Gregg Toland

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.

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: Ozzie Nelson

date_of_death: June 3, 1975

age: 69

cause_of_death: Liver cancer

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Oswald Nelson big band leader, actor, director, and producer. But he is most well known as the patient, loving father Ozzie Nelson with his lovely wife Harriet in once of America's most beloved TV shows. For 14 years, from 1952 to 1966, ”The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” was a television staple, an American icon, which may have preceded ”Seinfeld” as the first show that was really about nothing. (The Nelsons made an extraordinary 435 episodes; by contrast, there are 180 episodes of ”Seinfeld.”). Unlike ”Leave It to Beaver,” which ran six years, and ”Father Knows Best,” which lasted nine, ”Ozzie and Harriet” may have endured far longer because the Nelson family blurred the line between fiction and reality. The show actually began on radio in 1944, with Ozzie and Harriet playing themselves and actors portraying the boys. Their real sons joined the show in 1949, and the whole family made the transition to television.