Who died on this date:

On February 17, 1982, actor, director and acting coach, Lee Strasberg died. He was born Israel Strassberg on November 17, 1901 in Budaniv in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire (now the Ukraine). He cofounded the Group Theatre in 1931, which was hailed as “America’s first true theatrical collective.” In 1951, he became director of the non-profit Actors Studio in New York City, considered, the nation’s most prestigious acting school. In 1969, Strasberg founded the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York City and in Hollywood to teach the work he pioneered.

He is considered the father of method acting in America, and from the 1920s until his death in 1982, he revolutionized the art of acting by having a profound influence on performance in American theater and movies. From his base in New York, he trained several generations of theatre and film’s most illustrious talents, including Anne Bancroft, Dustin Hoffman, Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Julie Harris, Paul Newman, Al Pacino, and Robert DeNiro. On February 17, 1982, Strasberg died from heart attack in New York City. He is buried at Westchester Hills Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.

On February 17, 2010, actress Kathryn Grayson died. She was born Zelma Hedrick on February 9, 1922 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. From the age of twelve, Grayson trained as an opera singer and made her first film appearance in 1941’s Andy Hardy’s Private Secretary. Grayson was under contract to MGM by the early 1940s, soon establishing a career principally through her work in musicals. After several supporting roles, she was a lead performer in such films as Thousands Cheer (1943), Anchors Aweigh (1945), Show Boat (1951) and Kiss Me Kate (1953). Grayson died in her sleep at her home in Los Angeles, California on February 17, 2010 and her cremated remains were given to family with final disposition being unknown.

On February 17, 2005, actor Daniel O’Herlihy died. He was born on May 1, 1919 in Wexford, Ireland. O’Herlihy’s first film appearance was in 1947’s Odd Man Out. Other film credits include Macbeth (1948), Invasion USA (1954), and The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1954), for which he was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award. He also had a fairly extensive career in television career. O’Herlihy died of natural causes in Malibu, California on February 17, 2005 and is buried at the Prospect Graveyard in Gorey, Ireland.

Personal appearance/ book signing February 16, 2012 @ 6:00PM to discuss “Murder & Mayhem 52 Crimes that Shocked Early California 1849-1949”

San Diego History Center
1649 El Prado, Suite #3
San Diego, CA 92101
Phone: (619) 232- 6203

Reservations are required…FREE SDHC members, $5 general. Book purchase additional. (Cash and Checks only for book purchase please.)

For more info visit the website – http://www.sandiegohistory.org/calendar/detail/12801

Who was born on this date:

Actor John Barrymore was born John Sidney Blyth on February 15, 1882 in Philadelphia. His parents were Maurice Barrymore and Georgie Drew Barrymore. His maternal grandmother was Louisa Lane Drew (aka Mrs Drew), a prominent and well-respected 19th-century actress and theater manager, who instilled in him and his siblings the ways of acting and theatre life. His uncles were John Drew, Jr. and Sidney Drew. Barrymore studied to be an artist and worked on New York newspapers before deciding to go into the family business as an actor.

He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedies, then drama which culminated in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III. His success continued with motion pictures in various genres in both the silent and sound eras. Barrymore’s personal life has been the subject of much writing before and since his passing. Today, John Barrymore is mostly known for his roles in movies like Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (1920), Grand Hotel (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933), Twentieth Century (1934), and Don Juan (1926), the first ever movie to use a Vitaphone soundtrack.

A member of a multi-generation theatrical dynasty, he was the brother of Lionel Barrymore and Ethel Barrymore, and was the paternal grandfather of actress Drew Barrymore. Barrymore delivered some of the most critically acclaimed performances in theatre and film history and was widely regarded as the screen’s greatest performer during a movie career spanning 25 years and
more than 60 films. In 1929, Barrymore collapsed on his boat the Mariner, off the coast of Mexico while on honeymoon with wife Dolores, requiring doctor’s care. Much of his newly occurring health problems most likely stemmed from consumption of illegal alcohol.

In the late 1930s, Barrymore began to lose his ability to remember his lines and from then on, he insisted on reading dialogue from cue cards. He gave one last great performance in MGM’s 1936 Romeo and Juliet. He continued to give creditable performances in lesser pictures, for example as Inspector Nielson in Paramount Pictures’ Bulldog Drummond mysteries, and RKO’s 1939 feature The Great Man Votes. After that, his screen roles were caricatures of himself.
On May 29, 1942, Barrymore collapsed while appearing on Rudy Vallee’s radio show and later died.

Allegedly, his dying words were “Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him.” Gene Fowler attributes different dying words to Barrymore in his biography Good Night, Sweet Prince. According to Fowler, Barrymore roused as if to say something to his brother Lionel; who asked him to repeat himself, and he simply replied, “You heard me, Mike.”

According to Errol Flynn’s memoirs, film director Raoul Walsh “borrowed” Barrymore’s body before burial, and left his corpse propped in a chair for a drunken Flynn to discover when he returned home from a night of revelry. However, Barrymore’s friend Gene Fowler denied the story, stating that he and his son held vigil over the body at the mortuary until the funeral and burial. Barrymore was buried at Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles but years later, Barrymore’s son John had the body reinterred at Philadelphia’s Mount Vernon Cemetery.

Actor Cesar Romero was born on February 15, 1907 in New York City. His wide range of screen roles included Latin lovers, historical figures in costume dramas, characters in light domestic comedies, and as “The Joker” in television’s Batman series. Romero played “Latin lovers” in films from the 1930s until the 1950s, usually in supporting roles. He starred as The Cisco Kid in six westerns made between 1939 and 1941. Other film credits include The Thin Man (1934), and Captain from Castile (1947). He made numerous TV appearances from the 1950s to the 1980s, most notably in Batman. Romero died on January 1, 1994 from bronchitis and pneumonia and his ashes are interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Who died on this date:

On February 15, 1984, actress/ singer Ethel Merman died. She was born Ethel Agnes Zimmerman on January 16, 1908 in Astoria, Queens, New York. She is primarily known for her powerful voice and roles in film and stage musicals. Notable film credits include Follow the Leader (1930), Let Me Call You Sweetheart (1932), Anything Goes (1936), and There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954). On April 7, 1983, she was preparing to leave for Los Angeles to appear on the 55th Academy Awards telecast when she collapsed in her apartment. She was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. On the morning of February 15, 1984, she died in her sleep and is buried at the Shrine of Remembrance Mausoleum in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
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Who was born on this date:

Actor Nigel Bruce was born on February 4, 1895 in England. He was best known for his portrayal of Dr. Watson in a series of films and in the radio series The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes starring Basil Rathbone. He is also remembered for his roles in the Alfred Hitchcock films Rebecca and Suspicion.Nigel Bruce typically played buffoonish, fuzzy-minded gentlemen. During his film career, he worked in 78 films, including Treasure Island (1934), The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934), Lassie Come Home (1943), and The Corn is Green (1945). Bruce participated in two landmark films: Becky Sharp, the first feature film in full Technicolor, and Bwana Devil, the first 3D feature. Bruce died from a heart attack on October 8, 1953 and his ashes are interred at the Chapel of the Pines Crematorium in Los Angeles.

Actor Jack Benny was born on February 14, 1894 in Chicago, Illinois. He is widely recognized as one of the leading American entertainers of the 20th century, Benny played the role of the comic penny-pinching miser, insisting on remaining 39 years old on stage despite his actual age, and often playing the violin badly. Benny was known for his comic timing and his ability to get laughs with either a pregnant pause or a single expression, such as his signature exasperated “Well!” His radio and television programs, tremendously popular from the 1930s to the 1960s, were a foundational influence on the situation comedy TV genre. He died on December 26, 1974 from pancreatic cancer and is buried at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City, California.
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Who was born on this date:

Actor Lorne Greene was born on February 12, 1915 in Ottawa, Canada. Greene started in radio as the principal newsreader for the Canadian Broadcast Company, where he was dubbed “The Voice of Canada.” Greene began appearing on live television in the 1950s. The first of his continuing TV roles was by far his most famous, Ben Cartwright on Bonanza (1959–1973). In 1973, after the cancellation of Bonanza he made numerous other guest spot appearances on TV. He was also known for his role as Commander Adama on Battlestar Galactica (1978-1979). Greene died on September 11, 1987 from pneumonia in Santa Monica, California and is buried at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City.

Actor Forrest Tucker was born on February 12, 1919 in Plainfield, Indiana. He was an actor in both film and TV from the 1940s to the 1980s. He was first cast in The Westerner (1940), which starred Gary Cooper. He stood out in a fight scene with Cooper and was signed to a long term contract with Columbia Pictures. In 1941, he played his first lead in Emergency Landing and the following year appeared in Keeper of the Flame. Other notable film roles include The Yearling (1946), Never Say Goodbye (1946), Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), Rock Island Trail (1950), Rage at Dawn (1955), The Quiet Gun (1957), The Crawling Eye (1958), and Auntie Mame (1958). Tucker then turned to TV and most famous role came in F Troop as Sgt. Morgan O’Rourke (1965-1967). He suffered from severe alcoholism in his final years and died from lung cancer on October 25, 1986. Tucker is buried at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills.

Who died on this date:

Actor Sal Mineo was born on January 10, 1939 in the Bronx, New York. He is best known for his breakthrough performance as John “Plato” Crawford opposite James Dean in Rebel without a Cause (1955). He was nominated for a best supporting actor Academy Award twice, Rebel without a Cause, and Exodus (1960). His screen debut was in 1955’s, Six Bridges to Cross and other notable film credits include The Private War of Major Benson (1955), and Giant (1956). Mineo made an effort to break his typecasting as a Native American boy in Tonka (1958) and as a Jewish emigrant in Exodus (1960). By the early 1960s, he was becoming too old to play the type of role that had made him famous and was not considered appropriate for leading roles. A small role in Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) was Mineo’s last appearance in a motion picture. In the late 1960s, Mineo became one of the first major actors in Hollywood to publicly acknowledge his homosexuality. On February 12, 1976, Mineo was stabbed to death in the alley behind his apartment building in West Hollywood, California. His remains are interred at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York.
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Who was born on this date:

Actor Ronald Colman was born on February 9, 1891 in Richmond, Surrey, England. A veteran of the First World War, Colman gravitated to the English theater and vaudeville circuit. Feeling that America held more opportunities for an actor, he arrived in New York City in 1920. Virtually penniless, and after two years of struggles, Colman got his big break as a supporting actor in the Broadway hit, La Tendresse. Motion picture director, Henry King saw Colman and cast him alongside Lillian Gish in The White Sister (1923). Colman was an immediate hit in film, becoming one of Hollywood’s greatest romantic leading men. In a film and television career that spanned thirty four years (1923-1957), Colman appeared in over forty feature motion pictures. His greatest film credits include; The Dark Angel (1925), Kiki (1926), The Night of Love (1927), The Rescue (1929), Arrowsmith (1931), A Tale of Two Cities (1935), Lost Horizon (1937), The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), and Kismet (1944). Due to his smooth and cultivated voice he was able to successfully cross the barrier from silent film to talking pictures and became one of the greatest actors of the golden age.

In 1930, he was nominated for two best acting Oscars for Condemned (1929) and Bulldog Drummond (1929). He was nominated again in 1943 for the best acting honors for his portrayal of Smithy in Random Harvest (1942). In his third attempt at Oscar gold, Colman finally took home the coveted statuette for A Double Life (1947). After this award winning performance in 1947, Colman made only one more full length film, 1950’s Champagne for Caesar. He instead focused on The Halls of Ivy, a radio show and later a television program of the same name.

Colman had a dislike for the Hollywood lifestyle and near the end of his life retired to his ranch in San Ysidro, California. He was married for twenty years to actress Benita Hume. On May 19, 1958, the veteran actor died at St. Francis Hospital in Santa Barbara, California from pneumonia. Fibrosis of the lungs and pneumonia plagued the actor most of his adult life. While serving in the British armed forces during World War I, he contacted the illness and never fully recovered. His funeral service was held at the All Saints Episcopal Church in Montecito, California. More than two hundreds mourners were in attendance for the short service (only fourteen minutes). Among the Hollywood dignitaries present were long time friend William Powell, Jack Benny, Vincent Price, Joseph Cotton, and George Sanders. Ironically, less than nine months after Colman’s death, Sanders would marry his widow Benita Hume. Colman is buried at the Santa Barbara Cemetery.

Actress Carmen Miranda was born on February 9, 1909 in Marco de Canavese, Portugal. She was noted for her signature fruit hat outfit she wore in the 1943 movie The Gang’s All Here. Though hailed as a talented performer, her movie roles in the United States soon became cartoonish and she grew to resent them. Miranda made a total of fourteen Hollywood films between 1940 and 1953 and was dubbed “The Brazilian Bombshell.” Her image was one of a generic Latina that blurred the distinctions between Brazil, Portugal, Argentina, and Mexico. It was carefully stylized and outlandishly flamboyant. During a visit to Brazil in 1940, Miranda was heavily criticized for giving in to American commercialism and projecting a false image of Brazil. After returning to the United States, Miranda made her final film appearance in the 1953 film Scared Stiff with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. On August 4, 1955, Miranda suffered a heart attack during a segment of the live NBC TV program, The Jimmy Durante Show. After completing a dance number, she fell to her knees, but quickly pulled herself together and finished the show. She died later that night after suffering a second heart attack at her home in Beverly Hills. In accordance with her wishes, Miranda’s body was flown back to Rio de Janerio where the Brazilian government declared a period of national mourning and more than half a million Brazilians escorted the funeral cortège to her final resting place at the Cemiterio Sao Joao Batista.

Who died on this date:

On February 9, 1969, actor Gabby Hayes died. He was born on May 7, 1885 in Wellsville, New York. He was best known for his numerous appearances in Western movies as the colorful sidekick. In his early career, Hayes was cast in a variety of roles, including villains, and occasionally played two roles in a single film. He found a niche in the growing genre of western films, many of which were series with recurring characters. Hayes played the part of Windy Halliday, the sidekick to Hoplong Cassidy from 1935 to 1939. He was cast as a sidekick to western icons Randolph Scott (6 times) and John Wayne (15 times, some as straight or villainous characters). The western film genre declined in the late 1940s and Hayes made his last film appearance in The Cariboo Trail (1950). Hayes died on February 9, 1969 from a heart ailment and is buried at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills.

On February 9, 2003, actress/ skater Vera Ralston died. She was born on July 12, 1919 in Prague, Czechoslovakia. She competed at the 1936 Winter Olympics, where she placed 17th. During the games, she personally met and insulted Adolf Hitler. Hitler asked her if she would like to “skate for the swastika.” As she later recalled, “I looked him right in the eye, and said that I’d rather skate on the swastika. She moved to Hollywood in 1943 and signed a contract with Republic Pictures. Here notable film credits include Dakota (1945), The Fighting Kentuckian (1949), and A Perilous Journey (1953). She retired from films in 1958. Ralston died on February 9, 2003 in Santa Barbara, California after a long struggle with cancer and is buried at the Santa Barbara Cemetery.
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Who was born on this date:

Actor James Dean was born on February 8, 1931 in Marion, Indiana. He is best remembered for his film Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which he starred as troubled Los Angeles teenager Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his stardom were as loner Cal Trask in East of Eden (1955), and as the surly ranch hand, Jett Rink, in Giant (1956). Dean’s enduring fame and popularity rests on his performances in only these three films, all leading roles. His premature death in a car crash on September 30, 1955 near Paso Robles, California cemented his legendary status. He is buried at the Park Cemetery in Fairmont, Indiana.

Actress Lana Turner was born on February 8, 1921in Wallace, Idaho. She was discovered and signed to a film contract by MGM at the age of sixteen, Turner first attracted attention in They Won’t Forget (1937). She played featured roles, often as the ingénue, in such films as Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938). During the early 1940s she established herself as a leading actress in such films as Johnny Eager (1941), Ziegfeld Girl (1941) and Somewhere I’ll Find You (1942). She is known as one of the first Hollywood scream queens thanks to her role in the 1941 horror film, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and her reputation as a glamorous femme fatale was enhanced by her performance in the film noir The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946). Her popularity continued through the 1950s, in such films as The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and Peyton Place (1957), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.

In 1958, her daughter, Cheryl Crane, stabbed Turner’s lover Johnny Stompanato to death. A coroner’s inquest brought considerable media attention to Turner and concluded that Crane had acted in self defense. Turner’s next film, Imitation of Life (1959), proved to be one of the greatest successes of her career, but from the early 1960s, her roles were fewer. She gained recognition near the end of her career with a recurring guest role in the television series Falcon Crest during 1982 and 1983. Turner made her final television appearance in 1991, and died from throat cancer on June 29, 1995. Her cremated remains are with family members.

Actor Jack Lemmon was born on February 8, 1925 in Newton, Massachusetts and starred in more than 60 films including Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Mister Roberts (for which he won the 1955 Best Supporting Actor Academy Award), Days of Wine and Roses, The Great Race, Irma la Douce, The Odd Couple, Save the Tiger (for which he won the 1973 Best Actor Academy Award), The Out-of-Towners, The China Syndrome, Missing, Glengarry Glen Ross, Grumpy Old Men and Grumpier Old Men.

Lemmon’s film debut was a bit part as a plasterer/painter in the 1949 film The Lady Takes a Sailor but he was not noticed until his official debut opposite Judy Holliday in the 1954 comedy It Should Happen to You. He became a favorite actor of director Billy Wilder, starring in his films Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Irma la Douce, The Fortune Cookie, Avanti!, The Front Page and Buddy Buddy. He also had a longtime working relationship with director Blake Edwards, starring in My Sister Eileen (1955), Days of Wine and Roses (1962), The Great Race (1965) and That’s Life! (1986).

Lemmon won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1956 for Mister Roberts (1955) and the Best Actor Oscar for Save the Tiger (1973). He was also nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his role in the controversial film, Missing (1982) and for his role in Some Like it Hot. He often appeared in films partnered with Walter Matthau. Among their pairings was 1968’s The Odd Couple, as Felix Ungar (Lemmon) and Oscar Madison (Matthau). They also starred together in The Fortune Cookie (for which Matthau won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor), The Front Page and Buddy Buddy. In 1971, Lemmon directed Matthau in the comedy Kotch. It was the only movie that Lemmon ever directed and Matthau was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for his performance. In 1993, the duo teamed up again to star in Grumpy Old Men. The film was a surprise hit, earning the two actors a new generation of young fans. During the rest of the decade, they would go on to star together in Out to Sea, Grumpier Old Men and the widely panned The Odd Couple II. Lemmon died of colon cancer and metastatic cancer of the bladder on June 27, 2001 and is buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California. His grave is near that of his good friend and co-star, Walter Matthau, who died almost exactly one year before Lemmon.

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Who was born on this date:

On September 19, 2000, actress Gloria Talbott died. She was born on February 7, 1931 in Glendale, California. She began her film career as a child actor in such films as Maytime (1937) Sweet and Lowdown (1943) and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945). Talbott later became known as “Queen of the B’s, after appearing in a number of horror films in the 1950s. She died on September 19, 2000 from kidney failure and is buried at the San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills, California.

Who died on this date:

On February 7, 2001, actress Dale Evans died. She was born Frances Octavia Smith on October 31, 1912 in Uvalde, Texas. She took the name Dale Evans in the early 1930s to promote her singing career. Evans had a productive career as a big band singer that led to a screen test and contract with 20th Century Fox studios. In 1947 she married Roy Rogers at the Flying L Ranch in Davis, Oklahoma. Rogers and Evans were a team on- and off-screen from 1946 until Rogers’ death in 1998. From 1951 to 1957, Dale Evans and her husband starred in the highly successful television series The Roy Rogers Show. Evans died of congestive heart failure on February 7, 2001 and is buried at the Sunset Memorial Park in Apple Valley, California.
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Who was born on this date:

Actor Ramon Novarro was born on February 6, 1899 in Durango, Mexico. He entered films in 1917 in bit parts; and was promoted as a rival to Rudolph Valentino and his first successful film was Scaramouche (1923). In 1925, he achieved his greatest success in Ben-Hur. With Valentino’s death in 1926, Novarro became the silver screen’s leading Latin actor and was considered one of the great romantic lead actors of his day. Novarro appeared in The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927), Across to Singapore (1928), Devil May Care (1929), The Pagan (1929), Mata Hari (1932) and The Barbarian (1933). When Novarro’s contract with MGM Studios expired in 1935, the studio did not renew it and he continued to act sporadically, appearing in films and television.

Novarro was murdered on October 30, 1968, by two brothers, Paul and Tom Ferguson, whom he had hired from an agency to come to his home for sex. According to the prosecution in the murder case, the two young men believed that a large sum of money was hidden in Novarro’s house. The prosecution accused them of torturing Novarro for several hours to force him to reveal where the nonexistent money was hidden. They left with a mere 20 dollars that they took from his bathrobe pocket before fleeing the scene. Novarro allegedly died as a result of asphyxiation after being brutally beaten. The two brothers were later caught and sentenced to long prison terms, but were eventually paroled. Both were later rearrested for unrelated crimes, for which they served longer terms than their murder conviction. Ramon Novarro is buried in Calvary Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Who died on this date:

On February 6, 2009, actor James Whitmore died. He was born on October 1, 1921 in White Plains, New York. Following World War II, Whitmore appeared on Broadway in the role of the Sergeant in Command Decision. MGM hired Whitmore and his first film was Battleground (19449), for which he was nominated for a best supporting actor Academy Award. Other major films included The Asphalt Jungle (1950), Kiss Me Kate (19553), Them (1954), Oklahoma (1955), Planet of the Apes (1968), and Tora Tora Tora (1970). He also appeared in numerous TV programs. Whitmore was diagnosed with lung cancer in November 2008, and died on February 6, 2009 in Malibu, California and his ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean.

On February 6, 1994, actor Joseph Cotton died. He was born on May 15, 1905 in Petersburg, Virginia. He achieved prominence on Broadway, but gained worldwide fame as the star of the Orson Welles, Citizen Kane (1941). He also appeared in The Magnificient Ambersons (1942), Journey into Fear (1943), Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Duel in the Sun 1946), Love Letters (1945), Portrait of Jennie (1948) and The Third Man (1949). He died on February 6, 1994 from pneumonia and throat cancer and is buried at Blandford Cemetery in Petersburg, Virginia.
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Who was born on this date:

Actress Ida Lupino was was born on February 4, 1918 in Camberwell, England into a family of performers, her father, Stanley Lupino was a music-hall comedian, and her mother, Connie Emerald was an actress. It was after her appearance in The Light That Failed (1939) that Lupino began to be taken seriously as a dramatic actress. As a result, her parts improved during the 1940s. She often described herself as “the poor man’s Bette Davis.” During this period, Lupino was known for her hard-boiled roles in such films as They Drive by Night (1940) and High Sierra (1941), both opposite Humphrey Bogart. Other notable films credits include Road House and On Dangerous Ground.

In the mid-1940s, Lupino and her husband Collier Young formed an independent company, The Filmakers [sic], and she became a producer, director and screenwriter of low-budget, issue-oriented films. Her first directing job came unexpectedly in 1949 when Elmer Clifton suffered a mild heart attack and could not finish Not Wanted, Lupino stepped in to finish the film, becoming Hollywood’s only female film director of the time. Not only did Lupino take control of production, direction and screenplay, but each of her movies addressed the brutal repercussions of sexuality and dependence. In 1953, she became the first woman to direct in Film Noir with The Hitch-Hiker. She continued acting throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s and her directing efforts during these years were almost exclusively television productions. Lupino died on August 3, 1995 from a stroke while undergoing treatment for colon cancer in Los Angeles. She is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale.

Who died on this date:

On February 4, 1959, actress Una O’Connor died. She was born on October 23, 1880 in Belfast, Ireland. For many years, she worked in Ireland and England as a stage actress, Despite her lengthy apprenticeship on stage, she did not attracted much attention from Hollywood until she was chosen by Noel Coward to appear in Cavalcade (1933). She is best remembered for her performances in The Invisible Man (1933) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935). She also appeared in The Informer (1935), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), My Favorite Spy (1942), The Canterville Ghots (1944), The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945), Of Human Bondage (1946) and Witness for the Prosecution (1957). O’Connor died on February 4, 1959 from a heart attack in New York City and is buried at Calvary Cemetery in Woodside, New York.
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