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Donna Reed was born in the midwestern town of Denison, Iowa, on January 27, 1921, as Donna Belle Mullenger. A small town - a population of less than 3,000 people - Denison was located by the Boyer River, and was the county seat of Crawford County. Donna grew up as a farm girl, much like many young girls in western Iowa, except for one thing - Donna was very beautiful. That wasn't to say that others weren't as pretty, it's just that Donna's beauty stood out from all the other local girls, so much so that she won a beauty contest in Denison. Upon graduation from high school Donna left for college in Los Angeles, in the hopes of eventually entering movies. While at Los Angeles City College, she pursued her dream by participating in several college stage productions. In addition to the plays, she also won the title of Campus Queen. At one of those stage plays Donna was spotted by an MGM talent scout and was signed to a contract. Her first film was a minor role in MGM's The Get-Away (1941). That was followed by a small part in Débuts à Broadway (1941), with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland as a secretary. She then won her breakthrough role in L'ombre de l'introuvable (1941). Afterwards, MGM began giving her better parts, in films such as The Bugle Sounds (1942), The Courtship of Andy Hardy (1942) and Le héros du Pacifique (1943). In 1944 she received second billing playing Carol Halliday in See Here, Private Hargrove (1944), a comedy about a reporter drafted into the army who eventually meets up with Donna's character as a worker in the canteen. The following year Donna starred in Le Portrait de Dorian Gray (1945), her best role to date. It was a love story set in London in 1890. It got mixed critical reviews but did well at the box-office. Donna was now one of the leading ladies of Hollywood. In 1946 she starred in what is probably her best-known role, as the wife of James Stewart in the classic La vie est belle (1946). This timeless story is a holiday staple to this day. The film also starred Lionel Barrymore and Thomas Mitchell. The next year Donna starred as Ann Daniels in Paramount's Retour sans espoir (1948) with Alan Ladd, which did well at the box-office. Her next role was the strongest she had had yet--Enquête à Chicago (1949), again with Ladd. It was one of the best mystery dramas to come out of Hollywood in a long time, and did very well at the box office. As the 1940s faded out and the 1950s stormed in, Donna's roles got bigger but were mainly of the wholesome, girl-next-door type. In 1953, however, she starred as the hostess Alma in the widely acclaimed Tant qu'il y aura des hommes (1953). She was so good in that film she was nominated for and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, beating out such veterans as Thelma Ritter and Marjorie Rambeau. The film itself won for Best Picture and remains a classic to this day. Later that year Donna starred in Amours, Délices... et Golf (1953), a comedy with Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. Three years later she landed the role of Sacajawea in Horizons lointains (1955), the story of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, starring Charlton Heston and Fred MacMurray. After finishing Le crime était signé (1958), Donna began her own TV series (produced by her husband), The Donna Reed Show (1958), a hit that ran for eight years. She was so effective in the show that she was nominated for TV's prestigious Emmy Award as Best Actress every year from 1959-1962. She was far more popular in TV than on the screen. After the run of the program, Donna took some time away from show business before coming back in a couple of made-for-TV movies (in 1974, she had made a feature called Welcome to Arrow Beach (1973), but it was never released). She did get the role of Ellie Ewing Farlow in the hit TV series Dallas (1978) during the 1984-85 season. It was to be her final public performance. On January 14, 1986, less than two weeks before her 65th birthday, she died of pancreatic cancer in Beverly Hills, California. Grover Asmus, her husband, created the Donna Reed Foundation for the Performing Arts in her hometown of Denison. The foundation helps others who desire a career in the arts. Donna never forgot her roots. She was still a farm girl at heart.

Once told by an interviewer, "Everybody would like to be Cary Grant", Grant is said to have replied, "So would I."

Cary Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach on January 18, 1904 in Horfield, Bristol, England, to Elsie Maria (Kingdon) and Elias James Leach, who worked in a factory. His early years in Bristol would have been an ordinary lower-middle-class childhood, except for one extraordinary event. At age nine, he came home from school one day and was told his mother had gone off to a seaside resort. However, the real truth was that she had been placed in a mental institution, where she would remain for years, and he was never told about it (he would not see his mother again until he was in his late 20s).

He left school at age 14, lying about his age and forging his father's signature on a letter to join Bob Pender's troupe of knockabout comedians. He learned pantomime as well as acrobatics as he toured with the Pender troupe in the English provinces, picked up a Cockney accent in the music halls in London, and then in July 1920, was one of the eight Pender boys selected to go to the United States. Their show on Broadway, "Good Times", ran for 456 performances, giving Grant time to acclimatize. He would stay in America. Mae West wanted Grant for Lady Lou (1933) because she saw his combination of virility, sexuality and the aura and bearing of a gentleman. Grant was young enough to begin the new career of fatherhood when he stopped making movies at age 62.

One biographer said Grant was alienated by the new realism in the film industry. In the 1950s and early 1960s, he had invented a man-of-the-world persona and a style - "high comedy with polished words". In La main au collet (1955), he and Grace Kelly were allowed to improvise some of the dialogue. They knew what the director, Alfred Hitchcock, wanted to do with a scene, they rehearsed it, put in some clever double entendres that got past the censors, and then the scene was filmed. His biggest box-office success was another Hitchcock 1950s film, La Mort aux trousses (1959) made with Eva Marie Saint since Kelly was by that time Princess of Monaco.

Although Grant retired from the screen, he remained active. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Faberge. By all accounts this position was not honorary, as some had assumed. Grant regularly attended meetings and traveled internationally to support them. The position also permitted use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother Dyan Cannon, was working. He later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle - Hollywood, California), Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Airlines in 1987) and MGM.

Grant expressed no interest in making a career comeback. He was in good health until almost the end of his life, when he suffered a mild stroke in October 1984. In his last years, he undertook tours of the United States in a one-man-show, "A Conversation with Cary Grant", in which he would show clips from his films and answer audience questions. On November 29, 1986, Cary Grant died at age 82 of a cerebral hemorrhage in Davenport, Iowa.

In 1999, the American Film Institute named Grant the second male star of Golden Age of Hollywood cinema (after Humphrey Bogart). Grant was known for comedic and dramatic roles; his best-known films include L'impossible Monsieur Bébé (1938), Indiscrétions (1940), La dame du vendredi (1940), Arsenic et vieilles dentelles (1944), Les enchaînés (1946), Elle et lui (1957), La Mort aux trousses (1959) and Charade (1963).

Actor, composer, songwriter, voiceover artist and author. He joined ASCAP in 1956, and his chief musical collaborators included Tony Romano, Ruby Raksin, Walter Gross, and Ed Brandt. His popular-song compositions include "Hollywood Soliloquy", "The Clown", "Drowning My Sorrow", and "Voice in the Wind".

Elsa Sullivan Lanchester was born into an unconventional a family at the turn of the 20th century. Her parents, James "Shamus" Sullivan and Edith "Biddy" Lanchester, were socialists - very active members of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) in a rather broad sense - and did not believe in the institution of marriage and being tied to any conventions of legality, for that matter. Her mother had actually been committed to an asylum in 1895 by her father and older brothers because of her unmarried state with James. The incident received worldwide press as the "Lanchester Kidnapping Case."

Elsa had a great desire to become a classical dancer and to that end at age 10 her mother enrolled her at the famed Isadora Duncan's Bellevue School in Paris in 1912. But the uncertainties of WW1 brought her home after only two years. At age 12, she was sent to a co-educational boarding school in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire, England, to teach dance classes in exchange for her education and board. In 1918, she was hired as a dance teacher at Margaret Morris's school on the Isle of Wight.

Next to dance, she loved the music halls of the period, so in 1920 she debuted in a music hall act as an Egyptian dancer. About the same time she founded the Children's Theater in Soho, London and taught there for several years. She made her stage debut in 1922 in the West End play "Thirty Minutes in a Street." In 1924 she and her partner, Harold Scott, opened a London nightclub called the Cave of Harmony. They performed one-act plays by Pirandello and Chekhov and sang cabaret songs. She would later collect and record these and many others. The spot was frequented by literati like Aldous Huxley, H.G. Wells and also James Whale, working in London theater and soon to be directing on Broadway and Hollywood's most famous horror films. Lanchester kept busy including, on her own admission, posing nude for artists. During a 1926 comic performance in the Midnight Follies at London's Metropole, a member of the British Royal family walked out as she sang, "Please Sell No More Drink to My Father." She closed her nightclub in 1928 as her film career began in earnest.

Perhaps not beautiful in the more conventional sense, Lanchester was certainly pretty as a young woman with a turned-up nose that gave her a pert, impish expression, all the more striking with her large, expressive dark eyes and full lips. She had a lithe figure that she carried with the assuredness of her dancing background. Her voice was bright and distinctive, and had a delightful rush and trill that had an almost Scottish burr quality. What clicked on stage would do the same in the movies.

Her first film appearance was actually in an amateur movie by friend and author Evelyn Waugh called The Scarlet Woman: An Ecclesiastical Melodrama (1925). Her formal film debut was in the British movie Cour martiale (1927). She continued stage work and became associated in 1927 with a rather self-possessed but keenly dedicated actor, Charles Laughton. He appeared with her in three of four films Lanchester did in 1928. (Three of these were written for her by H.G. Wells). They did a few plays as well and wed in 1929. According to Lanchester, after two years, she discovered Laughton was homosexual but they remained married until his death in 1962. Lanchester declared in a 1958 interview that she kept to a separate career path from her husband. They appeared together on occasion, moving through 1931 with several smart play-like films including La femme de Putiphar (1931) with Laurence Olivier. She had done the play "Payment Deferred" in London in 1930 and followed it to Broadway in 1931.

MGM offered her a contract in 1932. In 1933 Alexander Korda was casting his La vie privée d'Henry VIII (1933) and decided that Laughton was the perfect choice - and his wife would be just as perfect as one of Henry's six wives. Her versatility pointed to a part with some comedic elements and fitting more into a caricature. She looked most like Hans Holbein's famous portrait of Anne of Cleves (Henry's fourth wife who was actually somewhat more homely than the painter depicted). In costume Lanchester was charming if not striking. Her interpretation of Anne was a perfect integration with herself, and her scene with Laughton informally playing cards on the marriage bed and deciding on annulment is a high point of the movie.

Of course, it would be hard to mention her film career of the 1930s without mentioning the one role that would forever dog her, La Fiancée de Frankenstein (1935). Having come to Hollywood with Laughton in 1932 (but not permanently until 1939), Lanchester did only a few films up to 1935 and was disappointed enough with Hollywood's reception to return to London for a respite. She was quickly called back by an old friend from London, stage and film associate James Whale, now the noted director of Frankenstein (1931) and L'Homme invisible (1933). He wanted her for two parts in Bride: author Mary Shelley and the bride. A central joke of the movie build-up was the tag lines: "WHO will be The Bride of Frankenstein? WHO will dare?"

Indeed, it was no honeymoon for her. For some ten days, Lanchester was wrapped in yards of bandage and covered in heavy makeup. The stand-on-end hairdo was accomplished by combing it over a wire mesh cage. Lanchester was in real agony with her eyes kept taped wide open for long takes - and it showed in her looks of horror. Her monster's screaming and hissing sounds (based on the sounds of Regents Park swans in London) were taped and then run backward to spook-up the effect. She was delightfully melodramatic and picturesque as Wollstonecraft, and her bride would become iconic. Many have considered La Fiancée de Frankenstein (1935) the best of the golden age horror movies.

Lanchester stood out in her next movie with Laughton the next year, Korda's dark Rembrandt (1936), but she only did a few more films for the remainder of the decade. Through the 1940s she was doubly busy - a couple of films per year while regenerating her beloved musical revue sketches. She performed for 10 years at the Turnabout Theater in Hollywood, using old London music hall/cabaret songs and others written for her. Later she would have to split her time further doing a similar act at a supper club called The Bar of Music. By the later 1940s she had become rather matronly, and the roles would settle appropriately. But she always lent her sparkle, as with her charming maid Matilda in Honni soit qui mal y pense (1947). She would be nominated for best supporting actress in Les soeurs casse-cou (1949).

She entered the 1950s busy with road touring of her nightclub act with pianist J. Raymond Henderson (who went by "Ray" and who is sometimes confused with popular songwriter Ray Henderson). There was a series of tours to complement Laughton's famous reading tours, called Elsa Lanchester's Private Music Hall which ended in 1952; Elsa Lanchester--Herself which ended in 1961; and once more in 1964 at the Ivar Theater. She was equally busy with a stock of film roles and a large share of TV playhouse theater. She made ten movies with Laughton, the last of which, Témoin à charge (1957) garnered her second supporting actress nomination. But her dizzy Aunt Queenie Holroyd of L'adorable voisine (1958) is a fond remembrance of that time.

With the two decades from the 1960s to early 1980s, Lanchester was a fixture on episodic TV and an institution in Disney and G-rated fare - perhaps a bit ironic for the unconventional Lanchester. She wrote two autobiographies: "Charles Laughton and I" (1938) and "Elsa Lanchester: Herself" (1983), both recalling her nearly 100 roles before the camera. Lanchester remained humorously reflective in regard to her film career, describing it as "...large parts in lousy pictures and small parts in big pictures." It was the mix of silly, bawdy, and outrageous in her revues that was her great joy: "I was content because I was fully aware that I did not like straight acting but preferred performing direct to an audience. You might call what I do vaudeville. Making a joke, especially impromptu, and getting a big laugh is just plain heaven."

A brash character actress who specialized in cinema, television, and theater, Hermione Youlanda Ruby Clinton-Baddeley was born on November 13, 1906 in Broseley, Shropshire. She was the youngest of four sisters - including Angela Baddeley, also an actress - and her half-brother, Very Rev William Baddeley, was a Church of England Minister.

Not much is known about Baddeley's early life. She made her stage debut in 1918, and became popular in London stage comedies and revues prior to World War II, known for her dancing talent and natural comic ability. She memorably performed several times with Hermione Gingold. Baddeley made her film debut in 1927, with a role in the extremely obscure silent comedy A Daughter in Revolt (1927), but didn't come to attention until twenty years later, when she portrayed the affable but blowzy Ida in the film noir Le gang des tueurs (1948).

Known for her memorable character roles, Baddeley dabbled in such movies as Passeport pour Pimlico (1949), Scrooge (1951), Tom Brown's Schooldays (1951), The Pickwick Papers (1952), Les belles de Saint-Trinian (1954), Mary Poppins (1964), and La reine du Colorado (1964). She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her acid-tongued performance in Les chemins de la haute ville (1958). At two minutes and thirty-two seconds, it is the shortest performance to ever be nominated for the award.

Baddeley became a household favorite for her role as irritable cockney housekeeper Mrs. Naugatuck on the '70s comedy series Maude (1972). She landed guest spots on multiple other shows, including but not limited to Hancock's Half Hour (1956), The Patty Duke Show (1963), Ma sorcière bien aimée (1964), Night Gallery (1969), Super Jaimie (1976), La croisière s'amuse (1977), Drôles de dames (1976), Wonder Woman (1975), L'île fantastique (1977), and Magnum (1980).

Baddeley's two marriages failed, and she had a daughter, Pauline Tennant, from her first. She was in a long-term relationship with actor Laurence Harvey until he left her for Margaret Leighton, and died on August 19, 1986 at the age of 79 following a series of strokes.

The talented scion of a show-business family, Keenan Wynn's father was the great burlesque and television buffoon Ed Wynn while his maternal grandfather, Frank Keenan, earned distinction on the other side of the entertainment ladder as a Shakespearean tragedian. Mother Hilda Keenan was also a minor actress. Born in New York City on July 27, 1916, during the height of his father's Broadway popularity, Keenan grew up in the lap of luxury and was educated at St. John's Military Academy. He initially followed in his grandfather's dramatic footsteps as opposed to his father's clown shoes, making his professional bow in Maine with the Lakewood Players in a production of "Accent of Youth". By 1937, he was on Broadway with "Hitch Your Wagon" in two small roles. During the run of the show, he met first wife, actress Evie Wynn Johnson, who became his coach, manager and advisor. At the same time, he began to get steady radio work.

Through the aid and encouragement of his wife and her contacts, he eventually wrangled screen tests for both 20th Century-Fox and MGM. Turned down by the first studio, he signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer at a rather low pay scale of $300 a week. At MGM, Keenan became the utilitarian character player, adept at playing almost anything handed to him. Balding, homely but with real distinctive, imposing features, he made his unbilled debut in Somewhere I'll Find You (1942), and went on to play a grab-bag of shady brutes, usually in comic relief style. He was Gene Kelly's agent in Pour moi et ma mie (1942), a gangster in L'ange perdu (1943), a soldier buddy to Robert Walker in See Here, Private Hargrove (1944) and its sequel; a drunk in a diner in L'horloge (1945); Lucille Ball's tipsy beau in the Katharine Hepburn / Spencer Tracy vehicle Sans amour (1945); and a news editor paired up with Ms. Ball again in Ève éternelle (1946). Moreover, he was given "B" co-star assignments in lesser material such as Rio, rythme d'amour (1946), Pas de congé, pas d'amour (1946) and The Cockeyed Miracle (1946).

Two sons were born to Keenan and Eve during the war years but he and Eve soon drifted apart. In 1946, the couple filed divorce papers with a third-party involvement in the form of family close friend and MGM star Van Johnson. Eve went on to marry Johnson the day after the couple's divorce was decreed in 1947. Keenan's second marriage in 1949 to Betty Jane Butler lasted only four years.

He resigned with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the postwar years and ventured on as one of Hollywood's strongest character players. The drawback was that not many of his roles were high-quality challenges, roles that might have moved him toward the top of the MGM hierarchy. The more scene-stealing roles that came to him were his disagreeable, self-important burlesque star in the Clark Gable starrer Marchands d'illusions (1947); his jazz reedman in Meurtre en musique (1947); and the songwriter friend to Kirk Douglas in Ma chère secrétaire (1948). He was also given his quota of vulgar, blunt-talking villains to play, both comically and dramatically, in such films as Ma brute chérie (1950), Femme en péril (1951) and, in particular, his Runyonesque gangster in the musical classic Embrasse-moi, chérie (1953). Partnered with co-hort James Whitmore, their rendering of "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" was one of many comedy highlights. He also doled out a number of brash soldier types in such films as L'intrépide (1952), Le cirque infernal (1953), L'auto sanglante (1953) and Escadrille Panthère (1954).

After leaving Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1954, he set his sights on television, but the lure of films (and steady work) never stopped. In Quand le masque tombe (1956), Keenan finally appeared with father Ed Wynn, who had suffered a major career slide and subsequent nervous breakdown. Keenan, who at one time had gone to great lengths to extricate himself from his father's famous shadow, was now an instrument of encouragement. He suggested the elder Wynn abandon his old-styled clowning in favor of a serious character acting. His father agreed to try and appeared in a small role in the film but they had no scenes together. The risk worked. The following year both were being hailed for their superlative work together in the dramatic television production Requiem for a Heavyweight (1956).

Disney employed both father and son in the 1960s with a mustachioed Keenan as an exceptionally hissable villain in the studio's comedy feature Monte là-d'ssus (1961) and its sequel, Après lui, le déluge (1962). His hammy antics were spurred on in Dr. Folamour ou : comment j'ai appris à ne plus m'en faire et à aimer la bombe (1964), La Grande Course autour du monde (1965), Viva Max (1969) and Si tu crois fillette (1971), along with standard, if not always stand-out, television work. His annoying, fast-talking conmen, scheming tycoons and other unappetizing cronies never lost their demand. In 1975, he earned an Emmy Award nomination for his guest-starring role on Sergent Anderson (1974).

Though his later years were marred by a severe case of tinnitus (a ringing in the ear that blocks out exterior sound), he was able to continue acting until the very end. One of his last roles was as a regular on the short-lived television series The Last Precinct (1986). Sons Ned Wynn ("Edmund") and Tracy Keenan Wynn became successful writers in the business. On October 14, 1986, Keenan Wynn died of pancreatic cancer at age 70 and was survived by third wife Sharley Jean Hudson, who had three daughters by him: Hilda, Emily and Edwina. His granddaughter Jessica Keenan Wynn (Edwina's daughter) is also a Broadway singer and actress.

Scatman Crothers was born Benjamin Sherman Crothers on May 23, 1910 in Terre Haute, Indiana. Songwriter ("Dearest One"), actor, composer, singer, comedian, and guitarist who, after high school, appeared in nightclubs, hotels, and films, and on television. He made many records, including his own compositions. He joined ASCAP in 1959, and his popular-song compositions also include "The Gal Looks Good", "Nobody Knows Why", "I Was There", "A Man's Gotta Eat", and "When, Oh When". Scatman Crothers died at age 76 of pneumonia and lung cancer at his home in Van Nuys, California on November 22, 1986.

The most famous Soviet film-maker since Sergei Eisenstein, Andrei Tarkovsky (the son of noted poet Arseniy Tarkovsky) studied music and Arabic in Moscow before enrolling in the Soviet film school VGIK. He shot to international attention with his first feature, L'enfance d'Ivan (1962), which won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival. This resulted in high expectations for his second feature Andreï Roublev (1966), which was banned by the Soviet authorities for two years. It was shown at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival at four o'clock in the morning on the last day, in order to prevent it from winning a prize - but it won one nonetheless, and was eventually distributed abroad partly to enable the authorities to save face. Solaris (1972), had an easier ride, being acclaimed by many in Europe and North America as the Soviet answer to Kubrick's '2001' (though Tarkovsky himself was never too fond of his own film nor Kubrick's), but he ran into official trouble again with Le miroir (1975), a dense, personal web of autobiographical memories with a radically innovative plot structure. Stalker (1979) had to be completely reshot on a dramatically reduced budget after an accident in the laboratory destroyed the first version, and after Nostalghia (1983), shot in Italy (with official approval), Tarkovsky defected to Europe. His last film, Le Sacrifice (1986) was shot in Sweden with many of Ingmar Bergman's regular collaborators, and won an almost unprecedented four prizes at the Cannes Film Festival. He died of lung cancer at the end of the year. Two years later link=Sergei Parajanov dedicated his film Ashik Kerib to Tarkovsky.

Georgie Nokes was born on 22 October 1936 in Los Angeles County, California, USA. He was an actor, known for La vie est belle (1946), L'enjeu (1948) and Mélodie du sud (1946). He died on 22 May 1986 in Riverside, California, USA.

Murray Hamilton was one of those character actors whose face would be familiar to most movie buffs at an instant, yet his name may not. That's a shame, because Hamilton was one of the most versatile and prolific of performers who was never anything less than completely convincing in any role he took on, from priests to gangsters, soldiers to politicians, ordinary men to aliens. His characters would rarely fail to evoke emotion, whether that be sympathy or dislike. He particularly excelled at hard-edged, street-wise tough guys on either side of the law. His own dictum was to be always "true to the part as it is written".

Born and schooled in Washington, North Carolina, he had originally studied graphic design but had an early yearning for the acting profession. Barely out of his teens, he took a bus to Los Angeles, eventually arriving in Hollywood with just $50 to his name. He gained a foothold at Warner Brothers (his favorite studio) through the back door, as a messenger boy, earning $22 a week. He soon found work as an extra in films, but by 1945, returned to New York making his debut on Broadway as "a mill hand" in 'Strange Fruit', directed by 'Jose Ferrer (I)'.

His breakthrough came three years later, when he appeared with Henry Fonda in the long-running play 'Mister Roberts' (1948-51), first playing the role of a shore patrol officer, later taking over from David Wayne in the key part of Ensign Pulver. Over the years, Murray became quite comfortable with playing more comedic roles on stage and made good impressions as the over-zealous director Dion Kapakos in 'Critic's Choice' (1960-61), and as Otis Clifton in his Tony Award-nominated performance in 'Absence of a Cello' (1964-65), co-starring with Fred Clark and Charles Grodin. Of his enactment as Robert E. Lee Prewitt in the short-lived military drama 'Stockade' (1954), critic Brooks Atkinson remarked: "Modest of manner, pleasant of voice, he has a steel-like spirit that brings Prewitt honestly to life" (New York Times, September 17, 1986).

Murray began in films properly as a credited screen actor from 1951, alternating with guest starring roles on television (by the end of his life he had appeared in more than 100 TV shows). His expressive face and gravelly voice became an adaptable combination for playing surly gangsters (Perry Mason (1957)), authority figures with integrity (James Stewart's ill-fated colleague in La police fédérale enquête (1959)), or without (pompous mayor Larry Vaughn in Les Dents de la mer (1975)). He was particularly good as Irving Blanchard in the comedy Deux farfelus au régiment (1958), giving an excellent drunk impersonation; as obtuse barkeeper Al Paquette in Autopsie d'un meurtre (1959), the key witness to the crime who keeps mum out of misguided loyalty; cocky Kentuckian millionaire Findley who thinks he can take Fast Eddie in L'Arnaqueur (1961); and Anne Bancroft's complacent, cuckolded husband, Mr. Robinson, in Le lauréat (1967), a role for which Marlon Brando was at one time considered. Of Murray's performance in the iconic 1960s film, Bosley Crowther posited that "Murray Hamilton is piercing ... a seemingly self-indulgent type who is sharply revealed as bewildered and wounded in one fine, funny scene" (New York Times, December 22, 1967).

On the small screen, he was memorable as "Mr. Death" in the 'One for the Angels' episode of Rod Serling's La quatrième dimension (1959), who is seemingly sweet-talked by salesman Lew Bookman (Ed Wynn) to remain on earth just long enough to make his big "pitch to the angels". As Lewis Dunn in the episode 'The Condemned' of Les envahisseurs (1967), he was a very different type of visitor to earth, a sinister alien. In addition to numerous portrayals of harassed or cynical cops, he is also remembered for his recurring TV role, Captain Rutherford T. Grant, in B.J. and the Bear (1978).

Unlike other busy actors, Hamilton was not a part of the established Hollywood set, preferring to spend his life in his native North Carolina, and in Manhattan. He counted George C. Scott, Jason Robards, and Walter Matthau, among his close friends.

When the actor was suffering from the effects of cancer and found film roles harder to come by, Scott helped out by getting him a part in the made-for-television movie Les derniers jours de Patton (1986).

Murray Hamilton died, aged 63, in September 1986 in his native North Carolina.

Virginia Gregg was born on 6 March 1916 in Harrisburg, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Opération jupons (1959), Face au crime (1956) and Police Story (1973). She was married to Jaime Del Valle. She died on 15 September 1986 in Encino, Los Angeles, California, USA.

One of Hollywood's preeminent male stars of all time, James Cagney was also an accomplished dancer and easily played light comedy. James Francis Cagney was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, to Carolyn (Nelson) and James Francis Cagney, Sr., who was a bartender and amateur boxer. Cagney was of Norwegian (from his maternal grandfather) and Irish descent. Ending three decades on the screen, he retired to his farm in Stanfordville, New York (some 77 miles/124 km. north of his New York City birthplace), after starring in Billy Wilder's Un, deux, trois (1961). He emerged from retirement to star in the 1981 screen adaptation of E.L. Doctorow's novel "Ragtime" (Ragtime (1981)), in which he was reunited with his frequent co-star of the 1930s, Pat O'Brien, and which was his last theatrical film and O'Brien's as well). Cagney's final performance came in the title role of the made-for-TV movie Joe Moran, le terrible (1984), in which he played opposite Art Carney.

Forrest Tucker, best known to the Baby Boom generation as Sergeant O'Rourke on the classic TV sitcom F Troop (1965), was born on February 12, 1919, in Plainfield, Indiana. He began his performing career at age 14 at the 1933 Chicago "Century of Progress" World's Fair, pushing big wicker tourists' chairs by day and singing at night. His family moved to Arlington, Virginia, where he attended Washington-Lee High School in 1938.

Big for his age, as a youth Tucker was hired by the Old Gayety Burlesque Theater in Washington, DC, to serve as a Master of Ceremonies for the burly-cue after consecutively winning Saturday night amateur contests. He was fired when it was found out that he was underage. When he turned 18, he was rehired by the Old Gayety.

After graduating from high school in 1938, the 6'4", 200-lb. Tucker played semi-pro football in the Washington, DC, area. He also enlisted in the National Guard and was assigned to a cavalry unit in Ft. Myers, Virginia. He started at the top when he entered the movies, in a supporting role in William Wyler's Le cavalier du désert (1940) opposite Gary Cooper and Walter Brennan, who won his third Oscar for portraying Judge Roy Bean in the picture. He got the role during his 1939 vacation from the Old Gayety, which shut down due to the District of Columbia's horrible summers in the days before air conditioning was common.He was signed to the part in the Wyler picture, which required a big fellow with enough presence for a fight scene with the 6'3" superstar Cooper.

Tucker moved to California and began auditioning for parts in films. After "The Westerner", it was off to Poverty Row, where he appeared in William Beaudine's Emergency Landing (1941) at rock-bottom PRC (Producers Releasing Corp.). He was soon signed by Columbia and assigned to the B-pictures unit, though he was lent to MGM for the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn vehicle La flamme sacrée (1942), his last film before going off to World War II.

Tucker served as an enlisted man in the Army during the war, being discharged as a second lieutenant in 1945. He returned to Columbia and resumed his acting career with an appearance in the classic film Jody et le Faon (1946). He signed with Republic Pictures in 1948, which brought him one of his greatest roles, that of the Marine corporal bearing a grudge against gung-ho sergeant John Wayne in Iwo Jima (1949). At Republic Tucker was top-billed in many of the "B' pictures in the action and western genres the studio was famous for, such as Mississipi-Express (1950), La ruée vers la Californie (1950) and Capturez cet homme! (1952), among many others. In 1958 he broke out of action / western pictures and played Beauregard Burnside to Rosalind Russell's Ma tante (1958), the highest grossing US film of the year. It showed that Tucker was capable of performing in light comedy.

Morton DaCosta, his director on "Auntie Mame", cast Tucker as "Professor" Harold Hill in the national touring production of Le marchand de fanfares (1962), and he was a more than credible substitute for the great Broadway star Robert Preston, who originated the role. Tucker made 2,008 appearances in The Music Man over the next five years, then starred in "Fair Game for Lovers" on Broadway in 1964.

However, it was television that provided Tucker with his most famous role: scheming cavalry sergeant Morgan O'Rourke in "F Troop", which ran from 1965 to 1967 on ABC. Ably supported by Larry Storch, Ken Berry and James Hampton, Tucker showed a flair for comedy and he and Storch had great chemistry, but the series was canceled after only two seasons. It has, however, remained in syndication ever since.

Following "F Troop", Tucker returned to films in supporting parts (having a good turn as the villain in the John Wayne western Chisum (1970)) and character leads (The Wild McCullochs (1975)). On television he was a regular on three series: Dusty's Trail (1973) with Bob Denver; The Ghost Busters (1975), which reunited him with Larry Storch; and Filthy Rich (1982). Tucker was also a frequent guest star on TV, with many appearances on Gunsmoke (1955) and in the recurring role of Jarvis Castleberry, Flo's estranged father, on Alice (1976) and its spin-off, Flo (1980). He continued to be active on stage as well, starring in the national productions of Plaza Suite (1971), Show Boat (1936), and That Championship Season (1982). He also toured with Roy Radin's Vaudeville Revue, a variety show in which, as a headliner, he told Irish stories and jokes and sang Irish songs.

Tucker returned to the big screen after an absence of several years in 1986, playing hero trucker Charlie Morrison in the action film Détruisez le Thunder Run (1986). His comeback to features was short-lived, however, as he died on October 25, 1986, in the Los Angeles suburb of Woodland Hills, of complications from lung cancer and emphysema. He was 67 years old. Tucker was buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Born Lester Anthony Minnelli in Chicago on February 28 1903, his father Vincent was a musical conductor of the Minnelli Brothers' Tent Theater. Wanting to pursue an artistic career, Minelli worked in the costume department of the Chicago Theater, then on Broadway during the depression as a set designer and costumer, adopting a Latinized version of his father's first name when he was hired as an art-director by Radio City Music Hall. The fall of 1935 saw his directorial debut for a Franz Schubert revue, At Home Abroad. The show was the first of three, in the best Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. spirit, before receiving Arthur Freed's offer to work at MGM. This was his second try at Hollywood -- a short unsuccessful contract at Paramount led nowhere. He stayed at MGM for the next 26 years. After working on numerous Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland vehicles, usually directed by Busby Berkeley, Arthur Freed gave him his first directorial assignment on Un petit coin aux cieux (1943), a risky screen project with an all-black cast. This was followed by the ambitious period piece Le chant du Missouri (1944) whose star Judy Garland he married in 1945. Employing first-class MGM technicians, Minnelli went on directing musicals -- Tous en scène ! (1953) - as well as melodramas -- Comme un torrent (1958) - and urban comedies like La femme modèle (1957), occasionally even working on two films simultaneously. Minnelli is one of the few directors for whom Technicolor seems to have been invented. Many of his films included in every one of his movies features a dream sequence.

Born to George & Frances Simonson Walter, and named Sterling Relyea Walter. Father died in 1925. Adopted by stepfather 'James Hayden' renamed Sterling Walter Hayden. Grew up in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., and Maine. Though very poor, attended prep school at Wassookeag School in Dexter, Maine. Ran away to sea at 17, first as ship's boy, then as doryman on the Grand Banks, as a seaman and fireman on numerous vessels before getting his first command at 19. He sailed around the world a number of times, becoming a well-known and highly respected ship's captain. At urging of friends, met with producer Edward H. Griffith who signs him to a Paramount contract. Fell for his first leading lady, Madeleine Carroll, and married her. Prior to Pearl Harbor, abandoned Hollywood to become a commando with the COI (later the OSS). Joined Marines under pseudonym "John Hamilton" (a name he never acts under), eventually running guns and supplies to Yugoslav partisans through the German blockade of the Adriatic, as well as parachuting into Croatia for guerrilla activities. Won Silver Star and citation from Tito of Yugoslavia. Briefly flirted with Communist Party membership due to friendship with Yugoslav Communists. Returned to film work, which he despised, in order to pay for a succession of sailing vessels. As Red Scare deepens in U.S., he cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Committee, confessing his brief Communist ties. Ever after regretted this action, holding himself in enormous contempt for what he considered "ratting". Offered role of Tarzan as replacement for Lex Barker, but refused. Made headlines defying court order not to sail to Tahiti with his children following divorce decree. Published autobiography "Wanderer" in 1963, and novel "Voyage" in 1976, both to great acclaim. Cast as Quint in Les Dents de la mer (1975) but unable to play due to tax problems. Died of cancer in 1986.

Ray Milland became one of Paramount's most bankable and durable stars, under contract from 1934 to 1948, yet little in his early life suggested a career as a motion picture actor.

Milland was born Alfred Reginald Jones in the Welsh town of Neath, Glamorgan, to Elizabeth Annie (Truscott) and Alfred Jones. He spent his youth in the pursuit of sports. He became an expert rider early on, working at his uncle's horse-breeding estate while studying at the King's College in Cardiff. At 21, he went to London as a member of the elite Household Cavalry (Guard for the Royal Family), undergoing a rigorous 19-months training, further honing his equestrian skills, as well as becoming adept at fencing, boxing and shooting. He won trophies, including the Bisley Match, with his unit's crack rifle team. However, after four years, he suddenly lost his means of financial support (independent income being a requirement as a Guardsman) when his stepfather discontinued his allowance. Broke, he tried his hand at acting in small parts on the London stage.

There are several stories as to how he derived his stage name. It is known, that during his teens he called himself "Mullane", using his stepfather's surname. He may later have suffused "Mullane" with "mill-lands", an area near his hometown. When he first appeared on screen in British films, he was billed first as Spike Milland, then Raymond Milland.

In 1929, Ray befriended the popular actress Estelle Brody at a party and, later that year, visited her on the set of her latest film, The Plaything (1929). While having lunch, they were joined by a producer who persuaded the handsome Welshman to appear in a motion picture bit part. Ray rose to the challenge and bigger roles followed, including the male lead in The Lady from the Sea (1929). The following year, he was signed by MGM and went to Hollywood, but was given little to work with, except for the role of Charles Laughton's ill-fated nephew in Payment Deferred (1932). After a year, Ray was out of his contract and returned to England.

His big break did not come until 1934 when he joined Paramount, where he was to remain for the better part of his Hollywood career. During the first few years, he served an apprenticeship playing second leads, usually as the debonair man-about-town, in light romantic comedies. He appeared with Burns and Allen in Many Happy Returns (1934), enjoyed third-billing as a British aristocrat in the Claudette Colbert farce Aller et retour (1935) and was described as "excellent" by reviewers for his role in the sentimental drama Kidnapping (1935). By 1936, he had graduated to starring roles, first as the injured British hunter rescued on a tropical island by Hula, fille de la brousse (1936), the film which launched Dorothy Lamour's sarong-clad career. After that, he was the titular hero of Bulldog Drummond s'évade (1937) and, finally, won the girl (rather than being the "other man") in Mitchell Leisen's screwball comedy Vie facile (1937). He also re-visited the tropics in Le voilier maudit (1937), Toura, déesse de la jungle (1938) and La belle de Mexico (1938), as well as being one of the three valiant brothers of Beau Geste (1939).

In 1940, Ray was sent back to England to star in the screen adaptation of Terence Rattigan's En français... Messieurs! (1940), for which he received his best critical reviews to date. He was top-billed (above John Wayne) running a ship salvage operation in Cecil B. DeMille's lavish Technicolor adventure drama Les naufrageurs des mers du sud (1942), besting Wayne in a fight - much to the "Duke's" personal chagrin - and later wrestling with a giant octopus. Also that year, he was directed by Billy Wilder in a charming comedy, Uniformes et jupons courts (1942) (co-starred with Ginger Rogers), for which he garnered good notices from Bosley Crowther of the New York Times. Ray then played a ghost hunter in La Falaise mystérieuse (1944), and the suave hero caught in a web of espionage in Fritz Lang's thriller Espions sur la Tamise (1944).

On the strength of his previous role as "Major Kirby", Billy Wilder chose to cast Ray against type in the ground-breaking drama Le Poison (1945) as dipsomaniac writer "Don Birnam". Ray gave the defining performance of his career, his intensity catching critics, used to him as a lightweight leading man, by surprise. Crowther commented "Mr. Milland, in a splendid performance, catches all the ugly nature of a 'drunk', yet reveals the inner torment and degradation of a respectable man who knows his weakness and his shame" (New York Times, December 3, 1945). Arrived at the high point of his career, Ray Milland won the Oscar for Best Actor, as well as the New York Critic's Award. Rarely given such good material again, he nonetheless featured memorably in many more splendid films, often exploiting the newly discovered "darker side" of his personality: as the reporter framed for murder by Charles Laughton's heinous publishing magnate in La grande horloge (1948); as the sophisticated, manipulating art thief "Mark Bellis" in the Victorian melodrama Une âme perdue (1948) (for which producer Hal B. Wallis sent him back to England); as a Fedora-wearing, Armani-suited "Lucifer", trawling for the soul of an honest District Attorney in Un pacte avec le diable (1949); and as a traitorous scientist in L'Espion (1952), giving what critics described as a "sensitive" and "towering" performance. In 1954, Ray played calculating ex-tennis champ "Tony Wendice", who blackmails a former Cambridge chump into murdering his wife, in Alfred Hitchcock's Le crime était presque parfait (1954). He played the part with urbane sophistication and cold detachment throughout, even in the scene of denouement, calmly offering a drink to the arresting officers.

With L'Homme de Lisbonne (1956), Ray Milland moved into another direction, turning out several off-beat, low-budget films with himself as the lead, notably Pilotes de haut-vol (1957), Le perceur de coffres (1958) and Panique année zéro (1962). At the same time, he cheerfully made the transition to character parts, often in horror and sci-fi outings. In accordance with his own dictum of appearing in anything that had "any originality", he worked on two notable pictures with Roger Corman: first, as a man obsessed with catalepsy in L' enterré vivant (1962); secondly, as obsessed self-destructive surgeon "Dr. Xavier" in L'horrible cas du docteur X (1963)-the Man with X-Ray Eyes, a film which, despite its low budget, won the 1963 Golden Asteroid in the Trieste Festival for Science Fiction.

As the years went on, Ray gradually disposed of his long-standing toupee, lending dignity through his presence to many run-of-the-mill television films, such as Cave In! (1983) and maudlin melodramas like Love Story (1970). He guest-starred in many anthology series on television and had notable roles in Rod Serling's Night Gallery (1969) and the original Galactica (1978) (as Quorum member Sire Uri). He also enjoyed a brief run on Broadway, starring as "Simon Crawford" in "Hostile Witness" (1966), at the Music Box Theatre.

In his private life, Ray was an enthusiastic yachtsman, who loved fishing and collecting information by reading the Encyclopedia Brittanica. In later years, he became very popular with interviewers because of his candid spontaneity and humour. In the same self-deprecating vein he wrote an anecdotal biography, "Wide-Eyed in Babylon", in 1976. A film star, as well as an outstanding actor, Ray Milland died of cancer at the age of 79 in March 1986.

Quite a familiar lady and notorious busybody on 1950s and '60s TV and film, petite, red-headed character actress Lurene Tuttle was born in Pleasant Lake, Indiana and raised on a ranch close to the Arizona border. Her father, O.V. Tuttle, started out as a performer in minstrels, but found a job as a railroad-station agent when times got hard. Her grandfather was a drama teacher who once managed an opera house in Angola, Indiana. As a child, she studied acting in Phoenix and was known for her scene-stealing comedy antics even at that early age.

At age 15, the family relocated to Monrovia, California, and it was there that Tuttle began her career. She received dramatic training at the Pasadena Playhouse and appeared in many of their productions, including "The Playboy of the Western World." She subsequently became a troupe member of Murphy's Comedians, a vaudeville company, and then eventually extended her range as a dramatic ingénue in stock shows. Although making it to Broadway somehow slipped through her fingers, Tuttle worked on stage consistently throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Known for her speaking voice and mastery of a wide range of dialects, she found a new avenue in radio during the Depression and became one of that medium's most-recognized voices playing both sweet and sour characters. Dubbed the "First Lady of Radio," her best-remembered role came as Effie, the altruistic "Girl Friday" on "The Adventures of Sam Spade" opposite Howard Duff's cynical-edged gumshoe. Red Skelton also admired her versatility and used her frequently in a variety of parts on his radio show.

Film and TV presented itself to her strongly in the 1950s, by this time fitting in comfortably whether a warm and wise wife and mother or brittle matron. Following her film debut in Heaven Only Knows (1947), Tuttle lent able support alongside film's top stars including Cary Grant in Un million clefs en main (1948) and Cette sacrée famille (1952); Marilyn Monroe in Troublez-moi ce soir (1952) and Niagara (1953); Joan Crawford in La flamme du passé (1951); Leslie Caron in La pantoufle de verre (1955); and even Liberace when he tried to go legit in Sa dernière chance (1955). It was a rare occasion, however, when she was given a chance to truly shine in a prime supporting role. She could always be counted on to steal a bit of focus with just a sly grin or cynical look as she did playing the brief part of the sheriff's wife in Alfred Hitchcock's horror classic Psychose (1960). One of those rare exceptions when Tuttle actually top-lined a film came with her crazed portrayal of the title character in Ma Barker et son gang (1960). Here Tuttle pulled out all the stops in this admittedly fictional "B" crimer, going totally ballistic as the Ozark matriarch who, along with her boys, sets people on fire, runs over cops, and tommyguns her way into infamy. On the small screen, Tuttle was an amusing regular in a plethora of sitcoms, playing starchy relatives or gossipy townsfolk. Most audiences remember her quite fondly as the matriarch in Life with Father (1953) opposite Leon Ames, and as the crusty senior nurse on the Diahann Carroll series Julia (1968). She and Ames took the play "Life With Father" on the road several times after the series' demise.

Off-stage, Tuttle was married to fellow actor and announcer Mel Ruick; their paths initially crossed while both were performing in radio. Their daughter was musical comedy actress Barbara Ruick, best known for playing Carrie Pipperidge in the classic film musical Carousel (1956). The couple eventually divorced, and Tuttle wed again, but the marriage was short-lived. Tragically, her only child, who was married to epic film composer John Williams of "Star Wars" fame, died unexpectedly in 1974.

Tuttle was a well-respected drama and diction coach for several decades. She began teaching radio technique in the 1940s and re-trained some prominent actors who were returning from extensive WWII duty. After a lengthy departure in the 1950s due to TV commitments, she returned to to teaching acting almost to the end. Some of her more famous students included Red Skelton, Orson Welles, Milton Berle, Steve Allen, and Jayne Meadows. She lived out the rest of her life in Southern California and succumbed to cancer at age 78. In addition to her famous son-in-law, she was survived by her three grandchildren: Jennifer Gruska, a story editor; Mark Towner Williams, a drummer; and Joseph Williams, a composer and singer.

A well known character actor, Vigran was originally a law school graduate. He later chose to pursue acting, and performed in hundreds of radio shows with the likes of Jack Benny, Bob Hope and Jimmy Durante. He appeared frequently as various villains on the TV Series Superman (1952), and made several guest appearances on television series like The Brady Bunch (1969) and I Love Lucy (1951).

Otto Ludwig Preminger was born in Wiznitz, Bukovina, Austria-Hungary. His father was a prosecutor, and Otto originally intended to follow his father into a law career; however, he fell in love with the theater in his 20's and became one of the most imaginative stage producers and directors. He was only 24 when engaged by Max Reinhardt to take over his theatre where he produced all kids of plays. He directed his first film in 1931, and came to the US in 1936 to direct 'Libel' on the Broadway stage. He then moved to Hollywood where he signed with Fox becoming the first independent producer / director .He alternated between stage and film until the great success of Laura (1944) made him an A-list director in Hollyood.

For two decades after "Laura was released in 1944, Preminger ranked as one of the top directors in the world. His powers began to wane after Tempête à Washington (1962), and by the end of the decade, he was considered washed-up. However, such was the potency of his craftsmanship that he continued to direct major motion pictures into the 1970s, with Rosebud (1975) getting scathing reviews. His last directorial effort was La guerre des otages (1979), which won him respectful notices.

Otto Preminger died on April 23, 1986 in New York City from the effects of lung cancer and Alzheimer's disease. He was 80 years old.

Robert Murray Helpmann was born in Mount Gambier, Australia, as the eldest of three children born to stock and station agent James Murray Helpman and Mary Gardiner.

After the family moved to Adelaide in 1914, Helpmann was educated at Prince Alfred's College, but he soon left school at the age of 14 to focus on dance, specifically ballet. He was taught ballet by Nora Stewart. Helpmann first danced solo at the Theatre Royal in Adelaide in "The Ugly Duckling" in 1922. In 1926, he was trained by Alexis Dolinoff, the leading male dancer for Anna Pavlova, whom Helpmann soon became an apprentice for. The next year, in 1927, he joined J. C. Williamson Ltd. as their star dancer.

Helpmann went on to become the principal dancer at Sadlers Wells Ballet from 1933 to 1950. World renowned as a dancer and choreographer, amongst his other achievements he was the director of the Australian Ballet Company. He directed the world tour of Margot Fonteyn in 1963.

Towards the end of his life, Helpmann was living in Balmoral, a suburb of Mosman, in Sydney, Australia. On September 28, 1986, Helpmann died in the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney, at the age of 77, from emphysema, having been a lifelong smoker.

Albert Gordon MacRae was born on March 12, 1921, in East Orange, NJ. During his early years, he resided in Syracuse, NY, and, while in high school, spent much of his time singing and acting in the Drama Club. It was also during this time that he learned to play the piano, clarinet and the saxophone. At 19, he entered a singing contest and won a two-week engagement at The World's Fair in New York, performing with the Harry James and Les Brown bands. In 1940, while working in New York City as a page, he was "discovered" and hired to sing for the Horace Heidt Band. After a two-year stint, he joined the Army Air Corps and worked as a navigator for the next two years. He made his Broadway debut in a show called "Junior Miss", as a replacement in the role of "Tommy Arbuckle". Next, he appeared, again on Broadway, in Ray Bolger's 1946 revue, "Three To Make Ready". It was here that he was spotted by Capitol Records and signed to a long-term recording contract in 1947. He stayed with the label for more than 20 years. In October 1948, on ABC, he starred on the radio show "The Railroad Hour". The show moved to NBC in October 1949 and continued until June of 1954. It presented operettas and musical dramatizations, all starring Gordon and many different leading ladies. Also in 1948, he was signed to a seven-year contract with Warner Brothers Pictures and, soon after, made his film debut in the non-musical, The Big Punch (1948), opposite Lois Maxwell (well-known later as "Miss Moneypenny" in the James Bond films). What followed was a string of hit musicals, starting with Le grand tourbillon (1949), in which MacRae had a featured role opposite June Haver and Ray Bolger, and five fondly remembered films with Doris Day, beginning with No, No, Nanette (1950). Perhaps his two best and well-known films were two of his last: Oklahoma! (1955) and Carousel (1956), both written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II and both opposite screen newcomer Shirley Jones. MacRae began to suffer, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, from bouts of heavy drinking and, by his own admission, developed into an alcoholic. He revealed that he had been "picked up for drunk driving" during the filming of "Carousel". He conquered the disease in the 1970s and went on to counsel other alcoholics. He continued recording and performing on dozens of television shows. He and his wife, Sheila MacRae, appeared together frequently and even released an album together. His daughters, Meredith MacRae and Heather MacRae, acted in films and on TV. On September 22, 1974, he appeared as a sheriff on an episode of Un shérif à New York (1970), starring Dennis Weaver, entitled "The Barefoot Girls of Bleeker Street". His final film came in 1979, a fine dramatic role in The Pilot (1980), which starred Cliff Robertson. He suffered a stroke in 1982. He continued on with the support of his second wife, Elizabeth, and his five children. This brilliant performer continued to tour, when his health would permit, allowing audiences to relive some of his biggest film hits. On January 24, 1986, Gordon MacRae died at the age of 64, at his home in Lincoln, NE, of pneumonia, the result of complications from cancer of the mouth and jaw.

Actor Ted Knight paid his dues with nearly two decades of relatively obscure dramatic, often villainous television work, before finding enduring fame in a scene-stealing supporting turn on a classic 1970s sitcom, hilariously overplaying a silver-haired, self-important imbecile. Although the conceited "stuffed shirt" typecast plagued him for the rest of his career, the self-proclaimed "Polish Prince of Comedy" continued on good-naturedly, earning lead status on his own comedy series. The Connecticut-born actor was christened Tadeusz (Theodore) Wladyslaw Konopka, the son of a Polish-American family in his native town of Terryville, Connecticut. A high school dropout, he enlisted for World War II duty and eventually became a decorated member of the A Company, 296th Combat Engineer Battalion.

During his tour of duty, Ted developed an interest in acting, returning home in the post-war years to study his craft in Hartford, Connecticut, at the Randall School of Dramatic Arts. A fascination with puppetry and ventriloquism led to his first steady paycheck, as the host of a children's radio show (WJAR) in Providence, Rhode Island (1950-1955). Following this, Ted found more work (WROW-TV) in Albany, New York, hosting a children's variety show while playing radio announcer for its sister radio station, WROW.

Heading west to Los Angeles, California in 1957, Ted spent most of his early years providing slick commercial voiceovers and earning minor roles on television (Remous (1958)) and film (Psychose (1960)). He appeared regularly on the short-lived, The New Loretta Young Show (1962), and the daytime soap opera, The Young Marrieds (1964). Other television guest appearances sprouted including dramatic (La quatrième dimension (1959), Le fugitif (1963), Gunsmoke (1955), Highway Patrol (1955), Bonanza (1959), Combat! (1962)) as well as occasional comedic parts (Sur le pont la marine (1962), Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. (1964), Max la menace (1965)). But nothing monumental pushed his career forward.

Ted's well-modulated voice was his moneymaker during the lean years, whether as an announcer/narrator or cartoon voice character. However, this anonymity ended went he copped the role of inept, pearly-toothed WJM anchorman "Ted Baxter" on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970). The arrogant but highly insecure character earned Knight two supporting Emmy trophies (1973, 1976) but severely pigeon-holed him for the rest of his career. However, the genial actor made the best of it and continued on stage ("Some of My Best Friends") and in commercials and TV spots that were similar in persona. In 1975, a musical album entitled "Hi, Guys!" (a catchphrase of the Baxter character) was released, which included a series of bizarre novelty songs.

Knight eventually starred opposite Nancy Dussault in his own television series, Jackie et Sara (1980), which had a healthy run despite the fact that Knight, as the lead, was more subdued than on the Mary Tyler Moore classic. Renamed "The Ted Knight Show" after it became a syndicated series, the series finally ended in 1986 only due to Knight's terminal illness. The actor's sole post-Ted Baxter movie role was as a judge in the golf-themed comedy, Le golf en folie ! (1980), in which he continually bumped heads with the film's star, Rodney Dangerfield.

Knight was initially diagnosed with cancer in 1977, for which he was treated over an extended period of time. In 1985, the television star's conditioned worsened and the 62-year-old actor died on August 26, 1986, following surgery for a growth in his urinary tract. He was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California (his marker reads Theodore C. Konopka), and was survived by his wife of 38 years, Dorothy Knight (nee Smith), and their three children, Ted Knight Jr., Elyse Knight and Eric Knight.

Robert Alda's career began in vaudeville, as a singer-dancer. Graduating to performing on radio and in burlesque, he made a splashy film debut as George Gershwin in Rhapsodie en bleu (1945). His film career faltered somewhat after that, but he had much greater success on the Broadway stage in such productions as "Guys and Dolls" and "What Makes Sammy Run." Settling in Rome in the early 1960s, he appeared in many Italian and European films over the next 15 years. While many of them were quite successful in Europe, few made it to the United States. Alda is the father of actor Alan Alda and Antony Alda.

A veteran of stage, screen, radio and TV, character actor Nigel Stock was born in Malta in 1919, the son of Captain W.H. Stock, RE, and his wife Margaret Marion Munro. In British India from childhood, he and his sister Angela returned to the UK in his early teens for schooling. Nigel was educated at St. Paul's School and studied for the stage at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he earned the Leverhulme Exhibition, Northcliffe Scholarship, and the Principal's Medal.

Stock made his debut stage appearance at the Savoy Theatre in 1931, at the age of 12, in a production of "The Traveller in the Dark". He continued to rack up a number of classical and contemporary credits at various distinguished theaters, including the Old Vic, with productions of "The Winter's Tale", "Macbeth" (playing Macduff), "Tobacco Road" and "Goodbye, Mr. Chips". Stock interrupted his thriving career by serving in the Army from 1939 to 1941 with the London Irish Rifles, and with the Assam Regiment, Indian Army between 1941 and 1945 in Burma, China and Kohima. He was honorably discharged with the rank of Major. He returned to the stage in 1946 with "And No Birds Sing" and made his first appearance on the New York stage as "Philip" in "You Never Can Tell" in 1948. A reliable player who lent distinction to every aspect of the theatrical repertoire, from William Shakespeare through Anton Chekhov to modern farce, he impressed in "She Stoops to Conquer", "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial", "Altona", "Uncle Vanya" and "Sleuth", among others.

An imposing, often bearded presence, he started off in films as a teenager in Lancashire Luck (1937), later appearing in such popular British releases as Le gang des tueurs (1948), Les briseurs de barrages (1955), Les mutinés du Téméraire (1962), Le Peuple des abîmes (1968), Le Lion en hiver (1968), Cromwell (1970) and La Roulette russe (1975), often appearing in villainous roles. Interestingly, one of his last performances was a character part in the Steven Spielberg production of Le Secret de la pyramide (1985). Between 1964-1968, Stock made a household name for himself playing Dr. Watson" in Sherlock Holmes (1964).

Stock had a devout interest in ornithology. His third wife was actress Richenda Carey. They appeared together on stage in the world premiere of "Mumbo Jumbo" from May 8-May 31, 1986. Less than a month later, Stock died on June 23rd of a heart attack. He was survived by four children.

Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III was born in Santiago, Cuba on March 2, 1917. His father was the mayor of Santiago. The 1933 revolution led by Fulgencio Batista had landed his father in jail and stripped the family of its wealth, property and power. His father was released because of the intercession of U.S. officials who believed him to be neutral during the revolt. The family fled to Miami, Florida. One of Desi's first jobs in America consisted of cleaning canary cages. However, after forming his own small band of musicians, he was hired by Xavier Cugat, the "king" of Latin music.

Desi soon left Cugat, formed his own Latin band, and literally launched the conga craze in America. He was cast in the Broadway play "Too Many Girls" and then brought to Hollywood to make the film version of the play. It was on the set of Too Many Girls (1940) that he and Lucille Ball met. They soon married and approximately 10 years later formed Desilu Productions and began the I Love Lucy (1951) shows. Desi and Lucille had two children, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr.. At the end of the I Love Lucy (1951) run, which included The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1957), the two divorced. Desi later wrote an autobiography entitled "A Book." In 1986 he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He died on December 2, 1986 at age 69.