We remember famous people who died this day, August 30, in history, including silver screen tough guy Charles Bronson.
2019: Valerie Harper, Emmy-winning actress who starred in TV’s “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Rhoda,” dies at 80.
2015
WES CRAVEN, U.S. director and writer best known for the “Nightmare on Elm Street” film series, dies at 76.
Craven helped reinvent the teen horror genre with 1984’s “A Nightmare on Elm Street.” The movie and its indelible, razor-fingered villain Freddy Krueger (played by Robert Englund) led to several sequels, as did his 1996 success, “Scream.” “He was a consummate filmmaker and his body of work will live on forever,” said Weinstein Co. co-chairman Bob Weinstein, whose Dimension Films produced “Scream.” ‘Read more
OLIVER SACKS, British neurologist and author known for his best-selling case studies including his book “Awakenings,” dies at 82.
Sacks’ 1973 book, “Awakenings,” about hospital patients who’d spent decades in a kind of frozen state until Sacks tried a new treatment, led to a 1990 movie in which Sacks was portrayed by Robin Williams. It received three Academy Award nominations. Read more
2013
SEAMUS HEANEY, Irish poet and playwright who won the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature, dies at 74.
“To all lovers of the perfectly weighed word, Seamus Heaney offered hope on this side of the grave … He left behind a half-century’s body of work that sought to capture the essence of his experience: the sour smells and barren beauty of Irish landscapes, the haunting loss of loved ones and of memory itself, and the tormented soul of his native Northern Ireland.” Read more
JOHN “JUKE” LOGAN, U.S. electric blues harmonica player who was known best for playing the theme songs to the television series “Home Improvement” and “Roseanne,” dies of complications of throat cancer at 66.
2008
KILLER KOWALSKI, Canadian professional wrestler who won the World Wide Wrestling Federation World Tag Team Championship with Big John Studd, dies after a heart attack at 81.
Kowalski began his professional career in 1947 as “Tarzan” Kowalski. His hulking 6-foot-7, 275-pound frame and a brutal wrestling style soon earned him a nickname, “Killer.” Kowalski began to be known as a villain after hurting Yukon Eric during a match in Montreal in 1954, according to his obituary by The Associated Press. He visited his opponent in the hospital after the match to check up on him, and “the two men began laughing at how silly Eric’s bandages looked. The reporter incorrectly printed that Killer was laughing at his victim and soon after, Killer quickly became wrestling’s most renowned ‘heel’ or ‘villain'”… Read more
2006
He was cast usually as the handsome tough, but his acting talents ranged from romance to comedy, according to his obituary by The Associated Press. His more famous credits include “Superman,” “Gilda,” “The Sheepman,” “The Gazebo,” “Pocketful of Miracles,” and “Don’t Go Near the Water.” An avid horseman and former polo player, Ford appeared in a number of Westerns, “3:10 to Yuma,” “Cowboy,” “The Rounders,” “Texas,” “The Fastest Gun Alive,” and the remake of “Cimarron” among them. Read more
NAGUIB MAHFOUZ, Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature, dies at 94.
2004
FRED LAWRENCE WHIPPLE, U.S. astronomer at the Harvard College Observatory who hypothesized that comets were “dirty snowballs” made up of mostly ice, dies at 97.
2003
CHARLES BRONSON, U.S. actor known for starring in the movies “Death Wish,” “The Dirty Dozen,” and “The Great Escape,” dies of pneumonia at 81.
He was a man of seeming contradictions: a rough and tough coal miner from Pennsylvania who served as a tail-gunner in World War II but then studied art on the G.I. Bill when he returned to the U.S. before enrolling at the Pasadena Playhouse in California. Known best for his macho film roles – “Death Wish,” “The Dirty Dozen,” “The Magnificent Seven,” “The Great Escape” – he was also a successful painter, one who couldn’t bear to part with the paintings he sold. (He is said to have bought them all back.) Read more
2002
J. LEE THOMPSON, English movie director and screenwriter who directed “The Guns of Navarone” and the original “Cape Fear,” dies at 88.
2000
DAVID HASKELL, U.S. actor who played Nick Hartley on the soap opera “Santa Barbara,” dies at 52.
1995
STERLING MORRISON, U.S. musician and guitarist who was one of the founding members of the Velvet Underground rock group, dies of non-Hodgkin lymphoma at 53.
1993
RICHARD JORDAN, U.S. actor whose movie appearances included “Logan’s Run” and “The Secret of My Success,” dies of a brain tumor at 56.
1985
TAYLOR CALDWELL, English author who wrote many best-selling novels including “Captains and the Kings,” dies of pulmonary failure at 84.
1984
WESLEY LAU, U.S. actor known best for his role as Andy Anderson on the TV series “Perry Mason,” dies at 63.
1981
VERA-ELLEN, U.S. dancer and actress who starred in “The Belle of New York” with Fred Astaire and “On the Town” with Gene Kelly, dies of cancer at 60.
1979
JEAN SEBERG, U.S. actress who starred in the original version of the movie “Breathless” and in “Airport,” dies of a barbiturate overdose at 40.
1970
DEL MOORE, U.S. actor who co-starred on the sitcom “Life With Elizabeth” with Betty White and had a regular role on the series “Bachelor Father,” dies at 54.
1968
WILLIAM TALMAN, U.S. actor who played District Attorney Hamilton Burger on the television series “Perry Mason,” dies at 53.
1961
CHARLES COBURN, U.S. actor who was known best for his work in comedies and won an Academy Award in 1943 for his supporting performance in the movie “The More the Merrier,” dies of congestive heart failure at 84.
1938
MAX FACTOR, Polish businessman who founded the cosmetics company that bears his name, dies at 65.
Discover famous people born August 30, including Mamas and Papas musician John Phillips.
