Famous and Gravy

This person died 2021, age 98. He was a star athlete who lettered in football, basketball and track. He came home from the war in Europe in a body cast, mostly paralyzed, and spent 39 months under intense care. He was a key figure behind the landmark...

This person died in 2017 at age 80. At age 17, she was hired to appear in a series of commercials for Hotpoint appliances.  In 1980 she won a Golden Globe, and she was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1984, She entered the Betty Ford Center for...

This person died in 2021, age 61. His brother Neil once told a reporter that he almost joined the newspaper business as a young man, but that he had deliberately botched an interview. By 1984, he spent four months opening for the comedian Sam Kinison....

This person died 2016, age 69. He suffered a blow in a teenage brawl that caused his left pupil to be permanently dilated. He experimented with startling transformations, often playing up an androgynous image. In the 1980s he had a Broadway run in the...

This person died in 2013. His father was an immigrant who held a number of jobs, including janitor, bricklayer and mason. His mother was a high school cafeteria chef. He attended Rutgers University, graduating with a degree in communications. He drove...

This person died in 2014 at age 86. She was a Tony-nominated stage actress, and a calypso dancer for a period of time.. In 2011 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was a college professor and a ubiquitous presence on the lecture...

This person died in 2021, age 85. He had an irrepressible way, and a distinctive voice. Fox snagged him in the mid-1990s to establish credibility. His Electronic Arts video game evolved into a cultural phenomenon. His influence, steeped in everyman...

This person died in 2020, age 78. He grew up in Oneonta, New York. He began his career in the 1960s, hitchhiking and busking around the country before establishing himself in Greenwich Village. Mainstream radio programmers didn’t play his music,...

This person died 2012, age 82. He was among the most recognizable faces in the world. He built an entertainment empire, which expanded into game shows, awards shows, comedy specials, talk shows, children’s programming, reality programming, and...

This person died in 2019, age 76. In 1958 when he was 14, his father died immediately after performing a roast for Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. His dry delivery piqued the interest of Tom Smothers, who offered him a job on the “The Smothers Brothers...