In 2024, we've experienced the loss of several luminaries in the world of entertainment. These beloved figures—actors, comedians, musicians, singers, and coaches—have touched our lives with their talent, passion, and dedication. They've left an indelible mark on our hearts and shaped the world of entertainment in ways that will continue to inspire and influence generations to come.
Among the incredible actors who bid farewell this year, we mourn the loss of a true chameleon who effortlessly.
Alaina Reed Hall died she was 63. Reed was an American actress best known for her roles as Olivia, Gordon's younger sister, on the long-running children's television series Sesame Street, and Rose Lee Holloway on the NBC sitcom 227.
In 1976, she won the role of Olivia on the children's series Sesame Street. Her character was a photographer and kid sister of Gordon. In 1985, Hall co-starred on the sitcom 227, frequently traveling between New York (where Sesame Street is taped) and Los Angeles (where 227 was taped). Due to this frantic schedule, she left Sesame Street in 1988.
Hall was married three times. Her first marriage, which produced two children, ended in divorce. In December 1988, she married actor Kevin Peter Hall after meeting him when he guest starred on 227.[2] She was widowed in 1991 after her husband died of pneumonia-related complications after contracting AIDS through a blood transfusion.[3][4]
Alaina Reed Hall died on December 17, 2009, aged 63, from breast cancer. At the time of her death she was married to Tamim Amini.[5]
Brittany Murphy died she was 32. Murphy got her start in the sleeper hit "Clueless" and rose to stardom in "8 Mile", she was Gloria the penguin in the 2006 feature "Happy Feet." before her movie roles declined in recent years. (10 November1977, 20 December2009) Murphy was born in Atlanta, Georgia and raised in Edison, New Jersey. Brittany first honed her acting skills in regional theater at the age of 9. By age 13, she had signed on with a manager and began appearing in television commercials. In 1991, at the age of 13, Brittany and her mother moved to Burbank, California, where she landed her first television role on the show "Blossom" (1991). This lead to a starring role on "Drexell's Class" (1991), a series that proved to be short lived. Brittany's major breakthrough film appearance was in Clueless (1995), the Emma meets "Beverly Hills, 90210" (1990) comedy, in which she starred opposite of Alicia Silverstone. She has gone on to demonstrate her versatility and talent for not only comedy but drama; Brittany was nominated for best leading female performance in the Young Artist Awards for her role in the television film David and Lisa (1998) (TV). Aside from the 25 screen appearances since her Clueless (1995) breakthrough, Brittany has lean her vocal talents, established in the early 1990s as a lead singer of her band "Blessed Soul", to the cartoon "King of the Hill" (1997) as the voice of Luanne. Los Angeles police have opened an investigation into Murphy's death, Officer Norma Eisenman said. Detectives and coroner's officials were at Murphy and Monjack's home Sunday afternoon but did not talk to reporters. Paparazzi were camped outside the multistory home, located above the Sunset Strip.
She is due to appear in Sylvester Stallone's upcoming film, "The Expendables," set for release next year.
Her role in "8 Mile" led to more recognition, Murphy told AP in 2003. "That changed a lot," she said. "That was the difference between people knowing my first and last name as opposed to not."
Murphy credited her mother, Sharon, with being a key to her success.
She dated Ashton Kutcher, who costarred with Murphy in 2003's romantic comedy "Just Married."
Jones was born Phylis Lee Isley in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the daughter of Flora Mae (née Suber) and Phillip Ross Isley.[1] Her parents toured the Midwest in a traveling tent show they owned and operated. Jones attended Monte Cassino Junior College in Tulsa and Northwestern University, where she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority before transferring to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City in 1938. It was here she met and fell in love with fellow acting student Robert Walker. The couple married on January 2, 1939.
They returned to Tulsa for a 13-week radio program arranged by her father, and then made their way to Hollywood. Isley landed two small roles, first in a 1939 John Wayne western titled New Frontier, followed by a serial entitled Dick Tracy's G-Men. In these two films, she was billed as 'Phyllis Isley' (Phyllis now spelled with two Ls). However, they failed a screen test for Paramount Pictures and decided to return to New York City.
While Walker found steady work in radio programs, Isley worked part-time modeling hats for the Powers Agency while looking for possible acting jobs. When she learned of auditions for the lead role in Claudia, Rose Franken’s hit play, she presented herself to David O. Selznick’s New York office but fled in tears after what she thought was a bad reading. Selznick, however, overheard her audition and was impressed enough to have his secretary call her back. Following an interview, she was signed to a seven-year contract.
She was carefully groomed for stardom and given a new name: Jennifer Jones. Director Henry King was impressed by her screen test as Bernadette Soubirous for The Song of Bernadette (1943) and she won the coveted role over hundreds of applicants. In 1944, on her 25th birthday, Jones won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as St. Bernadette. That year, Jones' friend, Ingrid Bergman, was also a Best Actress nominee for her work in For Whom the Bell Tolls. Jones apologized to Bergman, who replied, "No, Jennifer, your Bernadette was better than my Maria." Jones presented the Best Actress Oscar the following year to Bergman for Gaslight.[2]
Her last big-screen appearance came in the spectacular disaster film The Towering Inferno (1974), in which she danced with Fred Astaire before a fire threatened partygoers in a new San Francisco skyscraper who were celebrating its official opening as tallest building in the world. Her exit from the picture was also the most sympathetic when, after helping to assist two children to escape the disaster, her character fell 110 stories to her death from a scenic elevator on the outside of the building which was derailed following an explosion. Her touching performance earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress. As luck would have it, scenes from early on in the movie showed paintings loaned to the production from the Norton Simon art gallery. Simon was her husband at the time the movie was produced.
Jones' first marriage produced two sons, Robert Walker Jr. (born April 15, 1940; Jones's only child who would not predecease her), and Michael Walker (March 13, 1941-December 27, 2007). Both later became actors. Jones had a love affair with David O. Selznick, which eventually led to her separation from Walker in November 1943 and divorce in June 1945.
Jones married Selznick on July 13, 1949, a union which lasted until his death on June 22, 1965. After his death, she semi-retired from acting. According to media reports, Jones attempted suicide in November 1967; she was hospitalized in a coma before eventually recovering.[4] Her daughter, Mary Jennifer Selznick (1954-1976), committed suicide by jumping from a 20th-floor window on May 11, 1976. This led to Jones' interest in mental health issues.
On May 29, 1971, Jones married multi-millionaire industrialist, art collector and philanthropist Norton Simon, whose son Robert had committed suicide in 1969. Years before, Simon had attempted to buy the portrait of her used in the film Portrait of Jennie. Simon later met Jones at a party hosted by fellow industrialist/art collector Walter Annenberg. Norton Simon died in June 1993. Jennifer Jones-Simon was Trustee Emeritus of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena.
Jones attempted suicide in 1967 by jumping off a cliff.[5]
Jones was a breast cancer survivor. Actress Susan Strasberg, who would die of the disease in 1999, who was then married to actor Christopher Jones, named her own daughter as Jennifer Robin Jones in the older actress's honor.
Robert Walker (Married: January 2, 1939 – June 20, 1945)
Jones filed for divorce in April 1945. Robert Walker was distraught over the divorce and was soon prone to drinking, emotional outbursts and eventually, a nervous breakdown. He spent time at the Menninger Clinic in 1949 where he was treated for a psychiatric disorder. [6] According to the book Cut!: Hollywood Murders, Accidents, and Other Tragedies, while filming My Son John, on the night of August 28, 1951, Walker had a severe emotional outburst. Failing to calm him down, his housekeeper called his psychiatrist, who, upon arrival administered sodium amytal. Walker suffered an acute allergic reaction to the drug, and stopped breathing. All efforts to resuscitate him failed. Walker was 32 years old.[7]
Mary Jennifer Selznick (August 12, 1954 – May 11, 1976). She had developed deep emotional problems and had never fully gotten over her father's death. She had, according to sources[who?] experimented with drugs, and suffered a nervous breakdown.[citation needed] While her mother was in Tulsa to visit her dying father, Mary Jennifer jumped to her death from a 22-story building in Los Angeles.
Norton Simon (Married: May 30, 1971 – June 1, 1993)
She enjoyed a quiet retirement in Southern California close to her son. She granted no interviews and rarely appeared in public. She died of natural causes at her home on December 17, 2009, aged 90.
Yvonne King Burch, who gained early fame as one of the singing King Sisters during the big band era before launching her entire extended musical clan into show business as the King Family, has died. She was 89.
Burch died in a Santa Barbara hospital Sunday, where she was taken for injuries she suffered in a fall last week, said her daughter, Tina Cole.
Burch was the matriarch of the King Family, a popular and enduring show business dynasty.
She spent three decades singing and recording with the King Sisters, one of the most popular vocal groups of the 1930s and 1940s. A Grammy nomination for their Capitol Records album "Imagination" capped the group's career in 1959.
In 1963, Burch conceived and produced a benefit concert with her sisters and three dozen relatives including brothers, husbands, wives, aunts, uncles and children that marked the debut of the King Family.
The King Family appeared on "The Hollywood Palace" before headlining their own TV special. Strong fan response led to two variety series and 17 specials during the 1960s and 1970s. The family appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and performed with entertainment legends, including Bing Crosby and Dean Martin.
Besides landing a national concert tour, the clan recorded five albums for Warner Brothers. The family showcased its multigenerational talent with performances by the King Cousins and the King Kiddies.
The King Sisters performed and toured with big bands led by Horace Heidt and Artie Shaw before starting their own orchestra with Luise King's husband, Alvino Rey. They made it big in the 1930s and 1940s with jazzy, four-part harmonies on a series of hits, including "Mairzy Doats," "Miss Otis Regrets" and "The Hut-Sut Song."
Burch was married for 39 years to William Burch, a longtime radio and TV producer who died in 2005.
She had two children with her first husband, musician Buddy Cole, who died in 1964.
Chris Henry car accident proves fatal. Chris Henry succumbed to his injuries yesterday. He had fallen from the back of the truck seriously injuring himself.
Twenty six year old Chris Henry was an American football wide receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals of the National Football League.
He was drafted by the Bengals in the third round of the 2005 NFL Draft. He played college football at West Virginia.
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Roy Edward Disney, KCSG[1] died he was 79was a longtime senior executive for The Walt Disney Company, which his father Roy Oliver Disney and his uncle Walt Disney founded. At the time of death he was a shareholder (over 16 million shares or about 1%),[2] and served as a consultant for the company and Director Emeritus for the Board of Directors. He is perhaps best known for organizing the ousting of two top Disney executives: first, Ron Miller in 1984, and then Michael Eisner in 2005.
(January 10, 1930 – December 16, 2009)
As the last member of the Disney family to be actively involved in the company, Roy Disney was often compared to uncle and his father. In 2006, Forbes magazine estimated his personal fortune at about USD$1.2 billion.[3]
Disney was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Edna (née Francis) and Roy Oliver Disney, and nephew of Walt Disney. He graduated from Pomona College in 1951 and first began working for The Walt Disney Company as an assistant director and producer (True-Life Adventure). He continued until 1967 when he was elected to the Board of Directors of the company.
Roy Disney resigned as an executive from the Disney company in 1977 due to disagreements with corporate decisions at that time. As he claimed later, "I just felt creatively the company was not going anywhere interesting. It was very stifling."[4] He retained a seat on the board of directors. His resignation from the board in 1984, which occurred in the midst of a corporate takeover battle, was the beginning of a series of developments that led to the replacement of company president and CEO Ronald William Miller (married to Walt's daughter Diane Marie Disney) by Michael Eisner and Frank Wells. Roy soon returned to the company as vice-chairman of t
He set his goal as revitalizing the company's tradition of animated feature films and by the end of the decade there were successes in this department. Although Roy acted largely as a figurehead, he could wield significant power, even over Eisner, his ostensible boss, and employees of the department have praised Roy for ensuring them plenty of artistic freedom on their projects.
During the 1990s, Roy's department produced a number of commercially successful, critically acclaimed films and the era has been called a renaissance for the company and animation in general, though there was a decline in profits starting at the end of the decade. On October 16, 1998 in a surprise presentation made at the newly unveiled Disney Legends Plaza at the company's headquarters, Disney Chairman Michael Eisner presented him with the prestigious Disney Legends Award. Roy Disney's pet project was the film Fantasia 2000, a sequel to the 1940 animated movie Fantasia produced by his uncle Walt Disney. Walt Disney had planned a sequel to the original movie but it was never made. Roy decided to make this long-delayed sequel, and he was the executive producer of the film that took nine years to produce and was finally released on December 17, 1999. Like its predecessor the film combined high-quality contemporary animation and classical music, however it was not a financial success at the US box office.
After a struggle with CEO Michael Eisner, Roy Disney's influence began to wane as more executives friendly to Eisner were appointed to high posts. When the board of directors rejected Disney's request for an extension of his term as board member, he announced his resignation on November 30, 2003, citing "serious differences of opinion about the direction and style of management" in the company. He issued a letter criticizing Eisner for mismanaging the company, neglecting the studio's animation division, failures with ABC, timidity in the theme park business, instilling a corporate mentality in the executive structure, turning the Walt Disney Company into a "rapacious, soul-less" conglomerate, and of refusing to establish a clear succession plan.[5]
After his resignation, Disney helped establish the website SaveDisney.com, intended to oust Michael Eisner and his supporters from their positions and revamp the Walt Disney Company. On March 3, 2004, at Disney's annual shareholders' meeting, a surprising and unprecedented 43% of Disney's shareholders, predominantly rallied by former board members Roy Disney and Stanley Gold, voted to oppose the re-election of Eisner to the corporate board of directors. This vigorous opposition, unusual in major public corporations, convinced Disney's board to strip Eisner of his chairmanship and give that position to George J. Mitchell. The board didn't give Eisner's detractors what they really wanted: his immediate removal as chief executive. In fact, Roy Disney's campaign regarded Mitchell himself unfavorably; 25% of shareholders opposed Mitchell's re-election to the board in the same election.
As criticism of Eisner intensified in the wake of the shareholder meeting, however, his position became more and more tenuous, and on March 13, 2005, Eisner announced that he would step down as CEO on September 30, one year before his contract expired. On July 8, Roy and the Walt Disney Company, then still nominally headed by Eisner but, in fact, run by Eisner's long-time lieutenant, Bob Iger, agreed to "put aside their differences." Roy rejoined the Walt Disney Company as a non voting Director Emeritus and consultant. Roy and Gold agreed to shut down their SaveDisney.com website, which went offline August 7.
On September 30, Eisner resigned both as an executive and as a member of the board of directors, and, severing all formal ties with the company, he waived his contractual rights to perks such as use of a corporate jet, a Golden Pass and an office at the company's Burbank headquarters. Eisner's replacement was Bob Iger. One of Roy Disney's stated reasons for engineering his second "Save Disney" initiative had been Eisner's well-publicized but financially unjustified dissatisfaction with long-time production partner Pixar Animation Studios and its CEO Steve Jobs, creators of shared hits Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, and other critically acclaimed computer animated motion pictures. This estrangement was quickly repaired by successor Iger upon Eisner's exit, and on January 24, 2006, the company announced it would acquire Pixar in an all-stock deal worth US $7.4 billion, catapulting Jobs, also co-founder and CEO of Apple, Inc, to Disney's largest shareholder with 7% of the corporation's outstanding shares. Jobs also gained a new seat on Disney's board of directors. Former CEO Eisner, who still holds 1.7% of shares, became Disney's second largest shareholder, and Director Emeritus Roy Disney, with 1% of shares, became its third largest owner.
Roy Disney's efforts to oust Eisner from the company were chronicled by James B. Stewart in his best-selling book, DisneyWar.
On the initial VHS release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney hosted a mini-documentary chronicling the progress made by his uncle and the Walt Disney Company.[citation needed]
Shamrock Holdings, which Roy Disney chaired and Stanley Gold runs as CEO, is an investment company that manages Roy Disney's personal investments.
Disney was well known in the sailing community. He has held several sailing speed records including the Los Angeles to Honolulu monohull time record. He set it on his boat Pyewacket in July 1999 (7 days, 11 hours, 41 minutes, 27 seconds).[10]
On January 19, 2007, Roy Disney (then 77 years old) filed for divorce from his wife, Patricia (then 72), citing "irreconcilable differences", according to court documents. The couple, married 52 years, had been living apart for an unspecified amount of time, according to the Los Angeles County Superior Court filing. They have four adult children.[11]
In 2008, Roy Disney married Leslie DeMeuse, a former ESPN and current CSTV producer, and Emmy winner of various sailing documentaries. The two created the sailing documentary "TransPac—A Century Across the Pacific" in 2000, and are executive producers of the sailing documentary "Morning Light", which follows the selection and training of 18- to 23-year-old sailors on the 2007 Transpacific Yacht Race.[12]
On April 26, 2008, Roy Disney received a Doctorate honoris causa from The California Maritime Academy for his many contributions to the state and the nation, including international sailing.
On December 16, 2009, Disney, who had been battling stomach cancer for a year, died at Hoag Memorial Hospital in Newport Beach, California. His death occurred 43 years and one day after Walt Disney died, also from cancer. In addition, he died exactly 12 years after his aunt, Lillian Bounds Disney. Roy Disney was 79 years old.[1]
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Dan Barton died he was 88. Burton was an Americanactor.
(1921-2009)
Dan Barton served in the Army in World War II and was editor of a humor magazine in Paris. [1]
Dan Barton was first married to Anne Barton, better known as Eddie Haskell’s mother in “Leave it to Beaver.” She passed away in 2000. He married again in 2005 to Gyl Roland. The best man at their wedding was actor John Forsythe, better known as Blake Carrington on the nighttime soap “Dynasty.” [2]
In the late 1940s Dan Barton appeared on stage in the successful Broadway stage production “Mr. Roberts” alongside Cliff Robertson, Lee Van Cleef and Brian Keith. [1]
He was also popular as a voice actor and narrated documentaries and commercials. He was the spokesman for Northrup Aviation for twelve years and worked with Coke and Nike. Barton also did voice-over work for prominent Republicans Arnold Schwarzenegger and Elizabeth Dole despite his own position as a life-long Democrat.[1]
On December 13, 2009, Dan Barton died of heart failure and kidney disease, this coming after the actor had been ill for several months. He was 88.[1]
Alaina Reed Hall died she was 63. Reed was an American actress best known for her roles as Olivia, Gordon's younger sister, on the long-running children's television series Sesame Street, and Rose Lee Holloway on the NBC sitcom 227.
Hall was married three times. Her first marriage, which produced two children, ended in divorce. In December 1988, she married actor Kevin Peter Hall after meeting him when he guest starred on 227.[2] She was widowed in 1991 after her husband died of pneumonia-related complications after contracting AIDS through a blood transfusion.[3][4]
