Franco Zeffirelli

popular name: Cecil B. DeMille

date_of_death: January 21, 1959

age: 77

cause_of_death: Heart failure due to a series of heart attacks

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Considered the founding father of the American cinema and the most commercially successful producer-director in film history he was also one of the founders of Paramount Pictures. As a director, producer, writer and actor. Cecil B. DeMille was the original aristocrat of Hollywood. And when it was all over, the grand total of Cecil B. DeMille’s box-office grosses, when adjusted for inflation, comes to $30 billion.

popular name: Richard Blackwell

date_of_death: October 19, 2008

age: 86

cause_of_death: Complications from an intestinal infection

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Mr. Blackwell, whose first name was Richard, was a little-known dress designer when he issued his first tongue-in-cheek criticism of Hollywood fashion disasters for 1960 – long before Joan Rivers and others turned such ridicule into a daily affair. He was the creator of the "Ten Worst Dressed Women List", an annual awards presentation he unveiled in January of each year. He published the "Fabulous Fashion Independents" list and an annual Academy Awards fashion review, both of which receive somewhat less media attention. Prior to his Worst Dressed list, Blackwell designer dresses sold for between $800 to $1,000 and were very successful. During the nearly two decade existence of the "House of Blackwell", he was designer to Yvonne De Carlo, Jayne Mansfield, Dorothy Lamour, and Jane Russell. During the 1980s, the emerging drift toward casual wear brought an end to The House of Blackwell. As he pivoted as a fashion critic, overtime Mr. Blackwell's somewhat mean spirited list began to wear thin. His take on Wynonna Judd ("She looks like Hulk Hogan in sequins"), on Martha Stewart ("Dresses like the centerfold for Farmers' Almanac") and the Dixie Chicks ("They look like a trio of truck stop fashion tragedies/ trapped in a typhoon") was losing it's audience appeal over time. Despite the waning audience he continued up until his death at age 86.

popular name: Karen Black

date_of_death: August 8, 2013

age: 74

cause_of_death: Ampullary cancer

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Karen Black was an American actress, screenwriter, singer, and songwriter. She rose to prominence for her work in various studio and independent films in the 1970s, frequently portraying eccentric and offbeat characters, and established herself as a figure of New Hollywood. Her career spanned over 50 years and includes nearly 200 credits in both independent and mainstream films. Black made her screen debut in Francis Ford Coppola's own first film, You're a Big Boy Now (1966), and collaborated more than once with Jack Nicholson, who cast Black in his 1971 directorial debut, Drive, He Said, after co-starring with her in Easy Rider (1969) and Five Easy Pieces (1970). She was also a favorite of Robert Altman, who directed her in Nashville (1975), for which she and many of the cast wrote and performed their own songs, and Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982). Playing herself in Altman's The Player (1992), she was one of many such celebrity guest stars in that overpopulated satire to be left on the cutting-room floor. Black received numerous accolades throughout her career, including two Golden Globe Awards, as well as an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Upon her death, she was laid to rest at Eternal Hills Memorial Park in Oceanside California.