Gregg Toland

popular name: Preston Sturges

date_of_death: August 6, 1959

age: 60

cause_of_death: Heart attack

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Preston Sturges was one of the more celebrated American playwright, screenwriter, and film director of the 1940s and early 1950s with films like “The Great McGinty,” “The Lady Eve,” “Sullivan's Travels,” “The Palm Beach Story,” “The Miracle of Morgan's Creek” and “Hail the Conquering Hero.” Sturges took the screwball comedy format of the 1930s to another level, writing dialogue that, heard today, is often surprisingly naturalistic, mature, and ahead of its time, despite the farcical situations. The writer/director won the first Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for “The Great McGinty” in 1941. He is also credited as the first successful screenwriter to move into directing his own screenplays.

popular name: Michael Clarke Duncan

date_of_death: September 3, 2012

age: 54

cause_of_death: Complications from a heart attack

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Remembered for his huge size and deep, resonant voice, American actor Michael Clarke Duncan's breakout role came as John Coffey in The Green Mile (1999), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and other honors. In addition to The Green Mile he enjoyed success playing Kingpin in Daredevil and Spider-Man: The New Animated Series (both 2003), Armageddon (1998), The Whole Nine Yards (2000), Planet of the Apes (2001), The Scorpion King (2002), Sin City (2005), and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006). Standing at an imposing 6 feet 5 inches, Duncan often gave surprising depth to roles that seemed to hinge on his large size — at times during his career, he weighed more than 300 pounds.

popular name: Allan Sherman

date_of_death: November 20, 1973

age: 48

cause_of_death: Respiratory failure

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Allan Sherman was an American musician, satirist, actor and television producer who became known as a song parodist in the early 1960s. In the fall of 1962, if an album sold 10,000 copies, Warner Bros. Records considered it a success. Then Allan Sherman released My Son The Folk Singer, an album of Jewish themed parody songs that sold close to 400,000 copies in three weeks on the way to over one million sales. Among the single recordings that helped to push his annual income beyond $500,000 at the height of his popularity were “Crazy Downtown,” and “Hello Mudduh, Hello Fadduh,” which described the horrors of a summer camp and won for Mr. Sherman a Grammy Award in 1963 for the best comic performance. But just as quickly as his star rose, Mr. Sherman's saw his popularity vanish post JFK and with the rise of Beatlemania. Audiences lost their desire for his particular form of comedy and the British Invasion dominated the airwaves. In his final years, Sherman's alcoholism and weight gain caused severe deterioration of his health; he later developed diabetes and struggled with lung disease. In 1966, his wife Dee filed for divorce and received full custody of their son and daughter. Sherman lived on unemployment benefits for a time and moved into the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital for a short time to lose weight. He died while entertaining his friends during the night of November 20, 1973, at his West Hollywood home.