FOUND A GRAVE

Leslie Brooks (1922 - 2011)

Actress. Born Virginia Leslie Gettman, she was raised in Los Angeles where she attended Hollywood High School. Her career in entertainment began as a model and cover girl which led to an uncredited part in the picture “Ziegfeld Girl” (1941). This was followed by her being put under contract with Columbia Pictures and her name […]

Leslie Carlson (1933 - 2014)

Leslie Merle Carlson (February 24, 1933 — May 3, 2014) was an American Canadian film and television character actor who acted on stage in Canada, the U.S. and England. His films include the horror films Deranged and Black Christmas, and his television credits include The Twilight Zone and The X-Files. His stage name was frequently […]

Leslie Carter (1986 - 2012)

Leslie Carter was born in Tampa, Florida, the third of six children of Jane Elizabeth (née Spaulding) and Robert Gene Carter (born September 23, 1952). She was born at the Garden Villa Retirement Home, where the Carter family were living and working at the time. She was the older sister of Aaron Carter and his […]

Leslie Dale Martin (1967 - 2002)

On June 20, 1991, Martin and Michael Roland went to the 12th Street Lounge in Lake Charles at about 11:00 p.m., after playing pool and drinking beer for about two hours. The victim, a college student and part-time employee at a pizza outlet, also went to the lounge between 11:00 p.m. and midnight with some […]

Leslie Fenton (1902 - 1978)

Leslie Fenton was born on 12 March 1902 in Liverpool, England. He moved to America with his mother, Elizabeth Carter, and his brothers when he was six years old. They sailed as steerage passengers on board the R.M.S. Celtic, which departed from Liverpool, 11 September 1909, and arrived at New York, where they were ferried […]

Lester Bangs (1948 - 1982)

Bangs was born in Escondido, California, the son of Norma Belle (née Clifton) and Conway Leslie Bangs, a truck driver. Both of his parents were from Texas; his father from Enloe, and his mother from Pecos County. Norma Belle was a devout Jehovah’s Witness. Conway died in a fire when his son was young. When […]

Lester Flatt (1914 - 1979)

Lester Flatt was a bluegrass guitarist and mandolinist, best known for his collaboration with banjo picker Earl Scruggs in the The Foggy Mountain Boys (popularly known as “Flatt and Scruggs”). Flatt’s career spanned multiple decades, breaking out as a member of Bill Monroe‘s band during the 1940s and including multiple solo and collaboration works exclusive […]

Levi Strauss (1829 - 1902)

Levi Strauss was born in Buttenheim, Germany, on February 26, 1829, in the Franconian region of Bavaria, Germany, to an Ashkenazi Jewish family. He was the son of Hirsch Strauss and his second wife Rebecca Strauss. At the age of 18, Strauss, his mother and two sisters traveled to the United States to join his […]

Lew Anderson (1922 - 2006)

Anderson was born in Kirkman, Iowa, the son of a railroad telegrapher. He began playing his sister’s clarinet when she tired of it, and by high school had formed his own dance band. After a year in junior college in Fort Dodge, Iowa, he received a music scholarship to Drake University in Des Moines. He […]

Lew Ayres (1908 - 1996)

Lew Ayres was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota to Irma and Louis Ayres, who divorced when he was four. Louis, an amateur musician and court reporter, remarried soon after. As a teen, Lew and his mother moved with his step-father and half brother and sister to San Diego, California. Leaving high school before graduating, he started a […]

Lewis Albanese (1946 - 1966)

Louie Albanese (in Italian Luigi) was born in Cornedo Vicentino – Vicenza, Italy, graduated from Franklin High School in Seattle, Washington. He briefly worked for Boeing before joining the Army on 26 October 1965. He received basic training with B Co 1st Bn 11th Inf at Fort Carson, Colorado and was sent to Vietnam in […]

Lewis Collins (1946 - 2013)

The son of Bill Collins, a shipwright and amateur musician who played the piano in local clubs with the Savoy Swingers band, Lewis was born in Bidston, Birkenhead on the Wirral Peninsula (then part of Cheshire). Aged two, he won the Most Beautiful Baby in Liverpool contest. He was educated at Bidston Primary and Grange […]

Lewis Milestone (1895 - 1980)

Milestone was born in Kishinev, in the Bessarabia Governorate of the Russian Empire (now Chişinău, Moldova), to a family of Jewish heritage. He came to the United States in 1912, just prior to World War I. Milestone held a number of odd jobs before enlisting in the U.S. Signal Corps, where he worked as an […]

Liberace (1919 - 1987)

Liberace He was born Wladziu (Polish for Walter) Liberace in West Allis, Wisconsin to immigrant Italian and Polish parents one of four children. Both parents were musically talented. His Italian father played the french horn with the Milwaukee Philharmonic Orchestra and his Polish mother played the piano. When Polish pianist Paderwski visited the Liberaces, he […]

Lida Baarova (1914 - 2000)

Born Ludmila Babková, she studied acting at Prague Conservatory and got her first film role in a Czech film at the age of 17. Her mother appeared in several theatre plays and her younger sister, Zorka Janů, was also a film actress. After being discovered by talent scouts for the German film studios, Baarova left […]

Lila Kedrova (2023 - 2000)

Kedrova claimed to have been born in 1918, in Petrograd, Russia, although the year is impossible to ascertain. Her parents were Russian opera singers. Her father, Nikolay, was a singer and composer, a creator of the first Russian male quartet to perform liturgical chants. Her mother, Sofia Gladkaya (ru: Софья Николаевна Гладкая) (1875–1965), was a […]

Lili Damita (1904 - 1994)

Born Liliane Marie-Madeleine Carré in Blaye, France, she was educated in convents and ballet schools in several European countries, including France, Spain and Portugal. At 14, she was enrolled as a dancer at the Opera de Paris. As a teenager, she was performing in popular music halls, eventually appearing in the Revue at the Casino de […]

Lilia Skala (1896 - 1994)

Skala was born Lilia Sofer in Vienna, Austria. Her mother, Katharina Skala, was Catholic, and her father, Julius Sofer, was Jewish and worked as a manufacturers representative for the Waldes Koh-i-noor Company. Skala was one of the first women to graduate in architecture and engineering from the University of Dresden, before practicing architecture professionally in […]

Lilian Bond (1908 - 1991)

Actress. Appeared in motion pictures, and is best known for her role of ‘Lily Langtry’ in the film “The Westerner” (1940).

Lillian Gish (1893 - 1993)

Gish was born in Springfield, Ohio, to Mary Robinson McConnell (1875-1948) (an Episcopalian) and James Leigh Gish (1872-1912) (who was of German Lutheran descent). She had a younger sister, Dorothy.  The first several generations of Gishes were Dunkard ministers. Her great-great-great-grandfather came to America on the ship Pennsylvania Merchant in 1733 and received a land […]

Lillian Randolph (1898 - 1980)

Born Castello Randolph in Knoxville, Tennessee, she was the younger sister of actress Amanda Randolph. Another member of this talented family is Steve Gibson, brother to Lillian and Amanda, with his Rhythm and Blues group, The Five Red Caps. However, new research shows that, although the preceding statement is widely quoted and believed, it isn’t […]

Lilly Pulitzer (1931 - 2013)

Lillian Lee “Lilly” McKim was born to socialites Robert V. McKim and his wife, Lillian (née Bostwick) in Roslyn, New York in 1931, the middle daughter of three. Her elder sister was named Mary Maude, and her younger sister was Florence Fitch. Her mother, Lillian Bostwick McKim was an heiress to the Standard Oil fortune. […]

Lily Cahill (1889 - 1955)

Broadway and Movie Actress. She was a star on the stage in New York and London. She also appeared in movies, first in silent films and then in talkies. Ms. Cahill appeared on Broadway in “The Road to Arcady” (1912), “A Man’s Friends” (1913), “Under Cover” (1914), “The Melody of Youth” (1916), “In for the […]

Lilyan Chauvin (1925 - 2008)

Chauvin began her career working in broadcasting in France. Her mother was French and her father was Italian. While under contract to a French radio station she had her heart set on becoming a lawyer; however her earnings soon exceeded that of her parents and she gave serious consideration to making show business her way […]

Lilyan Tashman (1896 - 1934)

Lilyan Tashman was born the tenth and youngest child of a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Rose (née Cook), who was born in Germany, and Maurice Tashman, a clothing manufacturer from Bialystok, Poland. She freelanced as a fashion and artist’s model while attending Girl’s High School in Brooklyn and eventually entered […]

Lina Romay (1954 - 2012)

Lina Romay Romay was born Rosa Maria Almirall on June 25, 1954, in Barcelona, Cataluna, Spain. Her cinematic pseudonym was taken from a singer/actress in mambo king Xavier Cugat‘s band in the 1940s. Following graduation from high school, Romay studied the arts, married actor/photographer Raymond Hardy (they later divorced), and began acting in stage productions. […]

Linda Christian (1923 - 2011)

Christian was born as Blanca Rosa Welter in Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico, a daughter of Dutch engineer and Royal Dutch Shell executive, Gerardus Jacob Welter (1904–1981), and his Mexican-born wife, the former Blanca Rosa Vorhauer (1901-1992), who was of Spanish, German and French descent. The Welter family moved a great deal during Christian’s youth, living everywhere […]

Linda Darnell (1923 - 1965)

Monetta Eloyse Darnall was born in Dallas, Texas, as one of four children (excluding her mother’s two children from an earlier marriage), to postal clerk Calvin Roy Darnall and the former Pearl Brown. She was the younger sister of Undeen (born March 1918) and the older sister of Monte Maloya (born 1929) and Calvin Roy, […]

Linda Gary (1944 - 1995)

Linda Gary Voice Actress. Best known as the voices of ‘Teela’, ‘Sorceress’ and ‘Evil-Lyn’ on the cartoon “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” (1983). Other cartoons she did voice work for include “The Smurfs” (1981), “Transformers” (1984), “She-Ra: Princess of Power” (1985), “The Land Before Time” and “Spider-Man” (1994).

Linda Watkins (1908 - 1976)

At the age of sixteen Linda Watkins’ parents sent her to study at the Theatre Guild. After six months she began to appear with the guild’s summer repertory program in Scarborough, New York. Instead of finishing her studies at the guild, she pursued a job at the office of Charles Hopkins. When he asked Watkins […]