They Passed Away on a June Day Quiz

Answer: Ann B. Davis

Ann B. Davis was born in 1926 in Schenectady, New York, along with her twin sister Harriet. At age three, Ann and her family moved to northern Pennsylvania. Although Davis had planned to be a physician, she endued up studying drama and speech at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. One of her earliest TV appearances was as a panelist in Jukebox Jury (1959-67). For her role as Charmaine "Schultzy" Schultz in 'The Bob Cummings Show' (1955-59), Davis won two Emmys, plus two additional nominations. But Davis's most famous role was as happy housekeeper Alice Nelson in the sitcom 'The Brady Bunch' (1969-74) and subsequent telemovies such as 'The Brady Girls Get Married' (1981), not to mention mercifully forgotten spinoffs like 'The Bradys' (1990).

In the 1990s, Davis switched from screen to stage and appeared in such plays as 'Arsenic and Old Lace'. Earlier, in 1976, Davis had moved to Colorado to join an Episcopalian community run by bishop William Frey and his wife; after it dissolved, she continued to live with the Freys. On January 1, 2014, Ann B. Davis slipped and struck her head, and then developed a subdural hemotoma which led to her demise several hours later. The suddenness shocked those who knew and loved her.

Answer: Richard Dawson

Colin Lionel Emm was born in 1932 in Gosport, Hampshire, England. At only 14 years of age, he joined the British Merchant Marines for three years and tried his hand at boxing. When he emigrated to the USA, he adopted the stage name Dickie Dawson, and eventually Richard Dawson (which he made his legal name). Some of his early television appearances include 'The Jack Benny Program', 'Laugh-In', and 'The Dick Van Dyke Show', but he became better known as Cpl. Peter Newkirk in the sitcom 'Hogan's Heroes' (1965-71).

In the 1970s Dawson was a guest host for Johnny Carson on 'The Tonight Show' and a regular panelist on the often randy game show 'Match Game'. He was most frequently picked by contestants for the show's bonus round, so much so that they added a roulette wheel to randomize selection. Offended by the change of rules clearly directed at him, he left 'Match Game'. The show's producer's Mark Goodson and Bill Todman gave Dawson his own game show, 'Family Feud', a mega-hit which he hosted during its entire first run (1976-85), and in the final year (1994-95) of its revival. Dawson was known in the original run of the 'Feud' for kissing female contestants, no matter their age, full on the lips, which somehow he got away with even when husbands and fathers were present. He was so popular that contestant families often brought him gifts (T-shirts being a popular choice). For the game show's second run, however, Dawson abstained from kissing for the sake of his second wife, whom he had met on the 'Feud' in 1981 (and married in 1991).

On June 2, 2012, esophageal cancer took the life of this beloved master of ceremonies. His gravestone reads, "Forever in our hearts ... Loving father, grandfather, and husband".

Answer: Rue McClanahan

Eddi-Rue McClanahan was born in 1934 in Healdton, Oklahoma. After graduating from the University of Tulsa in 1957, she began her acting career in the play 'Inherit the Wind'. In 1969 she starred in appeared in the original Broadway production of 'Jimmy Shine', along with Dustin Hoffman. On television, McClanahan played the best friend Vivan Harmon to Bea Arthur's title character in 'Maude' (1972-78).

The two actresses reunited in 'The Golden Girls' (1985-92), and as the lascivious Blanche Devereaux, McClanahan won an Emmy in 1987.

She continued to act in theater and cinema through the 2000s. Politically active, she was a well-known supporter of animal rights and equal rights for all persons. Although she had survived breast cancer in 1997, on June 3, 2010, Rue McClanahan succumbed to a brain hemorrhage at New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

Answer: Anne Bancroft

In 1931 in the the Bronx, New York, Anna Maria Louisa Italiano was born, a granddaughter of Italian immigrants. She adopted the stage name Bancroft (to sound less "ethnic") and debuted on Broadway in 1958 with Henry Fonda in 'Two for the Seesaw', for which she won her first Tony. In the 1960s she won both an Oscar and a Tony for playing Annie Sullivan, teacher to Helen Keller, on both stage (1960) in screen (1962) in 'The Miracle Worker'. Quite prolific, Bancroft played a number of powerful roles in the 1960s-80s, including the infamous Mrs. Robinson in 'The Graduate' (1967), but she declined the role of Joan Crawford in 'Mommie Dearest' (1982). Bancroft married twice; with her second husband Mel Brooks she appeared with on screen in two movies: 'Silent Movie' (1976) and 'To Be or Not to Be' (1983).

Anne Bancroft passed away on June 23, 2005, from uterine cancer, to the surprise of many of her friends as she had kept her illness a secret.

Answer: Jean Harlow

Harlean Harlow Carpenter was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1911 to parents in an unhappy arranged marriage. Young Harlean herself married in 1926, and soon became of a wealthy socialite. When Fox executives noticed Harlean and convinced her to audition, she took her mother's maiden name, Jean Harlow, as a stage name.

Her first film was 'Honor Bound' (1928) -- and uncredited. She gained several small parts, and finally made a breakthrough talkie role in 'Hell's Angels' (1930), which surpassed Greta Garbo's talkie debut in 'Anna Christie' (1930) in ticket sales.

Business magnate and movie mogul Howard Hughes promoted Harlow. She made many films through the 1930s, including 'Reckless' (1935), 'Suzy' (1936) -- in which she was billed higher than Cary Grant -- and her last complete film, director W.S. Van Dyke's comedy 'Personal Property' (1936).

The term "platinum blonde" (also the name of her 1931 movie with Loretta Young) was invented to describe Harlow's (artificial) hair color, which led to many women to match it--sometimes at great risk to their health with a combination of ammonia, bleach, and soapflakes. Harlow's other nicknames included the "Blonde Bombshell", the "Laughing Vamp", and "Baby" (from her parents).

Baby Harlow had suffered from scarlet fever at age 15 an was subjected to other illnesses such as the flu. During the shooting of 'Saratoga' (1937), Harlow was visibly sick and unsteady on her feet. On June 7, 1937, Jean Harlow died from cerebral edema and uremia due to kidney failure. Director Jack Conway finished 'Saratoga' using body doubles, and Harlow received full billing for MGM's biggest moneymaker of that year.

Answer: The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet

Frank Randolph Cady was born on September 8, 1918 in Susanville, California. While studying Journalism at Stanford University, he wrote for a college production, and then the acting bug bit him. After serving in World War II, he performed for the BBC and in Hollywood, but had his biggest successes in TV, first as Doc Williams in the series 'The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet' (1953-64), then most notably as general store manager Sam Drucker in not one, not two, but three TV series!

Cady once said to a reporter, "What's the secret to playing Sam Drucker? I just play myself. Sam Drucker and I are old friends. I played him on 'Petticoat Junction' [1963-71], 'Green Acres' [1965-71], and 'The Beverly Hillbillies' [1962-71], and we were going strong until 1971, when Fred Silverman [a CBS executive] canceled every show with a tree in it." (This event was called the Rural Purge.)

Frank Cady passed away on June 8, 2012. No cause of death was reported. His ashes were buried with those of his his wife, who had predeceased him in 2008.

Answer: Spencer Tracy

Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was born in 1900 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and raised for a time by sisters of the Order of Preachers (also called Dominicans). He joined the U.S. Navy in 1918, but after World War I ended, he was discharged without ever going to sea. Tracy discovered his talent and love for acting while in college. He performed initially on Broadway, but then in 'Up the River' (1930) both Tracy and Humphrey Bogart made their Hollywood feature debut. Whilst making 'Woman of the Year' (1941), Tracy met Katharine Hepburn. Both Tracy and his wife Louise Treadwell were Catholics, and though he did not divorce Treadwell, he left his wife and cohabitated with Hepburn until his death -- and made many movies with her, besides.

Tracy starred in the original 'Father of the Bride' (1950) and in 'The Old Man and the Sea' (1958), but his most enduring work may have been in the 1960s, with such politically charged films as 'Inherit the Wind' (1960), 'Judgment at Nuremburg' (1961), 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?' (1967). That decade also featured him in a small yet pivotal role in the all-star zany comedy 'It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World' (1964), which he finished in nine days! For his film acting, he was nominated for nine Oscars (the same number as Laurence Olivier), and won two.

Spencer Tracy suffered from hypertensive heart disease due to excessive drinking, abusing pills, and smoking. On June 10, 1967, he died of a heart attack. He was buried near his wife, and Katharine Hepburn did not attend the funeral, though she later hosted a PBS documentary 'The Spencer Tracy Legacy' (1986).

Answer: John Wayne

Marion Robert Morrison was born on May 26, 1907 Winterset, Iowa, but he was raised in California. His middle name became Mitchell after his brother Robert was born. He first appeared on screen as Duke Morrison exactly once, in the musical comedy 'Words and Music'(1929), before he took the name John Wayne, christened him by Fox Studios chief Winfield Sheehan. 'The Big Trail' (1930) was a failure, and he played small roles for a while, until his breakout role in John Ford's 'Stagecoach' (1939). John Wayne was exempted from service in World War II because of his age, but he he did apply for the Office of Strategic Service (the precursor to the CIA).

In the 1940s-70s, Wayne became a superstar in a string of successful movies, mostly Westerns, and won the Best Actor Oscar for 'True Grit' (1969).

Other movies include 'Red River' (1948), 'The High and the Mighty' (1954), 'How the West Was Won' (1962), 'Cast a Giant Shadow (1966), and 'The Shootist' (1976). He married three times (divorced twice); one wife was a Spanish American, and the other two were Latinas.

He was a heavy drinker and smoked six packs of cigarettes daily; he survived lung cancer after his left lung was removed in 1964. But then John Wayne developed stomach cancer in the mid-1970s, to which he succumbed on June 11, 1979.

Answer: DeForest Kelley

Jackson DeForest Kelley was born in 1920 in Atlanta, GA, to a Baptist minister and his wife. Kelley got his start in show business performing gospel songs on WSB-Radio in Atlanta. During this time, the family had moved to nearby Decatur, where Kelley's dad had taken a job with the Works Progress Administration in 1934. Kelley worked in theater an radio before World War II, and after his service he made many guest appearances on television, especially in Westerns and usually as a villain. He was best known, of course, as the blue-shirted cantankerous doctor Leonard "Bones" McCoy on the original 'Star Trek' series (1966-68).

Kelley was known for his kindness and generosity. Robert Justman, a producer of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' (1987-94), reported that DeForest refused to earn more than SAG union scale for his appearance on the pilot of 'TNG', as his way of giving back, as he felt he owed 'Star Trek'.

Late in life Kelley developed an interest in poetry and began writing a series of volumes, which he never finished. On June 11, 1999, DeForest Kelley died of stomach cancer, shortly before receiving a Golden Boot Award for his contribution to the genre of Western television and cinema. He was the first of the regular cast of the original 'Star Trek' to pass away.

Answer: Gregory Peck

Eldred Gregory Peck was born in 1916 in San Diego, California. After his parents' divorce, he was raised by his grandmother for a few years, until she died and his father took custody. Peck's first Hollywood film was "Days of Glory" (1944). During the first five years of his career he was nominated for four Oscars as Best Actor: 'The Keys of the Kingdom' (1944), 'The Yearling' (1946), 'Gentleman's Agreement' (1947), and 'Twelve O'Clock High' (1949). Peck won that Oscar on his fifth nomination, 'To Kill a Mockingbird' (1962). He was exempted from military service during World War II because of a back injury, but in 1969 Lyndon Johnson awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the USA for his humanitarian work. Richard Nixon, in contrast, put Peck on his "enemies list" for his activism against the Vietnam War.

A Catholic, Gregory Peck once considered entering the priesthood, but as he once told a journalist, he disagreed with the Pope on a number of issues, though he practiced "enough to keep the franchise". The actor married twice; he never had his first marriage annulled, so his second was by a justice-of-the-peace as he could not marry in the Church in 1956. His later films included 'The Omen' (1976), 'The Boys from Brazil' (1978), and both versions of 'Cape Fear' (1962 and 1991). He was set to play Grandpa Joe in 'Charlie and The Chocolate Factory' (2005), but it wasn't to be. On June 12, 2003, Gregory peck died is his sleep of pneumonia. His eulogy was delivered by Brock Peters, who played Tom Robinson, defended by Peck's Atticus Finch in 'To Kill a Mockingbird'.

Also departed on June 12: Milburn Stone (1904-1980), the doctor in TV's 'Gunsmoke'.

Answer: Henry Mancini

Enrico Nicola Mancini was born in 1924 in the Little Italy neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, but raised near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The first musical instrument he learned to play was the piccolo at age eight. Although some of his time in military service during World War II was in the 28th Air Force Band, in 1945 he helped liberate the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in Austria.

Henry Mancini composed "Moon River" for 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' (1961), and he also scored 'Days of Wine and Roses' (1962), 'The Pink Panther' (1964) and all its sequels, 'Victor/Victoria' (1982), and 'Hatari!' (1962)--which featured the popular "Baby Elephant Walk", still used in several zoos in the USA during their elephant feedings. Mancini also wrote the theme music to the 'NBC Mystery Movie' (1971-77), 'Newhart' (1982-90), and 'Remington Steele' (1982-87). Mancini's music was ubiquitous during the easy listening heyday of the 1960s-80s; singers like Andy Williams, Perry Como, and Tony Bennett; composers like Herb Albert; and even producer Quincy Jones recorded music by Mancini. One of the history's greatest composers in film and television, Mancini won four Oscars, a Golden Globe, and twenty Grammys, along with a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Shortly before his death, Mancini made a cameo in the sitcom 'Frasier' as a call-in listener. On June 14, 1994, Henry Mancini died of pancreatic cancer. He was survived by his wife of 43 years.

Other notable June 14 deaths: Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) and zoologist Marlin Perkins (1905-1986), host of the pioneering nature series 'Wild Kingdom'.

Answer: Casey Kasem

Kasem began his professional radio career in Flint, Michigan and then in Detroit, before becoming an on-air personality in California. Kasem co-founded the internationally syndicated song countdown radio program American Top 40 in 1970 and hosted it until 1988, then resuming 1998-2004. Kasem started voice acting in the late 1960s. For Hanna-Barbera, he voiced Shaggy on the Saturday morning cartoons 'Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!' (1969-70) and its myriad of sequels, as well as Robin in 'Super Friends' (1973-85), among many other roles. From 1989 to 1998, Kasem hosted a New Year's Eve countdown of the year's top reruns on Nick at Nite. He also did voicework in the Tranformers franchise.

Kasem was an ardent vegan, animal rights' supporter, environmentalist, and advocate for the homeless. He also worked on Lebanese-American issues and arranged conflict-resolution workshops for Arab and Jewish Americans. Kasem quit the Scooby-Doo franchise 1995 after refusing to voice Shaggy in a Burger King commercial, but he resumed the role in 2002 after producers agreed to make Shaggy a vegetarian--the first major cartoon character to be portrayed as such.

In 2013, news broke that Casey Kasem suffered from dementia with Lewy bodies (which would render him mute near the end). As Kasem grew worse, his second wife Jean prevented the children from his first marriage from seeing him. The children and Jean went to court over his care. Eventually, he ended up in Washington State, and the children and his wife had separate visitation. Jean and the children continued to wrangle over his end-of-life care. On June 15, 2014, Casey Kasem passed away from (apparently) bedsore-related sepsis. Daughter Kerri obtained a court order for an autopsy, but before it could be delivered, wife Jean had the body removed to Montreal, Canada and eventually buried in Oslo, Norway. The children then sued Jean for elder abuse and wrongful death; they battled over Kasem's estate for years after his passing.

Answer: George Reeves

Born George Keefer Brewer in 1914, Reeves acted, sang, and boxed during his youth. He debuted on the silver screen with a minor role in the epic "Gone with the Wind" (1939). As a B-list actor, he worked steadily in Westerns and other film genres. He became best remembered for playing the caped superhero in "Adventures of Superman" (1952-58), at a time when TV was still considered inferior to cinema.

Unfortunately, he became typecast and found work difficult afterward in any medium. He became entangled in an affair with a producer's wife, and then later with a high-society lady, but that relationship was troublesome to say the least. On June 16, 1959, Reeves was found dead, naked and with a gunshot wound to the head.

Although there was no note, the death was deemed a suicide at the time, but speculation that it may have been murder continued well into the 21st century.

Answer: Ethel Barrymore

Born in 1879 in Philadelphia, Ethel Barrymore was descendant of two great theatre families, the Barrymores and the Drews. Barrymore began acting at age 14 (although she had wanted to be pianist!), and by 1901 she had achieved stardom. Young girls of the 1900s tried to copy her elegant, expressive, and commanding voice and her walk. In the 1920s, Barrymore made many (forgettable) silent films, and she retired in 1936, only to resume work later. Her last movie was 'Young At Heart' (1954), with Frank Sinatra and Doris Day, and her last TV appearance was on 'Playhouse 90' in 1956. On June 18, 1959, a heart ailment took Ethel Barrymore away, to grace us with her elegance no more.

(Ethel's brother John Barrymore was the grandfather of actress-producer-director Drew Barrymore, and he died from cirrhosis in 1942. Her other brother, Lionel, suffered excruciating pain and used a wheelchair and starred in 'It's a Wonderful Life' (1946) among other film classics; he died in 1954.)

Answer: Ed Wynn

Isaiah Edwin Leopold was born in Philadelphia in 1886 to a Bohemian hatmaker and a Turkish-Romanian homemaker. Taking the stage name Ed Wynn, he began in vaudeville in 1903. During W.C. Fields' act in 'The [Ziegfeld] Follies of 1915', Wynn made faces to steal the show, and the enraged Fields knocked him cold with a pool cue. Surviving that, Wynn became a writer and performer of Broadway revues. In the 1930s he moved to radio and (like other ex-vaudevillians) conducted his program like a stage show, before a live audience, with silly costumes and other visual jokes lost, of course, to the listening public. Offered the title role in 'The Wizard of Oz' (1939), he turned it down, as did Ziegfeld colleague and alleged assaulter W.C. Fields. Wynn could play dramatic roles, too, most notably as Mr. Dussel in 'The Diary of Anne Frank' (1959).

In 1936, Wynn appeared on an experimental NBC television broadcast; then in 1949, he starred in one of the first comedy-variety shows on regular television, for which he won an Emmy and a Peabody. He made many live TV appearances in the 1950s, but he was also a prolific voice actor for cartoons -- so much so that his distinct voice was mimicked by Daws Butler for the Hanna-Barbera character Wally Gator, by Paul Frees for Capt. Peter Peachfuzz on 'Rocky and Bullwinkle', and by Alan Tudyk for King Candy in 'Wreck-it Ralph' (2012).

Indeed, Wynn voiced The Mad Hatter in Disney's 'Alice in Wonderland' (1951), and he appeared in many live-action Disney films, like 'Mary Poppins' (1964) as the laughing Uncle Albert -- not to mention 'Babes in Toyland' (1961), 'The Absent-Minded Professor' (1961), 'Son of Flubber' (1963), and the 'The Gnome-Mobile' (1967), one of the last films produced by Walt Disney himself and released after the deaths of both men.

And so, on June 19, 1966, Ed Wynn succumbed to esophageal cancer. He was survived by his son Keenan Wynn (1916-1986), a prominent character actor in his own right who appeared with his father in 'The Absent-Minded Professor' (1961) as the villain. (Ed Wynn played the fire chief.)

Answer: Carroll O'Connor

John Carroll O'Connor was born in 1924 in Manhattan, New York. His two younger brothers became doctors; he alone went into acting, but not before a serving in the United States Merchant Marine during World War II. Irish-American O'Connor studied drama at the University College Dublin, Ireland's largest university. He began his career as character actor and appeared as a guest star on scores of American TV programs such as 'Gunsmoke', 'Bonanza', 'The Fugitive', 'The Wild Wild West', 'The Outer Limits', 'That Girl', and 'Mission:Impossible' -- to name but a few. He nearly got the roles of the jolly Skipper in 'Gilligan's Island' (1964-67) and the villainous Dr. Smith in 'Lost in Space' (1965-68)!

O'Connor's breakout role of course was as the bullying, opinionated Archie Bunker in the controversial sitcom 'All in the Family' (1971-79), and its lesser spinoff 'Archie Bunker's Place' (1979-83). He became close to everyone in the cast, including Jean Stapleton as Archie's long-suffering wife Edith, but especially to Rob Reiner ("Meathead"). Though he received eight Emmy nominations (and four wins!) and was protective of Archie's character, he feared being typecast as a bigot or loudmouth. In complete contrast, he played the rather tolerant, righteous police chief Gillespie in the TV version of 'In the Heat of the Night' (1988-96), whose political and social attitudes more closely reflected O'Connor's.

In 1995, Carroll O'Connor's adopted son Hugh, who had for a few seasons co-starred in 'Heat' with his father, committed suicide after a lengthy drug addiction. Subsequently, O'Connor appeared in public service announcements regarding drugs and suicide. He was instrumental in getting California's legislature to pass the 1997 Drug Dealer Civil Liability Act, which permitted family members of victims to sue drug dealers for the costs of rehabilitation and other damages. The tragedy consumed O'Connor, who once told interviewer Larry King on CNN that he would never get past the loss of his son.

On June 21, 2001, Carroll O'Connor died of a diabetes-related heart attack at age 76. His only wife Nancy Fields O'Connor, whom he had married 1951, joined her husband in 2014 at age 84.

Answer: Judy Garland

Frances Ethel Gumm was born in 1922 in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. She and her sisters began preforming in vaudeville at an early age, and the studio Metro-Goldywn-Mayer (MGM) gave Frances a contract when she was still a teenager, and alos gave her the name Judy Garland.

A young Garland made the song "You Made Me Love You (I Didn't Want to Do It)" -- sung to idol Clark Gable -- an American standard. Although Garland appeared in many other movies, such as the series of "backyard musicals" with Mickey Rooney, her most famous role was as Dorothy Gale in the classic musical-fantasy 'The Wizard of Oz' (1939), the most popular film adaptation of L. Frank Baum's children's novel 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' (1900). The song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", nearly cut from that movie, became Garland's anthem.

As an adult, Garland, at all of five feet tall, appeared in her first dramatic role in 'The Clock' (1945). During the filming for the musical-adventure 'The Pirate' (1948), Garland suffered her first nervous breakdown, and a few months later made the first of several suicide attempts. She co-starred with dancer Gene Kelly in both 'The Pirate' and 'Summerstock' (1949). Garland married five times, her second husband being Vincente Minnelli, who directed her in 'Meet Me in St. Louis' (1944); their baby daughter Liza Minnelli made a cameo at the film's end. In the 1950s-60s, Garland revitalized her career in concerts around the world. Garland also made a film comeback in 'A Star Is Born' (1954), and she made many television appearances, including on her own variety series. In 1961, she became the first woman to win an Album of the Year Grammy for 'Judy at Carnegie Hall' (recorded live).

Despite successes, Garland had been addicted to drugs since the 1930s, when MGM had fed her amphetamines to keep her weight down (to keep her looking like a little girl). On June 22, 1969, Judy Garland died of what the coroner called "an incautious self-overdosage" of barbiturates; she was only 47. Adrienne Barbeau has portrayed Garland on stage in 'The Judy Monologues' (2010), and Renée Zellweger on screen in 'Judy' (2019), an adaptation of the play 'End of the Rainbow' (2005), about the entertainer's troubling final days.

Answer: Farrah Fawcett

Farrah Leni Fawcett was born in 1947 in Corpus Christi, a coastal city in southern Texas. She began her career in commercials, selling everything from Noxzema to mattresses to cars. She appeared in various TV programs, including 'The Flying Nun' (1969), and a 1976 poster of Fawcett, smiling in an orangey-red maillot, sold a record-shattering 20 million copies. Her breakout role was as private investigator Jill Munroe in the crime drama 'Charlie's Angels' (1976-1981), though she left after the first season (only to reappear in the third and fourth). She also appeared in four episodes with her then-husband Lee Majors in 'The Six Million Dollar Man' (1973-78). She was known as Farrah Fawcett-Majors during their marriage from 1973 to their divorce in 1982.

On stage Fawcett starred in 'Extremities' (1983) off Broadway. She starred in the telemovies 'The Burning Bed' (1984) as a battered wife and 'Small Sacrifices' (1989) as a real-life murderess; for both of these she received Emmys. Her cinematic films included 'Logan's Run' (1976), 'The Cannonball Run' (1980), and a film adaptation of 'Extremities' (1986).

Fawcett was diagnosed with anal cancer in 2006. Months later, the disease appeared at first to be in remission, but when it reappeared she but sought aggressive, experimental treatments in Germany, without success. The cancer metastasized to her liver, and Farrah Fawcett succumbed on June 25, 2008 at 9:28 a.m. PDT in California. That afternoon, singer Michael Jackson also died, which unfortunately eclipsed the news of Fawcett's passing. Her name was even omitted from the "In Memoriam" montage as part of the televised Oscars ceremony in 2009 even though Jackson, not really known for film acting, was included!

Answer: Rosemary Clooney

Born May 23, 1928, in Maysville, Kentucky, Rosemary Clooney was famous for her deep, rich voice, featured in such songs as "Come On-a My House" and "Mambo Italiano". Clooney appeared in a few musical films such as 'The Stars Are Singing' (1953) and 'White Christmas" (1954), and in the retro mystery 'Radioland Murders' (1994). Most of Clooney's innumerable TV appearances were as herself, performing on variety shows. In 1994, however, Rosemary Clooney played Madame X, a patient with dementia, in "Going Home" and "The Gift", two first-season episodes of 'ER' (1994-2009), the medical TV drama that starred her heartthrob nephew, George Clooney.

Rosemary Clooney was a close friend of and campaigned for Robert Kennedy in 1968; she was present in Los Angeles and indeed heard the shots when he was assassinated. After her sister died of an aneurysm, Clooney founded a charity in her honor. Suffering from lung cancer after a lifetime of smoking, Rosemary Clooney nonetheless continued performing until six months before her death on June 29, 2002. Her portrait by Alison Lyne hangs on the wall of the rotunda of the Kentucky State Capitol.

Answer: George "Spanky" McFarland

Actor George "Spanky" McFarland shares his name with Lt. Col. George F. McFarland (1834-1891), who led the 151st Pennsylvania Infantry at the Battle of Gettysburg.

George "Spanky" McFarland was born in 1928 in Dallas, Texas. The term "a spanky child" was late-19th-to-early-20th-century slang for a gifted toddler, so the name "Spanky" had a meaning to contemporary viewers lost to subsequent generations (until now).

As a toddler, McFarland modeled children's clothing and appeared in billboards and in print ads for Wonder Bread (all in Dallas). At age three, his Spanky became the central figure of the 'Our Gang' children's series of comedy shorts and one of Hollywood's stars -- though Alfalfa (Carl Switzer) stole the show as often as he could, and Switzer's and McFarland's fathers fought on the set for their sons' prominence. McFarland and Jackie Cooper, however, are the only performers from the 'Our Gang' series (or 'Little Rascals' in TV syndication) to have received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

After playing Spanky, McFarland could find little acting work in Hollywood, and he did odd jobs until ending up a salesman. He founded The Nostalgia Channel in 1985 (later the American Life Network and eventually YouToo America) as a showcase for old films. His last onscreen appearance was as himself on the sitcom 'Cheers' in the episode "Woody Gets An Election" (1993). On June 30, 1993, George McFarland passed away. He was interred at Texas State Cemetery, which is reserved for figures significant to Texas history.

Other notables who died on June 30: actor Gale Gordon, known for Mr. Mooney and other characters, (1906-1995); actor-comedian Buddy Hackett (1924-2003); singer Tony Fontane (1925-1974); country musician Chet Atkins (1924-2001); and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir (1915-2012).