They Passed Away on a Day in May Quiz

Answer: Gene Rayburn

The son of Croatian immigrants, Gene Rayburn was born Eugene Rubessa in Christopher, Illinois in 1917. He began his career in radio with a drive-time show in New York on WNEW (later WBBR). In 1953, he began a long association with producers Mark Goodson and Bill Todman, as he hosted many of their programs, including the original "Match Game" (1962-69).

In the revival of "Match Game" (1973-82), a rather more salacious version, Rayburn made his famous catchphrases--like "Slide it, Earl!"--and even once brought out Earl, an African-American crewman, for his fifteen minutes of fame.

In one of his later appearances, Rayburn played himself in a "Saturday Night Live" skit in 1990. Gene Rayburn died of congestive heart failure on November 29, 1999.

Answer: Jackie Cooper

John "Jackie" Cooper, Jr. was born in 1922 and in the 1930s became a popular child star of the "Our Gang" film series. He co-starred with Wallace Beery in a number of films, including "Treasure Island" (1934). His career waned as an adult, until he starred in the TV series "Hennessy" (1959-62).

In the 1970s, he earned Emmys for directing episodes of "M*A*S*H" (1972) and "The White Shadow" (1978). He also guest-starred on shows like "Murder, She Wrote". Jackie was not the first choice, but he got the role of Perry White in the Superman films because Keenan Wynn, who had the part at first, suffered a heart attack, and Cooper had a passport and could be on the set in a matter of hours. Jackie Cooper died of natural causes on May 3, 2011.

Answer: Moe Howard

Born Moses Harry Horwitz in Brooklyn, New York in 1897, Moe Howard was the fourth son of Solomon Horwitz and Jennie Gorovitz, of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry. His older brother Sam (Shemp Howard) and Jerome (Curly Howard) later became Stooges, along with fellow comedian Lawrence Feinberg (Larry Fine). Moe got his famous bowl haircut when he cut his hair himself in frustration when his mother refused to cut his beautiful curly locks. Moe, Shemp, and Larry became the original comedy team in Ted Healy and his Racketeers (later Stooges) on vaudeville.

Shemp left the group and Jerome (Curly) took his place. Moe worked in show business most of his life and supplemented his income with selling real estate as he got older. On May 4, 1975, Moe Howard died of lung cancer before he had a chance to finish his autobiography, "I Stooged to Conquer". (It was published posthumously as "Moe Howard and the Three Stooges".)

Answer: Marlene Dietrich

Marie Magdalene Dietrich was born in 1901 in Schöneberg, now a part of Berlin, Germany. She began as a chorus girl in revues in Berlin before moving on to film in Berlin and Vienna. Her breakout role was in "The Blue Angel" (1930), whereupon she signed a contract with Paramount Pictures and moved to the USA as Paramount's German answer to the MGM's Swedish star, Greta Garbo.

She starred in many films in the 1930s and 1940s and was an ardent anti-Nazi. In her USO tours, she pretended to be a mind-reader and would ask the audience to concentrate.

Then she would walk over to a soldier and say, "Oh, think of something else. I can't possibly talk about THAT!" From the 1950s through the mid-1970s she performed a cabaret act that traveled the world.

Unfortunately, in 1975 she fell off the stage in Sydney, Australia, and the following year her husband died of cancer. These events abruptly ended her career. She became withdrawn but wrote an autobiography and allowed her voice to be recorded. On May 7, 1992, Marlene Dietrich died of renal failure in Paris.

Answer: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

Douglas Elton Fairbanks, Jr. was born in 1909 to Anna Beth Sully and Douglas Fairbanks, star of such adventure films as "The Mask of Zorro" (1920) and "The Thief of Baghdad" (1924). Young Fairbanks won a contract with Paramount Pictures, largely using his father's name, but had more success initially on the stage. In World War II he was commissioned an officer and served in Lord Louis Mountbatten's Commando in the UK. He transferred to the command of Admiral H. Kent, who was preparing to invade North Africa, and worked in diversion-deception operations. He received the U.S. Navy's Legion of Merit for his role in the amphibious assault on Southern France. In 1949, Fairbanks became an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).
He also earned the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, the Italian War Cross, and the Legion d'Honneur and Croix De Guerre. He remained in the naval reserve and retired a captain in 1954. He made several television appearances in the 1950s and had his own syndicated anthology series for a while. Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., died of natural causes on May 7, 2000.

Also died on this day: Guy Williams (1989), TV star of "Lost in Space" and "Zorro".

Answer: "Mighty Joe Young" (1949)

Harryhausen was actually an assistant animator for "Mighty Joe Young" (1949), a movie similar to "King Kong" (1933), but Harryhausen actually did most of the animation, while the supervisor, Willis O'Brien, the animator for "King Kong", focused on technical problems of the "Young" production (but got credit for the Oscar). Harryhausen was the chief animator for a host of films, including "The Sea Around Us" (1953), a documentary with disaster-producer Irwin Allen, and "Jason and the Argonauts" (1963), in which Harryhausen famously hand-animated a complex fight of live actors against seven skeleton warriors. He retired after "Clash of the Titans" (1981), which featured an animated mechanical owl among other creatures. Harryhausen's innovations included the use of diffused glass to match background plates and frame-by-frame control of lighting.

Harryhausen was universally lauded by the film industry. George Lucas stated, "Without Ray Harryhausen, there would likely have been no 'Star Wars'". Terry Gilliam of Monty Python remarked, "What we do now digitally with computers, Ray did digitally long before but without computers. Only with his digits." On May 7, 2013, Ray Harryhausen died of natural causes at age 92.

Answer: George Peppard

Born in Detroit, Michigan, George Peppard, Jr. was the son of a building contractor (George Sr.) and an opera singer (Vernelle Rohrer). After serving in the marines, he studied at Purdue University and at Carnegie-Mellon in Pittsburgh. After debuting at the Pittsburgh Playhouse, he studied Method acting with Lee Strasberg at The Actors' Studio in Manhattan. His breakout role was as Paul Varjack in "Breakfast at Tiffany's", in which he co-starred with Audrey Hepburn. "Banacek" was part of the "NBC Wednesday Mystery Movie", an umbrella series that rotated among several other detective dramas. He also played the cigar-chomping Col. John "Hannibal" Smith in the 1980s television series "The A-Team". Late in his career he produced and directed. Peppard married five times and had three children. In 1978 he gave up drinking, but never gave up smoking. He developed lung cancer in 1992, and on May 8, 1994 George Peppard died of pneumonia in Los Angeles. He was buried in Dearborn, Michigan.

Also died on this day: William Schallert (1922-2016), best known for playing the father and uncle to "identical cousins" in "The Patty Duke Show" (1963-66).

Answer: Joan Crawford

Lucille Fay Le Sueur was born in San Antonio, Texas in 1908. Taking the stage name Joan Crawford, she portrayed the carefree flapper in silent movies like "Our Dancing Daughter" and survived the transition to sound. She won an Academy Award for playing the title role in "Mildred Pierce".

She married the president of Pepsi-Cola, and even ran the company herself for fourteen years. Late in her career she made a comeback in the horror and suspense genres, and starred in the memorable and disturbing "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" (1962) and in the pilot (1969) for Rod Serling's TV series "Night Gallery" (1970-73).

She also danced the Charleston on a 1968 episode of "The Lucy Show". Crawford was Well-known for her temper, and her reputation became sullied after the publication of her adopted (and disinherited) daughter Christina's book "Mommie Dearest", detailing lifelong abuse. On May 10, 1977, Joan Crawford died of a heart attack while suffering from pancreatic cancer.

Answer: Robert Reed

Born in 1932, John Robert Rietz, Jr. was an only child who grew up on a farm and participated in 4-H even while he cultivated his talents in singing and acting. He worked on radio for a while, studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and appeared in a few Shakespeare plays off Broadway.

His first TV appearance was a guest spot on NBC-TV's "Father Knows Best" (1959). Robert Reed eventually became a director and played many other roles on television, be he will always be remembered for playing Mike Brady, the head of the Brady Bunch, on the ABC-TV series of the same name (1969-74), one of the last of the old-fashioned American family sitcoms. Reed married Marilyn Rosenberger in 1954, by whom he had one daughter.

They divorced in 1959. Reed died of colon cancer, as a complication of HIV infection, on May 12, 1992 at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, California.

Answer: Gary Cooper

Frank James Cooper was born in 1901 in Helena, Montana to English immigrants Alice and Charles Cooper, a farmer-turned-attorney. Cooper was educated for a few years in his parents' English homeland, until the outbreak of the Great War. Cooper tried his hand at many jobs, from cartooning to electric-sign sales, and promoting a local photographer, until he found work as an extra in silent films in 1925.

His breakthrough role, which he acquired with Clara Bow's help, was a brief supporting role in "Wings" (1927), the first movie ever to win the Best Picture Oscar.

After playing the lead in "The Virginian" (1929), he became a great star of Hollywood for decades. He won the Best Actor Oscar for "Sergeant York" (1941) and for "High Noon" (1952). He played film leads well into his later years. Raised Protestant, he converted to Catholicism in 1959 and met Pope Pius XII during a promotion tour for "High Noon" in Europe.

His private life was less than stellar, however. He married Veronica Balfe in 1933, but had an affair with Patricia Neal.

When Neal became pregnant in 1950, he paid for her abortion to avoid scandal and ended the affair a year later. In 1960, Cooper received surgery for prostate cancer, but it nonetheless spread, and he died on May 13, 1961. In 1966, the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City posthumously inducted him into the Western Performers Hall of Fame.

Answer: Night Court

Born in London, Canada, in 1920, Selma Diamond grew up in Brooklyn and was educated at New York University. Diamond not only acted but also wrote for radio and TV, and she drew cartoons and wrote humorous articles for "The New Yorker" as well. Diamond's big break in television was her appearances on the pioneering variety program "Your Show of Shows" on NBC. Diamond is best known as the salty bailiff Selma Hacker on the first two seasons of "Night Court" (1984-85). This was her last role, as Selma Diamond died of lung cancer on May 13, 1985.

Florence Haloop replaced Diamond on "Night Court" for a season before she, too, died of lung cancer a year later. Marsha Warfield took on the role of bailiff Roz Russell for the rest of the series (seasons 4-9).

Answer: Margaret Hamilton

Margaret Brainard Hamilton was born in 1902 in Cleveland, Ohio. She finished at Wheelock College in Boston and briefly worked as a kindergarten teacher before devoting herself fulltime to acting. Her unglamorous, spinsterish looks were a boon to her film career as a character actress. Refusing to work under contract, she was able to support herself and her son, Hamilton Wadsworth Meserve, quite comfortably. (She had divorced her husband of seven years, architect Paul Boynton Meserve, in 1938). Her most famous role was that of the Wicked Witch of the West in MGM's "The Wizard of Oz" (1939), a role which she reprised in a guest appearance on "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" in 1975 and on "Sesame Street" in 1976. However, other memorable roles include one in Maxwell House Coffee TV commercials of the 1970s as Cora, a general store owner in New England, and Miss Peterson in the soap opera "As the World Turns". Margaret Hamilton died on May 16, 1985 of cardiac arrest as she slept in a nursing home in Salisbury, Connecticut.

Other notable deaths on this day:
Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets (1990)
Sammy Davis, Jr., singer-dancer and member of the Rat Pack (1990)
Andy Kaufman, comedian (1984)

Answer: Lawrence Welk

Lawrence Welk was born in 1903 in Strasburg, North Dakota, but his first language was German. His parents emigrated in the 1890s from Selz, Odessa (then part of the German Empire, now in the Ukraine), although he claimed his ancestry was from Alsace-Lorraine.

His long-running television show began in 1951 as a local program in Los Angeles, in the first TV station in California. It went national on the ABC-TV network from 1955 until 1971, after which it was syndicated until 1982. A pious Roman Catholic, Welk remained married for 61 years to Fern Renner, and their son, Lawrence Welk, Jr. married one of the "Lawrence Welk Show" performers, Tanya Falen. Quite the businessman, Welk owned a restaurant in Escondido, California, and also received patents for his design of accordion-shaped serving trays and ash trays. On May 17, 1992, Lawrence Welk died of pneumonia in his home in Santa Monica, California.

Answer: Elizabeth Montgomery

Elizabeth Montgomery was born in 1933 in Los Angeles to Broadway actress Elizabeth D.B. Montgomery, a native Kentuckian, and Hollywood actor Robert Montgomery. Young Elizabeth in fact her first TV appearance was on her father's program, "Robert Montgomery Presents". On stage she debuted in Broadway production of "Late Love" (1953), and her film debut was Otto Preminger's "Billy Mitchell" (1955). Before her breakout series "Bewitched" (1964-1972), she guest-starred on innumerable TV series.

After "Bewitched", Montgomery went away to do Japanese TV commercials, in part to counteract being typecast in Hollywood.

She returned to the USA in the 1980s to do dramatic roles. Politically active, Montgomery criticized the Vietnam War, advocated for AIDS research and women's rights, and devoted lots of time to charity work. On May 18, 1995, Elizabeth Montgomery died of colorectal cancer, just eight weeks after being diagnosed.

Answer: Gilda Radner

Born and raised in Detroit, Gilda Radner started in college radio at Ann Arbor. She moved to Canada with her boyfriend and starred in a Toronto production of "Godspell" (1972) with many other future TV co-stars such as Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, and Martin Short. She also starred on the "National Lampoon Radio Hour" (1974-75). Her famous characters on "Saturday Night Live" included Roseanne Roseannadanna and Baba Wawa, and a hard-of-hearing Emily Litella who made many misguided editorials on Weekend Update. She married "SNL" guitarist G.E. Smith in 1980, divorced him in 1982, and then married actor Gene Wilder in 1984.

Gilda Radner suffered a great deal of upper-leg pain and exhaustion during the filming of "Haunted Honeymoon" (1986) with husband Wilder, and was eventually diagnosed with ovarian cancer. After a long and valiant fight, Gilda Radner finally succumbed on May 20, 1989. Her widower, who testified before Congress that she had been misdiagnosed initially, helped found the Gilda Radner Familial Ovarian Cancer Registry (GRFOCR) at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, New York to screen high-risk candidates for the disease that took her from us.

Answer: John Gielgud

Sir Arthur John Gielgud, born in South Kensington, London, lacked the academic achievement of his brothers, but he had early ambitions for acting, and in fact many of his relatives were famous actors of the stage. He joined a private acting school at age 17.

He worked in London's West End in the 1920s and later the Old Vic, where he received his Shakespearean training. Throughout the thirties, forties, and beyond he starred in a number of stage and screen productions, not to mention radio and records, too many to enumerate here.

He won a Grammy for "Ages of Man -- Recordings of Shakespeare" in 1979 in Best Spoken Word Recording. In fact, Gielgud was one of a dozen actors to win an "EGOT" (an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony) -- sharing company with Helen Hayes and Rita Moreno.

He was considered with Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier to be of the "great trinity of theatrical knights" of the 20th century. In 1994, the Globe Theater in London's West End was renamed the Gielgud Theatre.

At the age of 96, Gielgud died of a respiratory infection on May 21, 2000, in Buckinghamshire, England.

Answer: Thurl Ravenscroft

Thurl Arthur Ravenscroft, born in 1914 Norfolk, Nebraska, began his career as part of The Mellomen, also known as Big John and the Buzzards, the Crackerjacks, and other names. They sang backup to many big stars such as Bing Crosby, Peggy Lee, Rosemary Clooney, and even Elvis Presley and Arlo Guthrie. They also sang in such Disney films as "Pinocchio" (1940), "Alice in Wonderland" (1951), and "The Jungle Book" (1967). During World War II, Ravenscroft was a civilian navigator who flew courier missions with Winston Churchill as a passenger.

For half a century Thurl Ravenscroft was the voice of Tony the Tiger, the mascot for Kellogg's Frosted Flakes. He also sang "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" in the Dr. Seuss/Chuck Jones TV special "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (1966), as well as "No Dogs Allowed!" in the Peanuts animated movie "Snoopy, Come Home!" (1972). He married a woman named June in 1946 whom he survived when she died in 1999. Thurl Ravenscroft died himself from prostate cancer on May 22, 2005. Ravenscroft's voice lives on, however on the Disney theme park rides "Pirates of the Caribbean" and the "Haunted Mansion" along with the "Enchanted Tikki Room" attraction.

Answer: Dick Martin

Born in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1922, Richard Martin wrote for a radio sitcom called "Duffy's Tavern" before he met his life-long comedy partner Dan Rowan, with whom he toured nightclubs and the Las Vegas circuit. Their signature program, "Laugh-In" (1968-73), was originally meant to be one-time special, but it became a five-year series in prime-time and a permanent fixture in American pop culture. In his later years he directed the sitcom "Newhart" and made guest appearances on shows like "Diagnosis: Murder". He married three times and had two sons. Having lost a lung as an adolescent, Dick Martin died of respiratory complications on May 24, 2008.

Also departed 24th of May: Yakima Canutt (1895-1986) stuntman and action director who doubled for Clark Gable and John Wayne, to name a few.

Answer: Charles Nelson Reilly

Bronx-born Charles Nelson Reilly began his career on the stage and won a Tony for playing Bud Frump in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" (1961). While continuing his Broadway career he appeared on numerous game shows in the 1960s, and in the 1970s landed a gig with "Match Game".

He also played the evil but easily thwarted magician Horatio J. Hoodoo in Sid & Marty Krofft's "Lidsville" (1971-73). Reilly taught acting at HB Studio, where his pupils included Bette Midler, Lily Tomlin, and Gary Burghoff. Charles Nelson Reilly died of pneumonia on May 25, 2007. "Weird Al" Yankovic honored the late actor-director-comedian in his 2009 punk-blues-rock single "CNR".

Answer: Eddie Albert

Edward Albert Heimberger was born in 1906 in Rock Island, Illinois. His career began in radio, and he made the earliest test for TV in 1936. His first appearance on the silver screen was in "Brother Rat" (1936), but perhaps his best-known roles were in the William Wyler movie "Roman Holiday" (1953) and in the Disney film, "Escape to Witch Mountain" (1975). Of course, perhaps he is most remembered for starring with Eva Gabor on the Filmways sitcom "Green Acres" (1965-71). Indeed the highly-rated show was cancelled only because of the "rural purge", when CBS began to target urban audiences more adamantly.

Eddie Albert suffered from Alzheimer's disease in his last decade, and on May 26, 2005 died of pneumonia. A year later, Albert's 55-year-old son, actor Edward Laurence Heimberger (stage name Eddie Albert, Jr.), who had put his career on hold to care for his ailing father, himself succumbed to lung cancer on September 22, 2006.

Answer: Jeff Conaway

Born in Manhattan in 1950, Jeffrey Charles William Michael Conaway debuted on the Broadway stage at just 10 years of age in Arthur Penn's "All the Way Home", which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. He also worked as a child model. Whilst studying at New York University, he acted in TV commercials and appeared in the movie "Jennifer on My Mind" (1971). He took over the lead role of Danny Zuko in the Broadway production of "Grease" from Barry Bostwick, although in the movie version (1978) he played a supporting role. He is best known as the aspiring actor Bobby Wheeler in the sitcom "Taxi" from 1978 to 1981; he left after three seasons because of drug abuse.

Thereafter his career never recovered, nor did his health, although he did record some record albums. He married and divorced twice. In 2008, Jeff Conaway appeared on two reality series on VH1, "Celebrity Fit Club" and then, confined to a wheelchair, on "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew". (Dr. Drew decided he could not help Conaway, alas.) John Travolta, his friend and colleague from "Grease", tried to help him with Scientology, but his addiction to pain-killers following an accident made matters worse. On May 11, 2011, Jeff Conaway was found unconscious. Placed in a medically-induced coma, he never awakened, and he died 6 days later of pneumonia, sepsis, and encephalopathy stemming from long-term drug abuse.

Answer: Abe Vigoda

Born in 1925 in Kingston, Texas, Audie Murphy was one of the most decorated combat soldiers of World War II. He earned EVERY possible medal from the U.S. Army, as well as several medals from Belgium and France. He played himself in "To Hell and Back" (1955). Unfortunately he suffered from PTSD as consequence of his war experience, and he was outspoken about the disorder during the Korean and Vietnam Wars. He died rather young (age 45) on May 28, 1971 when during rain and fog a private plane he was riding crashed into Brush Mountain, twenty miles west of Roanoke, Virginia.

Philip Edward Hartman was born in Brantford, Ontario in 1948. He worked briefly as a roadie and studied graphic arts in California, and even owned his own business for a while. In 1975 he started doing improv comedy with The Groundlings, where he helped Paul Reubens develop his Pee-Wee Herman character. Hartman joined "Saturday Night Live" in 1987 and won an Emmy in 1989 for his hilarious impersonations and acting. In 1995 he starred on the NBC sitcom "NewsRadio". He married three times; his third wife Brynn Omdahl, shot and killed Hartman in his sleep, then herself, on May 28, 1998.

Gary Coleman, born in 1968 in Zion, Illinois, was adopted by his parents. The corticosteroids he took for his congenital kidney disease stunted his growth. His first appeared on TV in a bank commercial, then on sitcoms "Good Times" and "The Jeffersons". His best-known role, however, was as Arnold Jefferson on "Diff'rent Strokes" (1978-1986). He appeared in made-for-TV movies and in other media after that, and ran for governor of California in 2003. Unfortunately, financial and legal woes plagued him, due to his poor health and to his adoptive parents' misuse of his trust fund and to his tempestuous relationship with his wife, whom he divorced in 2008. He frequently made the tabloids. He died on May 28, 2010 of a cerebral hemorrhage, probably from falling after having a seizure.

Abraham Charles Vigoda (1921-2016) was best known for playing the grumpy Det. Sgt. Phil Fish in the TV sitcom "Barney Miller" and in a spinoff series, "Fish" -- not to mention a role in "The Godfather" (1972). Due to TWO mistaken reports of his death in the 1980s, running gags on the issue became rampant for decades, including a website solely dedicated to reporting Vigoda's status, which in 2010 was "Still Alive". Alas, the joke finally ended, for on January 26, 2016, Abe Vigoda died peacefully in his sleep of natural causes at his daughter's house.

Answer: Harvey Korman

Born in 1927 in Chicago, Harvey Herschel Korman served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. His television debut was as an exasperated P.R. man in an episode "Route 66" (1961). Whilst on "The Carol Burnett Show" (1967-1978), Korman would famously in the middle of a sketch lose control laughing at the ad-libbed antics of Tim Conway. Korman also starred in the Mel Brooks movies "Blazing Saddles" (1974) and "Dracula: Dead and Loving It" (1995).

He married twice and had four children all together. Harvey Korman died on May 29, 2008 from complications from an abdominal aortic aneurysm that had ruptured a few months earlier.

Answer: Claude Rains

The son of actors and a native of Camberwell, London, William Claude Rains overcame a speech impediment after a benefactor, recognizing the boy's talent, paid for elocution lessons. His very first film was "Build Thy House" (1920), but "The Invisible Man" (1933) was his first talkie. Rains appeared in a wide range of Hollywood films during his 5-decade career-- including "Now, Voyager" (1942) with Bette Davis, Alfred Hitchcock's "Notorious" (1946), not to mention two epics: "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962) with Peter O'Toole and "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (1965) with an all-star cast (and his very last film).

Although he never won an Oscar he was nominated four times for Best Supporting Actor. He retired to New Hampshire, and on May 30, 1967, Claude Rains died in hospital of an intestinal hemorrhage.

Answer: Jean Stapleton

Born Jeanne Murray in Manhattan, New York in 1923, began her career in summer stock theater while still a student at Hunter College. Her Broadway appearances include Damn Yankees, Juno, Bells Are Ringing, and Funny Girl. She made many guest appearances in the early years of television.

Her biggest TV role was as Edith Bunker on "All in the Family", for which won several Emmy awards. Some notable roles she turned down were Mrs. Teevee in "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" (1971) and the lead in "Murder, She Wrote" (which went to Angela Lansbury).

She made many other appearances in TV shows and made-for-TV movies after her sitcom success and in features films such as "Michael" (1996). She married director William Putch in 1956 and they were together until his death in 1983.

She and fellow actress Maureen Stapleton were fourth cousins, and Jean's brother Jack was also an actor. She was a women's rights activist as well as a performer. On May 31, 2013, Jean Stapleton died of natural causes in her home in Manhattan.