Franco Zeffirelli

popular name: Estelle Getty

date_of_death: July 22, 2008

age: 84

cause_of_death: Dementia with Lewy bodies

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Even though she did achieve success as an actress at age 60, Estelle Getty was an actress and comedian best known for her portrayal of Sophia Petrillo on The Golden Girls from 1985–1992 for which she won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. She reprised the role for appearances on Empty Nest (1993–95), The Golden Palace (1992–93), Blossom (1990–95), and Nurses (1991–94). Notable films in which she appeared include Mask (1985), a semibiographical film in which she played the grandmother of Roy L. Dennis, Mannequin (1987), and Stuart Little (1999).

popular name: Anne Bancroft

date_of_death: June 6, 2005

age: 73

cause_of_death: Uterine cancer

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Anne Bancroft was a gifted and talented American actress whose 50+ year career was studded with renowned successes on stage, screen, and television. She won both a Tony Award and an Academy Award for best actress for one of her most physically and emotionally demanding roles, that of Helen Keller’s teacher, Annie Sullivan, in The Miracle Worker. However, it was with another Oscar-nominated film role, the seductive Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate (1967), that—to her bewilderment—she was most identified. In addition to her Tony and Oscar awards, Bancroft received three BAFTA Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, two Tony Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Cannes Film Festival Award. Her film career progressed with Oscar nominated performances in The Pumpkin Eater (1964), The Turning Point (1977) and Agnes of God (1985). Bancroft continued to act in the later half of her life, with prominent roles including The Elephant Man (1980), Garbo Talks (1984), 84 Charing Cross Road (1987), Torch Song Trilogy (1988), Home for the Holidays (1995), G.I. Jane (1997), Great Expectations (1998), and Up at the Villa (2000). She received multiple Primetime Emmy Award nominations, including for the television films Broadway Bound (1992), Deep in My Heart (1999), for which she won, and The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (2003). She died in 2005, at the age of 73, as a result of uterine cancer. She was married to director, actor, and writer Mel Brooks, with whom she had a son, author Max Brooks. She is one of only 24 thespians to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting. Upon her death, she was laid to rest at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.

popular name: Greta Garbo

date_of_death: April 15, 1990

age: 84

cause_of_death: Pneumonia and kidney failure

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Greta Garbo was a Swedish-American actress, renowned for her iconic roles in the silent film and early sound film eras. Born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson in Stockholm, Sweden, she worked as a shop assistant and appeared in a few Swedish films before being discovered by Hollywood in 1925. She signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in 1927 and soon became one of the most popular stars of the 1920s and 1930s. Garbo's mysterious, often melancholic on-screen presence earned her the nickname "The Divine Garbo." She starred in several classic films such as Flesh and the Devil (1926), Camille (1936), and Grand Hotel (1932), which showcased her range, from passionate lovers to tragic figures. Her roles often reflected themes of love and loss, matching her off-screen enigmatic persona. Garbo made a successful transition to sound films, and in 1939, she received an Academy Award nomination for Ninotchka. Despite her success, Garbo was known for her desire for privacy, and in 1941, she retired from acting at the age of 36 after making only 26 films in 17 years. When Garbo quit Hollywood, she spent the remainder of her life in shuttered and fenced residences in France, Switzerland and Manhattan, where she lived in an East Side high-rise. Known as “the Swedish sphinx” because of her deep fear of reporters and other strangers, she ironically became one of the most publicized women in the world while trying to guard her privacy. Her biographer John Bainbridge wrote in “Garbo,” that except at the start of her career, she “granted no interviews, signed no autographs, attended no premieres, answered no fan mail.” At the time of her death in 1990 she owned 18th-century antiques, fine rugs, damask curtains, real estate and many pieces of art, including a Renoir. She left her entire estate of $32 million (equivalent to $75,000,000 in 2023) to her niece. She was interred Skogskyrkogården cemetery in Stockholm, Sweden.