Remembering Deborah Kerr

Deborah Kerr, (born September 30, 1921) was a Scottish-born film, theatre and television actress.

Birth Name: Deborah Jane Kerr-Trimmer
Hair: Red
Eyes: Green
Height: 5' 6 "
Nickname: The English Rose
Quote: I'd rather drop dead in my tracks one day than end up in a wheelchair in some nursing home watching interminable replays of The King and I."

Perhaps best known for her star turn in the film version of The King and I, her other films include An Affair to Remember; From Here to Eternity; Quo Vadis; The Innocents; Black Narcissus; Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison; King Solomon's Mines; The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp; The Sundowners and Separate Tables.

Kerr was nominated six times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, more than any other actress without ever winning. In 1994, however, having already received honorary awards from the Cannes Film Festival and BAFTA, she received an Honorary Academy  Award with a citation recognizing her as "an artist of impeccable grace and beauty, a dedicated actress whose motion picture career has always stood for perfection, discipline and elegance"

Kerr died on 16 October 2007 in Botesdale, a village in Suffolk, England, from the effects of Parkinson's disease. She was 86.

Remembering Greer Garson

Greer Garson, CBE (born Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson; 29 September 1904 – 6 April 1996), was an Anglo-American actress who was very popular during the Second World War, being listed by the Motion Picture Herald as one of America's top-ten box office draws from 1942 to 1946.

Greer Garson's early professional appearances were on stage, starting at Birmingham Repertory Theatre in January 1932.  Louis B. Mayer discovered Garson while he was in London looking for new talent. Garson was signed to a contract with MGM in late 1937, but did not begin work on her first film, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, until late 1938. She received her first Oscar nomination for the role, but lost to Vivien Leigh for Gone with the Wind.

Garson starred with Joan Crawford in When Ladies Meet in 1941, and that same year became a major box-office star with the sentimental Technicolor drama, Blossoms in the Dust, which brought her the first of five consecutive Best Actress Oscar nominations, tying Bette Davis' 1938–42 record, which still stands. Garson won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1942 for her role as a strong British wife and mother in the middle of World War II in Mrs. Miniver. She was also nominated for Madame Curie (1943), Mrs. Parkington (1944), and The Valley of Decision (1945).

Garson frequently costarred with Walter Pidgeon, ultimately making eight pictures with him: Blossoms in the Dust (1941), Mrs. Miniver (1942), Madame Curie, Mrs. Parkington, Julia Misbehaves (1948), That Forsyte Woman (1949), The Miniver Story (1950), and Scandal at Scourie (1953).

She made only a few films after her MGM contract expired in 1954.  In 1960, Garson received her seventh and final Oscar nomination for Sunrise at Campobello, in which she played Eleanor Roosevelt, this time losing to Elizabeth Taylor for BUtterfield 8.

In her final years, Garson occupied a penthouse suite at the Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. She died there from heart failure on 6 April 1996, at the age of 91

Remembering Gene Autry

Orvon Grover "Gene" Autry (September 29, 1907 – October 2, 1998) was an American performer who gained fame as a singing cowboy on the radio, in movies, and on television for more than three decades beginning in the early 1930s. Autry was also owner of a television station, several radio stations in Southern California, and the Los Angeles/California/Anaheim Angels Major League Baseball team from 1961 to 1997.

From 1934 to 1953, Autry appeared in 93 films and 91 episodes of The Gene Autry Show television series. During the 1930s and 1940s, he personified the straight-shooting hero—honest, brave, and true—and profoundly touched the lives of millions of Americans. Autry was also one of the most important figures in the history of country music, considered the second major influential artist of the genre's development after Jimmie Rodgers. His singing cowboy movies were the first vehicle to carry country music to a national audience] In addition to his signature song, "Back in the Saddle Again", Autry is still remembered for his Christmas holiday songs, "Here Comes Santa Claus", which he wrote, "Frosty the Snowman", and his biggest hit, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer".

Autry is a member of both the Country Music Hall of Fame and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and is the only person to be awarded stars in all five categories on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for film, television, music, radio, and live performance. The town of Gene Autry, Oklahoma was named in his honor.

Gene Autry died of lymphoma on October 2, 1998, aged 91 at his home in Studio City, California.

Remembering Ed Sullivan

Edward Vincent Sullivan (September 28, 1901 – October 13, 1974) was an American television personality, sports and entertainment reporter, and longtime syndicated columnist for the New York Daily News.

Sullivan was a broadcasting pioneer at many levels during television's infancy. As TV critic David Bianculli wrote, "Before MTV, Sullivan presented rock acts. Before Bravo, he presented jazz and classical music and theater. Before the Comedy Channel, even before there was the Tonight Show, Sullivan discovered, anointed and popularized young comedians. Before there were 500 channels, before there was cable, Ed Sullivan was where the choice was. From the start, he was indeed 'the Toast of the Town'."

 He is principally remembered as the creator and host of the television variety program The Toast of the Town, later popularly—and, eventually, officially—renamed The Ed Sullivan Show. Broadcast for 23 years from 1948 to 1971, it set a record as the longest-running variety show in US broadcast history. "It was, by almost any measure, the last great TV show," proclaimed television critic David Hinckley. "It's one of our fondest, dearest pop culture memories."

In early September 1974, X-rays revealed that Sullivan had advanced esophageal cancer. Doctors gave him very little time to live, and the family chose to keep the diagnosis from him. Sullivan, still believing his ailment to be yet another complication from a long-standing battle with gastric ulcers, died five weeks later on October 13, 1974, at New York's Lenox Hill Hospital.

 In 1996, Sullivan was ranked number 50 on TV Guide's "50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time"

Remembering William Conrad

William Conrad (September 27, 1920 – February 11, 1994) was an American actor, producer, and director whose career spanned five decades in radio, film, and television.

A radio writer and actor, he moved to Hollywood after his World War II service and played a series of character roles in films beginning with the quintessential film noir, The Killers (1946). He created the role of Marshal Matt Dillon for the popular radio series Gunsmoke (1952–1961), and narrated the television adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (1959–1964) and The Fugitive (1963–1967).

Finding fewer onscreen roles in the 1950s, he changed from actor to producer-director with television work, narration, and a series of Warner Bros. films in the 1960s. Conrad found stardom as a detective in the TV series Cannon (1971–1976) and Nero Wolfe (1981), and as district attorney Jason Lochinvar "J.L." "Fatman" McCabe in the legal drama Jake and the Fatman (1987–1992).

William Conrad died in Los Angeles on February 11, 1994, from congestive heart failure.

Remembering George Raft

George Raft (born George Ranft; September 26, 1901 – November 24, 1980) was an American film actor and dancer identified with portrayals of gangsters in crime melodramas of the 1930s and 1940s. A stylish leading man in dozens of movies, today Raft is mostly known for his gangster roles as in the original Scarface (1932), and as a dancer in Bolero (1934), a truck driver in They Drive by Night (1940),  and Billy Wilder's 1959 comedy Some Like it Hot.

As a young man Raft showed aptitude in dancing which, with his elegant fashion sense, enabled him to earn work as a dancer in New York City nightclubs, often in the same venues as Rudolph Valentino before Valentino became a movie actor.

In 1929, Raft relocated to Hollywood and took small roles. In Taxi! (1932), starring James Cagney and Loretta Young, Raft has a colorful unbilled dancing role as Cagney's competitor in a dance contest who wins only to be knocked down by Cagney. His big break came later that same year as the nickel-flipping second lead alongside Paul Muni in Scarface (1932).

He was one of the three most popular gangster actors of the 1930s, with James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson; Raft ranked far above Humphrey Bogart in fame and box office clout throughout the decade.

In 1946 Raft announced he had created his own production company, Star Films. They ended up making Intrigue and Outpost in Morocco. His career as a leading man continued through the 1940s with films of gradually declining quality.

In 1953, Raft also starred as Lt. George Kirby in a syndicated television series police drama titled I'm the Law (in which he invested his own money, which ran for one season and was one of the earliest instances of a movie star of his previous calibre accepting the lead in a TV series. He wound up occasionally accepting supporting roles in movies, such as playing second fiddle to Robert Taylor in Rogue Cop (1954). Raft satirized his gangster image with a well-received supporting performance in Some Like it Hot (1959).

his final film appearances were in Sextette (1978), reunited with long-ago co-star Mae West, and The Man with Bogart's Face (1980), a nod to 1940s detective movies.

Raft died from leukemia at the age of 79 in Los Angeles, California, on November 24, 1980.

Remembering Christopher Reeve

Christopher D'Olier Reeve (September 25, 1952 – October 10, 2004) was an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, author, and activist. He achieved stardom for his acting achievements, in particular his motion picture portrayal of the comic book superhero Superman.

Portraying the role of Superman would be a stretch for Reeve, but he was tall enough for the role and had the necessary blue eyes and handsome features. However, his physique was slim. He refused to wear fake muscles under the suit, and instead went through an intense two-month training regimen. The training regimen consisted of running in the morning, followed by two hours of weightlifting and ninety minutes on the trampoline. In addition, Reeve doubled his food intake and adopted a high protein diet. He added thirty pounds of muscle to his 189 pound frame.

After 1978's Superman, Reeve was cast in the 1980 romantic fantasy Somewhere in Time with Jane Seymour. Reeve plays Richard Collier, a playwright who becomes smitten by a photograph of a young woman at the Grand Hotel. Through self-hypnosis, he travels back in time to the year 1912 to find love with actress Elise McKenna (portrayed by Seymour).The film was shot on Mackinac Island in mid-1979 and was Reeve's favorite film ever to shoot.

Reeve appeared in other critically acclaimed films such as Street Smart (1987) and The Remains of the Day (1993). He received a Golden Globe nomination for his performance in the television remake of Rear Window (1998).

On May 27, 1995, Reeve became a quadriplegic after being thrown from a horse during an equestrian competition in Culpeper, Virginia. He was confined to a wheelchair and required a portable ventilator for the rest of his life. He lobbied on behalf of people with spinal-cord injuries and for human embryonic stem cell research, founding the Christopher Reeve Foundation and co-founding the Reeve-Irvine Research Center.

 On October 10, 2004, Reeve died at the age of 52

Remembering Jim Henson

James Maury "Jim" Henson (September 24, 1936 – May 16, 1990) was an American puppeteer, artist, cartoonist, inventor, screenwriter, songwriter, musician, film director and producer who achieved international fame as the creator of the Muppets.

Born in Greenville, Mississippi, and raised in Leland, Mississippi, and Hyattsville, Maryland, Henson began developing puppets while attending high school. While he was a freshman at the University of Maryland, College Park, he created Sam and Friends, a five-minute sketch-comedy puppet show that appeared on television.

After graduating from the University of Maryland with a degree in home economics, he produced coffee advertisements and developed some experimental films. Feeling the need for more creative output, Henson founded Muppets Inc. in 1958 (which would later become the Jim Henson Company).

Henson became famous in the 1960s when he joined the children's educational television program Sesame Street, and there helped develop characters for the series. He also appeared in the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live. In 1976, after scrapping plans for a Broadway show, he produced The Muppet Show. He won fame for his creations, particularly Kermit the Frog, Rowlf the Dog, and Ernie.

He also had frequent roles in Muppets films such as The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper and The Muppets Take Manhattan, and created advanced puppets for projects like Fraggle Rock, The Dark Crystal, and Labyrinth. During the later years of his life, he also founded the Jim Henson Foundation, and Jim Henson's Creature Shop. His involvement in two television programs—The Storyteller and The Jim Henson Hour—led to Emmy Award wins.

Henson died suddenly in May 1990, aged 53, from streptococcal toxic shock syndrome—an unexpected event that was widely lamented in the film and television industries. In the weeks after his death, he was celebrated in a wave of tributes. He was posthumously inducted into Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1991, and as a Disney Legend in 2011.

Remembering Mickey Rooney

Mickey Rooney (born Joseph Yule, Jr.; September 23, 1920 – April 6, 2014) was an American actor of film, television, Broadway, radio, and vaudeville. In a career spanning nine decades and continuing until shortly before his death, he appeared in over 300 films.

Rooney first performed in vaudeville as a child and made his film debut at the age of six. At thirteen he played the role of Puck in the play and later the 1935 film adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream. His performance was hailed by critic David Thomson as "one of cinema's most arresting pieces of magic". In 1938, he co-starred with Spencer Tracy in the Academy Award-winning film Boys Town. At nineteen he was the first teenager to be nominated for an Oscar for his leading role in Babes in Arms, and he was awarded a special Academy Juvenile Award in 1939.At the peak of his career between the ages of 15 and 25, he made forty-three films and co-starred alongside Judy Garland, Wallace Beery, Spencer Tracy, and Elizabeth Taylor. He was one of MGM's most consistently successful actors.

At the height of a career that was marked by precipitous declines and raging comebacks, Rooney played the role of Andy Hardy in a series of fifteen films in the 1930s and 1940s that epitomized American family values. A versatile performer, he could sing, dance, clown, and play various musical instruments, becoming a celebrated character actor later in his career. Laurence Olivier once said he considered Rooney "the best there has ever been.

Rooney was the top box office attraction from 1939–41, and one of the best-paid actors of that era, but his career never rose to such heights again. Drafted into the Army during World War II, he served nearly two years entertaining over two million troops on stage and radio and was awarded a Bronze Star for performing in combat zones. Returning from the war in 1945, he was too old for juvenile roles but too short to be an adult movie star, and he was not able to obtain acting roles as significant as before.

Nevertheless, Rooney was tenacious and he rebounded, his popularity renewed with well-received supporting roles in films such as Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962), It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and The Black Stallion (1979) for which he was nominated for an Oscar. In the early 1980s, he returned to Broadway in Sugar Babies and again became a celebrated star. Rooney made hundreds of appearances on TV, including dramas, variety programs, and talk shows. During his career, he received four Academy Award nominations and was nominated for five Emmy Awards, winning one.

Over his lifetime he struggled with alcohol and pill addiction and married eight times, the first time to Ava Gardner. Despite earning millions during his career, he had to file for bankruptcy in 1962 due to mismanagement of his finances. Shortly before his death in 2014 at age 93, he alleged mistreatment by some family members and testified in Congress about what he alleged was physical abuse and exploitation by family members. By the end of his life, his millions in earnings had dwindled to an estate that was valued at only $18,000, he died owing medical bills and back taxes, and contributions were solicited from the public.

Remembering Paul Muni

Paul Muni (born Frederich Meshilem Meier Weisenfreund; September 22, 1895 – August 25, 1967) was an American stage and film actor who was born in Lemberg (Galicia, Austro-Hungarian Empire) and grew up in Chicago. He started his acting career in the Yiddish theatre. During the 1930s, he was considered one of the most prestigious actors at Warner Brothers studios, and was given the rare privilege of choosing which parts he wanted.

His acting quality, usually playing a powerful character, such as the lead in Scarface (1932), was partly a result of his intense preparation for his parts, often immersing himself in study of the real character's traits and mannerisms. He was also highly skilled in using makeup techniques, a talent he learned from his parents, who were also actors, and from his early years on stage with the Yiddish Theater in Chicago.

Out of his 25 films, Muni has four official Academy Award nominations for Best Actor, winning for The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936) and receiving official nominations for The Valiant (1929), The Life of Emile Zola (1937) and The Last Angry Man (1959). His nomination for the film I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) is unofficial. The reason for this being that at the 2nd Academy Awards no acting nominees were announced. He also starred in numerous Broadway plays and won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his role in the 1955 production of Inherit the Wind.

In his private life, Muni was considered "exceedingly shy", and was discomfited to be recognized while out shopping or dining. He enjoyed reading and going for walks with his wife in secluded sections of Central Park. After retiring from acting, he lived in California. Muni died of a heart disorder in Montecito in 1967, aged 71. He is interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Hollywood, CA.

Remembering Chuck Jones

Charles Martin "Chuck" Jones (September 21, 1912 – February 22, 2002) was an American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films, most memorably of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts for the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio. He directed many classic animated cartoon shorts starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, Pepé Le Pew, Porky Pig and a slew of other Warner characters.

Jones created characters through the late 1940s and the 1950s, which include Claude Cat, Marc Antony and Pussyfoot, Charlie Dog, Michigan J. Frog, and his three most popular creations, Marvin the Martian, Pepe LePew, Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner.

After his career at Warner Bros. ended in 1962, Jones started Sib Tower 12 Productions, and began producing cartoons for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, including a new series of Tom and Jerry shorts and the television adaptation of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!.

He later started his own studio, Chuck Jones Enterprises, which created several one-shot specials, and periodically worked on Looney Tunes related works. Three of his works during this period were animated TV adaptations of short stories from Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli's Brothers, The White Seal and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.

Jones was nominated for an Academy Award eight times and won three times, receiving awards for the cartoons For Scent-imental Reasons, So Much for So Little, and The Dot and the Line. He received an Honorary Academy Award in 1996 for his work in the animation industry.

Jones died of heart failure on February 22, 2002. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea.

Celebrating Sophia Loren

Sophia Loren was born Sofia Villani Scicolone in the Clinica Regina Margherita in Rome, Italy on September 20, 1934 .

Encouraged to enroll in acting lessons after entering a beauty pageant, Loren began her film career in 1950 at age 15. She appeared in several bit parts and minor roles in the early part of the decade, until her five-picture contract with Paramount in 1956 launched her international career.

Notable film appearances around this time include The Pride and the Passion, Houseboat, and It Started in Naples.

Her talents as an actress were not recognized until her performance as Cesira in Vittorio De Sica's Two Women; Loren's performance earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1962. She holds the record for having earned six David di Donatello Awards for Best Actress, the most ever received.

After starting her family in the early 1970s, Loren spent less time on her acting career and chose to make only occasional film appearances. In later years, she has appeared in American films such as Grumpier Old Men and Nine.

Aside from the Academy Award, she has won a Grammy Award, five special Golden Globes, a BAFTA Award, a Laurel Award, the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival, and the Honorary Academy Award in 1991.

In 1999, Loren was acknowledged as one of the top 25 female American Screen Legends in the American Film Institute's survey, AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars.

Remembering Francis Farmer

Farmer was born Frances Elena Farmer on September 19, 1913 in Seattle, Washington, the daughter of Lillian (née Van Ornum 1873-1955), a boardinghouse operator and dietician and Ernest Melvin Farmer, a lawyer.

 In the summer of 1935, Farmer stopped in New York City, hoping to launch a legitimate theater career. Instead, she was referred to Paramount Pictures talent scout Oscar Serlin, who arranged for a screen test. Paramount offered her a seven-year contract. Farmer signed it in New York on her 22nd birthday and moved to Hollywood.

She had top billing in two well-received 1936 B-movies, Too Many Parents and Border Flight.  Farmer was cast in her first "A" feature, Rhythm on the Range. During the summer of 1936, she was loaned to Samuel Goldwyn to appear in Come and Get It, based on the novel by Edna Ferber. Both of these films were sizable hits, and her portrayals of both the mother and daughter in Come and Get It were praised by the public and critics,

By 1939, her temperamental work habits and worsening alcoholism began to damage her reputation. In 1941 she gave a fine performance as Calamity Jane in the western Badlands of Dakota. She next appeared opposite Tyrone Power in the film Son of Fury (1942) (on loan-out to Twentieth Century-Fox) and received critical praise for her performance. Later that year, Paramount suspended her after she refused to accept a part in the film Take a Letter, Darling and eventually dropped her.

On October 19, 1942, Farmer was stopped by Santa Monica Police for driving with her headlights on bright in the wartime blackout zone that affected most of the West Coast. Some reports say she was unable to produce a driver's license and was verbally abusive. The police suspected her of being drunk and she was jailed overnight. Farmer was fined $500 and given a 180-day suspended sentence. She immediately paid $250 and was put on probation.  At her hearing the next morning, she behaved erratically. Farmer was transferred to the psychiatric ward of L.A. General Hospital. There she was diagnosed with "manic depressive psychosis".

After her release, Farmer moved back in with her parents in West Seattle, but she and her mother fought bitterly. Within six months, Farmer physically attacked her mother. Her mother then had Frances committed to Western State Hospital at Steilacoom, Washington.Three months later, during the summer of 1944, she was pronounced "completely cured" and released.

She took a job sorting laundry at the Olympic Hotel in Seattle. This was the same hotel where Farmer had been fêted in 1936 at the world premiere of Come and Get It.

She began a comeback in 1957 and spent the rest of her life appearing on television and in live theater.

Farmer was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in the spring of 1970, which was attributed to her life-long habit of heavy smoking. She died of the disease on August 1, 1970. She is interred at Oaklawn Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Fishers, Indiana.

Remembering Greta Garbo

Greta Garbo (born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson) was a Swedish-born American film actress and an international icon during the 1920s and 1930s.

Garbo launched her career with a secondary role in the 1924 Swedish film The Saga of Gosta Berling. Her performance caught the attention of Louis B. Mayer, chief executive of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), who brought her to Hollywood in 1925. She immediately stirred interest with her first silent film, Torrent, released in 1926. A year later, her performance in Flesh and the Devil made her an international star.

Garbo's first talking film was Anna Christie (1930). MGM marketers enticed the public with the catch-phrase "Garbo talks!" Her success continued in films such as Mata Hari (1931) and Grand Hotel (1932). Many critics and film historians consider her performance as the doomed courtesan Marguerite Gautier in Camille (1936) to be her finest. Her turn in the comedy Ninotchka (1939),  earned her a third Academy Award nomination, but after the failure of Two-Faced Woman (1941), she retired from the screen, at the age of 35, after acting in twenty-eight films.

From then on, Garbo declined all opportunities to return to the screen. Shunning publicity, she began a private life, and neither married nor had children.

Garbo received an honorary Academy Award in 1954 for her "luminous and unforgettable screen performances."

Greta Garbo died on 15 April 1990, aged 84, in the hospital, as a result of pneumonia and renal failure.

In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Garbo fifth on their list of the greatest female stars of Classic Hollywood Cinema, after Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn, and Ingrid Bergman.

Remembering Roddy McDowall

Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude McDowall (17 September 1928 – 3 October 1998), known as Roddy McDowall, was an English-American actor, film director, photographer, and voice artist. His roles included Cornelius, Caesar, and Galen in the Planet of the Apes film and television series.

McDowall was born at 204 Herne Hill Road, Herne Hill, London, the son of Winifriede Lucinda (née Corcoran), an aspiring actress originally from Ireland, and Thomas Andrew McDowall, a merchant seaman of Scottish descent.

His family moved to the United States in 1940 due to the outbreak of World War II. McDowall became a naturalized United States citizen on 9 December 1949, and lived in the United States for the rest of his life.

He made his first well-known film appearance at the age of 12, playing Huw Morgan in How Green Was My Valley (1941). The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and made him a household name. Other films of this period include Lassie Come Home (1943), My Friend Flicka (1943), The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), and The White Cliffs of Dover (1944).

McDowall continued his career successfully into adulthood. Having won both an Emmy (1961, for NBC Sunday Showcase) and a Tony Award (1961 in The Fighting Cock) he appeared in such television series as the original The Twilight Zone, The Eleventh Hour, Twelve O'Clock High, The Invaders, The Carol Burnett Show, Columbo, Night Gallery, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Mork and Mindy, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Hart to Hart, Tales of the Gold Monkey, Hotel, Murder She Wrote and Quantum Leap.

He is probably best remembered for his performances in heavy makeup as various chimpanzee characters in four of the Planet of the Apes films (1968–1973) and in the 1974 TV series that followed.

McDowall had a passion for film preservation and amassed a personal library of over 1000 books on Hollywood and Broadway history.

On 3 October 1998, aged 70, McDowall died of lung cancer at his home in Studio City.