At the end of every year, Hollywood buzzes with predictions for who will win Oscars or which picture made the most money. But Hollywood also takes a more somber tone and looks back at the lives and careers of the stars we lost. Though we lost many more than can this list conveys, here are seven of the most notable celebrity deaths of 2013.
One of the great actors ever to emerge cross the pond, Peter O’Toole cemented his legacy right from the start with a brilliant film debut as T.E. Lawrence in David Lean’s classic epic, Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Though denied the Academy Award, O’Toole’s performance turned him into an international star and led to other great Oscar-nominated performances in Beckett (1964), The Lion in Winter (1968), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), and The Ruling Class (1972). Infamous for his drunken carousing with the likes of Richard Harris, Richard Burton, and Oliver Reed, O’Toole was a rare talent whose personal life was as rich as the characters he inhabited on screen. He retired from acting in 2012 due to declining health and died on Dec. 14, 2013 in London, England following a long illness. He was 81.
A legendary actress born in Japan and the younger sister of Olivia de Havilland, Joan Fontaine might not have been a star had she not had a chance meeting with David O. Selznick. Fontaine was a contract player at RKO Pictures and was thought to be a rising young star, but a string of minor roles failed to advance her career and she was released by the studio. She soon met Selznick, however, which led to being cast by Alfred Hitchcock in his American debut, Rebecca (1940). Nominated for an Oscar, Fontaine had to wait until the following year to win Best Actress when she reunited with Hitch for Suspicion (1941), co-starring Cary Grant. She spent the next decade and a half as a major star in films like The Constant Nymph (1943), Jane Eyre (1944), and Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948). But by the time she appeared in Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956), her film career was virtually over, and she moved on to the stage and television. Fontaine’s infamous feud with de Havilland was legendary and the two never spoke again following the death of their mother in the mid-1970s. Fontaine died of natural causes on Dec. 15, 2013. She was 96.
A multi-talented star of stage and screen, Julie Harris rose from Broadway to become a prominent film actress during the 1950s and 1960s, even though she disliked the glamorous Hollywood lifestyle. After being nominated for Best Actress in her film debut, The Member of the Wedding (1952), Harris starred opposite James Dean in Elia Kazan’s East of Eden (1955) and reprised her Tony-winning performance as Sally Bowles in I Am a Camera (1955). She also starred with Anthony Quinn and Mickey Rooney in Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962), played an unstable woman plagued by dark spirits in The Haunting (1963), and was a heroin-addicted singer opposite Paul Newman in Harper (1966). Harris also co-starred opposite fellow Method actor Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor in Reflection of a Golden Eye (1967), but by this point in her career she shined more on the stage and television, winning Tonys throughout the 1970s and 1980s while becoming well known for her role as Joan Van Ark’s mother on Knots Landing. Harris battled a number of ailments later in life, including breast cancer and two strokes, but she kept performing regardless. On Aug. 24, 2013, Harris died of congestive heart failure at her home in West Chatham, MA. Four days later, Broadway dimmed its lights for one minute in honor of one of its most accomplished actresses.
Versatile and exceptional at playing strong-willed women, Eleanor Parker struggled in the first decade of her career following her debut in They Died With Their Boots On (1941), directed by Raoul Walsh. A string of small parts led to her eventual breakthrough as an inmate in the prison drama, Caged (1950), which earned Parker her first of three Academy Award nominations for Best Actress. From there, she enjoyed a number of successful roles, playing the frustrated wife of Kirk Douglas in Detective Story (1951), while starring opposite Robert Taylor in Above and Beyond (1952), William Holden in Escape from Fort Bravo (1953), and Charlton Heston in The Naked Jungle (1954). She earned her third Oscar nomination for playing opera star Marjorie Lawrence in Interrupted Melody (1955), but her career started to wane following performances opposite Frank Sinatra in The Man With the Golden Arm (1955) and Clark Gable in The King and Four Queens (1956). She thrived on the small screen throughout the 1960s, but delivered her career’s most memorable performance playing Baroness Elsa von Schraeder in The Sound of Music (1966). Parker spent her later years in quiet retirement until her death on Dec. 9, 2013 in Palm Springs, CA of complications from pneumonia. She was 91.
Though she had her start a child star on the original Mickey Mouse Club, Annette Funicello was also a singer and adult performer who reached the height of her popularity as a teen idol in a number of so-called beach party movies opposite Frankie Avalon. Starting with Beach Party (1963), these films featured a group of carefree, fun-loving teenagers living life on the beach and on their own terms. While not heavy on plot, the movies featured fun in the sun and several dance numbers, and were huge hits with young audiences. Funicello starred opposite Avalon in pseudo-sequels like Muscle Beach Party (1964), Bikini Beach (1964), and Beach Blanket Bingo (1965). But by the Summer of Love in 1967, beach party movies had fallen out of favor and her film career was near an end. She became a spokesperson for Skippy peanut butter in 1979 and appeared in a number of TV series, while privately struggling with multiple sclerosis. Funicello went public with her battle in 1992 to combat rumors she was an alcoholic and eventually fell out of view for a number of years as her health slowly deteriorated. Funicello died on April 8, 2013 in Bakersfield, CA due to complications of her debilitating disease. She was 70.
An enormously gifted comedian with a flair for improvisation and a spotty film career, Jonathan Winters was hailed as a genius and served as an inspiration for Robin Williams, Steve Martin, Tracey Ullman, Billy Crystal, and Jim Carrey. He was an uncanny master of impressions and could mimic the likes of John Wayne, James Cagney, and Cary Grant with ease. Winters’ career spanned six decades and featured hundreds of episodes of television, 11 Grammy Award nominations for Best Comedy Album, and a handful of classic comedies like It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966), and Viva Max! (1969). He was memorable as Robin Williams’ backwards aging son, Mearth, on Mork & Mindy, and spent his later years making small appearances and doing voiceover roles. Winters died on April 11, 2013 in Montecito, CA from natural causes. He was 87.
A former radio performer signed to a contract by MGM in 1945, Audrey Totter became known to film audiences as a tough, no-nonsense femme fatale in a string of classic film noirs. Totter memorably appeared opposite Lana Turner and John Garfield in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) and starred as a book publisher who hires Phillip Marlowe (Robert Montgomery) in Lady in the Lake (1947). She went on to star opposite Claude Rains in The Unsuspected (1947), Robert Taylor in High Wall (1947), Ray Milland in Alias Nick Beal (1949), and Robert Ryan in The Set-Up (1949). But by the early 1950s, film noir had largely fallen out of favor and Totter took a turn toward more family-oriented movies, though by this point her film career was in steep decline. She appeared on television and in small roles for the next three decades before calling it a career with a 1987 episode of Murder, She Wrote. Totter died of a stroke on Dec. 12, 2013 just a week shy of her 96th birthday.
1. Peter O’Toole – 1932-2013
One of the great actors ever to emerge cross the pond, Peter O’Toole cemented his legacy right from the start with a brilliant film debut as T.E. Lawrence in David Lean’s classic epic, Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Though denied the Academy Award, O’Toole’s performance turned him into an international star and led to other great Oscar-nominated performances in Beckett (1964), The Lion in Winter (1968), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), and The Ruling Class (1972). Infamous for his drunken carousing with the likes of Richard Harris, Richard Burton, and Oliver Reed, O’Toole was a rare talent whose personal life was as rich as the characters he inhabited on screen. He retired from acting in 2012 due to declining health and died on Dec. 14, 2013 in London, England following a long illness. He was 81.
2. Joan Fontaine – 1917-2013
A legendary actress born in Japan and the younger sister of Olivia de Havilland, Joan Fontaine might not have been a star had she not had a chance meeting with David O. Selznick. Fontaine was a contract player at RKO Pictures and was thought to be a rising young star, but a string of minor roles failed to advance her career and she was released by the studio. She soon met Selznick, however, which led to being cast by Alfred Hitchcock in his American debut, Rebecca (1940). Nominated for an Oscar, Fontaine had to wait until the following year to win Best Actress when she reunited with Hitch for Suspicion (1941), co-starring Cary Grant. She spent the next decade and a half as a major star in films like The Constant Nymph (1943), Jane Eyre (1944), and Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948). But by the time she appeared in Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956), her film career was virtually over, and she moved on to the stage and television. Fontaine’s infamous feud with de Havilland was legendary and the two never spoke again following the death of their mother in the mid-1970s. Fontaine died of natural causes on Dec. 15, 2013. She was 96.
3. Julie Harris – 1925-2013
A multi-talented star of stage and screen, Julie Harris rose from Broadway to become a prominent film actress during the 1950s and 1960s, even though she disliked the glamorous Hollywood lifestyle. After being nominated for Best Actress in her film debut, The Member of the Wedding (1952), Harris starred opposite James Dean in Elia Kazan’s East of Eden (1955) and reprised her Tony-winning performance as Sally Bowles in I Am a Camera (1955). She also starred with Anthony Quinn and Mickey Rooney in Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962), played an unstable woman plagued by dark spirits in The Haunting (1963), and was a heroin-addicted singer opposite Paul Newman in Harper (1966). Harris also co-starred opposite fellow Method actor Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor in Reflection of a Golden Eye (1967), but by this point in her career she shined more on the stage and television, winning Tonys throughout the 1970s and 1980s while becoming well known for her role as Joan Van Ark’s mother on Knots Landing. Harris battled a number of ailments later in life, including breast cancer and two strokes, but she kept performing regardless. On Aug. 24, 2013, Harris died of congestive heart failure at her home in West Chatham, MA. Four days later, Broadway dimmed its lights for one minute in honor of one of its most accomplished actresses.
4. Eleanor Parker – 1922-2013
Versatile and exceptional at playing strong-willed women, Eleanor Parker struggled in the first decade of her career following her debut in They Died With Their Boots On (1941), directed by Raoul Walsh. A string of small parts led to her eventual breakthrough as an inmate in the prison drama, Caged (1950), which earned Parker her first of three Academy Award nominations for Best Actress. From there, she enjoyed a number of successful roles, playing the frustrated wife of Kirk Douglas in Detective Story (1951), while starring opposite Robert Taylor in Above and Beyond (1952), William Holden in Escape from Fort Bravo (1953), and Charlton Heston in The Naked Jungle (1954). She earned her third Oscar nomination for playing opera star Marjorie Lawrence in Interrupted Melody (1955), but her career started to wane following performances opposite Frank Sinatra in The Man With the Golden Arm (1955) and Clark Gable in The King and Four Queens (1956). She thrived on the small screen throughout the 1960s, but delivered her career’s most memorable performance playing Baroness Elsa von Schraeder in The Sound of Music (1966). Parker spent her later years in quiet retirement until her death on Dec. 9, 2013 in Palm Springs, CA of complications from pneumonia. She was 91.
5. Annette Funicello – 1942-2013
Though she had her start a child star on the original Mickey Mouse Club, Annette Funicello was also a singer and adult performer who reached the height of her popularity as a teen idol in a number of so-called beach party movies opposite Frankie Avalon. Starting with Beach Party (1963), these films featured a group of carefree, fun-loving teenagers living life on the beach and on their own terms. While not heavy on plot, the movies featured fun in the sun and several dance numbers, and were huge hits with young audiences. Funicello starred opposite Avalon in pseudo-sequels like Muscle Beach Party (1964), Bikini Beach (1964), and Beach Blanket Bingo (1965). But by the Summer of Love in 1967, beach party movies had fallen out of favor and her film career was near an end. She became a spokesperson for Skippy peanut butter in 1979 and appeared in a number of TV series, while privately struggling with multiple sclerosis. Funicello went public with her battle in 1992 to combat rumors she was an alcoholic and eventually fell out of view for a number of years as her health slowly deteriorated. Funicello died on April 8, 2013 in Bakersfield, CA due to complications of her debilitating disease. She was 70.
6. Jonathan Winters – 1925-2013
An enormously gifted comedian with a flair for improvisation and a spotty film career, Jonathan Winters was hailed as a genius and served as an inspiration for Robin Williams, Steve Martin, Tracey Ullman, Billy Crystal, and Jim Carrey. He was an uncanny master of impressions and could mimic the likes of John Wayne, James Cagney, and Cary Grant with ease. Winters’ career spanned six decades and featured hundreds of episodes of television, 11 Grammy Award nominations for Best Comedy Album, and a handful of classic comedies like It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966), and Viva Max! (1969). He was memorable as Robin Williams’ backwards aging son, Mearth, on Mork & Mindy, and spent his later years making small appearances and doing voiceover roles. Winters died on April 11, 2013 in Montecito, CA from natural causes. He was 87.
7. Audrey Totter – 1917-2013
A former radio performer signed to a contract by MGM in 1945, Audrey Totter became known to film audiences as a tough, no-nonsense femme fatale in a string of classic film noirs. Totter memorably appeared opposite Lana Turner and John Garfield in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) and starred as a book publisher who hires Phillip Marlowe (Robert Montgomery) in Lady in the Lake (1947). She went on to star opposite Claude Rains in The Unsuspected (1947), Robert Taylor in High Wall (1947), Ray Milland in Alias Nick Beal (1949), and Robert Ryan in The Set-Up (1949). But by the early 1950s, film noir had largely fallen out of favor and Totter took a turn toward more family-oriented movies, though by this point her film career was in steep decline. She appeared on television and in small roles for the next three decades before calling it a career with a 1987 episode of Murder, She Wrote. Totter died of a stroke on Dec. 12, 2013 just a week shy of her 96th birthday.
SHARE
