Gregg Toland

popular name: Jason Robards

date_of_death: December 26, 2000

age: 78

cause_of_death: Lung cancer

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Recognized around the world as the definitive interpreter of the works of Eugene O'Neill throughout his long and esteemed career, Jason Robards has been hailed as one of this country's finest stage actors and acclaimed for his outstanding work in film and on television. Ellis Rabb, who directed Robards in a 1980s revival of the classic American comedy You Can't Take It with You, put into words what Robards demonstrates every time he steps onto a stage or in front of a camera: "Robards can do anything, from O'Neill to light comedy to Shakespeare, a range we seldom see in this country." After starring in such movies as Philadelphia, Crimson Tide, Melvin and Howard, and Julia, by the end of his career Robards received two Academy Awards, a Tony Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor. He is only one of 24 performers to have achieved the Triple Crown of Acting. Upon his death, he was laid to rest at Oak Lawn Cemetery in Fairfield, CT.

popular name: Jackie Coogan

date_of_death: March 1, 1984

age: 69

cause_of_death: Heart failure

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Jackie Coogan was an actor and comedian who began his film career as a child actor in silent films. Coogan's role in Charlie Chaplin's film The Kid (1921) made him the first child star in the history of Hollywood. The son of a vaudevillian and an actress, Coogan appeared in his first film, Skinner’s Baby (1916), when he was 18 months old. Charlie Chaplin later noticed him in a stage act and featured him, aged 6, in The Kid, which gave him immediate international fame and led to roles in such films as Peck’s Bad Boy (1921), My Boy (1921), Trouble (1922), Oliver Twist (1922), Daddy (1923), Circus Days (1923), Long Live the King (1923), A Boy of Flanders (1924), Little Robinson Crusoe (1924), Old Clothes (1925), The Bugle Call (1927), Tom Sawyer (1930), and Huckleberry Finn (1931). In 1923–24 he was making $22,000 a week and earning 60 percent of the profits from his pictures. It was estimated that he was paid $4 million dollars before the age of 21 (valued at approximately $50 million in 2024). Upon turning 21, when he inquired about his trust fund and found out that all but $100,000 was left as his mother and step-father used all his money for a lavish lifestyle. During World War II Coogan served in the U.S. Army Air Force. At the end of enlistment, Jackie went on to appears in dozens and dozens of television and movie appearances including Ozzie and Harriett, Cowboy G-Men, Peter Gunn, McKeever and the Colonel, Perry Mason, The Red Skelton Hour and, of course, as the iconic Uncle Fester in the Addams Family television series.

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.