Virginia Mayo and Jean Parker

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Actress Virginia Mayo was born on November 30, 1920 in St. Louis, Missouri. After a short career in vaudeville, Mayo progressed to films and during the 1940s established herself as a supporting player in such films as The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), White Heat (1949), Wonder Man (1945), The Kid from Brooklyn (1946) and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947). At the zenith of her career, Mayo was seen as the quintessential voluptuous Hollywood beauty. Mayo remained an A-list actress into the mid-'50s, but then went into semi-retirement. She died of congestive heart failure on January 17, 2005 and is buried at Valley Oaks Memorial Park in Westlake Village, California.

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On November 30, 2005, actress Jean Parker died. She was born on August 11, 1915in Deer Lodge, Montana. She was discovered by a secretary to MGM boss Louis B. Mayer and had a successful film career and major credits include Little Women, Lady for a Day, Gabriel Over the White House, The Ghost Goes West, Rasputin and the Empress and The Flying Deuces. Later in life, Parker continued a successful stint on the West Coast theatre circuit and worked as an acting coach. She spent her final years in the Motion Picture and Television Home in Woodland Hills. Mayo died there from a stroke on November 30, 2005 and was buried at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills.

Cary Grant

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On November 29, 1986, actor Cary Grant died. He was born Archibald Alexander Leach on January 18, 1904 in Bristol. England. Nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Penny Serenade (1941) and None but the Lonely Heart (1944). Grant was named the second greatest male movie star of all time by the American Film Institute. Noted particularly for his work in comedy but also for drama, Grant's best-known films include The Awful Truth (1937),  Bringing Up Baby (1938), Gunga Din (1939), The Philadelphia Story (1940), His Girl Friday (1940),  Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), Notorious (1946), To Catch a Thief (1955), An Affair to Remember (1957), North by Northwest (1959) and Charade (1963). Grant remained one of Hollywood's top box-office attractions for almost 30 years. Grant was the first actor to "go independent" by not renewing his studio contract, effectively leaving the studio system. Grant was preparing for a performance at the Adler Theater in Davenport, Iowa on the afternoon of November 29, 1986 when he sustained a cerebral hemorrhage (he had previously suffered a stroke in October 1984) and he died later that day at St. Luke's Hospital.

Gloria Grahame and Rosalind Russell

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Actress Gloria Grahame was born on November 28, 1923in Los Angeles. She began her acting career in theatre, and in 1944 she made her film debut. Despite a featured role in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), MGM did not believe she had the potential for major success, and sold her contract toRKO Pictures. Often cast in film noir roles, Grahame received a nomination for an Academy Award for best supporting actress for Crossfire (1947), and she won the Oscar for her work in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952). She also appeared in Sudden Fear (1952), Human Desire (1953), The Big Heat (1953), and Oklahoma (1955), but her film career began to wane soon afterwards. Grahame had a string of stormy romances and failed marriages during her time in Hollywood, including marriages to director Nicholas Ray. She died on October 5, 1981 from stomach cancer in New York and was buried at Oakwood Memorial park in Chatsworth, California.

On November 28, 1976, actress Rosalind Russell died. She was born. Russell started her career as a fashion model. In the early 1930’s, Russell went west to Los Angeles to be a contract actress for Universal Pictures. When she first arrived on the lot, she was ignored by most of the crew and later told the press she felt terrible and humiliated at the studio, which had influence on her self-confidence. Unhappy with Universal's leadership, and second-class film status at the time, Russell set her sights on Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. She debuted with MGM in 1934’s Evelyn Prentice and, although the role was small, she was noticed, with one critic saying that she was "convincing as the woman scorned." She starred in many comedies, such as Forsaking All Others (1934), and Four's a Crowd (1938), as well as dramas, including Craig's Wife (1936) and The Citadel (1938).

Russell was first acclaimed when she co-starred in the MGM drama West Point of the Air (1935). In 1939, she was cast as catty gossip Sylvia Fowler in the all-female comedy The Women, directed by George Cukor. The film was a major hit, boosting her career and establishing her reputation as a comedienne. Russell continued to display her talent for comedy in the classic screwball comedy His Girl Friday (1940), directed by Howard Hawks. In the 1940s, she made comedies such as The Feminine Touch (1941) and Take a Letter, Darling (1942), dramas including Sister Kenny (1946), and Mourning Becomes Electra (1947), and a murder mystery The Velvet Touch (1948).

Over the course of her career, Russell earned four Academy Award nominations for Best Actress: My Sister Eileen (1942); Sister Kenny (1946); Mourning Becomes Electra (1947); and the movie version of Auntie Mame (1958). She received a Special Academy Award, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, in 1972. The awarded trophy for the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award is an Oscar statuette. Russell scored a big hit on Broadway with her Tony Award-winning performance in Wonderful Town (1953), a musical version of her successful film of a decade earlier, My Sister Eileen. Russell reprised her starring role for a 1958 television special.

Perhaps her most memorable performance was in the title role of the long-running stage hit Auntie Mame and the subsequent 1958 movie version, in which she played an eccentric aunt whose orphan nephew comes to live with her. From the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, she continued to shine with older roles in a large number of movies, giving notable performances in Picnic (1955), A Majority of One (1961), Five Finger Exercise (1962), Gypsy (1962), and The Trouble with Angels (1966). Russell died on November 28, 1976 after a long battle with breast cancer and was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

Gene Tierney

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Actress Gene Tierney was born on November 19, 1920 in Brooklyn, New York. Acclaimed as one of the great beauties of her day, she is best remembered for her performance in the title role of Laura (1944) and her Academy Award nominated performance for best actress in Leave Her to Heaven (1945). Her film debut was in a supporting role as Eleanor Stone in The Return of Frank James (1940) and followed by Hudson's Bay (1941). In 1944, she starred in what became her most famous role: the intended murder victim, Laura Hunt, in Otto Preminger’s, Laura, opposite Dana Andrews. During 1953, Tierney's mental health problems were becoming harder to hide and her long string of personal troubles finally took its toll. She consulted a psychiatrist and was admitted to Harkness Hospital and received 27 shock treatments. Tierney attempted to flee but was caught and returned. She became an outspoken opponent of shock treatment therapy, claiming that it had destroyed significant portions of her memory. Gene Tierney died on November 6, 1991 from emphysema and was buried at Glenwood Cemetery in Houston, Texas.

Veronica Lake and Dick Powell

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Actress Veronica Lake was born on November 14, 1922 in Brooklyn, New York. In 1938 Lake moved with her mother and stepfather to Beverly Hills, where her mother enrolled her in the Bliss-Hayden School of Acting. Her first appearance on screen was for RKO, playing a small role among several coeds in the 1939 film, Sorority House. Similar roles followed, including All Women Have Secrets and Dancing Co-Ed. During the making of Sorority House director John Farrow first noticed how her hair always covered her right eye, creating an air of mystery about her and enhancing her natural beauty.

Her breakthrough film was I Wanted Wings (1941) and Sullivan’s Travel’s (1941), in which she received both popular and critical acclaim. For a short time during the early 1940s Lake was considered one of the most reliable box office draws in Hollywood. She became known for onscreen pairings with actor Alan Ladd. Although popular with the public, Lake had a complex personality and acquired a reputation for being difficult to work with.  She began drinking heavily during this period and people began refusing to work with her. Paramount cast Lake in a string of mostly forgotten films. A notable exception was The Blue Dahlia (1946). After breaking her ankle in 1959, Lake was unable to continue working as an actress and drifted between cheap hotels in New York City. Her physical and mental health declined steadily. By the late 1960s Lake was apparently immobilized by paranoia. Lake died on July 7, 1973 of hepatitis and acute renal failure (complications of her alcoholism) in Vermont. Her ashes were scattered off the coast of the Virgin Islands as she had requested. A memorial service was held in Manhattan, but only her son and handful of strangers attended. In 2004 some of Lake's ashes were reportedly found in a New York antique store.

Actor Dick Powell was born on November 14, 1904 in Mountain View, Arkansas. He made his film debut as a singing bandleader in Blessed Event (1932). He went on to star in movie musicals such as 42^nd Street, Footlight Parade, and On the Avenue. In 1944, Powell's career changed forever when he was cast in Murder, My Sweet. The film was a big hit, and Powell had successfully reinvented himself as a dramatic actor. He was married several times most notably to actresses Joan Blondell (1936-1944) and June Allyson (1945 until his death). Powell guest-starred in numerous television programs in the 1950s and 1960s and directed such films as The Enemy Below (1957) and The Conqueror (1956), starring John Wayne. The exterior scenes were filmed in Utah, downwind of U.S. above-ground atomic tests. The cast and crew totaled 220, and of that number, 91 had developed some form of cancer by 1981 and 46 had died of cancer by then, including Wayne. Powell died from lymphoma on January 2, 1963 and his body was cremated and interred at Forest Lawn Glendale.

Grace Kelly, Penny Singleton and Eve Arden

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Actress Grace Kelly was born on November 12, 1929 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After embarking on an acting career in 1950, at the age of 20, Grace Kelly appeared in New York City theatrical productions as well as in more than forty episodes of live drama productions broadcast during the early 1950s Golden Age of Television. In October 1953, with the release of Mogambo, she became a movie star, a status confirmed in 1954 with a Golden Globe Award and Academy Award nomination as well as leading roles in five films, including The Country Girl, in which she won the Oscar for best actress. On April 18, 1956, she married Rainier III, Prince of Monaco and became The Princess of Monaco. She retired from acting at 26 to enter upon her duties in Monaco. She died on September 14, 1982, when she lost control of her automobile and crashed after suffering a stroke. Her daughter Princess Stephanie, who was in the car with her, survived the accident. Princess Grace is buried at the Cathedral of Saint Nicholas in Monte Carlo, Monaco.

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On November 12, 2003, actress Penny Singleton died. She was born on September 15, 1908 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During her sixty year career Singleton is best known for her role as Blondie in the Blondie film series from 1938 until 1950. She also provided the voice of Jane Jetson in the animated series, the Jetson’s. Singleton began her show business career when she was a child, singing at a silent movie theater, and toured in vaudeville as part of an act called "The Kiddie Kabaret.” She was cast opposite Arthur Lake in the feature film Blondie in 1938, based on the comic strip. As Dagwood and Blondie Bumstead they proved so popular that a series of 27 sequels were made from 1938 until 1950. Singleton died on November 12, 2003 from a stroke and was interred at the San Fernando Mission Cemetery in San Fernando, California.

 On November 12, 1990, actress Eve Arden died. She was born on April 30, 1908 in Mill Valley, California. Her almost 60-year career crossed most media frontiers with supporting and leading roles, but she may be best-remembered for playing the sardonic but engaging title character, a high school teacher, on Our Miss Brooks, and as the Rydell High School principal in the films Grease and Grease 2. She made her film debut in Song of Love (1929) but her movie career began in earnest in 1937 when she appeared in the films Oh Doctor and Stage Door. Her many memorable screen roles include At the Circus (1939), Mildred Pierce (1945) for which she received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress, and Anatomy of a Murder (1959). Arden's quick wit made her a natural talent for radio and television. She died on November 12, 1990 from cancer and is interred at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles.

Robert Ryan and Pat O'Brien

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Actor Robert Ryan was born on November 11, 1909 in Chicago, Illinois. He was an actor who often played hardened cops and ruthless villains. Ryan attempted to make a career in show business as a playwright, but had to turn to acting to support himself and appeared on stage and in small film parts during the early 1940s. Ryan's breakthrough film role was in Crossfire (1947), for which he was nominated for best supporting Academy Award. Other film credits include The Set-Up (1949), On Dangerous Ground (1951), The Longest Day (1962), Billy Bud (1962), Battle of the Bulge (1965), and The Dirty Dozen (1967), The Wild Bunch (1969). He also made numerous appearances of stage and television. Ryan died in New York City on July 11, 1973 from lung cancer and his ashes were scattered.

Pat O’Brien (November 11, 1899 – October 15, 1983) See October 15^th blog

Vivien Leigh and Fred MacMurray

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Actress Vivien Leigh was born on November 5, 1913 in Darjeeling, India, a city near the foot of Mount Everest. Her father Ernest Hartley was a Calcutta stock broker. She began her career on the stage in her early teens and in 1935 appeared on the London stage for the first time. She changed her stage name to Vivien Leigh because it sounded more feminine, using her first husband’s (Herbert Leigh Holman) middle name as her new last name and changed the “a” in Vivian to an “e.” Leigh was known for her fiery personality on and off screen and in a short twenty year film career (1935 to 1965), appeared in nineteen films that included: Things are Looking Up (1935), Gentlemen’s Agreement (1935), Fire Over London (1937), Waterloo Bridge (1940), Caesar and Cleopatra (1945), Anna Karenina (1948), The Deep Blue Sea (1955), and Ship of Fools (1965).  

Leigh is best known for her famous portrayal of firebrand heroine Scarlett O’Hara in Victor Flemings Civil War epic, Gone with the Wind (1939). This performance starring opposite Clark Gable earned her the first of two best actress Academy Awards (1940). Her second best actress Oscar (1952) came in A Street Car Named Desire (1951) in which she portrayed the neurotic Blance DuBois starring opposite Marlon Brando. After 1951, her film career began to wane, and she appeared more on the stage.   

The celebrated actress was beleaguered with illness most of her adult life, she suffered from manic depressive episodes (bipolar disorder), endured the tragedy of two miscarriages, one of which occurred as the result of an onset accident while filming Caesar and Cleopatra (1944), and she contracted tuberculosis in her early thirties. On July 7, 1967, while at her London apartment, Leigh died from the tuberculosis that had plagued most of her adult life. Following her death and as a tribute to the award winning actress, the lights of the West London theater district were dimmed in her honor. Leigh’s ashes are scattered near her country home, on the Lake at Tickerage Mill, East Sussex, England.

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On November 5, 1991, actor Fred MacMurray died. He was born on August 30, 1908 in Kankakee, Illinois. He appeared in more than 100 movies and was a successful television star in career that spanned nearly a half-century, from 1930 to the 1970s. MacMurray is well known for his role in the 1944 film noir Double Indemnity. Later in his career, he became better known as the paternal Steve Douglas, the widowed patriarch on My Three Sons, which ran on ABC from 1960–1965 and then on CBS from 1965–1972.  

In his heyday, MacMurray worked with some of Hollywood’s greatest names, including Billy Wilder and actors Barbara Stanwyck, Humphrey Bogart and Marlene Dietrich. He played opposite Claudette Colbert in seven films, beginning with The Gilded Lily. He co-starred with Katharine Hepburn in Alice Adams and with Joan Crawford in Above Suspicion, and with Carole Lombard in four films. Despite being typecast as a "nice guy," MacMurray often said his best roles were when he was cast against this type by Wilder. In 1944, he played the role of Walter Neff, an insurance salesman who plots with a greedy wife to murder her husband in Double Indemnity. Sixteen years later he played Jeff Sheldrake, a two-timing corporate executive in Wilder's Oscar winning comedy The Apartment. In another turn in the "not so nice" category, MacMurray played the cynical, duplicitous Lieutenant Thomas Keefer in 1954's The Caine Mutiny.  

MacMurray's career got its second wind beginning in 1959, when he was cast as the father figure in a popular Disney comedy, The Shaggy Dog. In the 1960s, he starred in My Three Sons, which ran for 12 seasons, making it one of America's longest-running television series. Concurrent with My Three Sons, MacMurray stayed busy in films, starring in 1961 as Professor Ned Brainerd in Disney's The Absent Minded Professor and in its sequel, Son of Flubber (1964). Later in life he suffered from a variety of illness, first suffering from throat cancer in the late 1970s and then a stroke in 1988. This stroke left his right side paralyzed and his speech affected, although with therapy he was able to make a remarkable recovery. He also suffered from leukemia but died from pneumonia on November 5, 1991. He was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

Burt Lancaster, James Dunn and Martha Vickers

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Actor Burt Lancaster was born on November 2, 1913 in New York City. He was noted for his athletic physique and distinctive smile (which he called "The Grin"). After initially building his career on "tough guy" roles Lancaster abandoned his "all-American" image in the late 1950s in favor of more complex and challenging roles, and came to be regarded as one of the best actors of his generation as a result. Lancaster was nominated four times for Academy Awards and one once for Elmer Gantry in 1960. Other notable film credits include The Killers (1946), Marty (1955), The Kentuckian (1955), Trapeze (1956), Sweet Smell of Success (1957), The Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), The Midnight Man (1974), and Atlantic City (1980). In 1953, Lancaster played one of his best remembered roles with Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity. It was named one of "AFI's top 100 Most Romantic Films" of all time. Lancaster vigorously guarded his private life. He was married three times. His first two marriages ended in divorce. He claimed to have been romantically involved with Deborah Kerr during the filming of From Here to Eternity. However, Ms. Kerr had stated that while there was a spark of attraction, nothing ever happened. He also had an affair with Joan Blondell and Shelly Winters. He was plagued by numerous illnesses in later life and died from a heart attack on October 20, 1994 at his Century City home. He was cremated and his ashes were buried under a large oak tree in Westwood Memorial Park.

Actor James Dunn was born November 2, 1901 in New York City. He worked in vaudeville (as a song and dance man), the theater, and as an extra in several silent films before being signed to a movie contract with 20th Century-Fox studios in 1931. Known for his boy next door roles, Dunn’s film and television career spanned nearly four decades (1929-1967) and included over fifty feature motion pictures. In 1946, he won the best supporting Oscar for his portrayal of the drunken waiter, Johnny Nolan, in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945). His other notable film credits include: Society Girl (1932), Take a Chance (1933), Mysterious Crossing (1936), and Killer McCoy (1947). He also starred alongside Shirley Temple in her first three films, Stand Up and Cheer (1934), Baby Take a Bow (1934), and Bright Eyes (1934). In 1950, Dunn retired from motion pictures and began to work exclusively in television and he became one the first Hollywood film actors to star in his own television series, It’s a Great Life (1954-56). On September 3, 1967, Dunn died at the Santa Monica Hospital after undergoing abdominal surgery. James Dunn’s remains were cremated and the ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean.

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On November 2, 1971, actress Martha Vickers died. She was born on May 28, 1925 Ann Arbor, Michigan. She began her career as a model and cover girl and her film debut was in a small un-credited part in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1941). She played minor roles in several films during the early 1940s, and by the end of the decade had progressed to featured supporting roles, including the role of the nymphomaniac younger sister of Lauren Bacall’s character in The Big Sleep (1946). During the 1950s, Vickers' film career stalled, however she continued to act in television until her final performance in 1960. Vickers was married three times; most notably to Mickey Rooney (June 3, 1949 – September 25, 1951). She died of esophageal cancer on November 2, 1971 and was buried at Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood, California.