Franco Zeffirelli

popular name: Cameron Mitchell

date_of_death: July 6, 1994

age: 75

cause_of_death: Lung cancer

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Burly, tough-guy leading man and character actor famous as the hard-drinking, hardworking Buck Cannon on the TV series "High Chaparral." Mitchell began acting on Broadway in the late 1930s before signing a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and appearing in such films as Cass Timberlane (1945) and Homecoming (1948). After playing many character roles and occasional leads in B action films and Westerns, Mitchell began to make some headway after playing Happy, one of Willy Loman's (Fredric March) sons in a film adaptation of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" (1951). A breakthrough into big-budget, big-star films came when he was one of the three male consorts paired up with Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe and Lauren Bacall in "How to Marry a Millionaire" (1953). Prominent leads--as in "Love Me or Leave Me" (1955), opposite Doris Day and James Cagney--continued for a number of years. Throughout the 1960s, he appeared in spaghetti Westerns and Italian films―including several collaborations with director Mario Bava―then on U.S. television. From the mid-1970s through the 1980s, he appeared in numerous exploitation and horror films and television shows including The Toolbox Murders, Slaughter and The Tomb.

popular name: John Agar

date_of_death: April 7, 2002

age: 81

cause_of_death: Emphysema

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: John Agar was an American film and television actor best known for starring alongside John Wayne in the films Sands of Iwo Jima, Fort Apache, and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. Insecure in his acting ability (with just cause, critics would say) John Agar was often the tall, handsome and static male hero, a secondary male lead to such charismatic actors as John Wayne, Henry Fonda and Kirk Douglas. In his later career he was the star of dozens of B movies such as Tarantula!, The Mole People, The Brain from Planet Arous, Revenge of the Creature, Flesh and the Spur and Hand of Death. Agar's career suffered in the wake of his divorce, but he developed a niche playing leading men in low-budget science fiction, Western, and horror movies in the 1950s and 1960s. John Wayne gave him several supporting roles in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In later years he worked extensively in television before his passing in 2002. He was laid to rest at Riverside National Cemetery in Riverside, CA.

popular name: Arthur Lake

date_of_death: January 9, 1987

age: 81

cause_of_death: Heart attack

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Arthur Lake portrayed the comic strip character Dagwood Bumstead and called for help with a high-pitched ''Blonnndie!'' in more than two dozen films throughout the 1940s. Lake was best known as the bumbling husband of Blondie, played by Penny Singleton, in the series of movies that ran from 1939 to 1950. The first picture cost a mere $85,000 and grossed more than $9 million. Arthur Lake was also a frequent guest at publisher William Randolph Hearts estate San Simeon where he met and subsequently married Patricia Van Cleeve. The parentage of Patricia is unclear, but at the time of her death, she is reported to have claimed to be the daughter of Davies and Hearst.