Georgia Engel

popular name: Kirk Douglas

date_of_death: February 5, 2020

age: 103

cause_of_death: Natural causes

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: The story of Kirk Douglas is the story of how an epitome of underprivilege had become world famous – recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur, fulfilling the roles of Van Gogh, Spartacus, Doc Holliday, a one-eyed Viking chieftain, and Jonathan Shields in The Bad and the Beautiful, that model of Hollywood confidence, arrogance and alchemy who knows that being bad has its own fatal allure. Kirk Douglas was a legendary American actor and filmmaker. After an impoverished childhood, he made his film debut in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck. Douglas soon developed into a leading box-office star throughout the 1950s, known for serious dramas, including westerns and war films. Douglas played an unscrupulous boxing hero in Champion (1949), which brought him his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. His other early films include Out of the Past (1947); Young Man with a Horn (1950), playing opposite Lauren Bacall and Doris Day; Ace in the Hole (1951); and Detective Story (1951), for which he received a Golden Globe nomination. He received his second Oscar nomination for his dramatic role in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), opposite Lana Turner, and earned his third for portraying Vincent van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956), a role for which he won the Golden Globe for the Best Actor in a Drama. He also starred with James Mason in the adventure 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), a large box-office hit. During his career, he appeared in more than 90 films and was known for his explosive acting style. He was named by the American Film Institute the 17th-greatest male star of Classic Hollywood cinema.

popular name: Martha Raye

date_of_death: October 19, 1994 (aged 78)

age: 78

cause_of_death: Aspiration and Pneumonia

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Martha Raye, nicknamed The Big Mouth, was an American comedic actress and singer who performed in the stage, in the movies and later on television. While she might be best remembered for those annoying television commercials for Polident denture cleanser in the 1970s and 1980s, she actually had quite the remarkable career over her 5 decades in show business. In 1936, she was signed for comic roles by Paramount Pictures and her first feature film was Rhythm on the Range with Bing Crosby. Over the next 25 years she starred opposite such A-list comedians including Joe E. Brown, Bob Hope, W.C. Fields, Abbott and Costello, Charlie Chaplin and Jimmy Durante. She was a television star very early in its history. She starred in the short-lived (28 episodes) The Martha Raye Show (1954–1956), opposite retired middleweight boxer Rocky Graziano, who played her boyfriend. She went on and appeared in numerous T.V. series including Alice, Murder She Wrote, The Andy Williams Show and McMillan and Wife. During her last 5 years she suffered from difficult health issues including circulator issues (which resulted in the amputation both legs below the knee) and several strokes. Raye died at age 78 of aspiration and pneumonia.

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.