87

** Connie Haines' mother Mildred JaMais is still alive at 109 years of age.

Yvonne Marie Antoinette JaMais (January 20, 1921 – September 22, 2008) was an American singer who performed under the stage name Connie Haines. Her 200 recordings were frequently up-tempo big band songs with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and Frank Sinatra.

Life and career
She began performing at age 4, and by age 9 had a regular radio show performing as Baby Yvonne Marie, the Little Princess of the Air.

After a number of regional successes and winning the Major Bowes contest, she was hired by Harry James, who asked her to change her name. She and James both later joined Tommy Dorsey, and Haines credited Dorsey with developing her style further. Haines performed in a number of films, including Duchess of Idaho.

She died in Clearwater Beach, Florida of myasthenia gravis.

Cyd Charisse (March 8, 1922 – June 17, 2008) was an American dancer and actress.

Death of Cyd Charisse
In her eighties, Cyd Charisse made occasional public appearances and appeared frequently in documentaries spotlighting the golden age of Hollywood.

Publicist Gene Schwam said Charisse was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on June 16, 2008 after suffering an apparent heart attack. She died the following day, aged 86.

Honors
On November 9, 2006, in a private White House ceremony, President George W. Bush presented Cyd Charisse with the National Medal of the Arts and Humanities, the highest official U.S. honor available in the arts

* Cyd Charisse's biography & filmography continues next page
* Please share your memoriy, leave you comment

Leona Helmsley (July 4, 1920 – August 20, 2007) was a billionaire New York City hotel operator and real estate investor. She was a flamboyant personality and had a reputation for tyrannical behavior that earned her the nickname "Queen of Mean." The image of Helmsley was sealed when a former housekeeper testified that she heard Helmsley say: "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes." She was convicted of federal income tax evasion and other crimes in 1989 and served 19 months in prison (and two more months in house arrest), after receiving an initial sentence of 16 years.

Death

Leona Helmsley died from congestive heart failure, at the age of 87, on August 20, 2007, at her summer home in Greenwich, Connecticut Cardiovascular disease ran in her family, claiming the lives of her father, son and a sister. After a week at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel, she was entombed next to Harry Helmsley in a mausoleum constructed for $1.4 million and set on 3/4 acre in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Westchester County, New York.

### 

I grew up in the 80's. I probably heard Johnny Carson cracking jokes about Leona Helmsley about thousand times.

She was a great person in a way.  She started out as a secretary, then took over the industry.  I wish I was like that.

Then she made some bad decisions later in her life.

She must have been lonely, because she left 12 million dollars to her dog.

• Click here for a Leona Helmsley biography
• Share your memory, add your comment below
• Buy from Amazon.com: Leona Helmsley Books & Documentaries

Jack Palance (born Volodymyr Palahniuk; February 18, 1919 – November 10, 2006) was an Academy Award-winning American film actor. With his rugged facial features, Palance was best known to modern movie audiences as both the characters of Curly and Duke in the two City Slickers movies, but his career spanned half a century of film and television appearances.

Death of Jack Palance
Jack Palance died at the age of 87, of natural causes, at his home in Montecito in Santa Barbara County.He was cremated and his ashes were retained by family and friends

• Please share your memory, leave your comment
• Jack Palance's filmography continues on next page

Jack Palance as a bad guy

Red Buttons (February 5, 1919 – July 13, 2006) was an American comedian and actor.

Death of Red Buttons
Red Buttons died of vascular disease on July 13, 2006 at his home in the Century City area of Los Angeles. Red Buttons was 87 years old. Buttons had been ill for some time and was with family members when he passed away

Early life
Red Buttons was born Aaron Chwatt on February 5, 1919 in New York City to Jewish immigrants. At sixteen years old, Buttons got a job as an entertaining bellhop at Ryan's Tavern in City Island, Bronx. The combination of his red hair and the shiny buttoned bellhop uniform inspired orchestra leader Charles "Dinty" Moore to call him Red Buttons, the name under which he would later perform.

Later that same summer, Buttons worked on the Borscht Belt; his straight man was Robert Alda. In 1939, Buttons started working for Minsky's Burlesque; in 1941, José Ferrer chose Buttons to appear in a Broadway show The Admiral Had a Wife. The show was a farce set in Pearl Harbor, and it was due to open on December 8, 1941. It never did, as it was deemed inappropriate after the Japanese attack. In later years Buttons would joke that the Japanese only attacked Pearl Harbor to keep him off Broadway.

• Red Buttons' Biography & Filmography continues next page
• Please share your memory, leave your comment

Buy from Amazon.com: Loretta Young DVDs

Loretta Young (January 6, 1913 – August 12, 2000) was an Academy Award-winning American actress.

Early life
She was born in Salt Lake City, Utah as Gretchen Young (she took the name Michaela at confirmation) she moved with her family to Hollywood when she was three years old. Loretta and her sisters Polly Ann Young and Elizabeth Jane Young (screen name Sally Blane) worked as child actresses, of whom Loretta was the most successful. Young's first role was at age 3 in the silent film The Primrose Ring. The movie's star Mae Murray so fell in love with little Gretchen that she wanted to adopt her. Although her mother declined, Gretchen was allowed to live with Murray for two years. Her half-sister Georgiana (daughter of her mother and stepfather George Belzer) eventually married actor Ricardo Montalban. During her high school years, she was educated at Ramona Convent Secondary School.

Death of Loretta young
Loretta young died of ovarian cancer at the Santa Monica, California home of her half-sister, Georgiana Montalban, and was interred in the family plot in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.
Loretta young was 87 years old at the time of her death

Young has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame — one for motion pictures, at 6104 Hollywood Blvd, and another for television, at 6141 Hollywood Blvd.

• Please share your love, leave your comment below
• Loretta Young's biography & filmography continues next page
• Buy from Amazon.com: Loretta Young DVDs

Loretta Young Newsreel