Gregg Toland

popular name: Ernest Lehman

date_of_death: July 2, 2005

age: 89

cause_of_death: Heart attack

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Ernest Lehman was an American screenwriter, producer, and director who was nominated six times for Academy Awards for Best Screenplay during his career, but never won. Ernest Lehman received the first Honorary Academy Award to every be awarded for his influential work in 2001. Some his best known work includes "Hello, Dolly!", "North by Northwest", "The Sound of Music", "West Side Story", and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?".

popular name: Audie Murphy

date_of_death: May 28, 1971

age: 45

cause_of_death: Plane crash

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: He wanted to join the Marines, but he was too short. The paratroopers wouldn't have him, either. Reluctantly, he settled on the infantry, and ultimately became one of the most decorated heroes of World War II. He was Audie Murphy, the baby-faced Texas farm boy who became an American legend. Dropping out of school in the fifth grade to earn money picking cotton, he was 16 years old when his mother died and watched as his siblings as they were doled out to an orphanage or to relatives. Seeking an escape from this difficult life, Murphy enlisted in the Army in 1942 — falsifying his birth certificate so that he appeared to be 18, one year older than he actually was. By the end of World War II, Murphy had become one of the nation's most-decorated soldiers, earning an unparalleled 28 medals (including three from France and one from Belgium). Murphy had been wounded three times during the war. In May 1945, when victory was declared in Europe, he had still not reached his 21st birthday. In 1949 Audie Murphy published his acclaimed autobiography, To Hell and Back, then spent the next 21 years in Hollywood, most famously portraying himself in the movie of the same name. Mostly he played Westerns. Despite a steady stream of income, Murphy's horseracing addiction led to financial difficulties, though he refused to appear in commercials for alcohol and cigarettes, thinking it a bad influence on children. Upon his death, he was laid to death with honors at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington DC.

popular name: Kirk Douglas

date_of_death: February 5, 2020

age: 103

cause_of_death: Natural causes

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: The story of Kirk Douglas is the story of how an epitome of underprivilege had become world famous – recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur, fulfilling the roles of Van Gogh, Spartacus, Doc Holliday, a one-eyed Viking chieftain, and Jonathan Shields in The Bad and the Beautiful, that model of Hollywood confidence, arrogance and alchemy who knows that being bad has its own fatal allure. Kirk Douglas was a legendary American actor and filmmaker. After an impoverished childhood, he made his film debut in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck. Douglas soon developed into a leading box-office star throughout the 1950s, known for serious dramas, including westerns and war films. Douglas played an unscrupulous boxing hero in Champion (1949), which brought him his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. His other early films include Out of the Past (1947); Young Man with a Horn (1950), playing opposite Lauren Bacall and Doris Day; Ace in the Hole (1951); and Detective Story (1951), for which he received a Golden Globe nomination. He received his second Oscar nomination for his dramatic role in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), opposite Lana Turner, and earned his third for portraying Vincent van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956), a role for which he won the Golden Globe for the Best Actor in a Drama. He also starred with James Mason in the adventure 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), a large box-office hit. During his career, he appeared in more than 90 films and was known for his explosive acting style. He was named by the American Film Institute the 17th-greatest male star of Classic Hollywood cinema.