Actor Award for his role as the butler in Un fauteuil pour deux (1983) and followed it with awards for his roles in Porc royal (1984) and Raison d'état (1985), as well as receiving an Academy Award nomination for Chambre avec vue... (1985).

Powerful and highly respected American actor Jason Nelson Robards, Jr. was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Hope Maxine (Glanville) and stage and film star Jason Robards Sr. He had Swedish, English, Welsh, German, and Irish ancestry. Robards was raised mostly in Los Angeles. A star athlete at Hollywood High School, he served in the U.S. Navy in World War II, where he saw combat as a radioman (though he is not listed in official rolls of Navy Cross winners, despite the claims he and his public relations personnel made. Neither was he at Pearl Harbor during the Dec. 7, 1941 attack, his ship being at sea at the time.) Returning to civilian life, he attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and struggled as a small-part actor in local New York theatre, TV and radio before shooting to fame on the New York stage in Eugene O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh" as Hickey. He followed that with another masterful O'Neill portrayal, as the alcoholic Jamie Tyrone in "Long Day's Journey Into Night" on Broadway. He entered feature films in Le voyage (1959) and rose rapidly to even greater fame as a film star. Robards won consecutive Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor for Les Hommes du président (1976) and Julia (1977), in each case playing real-life people. He continued to work on the stage, winning continued acclaim in such O'Neill works as "Moon For the Misbegotten" and "Hughie." Robards died of lung cancer in 2000.

A remarkably seasoned actor of stage, screen and television, Darren McGavin has notched in excess of 200 performances; however, he is most fondly remembered by cult TV fans as heroic newspaper reporter Carl Kolchak in the classic but short-lived horror TV series Dossiers brûlants (1974). In a long and varied career, McGavin has often turned up as authority figures including policemen, military officers, stern-faced business executives or father figures; however, he is equally adept at light-hearted comedic performances.

Darren McGavin was born William Lyle Richardson on May 7, 1922, in Spokane, Washington, to Grace Mitton (Bogart) and Reed D. Richardson. His mother was from Ontario, Canada. He received his dramatic arts training at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse and the Actors Studio, and debuted on screen in an uncredited role in La chanson du souvenir (1945). Several standard roles followed over the next decade before he landed the key role of Louie the drug pusher in L'homme au bras d'or (1955) and Capt. Russ Peters in Condamné au silence (1955), both directed by Otto Preminger. Each of these performances showcased McGavin's versatility, and his virile looks scored him the role of Mickey Spillane's hard-boiled private eye in Mike Hammer (1958).

McGavin stayed continually employed throughout the 1960s, appearing in such films as Le Massacre des Sioux (1965), La course à la vérité (1967), The Challengers (1970) and Tribes (1970). In addition, he was regularly guest-starring in dozens of TV shows, including Gunsmoke (1955), Le Jeune Docteur Kildare (1961), Mission impossible (1966) and Des agents très spéciaux (1964). In 1971 he landed the role of cynical reporter Carl Kolchak in the low-budget horror thriller The Night Stalker (1972), about a vampire running amok in Las Vegas. The film was a monster ratings winner (pun intended!) and the highest-rated telemovie of 1972, and original scriptwriters were soon hard at work on a punchier sequel. The Night Strangler (1973) saw Kolchak in Seattle (after being booted out of Las Vegas by the police), and this time on the trail of a serial killer seeking the elixir of eternal youth. The second movie was equally successful, and spawned the short-lived TV series Dossiers brûlants (1974) with Simon Oakland as McGavin's long-suffering editor and a host of weekly guest stars including Jim Backus, Phil Silvers, Richard Kiel, Tom Skerritt, Scatman Crothers and Larry Storch.

"Kolchak" only lasted one season, but it became a bona-fide cult classic, and many years later its premise of "the unknown amongst us" inspired writer Chris Carter to create the phenomenally successful long-running TV series X-Files : Aux frontières du réel (1993), which saw McGavin guest-star in several episodes.

McGavin remained busy throughout the rest of the 1970s and into the 1980s, appearing in Les Naufragés du 747 (1977), as Gen. George S. Patton in the TV miniseries Ike (1979), alongside Rock Hudson in the uneven sci-fi miniseries Les Chroniques martiennes (1980) and a few years later endeared himself to to a whole new generation of fans with his superb performance as the vitriolic, yet buffoonish, father in the delightful Christmas classic Christmas Story (1983). The always versatile McGavin also popped up as a detective in Turk 182 (1985), assisted Arnold Schwarzenegger in cleaning up the mob in Le Contrat (1986) and was a doctor in the bizarre zombie/cop/zombie cop film Flic ou zombie (1988).

At this point it's worth mentioning that, along with his film and TV work, McGavin has also enjoyed an illustrious career on the stage, with appearances in dozens of critically acclaimed productions across the length and breadth of the US. He has appeared in stage presentations of "Death of a Salesman", "The Rainmaker", "The King and I" and "Blood Sweat & Stanley Poole", to name a few.

In 1990 the opportunity arose for McGavin to play another somewhat stern, yet comedic, father figure, this time as "Bill Brown" to Candice Bergen in the much loved sitcom Murphy Brown (1988). McGavin was again wonderful, and his entertaining performances resulted in an Emmy Award nomination in 1990. Several other film roles followed in the 1990s, in such films as Adam Sandler's hit Billy Madison (1995). He died on 25th February 2006 at the age of 83.

Of Greek descent on both sides, the son of immigrants, Savalas was a soldier during World War II, although most of his enlistment records were destroyed in a fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1973. He later studied psychology at Columbia University under the GI Bill.

Iconically bald, he often played character roles, sometimes as sadists or psychotics. He became famous in the 1970s when his role as Det. Theo Kojak in the TV movie Affaire Marcus Nelson (1973) was expanded into the gritty Kojak (1973) TV series (1973-78).

Kathryn Grayson was born Zelma Kathryn Elisabeth Hedrick in Winston-Salem, NC, on February 9, 1922. This pretty, petite brunette with a heart-shaped face was discovered by MGM talent scouts while singing on the radio. The studio quickly signed her to a contract, and she was given acting lessons along and had to pose for countless publicity photos. Kathryn, a coloratura soprano, made her first film in 1941, a "B" picture called Andy Hardy's Private Secretary (1941). She soon was cast opposite some of MGM's top musical stars of the 1940s, such as Gene Kelly and Mario Lanza. She was paired with Lanza a few times, but the two never got along due mostly to Lanza's hot temper and alcohol abuse. The pairing of Lanza and Grayson would never match the success of lyrical soprano Jeanette MacDonald and baritone Nelson Eddy, although Kathryn and MacDonald did become great friends. Jeanette became a mentor and an older sister figure for Kathryn.

Grayson's most memorable roles came in the early 1950s. They were Show Boat (1951), where she played "Magnolia", opposite Ava Gardner and Howard Keel; Embrasse-moi, chérie (1953), playing actress "Lilli Vanessi", who portrayed "Katherine" in the movie's "show within a show", a musical version of "The Taming of the Shrew". In 1953 she exited MGM, then made only one more film, Le roi des vagabonds (1956), at Paramount. She later worked in nightclubs and on stage.

A tall, sinewy, austere-looking character actor with silver hair, rugged features and a distinctive voice, John Robert Anderson appeared in hundreds of films and television episodes. Immensely versatile, he was at his best submerging himself in the role of historical figures (he impersonated Abraham Lincoln three times and twice baseball commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, men whom he strongly resembled). He was a familiar presence in westerns and science-fiction serials, usually as upstanding, dignified and generally benign citizens (a rare exception was his Ebonite interrogator in Au-delà du réel (1963) episode "Nightmare"). He had a high opinion of Rod Serling and was proud to be featured in four episodes of La quatrième dimension (1959), most memorably as the tuxedo-clad angel Gabriel in "A Passage for Trumpet" (doing for Jack Klugman what Henry Travers did for James Stewart in La vie est belle (1946)).

Known to other youths as 'J.R.', Anderson had a happy childhood, growing up first on a small farm near Clayton, Illinois, and then in the mid-sized town of Quincy where his mother operated a cigar stand. A rangy, outdoorsy type, he excelled at various sports, was a drum major, a member of the track team and the Boy Scouts. During World War II, he served in the Coast Guard, mainly involved in helping protect convoys from U-boat attacks. In 1946, he commenced studies at the University of Iowa, eventually graduating with a Master's degree in Drama. His acting career began on the riverboat 'Goldenrod' (now the oldest surviving Mississippi River Basin showboat in America) and proceeded from there to the Cleveland Playhouse for a year, then the New York stage and summer stock with parts in prestigious plays like "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "Home of the Brave". He also occasionally doubled up as a singer on Broadway ("Paint Your Wagon" (1951), "The Emperor's Clothes" (1953)).

Anderson began as a regular television actor during that medium's formative years. In the course of the next four decades, his appearance barely changing, he was consistently excellent wherever he popped up, be it as western lawmen (including a recurring role as Virgil Earp in The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (1955)), as cops, governors, judges and army officers; hard-nosed oil executive Herbert Styles in Dallas (1978), or as kindly patriarch of the Hazard clan in Nord et sud (1985). Though less traveled on the big screen, Anderson was particularly impressive as the furtive second-hand car dealer, 'California Charlie', in Alfred Hitchcock's Psychose (1960), the ruthless leader of the renegades, Addis, in Le jour des Apaches (1968) and, reprising his role as Lincoln, in The Lincoln Conspiracy (1977). One of the best all-rounders in the business, Anderson died of a heart attack at his home in Sherman Oaks in August 1992, aged 69.

As a film character actor, Klugman was the epitome of the everyman. He was one of the pioneers of television acting in the 1950s, and is best remembered for his 1970s TV work as Oscar Madison on The Odd Couple (1970) and as the medical examiner on Quincy (1976).

Born in a small village in Syria, Michael Ansara came to the United States with his American parents at the age of two, living in New England, until the family's relocation to California ten years later. He entered Los Angeles City College with the intention of becoming a doctor, but got sidetracked into the dramatics department. A stint at the Pasadena Playhouse (where fellow students included Charles Bronson, Carolyn Jones and Aaron Spelling) led to roles on stage and in films; the starring role (as Cochise) on the popular television series La flèche brisée (1956) elevated Ansara to stardom.

During the series' run, he met actress Barbara Eden on a date arranged by the 20th Century-Fox publicity department; the two later married. He played the Klingon commander Kang on three Star Trek television series: Star Trek (1966), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993) and Star Trek: Voyager (1995). He also played Buck Rogers' evil adversary Kane on Buck Rogers (1979), and provided the voice of Mr. Freeze on Batman (1992) and its spin-offs. Michael Ansara died at age 91 from complications of Alzheimer's disease in his home in Calabasas, California on July 31, 2013.

Blake Edwards' stepfather's father J. Gordon Edwards was a silent screen director, and his stepfather Jack McEdward was a stage director and movie production manager. Blake acted in a number films, beginning with Ten Gentlemen from West Point (1942) and wrote a number of others, beginning with Le justicier de la sierra (1948) and including six for director Richard Quine. He created the popular TV series Peter Gunn (1958), Bonne chance M. Lucky (1959) and Dante (1960). He directed a diverse body of films, from comedies to dramas to war films to westerns, including such pictures as Opération jupons (1959), Diamants sur canapé (1961), Allô... brigade spéciale (1962), Le jour du vin et des roses (1962), La Panthère rose (1963) and Quand l'inspecteur s'emmêle (1964). After La Grande Course autour du monde (1965) he began fighting with studios. In England he surfaced again with Le Retour de la panthère rose (1975), then went back to Hollywood and a real hit, Elle (1979). Victor/Victoria (1982) won him French and Italian awards for Best Foreign Film.

He was a master class in cerebral eloquence and audience command...and although his dominant playing card in the realm of acting was quite serious and stately, nobody cut a more delightfully dry edge in sitcoms than this gentleman, whose calm yet blistering put-downs often eluded his lesser victims.

Acting titan Roscoe Lee Browne was born to a Baptist minister and his wife on May 2, 1922, in Woodbury, New Jersey. He attended Lincoln University, an historically black university in Pennsylvania until 1942, when he enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War II, where he served in Italy with the Negro 92nd Infantry Division and organized the Division's track and field team. He graduated from Lincoln University in 1946, and studied French through Middlebury College's summer language program. He received his master's degree from Columbia University, then subsequently returned to Lincoln and taught French and comparative literature, seemingly destined to settle in completely until he heard a different calling.

Roscoe relished his first taste of adulation and admiration as a track star, competing internationally and winning the world championship in the 800-yard dash in 1951. He parlayed that attention into a job as a sales representative for a wine and liquor importer. In 1956, he abruptly decided to become an actor. And he did. With no training but a shrewd, innate sense of self, he boldly auditioned for, and won, the role of the Soothsayer in "Julius Caesar" the very next day at the newly-formed New York Shakespeare Festival. He never looked back and went on to perform with the company in productions of "The Taming of the Shrew", "Titus Andronicus", "Othello", "King Lear" (as the Fool), and "Troilus and Cressida".

Blessed with rich, mellifluous tones and an imposing, cultured air, Roscoe became a rare African-American fixture on the traditionally white classical stage. In 1961 he appeared notably with James Earl Jones in the original off-Broadway cast of Jean Genet's landmark play "The Blacks". Awards soon came his way -- the first in the form of an Obie only a few years later for his portrayal of a rebellious slave in "The Old Glory". Additionally, he received the Los Angeles Drama Critic's Circle Award for both "The Dream on Monkey Mountain" (1970) and "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" (1989). Roscoe found less successful ventures on 1960s Broadway, taking his first curtain call in "A Cool World" in 1960, which folded the next day. He graced a number of other short runs including "General Seegar" (1962), "Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright" (1962), "The Ballad of the Sade Cafe" (1964), "Danton's Death" (1965), and "A Hand Is on the Gate: An Evening of Negro Poetry and Folk Music" (1966), which he also wrote and directed. He did not return to Broadway until 1983 with the role of the singing Rev. J.D. Montgomery in Tommy Tune's smash musical "My One and Only" in which his number "Kicking the Clouds Away" proved to be one of many highlights. Roscoe returned only once more to Broadway, earning acclaim and a Tony nomination for his supporting performance in August Wilson's "Two Trains Running" (1992).

Although he made an isolated debut with Connection (1961), he wouldn't appear regularly in films until the end of the decade with prominent parts in the Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton film, Les comédiens (1967), Jules Dassin's Point noir (1968), Hitchcock's L'étau (1969) and, his most notable, On n'achète pas le silence (1970). Thereafter, he complimented a host of features, both comedic and dramatic, including Super Fly (1972) (and its sequel), Uptown Saturday Night (1974), L'Âge de cristal (1976), L'affaire Chelsea Deardon (1986), Les mambo kings (1992) and Escroc malgré lui (1996)

Elsewhere, Roscoe's disdainful demeanor courted applause on all the top 70s sitcoms including "All in the Family", "Maude," "Sanford and Son", "Good Times" and "Barney Miller" (Emmy-nominated), and he played the splendidly sardonic role of Saunders, the Tate household butler, after replacing Robert Guillaume's popular "Benson" character on Soap (1977). In 1986 he won an Emmy Award for his guest appearance on Cosby Show (1984). His trademark baritone lent authority and distinction to a number of documentaries, live-action fare, and animated films, as well as the spoken-word arena, with such symphony orchestras as the Boston Pops and the Los Angeles Philharmonic to his credit. A preeminent recitalist, he was known for committing hundreds of poems to memory. For many years he and actor Anthony Zerbe toured the U.S. with their presentation of "Behind the Broken Words", an evening of poetry and dramatic readings.

At the time of his death of cancer on April 11, 2007, the never-married octogenarian was still omnipresent, more heard than seen perhaps. Among his last works was his narrations of a Garfield film feature and the most recent movie spoof Big Movie (2007).