Actor Cornel Wilde was born on October 13, 1912 in Prievidza, Hungry. He had several small film roles until he played the role of Fredric Chopin in 1945's A Song to Remember, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for best actor.. In 1945 he also starred in A Thousand and One Nights. He spent the rest of the decade appearing in romantic and swashbuckling films, but he also appeared in some significant films noir, opposite Gene Tierney in Leave Her to Heaven (1945), Road House (1948) and Shockproof (1949). He produced, directed, and starred in The Naked Prey (1966), in which he played a naked man being tracked by hunters from an African tribe affronted by the behavior of members of a safari party. Wilde's other notable directing efforts include Beach Red (1967) and No Blade of Grass (1970). He was married to actresses Patricia Knight and Jean Wallace. He died from Leukemia on October 16, 1989 and was buried at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles.
On October 13, 1966, actor Clifton Webb died. He was born on November 19, 1889 in Beech Grove, Indiana. He is best known for his Oscar nominated roles in such films as Laura, The Razor’s Edge and Sitting Pretty. Webb was a Broadway mainstay between 1913 and 1947, the tall and slender performer who sang in a clear, gentle tenor, appeared in 23 Broadway shows. Webb was in his mid-fifties when he was chosen to play the elegant but evil radio columnist Waldo Lydecker, who is obsessed with Gene Tierney’s character in the 1944 film noir, Laura. The never married Webb lived with his mother until her death at age ninety-one in 1960. Because of health problems, Webb spent the last five years of his life as a recluse at his home in Beverly Hills. He died from a heart attack on October 13, 1966 and is buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
