Audie Murphy (1925-1971)

Birth name: Audie Leon Murphy
Birthdate: Saturday, June 20th, 1925
Location: Hunt County, Texas, USA

Died: Friday, May 28th, 1971
Location: Brush Mountain, Virginia, USA
Cause of death: Plane crash

Best known for: Audie was one of the most decorated soldiers in the US military during World War Two (27 in all), receiving every major combat award for valour there was, as well as awards from the French and Belgian militaries. At the age of 19 Audie received the Medal of Honor after single-handedly holding off an entire squad of Nazi soldiers for an hour at the Colmar Pocket in France, then leading a successful counter-attack while out of ammunition and wounded. After the war his heroism was rightfully celebrated on American shores and he was cast as an all-American hero in various war and Western films, including The Red Badge of Courage (1951), Drums Across the River (1954) and The Quiet American (1958), after being "discovered" by James Cagney.

As you can see above, war hero Audie died young, aged 45, and his film career was going great guns right up until the end. Throughout the 1960s he'd continued to star in films and did not need to make the transition to television that many of his greater colleagues had been forced to do. However, his fate suddenly cut short what was turning out to be a pretty amazing life - from war hero to movie star.

Ingrid Bergman (1915-1982)

Birth name: Ingrid Bergman
Birthdate: Sunday, August 29th, 1915
Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Died: Sunday, August 29th, 1982
Location: London, UK
Cause of death: Breast cancer

Best known for: Multi-award winning actress who won Oscars for Gaslight (1944), Anastasia (1956) and Murder on the Orient Express (1974), and was nominated a further four times for For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), The Bells of St Mary's (1945), Joan of Arc (1948) and Autumn Sonata (1978) - losing to Jennifer Jones, Joan Crawford, Jane Wyman and Jane Fonda respectively (it seems women whose names began with J were her nemeses!). She was also nominated for a Golden Globe eight times (winning four), an Emmy three times (winning two) and a BAFTA twice (winning one). Other films of note include Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1941), Casablanca (1942), Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946), Under Capricorn (1949), The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958) and The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964).

Tarzan - Part 2 (1932-1948)

Character's first film appearance: Tarzan of the Apes (released January 27th, 1918)

Character description: Tarzan - aka John Clayton, Viscount Greystoke - is a fictional character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs in his novel Tarzan of the Apes in 1912. He was a feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani great apes after being separated from his parents when their ship was marooned off the African coast by mutineers. As an adult he experiences modern civilisation for the first time, largely rejecting it and choosing to remain in the wild as a heroic adventurer.

This is the second in a multi-part entry charting what happened to the various actors who have played Tarzan over the years. Click here for the silent era (1918-1929), click here for 1949-60, or read on to find out about the Tarzans of the 1930s and 40s...

Tarzan - Part 1 (1918-1929)

Character's first film appearance: Tarzan of the Apes (released January 27th, 1918)

Character description: Tarzan - aka John Clayton, Viscount Greystoke - is a fictional character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs in his novel Tarzan of the Apes in 1912. He was a feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani great apes after being separated from his parents when their ship was marooned off the African coast by mutineers. As an adult he experiences modern civilisation for the first time, largely rejecting it and choosing to remain in the wild as a heroic adventurer.

This is the first in a multi-part entry charting what happened to the various actors who have played Tarzan over the years, beginning with the character's very first film appearance just six years after his invention by Burroughs, during the silent era...

Dorothy Lamour (1914-1996)

Birth name: Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton
Birthdate: Thursday, December 10th, 1914
Location: New Orleans, USA

Died: Sunday, September 22nd, 1996
Location: Los Angeles, California, USA
Cause of death: Heart attack (unsubstantiated)

Best known for: Actress and singer who hit gold alongside Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in the Road to... series of films in the 1940s. She was also crowned Miss Orleans in 1931!

The jewel in Dorothy's CV is her involvement in the seven films in the popular Road to... series with Crosby and Hope. After 1940's Road to Singapore, the trio went on to visit Zanzibar, Morocco, Utopia and Rio, with the final regular outing being to Bali in 1952. A seventh film was made in 1962 called Road to Hong Kong, but the main female star of this outing was Brit Joan Collins, with Dorothy only turning in a cameo at the end, singing Warmer Than a Whisper in a nightclub.