Pierre Lind de Lappe, known as Peter Brown (October 5, 1935 – March 21, 2016), was an American actor best known for his four-year role as young Deputy Johnny McKay opposite John Russell as Marshal Dan Troop in the 1958 to 1962 ABC/Warner Brothers western television series, Lawman.
Brown died on March 21, 2016 in Phoenix, Arizona, from complications of Parkinson's disease, aged 80.
Theresa Saldana (August 20, 1954 – June 6, 2016) was an American actress and author. She is known for her role as Rachel Scali, the wife of Police Commissioner Tony Scali, in the 1990s television series The Commish, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role, in 1994. Major film roles include the part of 'Lenore La Motta,' the wife of Joe Pesci's character, in the 1980 feature film Raging Bull and Robert Zemeckis's Beatlemania ensemble I Wanna Hold Your Hand. She was also known for raising public awareness of the crime of stalking, after surviving a murder attempt by an obsessed fan in 1982. Saldana was born in Brooklyn, New York, and was adopted at five days old by Divina and Tony Saldana, a family of Puerto Rican and Italian-American heritage.
Saldana took dance lessons as a child. However, after suffering a serious shoulder injury while part of a tumbling team she enrolled in acting classes at age 12. After being spotted by a talent scout while performing in an Off Broadway musical called The New York City Street Show in 1977 she was cast in the 1978 film Nunzio. On March 15, 1982, Saldana was the stalking victim of Arthur Richard Jackson, a 46-year-old drifter from Aberdeen. Jackson became attracted to Saldana after seeing her in the 1980 films Defiance and Raging Bull. He obtained Saldana's address by hiring a private investigator to obtain the unlisted phone number of Saldana's mother. Jackson then called Saldana's mother and posed as Martin Scorsese's assistant, saying he needed Saldana's residential address in order to contact her for replacing an actress in a film role in Europe.
Jackson approached Saldana in front of her West Hollywood residence in broad daylight and stabbed her in the torso 10 times with a 5½-inch knife, nearly killing her. His attack was so fierce that the blade bent. Although there were many nearby onlookers, the attack was only interrupted when delivery man Jeff Fenn intervened after hearing her cries, rushed from the second floor of an apartment building, and subdued Jackson. Saldana recovered after four hours of surgery and a four-month hospital stay at the Motion Picture Hospital. She relived the incident in the made-for-TV movie Victims for Victims: The Theresa Saldana Story and again in an episode of Hunter.
Jackson served almost 14 years in prison for the assault and making subsequent threats against Saldana and her rescuer while in prison. He was then extradited to the United Kingdom in 1996 to be tried for a 1966 robbery and murder. Jackson (who once saw himself as "the benevolent angel of death") was found not guilty by diminished responsibility in 1997 and committed to a British psychiatric hospital, where he died of heart failure in 2004 at age 68.
Jackson's method to find and approach Saldana inspired stalker Robert John Bardo to hire a private investigator to contact Rebecca Schaeffer, a young actress whom he subsequently murdered, also in West Hollywood, in 1989.
Following her long recovery, Saldana founded the Victims for Victims organization and participated in lobbying for the 1990 anti-stalking law and the 1994 Driver's Privacy Protection Act, both of which came into being partly as a consequence of the attack. The experience also inspired Saldana to play herself in the television movie Victims for Victims: The Theresa Saldana Story, and she authored the book Beyond Survival, a memoir of her experiences after being attacked. Saldana supported awareness for The Jazz Tap Ensemble, of which her daughter is a member. The group raises money for training gifted teenage dancers. Saldana died at age 61 on June 6, 2016, following her hospitalization for pneumonia [9] at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Michael Chiklis, who played Saldana's husband on The Commish, wrote that it was "painful to hear the news."
Katie Beth May (March 16, 1981 – February 4, 2016) was an American model and businesswoman. Dubbed “The Queen of Snapchat," May was known as a social media star and brand ambassador prior to her death at age 34 of a stroke. May was a single mother. She cited her daughter as her source of motivation: “I had the most important person in my world, my daughter, to make proud each day and to remind me what I was working towards. Failure was not an option, not putting her in the best school was not an option, not living the lifestyle that I had dreamed of for us was not an option." May tweeted on January 29, 2016, that she had “pinched a nerve in [her] neck on a photoshoot” and “got adjusted” at a chiropractor. She tweeted on January 31, 2016 that she was “going back to the chiropractor tomorrow.” On the evening of February 1, 2016, May “had begun feeling numbness in a hand and dizzy” and “called her parents to tell them she thought she was going to pass out.” At her family's urging, May went to Cedars Sinai Hospital. S he was found to be suffering a “massive stroke.” According to her father, May “was not conscious when we got to finally see her the next day. We never got to talk to her again.” Life support was withdrawn on February 4, 2016. A coroner's report confirmed that her stroke was the result of the chiropractor's neck adjustment, which tore her left vertebral artery.
Curtis Lee Hanson (March 24, 1945 – September 20, 2016) was an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. His directing work included the psychological thriller The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992), the neo-noir crime film L.A. Confidential (1997), the comedy Wonder Boys (2000), the hip hop drama 8 Mile (2002), and the romantic comedy-drama In Her Shoes (2005). Hanson won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1998, for co-writing L.A. Confidential with Brian Helgeland. Hanson was born in Reno, Nevada, and grew up in Los Angeles. He was the son of Beverly June (Curtis), a real estate agent, and Wilbur Hale "Bill" Hanson, a teacher. Hanson dropped out of high school, finding work as a freelance photographer and editor for Cinema magazine. Hanson began screenwriting in 1970, when he co-wrote The Dunwich Horror, a film adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's short story. Hanson wrote and directed his next feature Sweet Kill in 1973, then in 1978 wrote and produced The Silent Partner, starring Elliott Gould and Christopher Plummer. From the early 1980s into 1990s, Hanson directed a string of comedies and dramas. He did thrillers, too: many of them deal with people who lose their sense of control or security when facing danger or under threat of death. Some, like the financial executive in Bad Influence and the police officers in L.A. Confidential, unexpectedly walk into violence and disaster. In the 1990s, Hanson found box-office success with The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and The River Wild, and received significant critical acclaim with his 1997 film L.A. Confidential, an adaptation of the James Ellroy novel. The film was nominated for 9 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director, and won two — Best Adapted Screenplay (a credit Hanson shared with Brian Helgeland), and Best Supporting Actress (for Kim Basinger). Hanson's later works included In Her Shoes, Wonder Boys, 8 Mile, and Lucky You. Hanson said that he was heavily influenced by the directors Alfred Hitchcock and Nicholas Ray. In an interview with the New York Times in 2000, Hanson stated that Ray's film In a Lonely Place was among many that he watched in preparation for the filming of L.A. Confidential. In 8 Mile, Kim Basinger's character watches Elia Kazan's Pinky on television. The film is about a mixed-race girl who passes as white; the reference to it in Hanson’s film functions as an homage to the themes of racial mixing and boundary-crossing that are features of much of his work. In 2011, Hanson made Too Big to Fail, based on the 2009 Andrew Ross Sorkin book of the same name about the beginnings of the financial crisis of 2007–2010. The film, produced for HBO, featured among its all-star cast William Hurt as Treasury Secretary and former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson, and Cynthia Nixon as his liaison to the press; James Woods as Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers; and Paul Giamatti as Ben Bernanke. His last film was Chasing Mavericks in 2012, but he was unable to finish the film due to ill health. Michael Apted replaced him as director during the final days of shooting.
Hanson later retired from film work and was reported to have frontotemporal dementia. He died of natural causes at his Hollywood Hills home at the age of 71.
Donald James Marshall (May 2, 1936 – October 30, 2016) was an American actor best known for his role as Dan Erickson in the television show Land of the Giants.
Marshall was one of four children and was schooled at San Diego High School. While studying engineering between 1956 and 1957, he was encouraged to try acting by a friend, Peter Bren. Marshall was still in the army at this time, but later studied acting at the Bob Gist Dramatic Workshop, while undertaking a course in Theatre Arts at Los Angeles City College.
Marshall provided consultation on matters connected with his work and with racial issues, and received an award for "Outstanding Achievement in his field as a Black Achiever in the United States."
Marshall died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on October 30, 2016.
Marshall's first professional role was in a 1961 Columbia Studios feature The Interns. In 1964 he took the role of Chris Logan, playing opposite Nichelle Nichols in Great Gettin' Up Mornin,' a TV production about an African-American family preparing their children for their first day at a racially integrated school in America's south.
THE LIEUTENANT
That same year, Nichols played Marshall's fiancée in a controversial episode of Gene Roddenberry's series The Lieutenant.
In 1965, Marshall appeared in a pilot for a series Braddock. In 1966 he appeared as Luke in Daktari, in the episodes Predator of Wameru, The Killer Lion and Trail of the Cheetah.
STAR TREK
Later in the 1960s he appeared in Roddenberry's next series, Star Trek portraying Lt. Boma in the episode "The Galileo Seven" (1967).
Other TV series he appeared in were Tarzan (the series with Ron Ely), Dragnet 1967, and Ironside. In 1968 he appeared as Ted Neumann, the recurring love interest of Julia Baker, in the television series Julia, a series about an African-American widow raising her son on her own.
Marshall had a role in the film The Reluctant Heroes, aka The Egghead on Hill 656 (1971), a film that was directed by Robert Day. This was a war film set in the Korean War with men under a newly commissioned lieutenant who are trapped on a hill surrounded by the enemy. His character as Pvt. Carver LeMoyne was subject to continual racial abuse by Cpl. Leroy Sprague (Warren Oates).
In the seventies he set up his own company called DJM Productions, Inc., which produced television commercials and documentary films.
In the 1980s, Marshall had few roles, appearing occasionally in episodes of Little House on the Prairie as Caleb Ledoux.
LAND OF THE GIANTS
As a result of appearing in the pilot for the TV series Braddock, the actor met Irwin Allen, leading to Marshall gaining his the role in Land of the Giants, in which he performed alongside Gary Conway, Don Matheson, Kurt Kasznar, Stefan Arngrim, Deanna Lund and Heather Young. The series, created by Irwin Allen, featured Marshall as a competent African-American in a leading role. This was also a first for an African American male in the 1960s to be featured so prominently in science fiction. The only other African American actors to be in such a position in the 1960s were Nichelle Nichols, known for her role as Lt. Uhurain the TV series Star Trek, and Greg Morris as electronics expert Barney Collier in Mission: Impossible.
On set, the actors had to perform many of their own stunts and Marshall's athleticism was an asset, he credited his previous football, track and pole vaulting work that helped him with the stunts required. In one of the episodes, "Ghost Town," while diving over a fire, Marshall actually dislocated his shoulder and the next day they had to shoot new scenes with Marshall's arm in a sling. Another episode "Giants and All That Jazz" that featured former world champion boxer Sugar Ray Robinson as Biff Bowers and Mike Mazurki as Loach, where Marshall had to teach Biff Bowers how to play the trumpet was one that Marshall in his own words calls "Beautiful" seems to be a favourite of his and made him want to act rather than follow or figure out what dialogue to use or say. He also says that actors had a better time on the set when Irwin Allen wasn't on the set. When he was it was much different and people would get uptight.
In later years Marshall wrote a script for a sequel to the series called Escape from a Giant Land. He hoped that it would be a big screen production and would feature as many original cast members as possible.
THE THING WITH TWO HEADS
Marshall was subsequently cast in the role of Dr. Fred Williams in the science-fiction horror exploitation film The Thing with Two Heads (1972) which starred Ray Milland and Rosey Grier. This was a tale about a wealthy and racist white man who has his head transplanted onto the body of a black prisoner from death row.
Thomas Emmet "Tom" Hayden (December 11, 1939 – October 23, 2016) was an American social and political activist, author and politician, who was director of the Peace and Justice Resource Center in Los Angeles County, California. Known best for his major role as an anti-war, civil rights, and radical intellectual counterculture activist, Hayden was the former husband of actress Jane Fonda and the father of actor Troy Garity.
Hayden lived in Los Angeles and was married to his third wife, actress Barbara Williams, at the time of his death. He and Williams adopted a son, Liam (born 2000). Hayden died in Santa Monica, California on October 23, 2016, aged 76, following a lengthy illness including a stroke.
Patricia Barry (née White; November 16, 1921 – October 11, 2016) was an American actress. The daughter of a physician, Patricia Allen White was born in Davenport, Iowa. She was signed for a Columbia Pictures contract almost immediately upon her graduation at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri. Barry's theatrical debut came in summer theater at Peterborough, New Hampshire. Her Broadway credits include The Pink Elephant (1953) and Goodbye Again (1956). She also starred in productions in Los Angeles, California, and Flagstaff, Arizona. Barry began her film career in 1947 and later appeared in over 130 television series and movies. On television, Barry appeared in such primetime series as The Walter Winchell File (Desilu), Rawhide, Gunsmoke, The Donna Reed Show, Richard Diamond, Private Detective, Bachelor Father, Laramie, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Going My Way, Thriller, Route 66, Perry Mason in the 4th season episode "The Case of the Grumbling Grandfather," and The Twilight Zone. She was cast as Kate Harris in the NBC comedy Harris Against the World. Barry also appeared in daytime dramas, including First Love (as Laurie James), Days of Our Lives (as Addie Horton Olson Williams, Julie and Hope's mother), and All My Children (as Peg English, who raised Brooke while running a drug ring). She appeared on the Guiding Light for two years in the 1980s as Sally Gleason. From 1992 to 1994, she took over the role of upper-crust matriarch Isabelle Alden on Loving. Barry was a charter member of Women in Film, "a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting equal opportunities for women, encouraging creative projects by women, and expanding and enhancing portrayals of women in all forms of global media." She also served on the Boards of Directors of the American National Theater and Academy and the John Tracy Clinic. Barry was married to Philip Barry, Jr. The couple had two daughters. She died of natural causes at her home in Los Angeles, California on October 11, 2016 at the age of 93.
