[arnold]

Sobering to see the temporary lives of even the most famous. Fascinating histories.

[SpecialK]

El Toro, Lake Forest.

Kim Hill was diagnosed with leukemia at age 3 and was not expected to survive into adulthood. Three years later in 1972, her father Fred, who played football for the Philadelphia Eagles, had a team fund-raising fashion show for the Leukemia Society of America in her honor and raised over $10,000. After this start, Fred, with neighbor Stan Lane, started Eagles Fly for Leukemia. In 1974, this led to starting the Ronald MacDonald House which became a model for an international network of temporary housing for families of sick children. Kim was a spokeswoman for them for years, appearing at openings and riding on a float celebrating the charity’s 10th anniversary in the 1984 Rose Parade. She managed a McDonald’s restaurant until age 24 when she was diagnosed with brain tumors thought to have been caused by her childhood radiation treatments. Ronald McDonald House Charities now operates over 350 houses in 40+ countries.


Robert Duncan Luce was an American mathematician and social scientist, and a leader in the field of mathematical psychology including formulating Luce's choice axiom formalizing the principle that additional options should not affect the probability of selecting one item over another, and coining the term "clique" for a complete subgraph in graph theory. He held the position of Distinguished Research Professor of Cognitive Science at UC Irvine. Luce received a BS in Aeronautical Engineering from MIT in 1945, and PhD in Mathematics from MIT in 1950 with a thesis On Semigroups. He began teaching mathematical statistics and sociology at Columbia in 1954, lectured at Harvard, and was a professor at Univ of Pennsylvania in 1959. He was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Professorship of Psychology in 1968. He alternated at UC Irvine and Harvard before resettling at UC Irvine faculty as the Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Sciences and later its director of the Inst for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences.


Richard Spencer was an architect who designed unusual cliff-side residences, some owned by celebrities. He graduated from Stanford about 1936 with an MA, then attended Cal Tech studying Industrial Design. In 1955, he and second wife Eloise moved to Malibu, where he built a striking Modernist house cantilevered over the hillside. He helped in the monorail design for the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. By 1965, he moved to Huntington Harbor of Huntington Beach, where he designed about 45 houses. One used a swimming pool as counterweight for a cantilevered section. Another co-design in LA features a 60-foot arch made of laminated fir supporting a section protruding from the hillside and was featured in the Los Angeles Times Home Magazine and in the December 1951 Issue of Popular Science. Though modified, it still stands.

[SpecialK]

Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills.

Monica Freeman was an actress and painter. She modeled while in high school, and was the first "Miss Subways" of the NYC transit system in 1940. Her first films were 1944's Till We Meet Again, Double Indemnity, and National Velvet. After a series of roles playing pretty, naive teenagers, she complained of being typecast. Freeman's career slowed and she appeared in mostly B-movies, though an exception was her role in the film noir Angel Face (1952), and she co-starred in Jumping Jacks with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. TV included 7 eps of The United States Steel Hour from 1960-62, 3 eps on Perry Mason, and Wanted: Dead or Alive. Freeman concentrated on painting after 1961, with her best-known portrait of Mary See, founder of See's Candies.


Eddie Jackson was a stage and movie actor during the 1930-1940s, and appeared with Margaret O'Brien and Jimmy Durante in the 1944 comedy Music for Millions. TV included the All Star Revue (1950), The Jimmy Durante Show (1954), and President Kennedy's Birthday Salute (1962).


Carrie Fisher was an actress and writer. She played Princess Leia in the Star Wars films, earning four Saturn Award nominations. Other films include Shampoo, The Blues Brothers, Hannah and Her Sisters, and When Harry Met Sally...She was nominated twice for an Emmy for TVs 30 Rock, and Catastrophe. She wrote several semi-autobiographical novels, including Postcards from the Edge and an autobiographical one-woman play and its non-fiction book, Wishful Drinking. Fisher's memoir, The Princess Diarist earned her the Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album, 13 months after her death. She was praised for speaking publicly about her bipolar disorder and drug addiction. Fisher was the daughter of singer Eddie Fisher and actress Debbie Reynolds. She had relationships with Harrison Ford, Paul Simon, Dan Aykroyd, and Creative Artists Agency principal and talent agent Bryan Lourd which resulted in a daughter.

[SpecialK]

Hollywood Forever.

Alexander Carr was a Russian-born actor and writer, known for April Fool (1926), The Death Kiss (1932), Potash and Perlmutter (1923), and his last film, 1940's Christmas in July.


Alan Factor produced a handful of TV movies and 13 episodes of The Next Step Beyond. He had 7 acting roles as Alan Frost. He directed 6 episodes of One Step Beyond, and one Bewitched episode.



Alois Kahout was an artist born in Czechoslovakia, and studied at Prague's Real Schule, the Art Institute in Zagreb and in Paris at the Academie Julian. Kahout renamed himself Lecoque - both names mean "Rooster". In 1913, his works were exhibited at the Anglo German Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London. He escaped from a German prison during WWII, then lived in Italy, and came to the US with only 5 dollars. He gifted a painting to the White House on the USA bicentennial.

[SpecialK]

Hollywood Forever.

Ashton Dearholt acted, as Richard Holt, in the silent film era, appearing in 75 films between 1915 and 1938. He worked with Universal Studios on several melodramas during the 1910s, but usually worked on his own as the producer and star in a series of "Pinto Pete" Westerns during the 1920s. In 1934, Dearholt and his friend, Edgar Rice Burroughs, founded the film production company Burroughs-Tarzan Enterprises to make The New Adventures of Tarzan in which his character was a mercenary antagonistic explorer sent to steal the valuable Green Goddess. During its production in Guatemala, Dearholt married the leading actress, Ula Holt, and Burroughs broke up with his first wife to marry Dearholt's ex-wife, Florence Gilbert. Dearborn's first wife, 1916-1925, was actress Helene Rosson.


Berjouhi Gregorian was a stage and screen actress.


Anton Yelchin was an American actor, best-known for playing Pavel Chekov in three Star Trek films: Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, and Star Trek Beyond. He also voiced Clumsy Smurf in the Smurfs films. His film debut was in A Man Is Mostly Water, and early roles in both film and TV include A Time for Dancing, Delivering Milo, House of D, and Taken. Yelchin played Bobby Garfield in Hearts in Atlantis (2001), which is based on Stephen King's novel. In 2001, he played Dimitri Starodubov in Along Came a Spider, earning a Young Artist Award. After missing a rehearsal, Yelchin was found by friends just before midnight pinned between his Jeep and a brick pillar gate post at his home.

[SpecialK]

Hollywood Forever.

A member of the Hollywood Blondes, Dorothy Elswit was married to Fred Elswit, a theatre/café agent for the William Morris Agency in Beverly Hills. On a stormy night when all commercial flights were grounded, Fred, who was a licensed pilot, and Dorothy boarded their rented plane, which crashed outside of Las Vegas.





Charles K. Feldman was a Hollywood attorney, film producer and talent agent who founded the Famous Artists talent agency. He was adopted at age 6 after both parents died of cancer. In college, he worked as a mail carrier and a cameraman at a movie studio. He later went on to produce his own movies and created the Charles K. Feldman Productions in 1945. The company helped make Orson Welles's Macbeth, Lewis Milestone's The Red Pony, and Ben Hecht's The Shadow. The company produced A Streetcar Named Desire, where Feldman fought to protect the script from censorship. He later produced The Seven Year Itch, and was the agent of Marilyn Monroe from 1951 to 1955. His final production was 1967's Casino Royale.

[SpecialK]

Holy Cross, LA.

Alan Mowbray began his career in London in 1922, as an actor and stage manager. In 1923 he relocated and acted in New York stock companies, with his Broadway debut in The Sport of Kings. In 1929 he wrote, directed and starred in the unsuccessful Dinner Is Served. Mowbray made his film debut in God's Gift to Women (1931) playing a butler, a role in which he was to often play including in some of the “Topper” movies. In 1956, Mowbray was in The King and I, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Around the World in 80 Days. Mowbray was a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild in 1933, writing a personal check to fund the group's incorporation and serving as the first vice president.


William Joseph Patrick O'Brien acted with more than 100 screen credits. During WWI, he and actor Spencer Tracy joined the navy and both attended boot camp at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center, but were not deployed as the war ended. Jack Benny was also at the Training Center, and while performing on the violin at a show, the sailors started booing and heckling him. O'Brien walked on stage and whispered in his ear, "For heaven's sake, Ben, put down the damn fiddle and talk to 'em." Benny stopped playing, and made comments that got laughs.
O'Brien made his film debut in the short, The Nightingale in 1930. His first starring role was as reporter Hildy Johnson in the 1931's The Front Page. He was the lead in Personal Maid, was in the musical Flying High, was Irene Dunne's love interest in Consolation Marriage, co-starred with Bette Davis in Hell's House, and played a heroic pilot in Air Mail. He was frequently paired onscreen with James Cagney, and they remained friends for almost six decades. Their films include Here Comes the Navy, and Devil Dogs of the Air. Cagney sued Warners for billing O'Brien's name above his in Ceiling Zero. O'Brien starred in Oil for the Lamps of China (1935), which he called "one of my favorite pictures." One of O'Brien's best roles was the former street kid turned priest in Angels with Dirty Faces. Another notable role was the famous Notre Dame football coach in Knute Rockne All American, in which he gave the speech to "win just one for the Gipper". He appeared as a police detective in Some Like It Hot, was in four episodes of TV's Crossroads, and was in the sitcom Harrigan and Son.
O'Brien made numerous TV appearances as himself, including The Ed Sullivan Show, and The Tonight Show. He was the subject of an episode of This Is Your Life, and was the mystery guest on What's My Line? O'Brien's final performance was a 1982 episode of Happy Days. O'Brien spoke the Star Spangled Banner, with Doc Severinsen on trumpet, for the opening of Super Bowl IV in 1970. Near the end of his life, he toured in a stage production of On Golden Pond.


Josephine Workman, known by her stage name, Princess Mona Darkfeather, was an American actress who starred in Native American and Western dramas, best known for her role as Prairie Flower in The Vanishing Tribe (1914). Her career began in 1909 when she replied to a local newspaper ad by William Ince for an actress to portray an American Indian capable of doing stunts and riding horses. She quickly learned horsemanship, was renamed Mona Darkfeather, and starred as an Indian maiden named Owanee in the 1911 movie Owanee's Great Love. Darkfeather was Cecil B. DeMille's first choice to portray the Indian wife, Nat-u-ritch, in The Squaw Man (1914), but she was too busy, as she and husband Frank Montgomery were producing their own movies. She retired from the screen after her last movie, The Hidden Danger, in 1917. In August 1918, she appeared at the Liberty Theater in Tacoma, Washington, and after each showing of the feature movie, Eyes of the World (1917) starring Monroe Salisbury, she sang and gave advice to all girls in the audience with ambition to enter show business.

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Last edited by SpecialK; 09-18-2022 at 07:38 PM.

[SpecialK]

Holy Cross, Culver City.

Sally Blane, born Elizabeth Jane Young, appeared in over 70 movies. Her film debut was at age seven in Sirens of the Sea in 1917. Blane appeared in low-budget films 1930-35, including Once a Sinner, A Dangerous Affair, Arabian Knights, Annabelle's Affairs, Hello Everybody!, City Limits, Against the Law, The Silver Streak, and This is the Life. In some scenes, she appeared in skimpy lingerie which was quite risqué at the time. She appeared with her sisters, Polly Ann and Loretta Young, and half-sister Georgiana Young, in The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939). Only four more films followed, the last being A Bullet for Joey (1955).


Amparo Iturbi Báguena was a Spanish pianist and the younger sister of pianist José Iturbi. Her first concert was at age 15 in Barcelona. Her first important concert outside Spain was in Paris in 1925. This was followed by dual piano recitals with José, touring Europe, it finally the US in 1937. She had guest roles, playing herself, alongside her brother in the the MGM musicals Two Girls and a Sailor, Holiday in Mexico, Three Daring Daughters, and That Midnight Kiss, all in the 1940's. Ámparo and José appeared on The Jimmy Durante Show in 1955 and on The Bell Telephone Hour in 1962. She gave piano lessons to selected students in her Beverly Hills home in the early 1960's, enforcing her unconventional curled-finger technique, while her long cigarette ash would grow and fall onto her clothes or the piano.


José Iturbi Báguena was a Spanish conductor, pianist and harpsichordist. He made his American debut in NYC in 1929. Iturbi's first appearance as a conductor was in Mexico City in 1933. In April 1936, Iturbi was injured in the crash and sinking of Pan Am' Puerto Rican Clipper airplane in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. Iturbi was also a noted harpsichordist and made several instructional films using the French Pleyel et Cie pedaled metal-framed harpsichord. He appeared in several musical films of the 1940s, notably playing himself in the musicals Thousands Cheer, Music for Millions, Anchors Aweigh, That Midnight Kiss, and Three Daring Daughters. Iturbi married María Giner de los Santos in 1916, but she died in 1928. They had one child, María, who married Stephan Hero, an American concert violinist. She was awarded legal custody of two daughters after a divorce, however, in 1943, Iturbi took his daughter to court for custody of the girls, calling her unfit. In 1946, she committed suicide. José continued public performances into his 80s. He was ordered by his doctors to take a sabbatical in March 1980, and died 3 months later.

[SpecialK]

Mt Sinai, Los Angeles.

Vivian Farren was an actress in "10" (1979), "The Other Woman" (1983), and "Corey: For the People" (1977). Her last role was in Fatal Judgement (1988), produced by her husband.

Jack Farren produced the TV show Concentration for 8 years, then Get the Message, and 14 episodes of Call My Bluff in the mid-60s. Later TV movies include The Five of Me, The Execution, Mafia Princess and Fatal Judgment. He also produced the 1972 movie "Fuzz" starring Burt Reynolds, Tom Skerritt and Raquel Welch. He appeared on To Tell the Truth as a “decoy” contestant.


Geraldine McGee was a model, socialite, and Las Vegas showgirl. Her involvement with criminal activity in Las Vegas, with her husband, was the subject of the 1995 Martin Scorsese film Casino. In 1969, Geri married Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, though the marriage went through a series of break ups and reconciliations through the 1970s. Geri secretly began seeing Anthony Spilotro, a mob enforcer and caporegime in Las Vegas, and a married friend of Frank's. On November 6, 1982, she was found heavily drugged in the lobby of the Beverly Sunset Hotel and died three days later. Various theories surround her death, but the coroner ruled the cause of her death was an accidental overdose of cocaine, valium, and whiskey.


Howard Zieff was a director, and advertising photographer. His ad campaigns included "You Don't Have To Be Jewish" for Levy's rye bread featuring an East Indian actor, "Mamma Mia, that's a spicy meatball" for Alka-Seltzer, and ads for the New York Daily News, Polaroid, and Volkswagen. Zieff's films include Slither, Hearts of the West, House Calls, The Main Event, Private Benjamin, Unfaithfully Yours, The Dream Team, My Girl, and My Girl 2. He retired from directing after My Girl 2 as he became increasingly debilitated by Parkinson's disease.

[SpecialK]

Rose Hills, Whittier.

Elizabeth Flournow was an actress, with her first credit as a doctor in Adam's Rib (1949). She was mostly uncredited in subsequent films which include And Baby Makes Three, Annie Get Your Gun, Bedtime for Bonzo, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Titanic (1953), A Star is Born, My Man Godfrey, and her last, The Great Impostor in 1960.


Shanta Lucero was found shot to death at the rear of a building in Long Beach CA. Three years earlier, she had testified in an attempted murder trial which resulted in a conviction for the boyfriend of Quennie Reyna. In 2004, Lucero and another friend drove to an apartment to pick up Reyna and go cruising to "look for guys". Outside the apartment, Reyna and her boyfriend were arguing, then he got a shotgun and shot Reyna in the neck. Lucero admitted she and Reyna were using methamphetamine, and Reyna's boyfriend was drunk.


David Torres was a musician, composer, and producer, playing piano, trumpet and congas. From 1989 through 2011, he was the musical director for the Poncho Sanchez Latin Jazz Band. In 1999, he earned a Grammy, after several nominations. He toured with Tierra, Mongo Santamaria, Chick Corea, Eddie Harris, Terrance Blanchard, Freddie Hubbard and The Jazz Crusaders. He taught the history of Latin Jazz to students of all ages. Torres also played on and arranged soundtracks for several movies and TV.

[SpecialK]

San Fernando Mission, Mission Hills.

Dick Foran started as a band singer, and then sang on the radio. He started acting in supporting roles, then starred as a singing cowboy in musical westerns including 1936's Treachery Rides the Range, Song of the Saddle, and California Mail. Other films include Rangers of Fortune (1940), The Mummy's Hand (1940), and Ride 'Em Cowboy (1942) which featured his signature theme "I'll Remember April". He was in Donovan's Reef (1963) with longtime friend John Wayne, and his last role was in 1967's Brighty of the Grand Canyon. Work in his last years was almost all in TV commercials.


Estelita Rodriguez was a Cuban actress best known for her roles in many Roy Rogers westerns, starting with Along the Navajo Trail, Twilight in the Sierras, and In Old Amarillo. She was also in Howard Hawks' 1959 western classic Rio Bravo. Her last film was 1966's Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter. Married 4 times, the second to Grant Withers with actor John Wayne as best man, and lastly to Dr. Ricardo Pego. She was found dead on her kitchen floor. Likely older than marker indicates.


Gloria Talbott was an actress, born in Glendale, California, the city co-founded by her great-great grandfather. She began her career as a child actress in Maytime, Sweet and Low-down, and A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. During during the 1950s, she appeared in Crashout, We're No Angels, Lucy Gallant, and All That Heaven Allows. She later became known as a 'scream queen' after appearing in a number of horror films including The Daughter of Dr. Jekyll, The Cyclops, I Married a Monster from Outer Space, and The Leech Woman. Her final film role was in 1966's An Eye for an Eye. On TV she appeared on Zorro, Superman, The Cisco Kid, Gunsmoke, Rawhide, and 4 episodes of Perry Mason.

[SpecialK]

Westwood Village, Santa Monica.

Hugh Marston Hefner was the founder and editor-in-chief of Playboy magazine which was first published in 1953 featuring Marilyn Monroe in a nude calendar shoot and sold over 50,000 copies. Hefner created a chain of Playboy Clubs, and lived in luxury mansions. He was an advocate of "sexual liberation" and "freedom of expression", and he was a political activist in the Democratic Party and for the causes of First Amendment rights, animal rescue, and the restoration of the Hollywood Sign. In 1992, he paid $75,000 for the crypt next to Marilyn Monroe, whom he never met - "Spending eternity next to Marilyn is an opportunity too sweet to pass up."


Florence Agnes Henderson was an American actress, best known for her starring role as Carol Brady on the TV sitcom The Brady Bunch. Henderson also appeared in film and on stage, and hosted several long-running cooking and variety shows over the years. She appeared as a guest on many talk-shows and reality shows on TV, and as a panelist on numerous game shows. She was a contestant on Dancing with the Stars in 2010. She hosted her own talk show, The Florence Henderson Show, and cooking show, Who's Cooking with Florence Henderson, in her later years. She died on Thanksgiving.


Salvatore Loggia was an American actor and director. In his early career, he was a radio and TV anchor on the Southern Command Network in the Panama Canal Zone. He was nominated for an oscar for supporting actor for Jagged Edge (1985), and won the Saturn award for supporting actor for Big (1988). He appeared in The Greatest Story Ever Told, Revenge of the Pink Panther, An Officer and a Gentleman, Scarface, Prizzi's Honor, Oliver & Company, Innocent Blood, Independence Day, Lost Highway, Return to Me, and Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie. On TV, he was in The Nine Lives of Elfego Baca, Mancuso FBI, Malcolm in the Middle, The Sopranos, Men of a Certain Age, and T.H.E. Cat. On TV, he was on The Untouchables, Combat!, Columbo, Ellery Queen, The High Chaparral, Gunsmoke, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Big Valley, The Wild Wild West, Rawhide, Little House on the Prairie, The Rockford Files, Starsky & Hutch, Charlie's Angels, Magnum PI, Quincy ME, Kojak, Hawaii Five-0, The Bionic Woman, Falcon Crest, Frasier, The Sopranos, Monk, and Oliver Stone's miniseries Wild Palms. In 1998, Loggia appeared in an orange juice TV commercial lampooning obscure celebrity endorsements. The commercial was later referenced in a Malcolm in the Middle episode in which Loggia made a guest appearance as "Grandpa Victor" (for which he received his second Emmy nomination). In it, Loggia drinks some orange juice, then spits it out and complains about the pulp.

[SpecialK]

San Gabriel Cemetery, San Gabriel.
Restaurant critic Elmer Dills developed a knowledge and passion for food and wine during 20 years as a ClA officer in post-World War II Europe. Dills’ reviews are often framed and displayed at the small neighborhood restaurants he focused on. He had a 30-year career in newspapers, radio and television.


San Francisco Columbarium, San Francisco.

Harvey Milk was an American politician and the first openly gay elected official in California, on the SF Board of Supervisors. He was not open about his sexuality nor civically active until he was 40. During the Korean War, he served in the Navy as a diving officer on a submarine rescue ship. In 1972, Milk moved from NYC to the Castro District of SF, and unsuccessfully ran three times for political office, until winning a seat as a city supervisor in 1977. He sponsored a bill banning discrimination in public accommodations, housing, and employment on the basis of sexual orientation which passed by a vote of 11–1, signed into law by Mayor George Moscone. On November 27, 1978, Milk and Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, a disgruntled city supervisor. (Old cenotaph. There is a newer one).

Sunnyside, Long Beach.
Ray Clark was born in Barron WI, then his family moved to Iowa, then San Bernardino CA. Clark later moved to Pasadena and worked as a drug clerk before settling in Long Beach in 1907 where he opened his own stores. Clark became a public servant in 1924 and was soon appointed mayor. He served as mayor for two years until his death.

[SpecialK]

Mount Sinai, Los Angeles.

Mina Cunard was a silent-screen actress in Graft (1915), The Broken Coin (1915) and What Love Can Do (1916). After a 20-year break she returned to acting in 1943, and her last credit was in 1958's The Gift of Love. She was the sister of actress Grace Cunard.


Nathan "Nat" Hiken was a radio and television writer, producer, and songwriter who rose to prominence in the 1950s. After finishing college, he had a brief stint as a writer for United Press International. Hiken created and wrote for The Grouch Club, and wrote for Fred Allen's hit radio show. TV screenwriting included Car 54, Where Are You? (and composed its theme song); and The Phil Silvers Show. Hiken won five Emmy Awards for those two shows, and was nominated for 4 others. He is credited with discovering, and advancing the TV careers of Fred Gwynne, Alan Alda, and Dick Van Dyke.


Richard Tufeld was an actor, announcer, narrator and voice actor from the late 1940s though the early 2000s. His most famous role was as the voice of the robot on TV's Lost in Space. He began as an engineer at KLAC, a radio station in Los Angeles, then he was the radio announcer on ABC's The Amazing Mr. Malone in early 1950, then on Alan Reed's Falstaff's Fables and Tufeld was the announcer for the entire run of ABC Radio's Space Patrol. Besides his TV voice work as the robot, Tufeld narrated many other Irwin Allen productions, such as Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and The Time Tunnel, the Fantastic Four, Thundarr the Barbarian, Spider-Woman, and Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.

[SpecialK]

San Fernando Mission, Mission Hills.

Jonathan Joseph Candido began as a vocalist and bassist with the big band of Ted Fio Rito. He also was an actor and voice artist with a 4-octave speaking voice. He briefly became Bud Abbott's partner in the 1960s after the death of Lou Costello. His voice-work included The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse, The Black Cauldron, Rudolf and Frosty's Christmas in July, the mad apple tree in The Wizard of Oz, and a pig in Charlotte's Web. Movies included Herbie Rides Again, Plunderers of Painted Flats, and Cowboy From Brooklyn.


Jo Ann Marlowe was a child actress in 29 movies, including Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) as 6-year old Josie Cohan. She may be best-known as the younger daughter, Kay, in Mildred Pierce (1945) with Joan Crawford and Ann Blyth. Jo Ann went on to become a lawyer and was a chief trial lawyer for the US Attorney's Office in Los Angeles until the late 60s when she was injured in an accident leaving her in a coma until her death more than 22 years later.


Italian-American Novello began acting on radio, sometimes using various accents for supporting characters. He played Cairo police captain Lieutenant Sam Sabaaya on Rocky Jordan, Jamison the butler on the radio version of Lone Wolf, Judge Glenn Hunter on One Man's Family, and Mr. Negley, the mailman on the radio show My Favorite Husband. On film, his roles included pompous or fussy professionals, and assorted ethnic characters. Credits include Frank Capra's Pocketful of Miracles (1961), Beneath the 12-Mile Reef, The Pride and the Passion, and What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?. Novello's first TV role was on The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show in 1951. He was on I Love Lucy three times, and The Lucy Show, Bat Masterson, The Donna Reed Show, and The Real McCoys, and six episodes of 77 Sunset Strip. On The Andy Griffith Show, he played a thief passing through Mayberry who gets the Key to the City. He was on McHale's Navy seven times as the con artist Mayor Mario Lugatto of Volta Fiore, Italy. On Perry Mason, he played a pompous coin collector in "The Case of the Captain's Coins". He was also on 12 O'Clock High, Combat!, and The Rat Patrol.