In Memoriam: Deaths in the 1950s

1. James Dean

James Byron Dean was born February 8, 1931 in Marion, Indiana, to Mildred Marie (Wilson) and Winton A. Dean, a farmer turned dental technician. His mother died when Dean was nine, and he was subsequently raised on a farm by his aunt and uncle in Fairmount, Indiana. After grade school, he moved to ...

2. Humphrey Bogart

Actor | Casablanca

Humphrey DeForest Bogart was born in New York City, New York, to Maud Humphrey, a famed magazine illustrator and suffragette, and Belmont DeForest Bogart, a moderately wealthy surgeon (who was secretly addicted to opium). Bogart was educated at Trinity School, NYC, and was sent to Phillips Academy ...

3. Buddy Holly

Soundtrack | Big Fish

Charles Hardin Holley, known as Buddy Holly, was an American singer and songwriter who was a central and pioneering figure of mid-1950s rock and roll. He was born in Lubbock, Texas, to a musical family during the Great Depression, and learned to play guitar and sing alongside his siblings. His ...

4. The Big Bopper

Soundtrack | True Romance

The Big Bopper (real name: Jiles Perry Richardson Jr. ) was an American singer, songwriter, and disc jockey from Texas. His best known song compositions were" Chantilly Lace" (featuring a flirtatious phone conversation) and "White Lightning" (a rockabilly hit). Richardson was killed in an airplane ...

5. Ritchie Valens

Soundtrack | La Bamba

Ritchie, the 'California Kid' was from a family of poverty stricken fruit pickers and was the first rock star to originate from the West Coast and one of the innovators of 'Latino rock. In an eight month career he scored three hits with 'Come On Let's Go', 'Donna' and 'La Bamba' before being killed...

6. Albert Einstein

Writer | Schooling the World

Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Kingdom of Württemberg, to a German Jewish family. He was the son of Pauline (Koch) and Hermann Einstein, a featherbed salesman. Albert began reading and studying science at a young age, and he graduated from a Swiss high school when he was 17. He then attended a ...

7. Curly Howard

Actor | If a Body Meets a Body

Jerome "Curly" Howard, the rotund, bald Stooge with the high voice was the most popular member of The Three Stooges. His first stage experience was as a comedic conductor for the Orville Knapp Band in 1928. Curly joined The Three Stooges in 1932, replacing his brother Shemp Howard. He made more ...

8. Shemp Howard

Actor | Scrambled Brains

Shemp Howard was born Samuel Horwitz in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He was also the brother of fellow stooges Moe Howard and Curly Howard. Larry Fine was not related to any of the other stooges.

When not working with The Three Stooges, Shemp made a lot of feature film appearances, such as The Bank Dick...

9. Fred Moore

Animation_department | Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Fred Moore was born on September 7, 1911 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Dumbo (1941) and Alice in Wonderland (1951). He died on November 25, 1952 in Burbank, California, USA.

10. Bela Lugosi

Actor | Dracula

Bela Lugosi was born Béla Ferenc Dezsö Blaskó on October 20, 1882, Lugos, Hungary, Austria-Hungary (now Lugoj, Romania), to Paula de Vojnich and István Blaskó, a banker. He was the youngest of four children. During WWI, he volunteered and was commissioned as an infantry lieutenant, and was wounded ...

11. Lou Costello

Actor | Hold That Ghost

Lou Costello was born Louis Francis Cristillo in Paterson, New Jersey, to Helen (Rege) and Sebastiano Cristillo. His father was from Calabria, Italy, and his mother was an American of Italian, French, and Irish ancestry. Raised in Paterson, Costello dropped out of high school and headed west to ...

12. Al Jolson

Actor | The Jazz Singer

Al Jolson was known in the industry as "The World's Greatest Entertainer," for well over 40 years. After his death his influence continued unabated with such performers as Sammy Davis Jr., Elvis Presley, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Jackie Wilson and Jerry Lee Lewis all mentioning him as an ...

13. Oliver Hardy

Actor | Saps at Sea

Although his parents were never in show business, as a young boy Oliver Hardy was a gifted singer and, by age eight, was performing with minstrel shows. In 1910 he ran a movie theatre, which he preferred to studying law. In 1913 he became a comedy actor with the Lubin Company in Florida and began ...

14. Errol Flynn

Actor | The Adventures of Robin Hood

Errol Flynn was born to parents Theodore Flynn, a respected biologist, and Marrelle Young, an adventurous young woman. Young Flynn was a rambunctious child who could be counted on to find trouble. Errol managed to have himself thrown out of every school in which he was enrolled. In his late teens ...

15. Hank Williams

Soundtrack | The Last Picture Show

Hank Williams was born in September 1923 in a small Alabama farming community about 70 miles south of Montgomery. His father was a railroad engineer who was also a victim of shell shock after a year of fighting in France in 1918 during World War I and spent many years in veterans hospitals. Hank's ...

16. Frank Graham

Actor | Cosmo Jones in the Crime Smasher

Frank Graham was born on November 22, 1914 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Cosmo Jones in the Crime Smasher (1943), The Three Caballeros (1944) and Horton Hatches the Egg (1942). He died on September 2, 1950 in Hollywood, California, USA.

17. Harry McClintock

Soundtrack | Room

Harry McClintock was born on October 8, 1882 in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. He was married to Bessie. He died on April 24, 1957 in San Francisco, California, USA.

18. Arthur Q. Bryan

Actor | The Devil Bat

Arthur Quirk Bryan was an American actor from Brooklyn, New York City. He is primarily remembered as a voice actor for radio and animation. His best known roles were the wisecracking physician and surgeon Dr. George Gamble in "Fibber McGee and Molly" (1935-1959), and the inept hunter Elmer Fudd in ...

19. Ned Sparks

Actor | 42nd Street

Ned Sparks proved himself a top character support whose style would be imitated for decades to come. Although less remembered now, he was an inimitable cinematic player back in 1930s Hollywood. The nasal-toned, deadpan comedian Sparks was born Edward A. Sparkman in Guelph, Canada, and was raised ...

20. Ben Hardaway

Writer | Wacky-Bye Baby

Animator, gag writer, storyboard artist and director Ben Hardaway is fondly remembered for his important contributions to Warner Brothers cartoons and as co-creator (with Walter Lantz) and voice (1944-1949) of Woody Woodpecker. Hardaway started out as a cartoonist for the Kansas City Star in 1910. ...

21. George Reeves

Actor | Adventures of Superman

George Reeves was born George Keefer Brewer in Woolstock, Iowa, to Helen Roberta (Lescher) and Donald C. Brewer. He was of German, English, and Scottish descent. Following his parents' divorce and his mother's remarriage to Frank J. Bessolo, Reeves was raised in Pasadena, California, and educated ...

22. Dink Trout

Actor | Alice in Wonderland

Dink Trout was born on June 18, 1898 in Beardstown, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for Alice in Wonderland (1951), Scattergood Baines (1941) and Cinderella Swings It (1943). He died on March 26, 1950 in Hollywood, California, USA.

23. Larry Grey

Actor | Alice in Wonderland

Larry Grey was born on March 23, 1895 in Leeds, Yorkshire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Mr. Celebrity (1941). He was married to Carlotta Dale Garrison. He died on May 5, 1951 in Oakland, California, USA.

24. Ronald Colman

Actor | A Double Life

British leading man of primarily American films, one of the great stars of the Golden Age. Raised in Ealing, the son of a successful silk merchant, he attended boarding school in Sussex, where he discovered amateur theatre. He intended to attend Cambridge and become an engineer, but his father's ...

25. Sam Cobean

Writer | Willoughby's Magic Hat

Sam Cobean was born on December 28, 1913 in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, USA. Sam was a writer, known for Willoughby's Magic Hat (1943), The Cocky Bantam (1943) and Dizzy Newsreel (1943). Sam died on July 2, 1951.

26. Tyrone Power

Actor | Witness for the Prosecution

Tyrone Power was one of the great romantic swashbuckling stars of the mid-twentieth century, and the third Tyrone Power of four in a famed acting dynasty reaching back to the eighteenth century. His great-grandfather was the first Tyrone Power (1795-1841), a famed Irish comedian. His father, known ...

27. Lewis Stone

Actor | The Mask of Fu Manchu

By the time that he was 20, Lewis Stone had turned prematurely grey. He enlisted to fight in the Spanish American War and when he returned, he returned to be a writer. This turned to acting and he began to appear in films during the middle teens. His career was again interrupted by war as he served...

28. William Randolph Hearst

Zander the Great

William Randolph Hearst was the greatest newspaper baron in the history of the United States and is the person whom Citizen Kane (1941), widely regarded as the greatest film ever made, is primarily based on. While there are many similarities between Charles Foster Kane, as limned by the great Orson...

29. Milt Gross

Writer | Puddin' Head

Milt Gross was born on March 4, 1895 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer and director, known for Puddin' Head (1941), Rookies on Parade (1941) and The Ghost and the Guest (1943). He died on November 29, 1953 in Los Angeles County, California, USA.

30. Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer

Actor | Second Childhood

Carl Switzer was an American child actor, singer, dog breeder, and hunting guide from Paris, Illinois. He became famous for portraying Alfalfa in the film series "Our Gang" during the 1930s. His character was one of the most memorable characters ever portrayed in the series. Later in his career, ...

31. Harry Lang

Actor | Who's Who?

Harry Lang was born on December 29, 1894 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Who's Who? (1929), Bad Boy (1939) and Soldiers Three (1951). He died on August 3, 1953 in Hollywood, California, USA.

32. Bull Montana

Actor | Victory

Bull Montana was born on May 16, 1887 in Voghera, Lombardy, Italy. He was an actor, known for Victory (1919), Laughing at Danger (1924) and The Lost World (1925). He was married to Mary Mathews. He died on January 24, 1950 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

33. Rex Ingram

Director | The Great Problem

Renowned director Rex Ingram started his film career as a set designer and painter. His directorial debut was The Great Problem (1916). A true master of the medium, Ingram despised the business haggling required in the Hollywood system. He was also unhappy with the level of writing he found in ...

34. Rupert Hughes

Writer | Souls for Sale

Rupert Hughes was born on January 31, 1872 in Lancaster, Missouri, USA. He was a writer and director, known for Souls for Sale (1923), True As Steel (1924) and Look Your Best (1923). He was married to Patterson Dial, Mrs. Rupert Hughes and Agnes Wheeler Hedge. He died on September 9, 1956 in ...

35. Erich von Stroheim

Actor | Sunset Blvd.

Erich von Stroheim was born Erich Oswald Stroheim in 1885, in Vienna, Austria, to Johanna (Bondy), from Prague, and Benno Stroheim, a hatter from Gleiwitz, Germany (now Gliwice, Poland). His family was Jewish.

After spending some time working in his father's hat factory, he emigrated to America ...

36. George Orwell

Writer | Nineteen Eighty-Four

Born the son of an Opium Agent in Bengal, Eric Blair was educated in England (Eton 1921). The joined the British Imperial Police in Burma, serving until 1927. He then travelled around England and Europe, doing various odd jobs to support his writing. By 1935 he had adopted the 'pen-name' of 'George...

37. Lionel Barrymore

Actor | You Can't Take It with You

Famed actor, composer, artist, author and director. His talents extended to the authoring of the novel "Mr. Cartonwine: A Moral Tale" as well as his autobiography. In 1944, he joined ASCAP, and composed "Russian Dances", "Partita", "Ballet Viennois", "The Woodman and the Elves", "Behind the Horizon...

38. Ethel Barrymore

Actress | The Spiral Staircase

Ethel Barrymore was the second of three children seemingly destined for the actor's life of their parents Maurice and Georgiana. Maurice Barrymore had emigrated from England in 1875, and after graduating from Cambridge in law had shocked his family by becoming an actor. Georgiana Drew of ...

39. Louis B. Mayer

Producer | The Great Secret

Mayer was born Lazar Meir in the Ukraine and grew up in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada after his parents fled Russian oppression in 1886. He had a brutal childhood, raised in poverty and suffering physical and emotional abuse from his nearly-illiterate peddler father. In the early 1890s, he ...

40. Hugh Herbert

Actor | The Black Cat

Former stage actor and playwright - he wrote over 150 plays and vaudeville sketches - Hugh Herbert went, in the early 1930s to Hollywood, as a comedian. In the 1930s he worked mostly for Warner Bros., impersonating often eccentric millionaires, tycoons and dimwitted professors. In a few movies he ...

41. Alexander Fleming

Self | Panorama

He initially worked in a shipping company before, thanks to various scholarships, he was able to begin studying medicine at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in Paddington in 1901. In 1906 Fleming completed his final exams. He then qualified as a surgeon. From 1908 Fleming began to work ...

42. W.C. Handy

Soundtrack | Scarface

W.C. Handy was born on November 16, 1873 in Florence, Alabama, USA. He was a composer and producer, known for Scarface (1932), The Thirteenth Floor (1999) and The Great Gatsby (2013). He was married to Irma Louise Logan and Elizabeth Virginia Price. He died on March 29, 1958 in New York City, New ...

43. Charlie Parker

Soundtrack | Se7en

Charles Christopher Parker Jr. was born on August 29, 1920, in a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri, to Charles Parker Sr. and his 18-year-old wife Addie. His father ran out on the family when Charlie was just a little boy. When he was 11 his mother bought him an alto saxophone for his birthday. By ...

44. Sergei Prokofiev

Soundtrack | Children of Men

Prokofiev was a multi-talented man and an innovative composer. He learned piano from his mother and chess from his father. He always had a chess set on his piano, and was able to play against the chess champions of his time. He studied music with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, graduated with highest ...

45. Fanny Brice

Actress | Be Yourself!

Fanny Brice was a popular and influential American comedienne, singer, theatre and film actress, who made many stage, radio and film appearances but is best remembered as the creator and star of the top-rated radio comedy series, The Baby Snooks Show. Thirteen years after her death, she was ...

46. Carmen Miranda

Soundtrack | Greenwich Village

Carmen Miranda was born Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha on February 9, 1909, near Porto, Portugal, in the town of Marco de Canavezes. Not long after her birth her family moved to Brazil, where her father was involved in the produce business. The family settled in the then-capital city of Rio de ...

47. Christian Rub

Actor | You Can't Take It with You

Christian Rub was born on April 13, 1886 in Graz, Styria, Austria. He was an actor, known for You Can't Take It with You (1938), Peter Ibbetson (1935) and Girls' Dormitory (1936). He was married to Amy. He died on April 14, 1956 in Santa Barbara, California, USA.

48. Lew Lehr

Writer | The Devil Tiger

Lew Lehr performed in vaudeville and on the musical stage until about 1930, when he began narrating and writing shorts for educational and other series entries such as "Tintypes", "Adventures of a Newsreel Cameraman", "Magic Carpet" series and "Lew Lehr's Unnatural History" series. He was also the ...

49. Cecil B. DeMille

Producer | The Ten Commandments

His parents Henry C. DeMille and Beatrice DeMille were playwrights. His father died when he was 12, and his mother supported the family by opening a school for girls and a theatrical company. Too young to enlist in the Spanish-American War, Cecil followed his brother William C. de Mille to the New ...

50. Wally Maher

Actor | Mystery Street

Wally Maher was born on August 4, 1908 in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. He was an actor, known for Mystery Street (1950), The Reformer and the Redhead (1950) and Hollywood Hotel (1937). He was married to Molly Bruno. He died on December 27, 1951 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

51. Jimmy Dorsey

Actor | I Dood It

Legendary saxophonist, conductor, songwriter and composer ("I'm Glad There Is You" and "Contrasts" [his theme]), educated in public schools and a cornet student of his father. Through the 1920s he was a saxophonist in orchestras including those of Paul Whiteman, Red Nichols, and the California ...

52. Tommy Dorsey

Soundtrack | Ship Ahoy

Tommy Dorsey was born on November 19, 1905 in Mahanoy Plane, Pennsylvania, USA. He was a musician and a bandleader, whose music appeared in such films as Annie Hall (1977), Ship Ahoy (1942) and The Human Stain (2003). He also occasionally appeared as himself, frequently with his band, in a variety ...

53. Bob Burns

Actor | Radio City Revels

After growing up in a small Arkansas town, Bob Burns qualified as a civil engineer, but also worked as a salesman, farmed peanuts, and in World War I was a Marine sergeant and champion rifleman. His great interest from boyhood was music, and from 1911 his main career was in entertainment. He played...

54. Jack Cole

Writer | Justice League Action Shorts

Jack Cole was born on December 14, 1914 in New Castle, Pennsylvania, USA. He was a writer, known for Justice League Action Shorts (2017), Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2008) and Justice League Action (2016). He died on August 15, 1958 in Cary, Illinois, USA.

55. A.A. Milne

Writer | Christopher Robin

Alan Alexander Milne (signing with the initials A. A. ) was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, and playwright from London. He is primarily remembered for creating Winnie-the-Pooh and his supporting characters. He set their stories in the "Hundred Acre Wood", a fictionalized version of ...

56. Robert Newton

Actor | Around the World in Eighty Days

Robert Newton was one of the great character actors -- and great characters -- of the British cinema, best remembered today for playing Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1950) and its sequel in 1954. His portrayal of Long John Silver and of Blackbeard, the Pirate (1952) created a persona that ...

57. Artie Auerbach

Actor | The Jack Benny Program

Artie Auerbach was born on May 17, 1903 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The Jack Benny Program (1950), Here Comes Elmer (1943) and Some Time Soon (1937). He was married to Cleo Morgan and Doris. He died on October 3, 1957 in Van Nuys, California, USA.

58. Harry Einstein

Actor | Night Spot

Harry Einstein was born on May 6, 1904 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Night Spot (1938), Badminton (1945) and The Yanks Are Coming (1942). He was married to Thelma Leeds, Lillian Anshen and Jennifer Ann Boyd. He died on November 24, 1958 in Los Angeles, ...

59. Hattie McDaniel

Actress | Gone with the Wind

After working as early as the 1910s as a band vocalist, Hattie McDaniel debuted as a maid in The Golden West (1932). Her maid-mammy characters became steadily more assertive, showing up first in Judge Priest (1934) and becoming pronounced in Alice Adams (1935). In this one, directed by George ...