Mark Damon (born Alan Harris; April 22, 1933 – May 12, 2024) was an American film producer and actor. He won the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actor for his performance in Roger Corman's House of Usher, before moving to Italy and becoming a notable Spaghetti Western star and member of the 1960s 'Dolce Vita' set of actors and actresses in Rome.
Born in Chicago, Damon moved to Los Angeles at a young age where he attended Fairfax High School. As a senior in high school, he was scouted as an actor by Groucho Marx, but chose to attend dental school at UCLA. He soon switched to the Anderson School of Management, eventually graduating with an MBA and a BA in English. Damon also began taking theater classes, and decided that he wanted a career as an actor.
In 1956, Damon started his career in Hollywood, signing a contract with 20th Century Fox. In 1960, Damon won a Golden Globe Award as a "Star of Tomorrow" for his performance in the film House of Usher. He would relocate to Rome, Italy afterwards, to star in spaghetti westerns.
Damon eventually gave up acting in the mid-1970s to become a film producer. He first entered the world of independent sales and production in the 1970s while living and working in Italy where he saw a huge market of independent international distributors eager for top American movies.
During the early 1970s, he became a film producer, and would become one of Hollywood's most prolific producers. He founded the production companies Producers Sales Organization, Vision International, MDP Worldwide, and Foresight Unlimited.
Mark Damon lived with his wife, actress Margaret Markov (née Margaret Mary Markov) in Beverly Hills, California. They had two children. He died in Los Angeles on May 12, 2024, at the age of 91. He is interred at Mount Sinai in the Hollywood Hills.
Roger William Corman (April 5, 1926 – May 9, 2024) was an American film director, producer, and actor. Known under various monikers such as "The Pope of Pop Cinema," "The Spiritual Godfather of the New Hollywood," and "The King of Cult," he was known as a trailblazer in the world of independent film
Among the countless features directed by Corman, a great deal were low-budget films that later attracted a cult following, such as The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), The Intruder (1962), and X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes (1963); House of Usher (1960) became the first of eight films directed by Corman that were adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe.
In 1964, Corman became the youngest filmmaker to have a retrospective at the Cinémathèque française, as well as in the British Film Institute and the Museum of Modern Art. He was the co-founder of New World Pictures, the founder of New Concorde and was a longtime member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2009, he was awarded an Academy Honorary Award "for his rich engendering of films and filmmakers."
Corman was also famous for handling the U.S. distribution of many films by noted foreign directors, including Federico Fellini (Italy), Ingmar Bergman (Sweden), François Truffaut (France) and Akira Kurosawa (Japan). He mentored and gave a start to many young film directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, Peter Bogdanovich, Joe Dante, John Sayles, and James Cameron, and was highly influential in the New Hollywood filmmaking movement of the 1960s and 1970s. He also helped to launch the careers of actors like Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, Bruce Dern, Diane Ladd, and William Shatner.
Corman occasionally acted in films by directors who started with him, including The Godfather Part II (1974), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Philadelphia (1993), Apollo 13 (1995), and The Manchurian Candidate (2004). A documentary about Corman's life and career titled Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel, directed by Alex Stapleton, premiered at the Sundance and Cannes Film Festivals in 2011. The film's TV rights were picked up by A&E IndieFilms after a well-received screening at Sundance.
Roger Corman was married to Julie Halloran from 1970 until his death. They had four children. Corman died at his home in Santa Monica, California, on May 9, 2024, at age 98.
Donald Patrick Murray (July 31, 1929 – February 2, 2024) was an American actor best known for his breakout performance in the film Bus Stop (1956, with Marilyn Monroe), which earned him a nomination for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His other films include A Hatful of Rain (1957), Shake Hands with the Devil (1959, with James Cagney), One Foot in Hell (1960, with Alan Ladd), The Hoodlum Priest (1961), Advise & Consent (1962, with Henry Fonda and Charles Laughton), Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965, with Steve McQueen and Lee Remick), Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972), Deadly Hero (1975), and Peggy Sue Got Married (1986, with Kathleen Turner). Murray starred in television series such as The Outcasts (1968–1969), Knots Landing (1979–1981), and Twin Peaks (2017).
Don Murray lived in Goleta, California. He died at his home on February 2, 2024, at the age of 94.
David Soul (born David Richard Solberg; August 28, 1943 – January 4, 2024) was an American and British actor and singer. With a career spanning five decades, he rose to prominence for portraying Detective Kenneth "Hutch" Hutchinson in the American television series Starsky & Hutch from 1975 to 1979. His other notable roles included Joshua Bolt on Here Come the Brides from 1968 to 1970 and as the lead actor in the 1979 American TV movie Salem's Lot. Soul also had moderate success as a film actor when he portrayed Officer John Davis in Magnum Force in 1973.
During his career he also found success as a singer, achieving a number one single on the US Billboard Hot 100 with "Don't Give Up on Us," which also peaked at number one in the UK and Canada. Soul achieved a further four top 10 entries and an additional number one single on the UK Singles Chart with "Silver Lady." In the 1990s he moved to the United Kingdom and found renewed success on the West End stage. He also made cameo appearances in British TV shows, including Little Britain, Holby City, and Lewis.
Soul was a three-pack-a-day cigarette smoker for fifty years. Although he had stopped smoking ten years prior to his death, he was seriously affected by COPD and had also had a lung removed due to cancer. Soul died in a London hospital, surrounded by his family, on January 4, 2024, at the age of 80.
Glynis Margaret Payne Johns
(October 5, 1923 – January 4, 2024) was a British actress. In a career
spanning seven decades on stage and screen, Johns appeared in more than 60
films and 30 plays. She received various accolades throughout her career,
including a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award as well as nominations for an
Academy Award (The Sundowners), a Golden Globe Award (The Chapman Report), and
a Laurence Olivier Award. She was one of the last surviving major stars from
the Golden Age of Hollywood and classical years of British cinema.
Johns was born in Pretoria, South Africa, the daughter of Welsh actor Mervyn
Johns. She appeared on stage from a young age and was typecast as a stage
dancer from early adolescence, making her screen debut in
South Riding (1938). She rose to prominence
in the 1940s following her role as Anna in the war drama film 49th Parallel
(1941), for which she won a National Board of Review Award for Best Acting,
and starring roles in Miranda (1948) and Third Time Lucky (1949). Following No
Highway in the Sky (1951), a joint British-American production, Johns took on
increasingly more roles in the United States and elsewhere. She made her
television and Broadway debuts in 1952 and took on starring roles in such
films as The Sword and the Rose (1953), The Weak and the Wicked (1954), Mad
About Men (1954), The Court Jester (1955), The Sundowners (1960), The Cabinet
of Caligari (1962), The Chapman Report (1962), and Under Milk Wood (1972). On
television, she starred in her own sitcom Glynis (1963).
Renowned for the breathy quality of her husky voice, Johns sang songs
written specifically for her both on screen and stage, most notably
"Sister Suffragette," written by the Sherman Brothers for
Disney's Mary Poppins (1964), in which
she played Winifred Banks and for which she received a Laurel Award, and
"Send In the Clowns," composed by Stephen Sondheim for Broadway's A Little
Night Music (1973), in which she originated the role of Desiree Armfeldt
and for which she received a Tony Award and Drama Desk Award.
Johns was predeceased by all four of her husbands. The first to die was
her third husband, Cecil Henderson, in 1978, followed by her fourth
husband, Elliott Arnold, in 1980, her first husband, Anthony Forwood, in
1988, and her second husband, David Foster, in 2010. Her son, Gareth
Forwood, died in 2007 from a heart attack during cancer treatment.
With the death of Olivia de Havilland in 2020, Johns became the oldest
living Academy Award nominee in any acting category. In 2021, with the
death of Betty White, she became the oldest living Disney Legend.
Johns retired to the US, where she later resided at the Belmont Village
Hollywood Heights, a senior living community, located near the Hollywood
Bowl in Los Angeles, California.
Johns died in Los Angeles at an assisted living home, on January 4, 2024,
at age 100 from natural causes.
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