Franco Zeffirelli

popular name: Anna Nicole Smith

date_of_death: February 8, 2007

age: 39

cause_of_death: Combined drug intoxication

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Anna Nicole Smith was a stunning, full-figured American model, a terrible actress and television personality. Smith started her career as a Playboy magazine centerfold in May 1992 and won the title of 1993 Playmate of the Year. She later modeled for fashion companies including Guess, H&M and Heatherette. In 1993, when she modeled for the Swedish clothing company H&M, this led to her picture being displayed on large billboards in Sweden and Norway. Smith was also featured on the cover of Marie Claire and in GQ magazine. Smith dropped out of high school in 1984, married in 1985 and divorced in 1993. In 1994, her highly publicized second marriage to 89-year-old billionaire J. Howard Marshall resulted in speculation that she married him for his money, which she denied. Following Marshall's death in 1995, Smith began a lengthy legal battle over a share of his estate. Her cases reached the Supreme Court of the United States: Marshall v. Marshall on a question of federal jurisdiction and Stern v. Marshall on a question of bankruptcy court authority. Eventually losing her bid to gain control of a portion of billionaire Marshall's $1.6 billion estate, she was saddled with attorney fees that made her bankrupt. In the end, Vickie Lynn Hogan swapped her small-town woes for a ticket to stardom as a Playboy Playmate, Guess Jeans pinup girl and glamorous movie star: a walking, talking billboard for fashion, sex and, later, severe misfortune. Upon her passing, Anna was laid to rest at Lakeview Memorial Gardens in Nassau Bahamas.

popular name: Hedy Lamarr

date_of_death: January 19, 2000

age: 85

cause_of_death: Heart disease

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Hedy Lamarr, the raven-haired Viennese beauty who became one of the reigning temptresses in Hollywood films in the 1930's and 40's, especially as Delilah vamping Victor Mature's Samson was was an Austrian-born Austro-Hungarian-American film actress and inventor. She was a film star during Hollywood's golden age. After a brief early film career in Czechoslovakia, including the controversial Ecstasy (1933), she fled from her first husband, a wealthy Austrian ammunition manufacturer, and secretly moved to Paris. Traveling to London, she met Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio head Louis B. Mayer, who offered her a movie contract in Hollywood. She became a film star with her performance in Algiers (1938). Her MGM films include Lady of the Tropics (1939), Boom Town (1940), H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941), and White Cargo (1942). Her greatest success was as Delilah in Cecil B. DeMille's Bible-inspired Samson and Delilah (1949). She also acted on television before the release of her final film, The Female Animal (1958). She was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. Interesting to note that at the beginning of World War II, she and avant-garde composer George Antheil developed a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes that used spread spectrum and frequency hopping technology to defeat the threat of jamming by the Axis powers. Upon her passing Hedy Lamarr's well-visited grave can be found at Wiener Zentralfriedhof in Vienna, Austria.

popular name: Margaret Kelly

date_of_death: September 11, 2004

age: 94

cause_of_death: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Margaret Kelly, known as Miss Bluebell, was an Irish dancer who was the founder of the Bluebell Girls dance troupe. At the age of 14, Kelly left school and joined a Scottish dance troupe called the Hot Jocks. Nine months later, she was contracted to the Scala in Berlin by noted producer Alfred Jackson, manager of the Jackson Girls. Kelly remained at the Scala for 5 years. Beginning in 1930, Kelly danced in Paris for the Folies Bergère. In 1932, when she was 22, she created her own troupe there called the Bluebell Girls. Bluebell found her greatest triumph in the Nevada desert when she and Donn Arden brought the Bluebells to the Las Vegas strip. Miss Bluebell caught Vegas fever, and her show exploded into an extravaganza that included live camels, jugglers, Roman gladiators, illusionists, ice skaters, strong men and waterfalls. She sold out the Stardust Hotel and the MGM Grand. In six decades she left a legacy that recruited and trained 14,000 Bluebells, set up troupes over the world, received countless awards including the Legion d’honneur and the Order of the British Empire (OBE), had an audience with the pope, and was the subject of a book and BBC documentary.