Franco Zeffirelli

popular name: Fred Allen

date_of_death: March 17, 1956

age: 61

cause_of_death: Heart attack

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Fred Allen was an American comedian with a talent for ad-lib. His absurdist topically-pointed radio program The Fred Allen Show (1932–1949) made him one of the most popular and forward-looking humorists in the Golden Age of American radio. After 30 years on the radio, Fred Allen, a 52-year-old comic known for wry jokes, bow ties, and baggy eyes, made the cover of Time magazine. Intellectuals loved Allen, as did his peers in comedy. Radio rival Edgar Bergen acknowledged him as “the greatest living comedian.” Some people would have given the nod to Jack Benny, and Allen might have agreed; the two had been friends for years and were professionally linked by a fake feud they waged on their respective radio shows. But for Allen even to have been in the running with the great Benny shows his high standing at the time. Even though Allen had built up a weekly audience of 20 million listeners, his decline from popularity was swift. By the late 1940s and early 50s, television was well on its way from novelty (172,000 sets in use in 1948) to necessity (17 million sets in 1952). Not just radio networks but movie theaters, nightclubs, and restaurants were losing business to the upstart. Second, there was a problem with Allen's appeal - even he admitted he had a face for radio. Allen spent his final years as a newspaper columnist/humorist and as a memoirist and rented a small New York office to work six hours a day without distractions. He was also a panelist on "What's My Line?" for two years when he suddenly died of a heart attack on streets of New York City. He was laid to rest at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York.

popular name: Allan Sherman

date_of_death: November 20, 1973

age: 48

cause_of_death: Respiratory failure

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Allan Sherman was an American musician, satirist, actor and television producer who became known as a song parodist in the early 1960s. In the fall of 1962, if an album sold 10,000 copies, Warner Bros. Records considered it a success. Then Allan Sherman released My Son The Folk Singer, an album of Jewish themed parody songs that sold close to 400,000 copies in three weeks on the way to over one million sales. Among the single recordings that helped to push his annual income beyond $500,000 at the height of his popularity were “Crazy Downtown,” and “Hello Mudduh, Hello Fadduh,” which described the horrors of a summer camp and won for Mr. Sherman a Grammy Award in 1963 for the best comic performance. But just as quickly as his star rose, Mr. Sherman's saw his popularity vanish post JFK and with the rise of Beatlemania. Audiences lost their desire for his particular form of comedy and the British Invasion dominated the airwaves. In his final years, Sherman's alcoholism and weight gain caused severe deterioration of his health; he later developed diabetes and struggled with lung disease. In 1966, his wife Dee filed for divorce and received full custody of their son and daughter. Sherman lived on unemployment benefits for a time and moved into the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital for a short time to lose weight. He died while entertaining his friends during the night of November 20, 1973, at his West Hollywood home.

popular name: Francine York

date_of_death: January 6, 2017

age: 78

cause_of_death: Cancer

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Francine York was an American actress and model. York worked as a showgirl in her early career at Bimbo's nightclub in San Francisco. York's first screen role was in Robert Clarke's Hollywood exploitation film Secret File Hollywood shot in 1960 but not distributed until 1962. Her big break came when Jerry Lewis cast her in It's Only Money, in which she played a tantalizing sexpot, a role which brought her much publicity. York's television roles included portraying Amanda Agnew on It Takes a Thief, Wendy Wendkoski in Slattery's People, and Kate Landis in The Courtship of Eddie's Father. York was memorable as the willowy Lydia Limpet, the henchwoman of The Bookworm (Roddy McDowall), in a first-season installment of ABC’s Batman in 1966. She uses a boring book to lure Robin to sleep and gets to ride in the Batmobile.