Date of Death between 2017-01-01 and 2017-12-31 (Sorted by Popularity Ascending)
1. Heather Menzies-Urich
Actress | The Sound of Music
Beautiful, sunny, and engaging blonde actress Heather Menzies was born on December 3, 1949 in Toronto, Canada. Her family moved to the United States when Heather was eleven. She graduated from Hollywood High School and subsequently attended the Falcon Studio's University of the Arts in Hollywood. ...
2. John Heard
Actor | The Guardian
John Heard was a very talented actor who established himself as a respected thespian in the late 1970s and early '80s, though he is perhaps better known for his turn as Peter McCallister, Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin')s father in the Home Alone (1990) movies.
John was born in Washington, D.C.,...
3. Bill Paxton
Actor | Aliens
Bill Paxton was born on May 17, 1955 in Fort Worth, Texas. He was the son of Mary Lou (Gray) and John Lane Paxton, a businessman and actor (as John Paxton). Bill moved to Los Angeles, California at age eighteen, where he found work in the film industry as a set dresser for Roger Corman's New World ...
4. Roger Moore
Actor | Moonraker
Roger Moore will perhaps always be remembered as the man who replaced Sean Connery in the James Bond series, arguably something he never lived down.
Roger George Moore was born on October 14, 1927 in Stockwell, London, England, the son of Lillian (Pope) and George Alfred Moore, a policeman. His ...
5. Glenne Headly
Actress | Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
For the past fourteen years, she has said that family has been the most important thing to her and she has set most of her time aside to be a "present" mother to her son. Movies, plays and television are chosen, for the most part, when they occur in town or on a school break. She has taken the ...
6. John Hurt
Actor | Nineteen Eighty-Four
This transatlantic talent was born John Vincent Hurt on January 22, 1940 in Shirebrook, a coal mining village near the busy market town of Chesterfield, in Derbyshire, England. He is the son of Phyllis (Massey), an engineer and one-time actress, and Arnold Herbert Hurt, an Anglican clergyman and ...
7. Nelsan Ellis
Actor | The Butler
Nelsan Ellis was an award-winning American film and television actor and playwright, perhaps best known as Lafayette Reynolds on HBO's True Blood (2008).
Nelsan was born on November 30, 1977, in Harvey, Illinois, the son of Jackie Ellis and Tommie Lee Thompson. Following his parents' divorce, Ellis ...
8. Harry Dean Stanton
Actor | Alien
Stanton was born in West Irvine, Kentucky, to Ersel (Moberly), a cook, and Sheridan Harry Stanton, a barber and tobacco farmer. Lived in Lexington, Kentucky and graduated from Lafayette Senior High School with the class of 1944. Drafted into the Navy, he served as a cook in the U.S. Navy during ...
9. Michael Nyqvist
Actor | Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
Born Rolf Åke Mikael Nyqvist in Stockholm, Sweden, it wasn't until he was over a year old when he was finally adopted from the orphanage he had been given to. His father was a lawyer and his mother a writer. It wasn't until he had his first child that he decided to seek out his biological parents. ...
10. Miguel Ferrer
Actor | Traffic
Miguel Ferrer was born on February 7, 1955 in Santa Monica, California, USA as Miguel José Ferrer. He was an actor, known for Traffic (2000), Crossing Jordan (2001) and Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993). He was married to Lori Weintraub and Leilani Sarelle. He died on January 19, 2017 in Los Angeles, ...
11. Robert Guillaume
Actor | The Lion King
Robert Guillaume was born on November 30, 1927 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA as Robert Peter Williams. He was an actor, known for The Lion King (1994), Sports Night (1998) and Big Fish (2003). He was married to Donna Brown Guillaume and Marlene Patricia Scott. He died on October 24, 2017 in Los ...
12. Don Rickles
Actor | Kelly's Heroes
Donald Jay Rickles was born May 8, 1926 in New York. Following the Golden Era of Hollywood, he remained active until early 2017. He got his start in night clubs, toiling for over 20 years, until 1958, when he made his film debut in Run Silent Run Deep (1958). The movie was a big hit. Afterward, ...
13. Frank Vincent
Actor | Goodfellas
"Go home and get your shine box....", so said ill-fated Billy Batts in Goodfellas (1990). However, Billy Batts is better known to a legion of crime-film fans as the talented actor, musician, and comedian Frank Vincent. He was born in North Adams, Massachusetts, but was raised in the Greenville ...
14. Sam Shepard
Actor | August: Osage County
Sam Shepard was born Samuel Shepard Rogers in Fort Sheridan, IL, to Jane Elaine (Schook), a teacher, and Samuel Shepard Rogers, a teacher and farmer who was also in the army. As the eldest son of a US Army officer (and WWII bomber pilot), Shepard spent his early childhood moving from base to base ...
15. Darlene Cates
Actress | What's Eating Gilbert Grape
Cates' acting career ignited after she appeared on an episode of Sally Jessy Raphael (1983), titled "Too Heavy to Leave Their House". Shortly after, author and screenwriter Peter Hedges proposed to her that she play Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio's morbidly obese and housebound mother in What's ...
16. Martin Landau
Actor | Ed Wood
Oscar-winning character actor Martin Landau was born on June 20, 1928 in Brooklyn, New York. At age 17, he was hired by the New York Daily News as a staff cartoonist and illustrator. In his five years on the paper, he served as the illustrator for Billy Rose's "Pitching Horseshoes" column. He also ...
17. Jerry Lewis
Actor | The Nutty Professor
Jerry Lewis (born March 16, 1926) was an American comedian, actor, singer, film producer, screenwriter and film director. He is known for his slapstick humor in film, television, stage and radio. He was originally paired up with Dean Martin in 1946, forming the famed comedy team of Martin and Lewis...
18. Michael Parks
Actor | Tusk
Michael Parks is known as an actor's actor by his peers with a breadth of astonishing range that has allowed him to portray stunning contrasts--sometimes in the same film, like in Tusk (2014), starring in dual roles as an erudite serial killer opposite Justin Long, and as a feeble rube opposite ...
19. Mary Tyler Moore
Actress | Ordinary People
Mary Tyler Moore was born on December 29, 1936, in Flatbush, Brooklyn, to Marjorie (Hackett) and George Tyler Moore, a clerk. Her maternal grandparents were English immigrants, and her father was of English, Irish, and German descent. Moore's family relocated to California when she was eight. Her ...
20. Jay Thomas
Actor | The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause
Jay Thomas was born in Kermit, Texas, to Katherine (Guzzino), a tap-dancing South Louisiana belle of Italian descent, and T. Harry Terrell, Sr., an oil man. Reared in New Orleans, he was always active in sports and performing. He won his first award as emcee of the Jesuit High School talent show. ...
21. Powers Boothe
Actor | The Avengers
Incisive, gravelly-voiced screen tough guy Powers Boothe was born on June 1, 1948 in Snyder, Texas, a sharecropper's son. Used to hard physical work "chopping cotton" as a youngster, he went on to become the first member of his family to attend university. He then proceeded to study acting via a ...
22. Adam West
Actor | Batman
Adam West was born William West Anderson on September 19, 1928 in Walla Walla, Washington, to parents Otto West Anderson, a farmer, and his wife Audrey V. (Speer), an opera singer. At age 10, Adam had a cache of comic books, and "Batman" made a big impression on him--the comic hero was part bat-man...
23. Jonathan Demme
Director | The Silence of the Lambs
Jonathan Demme was born on February 22, 1944 in Baldwin, Long Island, New York, USA as Robert Jonathan Demme. He was a director and producer, known for The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Rachel Getting Married (2008) and Philadelphia (1993). He was married to Joanne Howard and Evelyn Purcell. He died...
24. June Foray
Actress | Mulan
Legendary voice actress June Foray was born June Lucille Forer on September 18, 1917 in Springfield, Massachusetts, to Ida (Robinson) and Maurice Forer was of Russian descent and her mother Ida Robinson was of French Canadian And Native American descent.
She started in the voice field at the age of ...
25. Erin Moran
Actress | Joanie Loves Chachi
Born in Burbank, California, USA on October 18, 1960, Erin Moran was the youngest daughter of Sharon and Edward Moran, who have five other children. She attended Walter Reed Junior High School for one year and North Hollywood High School for another year. Her first professional acting job was in a ...
26. Dina Merrill
Actress | The Player
It would have been pretty darn difficult for actress Dina Merrill to have ever pulled off playing a commoner on stage, film or TV. She just had too much class. The epitome of poise and glamour, the New York-born socialite and celebrity was born in 1923, the daughter of E.F. Hutton, the financier ...
27. Rance Howard
Actor | Nebraska
Rance Howard was born on November 17, 1928 in Duncan, Oklahoma, USA as Harold Engle Beckenholdt. He was an actor and writer, known for Nebraska (2013), Universal Soldier (1992) and Small Soldiers (1998). He was married to Judy Howard and Jean Speegle Howard. He died on November 25, 2017 in Los ...
28. Darlanne Fluegel
Actress | To Live and Die in L.A.
American leading lady, briefly prominent on screen during the 80s and 90's. Blond, gray-eyed Darlanne (whose not very Hollywood-sounding birth name literally translates to 'wing' in German) began her career in 1974 as a model with the Eileen Ford and Zoli Agencies in New York. Seven year later, ...
29. Barbara Hale
Actress | Perry Mason
Barbara was born on 18 April 1922, as one of two children. As a young girl, Ms. Hale intended to major in art and drawing; she began her professional career as a model for a comic strip called "Ramblin' Bill", during the time she was working her way through The Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. She ...
30. Stephen Furst
Actor | National Lampoon's Animal House
Stephen Furst was born on May 8, 1954 in Norfolk, Virginia, USA as Stephen Fuerstein. He was an actor and director, known for National Lampoon's Animal House (1978), Babylon 5 (1994) and The Dream Team (1989). He was married to Lorraine Furst. He died on June 16, 2017 in Moorpark, California, USA.
31. Charlie Murphy
Actor | Norbit
Charlie Murphy was born on July 12, 1959 in New York City, New York, USA as Charles Quinton Murphy. He was an actor and writer, known for Norbit (2007), Night at the Museum (2006) and Coming to America (1988). He was married to Tisha Taylor Murphy. He died on April 12, 2017 in New York City.
32. George A. Romero
Writer | Land of the Dead
George A. Romero never set out to become a Hollywood figure; by all indications, though, he was very successful. The director of the groundbreaking "Living Dead" films was born February 4, 1940 ,in New York City to Ann (Dvorsky) and Jorge Romero. His father was born in Spain and raised in Cuba, and...
33. Robert Hardy
Actor | Sense and Sensibility
One of England's most successful and enduring character actors, with a prolific screen career on television and in films, Robert Hardy was acclaimed for his versatility and the depth of his performances.
Born in Cheltenham in 1925, he studied at Oxford University and, in 1949, he joined the ...
34. Richard Hatch
Actor | Diminuendo
Born in Santa Monica, California, USA, Richard Hatch was studying classical piano at the age of eight, and knew he wanted to carve out a career as a performer before he reached his teens. After attending Harbor College in San Pedro, he joined a Los Angeles repertory company with which he traveled ...
35. Sonny Landham
Actor | Predator
An actor with a powerful physique, booming voice and who has played several "Native American" characters, Sonny Landham first broke into mainstream film with a bit part as a police officer in the subway. He ends up getting tripped when Michael Beck throws the baseball bat at his legs, in Walter ...
36. Lola Albright
Actress | Peter Gunn
Lola Jean Albright was born on July 20, 1924 in Akron, Ohio, the daughter of John Paul Albright and Marion Harvey, both of whom were gospel singers. She worked as a model before moving to Hollywood in the mid-1940s, studied piano for 20 years and worked as a receptionist at radio station WAKR in ...
37. Richard Anderson
Actor | Forbidden Planet
Richard Anderson appeared in high school plays, served a hitch in the Army and, upon his discharge, began doing summer stock, radio work, a movie bit part (a wounded soldier in Twelve O'Clock High (1949)) and all the other minor jobs required of your basic struggling actor. He did comedy scenes on a...
38. Jeanne Moreau
Actress | Jules et Jim
When people gave Louis Malle credit for making a star of Jeanne Moreau in Elevator to the Gallows (1958) immediately followed by The Lovers (1958), he would point out that Moreau by that time had already been "recognized as the prime stage actress of her generation." She had made it to the Comédie ...
39. Michael Mantenuto
Actor | Miracle
Michael Mantenuto was born on May 13, 1981 in Holliston, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for Miracle (2004), Surfer, Dude (2008) and Dirtbags (2006). He was married to Kati Vienneau. He died on April 24, 2017 in Des Moines, Washington, USA.
40. Tobe Hooper
Director | The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Honored with many awards for his films and achievement in the horror genre, Tobe Hooper is truly one of the Masters of Horror (2005).
Tobe Hooper was born in Austin, Texas, to Lois Belle (Crosby) and Norman William Ray Hooper, who owned a theater in San Angelo. He spent the 1960s as a college ...
41. Jim Nabors
Actor | Gomer Pyle: USMC
Tall, spade-jawed, hopelessly genial balladeer/actor Jim Nabors was born in 1930 in Alabama and raised there, graduating from the University of Alabama. A typing clerk at the UN in his salad days, he eventually moved to Los Angeles due to his asthmatic condition and became a film cutter for NBC. ...
42. Karin Dor
Actress | You Only Live Twice
Born Kätherose Derr in Wiesbaden, Karin Dor studied acting and ballet at school and began in films as an extra. The attractive redhead made an indelible impression on Austrian director Harald Reinl (who became her first husband in 1954) and this paved the way to higher profile roles. Her first ...
43. David Cassidy
Actor | The Partridge Family
David Cassidy was born on April 12, 1950 in Manhattan, to Jack Cassidy, a very skilled actor and singer, and Evelyn Ward, an actress. By the time he was five, his parents were divorced and Jack had married actress Shirley Jones, an actress who in 1955 had just made Oklahoma! (1955). When David was ...
44. Dick Gautier
Actor | Transformers
Dick Gautier was born on October 30, 1931 in Culver City, California, USA as Dick G. Gauthier. He was an actor and writer, known for The Transformers (1984), G.I. Joe (1985) and Get Smart (1965). He was married to Tess Hightower, Barbara Stuart and Beverly J. Gerber. He died on January 13, 2017 in ...
45. Lisa Spoonauer
Actress | Clerks
Lisa Spoonauer was born on December 6, 1972 in New Jersey, USA as Lisa Ann Spoonhauer. She was an actress, known for Clerks (1994), Clerks (2000) and Bartender (1997). She was married to Tom Caron and Jeff Anderson. She died on May 21, 2017 in Jackson Township, New Jersey.
46. Mike Connors
Actor | Mannix
He once jokingly described himself as 'a frustrated song-and-dance man' who wound up typecast as a TV crime fighter. Tall, handsome Armenian-American Mike Connors had a minor career in the movies before becoming a star on the small screen as the impeccably dressed macho sleuth Joe Mannix. Towards ...
47. Red West
Actor | Road House
Robert "Red" Gene West was a close friend of Elvis Presley and a member of Presley's inner circle, known as "The Memphis Mafia". He first met Elvis in high school, where he was a year behind him. West played football for the Memphis Tigers high school football team, boxed in the Golden Gloves and ...
48. Rose Marie
Actress | The Dick Van Dyke Show
Rose Marie was a legend of show business, with a career stretching 90 years, since her debut as her self in a Vitaphone musical short that appeared on the bill with The Jazz Singer (1927) at its premiere in 1927. According to Rose Marie, when she approached Al Jolson at The Wintergarden Theater in ...
49. John Hillerman
Actor | Magnum, P.I.
The impeccably urbane Englishman Jonathan Quayle Higgins III (VC !) -- Tom Selleck's sophisticated majordomo in Magnum, P.I. (1980) -- was of French, German and Austrian descent, raised in a small Texas town and educated at a Catholic high school. He majored in journalism from the University of ...
50. Kathleen Crowley
Actress | The Rebel Set
Kathleen Crowley represented her home state of New Jersey in the Miss America pageant in 1949, placed sixth and (with the scholarship money she won) enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New York. She played the plum title roles in prestigious TV productions of Robert Montgomery ...