Franco Zeffirelli

popular name: Michel Galabru

date_of_death: January 4, 2016

age: 93

cause_of_death: Natural causes

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Michel Galabru was a talented French stage and screen character actor and theatre director who appeared in more than 250 films and worked with directors such as Bertrand Blier, Costa-Gavras, Luc Besson (for Subway), and Jean-Luc Godard. After studying at the French National Academy of Dramatic Arts in Paris, France, Galabru began what would become a prolific acting career with minor roles in French films like "La bataille du feu" (1949), "Letters from My Windmill" (1954), and "Riff Raff Girls" (1959). In the 1960s, Galabru began his tenure in a long line of military police officer-themed comedy films by director Jean Girault, the earliest of these entries being "La Gendarme of St. Tropez" (1964), "Gendarme in New York" (1965), "The Gendarme Gets Married" (1968), and "The Gendarme Takes Off" (1970). Showcasing his flair for the dramatic, Galabru starred in the historical crime film "The Judge and the Assassin" (1976), for which he won a Cesar Award for Best Actor. He continued to perform, albeit with less regularity, into the 1990s and 2000s. Among his final films were Katell Quillévéré's "Love Like Poison" (2010) and the Gérard Depardieu-starring comedy "Les invincibles" (2013).

popular name: Virginia Valli

date_of_death: September 24, 1968

age: 73

cause_of_death: Stroke

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Virginia Valli was an American stage and film actress whose motion picture career started in the silent film era and lasted until the beginning of the sound film era of the 1930s. Valli was an established star at the Universal studio by the mid-1920s. In 1924 she was the female lead in King Vidor's southern gothic Wild Oranges, a film now recovered from film vault obscurity. She also appeared in the romantic comedy, Every Woman's Life, about "the man she could have married, the man she should have married and the man she DID marry." Most of her films were made between 1924 and 1927, and included Paid to Love (1927), with William Powell, and Evening Clothes (1927), which featured Adolphe Menjou. In 1925, Valli performed in The Man Who Found Himself with Thomas Meighan. Never a top star, but always busy, Valli had made over 30 films by 1928 and had co-starred with many important leading men, including Bert Lytel, Lon Chaney, Milton Sills, Thomas Meighan, George O’Brien, and Lloyd Hughes. In addition to Wild Oranges, Valli's other standout films include The Signal Tower (1924), directed by Clarence Brown, costarring Rockcliffe Fellowes and Wallace Beery, and The Pleasure Garden (1925), an early film by director Alfred Hitchcock, made in England for Gainsborough Studios.

popular name: Nelson Eddy

date_of_death: March 6, 1967

age: 66

cause_of_death: Suffered a fatal cerebral hemorrhage while on stage at the Sans Souci Hotel

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Nelson Eddy was an American actor and baritone singer who appeared in 19 musical films during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as in opera and on the concert stage, radio, television, and in nightclubs. A classically trained baritone, he is best remembered for the eight films in which he costarred with soprano Jeanette MacDonald. He was one of the first "crossover" stars, a superstar appealing both to shrieking bobby soxers and opera purists, and in his heyday, he was the highest paid singer in the world.