1. Allen Ellsworth Ludden (October 5, 1917 – June 9, 1981)
Allen Ellsworth Ludden (October 5, 1917 – June 9, 1981)
He was a television personality, emcee and game show host, perhaps best known for having hosted various incarnations of the game show Password between 1961 and 1980. Ludden hosted many game shows, including the GE College Bowl, but he was most well known for hosting both the daytime and prime time versions of Password on CBS and ABC between 1961 and 1975. His opening TV catch phrase, “Hi doll,” was directed toward his beloved real-life mother-in-law, Tess White, mother of Betty White. He ended Password with a “password of the day,” and then “So long, see you tomorrow, I hope.” Ludden began hosting an updated version of the game, Password Plus, on NBC, in 1979, but chemotherapy treatments for stomach cancer forced him off the show in late October 1980. Other shows hosted by Ludden include Liar’s Club, Win with the Stars, and Stumpers! He also hosted the original pilot for The Joker’s Wild and hosted a talk-variety show, Allen Ludden’s Gallery. At the request of the publishers Dodd, Mead & Co., Ludden wrote and published four books of “Plain Talk” advice, plus a youth novel, Roger Thomas, Actor (1959), all for young readers.
He received the 1961 Horatio Alger Award. He released an album called Allen Ludden Sings His Favorite Songs on RCA Records in 1964. Ludden was married twice, and had three children from his first marriage. His first wife died in 1961, and he later married Betty White in 1963. The couple remained together until his death. Ludden died in Los Angeles on June 9, 1981 at age 63, from cancer. He is buried beside his father in the Ellsworth family plot in Graceland Cemetery in his hometown of Mineral Point, Wisconsi.
2. William West Anderson (September 19, 1928 – June 9, 2017),
West was an actor known primarily for his role as Batman in the 1960s ABC series of the same name and its 1966 theatrical feature film. West began acting in films in the 1950s. He played opposite Chuck Connors in Geronimo (1962) and The Three Stooges in The Outlaws Is Coming (1965). He also appeared in the science fiction film Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964) and performed voice work on The Fairly OddParents (2003–2017), The Simpsons (1992, 2002), and Family Guy (2000–2018), playing fictional versions of himself in all three. Late in his career, West starred in two direct-to-DVD animated Batman films, Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders, and Batman vs. Two-Face, the latter of which was released posthumously. During the 1990s, West’s status as a pop culture icon led to appearances as himself in the film Drop Dead Gorgeous and in several TV series, including NewsRadio, Murphy Brown, The Adventures of Pete & Pete, The Ben Stiller Show, and The Drew Carey Show. West also did voice-over work for superhero-themed commercials for the investment firm LendingTree and television commercials for Hebrew National hot dogs. West died in Los Angeles, California on June 9, 2017, following a brief battle with leukemia. He was 88.
3. Margaret Alexis Smith (June 8, 1921 – June 9, 1993)
She appeared in several major Hollywood movies in the 1940s and had a notable career on Broadway in the 1970s, winning a Tony Award in 1972. After being discovered by a talent scout while attending college, Smith was signed to a contract by Warner Bros. Her earliest film roles were uncredited bit parts, and it took several years for her career to gain momentum. Her first credited role was in the feature film Dive Bomber (1941), playing the female lead opposite Errol Flynn. Her appearance in The Constant Nymph (1943) was well received and led to bigger parts. During the 1940s, Smith appeared alongside some of the most popular male stars of the day, including Errol Flynn in Gentleman Jim (1942) and San Antonio (1945) (in which she sang a special version of the popular ballad “Some Sunday Morning”), Fredric March in The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944), Humphrey Bogart in Conflict (1945) and The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947), Cary Grant in a sanitized, fictionalized version of the life of Cole and Linda Porter in Night and Day (1946), and Bing Crosby in Here Comes the Groom (1951), her favorite role.
Smith returned to the big screen with star billing at the age of 54 in Jacqueline Susann’s Once Is Not Enough (1975) opposite Kirk Douglas, followed by The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane with Martin Sheen and Jodie Foster the following year and Casey’s Shadow with Walter Matthau in 1978. One of her final film roles came in 1986, again with Douglas when he reunited with frequent co-star Burt Lancaster for a 1986 crime comedy, Tough Guys. Alexis Smith died of brain cancer in Los Angeles on June 9, 1993, the day after her 72nd birthday.
4. Owen Moore (December 12, 1886 – June 9, 1939)
Moore was an Irish-born American actor, appearing in more than 279 movies spanning from 1908 to 1937. He emigrated to the United States as a steerage passenger on board the S.S. Anchoria and was inspected on Ellis Island in May 1896; settled around Toledo, Ohio; Moore and his siblings went on to successful careers in motion pictures in Hollywood, California. While working at D. W. Griffith’s Biograph Studios, Moore met a young Canadian actress named Gladys Smith whom he married on January 7, 1911. Their marriage was kept secret at first because of the strong opposition of her mother. However, Gladys Moore would soon overshadow her husband under her stage name, Mary Pickford. In 1912, he signed on with Victor Studios, co-starring in a number of their films with studio owner/actress Florence Lawrence. Mary Pickford left Biograph Studios to join the Independent Moving Pictures (IMP) to replace their major star, Pickford’s Canadian friend, Florence Lawrence. Carl Laemmle, the owner of IMP who soon merged IMP into Universal Studios, agreed to sign her husband as part of the deal.
This humiliation, together with his wife’s meteoric rise to fame, drastically affected Moore and alcohol became a problem that led to violent behavior and his physically abusing Pickford. In 1916, Pickford met actor Douglas Fairbanks, Pickford filed for a divorce from Moore, when she agreed to his demand of $100,000 settlement. In the late teens and early 1920s, Moore was a popular star at Selznick Pictures along with Olive Thomas, Elaine Hammerstein, Eugene O’Brien and Conway Tearle. With the advent of sound film, Moore’s career declined and he became basically a supporting actor for newer stars. After years of fighting alcoholism, Owen Moore died in Beverly Hills, California from a heart attack at age 52. He is interred at Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles, California.
5. Patricia Eva “Bonnie” Pointer (July 11, 1950 – June 8, 2020)
She was a singer, most notable for being a member of the Grammy Award–winning vocal group. Bonnie and youngest sister June began singing together as teenagers and in 1969 the duo had co-founded The Pointers (otherwise known as The Pair). After Anita joined the duo that same year, they changed their name to The Pointer Sisters and recorded several singles for Atlantic Records between 1971 and 1972. In December 1972, they recruited oldest sister Ruth and released their debut album as The Pointer Sisters in 1973. Their self-titled debut yielded the hit “Yes We Can Can”. Between 1973 and 1977, the Pointers donned 1940s fashions and sang in a style reminiscent of The Andrews Sisters; they also melded the sounds of R&B, funk, rock and roll, gospel, country and soul. In 1977, Bonnie left the group to begin a solo career. In 1978, Bonnie signed with Motown and in the same year, Bonnie released “Heaven Must Have Sent You,” which reached No. 11 on Billboard Hot 100 chart.
The remaining sisters continued scoring hits from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s and had a major breakthrough with their 1983 album Break Out. In 1978, Bonnie married Motown Records producer Jeffrey Bowen. As of July 2014, after 10 years of separation, Bonnie filed for divorce which was finalized in 2016. She continued to perform, and reunited with her sisters on two separate occasions: when the group received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1994, and during a Las Vegas performance in 1996 singing “Jump (for My Love)”. Pointer died at age 69 on June 8, 2020. Her younger sister June died in 2006. The sisters are buried at
Mount Tamalpais Cemetery in San Rafael, California.
