They Passed Away on a March Day Quiz

Answer: Jackie Coogan

Born in 1914 as John Leslie Coogan, little Jackie became the family's breadwinner after "The Kid", a poignant silent film about crushing poverty in which his father, John Henry "Jack" Coogan, Jr., appeared uncredited as a hobo. After his father's death, Jackie Coogan sued his mother and stepfather for his pay. The court sided with the parents (minors had no legal claim under California law) and Jackie received a paltry percentage of his earnings. In response, California passed the Child Actors Act, a/k/a Coogan Act, which relegates a percentage of a child actor's earnings to a trust fund.

Coogan was a glider pilot in WWII, but when peace came he returned to acting. He starred as Uncle Fester in the comedy series "The Addams Family" (1964-66), and he guest-starred in many programs. He married four times and had four children. He died of a heart attack on March 1, 1984.

Answer: Sandy Dennis

Born in 1937 in Nebraska, Sandra Dale "Sandy" Dennis appeared on TV in "The Guiding Light" in 1956, and in episodes of various hit TV programs in the 1960s. Dennis' many cinematic roles included a frustrated teacher in "Up the Down Staircase" (1967), the beleaguered wife of Jack Lemmon in "The Out-of-Towners", (1970), a tormented guest in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966), and a tragically jealous roommate in "The Fox" (1967). Against type, she played a psychotic spinster who imprisoned a boy in her house in "That Cold Day in the Park" (1969), directed by Robert Altman. For some reason, her roles became few and far between in the 1980s.

She never married, despite a long-term relationship with jazz musician Gerry Mulligan. Sandy Dennis died of ovarian cancer on March 2, 1992.

Answer: Lou Costello

He was born Louis Francis Cristillo in 1906 in Paterson, New Jersey to an Italian father and a mixed-European mother (Italian, Irish, and French). Before he went into comedy, Costello was a heavyweight boxer with the stage name Lou King. He also played basketball in school and showed remarkable ability.

In "Here Comes the Co-Eds" (1945), he did his own stunts with the basketball and performed all the trick shots in real time -- no camera tricks! At first he could only find work in show business as a laborer and stunt man, but when he and Bud Abbott discovered each other, their careers took off.

They played on radio for twenty years, starred in 36 films, and had their own TV show, which lasted only two seasons but was a mainstay of U.S. syndication for decades.

The two men could not personally get along, however, and the partnership dissolved in 1957. Costello died of a heart attack two years later on March 3, 1959, just three days shy of his 53rd birthday. His last words were, in fact, "I think I'll be more comfortable".

Answer: John Candy

Born in Newmarket, Ontario in 1950, John Candy started on TV in the CBC children's program "Coming Up Rosie" in the 1970s. He was a member of The Second City players, and for "Second City Television" he won two Emmys. He appeared in "Splash!" (1984) and was the thorn in Steve Martin's side in "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" (1987).

In 1991, Candy became co-owner of the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League, and that year they won the 79th Grey Cup. Against his better judgment, Candy went to Mexico to film "Wagons East", for he had a premonition that something terrible would happen if he went south of the border. And, in fact, he died of a heart attack on March 4, 1994.

In May 2006, Canada Post honored him with a postage stamp.

Answer: John Belushi

Chicago-born John Belushi lived a brief but full life. Like John Candy, Belushi was a member of The Second City comedy troupe based in Chicago, his hometown. He was a popular regular on "Saturday Night Live" in the 1970s. His two most famous films were the college-fraternity romp "Animal House" (1978) and "The Blues Brothers" (1980) with Dan Aykroyd.

The latter not only revitalized blues music, but also it set a record for the most cars crashed in a single movie! Unfortunately, he used drugs to cope with fame and the pressures of success. On March 5, 1982, Belushi was discovered dead in Hollywood's Chateau Marmont Hotel from a combination of cocaine and heroin known as a speedball.

He was 33.

Answer: Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick was born in the Bronx, New York in 1928. An avid chess-player and a shutterbug, he loved to watch screenings at the Museum of Modern Art, which influenced his visual style. After his blockbuster "Spartacus" (1959), he lived and worked mostly in the UK. Kubrick was famous for innovative cinematography as well as direction. For "Barry Lyndon" (1975), Kubrick obtained lenses from NASA so as to film scenes in candlelight. Among other visual tricks that remained effective well into the 21st century, "2001: A Space Odyssey" used rear-screen projection to simulate high-definition flat-panel monitors -- in 1968.

He allowed Peter Sellers to improvise most of his lines in "Dr. Strangelove" (1964). Most of his films won Oscars, Golden Globes, and BAFTAs. Just four days after viewing a final cut of "Eyes Wide Shut" (1999), Stanley Kubrick died in his sleep in Hertfordshire, England on March 7, 1999.

Answer: Harold Lloyd

Harold Lloyd played the gentle ambitious nerd in glasses and a bow tie, but who usually got the girl in the end. He may not be as well known in the 21st century as Charlie Chaplin, but he released more films in the 1920s (12 vs. 3). The scene from "Safety Last!" became an icon (a meme, even) and was mass produced in an Al Hirschfeld lithograph.

In 1919, while posing for a photographer, Lloyd lit what he thought was a fake bomb with a cigarette. It blew off his thumb and index finger, and he had to wear a prosthetic glove in his films. Having overcome his burns, he became an active freemason and shriner charity worker for hospitals, especially the Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children.

He died March 8, 1971.

Answer: George Burns

Born Nathan Birnbaum in 1896 in New York's Lower East Side, George Burns grew up surrounded by vaudeville theater. He took on his stage name at age seven after his father died, and by age 15 had become a dance instructor. In 1922 he met his future wife Gracie Allen, and together they were a comic sensation in vaudeville, on the radio, and eventually on television. "The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show" lasted eight years.

His career went dormant after Gracie died in 1964, but he made a comeback in the "The Sunshine Boys" (1975), for which he won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor--becoming the first octogenarian to win an Academy Award.

He became best known to a younger audience as the star of the comedy "Oh, God!" (1977) with John Denver.

Although he reputedly smoked ten cigars a day, he lived to be 100 and died on March 9, 1996.

Answer: Haim

Toronto-born Corey Haim became a teen idol in movies like "Murphy's Romance" (1985), and he became inextricably linked with Corey Feldman after the two starred in "The Lost Boys" (1987), which earned Haim a Young Artist Award nomination for Best Young Male Superstar in a Motion Picture. The two Coreys had already become friends while auditioning for "The Goonies" (1985), which starred Feldman. Haim appeared on teen mags like "Tiger Beat" multiple times, and the two Coreys starred in a number of films. Unfortunately, alcoholism and drug addiction got the better of Haim, and by the 1990s his star had already dimmed. Haim and Feldman starred together in the A&E reality show "The Two Coreys", but the friendship between the two young men disintegrated as did the series. He died on March 10, 2010, from what was apparently an accidental prescription drug overdose, but later was determined to be pneumonia.

In a 2011 "Daily Mail" interview, Corey Feldman alleged that Haim's self-destruction was a consequence of child molestation. Feldman claimed he too had been sexually abused by the same Hollywood mogul, but would not name the culprit.

Answer: Little House on the Prairie

Merlin Olsen came from a family of football players; his brothers Phil and Orrin also played with the National Football League. Playing for the L.A. Rams between 1962 and 1976, Olsen made the NFL All-Decade Team for the 1960s and the 1970s. Olsen was a sportscaster before he took up acting.

When Victor French left "Little House" in 1977 to star in his own sitcom, "Carter Country", Olsen's character became the new sidekick to Charles Ingalls (Michael Landon). After Olsen was diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma in 2009, the dying actor sued NBC and several other companies for having exposed him to asbestos, a known carcinogen banned in most countries, but not entirely in the USA.

Many of the defendants, such as NBC, were dropped from the lawsuit before a final settlement was reached. Chemotherapy was to no avail, and 69-year-old Merlin Olsen succumbed on March 11, 2010 in Duarte, California.

As a side note, it is entirely possible that the mesothelioma may have been caused by exposure to asbestos when Olsen worked in construction as a young man rather than on the series.

Answer: Maureen Stapleton

Lois Maureen Stapleton moved from her hometown of Troy, New York to the Big Apple and worked as a model. In 1946 she debuted on Broadway in "The Playboy of the Western World". In 1951 she won a Tony for "The Rose Tattoo", a play by Tennessee Williams.

Her first movie was "Lonelyhearts" (1958), and she co-starred in "Bye Bye Birdie" (1963) with Dick Van Dyke, Janet Leigh, and Paul Lynde. She won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in "Reds" (1981), and received several other nominations during her film career.

The TV movie "Among the Paths of Eden" (1968) earned her an Emmy--so she won awards on stage, cinema, and TV! She married twice and had two children. Unfortunately, a lifetime of heavy smoking led to her death from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) on March 13, 2006, at age 80.

Answer: Peter Graves

Born Peter Aurness in 1926 in Minnesota, he had already become an accomplished musician and athlete when he turned to radio announcing in the 1940s. He joined his brother James Arness in an acting career, and Graves debuted on screen in "Rogue River" (1951). (His brother ended up playing Marshall Matt Dillon for twenty years on "Gunsmoke"). Graves might be best known as the leader of the Impossible Missions Force on "Mission: Impossible" for all but the first season.

A younger generation got to know him as Captain Oveur in "Airplane!" (1980).

He was also the narrator for the A&E series "Biography" for several years. A devout Christian, Peter Graves married Joan Endress in 1950 and remained with her until his death from a heart attack on March 14, 2010.

Answer: Are You Being Served?

Born Frank Thornton Ball in 1921, the London-born son of a church organist served in the Royal Air Force during World War II. After the war he took up acting and appeared with comedians Benny Hill and Spike Milligan in their TV shows. His best-known role was that of Captain Stephen Peacock, the floorwalker (a sort of manager) at Grace Brothers Department Store in the internationally popular "Are You Being Served?" (1972-85), known for its retro-burlesque elements: double entendres, sexual stereotypes, and generally racy humor, with a little slapstick thrown in for good measure; for lampooning the British class system; and for occasionally breaking the fourth wall.

He was one of the last remaining actors from the show alive, though hardly the youngest, when a documentary was produced in 2010.

At 92, Frank Thornton peacefully died of old age in his sleep on March 16, 2013 in Barnes, London.

Answer: Helen Hayes

Born Helen Hayes Brown in Washington, D.C., she was a well-established actress of the stage before she signed up with MGM in 1931. Her introduction to a new generation of film-goers came with her notable part in "Airport" (1970), for which she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Hayes was one of a dozen actresses to win the Triple Crown of Acting -- a Best Actress Oscar for the "The Sin of Madelon Claudet" (1931), an Emmy for "Schlitz Playhouse of the Stars" (1953), and a Tony apiece for "Happy Birthday" (1947) and "Time Remembered" (1958) -- putting her in the elite company of Liza Minelli, Ingrid Bergman, Rita Moreno, and Maggie Smith, to name a few.

Helen Hayes died of congestive heart failure in Nyack, New York on March 17, 1993.

Answer: Edward Platt

Edward Platt, born in 1916, played in a number of supporting roles in the movies, including "Rebel Without a Cause" (1955) before landing his most lucrative gig as the unnamed Chief in the espionage spoof "Get Smart". He suffered from depression in part fueled by financial troubles but mostly kept it secret.

He was found dead on March 19, 1974 in Santa Monica, California. His family initially reported it as a heart attack, but in fact he had committed suicide, after two unsuccessful attempts. Family and close friends had been aware of the truth all along, including fellow actor Don Adams who starred with Platt in "Get Smart".

Answer: Robert Preston

Robert Preston was born the son of a garment worker in 1918 in Newton, Massachusetts. He served in the U.S. Army Air Force as an intelligence officer in World War II. Although not a singer, he nonetheless appeared in many stage and film musicals, including both the stage and screen versions of "Mame" and "The Music Man".

He won seven Oscars and four Tonys. At age 68, Robert Preston died of lung cancer on March 21, 1987. He was survived by his widow, Catherine Craig, herself a one-time Hollywood "B" actress, whom he had married in 1946.

Answer: William Hanna

Born in tiny Melrose, New Mexico in 1910, William Hanna teamed with Joseph Barbera to create the "Tom and Jerry" movie series and a string of successful animated TV shows: "Huckleberry Hound", "Yogi Bear", "Johnny Quest", "Scooby-Doo", "The Smurfs", and the prime-time series "The Flintstones", just to name a few. They were the kings of Saturday morning cartoons in the 1960s-1980s, but as weekday afternoon syndication became more popular in the late 1980s they saw their position erode. It was revived somewhat with the creation of the Cartoon Network, which primarily showed Hanna-Barbera fare. After a long battle with throat cancer, William Hanna died on on March 22, 2001 in North Hollywood, California and was laid to rest in Ascension Cemetery.

Animator Walter Lantz also died on March 22, in 1994. He created "Woody Woopecker", which his wife Gracie Lantz voiced.

Answer: Elizabeth Taylor

Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor was born in Hampstead Garden Suburb, London. Taylor married eight times (including two marriages to Richard Burton). Her many films include: "National Velvet" (1944) and "Little Women" (1949) in her childhood, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Suddenly Last Summer" (1959) in her peak, and "The Mirror Crack'd" (1980) and "The Simpsons" as the voice of little Maggie in her later years.

In the 1950s she was active in Jewish and Israeli causes, which led Egypt to prohibit her from entering the country to complete filming of "Cleopatra" (1963).

In the 1970s and early 1980s she promoted her husband's Republican political career and she even sat next to future First Lady Nancy Reagan at the 1980 Republican convention.

By the late 1980s, however, she had become an AIDS activist after the death of her close friend Rock Hudson. She received the Presidential Citizens Medal, the Legion of Honor, and the Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute.

She passed away in California on April 23, 2011.

Answer: Robert Culp

Robert Martin Culp was born in 1930 in Oakland, California, and was a pole-vaulter in high school. He never finished university, but he became a successful actor beginning with the TV western "Trackdown" (1957-59). He guest-starred on many programs before landing his breakout role of Kelly Robinson in "I Spy".

He almost beat out Martin Landau for the lead role in "Space: 1999" (1975-77). In "Columbo" he played the murderer in three successive years (1971-73), and in a 1990 episode was the father of the murderer.

He married five times and had five children; wife number three, France Nguyen, appeared in a few episodes of "I Spy". On the morning of March 24, 2010, Robert Culp took his daily constitutional in Runhon Canyon in Hollywood Hills. A jogger discovered Culp lying near the canyon, but paramedics could not resuscitate him.

He had died of a heart attack at age 79.

Answer: Nancy Walker

Standing at all of 4 feet 11 inches (1.5 m), Nancy Walker, born Anna Myrtle Swoyer in 1922 in Philadelphia, worked in the entertainment industry for five decades on stage, screen, and TV. She is best known as Ida Morgenstern in "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and its spinoff "Rhoda".

She was also Rock Hudson's housekeeper in the mystery series "McMillan & Wife" (1971-76). From 1970 to 1990 she appeared in TV commercials as Rosie the waitress, touting Bounty paper towels, a job which she credits as landing her the Ida Morgenstern role. Walker also directed "Can't Stop the Music" (1980), a box-office flop but a cult favorite featuring the campy disco band The Village People. Nancy Walker died of lung cancer in Studio City, California on March 25, 1992.

Answer: Sarah Bernhardt

Henriette-Rosine Bernard was born in Paris in 1844, the illegitimate daughter of a Dutch courtesan and an unidentified but wealthy father. Sarah Bernhardt was raised in a convent and planned to be a nun, but the Duke of Morny, one of her mother's lovers and half-brother to Napoleon III, arranged to have the girl placed in the Paris Conservatoire. With the Duke's help again, Bernhardt joined France's national theatre company, the Comedie-Francaise. Traveling throughout Europe, the Americas, and Australia, she became a superstar of the stage from the 1860s and beyond the turn the century.

In her late fifties, she was also one of the first actresses ever to appear on film, in Hamlet (1900), as the title prince himself. On tour in 1905 in South America, Bernhardt injured her right knee, which never healed properly.

A decade later, gangrene necessitated amputation. Undaunted, she visited the troops during World War I and continued acting and touring despite her disability. She starred in "Camille" (1911) and "Queen Elizabeth" (1912) and earned a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame. During the filming of "La Voyante" ("The Fortune Teller"), Sarah Bernhardt died in Paris of kidney failure on March 26, 1923.

Answer: Milton Berle

Born Milton Berlinger in 1908, Milton Berle began his long career at age twelve in vaudeville. He became a radio star then Mr. Television, beginning with Texaco Star Theater in 1948. Many theaters, restaurants, and other businesses closed on Tuesday evenings because of Berle's TV show.

In 1951, NBC signed a thirty-year contract with Berle, but the network canceled his show in 1956 as viewing tastes changed sharply. Berle continued to work in show business, appearing in TV dramas and entertaining troops overseas -- he did more of this than even Bob Hope! In 1979, he appeared on "Saturday Night Live", but tried to take over production, upstaged many of the actors, inserted old comedy bits, and performed "September Song" with a staged standing ovation. Producer Lorne Michaels banned him thereafter. Berle suffered from colon cancer but would not get surgery, and died March 27, 2002.

Answer: Hugh

Hugh O'Connor played Lt. Lonnie Jamison, and his father Carroll played Police Chief Gillespie in "In the Heat of the Night" (1988-1995). Hugh was born in Rome, Italy and adopted by Carroll and Nancy O'Connor while the actor was filming "Cleopatra" (1963). Carroll named the boy after his brother, who had died in a motorcycle accident.

A teen-aged Hugh survived Hodgkins Lymphoma, but he became addicted to prescription drugs and marijuana (taken for nausea), and later recreational drugs. Unable to face another of a series of stints at rehabilitation centers, Hugh called his father and announced his intention to end his life. Carroll called the police, but they arrived just as Hugh shot himself.

He died on March 28, 1995, and was buried in his native Rome.

Answer: Jimmy Cagney

James Francis Cagney was born in 1899 in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Cagney became best known for playing gangsters and other tough guys in the movies. He was also a talented dancer and famously portrayed entertainer-composer-producer George M. Cohan in "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (1942), during which he sang the title song and "Give My Regards to Broadway". Cagney suffered from ill health in his later years, from diabetes and strokes.

He retired to a farm in Stanfordville, in upstate NY, where neighbors would watch him daily drive a horse-drawn carriage up and down the road. James Cagney died there of a heart attack on March 30, 1986 -- Easter Sunday. President Ronald Reagan, a close friend, gave the eulogy at Cagney's funeral.

Answer: Brandon Lee

Brandon Bruce Lee (also known as Li Guohao) was born in Oakland, California to Bruce Lee and Linda Emery, but he spent some of his childhood in Hong Kong. He was expelled from high school shortly before graduation, but he earned his diploma equivalent (GED) and went to college.

He appeared in a few films including "Showdown in Little Tokyo" (1991), and was pleased to land the lead role in "The Crow", based on the self-same comic book. Unfortunately, eight days before filming ended, a terrible accident occurred. Unknown to the propmaster, a bullet had lodged in a gun barrel, and when a blank cartridge was fired, it dislodged the bullet, which struck Lee.

After six hours of surgery at the hospital in Wilmington, North Carolina in hopes of saving him, the doctors pronounced Brandon Lee dead on March 31, 1993.

He was buried next to his father at Lakeview Cemetery in Seattle. He was 28.