"Pajama Game" Actress & Singer Janis Paige 1922-2024 Memorial Video

Janis Paige (born Donna Mae Tjaden; September 16, 1922 – June 2, 2024) was an American actress and singer. With a career spanning nearly 60 years, she was one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Born in Tacoma, Washington, Paige began singing in local amateur shows at the age of five. After high school, she moved to Los Angeles, where she became a singer at the Hollywood Canteen during World War II, as well as posing as a pin-up model.

This led to a film contract with Warner Bros., although she later left the studio to pursue live theatre work, appearing in a number of Broadway shows. She continued to alternate between film and theatre work for much of her career. Beginning in the mid-1950s, she also made numerous television appearances, as well as starring in her own sitcom It's Always Jan.

Janis Paige turned 100 on September 16, 2022, and died at her Los Angeles home on June 2, 2024, at the age of 101.

"House of Usher" Actor & Producer Mark Damon 1933-2024 Memorial Video

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. 

-- Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Damon

"King of the B's" Filmmaker Roger Corman 1926-2024 Memorial Video

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.

"Bus Stop" Actor Don Murray 1929-2024 Memorial Video

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.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Murray_(actor)

"Starsky & Hutch" Actor David Soul 1943-2024 Memorial Video

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.

-- Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Soul