Georgia Engel

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: Marion Davies

date_of_death: September 22, 1961

age: 64

cause_of_death: Malignant osteomyelitis (bone cancer) of the jaw

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: In the Roaring Twenties, Marion Davies was a superstar. By 1923, Davies was the #1 female box office star in Hollywood due to the popularity of "When Knighthood Was in Flower" and "Little Old New York", which were among the biggest box-office hits of their respective years. Appearing in nearly four dozen films, both silent and “talkies,” Davies was everywhere. But many didn’t believe that she achieved her fame due to talent alone. Infamous for her 34-year relationship with business tycoon William Randolph Hearst, actress Marion Davies was maligned as a talentless gold-digger after "Citizen Kane" came out. After she retired to care for the ailing Hearst, even writer-director Orson Welles, defended Davies' record as a gifted actress and comédienne to whom Hearst's patronage did more harm than good. In his final years, Welles attempted to correct the widespread misconceptions which the film had created about Davies' popularity and talents as an actress.

popular name: Joan Crawford

date_of_death: May 10, 1977

age: 73

cause_of_death: Heart attack

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Ranked in the Top Ten list of greatest female stars of Classic Hollywood Cinema by the American Film Institute, Joan Crawford's brilliant career included memorable performances in Mildred Pierce (1944), Possessed (1947), Sudden Fear (1952) and, of course, opposite her arch nemesis Bettie Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Married four times, adopting five children and a lifetime of in the lights, she became a virtual recluse in her final years dying in her tony New York apartment. The following year her daughter Christina published the notorious tell-all book Mommy Dearest.