Date of Death between 1986-01-01 and 1986-12-31 (Sorted by Popularity Ascending)
1. Cary Grant
Actor | Charade
Once told by an interviewer, "Everybody would like to be Cary Grant", Grant is said to have replied, "So would I."
Cary Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach on January 18, 1904 in Horfield, Bristol, England, to Elsie Maria (Kingdon) and Elias James Leach, who worked in a factory. His early years in ...
2. Andrei Tarkovsky
Writer | Solyaris
The most famous Soviet film-maker since Sergei M. Eisenstein, Andrei Tarkovsky (the son of noted poet Arseniy Tarkovsky) studied music and Arabic in Moscow before enrolling in the Soviet film school V.G.I.K. He shot to international attention with his first feature, Ivan's Childhood (1962), which ...
3. Gordon MacRae
Actor | Oklahoma!
Albert Gordon MacRae was born on March 12, 1921, in East Orange, NJ. During his early years, he resided in Syracuse, NY, and, while in high school, spent much of his time singing and acting in the Drama Club. It was also during this time that he learned to play the piano, clarinet and the saxophone...
4. Ray Milland
Actor | The Lost Weekend
Ray Milland became one of Paramount's most bankable and durable stars, under contract from 1934 to 1948, yet little in his early life suggested a career as a motion picture actor.
Milland was born Alfred Reginald Jones in the Welsh town of Neath, Glamorgan, to Elizabeth Annie (Truscott) and Alfred ...
5. Howard Da Silva
Actor | The Lost Weekend
Howard da Silva was one of 324 actors, writers and directors who fell victim to the Hollywood blacklisting of the early 1950s, and had his career halted in the blink of an eye. Originally was a steelworker before making his stage debut at age 20 in New York. He made a name for himself on Broadway ...
6. James Cagney
Actor | Angels with Dirty Faces
One of Hollywood's preeminent male stars of all time, James Cagney was also an accomplished dancer and easily played light comedy. James Francis Cagney was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, to Carolyn (Nelson) and James Francis Cagney, Sr., who was a bartender and amateur ...
7. Forrest Tucker
Actor | The Trollenberg Terror
Forrest Tucker, best known to the Baby Boom generation as Sergeant O'Rourke on the classic TV sitcom F Troop (1965), was born on February 12, 1919, in Plainfield, Indiana. He began his performing career at age 14 at the 1933 Chicago "Century of Progress" World's Fair, pushing big wicker tourists' ...
8. Donna Reed
Actress | It's a Wonderful Life
Donna Reed was born in the midwestern town of Denison, Iowa, on January 27, 1921, as Donna Belle Mullenger. A small town - a population of less than 3,000 people - Denison was located by the Boyer River, and was the county seat of Crawford County. Donna grew up as a farm girl, much like many young ...
9. Murray Hamilton
Actor | Jaws
Murray Hamilton was one of those character actors whose face would be familiar to most movie buffs at an instant, yet his name may not. That's a shame, because Hamilton was one of the most versatile and prolific of performers who was never anything less than completely convincing in any role he ...
10. Scatman Crothers
Actor | The Shining
Scatman Crothers was born Benjamin Sherman Crothers on May 23, 1910 in Terre Haute, Indiana. Songwriter ("Dearest One"), actor, composer, singer, comedian and guitarist who, after high school, appeared in nightclubs, hotels, films and on television. He made many records, including his own ...
11. Sterling Hayden
Actor | Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Born to George & Frances Simonson Walter, and named Sterling Relyea Walter. Father died in 1925. Adopted by stepfather 'James Hayden' renamed Sterling Walter Hayden. Grew up in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., and Maine. Though very poor, attended prep school at ...
12. Elsa Lanchester
Actress | Witness for the Prosecution
Elsa Sullivan Lanchester was born into an unconventional a family at the turn of the 20th century. Her parents, James "Shamus" Sullivan and Edith "Biddy" Lanchester, were socialists - very active members of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) in a rather broad sense and did not believe in the ...
13. Keenan Wynn
Actor | Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
The talented scion of a show-business family, Keenan Wynn's father was the great burlesque and television buffoon Ed Wynn while his maternal grandfather, Frank Keenan, earned distinction on the other side of the entertainment ladder as a Shakespearean tragedian. Mother Hilda Keenan was also a minor...
14. Lurene Tuttle
Actress | Psycho
Quite a familiar lady and notorious busybody on 1950s and '60s TV and film, petite, red-headed character actress Lurene Tuttle was born in Pleasant Lake, Indiana and raised on a ranch close to the Arizona border. Her father, O.V. Tuttle, started out as a performer in minstrels but found a job as a ...
15. Virginia Gregg
Actress | Operation Petticoat
Virginia Gregg was born on March 6, 1916 in Harrisburg, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Operation Petticoat (1959), Crime in the Streets (1956) and Police Story (1973). She was married to Jaime Del Valle. She died on September 15, 1986 in Encino, Los Angeles, California, USA.
16. Desi Arnaz
Producer | I Love Lucy
Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III was born in Santiago, Cuba on March 2, 1917. His father was the mayor of Santiago. The 1933 revolution led by Fulgencio Batista had landed his father in jail and stripped the family of its wealth, property and power. His father was released because of the ...
17. Ted Knight
Actor | Mary Tyler Moore
Actor Ted Knight paid his dues with nearly two decades of relatively obscure dramatic, often villainous television work, before finding enduring fame in a scene-stealing supporting turn on a classic 1970s sitcom, hilariously overplaying a silver-haired, self-important imbecile. Although the ...
18. Otto Preminger
Director | Anatomy of a Murder
Otto Ludwig Preminger was born in Wiznitz, Bukovina, Austria-Hungary. His father was a prosecutor, and Otto originally intended to follow his father into a law career; however, he fell in love with the theater in his 20's and became one of the most imaginative stage producers and directors. He was ...
19. Robert Alda
Actor | Rhapsody in Blue
Robert Alda's career began in vaudeville, as a singer-dancer. Graduating to performing on radio and in burlesque, he made a splashy film debut as George Gershwin in Rhapsody in Blue (1945). His film career faltered somewhat after that, but he had much greater success on the Broadway stage in such ...
20. Yakima Canutt
Assistant Director | Ben-Hur
Starting out as a rodeo cowboy and then becoming a stuntman in silent westerns, Yakima Canutt later doubled for such stars as Clark Gable and John Wayne, among others, in such dangerous activities as jumping off the top of a cliff on horseback, leaping from a stagecoach onto its runaway team, being...
21. Paul Frees
Actor | The War of the Worlds
Actor, composer, songwriter, voiceover artist and author. He joined ASCAP in 1956, and his chief musical collaborators included Tony Romano, Ruby Raksin, Walter Gross, and Ed Brandt. His popular-song compositions include "Hollywood Soliloquy", "The Clown", "Drowning My Sorrow", and "Voice in the ...
22. Hermione Baddeley
Actress | The Secret of NIMH
A brash character actress who specialized in cinema, television, and theater, Hermione Youlanda Ruby Clinton-Baddeley was born on November 13, 1906 in Broseley, Shropshire. She was the youngest of four sisters - including Angela Baddeley, also an actress - and her half-brother, Very Rev William ...
23. Lilli Palmer
Actress | The Four Poster
A charming, elegant, and exceedingly popular international film star with a gentle, understated beauty, actress Lilli Palmer was born as Lilli Marie Peiser on May 24, 1914, in Posen, Prussia. She was the daughter of Rose Lissman, an Austrian Jewish actress, and Alfred Peiser, a German Jewish ...
24. Paola Mori
Actress | Mr. Arkadin
Paola Mori was born on September 18, 1928 in Italy as Paola Di Girifalco. She was an actress, known for Confidential Report (1955), Finishing School (1952) and Crossed Swords (1954). She was married to Orson Welles. She died on August 12, 1986 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.
25. Broderick Crawford
Actor | All the King's Men
Broderick Crawford is best remembered for two roles: his Oscar-winning turn as Willie Stark in All the King's Men (1949), and as Chief Dan Mathews on the syndicated TV series Highway Patrol (1955). He was also memorable as Judy Holliday's vulgar partner in Born Yesterday (1950), roles both had ...
26. Susan Cabot
Actress | The Wasp Woman
Susan Cabot was born in Boston and raised in a series of eight foster homes. She attended high school in Manhattan, where she took an interest in dramatics and joined the school dramatic club. Later, while trying to decide between a career in music or art, she illustrated children's books during ...
27. Tim McIntire
Actor | A Boy and His Dog
Tim McIntire was a remarkably fine, versatile and underrated actor-composer-singer-songwriter-musician who gave consistently strong, impressive and charismatic performances in both movies and TV shows alike. The son of character actor John McIntire and actress Jeanette Nolan, McIntire was born on ...
28. Frank Nelson
Actor | Looney, Looney, Looney Bugs Bunny Movie
Frank Nelson was a versatile character talent who had one of those instantly identifiable faces that could made you laugh as soon as you saw him. And then he'd open his mouth and you would start laughing all over again! The short, roly-poly comic veteran with his trademark trimmed mustache and ...
29. Leif Erickson
Actor | On the Waterfront
Leif Erickson was born on October 27, 1911 in Alameda, California, USA as William Wycliffe Anderson. He was an actor, known for On the Waterfront (1954), The High Chaparral (1967) and The Carpetbaggers (1964). He was married to Annie Ruth Diamond, Margaret Hayes and Frances Farmer. He died on ...
30. Robert Helpmann
Actor | Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Son of James Murray Helpman & Mary (nee Gardiner), he was educated at Prince Alfred's College, Adelaide, South Australia. He first danced solo at the Theatre Royal, Adelaide in The Ugly Duckling in 1922. He went on to become the principal dancer at Sadlers Wells ballet from 1933 to 1950. World ...
31. Peter Lorre Jr.
Actor | The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Eugene Weingand was born in Karlsruhe, Germany on April 1, 1934 and emigrated to the US at the age of 20. Because of his passing resemblance to Peter Lorre he began calling himself Peter Lorie Jr. and in 1963 he applied to have his name legally changed to Peter Lorie Jr. but the famous actor ...
32. Una Merkel
Actress | 42nd Street
Una Merkel began her movie career as stand-in for Lillian Gish in the movie The Wind (1928). After that, she performed on Broadway before she returned to movies for the D.W. Griffith film Abraham Lincoln (1930). In her early years, before gaining a few pounds, she looked like Lillian Gish, but ...
33. Brian Aherne
Actor | Juarez
Brian Aherne was an Oscar-nominated Anglo-American stage and screen actor who was one of the top cinema character actors in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Born on May 2, 1902 in King's Norton, Worcestshire, England, Aherne performed as an actor as a child. At age 18 he made his debut as an adult with ...
34. Jon Lormer
Actor | Creepshow
Jon Lormer was born on May 7, 1906 in Canton, Ohio, USA. He was an actor, known for Creepshow (1982), The Twilight Zone (1959) and Sure As Fate (1950). He died on March 19, 1986 in Burbank, California, USA.
35. Roger C. Carmel
Actor | The Transformers: The Movie
Roger C. Carmel, who was born September 27, 1932, was named after his grandfather, Roger Charles, who carved the horses for the carousel in New York's Central Park. He became an actor and won television immortality by appearing as Harry Mudd in two classic Star Trek: The Original Series (1966) ...
36. Adolfo Celi
Actor | Thunderball
Sicilian born actor/writer/director was very popular with European audiences, but largely unknown to the west apart from his portrayal of the villainous SPECTRE agent "Emilio Largo" in the spectacular James Bond film Thunderball (1965). However, due to his heavy accent, Celi's voice was dubbed by ...
37. Vincente Minnelli
Director | An American in Paris
Born Lester Anthony Minnelli in Chicago on February 28 1903, his father Vincent was a musical conductor of the Minnelli Brothers' Tent Theater. Wanting to pursue an artistic career, Minelli worked in the costume department of the Chicago Theater, then on Broadway during the depression as a set ...
38. Bill Hickman
Actor | The French Connection
The actor is better known for his prowess as a stunt driver. His work in Bullitt (1968) is legendary where he drove the black Dodge Charger 440 Magnum that was pursued by Steve McQueen in his Ford Mustang 390 GT. For his reputation earned on Bullitt, Hickman was hired by William Friedkin for The ...
39. Anna Neagle
Actress | Odette
Dame Anna Neagle, the endearingly popular British star during WWII, was born Florence Marjorie Robertson and began dancing as a professional in chorus lines at age 14. She starred with actor Jack Buchanan in the musical "Stand Up and Sing" in the West End and earned her big break when producer/...
40. Jerry Paris
Director | The Dick Van Dyke Show
Glimpsed here and there throughout the 1950s, usually in amiable supporting roles on film, it was as in television that Jerry Paris found his true calling. In front of the camera, however, most fans will remember him as Jerry Helper, the next-door neighbor of Rob and Laura Petrie (Dick Van Dyke and ...
41. Buddy Baer
Actor | Quo Vadis
Buddy was the younger brother of world heavyweight champion Max Baer. In films, he played giants in Quo Vadis (1951) and Jack and the Beanstalk (1952). When television westerns were in vogue in the '50s and '60s, he often played the heavy to super-sized heroes James Arness, Clint Walker and Chuck ...
42. Gregory Morton
Actor | Johnny Cool
Gregory Morton was born on November 30, 1911 in New York City, New York, USA as George Kossoff. He was an actor and writer, known for Johnny Cool (1963), Bye Bye Birdie (1963) and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964). He was married to Enid Florence Breslaw. He died on January 28, 1986 in Los Angeles, ...
43. Florence Halop
Actress | St. Elsewhere
Florence Halop was born on January 23, 1923 in Queens, New York, USA as Florence Cohen. She was an actress, known for St. Elsewhere (1982), Night Court (1984) and George Burns Comedy Week (1985). She was married to George Gruskin. She died on July 15, 1986 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
44. Paul Stewart
Actor | Citizen Kane
Esteemed character actor Paul Stewart had a pair of the coldest orbs in town and made his living for decades playing dark, callous, shiftless villains, including a vast number of mobsters. Not a well-known name per se, he was nevertheless a reliable actor who seemed to have been born for the film ...
45. Robert Drivas
Actor | Cool Hand Luke
Actor-turned-director Robert Drivas showed dark, brooding power and strong potential on the 60s stage, film and TV but, in the long run, did not achieve the kind of success he deserved. Born on November 21, 1935, the Coral Gables, Florida native initially studied his craft at the Universities of ...
46. Nigel Stock
Actor | The Great Escape
A veteran of stage, screen, radio and TV, character actor Nigel Stock was born in Malta in 1919, the son of Captain W.H. Stock, RE, and his wife Margaret Marion Munro. In British India from childhood, he and his sister Angela returned to the UK in his early teens for schooling. Nigel was educated ...
47. Ronald Long
Actor | The Time Tunnel
Ronald Long was born on January 30, 1911 in London, England as Ronald John Long. He was an actor, known for The Time Tunnel (1966), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964) and The DuPont Show of the Month (1957). He died on October 23, 1986 in Burbank, California, USA.
48. Heather Angel
Actress | Peter Pan
Heather Grace Angel was born in Oxford, England, on February 9, 1909. She dabbled on the stage for a time before coming to California to try her luck on the screen. Heather was 20 years old when she landed a bit part for the 1929 film, Bulldog Drummond (1929). Although she didn't know it at the ...
49. Herschel Bernardi
Actor | Peter Gunn
The character actor Herschel Bernardi was born into a theatrical family on October 30, 1923, in New York, New York. The Yiddish-language theater in the United States was centered in New York City's Lower East Side, on Second Avenue, and the Bernardi family were stage people who plied their craft in...
50. Stephen Stucker
Actor | Airplane!
Stephen Stucker was a marvelously wild and dynamic free-spirited actor who specialized in deliciously broad portrayals of memorably outrageous characters in a handful of comedies made in the 70's and 80's. Stucker was born on July 2, 1947 in Des Moines, Iowa. He attended Lincoln School in Alameda, ...