Famous and Gravy

She amassed No. 1 hits, chart-topping albums and four records that sold more than two million copies each. Her consistently benign music and initial squeaky-clean image caused many to compare her to Doris Day. More than anything else, she was likable, even beloved. For years she was a prominent advocate for cancer research, starting a foundation in her name. She played Sandy in the musical “Grease” alongside John Travolta and had a massive hit in the 1980s with the song “Let’s Get Physical...

He wrote his most famous screenplay while teaching creative writing at Princeton University. Eight of his films each grossed more than $100 million domestically. He was an outspoken critic of the movie industry, and made headlines when he declared, “Nobody knows anything.” He was called the world’s greatest and most famous living screenwriter. He wrote ‘The Princess Bride’ and ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Today’s dead celebrity is William Goldman...

He was once described by his coach as “the single most devastating force in the history of the game.” He took part in the 1963 March on Washington and was seated in the front row for Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech. In 2011, President Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He was remembered for his ability to enhance the talents of his Boston Celtics teammates even as he dominated the action, and to do it without bravado...

His early passion was for football, and he played halfback at Florida State University. He was part Cherokee. He had an often turbulent career that spanned some 100 films and countless television appearances. He had a volatile temperament, but he himself projected an air of nonchalance and professed not to take his career too seriously. He was a self-mocking charmer with laugh-crinkled dark eyes, a distinctive mustache and a hairy chest...

He was a physically towering British movie actor with distinguished good looks, a Shakespearean voice, and aristocratic presence. His breakthrough film was the horror movie “The Curse of Frankenstein.” Though closely associated with horror, he maintained that of his roughly 250 movie and television roles, only 15 or so had been in horror films. Even into his 70s and 80s, he could strike fear in the hearts of moviegoers...

She once said “I wasn’t very good at being a starlet. I didn’t want to pose for cheesecake photos and that kind of thing.” She received two Oscar nominations before the age of 25. In the mid 1950s she found herself cast as either of two types: as she put it, “bitches on wheels and people’s mothers.” She was nominated for a Tony award at age 83, a testament to her extraordinary stamina and range...

He was born in Kingston, Jamaica but spent much of his childhood in Brooklyn. In the late 1980s, the influential music producer Rick Rubin signed his group. In 1991, he had an early brush with death when he was shot in the right eye. He was born with dwarfism and stood approximately 3 feet 8 inches tall. He was a member of the Houston-based rap group the Geto Boys, who’s biggest singles were ”Mind Playing Tricks on Me“ and “Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta”...

He was the son of a police officer, and he was headed for that career himself when he dropped out of the New York Police Academy to move to San Francisco in pursuit of rock stardom – which he found in 1978. He struggled with drugs in the early 1980s, but he staged several comebacks, and found hits later that decade. He and his family had been the focus of a reality television show on AXS TV. His birth name was Edward Mahoney. His hits include “Baby Hold On” and “Two Tickets to Paradise...

Over the years he was a favorite among real-life talk-show hosts, making at least 50 guest appearances on “The Tonight Show.” He made an art of playing characters who are “gloriously out of their depth.” He appeared in more than 700 films and television movies and episodes over a half-century. He was nominated for Emmys for his roles on “Modern Family” and “Everybody Loves Raymond...

Before his breakout, his main credits had been a handful of soap operas. His mega-stardom was unexpected. He starred opposite Alyson Hannigan in a 2004 stage version of “When Harry Met Sally”. In recent years, he made dozens of television appearances, including regular roles on the HBO prison drama “Oz” and the crime drama “Riverdale.” His looks were often compared to James Dean. He played Dylan McKay, a bad-boy teenager who struggled with alcoholism on the hit TV show Beverly Hills 90201...