Elizabeth Victoria Montgomery (April 15, 1933 – May 18, 1995) was an American actress whose career spanned five decades in film, stage, and television. She portrayed the good witch Samantha Stephens on the popular television series Bewitched.
The daughter of actor, director and producer Robert Montgomery, she began her career in the 1950s with a role on her father’s television series Robert Montgomery Presents, and she won a Theater World Award for her 1956 Broadway debut in the production Late Love. After Bewitched ended in 1972, Montgomery continued her career with roles in many television films, including A Case of Rape (1974) and TheLegend of Lizzie Borden (1975).
Throughout her career, Montgomery was involved in various forms of political activism and charitable work.
In 1954, Montgomery married New York City socialite Frederick Gallatin Cammann; the couple divorced less than a year later. She was married to actor Gig Young from 1956 to 1963 and then she was married to director-producer William Asher from 1963 until their divorce in 1973. They had three children: William, Robert and Rebecca. The latter two pregnancies were incorporated into Bewitched as Samantha’s pregnancies. During the eighth year of the show, Montgomery fell in love with director Richard Michaels. Their resulting affair led to the end of both of their marriages, as well as the end of the series. They moved in together when shooting ended in 1972; the relationship lasted two and a half years. On January 28, 1993, she married actor Robert Foxworth, after living with him for nearly twenty years. They remained married until her death in 1995.
Montgomery suffered from colon cancer. She ignored the influenza-like symptoms during the filming of Deadline for Murder: From the Files of Edna Buchanan, which she finished filming in late March 1995. Due to the late diagnosis, the cancer metatasized from her colon to her liver.
With no hope of recovery and unwilling to die in a hospital, Montgomery chose to return to her Beverly Hills home that she shared with Foxworth. She died on the morning of May 18, 1995, at the age of 62, surrounded by Foxworth and her three children.
John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music.
Born and raised in North Carolina, Coltrane moved to Philadelphia after graduating from high school, where he studied music. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes and was one of the players at the forefront of free jazz. He led at least fifty recording sessions and appeared on many albums by other musicians, including trumpeter Miles Davis and pianist Thelonius Monk. Over the course of his career, Coltrane’s music took on an increasingly spiritual dimension, as exemplified on his most acclaimed album A Love Supreme (1965) and others. Decades after his death, Coltrane remains influential, and he has received numerous posthumous awards, including a special Pulitzer Prize and was canonized by the African Orthodox Church.
Coltrane died of liver cancer at the age of 40 on July 17, 1967. Biographer Lewis Porter speculated that the cause of Coltrane’s illness was hepatitis, although he also attributed the disease to Coltrane’s heroin use at a previous period in his life. Coltrane’s death surprised many in the music community who were unaware of his condition. Miles Davis said, “Coltrane’s death shocked everyone, took everyone by surprise. I knew he hadn’t looked too good … But I didn’t know he was that sick—or even sick at all.”
His second wife was pianist and harpist Alice Coltrane. The couple had three children: John Jr. (1964–1982), a bassist; Ravi (born 1965), a saxophonist; and Oran (born 1967), a saxophonist, guitarist, drummer and singer.
Clara Lou “Ann” Sheridan (February 21, 1915 – January 21, 1967) was an American actress and singer. She is best known for her roles in the films San Quentin (1937) with Humphrey Bogart, Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) with James Cagney and Bogart, They Drive By Night (1940) with George Raft and Bogart, City for Conquest (1940) with Cagney and Elia Kazan, The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942) with Bette Davis, Kings Row (1942) with Ronald Reagan, Nora Prentiss (1947) and I Was a Male War Bride (1949) with Cary Grant.
Sheridan was born in Denton, Texas, on February 21, 1915, the youngest of five children. According to Sheridan, her father was a grandnephew of Civil War Union general Philip Sheridan.
She was active in dramatics at Denton High School and at North Texas State Teachers College. She also sang with the college’s stage band and played basketball on the North Texas women’s basketball team. Then, in 1933, Sheridan won the prize of a bit part in an upcoming Paramount film, Search for Beauty, when her sister Kitty entered Sheridan’s photograph into a beauty contest.
Sheridan married actor Edward Norris August 16, 1936, in Ensenada, Mexico. They separated a year later and divorced in 1939. On January 5, 1942, she married fellow Warner Bros. star George Brent, who co-starred with her in Honeymoon for Three (1941); they divorced exactly one year later. Following her divorce from Brent, she had a long-term relationship with publicist Steve Hannagan that lasted until his death in 1953. Hannagan bequeathed Sheridan $218,399 (equivalent to $2.4 million today).
Sheridan engaged in a romantic affair with Mexican actor Rodolfo Acosta, with whom she appeared in 1953’s Appointment in Honduras. She and the married Acosta shared an apartment in Mexico City for several years, and Sheridan was charged with criminal adultery in Mexican federal court in October, 1956, following an accusation by Acosta’s wife, Jeanine Cohen Acosta. Mexican authorities issued a warrant for Sheridan’s arrest. Nothing came of the criminal charges, and the relationship ended around 1958. On June 5, 1966, Sheridan married actor Scott McKay, who was with her when she died seven months later.
In 1966, Sheridan began starring in a new television series, a Western-themed comedy called Pistols ‘n’ Petticoats. She became ill during the filming and died of esophageal cancer with massive liver metastases at age 51 on January 21, 1967, in Los Angeles. y in 2005.
Sheridan engaged in a romantic affair with Mexican actor Rodolfo Acosta, with whom she appeared in 1953’s Appointment in Honduras. She and the married Acosta shared an apartment in Mexico City for several years, and Sheridan was charged with criminal adultery in Mexican federal court in October, 1956, following an accusation by Acosta’s wife, Jeanine Cohen Acosta. Mexican authorities issued a warrant for Sheridan’s arrest. Nothing came of the criminal charges, and the relationship ended around 1958. On June 5, 1966, Sheridan married actor Scott McKay, who was with her when she died, seven months later.
In 1966, Sheridan began starring in a new television series, a Western-themed comedy called Pistols ‘n’ Petticoats. She became ill during the filming and died of esophageal cancer with massive liver metastases at age 51 on January 21, 1967, in Los Angeles.
Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin (January 21, 1869 – December 30, 1916) was a Russian mystic and holy man. He is best known for having befriended the imperial family of Nicholas II, the last emperor of Russia, through whom he gained considerable influence in the final years of the Russian Empire.
Rasputin was born to a family of peasants in the Siberian village of Pokrovskoye, located within Tyumensky Uyezd in Tobolsk Governorate (present-day Yarkovsky District in Tyumen Oblast). He had a religious conversion experience after embarking on a pilgrimage to a monastery in 1897 and has been described as a monk or as a strannik (wanderer or pilgrim), though he held no official position in the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1903 or in the winter of 1904–1905, he travelled to Saint Petersburg and captivated a number of religious and social leaders, eventually becoming a prominent figure in Russian society. In November 1905, Rasputin met Nicholas II and his empress consort, Alexandra Feodorovna.
In late 1906, Rasputin began acting as a faith healer for Nicholas’ and Alexandra’s only son, Alexei Nikolaevich, who suffered from haemophilia. He was a divisive figure at court, seen by some Russians as a mystic, visionary and prophet, and by others as a religious charlatan. The extent of Rasputin’s power reached an all-time high in 1915, when Nicholas left Saint Petersburg to oversee the Imperial Russian Army as it was engaged in the First World War. In his absence, Rasputin and Alexandra consolidated their influence across the Russian Empire. However, as Russian military defeats mounted on the Eastern Front, both figures became increasingly unpopular, and in the early morning of December 30, 1916, Rasputin was assassinated by a group of conservative Russian noblemen who opposed his influence over the imperial family.
Rasputin was murdered at the home of Prince Yusupov. He died of three gunshot wounds, one of which was a close-range shot to his forehead. Little is certain about his death beyond this, and the circumstances of his death have been the subject of considerable speculation. According to Smith, “what really happened at the Yusupov home will never be known.” The story that Yusupov recounted in his memoirs, however, has become the most frequently told version of events.
According to Yusupov’s account, Rasputin was invited to his palace shortly after midnight and ushered into the basement. Yusupov offered tea and cakes which had been laced with cyanide. After initially refusing the cakes, Rasputin began to eat them and, to Yusupov’s surprise, appeared unaffected by the poison. Rasputin then asked for some Madeira wine (which had also been poisoned) and drank three glasses, but still showed no sign of distress. At around 2:30 am, Yusupov excused himself to go upstairs, where his fellow conspirators were waiting. He took a revolver from Pavlovich, then returned to the basement and told Rasputin that he’d “better look at the crucifix and say a prayer,” referring to a crucifix in the room, then shot him once in the chest. The conspirators then drove to Rasputin’s apartment, with Sukhotin wearing Rasputin’s coat and hat in an attempt to make it look as though Rasputin had returned home that night. Upon returning to his palace, Yusupov went back to the basement to ensure that Rasputin was dead. Suddenly, Rasputin leaped up and attacked Yusupov, who freed himself with some effort and fled upstairs. Rasputin followed Yusupov into the palace’s courtyard, where he was shot by Purishkevich. He collapsed into a snowbank. The conspirators then wrapped his body in cloth, drove it to the Petrovsky Bridge and dropped it into the Little Nevka river.
Historians often suggest that Rasputin’s scandalous and sinister reputation helped discredit the Tsarist government, thus precipitating the overthrow of the House of Romanov shortly after his assassination. Accounts of his life and influence were often based on hearsay and rumor; he remains a mysterious and captivating figure in popular culture.[
The former Glee star died in July 2020, following a boating incident where she went missing. On July 8, the actress, who was 33, was declared missing after taking a pontoon boat out on Lake Piru near Los Angeles with her 4-year-old son, Josey. Her child was found asleep on the vessel by a boater that afternoon, alongside Rivera’s purse, wallet and ID. The Ventura County Sheriff’s Department announced on July 13 that they recovered her body following an extensive search and recovery effort.
Naya Marie Rivera (January 12, 1987 – July 8, 2020) was an American actress, singer, and model who was best known for portraying Santana Lopez on the popular musical comedy-drama series Glee, in which she starred from 2009 to 2015. She received various awards, including a Screen Actors Guild Award and nominations for two Grammy Awards.
She began her career as a child actress and model, first appearing in national television commercials. At the age of four, she landed the role of Hillary Winston on the short-lived CBS sitcom The Royal Family (1991–1992), earning a nomination for a Young Artist Award at age five. After a series of recurring television roles and then guest spots as a teenager, she got her breakthrough role in 2009 as lesbian cheerleader Santana Lopez on the Fox television series Glee (2009–2015). For the role, she received critical acclaim and various awards, including a SAG Award and ALMA Award, as well as earning nominations with the rest of the cast for two Grammy Awards and one Brit Award.
She was signed to Columbia Records as a solo musical artist in 2011 and – despite never releasing a studio album – released a single, Sorry, in 2013. She won two ALMA Awards as a music artist. On the big screen, Rivera made her debut in the horror film At the Devil’s Door (2014) before playing a supporting role in the comedy Mad Families (2017). Besides performing, Rivera championed various charitable causes, particularly for LGBT rights, immigrants’ rights, and women’s rights. She also spoke out against racism, especially in entertainment. Her personal life garnered significant press and media attention throughout her career, and in 2016 she published a memoir titled Sorry Not Sorry: Dreams, Mistakes, and Growing Up. Because of her varied roles across her three decades as a performer, Rivera is seen as having been a vanguard of Afro-Latino and LGBT representation on television.
Thomas Francis Dorsey Jr. (November 19, 1905 – November 26, 1956) was an American jazz trombonist, composer, conductor and bandleader of the big band era. He was known as the “Sentimental Gentleman of Swing” because of his smooth-toned trombone playing. His theme song was I’m Getting Sentimental Over You. His technical skill on the trombone gave him renown among other musicians. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey. After Dorsey broke with his brother in the mid-1930s, he led an extremely successful band from the late 1930s into the 1950s. He is best remembered for standards such as Opus One, Song of India, Marie, On Treasure Island, and his biggest hit single, I’ll Never Smile Again.
Born in Mahanoy Plane, Pennsylvania, Thomas Francis Dorsey Jr. was the second of four children born to Thomas Francis Dorsey Sr., a bandleader, and Theresa (née Langton) Dorsey. He and Jimmy, his older brother by slightly less than two years, became known as the Dorsey Brothers. The two younger siblings were Mary and Edward, who died young. Tommy Dorsey studied the trumpet with his father but later switched to trombone.
At age 15, Jimmy recommended Tommy to replace Russ Morgan in the Scranton Sirens, a territory band in the 1920s. Tommy and Jimmy worked in bands led by Tal Henry, Rudy Vallee, Vincent Lopez, and Nathaniel Shilkret. In 1923, Dorsey followed Jimmy to Detroit to play in Jean Goldkette’s band and returned to New York in 1925 to play with the California Ramblers. In 1927, he joined Paul Whiteman. In 1929, the Dorsey Brothers had their first hit with Coquette for OKeh Records.
In 1934, the Dorsey Brothers band signed with Decca, having a hit with I Believe in Miracles. Glenn Miller was a member of the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra in 1934 and 1935, composing Annie’s Cousin Fanny, Tomorrow’s Another Day, Harlem Chapel Chimes, and Dese Dem Dose, all recorded for Decca, for the band. Acrimony between the brothers led to Tommy Dorsey walking out to form his own band in 1935 as the orchestra was having a hit with Every Little Moment. Dorsey’s orchestra was known primarily for its renderings of ballads at dance tempos, frequently with singers such as Jack Leonard and Frank Sinatra.
Hia own band was popular almost from the moment it signed with RCA Victor for On Treasure Island, the first of four hits in 1935. After his 1935 recording, however, Dorsey’s manager dropped the “hot jazz” that Dorsey had mixed with his own lyrical style, and instead had Dorsey play pop and vocal tunes.
Dorsey was married three times. His first wife was 16-year-old Mildred “Toots” Kraft, with whom he eloped in 1922, when he was 17. The couple had two children, Patricia and Thomas F. Dorsey III (nicknamed “Skipper”). In 1935, they moved to “Tall Oaks,” a 21-acre (8.5 ha) estate in Bernardsville, New Jersey. They divorced in 1943 after Dorsey’s affair with his former singer Edythe Wright.
Dorsey’s second wife was film actress Patricia Dane in 1943, and they were divorced in 1947, but not before he gained headlines for striking actor Jon Hall when Hall embraced her. Finally, Dorsey married Jane Carl New on March 27, 1948, in Atlanta, Georgia. She had been a dancer at the Copacabana nightclub in New York City. Tommy and Jane Dorsey had two children, Catherine Susan and Steve.
Dorsey died on November 26, 1956, at his home in Greenwich, Connecticut, a week after his 51st birthday. He had begun taking sleeping pills regularly at this time, causing him to become heavily sedated; he choked to death in his sleep after having eaten a large meal. Jimmy Dorsey led his brother’s band until his own death from throat cancer the following year.
In 1982, the 1940 Victor recording I’ll Never Smile Again was the first of a trio of Tommy Dorsey recordings to be inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. His theme song, I’m Getting Sentimental Over You was inducted in 1998, along with his recording of Marie written by Irving Berlin in 1928. In 1996, the U.S. Postal Service issued a Tommy Dorsey and Jimmy Dorsey commemorative postage stamp.
Tommy Dorsey was posthumously inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least 25 years old and that have “qualitative or historical significance.”
Anna Margaretha Zwanziger (August 7, 1760 – September 17, 1811) was a German serial killer. She used arsenic, which she referred to as “her truest friend.”
From 1801 until 1811, Zwanziger was employed as a housekeeper at the home of several judges in Germany. She would poison her employers with arsenic, and then nurse them back to health to gain their favour. She poisoned three people, and attempted to poison several others. She killed four people, one of whom was a baby.
Zwanziger was judged guilty of murder and sentenced to death. Before she was beheaded, she said it was probably a good thing she was to be executed, as she did not think she would be able to stop.
Albert Johnson (November 2, 1974 – June 20, 2017), better known by his stage name Prodigy, was an American rapper. With Havoc, he was one half of the hip hop duo Mobb Deep.
Prodigy was born on November 2, 1974, in Hempstead, New York, on Long Island. He was raised in LeFrak City in Queens. He had one elder brother, Greg Johnson. He came from a musical family. His grandfather Budd Johnson was a saxophonist who was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1993. His grand-uncle, Keg Johnson, was a trombonist. Both of them are remembered for their contributions to the bebop era of jazz. His mother, Fatima Frances (Collins) Johnson, was a member of The Crystals. His father, Budd Johnson Jr., was a member of a doo-wop music group called The Chanters. His great-great-great-grandfather, William Jefferson White, founded Georgia’s Morehouse College.
While attending the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan, he met his future music partner, Havoc. The duo became Poetical Prophets before choosing the name Mobb Deep. Under the alias Lord-T (The Golden Child), the then-16-year-old Johnson landed an uncredited guest appearance on the Boyz n the Hood soundtrack, for his collaborative efforts on the song Too Young by Hi-Five in 1991. In 1993, Mobb Deep released its debut album Juvenile Hell on 4th & B’way/Island/PolyGram Records.
Initially compared to fellow rapper Nas, who took a similar approach lyrically on his Illmatic album from 1994, Mobb Deep released The Infamous in 1995, which was certified Gold by the RIAA within the first two months of its release. 1995 was also the year that Prodigy began to raise his solo profile, by providing a guest appearance on LL Cool J’s controversial I Shot Ya (remix). The song became a minor part of the East Coast–West Coast hip hop rivalry, due to Tupac Shakur believing the song to be a diss referring to his robbery/shooting in Manhattan, New York at Quad Recording Studios – singling out the song’s title (which many assumed was connected to Biggie’s Who Shot Ya?), certain lyrics, and the timing of its release – the year after the shooting incident.
Although the track was stated by Keith Murray to not have any lyrical shots aimed at Tupac, Mobb Deep responded in the following year to Tupac’s Hit Em Up with Drop a Gem on ‘Em, a promotional single from their 1996 album Hell On Earth. Ironically, I Shot Ya does feature a subliminal aim in Prodigy’s verse to Murray, which continued friction that started sometime prior with an interlude from Mobb Deep’s 1995 The Infamous album. The rivalry continued until sometime in 2012, when the two ended it by taking a picture together.
A year and a half later, at the end of 1996, Prodigy and Havoc released Hell on Earth, which debuted at #6 on SoundScan. Their next release, Murda Muzik, was heavily bootlegged while still in its demo stage, leaking, onto the streets and over the internet, rough versions of the nearly 30 songs the duo had recorded.
In November 2000, Prodigy released his debut solo album H.N.I.C. His follow up solo album would be released in 2008.
During the next six years, between the releases of his first two solo albums, Prodigy continued to work with Mobb Deep, releasing Infamy in 2001, Amerikaz Nightmare in 2004, and Blood Money in 2006.
During this time, Prodigy had started work on his second solo album, H.N.I.C. Part 2, which was first previewed on his official mixtape The Return of the Mac, and was later released on the independent label Koch Records. The mixtape single, together with the mixtape video, was called Mac 10 Handle. Prodigy then released H.N.I.C. Pt. 2 through Voxonic Inc., a company in which he was an equity holder. In late 2009, Mobb Deep was released from their contract with 50 Cent’s G-Unit label.
During this time, Prodigy was served with a three-year sentence in Mid-State Correctional Facility (a medium-security prison), following a plea agreement stemming from a gun-possession charge. He was officially released on March 7, 2011.
Prodigy was featured in the 2009 documentary Rhyme and Punishment, which documented hip-hop artists who had been incarcerated.
In 2011, Prodigy released a free EP called The Ellsworth Bumpy Johnson EP, his first project after being released from prison.
On April 21, a song titled The Type, with Curren$y, was released on Curren$y’s free album Covert Coup.
In 2011, Prodigy released his autobiography, My Infamous Life: The Autobiography of Mobb Deep’s Prodigy.
In 2013, Prodigy released his second collaboration album with the Alchemist, titled Albert Einstein. On April 1, 2014, Mobb Deep released The Infamous Mobb Deep, their eighth studio album. In August 2016, he released an untitled EP of five tracks, in partnership with BitTorrent, an association that Prodigy had been working up for a while. Also in 2013 Prodigy co-wrote the urban crime novel H.N.I.C. with British author Steven Savile. It was published by Akashic / Infamous Books. They also co-wrote a second novel, Ritual, that was released in 2015 by Akashic.
In an interview with Vibe in November 2000, Prodigy spoke about what inspired him to directly address his battle with sickle cell disease in his song You Can Never Feel My Pain, from his debut studio album H.N.I.C. On June 20, 2017, it was reported that Prodigy had died at the Spring Valley Medical Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, while hospitalized for complications related to his sickle-cell anemia. He was performing in the Art of Rap Tour in Las Vegas with Havoc, Ghostface Killah, Onyx, KRS-One, and Ice-T when he was hospitalized. According to a coroner’s report, Prodigy was admitted to Spring Valley Medical Center after suffering a significant medical episode arising from his life-long battle with sickle-cell anemia. Days later, on the morning of June 20, he was found unresponsive by hospital staff. It was reported at the time that Prodigy died from accidental choking. The complaint, which was filed on behalf of the family by the Gage Law Firm, alleges that the Spring Valley hospital breached their duty of care for Prodigy by “failing to maintain a working IV access,” and by “failing to continuously monitor oxygen levels” as ordered by physicians in the hospital, and that those failures led to Prodigy’s death.
Phyllis Amanda Peterson (July 8, 1971 – July 3, 2015) was an American actress, most known for her role as Cindy Mancini in the 1987 comedy film Can’t Buy Me Love.
Peterson was born in Greeley, Colorado, the youngest of three children born to James Peterson, an ear, nose, and throat specialist, and his wife Sylvia. She had two older siblings: a sister, Anne Marie and a brother, James, Jr. Peterson began acting as a child and used the name “Amanda Peterson” in a professional capacity. At the beginning of her career, she used the name “Mandy Peterson,” which was what friends and family called her.
At age seven, Peterson made her stage debut as Gretl in the University of Northern Colorado’s stage production of The Sound of Music. At 11, she won a role in the musical film Annie as a dancing extra. Peterson went on to land guest spots on Father Murphy and Silver Spoons. She also appeared in more than 50 television commercials. During the 1983–84 television season, she co-starred as Squirt Sawyer on the NBC drama series Boone. Boone was canceled after one season.
In 1985, Peterson won her first starring role in the feature film Explorers. The next year, she co-starred as “Sunny Sisk” in the Emmy Award-winning miniseries A Year in the Life. The miniseries was highly acclaimed; it was the third-highest-rated miniseries of the 1986–87 U.S. television season with a 16.9/27 rating/share. Later it was adapted into a television series of the same name and aired on NBC from 1987 to 1988. For her work on the series, Peterson won a Young Artist Award for Best Young Actress Starring in a Television Drama Series. Despite being well received, A Year in the Life was canceled after one season.
In 1986, 15-year-old Peterson was cast in the teen comedy Boy Rents Girl, opposite Patrick Dempsey. The film was shot on location in Tucson, Arizona. The title was later changed to Can’t Buy Me Love after producers secured the rights to The Beatles’ 1964 song of the same name. Released in the summer of 1987, Can’t Buy Me Love received mixed reviews but became the sleeper hit of the summer. After its release, Peterson and Dempsey achieved teen idol status. They appeared on the covers of teen magazines such as Tiger Beat and Teen Beat.
In 1988, Peterson co-starred in a Roger Corman production, the post-apocalyptic film The Lawless Land, followed by a role in the 1989 teen drama Listen to Me. Later that year, she returned to Greeley, where she graduated from University High School (while working in Los Angeles, she was privately tutored). Shortly after graduating, she starred in the television movie Fatal Charm. That fall, Peterson enrolled at Middlebury College, where she appeared in a black box production of the Sarah Daniels play Masterpieces. While on semester break, she appeared in a guest spot on Doogie Howser, M.D. Later that year, Peterson dropped out of Middlebury College. In 1994, she returned to acting in the fantasy film WindRunner in a role alongside Jason Wiles. It was Peterson’s final onscreen role.
In 1994, Peterson retired from the entertainment industry and returned to her hometown of Greeley. According to her father, she left Hollywood to “choose a new path in her life.” After briefly attending Middlebury College, she enrolled at Colorado State University for a year. Peterson later studied at the University of Northern Colorado. In 2012, she briefly modeled for a Colorado photographer.
Peterson was twice married and had two children. She was first married to Joseph Robert Skutvik. After their divorce, she married David Hartley. Peterson and Hartley were reportedly divorced at the time of her death.
Between October 2000 and May 2012, Peterson was arrested five times for the offenses of third-degree assault, harassment, DUI, and possession of drug paraphernalia and suspicion of distributing a Schedule 2 controlled substance. From September to December 2005, she spent nearly three months in jail. Peterson’s last arrests were for a misdemeanor DUI and possession of narcotics equipment charge in April 2012, and suspicion of child abuse in May 2012, which was later dropped. According to her father, she had previously struggled with drug issues, but was drug-free at the time of her death and had become “quite religious.” He also said that, in recent years, Peterson had had sleep apnea and bouts of pneumonia and sinusitis. For the last three years of her life, Peterson was receiving disability benefits and lived alone in an apartment in Greeley.
On July 3, 2015, Peterson was reported missing after her family became concerned when she missed a scheduled family dinner. Two days later, on July 5, the Greeley police found her dead at her home, aged 43. While the police did not comment on specific details due to an ongoing investigation, they said Peterson’s apartment door was unlocked but there were no signs of foul play.
An autopsy to determine the cause of Peterson’s death was scheduled by the Weld County coroner for July 6 and the results of the autopsy and toxicology tests were released on September 2, 2015. The medical examiner determined that Peterson died of an accidental drug overdose. According to the coroner’s report, Peterson had undergone a hysterectomy shortly before her death and was prescribed Gabapentin for post-surgical pain management. She was taking morphine at the time of her death; according to the report, she obtained the drug from a friend a week before she died. The coroner’s report concluded Peterson experienced a “morphine effect” that triggered respiratory failure leading to her death. Peterson was later cremated.
Carolyn Sue Jones (April 28, 1930 – August 3, 1983) was an American actress of television and film. Jones began her film career in the early 1950s, and by the end of the decade had achieved recognition with a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for The Bachelor Party (1957) and a Golden Globe Award as one of the most promising new actresses of 1959. Her film career continued for another 20 years. In 1964, she began playing the role of matriarch Morticia Addams in the original 1964 black and white television series The Addams Family.
Jones was born in Amarillo, Texas, the daughter of Chloe Jeanette Southern, a housewife, and Julius Alfred Jones, a barber. After their father abandoned the family in 1934, Carolyn and her younger sister, Bette Rhea Jones, moved with their mother into her maternal grandparents’ Amarillo home. Jones suffered from severe asthma that often restricted her childhood activities, and when her condition prevented her from going to the movies, she became an avid reader of Hollywood fan magazines and aspired to become an actress. She enrolled at the Pasadena Playhouse in California at age 17, with her grandfather, Charles W. Baker, paying her tuition.
After being spotted by a talent scout at the Playhouse, Jones secured a contract with Paramount Pictures and made her first film, an uncredited part in The Turning Point (1952); had an uncredited bit part as a nightclub hostess in The Big Heat (1953); and a role in House of Wax (1953) as the woman who is converted by Vincent Price’s character into a Joan of Arc statue. She played Beth in Shield for Murder (1954), earning $500 per day for playing the role. Jones was cast in the film From Here to Eternity (1953) in the role of Alma “Lorene” Burke. A bout of pneumonia forced her to withdraw; the role earned Donna Reed the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She appeared in Invasion of the Body Snatchers and in the Alfred Hitchcock film, The Man Who Knew Too Much (both 1956), a remake of one of the director’s earlier films.
In 1958, Jones was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for The Bachelor Party (1957), and she also shared the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress with Sandra Dee and Diane Varsi, and appeared with Elvis Presley in King Creole (1958). Jones played opposite Frank Sinatra in Frank Capra’s A Hole in the Head, Dean Martin in Career, and Anthony Quinn and Kirk Douglas in Last Train from Gun Hill (all 1959). In the epic Western, How the West Was Won (1963), she played the role of Sheriff Jeb Rawlings’ (George Peppard) wife. She appears with Peppard and Debbie Reynolds in the final speaking/singing scenes of the film.
The actress made her television debut on the DuMont series Gruen Playhouse in 1952. Jones appeared in several episodes of Dragnet starring Jack Webb from 1953-1955, credited as ‘’Caroline Jones.’’ She appeared in two Rod Cameron syndicated series, City Detective and State Trooper, as Betty Fowler in the 1956 episode, “The Paperhanger of Pioche”. Jones also appeared on the CBS anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents in the episode “The Cheney Vase” (1955), as a secretary assisting her scheming boyfriend Darren McGavin in attempting an art theft, and opposite Ruta Lee. In 1957, she had the lead in the episode “The Girl in the Grass” on CBS’s Schlitz Playhouse, with once again Ray Milland and Nora Marlowe. Jones guest starred three times on the television series Wagon Train: in first-season episode “The John Cameron Story” (1957) and in later color episodes “The Jenna Douglas Story” (1961) and “The Molly Kincaid Story” (1963). Also in 1963 she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best TV Star – Female for portraying quadruplets—one the murder victim and the others suspects—in the Burke’s Law episode “Who Killed Sweet Betsy?” She guest-starred in CBS’s The DuPont Show with June Allyson, with James Best and Jack Mullaney, in the episode “Love on Credit” (1960). In the 1962–1963 season, Jones guest-starred on CBS’s The Lloyd Bridges Show, which Aaron Spelling created. While married to Spelling, she appeared on the NBC program Here’s Hollywood.
In 1964, using a long coal-black wig, Jones began playing Morticia Addams on the television series The Addams Family, a role which brought her success as a comedian and a Golden Globe Award nomination. She guest-starred on the 1960s TV series Batman, playing Marsha, the Queen of Diamonds, and in 1976 appeared as the title character’s mother, Hippolyta, in the Wonder Woman TV series. In Tobe Hooper’s movie Eaten Alive (1976), she played a madam running a rural whorehouse. The film also featured Neville Brand, Roberta Collins, and Robert Englund. Her last role was that of Myrna, the scheming matriarch of the Clegg clan, on the soap opera Capitol from the first episode in March 1982 until March 1983, though she already knew that she was dying of cancer. During her occasional absences, veteran actress Marla Adams subbed for her.
Her acting career declined after The Addams Family ended in 1966. Sporadic roles in the 1970s included that of Mrs. Moore, the wife of the plantation owner in the miniseries Roots.
Jones was married four times and had no children. While studying at the Pasadena Playhouse, Jones married Don Donaldson, a 28-year-old fellow student. The couple soon divorced. Jones converted to Judaism upon being married to television producer Aaron Spelling from 1953 until their 1964 separation and divorce. Her third marriage, in 1968, was to Tony Award-winning Broadway musical director, vocal arranger and co-producer Herbert Greene (who was her vocal coach); she left him in 1977. She married actor Peter Bailey-Britton in September 1982.
In 1982, while working on Capitol, she was diagnosed with colon cancer, and played many of her scenes in a wheelchair. The cancer spread quickly to her liver and stomach. Despite the pain, Jones finished the first season. Even after being diagnosed with colon cancer, Jones continued to work while telling colleagues she was being treated for ulcers. After a period of apparent remission, the cancer quickly returned. In September 1982, realizing she was dying, Jones married her boyfriend of five years, actor Peter Bailey-Britton. She wore a lace and ribbon cap to hide the loss of her hair from chemotherapy.
In July 1983, she fell into a coma at her home in West Hollywood, California, where she died on August 3, 1983. She donated her Morticia costume and wig to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, while a collection of The Addams Family scripts was donated by Bailey-Britton to UCLA.