Date of Death between 2004-01-01 and 2004-12-31 (Sorted by Popularity Ascending)
1. Marlon Brando
Actor | Apocalypse Now
Marlon Brando is widely considered the greatest movie actor of all time, rivaled only by the more theatrically oriented Laurence Olivier in terms of esteem. Unlike Olivier, who preferred the stage to the screen, Brando concentrated his talents on movies after bidding the Broadway stage adieu in ...
2. Christopher Reeve
Actor | Superman
Christopher D'Olier Reeve was born September 25, 1952, in New York City, to journalist Barbara Johnson (née Barbara Pitney Lamb) and writer/professor F.D. Reeve (Franklin D'Olier Reeve). He came from an upper-class family; his paternal grandfather was CEO of Prudential Financial, and one of his ...
3. Janet Leigh
Actress | Psycho
Janet Leigh was the only child of a couple who often moved from town to town. Living in apartments, Janet was a bright child who skipped several grades and finished high school when she was 15. A lonely child, she would spend much of her time at movie theaters. She was a student, studying music and...
4. Fay Wray
Actress | King Kong
Canadian-born Fay Wray was brought up in Los Angeles and entered films at an early age. She was barely in her teens when she started working as an extra. She began her career as a heroine in westerns at Universal during the silent era. In 1926 the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers ...
5. Jerry Orbach
Actor | Law & Order
Jerry Orbach was born in the Bronx, New York, the only child of Leon Orbach, a former vaudevillian actor, was a German Jewish immigrant, who was born in Hamburg, Germany, and Emily (nee Olexy), a radio singer, was born in Pennsylvania to immigrant Polish-Lithuanian Roman Catholic parents, Alexander...
6. Paul Winfield
Actor | Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Signifying intelligence, eloquence, versatility and quiet intensity, one of the more important, critically acclaimed black actors to gain a Hollywood foothold in the 1970s was Paul Winfield. He was born in 1939 in Dallas, Texas, where he lived in his early years before moving with his family to Los...
7. John Drew Barrymore
Actor | Roma contro Roma
American actor with a sporadic career, the son of stage and screen legend John Barrymore. His father and mother, actress Dolores Costello divorced in his infancy and he claimed to remember seeing his father only once. His mother attempted to keep him from the acting life, sending him to St. John's ...
8. Peter Ustinov
Actor | Spartacus
Peter Ustinov was a two-time Academy Award-winning film actor, director, writer, journalist and raconteur. He wrote and directed many acclaimed stage plays and led numerous international theatrical productions.
He was born Peter Alexander Freiherr von Ustinow on April 16, 1921 in Swiss Cottage, ...
9. Pat Roach
Actor | Raiders of the Lost Ark
Proud and passionate Angle, Pat Roach, was born and raised in Birmingham, England and grew to be a mountain of a man standing at six feet, five inches tall, with doorway-wide shoulders and a barrel chest.
Pat wrestled competitively under the name of "Bomber" Roach, and at one time held both the ...
10. Rodney Dangerfield
Actor | Back to School
Rodney Dangerfield was born Jacob Cohen on November 22, 1921 in Deer Park, Suffolk County, Long Island, New York. He was the son of Dorothy "Dotty" (Teitelbaum) and Phillip Cohen, who performed in vaudeville under the name Phil Roy. His father was born in New York, to Russian Jewish parents, and ...
11. Robert Pastorelli
Actor | Beverly Hills Cop II
Beefy, roughhewn actor Robert Pastorelli was a former boxer and an admitted drug addict before he cleaned up his act and pursued theater work in New York in such 1970s productions as "Rebel Without a Cause," "The Rainmaker," and "Death of a Salesman," he headed west and turned to film and TV in ...
12. Carrie Snodgress
Actress | Diary of a Mad Housewife
A student of Northern Illinois University, Carrie switched to drama at Chicago's Goodman Theatre School where she won the Sarah Siddons Award as outstanding graduate. After graduating, Carrie worked in TV and also appeared in TV movies. She made her big screen debut in Rabbit, Run (1970), working ...
13. Ronald Reagan
Actor | The Killers
Ronald Reagan had quite a prolific career, having catapulted from a Warner Bros. contract player and television star, into serving as president of the Screen Actors Guild, the governorship of California (1967-1975), and lastly, two terms as President of the United States (1981-1989).
Ronald Wilson ...
14. Howard Keel
Actor | Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
Howard Keel was the Errol Flynn and Clark Gable of "golden age" movie musicals back in the 1950s. With a barrel-chested swagger and cocky, confident air, the 6'4" brawny baritone Keel had MGM's loveliest songbirds swooning helplessly for over a decade in what were some of the finest musical films ...
15. Tony Randall
Actor | The Odd Couple
Tony Randall was born on February 26, 1920 in Tulsa, Oklahoma as Aryeh Leonard Rosenberg. He attended Tulsa Central High School and later Northwestern University and New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. After graduating, he starred in two plays: George Bernard Shaw's '...
16. Ann Miller
Actress | Mulholland Dr.
Ann Miller was born Johnnie Lucille Ann Collier on April 12, 1923 in Chireno, Texas. She lived there until she was nine, when her mother left her philandering father and moved with Ann to Los Angeles, California. Even at that young age, she had to support her mother, who was hearing-impaired and ...
17. Anna Lee
Actress | The Sound of Music
The daughter of a clergyman, Anna Lee was born Joan Boniface Winnifrith and encouraged to pursue an acting career by her father. After training at London's Royal Albert Hall, she took to the boards and later began appearing in English films, first as an extra, then working her way up to featured ...
18. Virginia Grey
Actress | Airport
Born into a show-business family--her father was a director and her mother was a film cutter--Virginia Grey made her film debut at age 10 as Eva in Uncle Tom's Cabin (1927). After a few more films as a child actress, she left the business to finish her schooling. Returning to films as an adult in ...
19. Frances Dee
Actress | I Walked with a Zombie
Dee was born in Los Angeles, where her Army officer father was stationed, and grew up in Chicago after her father was transferred there. In 1929, he was re-assigned to L.A., and, as a lark, the 19 year old Dee began working in motion pictures as an extra. Her debut was in Words and Music (1929) ...
20. Jan Sterling
Actress | Ace in the Hole
One of Hollywood's more talented and watchable stars on screen was sullen, strikingly stick-thin 50s actress Jan Sterling who didn't quite reach the top echelon of stardom but certainly ensured audiences of a real good time with her sexy pout and flashy style in soaps, film noir and saucy comedy.
...
21. Caitlin Clarke
Actress | Blown Away
Caitlin Clarke was born on May 3, 1952 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA as Catherine Ann Clarke. She was an actress, known for Blown Away (1994), Dragonslayer (1981) and Crocodile Dundee (1986). She died on September 9, 2004 in Pittsburgh.
22. Wilhelm von Homburg
Actor | In the Mouth of Madness
Wilhelm Von Homburg (A.K.A. Norbert Grupe) was born in Berlin, Germany. He started out his career as a wrestler during the fifties in Germany where he earned his fame. He also toured the States. Homburg's stage name was Prinz Wilhelm Von Homburg. In the early sixties, he shifted from wrestling to ...
23. Noble Willingham
Actor | Walker, Texas Ranger
Noble Willingham has appeared in more than 30 feature films, including Up Close & Personal (1996), Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994), Chinatown (1974), City Slickers (1991), and The Distinguished Gentleman (1992).
He was born in the small town of Mineola, Texas, east of Dallas. After graduating ...
24. Jerry Goldsmith
Music Department | Star Trek: First Contact
Born on February 10, 1929, Jerry Goldsmith studied piano with Jakob Gimpel and composition, theory, and counterpoint with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. He also attended classes in film composition given by Miklós Rózsa at the Univeristy of Southern California. In 1950, he was employed as a clerk ...
25. Mercedes McCambridge
Actress | Giant
Mercedes McCambridge is a highly-talented radio performer who won a best supporting Actress Oscar for her film debut.
Mercedes McCambridge was born in Joliet, Illinois, to Marie (Mahaffry) and John Patrick McCambridge, a farmer. She was of mostly Irish (with a small amount of English and German) ...
26. William Boyett
Actor | Newsies
William Boyett was born on January 3, 1927 in Akron, Ohio, USA as Harry William Boyett. He is known for his work on Newsies (1992), When a Stranger Calls (1979) and Turner & Hooch (1989). He was married to Joan Amelia Reynolds and Willagene Wither. He died on December 29, 2004 in Mission Hills,...
27. Frances Rafferty
Actress | The Adventures of Don Coyote
A pouty-lipped glamour girl in "B" films during the 1940s, actress Frances Rafferty did a complete role reversal and turned wholesome housewife on TV into the next decade.
Born on June 16, 1922 in Sioux City, Iowa, Frances Anne Rafferty and her family, during the Depression era, moved to Los Angeles...
28. Isabel Sanford
Actress | The Jeffersons
Isabel Sanford was a Broadway actress for over thirty years before moving to Hollywood. She made numerous guest appearances on TV, including a stint as a supporting cast member on The Carol Burnett Show (1967). Until her passing, Isabel continued to act frequently, most recently in a series of ...
29. Lynn Cartwright
Actress | A League of Their Own
Frequently appearing for or alongside her actor/writer husband of 50 years, noted stage, screen and TV heavy and writer Leo Gordon, actress Lynn Cartwright is probably best remembered for one of her early screen roles as the brusque, Brooklyn-accented switchboard operator in the cult horror The ...
30. Richard Marner
Actor | The Sum of All Fears
A Russian-born stage and screen actor who usually plays a military man in lots of spy thrillers and war films, Alexander Molchanoff was born in Petrograd in 1921. He was the eldest son of Colonel Paul Molchanoff, of the Semionovsky regiment. In 1924 his family left Russia via Finland and Germany ...
31. John Randolph
Actor | National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Veteran performer John Randolph was a Tony Award-winning character actor whose union and social activism in the '40s and '50s caused him to be blacklisted during the McCarthy era. The balding performer may not have been a household name, but he was a regular face in movies and TV for over four ...
32. Russ Meyer
Director | Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens
Russell Albion Meyer was born in San Leandro, California, to Lydia Lucinda (Hauck), a nurse, and William Arthur Meyer, a police officer, who divorced during his childhood. His parents were both of German descent. Meyer began winning prizes at 15 with his amateur films. He spent World War II in ...
33. Ingrid Thulin
Actress | Smultronstället
Ingrid trained as a ballet dancer and attended Stockholm's Royal Dramatic Theatre. She came to fame thanks to Bergman's "Wild Strawberries". She acted in 9 Ingmar Bergman's films. Her fame allowed her to act in Luchino Visconti's "The Damned" in 1969. Ingrid Thulin lived in Rome since the 1960's. ...
34. Eugene Roche
Actor | Soap
Adept at both comedy and drama, character player Eugene Roche (sometimes billed as Gene Roche) had an extensive four-decade career. Born in Depression-era Boston on September 22, 1928, he was the son of a Navy man.
The moon-faced, intent-looking Roche started on radio at age 15 displaying his knack ...
35. George 'Buck' Flower
Actor | Back to the Future
There aren't many actors who can claim that they appeared in everything from innocuous family features to sexy soft-core smut to popular television programs to various horror, science fiction, and exploitation movies as well as worked behind-the-scenes on a slew of films in assorted production ...
36. Julius Harris
Actor | Live and Let Die
Prior to breaking into films, Philadelphia native Julius Harris worked as a bouncer in New York City.
It was due to his many associations with struggling actors, that on a dare, Harris auditioned for his first role, in the well-received picture Nothing But a Man (1964), in which he played a father ...
37. Marc Cavell
Actor | Cool Hand Luke
Marc Cavell was born on June 28, 1939 in New York City, New York, USA as Marc Edward Cavell. He was an actor, known for Cool Hand Luke (1967), The Man from the Alamo (1953) and Devil's Angels (1967). He died on February 29, 2004 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
38. Carl Anderson
Actor | Jesus Christ Superstar
Carl Anderson was born on February 27, 1945 in Lynchburg, Virginia, USA as Carlton Earl Anderson. He was an actor, known for Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), The Color Purple (1985) and Infinity (1991). He was married to Verónica Porche Ali and Kathleen McGhee-Anderson. He died on February 23, 2004 ...
39. Cecily Adams
Actress | Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
American actress, casting director, teacher, and theatrical director. The daughter of nightclub singer Adelaide Adams and Get Smart (1965) star Don Adams, she was born in Queens, New York, several months after her parents' divorce. Raised in peripatetic fashion by her mother, she survived a ...
40. Doris Dowling
Actress | The Lost Weekend
One of four children, lovely Detroit-born actress Doris Dowling (born May 15, 1923) would follow older sister Constance Dowling (who died relatively young in 1969) into show business. Raised in New York City, she briefly spent some time with a San Francisco Folies Bergère company before returning ...
41. Joe Viterelli
Actor | Bullets Over Broadway
Joe Viterelli was born on March 10, 1937 in The Bronx, New York, USA as Joseph Walter Viterelli. He was an actor, known for Bullets Over Broadway (1994), Analyze This (1999) and Analyze That (2002). He was married to Catherine Brennan. He died on January 28, 2004 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.
42. Virginia Capers
Actress | Howard the Duck
With plenty of heart and soul, singer/actress Virginia Capers served up loads of music in an entertainment career that spanned several decades. The benevolent, plus-sized talent was born Eliza Virginia Capers on September 22, 1925, in South Carolina and attended Howard University in Washington, D.C...
43. Elizabeth Rogers
Actress | The Towering Inferno
Elizabeth Rogers was born on May 18, 1934 in Austin, Texas, USA as Betty Jayne Rogers. She was an actress, known for The Towering Inferno (1974), An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) and Star Trek: The Original Series (1966). She was married to Erik L. Nelson. She died on November 6, 2004 in Tarzana, ...
44. Ray Charles
Actor | The Blues Brothers
A tragic fate may have given this visionary a heightened sensitivity, perception, awareness, even expansion to his obvious musical gifts that he may have never touched upon had he not suffered from his physical affliction. Whatever it was, Ray Charles revolutionized American music and was ...
45. Ed Kemmer
Actor | Earth vs the Spider
Ed Kemmer was born on October 29, 1920 in Reading, Pennsylvania, USA as Edward William Kemmerer. He is known for his work on The Spider (1958), Space Patrol (1950) and Lux Video Theatre (1950). He was married to Fran Sharon and Elaine Edwards. He died on November 9, 2004 in New York City, New York,...
46. Maria Perschy
Actress | Man's Favorite Sport?
Gorgeous and appealing brunette knockout Herta-Maria Perschy was born on September 23, 1938, in Eisenstadt, Burgenland, Austria. Maria moved to Vienna at age 17 to study acting at the prestigious Max Reinhardt Seminar. After finishing her education in Vienna, Perschy moved to Germany for further ...
47. Frank Maxwell
Actor | The Wild Angels
A ubiquitous presence during television's golden age, New York native Frank Maxwell stood out as a solid purveyor of quiet authority. Upon graduating from the University of Michigan, a prospective legal career had been on the cards. But those plans came to naught in the wake of a successful ...
48. Ron Hayes
Actor | Everglades!
Ron Hayes was born on February 26, 1929 in San Francisco, California, USA as Ronald G. Hayes. He was an actor, known for Everglades! (1961), The Invaders (1967) and Dallas (1978). He was married to Carol Capek, Caroline Muir, Betty Endicott and Joan Sturgess. He died on October 1, 2004 in Malibu, ...
49. Harry Bartell
Actor | The Adventures of Jim Bowie
Harry Bartell was born on November 28, 1913 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. He was an actor, known for The Adventures of Jim Bowie (1956), Dragnet (1951) and Dragnet 1967 (1967). He died on February 26, 2004 in Ashland, Oregon, USA.
50. Terry Melcher
Soundtrack | Cocktail
Terry Melcher was born on February 8, 1942 in New York City, New York, USA as Terrence Paul Jorden. He was a producer, known for Cocktail (1988), Lethal Weapon 2 (1989) and Move Over, Darling (1963). He was married to Terese Edwards, Jacqueline Carlin and Melissa E. Brown. He died on November 19, ...