They Died on My Watch: 2024 Edition

By Noel Bailey

Who was the actress who died just before Christmas? She was the voice of …..... in …......
Did Hitler commit suicide, or was he shot by Russian troops?
Do you remember what year Princess Diana died in that car crash in Paris?
How many husbands did Elizabeth Taylor divorce in her lifetime?
What was that well known British actor who passed away right after David Bowie died?

Questions you might hear at the next table of your favourite eatery. Questions you may or may not know the answer to. They Died on My Watch can answer these and many more. It is a comprehensive reference work that should prove itself indispensable to any household. Most certainly a book to sustain interest when cruising at 35,000 feet between London and New York. It might be seen as the ultimate ‘umpire’ to settle any argument that may arise within a discussion involving a deceased celebrity, recent or not.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Apr 26, 2024
• ISBN: 9798886930627

Noel Bailey

By his own admission, the British-born author remains an un-fulfilled Jack of all Trades. A product of the post-war baby-boom, he grew up in Welling, Kent, enjoying what he describes as “an idyllic childhood and then some.” College life came to an abrupt end upon the early death of his father Colin and with his mother Joyce suffering ill-health, the British climate was assessed by doctors to be anything but practical. An intended re-location to Vancouver, Canada was averted by cosmic intervention and as Noel himself recalls “We ended up in Australia……by accident.” An ‘accidental’ stay that was to last forty-three years, two wives and five children. His bizarre resume reads thus: London store salesman, freight clerk, truck driver, taxi-driver, accountant, teacher, journalist, film critic, volunteer firefighter, actor, credit analyst for Dun and Bradstreet, real estate salesman, Licenced Private Eye, CD-Rom producer, author and marketing consultant. In 2005, he published an autobiography entitled “Cool Among the Flames.” His eldest daughter on reading it commented: “That couldn’t have happened!” In 2006, he married Katie, a Californian girl and moved to the United States – re-establishing domestic life on a third continent. Following years in small-town Nebraska, they moved to Longmont in Colorado late 2011. They have two young children – Michael, thirteen, Emmalyn, eleven.

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They Died on My Watch

2024 edition

by Noel Bailey

The contents of this work, including, but not limited to, the accuracy of events, people, and places depicted; opinions expressed; permission to use previously published materials included; and any advice given or actions advocated are solely the responsibility of the author, who assumes all liability for said work and wholly indemnifies the publisher against any claims stemming from publication of the work.

All Rights Reserved

Copyright © 2024 by Noel Bailey

First edition published 2020

This edition published 2024

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted, downloaded, distributed, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, including photocopying and recording, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented without permission in writing from the publisher.

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

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40 Wall Street

New York, NY 10005

Visit our website at www.austinmacauley.com/us

ISBN: 9798886930603 (Paperback)

ISBN: 9798886930610 (Hardback)

ISBN: 9798886930627 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024901274

I would like to thank my wife Katie, for all the family time spent creating and updating this book when perhaps I should have been doing other things. Trying to run a business concurrently has not been easy either, and as a family we have probably lost a significant amount of quality time trying to balance the two things together, as well as spending time with our children. It certainly has stretched Katie’s resources to the limit at times, and I appreciate her great help and understanding throughout a difficult period.

Foreword

A celebrity dies suddenly and you reflect momentarily, "How many is that this year? It had me curious. Just how many household names" must have passed on in my lifetime alone? I figured I would address that very question!

This book you are now holding is very far from simply a list of dead people, a glorified obituary if you will; it is a modern history lesson, a timeline of people and events that have shaped the 2¹st century as we know it today. It covers the seventy-seven years since World War Two, which will embrace the lives of prob-ably 90 percent or more of potential readers. Reading through these pages, many will discover just how much they have forgotten, or in fact never knew! Not all of it makes for pleasant reading.

In determining who should make this list, I have attempted to include only those people who could likely be accorded the status of globally familiar identities. Thus the following deceased persons by way of example are not listed.

June ²nd 1946 Joe Darling. Australian Cricket Captain.

January 1⁵th 1949 Pompeo Aloisi. Italian Senator.

February 1³th 1952 Josephine Tey. English Author.

January 1⁴th 1978 Harold Abraham. British Athlete.

January 2⁰th Gerald Mulligan. Saxophonist.

January 2⁴th 2002 Peter Gzowski. Canadian Broadcaster.

January 1⁷th 2009 Anders Isaksson. Swedish Journalist/Writer.

January 3¹st 2015 Richard von Weizsacker. First President of reunited Germany.

All undoubtedly are personalities of note and predominant in their field, but not, I consider, at the cutting edge of public awareness, such that their passing would genuinely shock the average person in a check-out line at Walmart, Big W, or any Tesco food market.

I make no claim that the list is complete. I’m sure I have overlooked a few deservedly inductable personalities by accident. Amendments will appear in subsequent editions.

The sheer numbers of deceased identities might amaze readers of my own age (77). Others (the 20-40-year set) can read for themselves a history they have never intimately known, one they never can. In time, many will be saying, "George Harrison? Whoever was that?"

The book will also be a useful reference for those wondering, "When was it Princess Diana died in that car crash? and perhaps I’m sure **** died in 2015...let’s check."

Death may not be a pleasant contemplation but it is inevitable, for presidents or paupers. Within these pages you will find great sporting athletes, royalty, authors, murderers, singers, comedians/comediennes, visionaries, movie stars, scientists, artists, philanthropists, politicians, film directors - contributors to society and those whose life was anything but. Winners and losers— the good, the bad, and the ugly!

Noel Bailey

Longmont Colorado: June 2023

They Died on My Watch

1945

March 2⁶th David Lloyd George 82. British Prime Minister. Cancer. Whilst still in the womb admittedly (from mid-March onwards), I was nevertheless alive.

April 1²th Franklin D. Roosevelt 63. 3²nd US President. Fatal stroke whilst in office.

April 2⁸th Benito Mussolini 61. Italian Dictator. Shot by Communist Partisans.

April 3⁰th Adolf Hitler 56. Dictator of Nazi Germany. Commits suicide by gunshot and cyanide poisoning in his bunker in Berlin, with Soviet forces less than 500 meters distant.

May ²nd Martin Bormann 44, Hitler’s Secretary and Nazi Leader. Suicide.

May 2³rd Heinrich Himmler 44 Nazi Leader, Head of the SS. Suicide.

July ⁵th John Curtin 60. 1⁴th Australian Prime Minister. Heart Disease.

October 1³th Milton S. Hershey 86. Founder of the Hershey Chocolate Company.

November 1¹th Jerome Kern 60. US Composer. Natural causes.

December 2¹st General George S. Patton 60. Controversial WW2 Army General. Congestive heart failure.

1946

April ¹st Noah Beery 64. US Actor (Mark of Zorro). Natural causes.

April 1⁶th Arthur Chevrolet 62. Brother of Louis Chevrolet (1878-1941). Founder of the Chevrolet car company. Suicide by hanging.

April 2²nd Lionel Atwill 61. British Actor (Captain Blood). Natural causes.

June 1⁰th Jack Johnson 68. Known as the very first African-American World Heavyweight Boxing Champion. Car accident.

June 1⁴th John Logie Baird 57. Inventor of television. Stroke.

June 2³rd William S. Hart 81. US Actor (Messala in the original 1907 silent film (Ben-Hur). Unspecified causes.

August ⁹th Bert Vogler 69. South African cricketer. Considered to be the best bowler in the world in 1907. Unspecified causes.

August 1³th H. G. Wells 79. British Author. (War of the Worlds, The Time Ma- chine). Natural causes.

October 1⁵th Hermann Goering 53. Nazi Reichmarshal. Suicide by poison whilst in prison for war crimes.

December 1⁰th Damon Runyon 66. American Journalist and Author. Natural causes.

December 25th. W C Fields 66. US. Comedian, Actor. Died from alcohol-related gastric hemorrhage.

1947

January 1⁵th Elizabeth Short 22. Victim in the Los Angeles Black Dahlia Case, one of America’s most discussed unsolved murder crimes.

January 2⁵th Al Capone 48. Chicago Gangster. Neurosyphilis.

February 1²th Sidney Toler 72. US Actor (Madame X). Natural causes.

April ¹st George II 56. King of Greece. Arteriosclerosis.

April ⁷th Henry Ford 83. Founder of The Ford Motor Company. Natural causes.

May ⁸th Harry Gordon Selfridge 89. US-born Founder of the great London Department Store "Selfridges" (1909 to present). Died from bronchial pneumonia.

June 2⁰th Bugsy Siegel 41. American mobster. Founded several casinos in Las Vegas. Shot dead in Beverly Hills.

July 1³th Warwick Armstrong 68. Australian Cricket Captain. Natural causes.

August 2⁸th Manolete 30. Arguably Spain’s greatest bullfighter. Died from a fatal goring in the ring at Linares.

September 2¹st Harry Carey 69. US Actor (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington). Cancer.

September 2⁶th Hugh Lofting 61. British Author of Doctor Dolittle. Heart disease.

December ¹st Aleister Crowley 72. British Occultist. Chronic bronchitis.

December 1⁴th Stanley Baldwin 80. British Prime Minister three times be-tween 1923 and 1937. Died in his sleep at Astley Hall, Worcestershire.

December 1⁵th Arthur Machen 84. Famed Welsh author of supernatural and horror fiction. Natural causes.

1948

January 3⁰th Mahatma Gandhi 78. Indian spiritual and political leader. Assassinated by Hindu extremists.

January 3⁹th Orville Wright 76. Famed American Aviator. Heart attack.

July ⁸th Dave Nourse 70. South African Cricketer. Fast Bowler of note. Natural causes.

July 2³rd D.W. Griffith 73. Acclaimed US Film Director (Birth of a Nation, Intolerance). Cerebral hemorrhage.

August 1⁶th Babe Ruth 53. Immortalized Baseball Player. Cancer.

September 3⁰th Edith Roosevelt 87. First Lady of the United States. Natural causes.

December 2⁰th C Aubrey Smith 85. British Actor (The Prisoner of Zenda). Natural causes.

December 2³rd Hideki Tojo 64. Japanese Prime Minister during WW2. Hanged for war crimes.

December 3¹st Malcolm Campbell 63. British race driver who became the holder of World Land and Water speed records in vehicles he called "Blue Bird" and which his son Donald perpetuated. Died from a series of strokes.

1949

January ⁶th Victor Fleming 63. American film director (The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind). Died from a heart attack.

April 1⁵th Wallace Beery 64. American character actor. Heart attack.

August 1⁶th Margaret Mitchell 48. Author of Gone with the Wind. She was struck by a speeding and intoxicated off-duty cab driver in Atlanta the evening of August 1¹th and died five days later without regaining full consciousness.

September ⁸th Richard Strauss 85. Famed German composer. Natural causes.

September 1⁸th Frank Morgan 59. American actor (The Wizard of Oz, in which he played five roles including the Wizard himself!). Heart attack.

December ⁶th Lead Belly 64. Blues Musician. Died from Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

1950

January ²nd Emil Jannings 65. German actor (Faust, The Blue Angel). Liver cancer.

January 2¹st George Orwell 46. Noted British author (Animal Farm, 1984). Died from tuberculosis (burst artery in his lung).

January 2²nd Alan Hale Snr 57. American actor (The Adventures of Robin Hood, It Happened One Night). Liver failure.

February 2⁶th Harry Lauder 75. Scottish comedian and singer (Roamin’ in the Gloamin’). Natural causes.

March 1⁹th Edgar Rice Burroughs 75. American author (Tarzan of the Apes

and others). Heart attack.

April 1st. Charles Drew 45. American surgeon and founder of the Blood Bank system. Died in an automobile accident.

April ⁷th Walter Huston 67. American actor (The Maltese Falcon, Treasure of the Sierra Madre). Died of an aneurysm.

July 2²nd MacKenzie King 75. Tenth Prime Minister of Canada. Pneumonia.

October ⁷th Willis Carrier 73. Founder of Carrier Air Conditioning. Natural causes.

October 2³rd Al Jolson 64. American singer and actor. Appeared in the first full-release 1927 talkie The Jazz Singer. Died from a fatal heart attack while playing cards at the Francis Hotel in San Francisco.

October 2⁹th Gustav V 92. King of Sweden. Reigned for 43 years and died of flu complications.

November ²nd George Bernard Shaw 94. Nobel Prize-winning Irish author (Pygmalion, Saint Joan). Renal failure following a fall.

1951

January ²nd Sir William Campion 80. Governor of Western Australia. Died of natural causes in his home county of Sussex, England.

January 3⁰th Ferdinand Porsche 75. German automotive engineer who founded the Porsche Motor Company. Stroke.

February ⁹th Eddy Duchin 41. American musician. Victim of leukemia.

March ⁶th Ivor Novello 58. Welsh composer. Coronary thrombosis.

May 2⁹th Fanny Brice 59. Ziegfield Girl. Cerebral hemorrhage.

August 1⁴th William Randolph Hearst 88. American Newspaper Publisher. Natural causes.

October ⁶th Will Kellogg 91. Cereal Manufacturer and Founder of Kellogg’s cereals. Natural causes.

December ⁵th Shoeless Joe Jackson 64. Professional American Baseball player. Heart attack.

December 1⁰th Algernon Blackwood 82. British author of ghost and supernatural horror stories. Lauded by HP Lovecraft himself. Cerebral thrombosis.

1952

January ⁵th The Nawab of Pataudi 35. Fine cricketer who captained India. Cause of death was a heart attack while playing polo.

February ⁶th King George VI 56. King of England 1936-1952. Father of Queen Elizabeth. Coronary thrombosis.

May ⁶th Maria Montessori 81. Italian Educationalist. Natural causes.

May 2¹st John Garfield 39. American actor. Heart complications.

July 1⁸th Jack Earle 46. American Actor and Circus Performer for Ringling Bros. & Barnum & Bailey. Standing 7 ft. 7 ½ inches, his heart gave out at just 46 years of age. Often referred to as "The tallest man on Earth" during his lifetime.

July 2⁶th Eva Perón 36. Argentine First Lady, suffragette and the subject of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s massive 1978 West End stage hit "Evita." Eva died of cancer after becoming the first Argentine to undergo chemotherapy, a radical treatment in 1951.

September ⁶th Gertrude Lawrence 54. British actress and musical performer. Cancer of the liver.

September 2⁹th John Cobb 52. English race car driver. He died at Loch Ness, attempting to pilot his speedboat Crusader to a new world water-speed record.

October 2⁶th Hattie McDaniel 57. First African-American actress to win an Oscar (as Mammy in Gone with the Wind). Cancer.

December ⁸th Charles Lightoller 78. Second Officer aboard the Titanic. Died during London’s great smog of 1952, suffering from a chronic heart condition.

1953

January ¹st Hank Williams 29. C & W Singer. Died from heart and neck hemorrhages, a reaction to the singer’s mixing of alcohol and chloral hydrate.

January ²nd Guccio Gucci 71. Founder of the Gucci Fashion House. Natural causes.

January 2⁸th James Scullin 76. ⁹th Prime Minister of Australia. Pulmonary oedema.

March ³rd Jim Jeffries 77. World Heavyweight Boxing Champion. Natural causes.

March ⁵th Joseph Stalin 73. Dictator and Leader of the Soviet Union. Massive stroke.

September 1²th Lewis Stone 73. US Actor (The Lost World, Prisoner of Zenda). Heart attack.

September 2⁸th Ed Hubble 63. Great US Astronomer who first proposed the theory of multiple galaxies and after whom the colossal telescope was named. Natural causes.

October ⁸th Nigel Bruce 58. British actor (Rebecca, Suspicion, Sherlock Holmes). Heart attack.

November ⁹th Dylan Thomas 39. Welsh Poet and Playwright (Under Milk Wood). Died from alcoholic encephalopathy.

December 1⁹th Robert A. Millikan 85. Physicist. Honored with the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1923. Heart attack.

1954

January 1⁸th Sydney Greenstreet 74. British actor who did not commence his profession until 62 years of age (Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon). Bright’s Disease and diabetes.

May 1⁰th George Hirst 82. British Cricketer. All-Rounder and great swing bowler who once achieved the unprecedented double of 2000 runs and 200 wickets in a season. Natural causes.

May 2⁵th Robert Capa 40. Famous Hungarian War Photo-journalist. Killed whilst on assignment by a landmine explosion.

July 1⁸th George Machine Gun Kelly 59. American Gangster that served 17 years in Alcatraz. Died of a heart attack while incarcerated at Leavenworth.

November ³rd Henri Matisse 84. Impressionist Painter and sculptor (The Dance). Heart attack.

November 1⁵th Lionel Barrymore 76. American actor (Dr. Kildare, Key Largo).

Great uncle of Drew Barrymore. Heart attack.

November 2⁸th Enrico Fermi 53, Nuclear Physicist. Nobel Prize winner in 1938. Referred to as the "Father of the Atomic Bomb" dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945. Died of stomach cancer.

December 2⁰th James Hilton 54. English author (Lost Horizon, Goodbye Mr. Chips). Natural causes.

1955

March 1¹th Alexander Fleming 73. Bacteriologist and inventor of penicillin. Heart attack.

April ⁷th Theda Bara 62. American Silent Actress (Cleopatra, Camille). Stom- ach cancer.

April 1⁸th Albert Einstein 76. Theoretical Physicist. A Nobel Laureate. Abdominal aortic aneurysm.

May 1⁰th Tommy Burns 73. World Heavyweight Boxing Champion. Heart attack.

May 1¹th Gilbert Jessop 80. Phenomenal cricketer. Considered by many today as the fastest scoring batsman in Test History. A bowler’s nightmare. Died of natural causes.

August 1²th Thomas Mann 80. German novelist (Dr. Faustus). Death was caused by atherosclerosis.

August 2³rd Reginald Tate 58. British actor (Uncle Silas, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp). Remembered principally, however, for playing Professor Bernard Quatermass in Nigel Kneale’s hugely popular TV series The Quatermass Experiment. Heart attack.

August 2⁸th Emmett Till 14. African-American child. One of the greatest travesties of American (in)justice! Following an alleged verbal interaction with a 21-year-old

white girl near the township of Money in Mississippi, August 2³rd 1955, the woman’s father and half-brother (a few days later). abducted Till, beat and mutilated him then lynched, shot and drowned the boy in the Tallahatchie River. They were incredibly and inexplicably acquitted by an all-white jury. Decades later, Carolyn Bryant, the girl in question, openly admitted she had totally fabricated her evidence back in 1955. Her exonerated father Roy Bryant made famous his words in court. "Emmett Till is dead, why can’t he stay dead?"

September 3⁰th James Dean 24. American Actor (Rebel Without a Cause, East of Eden and Giant). Died when his Porsche 550 Spyder sped through an intersection and struck another car, somersaulting over it. Dean sustained fatal injuries, dying at the scene.

October 1⁹th John Hodiak 41. American actor (Battleground, Lifeboat). Died of a coronary thrombosis.

November ¹st Dale Carnegie 66. Writer, Lecturer. (How to Win Friends and Influence People). Founder of the Dale Carnegie Schools for self-development. Died at home from natural causes.

November ⁴th Cy Young 88. American Baseball pitcher. Natural causes.

1956

January 2³rd Alexander Korda 62. British Film Director and Producer (The Private Life of Henry VIII, That Hamilton Woman, Samson & Delilah, Richard III). Heart attack.

January 3¹st A.A. Milne 74. English novelist, playwright and poet. He remains of course best known for his creation of Winnie the Pooh. Natural causes.

March 2⁵th Robert Newton 50. Prominent English actor (Treasure Island, Henry V, Around The World in 80 Days). Heart attack.

May 1²th Louis Calhern 61. US Actor (Julius Caesar, Blackboard Jungle). Heart attack.

May 1⁸th Maurice Tate 60. Superb English Cricketing All-Rounder. Natural causes.

June ²nd Jean Hersholt 69. French Actor (Heidi, Men in White, Greed). Cancer.

June 1⁹th Thomas. J. Watson 87. CEO of IBM 1914-1956. Natural causes.

August ⁴th Jackson Pollack 44 American abstract Impressionist artist that totally divided the opinion of the modern art world. Possibly his most famous/contentious work was 1952’s Blue Poles. Purchased by the National Gallery of Australia (where it still hangs) in 1973 for the then scandalous sum of 1.3 million dollars, it is now the most popular exhibit there, with an estimated worth between $200 and $300 million. Pollack died in an alcohol-related single- car crash.

August 1⁶th Bela Lugosi 73. Actor (forever remembered as Dracula). Heart attack.

August 2⁵th Alfred Kinsey 62. Sexologist, Creator of The Kinsey Report. Heart ailment and pneumonia.

October ⁷th Clarence Birdseye 69. American founder of the Modern Frozen Food Industry. Heart attack.

November 1⁰th Harry Ford Sinclair 80. The US Founder of the Sinclair Oil Company. Natural causes.

November 2⁶th Tommy Dorsey 51. Big Band Leader. Died from over-sedation which led to his choking to death in his sleep.

1957

January 1⁴th Humphrey Bogart 57. American Film actor (Casablanca, Caine Mutiny, The African Queen). Esophageal Cancer.

January 1⁶th Arturo Toscanini 89. Italian Orchestra Conductor. Natural causes.

February 2⁵th Bugs Moran 65. American Gangster. Lung cancer while in prison.

March 3¹st Gene Lockhart 65. Canadian Actor (Going My Way). Father of actress June Lockhart (Lost in Space), now 92. Coronary thrombosis.

April ⁸th Frank Chester 62. Distinguished one-armed English Cricket Umpire. Stomach ulcers.

May ²nd Joseph McCarthy 48. Anti-Communist US Senator, whose term in office resulted in the commonly quoted "McCarthyism." Hepatitis.

May 1²th Erich von Stroheim 71. Austrian Film Director (La Grande Illusion, Greed, Sunset Boulevard). Natural causes.

May 1⁶th Eliot Ness 54. Federal Agent that headed up "The Untouchables" that finally put Al Capone behind bars. Heart attack.

July ⁸th William Cadbury 89. Chocolate maker who founded the Cadbury Chocolate Co. Natural causes.

July 1¹th The Aga Khan (III) 79. Pakistani 4⁸th Shia Iman. Natural causes.

August ⁷th Oliver Hardy 65. American actor. One half of the Laurel & Hardy comedy duo. Died from a cerebral thrombosis.

October 2³rd Christian Dior 52. French fashion designer. Heart attack.

October 2⁵th Lord Dunsany 79. Famed Anglo Irish writer and dramatist who specialized in fantasy and the supernatural. Appendicitis.

October 2⁹th Louis B. Mayer 71. Film producer. Co-Founder of MGM Studios. Leukemia.

November 2⁴th Diego Rivera 71. Noted Mexican Painter (Street in Avila, After the Storm, The Alarm Clock). Congestive heart failure.

December ²nd Harrison Ford 73. American actor. (Easy To Get, Wedding Bells, The Rush Hour). He was struck by a car and critically injured September 1⁷th 1951 whilst out walking and spent the rest of his life in recovery before he succumbed to his injuries six years later. He is no relative of "Indiana Jones."

1958

January ⁹th Willis Rodney Whitney 89. US Chemist. Founder of the General Electric Research Laboratory. Natural causes.

February 2⁷th Harry Cohn 66. Film Producer and CEO of Columbia Pictures. Heart attack.

March 1²th Princess Ingeborg 79. Princess of Denmark. Natural causes.

March 2²nd Mike Todd 48. American Film Producer (This is Cinerama, Around the World in 80 Days). Founder of the Todd-AO Wide-Screen Process. The third of Elizabeth Taylor’s seven husbands and the only one she did not divorce. Died in a private plane crash.

April ⁴th Johnny Stompanato 32. American crime figure. Partner of actress Lana Turner. Stabbed to death by Turner’s daughter in self-defence.

April 1⁶th Rosalind Franklin 37. British Scientist and Molecular Biologist. Co-discoverer of DNA structure. Ovarian cancer.

May 1⁹th Ronald Colman 67. Well-loved British actor (Raffles, Prisoner of Zenda, Lost Horizon, Random Harvest, Kismet, Around the World in 80 Days). Emphysema.

June ⁹th Robert Donat 53. Beloved English actor (The 39 Steps, Count of Monte Cristo, Private Life of Henry VIII, The Ghost Goes West, Inn of the ⁶th Happiness and the film he will always be remembered for Goodbye Mr. Chips). He died from a brain tumor resulting in a cerebral thrombosis.

June 1⁸th Douglas Jardine 57. Controversial British Cricketer. Captain of England during the infamous "Bodyline series" of 1932/3 when dangerously- fast bowler Harold Larwood was instructed to target the batsmen rather than the wicket itself. Hardly in the best interests of the game. Jardine died from cancer.

July 1⁵th Julia Lennon 44. John Lennon’s mother. She died after being struck by a car driven by an off-duty policeman very close to her sister’s house in Menlove Avenue, Liverpool. John subsequently wrote several songs that commemorated her.

July 1⁹th Robert Earl Hughes 32. During his lifetime he was the heaviest human being ever recorded at 1069 lbs. (485 kg). Following a bout of measles, he developed uremia, from which he died.

July 2⁵th Harry Warner 81. Co-founder of Warner Bros. Pictures. Cerebral occlusion.

August ³rd Peter Collins 26. British Formula 1 racing car driver. Died after he was thrown from his car when he lost control on a bend during the 1958 German Grand Prix.

August 1⁴th Gladys Presley 46. Mother of Elvis Presley. Heart attack.

October 1⁴th Douglas Mawson 76. Australian Geologist and famed Antarctic explorer. The Mawson Station in the Antarctic is named after him. Died from a cerebral hemorrhage.

October 1⁵th John Hamilton 71. US Film actor (Angels With Dirty Faces, Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, Yankee Doodle Dandy, The Maltese Falcon, Secret Life of Walter Mitty). It was, however, as Perry White, raucous editor of the Daily Planet in the 50’s TV serial The Adventures of Superman (starring George Reeves as Superman). Heart failure.

November 1⁵th Tyrone Power 44. American actor with many impressive roles (Lloyds of London, Suez, Jesse James, The Rains Came, The Mark of Zorro, The Black Swan, Prince of Foxes, King of the Khyber Rifles, The Eddy Duchin Story and prob-ably his best and most famous role Witness for the Prosecution). Heart attack.

December 2¹st H.B. Warner 83. Solid British actor (The King of Kings, It’s A Wonderful Life, Sunset Boulevard, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, A Tale of Two Cities, The Rains Came). Heart attack.

1959

January 2¹st Cecil B. DeMille 77. Great American Filmmaker and Director (The King of Kings, The Ten Commandments, Samson & Delilah, The Greatest Show on Earth). Heart attack.

January 2¹st Carl Switzer 31. Child Actor (Our Gang). Shot over a monetary dispute.

January 2²nd Mike Hawthorn 29. British Formula 1 racing driver and World Champion. He was Jaguar’s top driver in the 1955 Les 24 Heures Du Mans race and was intimately involved in the worst racing car disaster in history when 84 spectators died after a French competitor’s car disintegrated and the bonnet, axle and engine flew into the crowd. Though quite fairly cleared of any responsibility for the accident, his winning the race was met with disdain by many. Hawthorn died himself less than six months after re-tiring, when his highly modified 3.4- litre Jaguar sedan left the road on the A3 Guildford Bypass near Onslow Village and struck a tree uprooting it. At the time he was suffering inoperable liver failure and had been given less than three years to live.

February ³rd The Big Bopper 28. Buddy Holly 22. Ritchie Valens 17. All three singers were victims of the plane crash near Clear Lakes Iowa that was immortalized as "The Day the Music Died" in Don McLean’s 1971 worldwide hit American Pie. The Big Bopper was known for his 1958 hit "Chantilly Lace." Ritchie Valens hit the big time with La Bamba and Donna. Buddy Holly of course

recorded "That’ll Be the Day, Maybe Baby, Peggy Sue, Rave On, It Doesn’t Matter Anymore," and many others.

March ³rd Lou Costello 52. One half of the Abbott & Costello comedy team. Among their forty films were Buck Privates, In The Navy, Ride ’Em Cowboy, Ab-bott & Costello in Hollywood, Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, Abbott & Costello in The Foreign Legion and Abbott & Costello Go to Mars. Heart attack.

March 2⁶th Raymond Chandler 70. Great author of detective fiction. Creator of Private Eye Philip Marlowe (played twice by Humphrey Bogart). His novels include: Blackmailers Don’t Shoot, The Long Goodbye, The Little Sister and his attributed masterpiece, Farewell My Lovely. Pneumonia and prerenal uremia.

April ⁹th Frank Lloyd Wright 89. Accorded the title of the greatest architect that ever lived (The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York), The Imperial Hotel (Tokyo), The Marin County Civic Center, Price Tower (Oklahoma), and Graycliffe Derby, New York, are amongst the 532 structures he designed and saw built in his lifetime). Death resulted from abdominal complications.

June 1⁶th George Reeves 45. US Film Actor (Superman, Gone with the Wind). Suicide by gunshot.

June 1⁸th Ethel Barrymore 79. American actress. Wife of Maurice Barrymore, sister of Lionel Barrymore and Grand Aunt of Drew Barrymore. (Films include: Rasputin and the Empress, The Paradine Case, None but the Lonely Heart, Portrait of Jenny, Young at Heart). Cardiovascular disease.

July 1⁷th Billie Holiday 44. Jazz Singer. Cirrhosis of the liver.

September ⁶th Edmund Gwenn 81. English actor (The Trouble with Harry, Friday the Thirteenth, Pride & Prejudice and his most remembered role as Kris Kringle in Miracle on 3⁴th Street). Stroke and subsequent pneumonia.

October ⁷th Mario Lanza 38. Italian American singer and actor (Toast of New Orleans, The Great Caruso). Heart attack.

October 1⁴th Errol Flynn 50. Australian born actor (In the Wake of the Bounty, Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Charge of the Light Brigade, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex). Heart attack.

November ⁷th Victor McLaglen 72. American actor (The Fighting Hearts, Beau Geste, What Price Glory? Captain Lash, The Lost Patrol. He won an Oscar for Best Actor for 1935’s The Informer). Heart attack.

November 2⁵th Max Baer 50. American Heavyweight Boxing Champion. The father of Max Baer Jnr. known universally as dimwit Jethro in The Beverly Hillbillies (1962-1971). Max Jnr. has far outlived his father, reaching 84 thus far (April 2022). Max Snr. died of a heart attack.

November 2⁴th Dally Messenger 76. Australian Rugby League footballer. Considered one of, if not the greatest, ever player of the game in Australia. Had a freakish talent to be able to kick goals from any part of the playing field. Today, the Dally M Medal is awarded annually to the best and fairest player of the season. Heart attack.

1960

January 1²th Nevil Shute 60. British Author who emigrated to Australia when he was 51. Famed for On the Beach and A Town Like Alice— both filmed. Stroke.

January 2⁵th Diana Barrymore 38. American film actress (Manpower, Night- mare, Ladies Courageous). Daughter of John Barrymore, Aunt of Drew Barry- more. Half-sister of John Drew Barrymore. Died from alcohol and drug overdose (unconfirmed).

April 12th Eddie Cochran 21. American rocker (C’mon Everybody, Twenty Flight Rock, Summertime Blues). Car crash.

May 1¹th John D. Rockefeller Jr. 86. US Philanthropist/Financier. Pneumonia.

May 30th. Boris Pasternak 70. Soviet Author and Poet (My Sister Life). His great novel Dr. Zhivago won him the 1958 Nobel Prize in Literature. Lung cancer.

August ⁵th Arthur Meighen 86. Ninth Prime Minister of Canada. Heart failure.

August 2³rd Oscar Hammerstein II 65. American Theatrical Producer and lyricist. One half of the Rodgers & Hammerstein duo who were responsible among many others for: Carousel, South Pacific, The King & I and The Sound of Music. Stomach cancer.

October ⁶th Douglas Spencer 50. American actor with many notable film credits over the years (Shane, Houdini, The Thing From Another World, This Island Earth, The Kentuckian, Double Indemnity, The Twilight Zone, Them…even Bonanza). Diabetes.

November ⁵th Johnny Horton 33. American Singer (North to Alaska, Battle of New Orleans) Car crash.

November ⁵th Mack Sennett 80. American (though born in Canada). Actor and Film Producer. Specialized in slapstick comedy and founded the Keystone Studio in Edendale California in 1912, where were produced the Keystone Cops films. Natural causes.

November ⁵th Ward Bond 57. The Third entertainer to die on this day! US actor. (The Big Trail, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Quiet Man, Mister Roberts, The Searchers, Rio Bravo and the role he will always be most identified with: as Major Seth Adams in the TV series Wagon Train (1957-1960). Heart attack.

November 1⁶th Clark Gable 59. American actor often referred to as "The King of Hollywood." His films are legendary (No Man of her Own, Hell Drivers, It Happened One Night, Mutiny on the Bounty, San Francisco, Saratoga, Gone with the Wind, The Hucksters, Mogambo, Run Silent Run Deep, The Misfits). Arterial blood clot.

1961

February ³rd Anna May Wong 56. First Chinese American Movie Star (The Thief of Bagdad, Road to Dishonor, Shanghai Express, Dangerous To Know, The Is-land of Lost Men). Heart attack.

February ³rd Viscount Dunrossil 67. British Politician installed as the 1⁴th Governor-General of Australia (1959-1961). Upon his sudden death, caused by pulmonary embolism, he entered the record books as the only Governor-General of Australia to ever die in office.

March ⁶th George Formby 56. Britain’s much loved actor, ukulele-playing singer, WW2 entertainer and comedian (Keep Your Seats Please, I See Ice, George Takes the Air, Get Cracking and To Hell With Hitler). His wonderful (many self-penned) songs include: Our Sergeant Major, If I Had a Girl Like You, Keep Your Seats Please, When I’m Cleaning Windows, The Lancashire Toreador, Chinese Laun-dry Blues, Fanlight Fanny and his greatest work, Leaning on the Lamppost…resurrected by Herman’s Hermits in 1966 which reached number 9 on the Billboard Top 100. Heart attack.

May 1³th Gary Cooper 60. Greatly loved American actor (Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, The Virginian, The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, The Fountainhead, Sergeant York and his classic role: High Noon). Cancer.

May 2²nd Joan Davis 48. American Comedienne. Best known for her iconic 50’s television series I Married Joan. Heart attack.

June ⁶th Carl Jung 85. Famed Swiss psychiatrist who founded the concept of analytical psychiatry. Circulatory disease.

June 1⁷th Jeff Chandler 42. Popular American actor (Broken Arrow, Sword in the Desert, The Great Sioux Uprising, The Battle of Apache Pass, Ten Seconds to Hell, Merrill’s Marauders). Whilst filming Merrill’s Marauders (his last film) he injured his back playing baseball with some US special forces soldiers, on loan as extras in the movie. Mid-May he entered a Culver hospital to undergo surgery for a spinal disc herniation. Complications arose, an artery was damaged and he hemorrhaged internally. Following further operations and multiple transfusions he died from blood infection and pneumonia. The operations were deemed a mal-practice and his estate sued the hospital for 1.3 million dollars.

July ²nd Ernest Hemingway 61. American Author, Nobel Laureate (A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises, The Old Man and the Sea). Suicide by gun-shot.

July 1⁷th Ty Cobb 74. American baseball legend, nicknamed The Georgia Peach (played for the Detroit Tigers). Cancer.

August ⁵th Sidney Holland 67. 2⁵th Prime Minister of New Zealand (1949- 1957). Natural causes.

August 1⁴th Clark Ashton-Smith 68. American poet, painter, sci-fi novelist and horror author (The Plutonium Drug, The Planet of the Dead, The Double Shadow and Other Fantasies, The Light From Beyond). Died peacefully in his sleep.

September 1⁰th Leo Carrillo 81. American actor and cartoonist. He was of Spanish/Mexican descent, Leo Carrillo was best known for his years of playing the Cisco Kid’s sidekick Pancho from 1950 to 1956. His trademark quip at the end of each episode was usually "Oh, Ceesco! " Died from cancer.

September 1⁸th Dag Hammarskjöld 56. Swedish Diplomat. Secretary-General of the United Nations (1953-1961). His untimely death when his Douglas DC-6 Airliner crashed and burned near Zambia with no survivors, together with conflicting eye-witness reports, gestated many conspiracy theories involving the CIA but nothing was ever proven.

October 1¹th Chico Marx 74. American actor and together with Groucho, Harpo and Zeppo formed the much loved Marx Brothers. Arteriosclerosis.

1962

January 1²th Ernie Kovacs 42. American comedian. Talk Show/Television host of The Ernie Kovacs Show (1952-1956). He pioneered TV special effects and video sequences. Kovacs died when he lost control of his station wagon and struck a power pole.

January 2⁶th Lucky Luciano 65. Mafia Gangster. Died at Naples Airport. Heart attack.

February ⁷th Arthur Carr 69. Captained the English Cricket team twice (1926 and 1929). He was also directly involved with the development of the infamous "Bodyline" bowling scheme. Died shovelling snow!

March 2⁰th A. E. Douglass 94. US Astronomer, Botanist and Archaeologist. Invented and founded the science of Dendrochronology (dating by tree-ring). Natural causes.

April ³rd Kid Paret (Benny). 25. US Welterweight Boxing Champion. A sad night in boxing history. During his third fight with Emile Griffith (his second defense as Welterweight Champion) during the twelfth round, just seconds after the sports commentator had uttered the words "This looks to be the tamest round of the bout," Griffith unleashed twenty-nine consecutive blows to the head, which should have been stopped by the referee way earlier. Paret fell into a coma and died in Manhattan’s Roosevelt Hospital ten days later.

April ⁴th James Hanratty 25. Known as the A6 Murderer. Hanratty was hanged in Bedford prison (the ⁴th last person to be executed by Capital Punishment be-fore its abolition in 1965) for the car-shooting murder of scientist Michael Gregston 36 at Clophill, Bedfordshire, in August 1961.

April 1⁰th Stuart Sutcliffe 21. Original bass-guitarist for the Beatles. Credited, along with John Lennon for the name of the group, this was supposedly from Lennon’s liking of the name of Buddy Holly’s backing group "The Crickets." Brain aneurysm.

April 1⁰th Michael Curtiz 75. Creative Hungarian Film Director. Several of his films won Academy Awards for either "Best Film or Best Actor." Among them are: Angels With Dirty Faces, Casablanca, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Life With Father, Mildred Pierce. The man had the touch alright! Cancer.

June ¹st Adolf Eichmann 56. German Nazi Officer. Co-organizer of the Holocaust. Hanged in Israel after being convicted of multiple horrendous war- crimes none of which did he deny at his trial, merely commenting, "I was just following orders!"

July ⁶th William Faulkner 64. One of the most celebrated and appreciated of US authors. 1949 Nobel Laureate. (Works include: The Sound and the Fury, Light in August, These 13 (short stories), The Town, The Mansion). Thrombosis following a serious fall from a horse.

August ⁵th Marilyn Monroe 36. American actress (All About Eve, Gentleman Prefer Blondes, Niagara, How To Marry a Millionaire, The Seven-Year Itch, River of No Return, Some Like It Hot, The Misfits, to name but eight). Controversial suicide by drug overdose that has inspired multiple conspiracy theories since.

August ⁹th Hermann Hesse 85. Novelist, Poet. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946 (Siddhartha, Steppenwolf and Demian). Intra cerebral hemorrhage.

August 2³rd Hoot Gibson 70. US Rodeo Champion, Actor and film director (King of the Rodeo, The Lariat Kid, Sunset Range, Blazing Guns, The Horse Soldiers, Ocean’s Eleven). Cancer.

October ⁶th Tod Browning 82. American actor and film director. He is forever remembered for his direction of Bela Lugosi in 1931’s Dracula. (Other films include: London After Midnight, The Road to Mandalay, Mark of the Vampire. Devil-Doll.) Cancer.

November 3rd. Harlow Curtice 69. President of General Motors (1953-1958). Having retired in 1959, he was on a duck-shoot in Canada when he accidentally shot and killed retired General Motors Vice-President, Harry Anderson. Curtice died at his home three years later. Heart attack.

November ⁷th Eleanor Roosevelt 78. First Lady of the US 1933-1945. Cardiac failure and tuberculosis.

December 1⁵th Charles Laughton 63. Arguably, Britain’s greatest actor! The films of Charles Laughton are legendary, these are some of his best known. The Sign of The Cross, Island of Lost Souls, Les Miserables, Mutiny on The Bounty, The Canterville Ghost, The Paradine Case, Night of the Hunter and Spartacus. Known forever though as The Hunchback of Notre Dame.). Spinal cancer.

December 1⁷th Thomas Mitchell 70. Loved US Actor. Won Academy awards for Gone with the Wind and High Noon. Bone cancer.

1963

January ²nd Dick Powell 58. American actor, singer, producer and director. As Actor: In The Navy, Farewell My Lovely (He was the first actor to portray PI Philip Marlowe). Cry Danger, As Director: The Enemy Below, The Conqueror, The Hunters. A fact to be considered here: Filming of "The Conqueror" (the Duke’s controversial interpretation of Genghis Khan) was located near a US nuclear testing site in Utah. Subsequently almost one-third of the actors involved in that film, including John Wayne, Susan Haywood Agnes Moorehead, John Hoyt and Powell himself, died of cancer. Coincidence?

January ²nd Jack Carson 52. US Actor. (Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, The Bride Came C.O.D. Bringing Up Baby, Shine On Harvest Moon, Mildred Pierce, A Star Is Born, Rally Round the Flag Boys). Stomach cancer.

January 2⁷th John Farrow 58. Australian Director/producer/actor/screen-writer. In the latter profession, he won an Academy Award in 1957 for scripting Around the World In Eighty Days. Married to actress Maureen O’Sullivan, one of his seven children was none other than Mia Farrow. Heart attack.

February ¹st Fleetwood Lindley 75. This gentleman has the remarkable dis- tinction of being the last human being to ever see the face of Abraham Lincoln. In November 1876 an unsuccessful attempt was made to steal the contents of Lincoln’s tomb. In response, a formal ‘guard of honor’ was instigated, which then included one, Joseph Lindley, Fleetwood’s father. Between 1900 and 1901 the tomb was completely reconstructed and a final burial planned with Lincoln’s body to be placed in a steel cage and encased in concrete. During the morning of

September 2⁶th 1901, fourteen-year-old Fleetwood Lindley was handed a message from his father at school, suggesting he get himself to the Oak Ridge cemetery as soon as practicable in order to witness a ‘historic occasion.’ Just three days before his own death, Lindley recounted the experience, describing in detail what he had seen that day Lincoln’s face, clothing and other pertinent details. Later, the wife of a Custodian of Lincoln’s tomb, Mrs. Dorothy Cash- man, confirmed in writing that "Indeed, at the time of his death in 1963, Fleetwood Lindley was ‘without doubt’ the last person to ever have looked upon Abraham Lincoln’s face." Lindley died of natural causes.

February 1⁸th Hugh Gaitskell 56. British politician and Leader of the Labor Party. He was elected to Parliament in 1945 and was in office until his death. Died from lupus.

March ⁵th Patsy Cline 30. Beloved American C & W Singer (Stop The World, Walkin’ After Midnight, Lovesick Blues, I Fall To Pieces, She’s Got You, Heartaches). Cline’s plane came down in a forest near Camden Tennessee. It had been piloted by two inexperienced flyers, neither of whom were instrument- rated. Highly inclement weather should also have prevented the plane’s take-off. All were killed instantly.

March 2⁵th Davey Moore 29. American Featherweight Boxing champion. Moore fought Cuban-Mexican Sugar Ramos in a title defense on the Night of March 2¹st 1963. Towards the end of the tenth round, Ramos struck Moore with multiple blows to the head which caused him to fall, striking his upper neck on the lower rope injuring, so it was discovered later, his brain stem. Incredibly, Moore finished the round on his feet although the referee stopped the fight before the next round. Ramos was declared the new champion. Having given a lucid television interview in the ring, Moore returned to his dressing room and collapsed in a coma from which he never recovered. Sadly, he died in the White Memorial Hospital LA, less than seventy-five hours after the bout. Pope John XXIII issued a statement as Moore lay fighting for his life, declaring Boxing to be a barbaric sport. Many would agree!

April ⁴th Jason Robards Sr. 70. American actor (The Wild Geese, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, Rimfire, Wild In The Country). Father of the late Jason Robards Jr., who died in 2000 aged 78. Heart attack.

May ²nd Jack Crawford 76. Talented British cricketing all-rounder that played twelve Tests for England. Successive disputes with Surrey (his Home County), South Australia and then Otago (New Zealand) led to his unfulfilled promising talent and early departure from the game. He left to pursue a career in Indus-try. Natural causes.

June ³rd Pope John XXIII 81. Head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Vatican State from March 1⁹th 1925 until his death. Stomach cancer.

June ⁷th Zasu Pitts 69. American actress (No No Nanette, Life With Father, The Thrill of it All, It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World and episodes of Perry Mason & Burke’s Law). Cancer.

August ⁹th Patrick Bouvier Kennedy (2 days old). Last child of John and Jackie Kennedy. His burial was just three months before JFK’s assassination in Dallas. Hyaline membrane disease.

August 3⁰th Guy Burgess 52. British radio producer, Diplomat, Intelligence Officer and Soviet Spy. A confirmed member of the "Cambridge 5 Spy Ring." While working at the Foreign Office in London in the mid-forties, Burgess passed on countless documents to the Soviet Union having been recruited by the KGB in 1935. Acute liver failure.

October 1¹th Edith Piaf 47. French singer and actress. (La Vie en Rose, Non, Je ne Regrette Rien). Pronounced to have been one of the greatest entertainers of all time. Cancer.

October 2⁹th Adolphe Menjou 73. US actor (The Three Musketeers, A Farewell to Arms, Man on a Tightrope, Paths of Glory, Pollyanna). He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Hepatitis.

October 3¹st Henry Daniell 69. Prolific British actor (The Great Dictator, The Sea Hawk, The Philadelphia Story, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake, Witness for the Prosecution, The Egyptian, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, My Fair Lady). Heart attack.

November 2²nd Aldous Huxley 69. British author and novelist. Only one title needs to be mentioned here: Brave New World. Laryngeal cancer.

November 2²nd John F. Kennedy 46. 3⁵th US President. Assassinated in Dallas, allegedly by Lee Harvey Oswald. Always to be remembered as JFK.

November 2⁴th Lee Harvey Oswald 24. Former US Marine and highly vilified assassin of JFK. Shot and killed by Jack Ruby two days later on public TV.

December ²nd Sabu 39. Indian Actor who later gained US Citizenship. His films include (Elephant Boy, The Thief of Bagdad, The Drum, Jungle Book, Song of India, Rampage). Heart attack.

December 1⁴th Dinah Washington 39. Jazz Vocalist. Accorded the title Queen of the Blues (Teach Me Tonight, Unforgettable). Overdosed on sleeping pills.

December 2¹st Sir Jack Hobbs 81. Considered one of the greatest English batsmen who ever lived. He played 61 test matches for England. Hobbs was knighted for his services to cricket in 1952. Cancer.

December 2⁶th Gorgeous George 48. American wrestler and WWE Champion. Outrageous showman. George would slowly mince to the ring in a fully sequined dressing gown, to the strains of Pomp and Circumstance, followed by his valet, both in a purple spotlight. Heart attack.

1964

January 1⁷th T.H. White 57. British novelist of the King Arthur series. Heart failure.

January 2⁹th Alan Ladd 50. Popular American Actor (Citizen Kane, The Blue Dahlia, The Great Gatsby, Shane, Drumbeat, Thunder In the East, Hell Below Zero, Boy On a Dolphin, Hell On Frisco Bay, The Carpetbaggers). Died from a cerebral oedema as a result of an overdose of drugs and alcohol.

March 2⁰th Brendan Behan 41. Irish author, novelist, poet and play-wright. He wrote in both English and Irish and is categorized as one of the greatest Irish poets of all time. (Borstal Boy, The Quare Fellow, The Hostage). Heart attack.

March 2³rd Peter Lorre 59. Sinister Hungarian-American actor. Star of many movies (M, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Beast With Five Fingers, Casino Royale, Casablanca, Congo Crossing, The Maltese Falcon, Around The World in Eighty Days, Tales of Terror, The Raven, Voyage To the Bottom of the Sea, The Patsy, The Raven). Stroke.

April ⁵th Douglas MacArthur 84. Five-Star US General of WWII. Scaled the heights of Military rankings and earned more than 100 medals during his career both from the United States and other countries. His like may never be seen again. Died of biliary cirrhosis.

May 2⁷th J Nehru 74. First Prime Minister of India after his country assumed Independence from Britain in 1947. Nehru retained office until his death in 1964. He was instated as Prime Minister August 1⁵th 1947 just five and a half months before Gandhi’s assassination. Heart attack.

July 3¹st Jim Reeves 39. Actor and singer with a voice of deep velvet (He’ll Have To Go, Welcome To My World, I Love You Because). Private plane crash.

August ⁶th Sir Cedric Hardwicke 71. As British an actor as they come. He

appeared in many major films (The Ghoul, Tom Brown’s School Days, Suspicion, The Ghost of Frankenstein, The Keys of the Kingdom, The Picture of

Dorian Gray, Rope, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Now Barabbas, The Desert Fox, Botany Bay, The War of the Worlds, Richard III, Helen of Troy, The Ten Commandments, Around the World in Eighty Days). Emphysema.

August 1²th Ian Fleming 56. British reporter and writer. Creator of James Bond (Dr. No, Casino Royale, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, License To Kill, From Russia With Love, many more). Heart disease.

August 1³th Peter Anthony Allen 21. Has the dubious distinction of being the last person ever to be executed in The British Isles. Capital punishment was declared a no-go in 1965. Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans were petty criminals up until April ⁷th 1964 when they upped their resume to murder by beating and stabbing 53-year-old John Allen West at his home during a robbery. Intelligence was obviously not their forte either as they left their ID at the crime scene and were arrested within 48 hours. At their trial, both blamed the other the jury was not impressed and both were found guilty.

August 1⁴th Johnny Burnette 30. American singer (Dreamin’ You’re Sixteen, Little Boy Sad). Drowned, after his fishing boat was struck by a cabin-cruiser on Clear Lake, California. He was thrown overboard.

August 2⁷th Gracie Allen 69. US Actress and Comedienne (Love In Bloom, A Damsel in Distress, The Gracie Allen Murder Case, Two Girls and a Sailor). It was with her ‘straight’ partner, George Burns however, that she found everlasting fame in television’s The Burns and Allen Show. Heart attack.

September 2⁸th Harpo Marx 75. American comedian, mime artist and second oldest of the Marx Bros team. Always wore his trademark trench-coat and wig. He frequently would appear to be playing a harp at some point in the film. Heart surgery complications.

October 1⁰th Eddie Cantor 72. Actor, comedian, singer, dancer. Remembered for "The Eddie Cantor Comedy Theater." Heart attack.

October 1⁵th Cole Porter 73. American composer and songwriter. His many great theatrical productions include: Anything Goes, Can Can, The New Yorkers and by far his biggest success Kiss Me Kate which ran for 1077 continuous performances in New York alone. Of his songs, Begin the Beguine, I’ve Got You Under My Skin and I Get a Kick Out of You are enduring numbers that will always bring to mind Cole Porter. Kidney failure.

October 2⁰th Herbert Hoover 90. 3⁵th President of the United States. Natural causes.

December 1¹th Sam Cooke 33. US Soul singer (Only Sixteen, Cupid, Chain Gang, Twistin’ The Night Away, Bring It on Home To Me, Frankie & Johnny). Died by gunshot at The Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles, the circumstances of which remain the subject of extreme speculation.

December 1⁶th William Bendix 58. Fine American actor (Sentimental Journey, Calcutta, The Babe Ruth Story, The Life of Riley, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Streets of Laredo, Detective Story, Blackbeard the Pirate, Idol On Parade). Chronic stomach complications that brought on pneumonia.

1965

January ⁴th T.S. Eliot 76. Author, Dramatist, Poet, Playwright, Literary Critic and 1948 Nobel Laureate for his contribution to poetry. Poems of Note: Ash Wednesday, The Hollow Man, The Waste Land. Plays include: A Cocktail Party, The Rock, Murder In The Cathedral. Authored works include: Selected Essays, The Frontiers of Criticism and After Strange Gods. Emphysema.

January 1⁴th Jeanette MacDonald 63. American soprano and actress. Re- membered principally for her much-loved musicals with Maurice Chevalier (The Love Parade, The Merry Widow, Love Me Tonight, One Hour With You) and then Nelson Eddy (Rose Marie, Naughty Marietta, Sweethearts, New Moon and I Married an Angel). She also appeared in a string of movies on her own (Bitter Sweet, Smilin’ Through and arguably her most memorable film San Francisco). Abdominal adhesions and heart complications.

January 2⁴th Sir Winston Churchill 90. The ultimate Statesman and Prime Minister of Great Britain (1940-1945 and 1951-1955). He led Britain through- out WWII including the German surrender. Has been named "The greatest Briton of all time." Died of a stroke.

February 1⁵th Nat King Cole 45. Singer, Actor. Television Host. Was the first African-American to host a TV series (The Nat King Cole Show). His hit singles include: Mona Lisa, When I Fall in Love, Unforgettable, Stardust, That’s You, Dear Lonely Hearts and of course, Ramblin’ Rose). He appeared on screen in Citizen Kane, China Gate, St. Louis Blues, Night of the Quarter Moon and many other films as himself. Lung cancer.

February 2¹st Malcolm X 39. Human Rights Activist. African-American Muslim Minister. The public face of the Nation of Islam (NOI) for many years until he left the group to form his own religious organization The Organization of Afro American Unity (OAAU) in 1964, the same year he met Martin Luther King. He was assassinated by three members of the NOI, gunned down on the stage of the Manhattan Audubon Ballroom. Po-lice later identified 21 gunshot wounds to his chest, left shoulder, arms and legs.

February 2³rd Stan Laurel 74. British actor the other half of Laurel & Hardy, Oliver Hardy having died eight years earlier. Heart attack.

February 2⁶th Jimmie Lee Jackson 26. African-American civil rights activist. Another shameful racist incident in the deep South. On February 1⁸th 1965, Jackson was participating in a peaceful march in Marion Alabama where he was a church deacon, unarmed and fully un-confrontational, when a group of Alabama State Troopers took exception to his presence. He was badly beaten then shot by State Trooper James Bonard Fowler. Jackson died eight days later. Forty-Two years passed (2007) and Fowler was then