Gregg Toland

popular name: Gracie Allen

date_of_death: December 31, 1969

age: 69

cause_of_death: Heart attack due to heart disease

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Gracie Allen was an accomplished comedian and actress. She was best known for her contribution to weekly radio program ‘Burns and Allen’, which she aired along with her husband, comedian George Burns. Allen was the most loved comedian of the 1930s. Her epic chemistry with George led the duo to assemble numerous comedy shows, where Allen played the comic foil of her husband. The duo had also starred in a number of movies. Some of them were ‘The Big Broadcast’, ‘Six of a Kind’, ‘College Holiday’, ‘A Damsel in Distress’, ‘A Foggy Day’ etc. Gracie finally retired from the show business in 1958, after getting tired of playing the same character for so many years.

popular name: Laurence Olivier

date_of_death: July 11, 1989

age: 82

cause_of_death: Kidney failure

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Laurence Olivier was one of the most influential actors, directors and producer of the 20th century, renowned for his commanding Shakespearean performances on stage and screen. Born in 1907, he rose to prominence in British theatre in the 1930s before gaining international fame with film roles such as Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights (1939) and Maxim de Winter in Rebecca (1940). Olivier cemented his legacy with his film adaptations of Shakespeare, directing and starring in Henry V (1944), Hamlet (1948)—for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor—and Richard III (1955). A towering figure at the Old Vic and later the founding director of Britain’s National Theatre in 1963, he helped shape modern British theatre. His later films included Spartacus (1960), The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968), Sleuth (1972), Marathon Man (1976) and The Boys from Brazil (1978). Over his long career, he earned multiple Academy Awards, honorary titles, and a life peerage as Baron Olivier. His marriage to Vivien Leigh was one of the era’s most famous artistic partnerships. Olivier remained active in film and television into the 1970s, leaving a lasting legacy as a master interpreter of Shakespeare and a central architect of contemporary British drama.

popular name: George Montgomery

date_of_death: December 12, 2000

age: 84

cause_of_death: Heart attack

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: George Montgomery was an American actor best known for his work in Western films and television including Accent on Love (1941), Last of the Duanes (1941), Riders of the Purple Sage (1941), and The Cowboy and the Blonde (1941). Critics often wrote that Montgomery was a handsome leading man in the style of Clark Gable. During his film career he played opposite some of the greatest actors of the Golden Age of Hollywood including Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, John Wayne, Carole Landis, Maureen O'Hara, Tyrone Power, Ginger Rogers, Gene Tierney, and Betty Grable. In the 1958–59 season, Montgomery starred in his own 26-episode NBC Western series, Cimarron City as Mayor Matt Rockford, with co-stars John Smith and Audrey Totter. He also made guest appearances on a number of television shows, including NBC's Bonanza, The Odd Couple, The Six Million Dollar Man and Alias Smith and Jones. As a boy, George Montgomery had become an excellent wood craftsman. As an adult, he began building furniture, first for himself and then for a few friends. His skill was such that his hobby became a full-fledged cabinet-making business, in which he employed as many as 20 craftsmen. Montgomery oversaw the furniture business for more than 40 years, and expanded his interest to house design. He became involved with the building of 11 homes for friends and family. His artistic instincts included learning how to sculpt in bronze. Self-taught, he sculpted upwards of 50 bronze sculptures of subjects such as John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Gene Autry, Randolph Scott, and Ronald W. Reagan. He received renown in particular for a sculpture he did of Custer's Last Stand.