Gregg Toland

popular name: William Desmond Taylor

date_of_death: February 1, 1922

age: 49

cause_of_death: Murdered - gunshot wounds

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: William Desmond Taylor was an Anglo-Irish-American film director and actor. A popular figure in the growing Hollywood motion picture colony of the 1910s and early 1920s, Taylor directed fifty-nine silent films between 1914 and 1922 and acted in twenty-seven between 1913 and 1915 (yes that is almost 1 film per month). Taylor's murder on February 1, 1922, along with other Hollywood scandals such as the Roscoe Arbuckle trial, led to a frenzy of sensationalist and often fabricated newspaper reports. The murder remains an official cold case.

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.

popular name: Milton Berle

date_of_death: March 27, 2002

age: 93

cause_of_death: Colon cancer

claim_to_fame: Show Business

best_know_for: Comedian Milton Berle, one of the pioneering legends of television known to a generation of devoted fans as "Uncle Miltie," Berle's career began when he was 5 years old and spanned more than 80 years in stage, film, radio, and television. But it was on television in the 1940s and '50s that Berle made his most lasting mark. "The Texaco Star Theater," featuring Berle and guest stars in what would become legendary comic skits, debuted in 1948 and caught on with the public almost immediately. It became a Tuesday night fixture in homes across America and was credited with helping sell millions of first-time TV sets to a nation just getting acquainted with the new medium. After his twenty years as "Mr. Television" Berle slowly turned into a narcissistic, overbearing attention hog who didn't have neither the knowledge or desire to leave the spotlight with grace. Yet Berle is remembered today less for his jokes, or his comedy, than he is for both being a big d**k and having a big d**k. Berle was notorious for being a joke thief, an attention hog, a scene stealer, and a petty tyrant who took it upon himself to do things like try to “teach” the cast of Saturday Night Live about live television, resulting in one of the most notorious and disastrous episodes in the show’s history. So it comes as no surprise that his legacy has aged badly since his passing.