Joey Ramone

popular name: Jimmy Van Heusen

date_of_death: February 6, 1990

age: 77

cause_of_death: Complications after stroke

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: James Van Heusen was an American composer who wrote songs for films, television and theater, and won an Emmy and four Academy Awards for Best Original Song. In 1940 Jimmy teamed up with the lyricist Johnny Burke and won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Swinging on a Star" (1944). Van Heusen then teamed up with lyricist Sammy Cahn. Their three Academy Awards for Best Song were won for "All the Way" (1957) from The Joker Is Wild, "High Hopes" (1959) from A Hole in the Head, and "Call Me Irresponsible" (1963) from Papa's Delicate Condition. Cahn and Van Heusen also wrote "Love and Marriage" (1955), "To Love and Be Loved", "Come Fly with Me", "Only the Lonely", and "Come Dance with Me" with many of their compositions being the title songs for Frank Sinatra's albums of the late 1950s. Van Heusen wrote the music for five Broadway musicals: Swingin' the Dream (1939); Nellie Bly (1946), Carnival in Flanders (1953), Skyscraper (1965), and Walking Happy (1966). All in all Jimmy composed over 1000 songs of which 50 songs became classic American standards. Van Heusen songs are featured in over 600 films and he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song 14 times in 12 different years (in both 1945 and 1964 he was nominated for two songs), and won four times: in 1944, 1957, 1959, and 1963.

popular name: Tommy Dorsey

date_of_death: November 26, 1956

age: 51

cause_of_death: Asphyxia - aspiration of food in his sleep

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: A highly respected and influential trombonist, Tommy Dorsey—both independently and with his brother Jimmy—led several of the most popular big bands of the swing era. Dorsey was an American jazz trombonist, composer, conductor and bandleader of the big band era. He was known as the "Sentimental Gentleman of Swing" because of his smooth-toned trombone playing. His theme song was "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You". He famously gave a skinny, big-eared Italian-American kid with a cool, seductive voice a shot at stardom. That kid was Frank Sinatra. The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra is best remembered for standards such as "Opus One", "Song of India", "Marie", "On Treasure Island", and his biggest hit single, "I'll Never Smile Again".

popular name: Celia Cruz

date_of_death: July 16, 2003

age: 77

cause_of_death: Brain cancer

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Originally Celia Cruz studied to be a teacher in her native Havana, but was lured into show business when a relative entered her in a radio talent contest, which she won. She later studied music at the Havana Conservatory and performed at the wold-famous Tropicana nightclub. In the 1950s, Cruz became famous with the legendary Afro-Cuban group La Sonora Matancera. She left Cuba after its 1959 revolution for the United States in 1960, and never returned. With her powerful voice and flamboyant stage shows, Cruz helped bring salsa music to a broad audience. Her alliance with fellow salsa star and "Mambo King" Tito Puente garnered some of the biggest success in her career. The two recorded albums and regularly performed together, and they were considered legends of the genre. All in all she recorded more than 70 albums and had more than a dozen Grammy nominations. She won best salsa album for "La Negra Tiene Tumbao" and again the following year. Among her other best-known recordings are "Yerberito Moreno" and "Que le Den Candela." Today fans visit the grave of Cuban Queen of Salsa at her private mausoleum at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York.