FOUND A GRAVE

Mel Allen (1913 - 1996)

Allen was born in Birmingham, Alabama. (Biographer Stephen Borelli noted that he added the second middle name Avrom after his deceased grandfather.) He attended the University of Alabama, where he was a member of the Kappa Nu Fraternity as an undergraduate. During his time at Alabama, Israel served as the public address announcer for Alabama Crimson Tide football games. In 1933, when the […]

Mel Blanc (1908 - 1989)

Mel Blanc Mel Blanc, the voice of Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny, Barney Rubble, Daffy Duck and countless other animated vertebrates, died Monday afternoon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He was 81 and had been hospitalized since May 19 suffering from heart disease and related medical problems, said hospital spokesman Ron Wise. With Blanc when he died […]

Mel Ferrer (1917 - 2008)

Ferrer was born Melchor Gastón Ferrer in the Elberon section of Long Branch, New Jersey, of Cuban and Irish descent. His father, Dr. José María Ferrer (1857–1920), was born in Cuba, of Spanish ancestry, and was an authority on pneumonia and served as chief of staff of St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York City. His […]

Mel McDaniel (1942 - 2011)

Melvin Huston “Mel” McDaniel was born in Checotah, Oklahoma, a small town in McIntosh County, Oklahoma. McDaniel, the son of a truck driving father, grew up in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. He was inspired to play music after seeing Elvis Presley on television. His first interest in music was when he learned the trumpet in the fourth grade, but he soon learned […]

Mel Street (1933 - 1978)

Mel Street Street was born in Rowe, Virginia to a coal mining family. Publications cite his year of birth as 1933, although his family maintains that he was born in 1935. He began performing on western Virginia and West Virginia radio shows at the age of sixteen. Street subsequently worked as a radio tower electrician […]

Melbert Ford (1960 - 2010)

Melbert Ford An American convicted double murderer who in 2010 was executed by lethal injection by the U.S. state of Georgia after being convicted of murder in 1987.  Ford was born in Georgia, America. He was convicted in 1987 of killing his former girlfriend, Martha Chapman Matich, and Lisa Chapman, her 11-year-old niece, in a […]

Meles Zenawi (1955 - 2012)

Meles was born in Adwa, Tigray, in northern Ethiopia, to an Ethiopian father Zenawi Asres from Adwa and Alemash Guebreluel from Adi Quala, Eritrea. He was the third of six children in the family. His first name at birth was “Legesse” (thus Legesse Zenawi, Ge’ez: ለገሰ ዜናዊ legesse zēnāwī). However, he eventually became better known […]

Melina Mercouri (1920 - 1994)

After her graduation, Mercouri joined the National Theatre of Greece and played the role of Electra in Eugene O’Neill’s play Mourning Becomes Electra in 1945. In 1949, she had her first major success in the theatre playing Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, written by Tennessee Williams and staged by Karolos Koun’s Art Theatre. […]

Melody Patterson (1949 - 2015)

Melody Patterson (April 16, 1949 – August 20, 2015) was an American actress known for her role as Wrangler Jane in the 1960s television series F Troop. Patterson, who began her career performing in plays at the age of four, attended the Hollywood Professional School and later studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in […]

Melville Cooper (1896 - 1973)

George Melville Cooper was born on 15 October 1896 in Aston, Birmingham, Warwickshire to W.C.J. and Frances (née Brennan) Cooper. He was brought up in Britain and attended public schools, including King Edward’s School in Birmingham. He began to develop an interest in acting as a teenager. At the age of eighteen, he made his […]

Mercedes McCambridge (1916 - 2004)

McCambridge was born in Joliet, Illinois, the daughter of Irish American Roman Catholic parents Marie (née Mahaffry) and John Patrick McCambridge, a farmer. She graduated from Mundelein College in Chicago before embarking on a career. She began her career as a radio actor during the 1930s while also performing on Broadway and continued through the 40s […]

Merle Kilgore (1934 - 2005)

Merle Kilgore The multi-talented Kilgore had a varied career, ranging from huge successes as a songwriter to his most recent role as personal manager for Hank Williams Jr. He was also an artist in his own right, as well as an actor.As a songwriter, he is best known for co-writing Johnny Cash’s 1963 No. 1 […]

Merle Oberon (1911 - 1979)

Estelle Merle Thompson was born in Bombay, British India on 19 February 1911. According to some sources, her birth name was Estelle Merle O’Brien Thompson. Merle was given “Queenie” as a nickname, in honour of Queen Mary, who visited India along with King George V in 1911.  Over the years, Oberon obscured her parentage. Some […]

Merle Travis (1917 - 1983)

Merle Travis Grammy Award-winning country music artist. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall Of Fame in 1977. He wrote the hit single, “Sixteen Tons,” in addition to several other hit records. He was well known for his legendary guitar work, and made an art form of his unique style of finger-picking. He was […]

Merlin Santana (1976 - 2002)

Born in Brookyln, New York to parents from the Dominican Republic, Santana’s career in show business began with a push from his parents, who wanted to keep him off the tough streets of New York. He began his career at the age of three as an advertising model for a fast food chain. His first […]

Merv Griffin (1925 - 2007)

Merv Griffin He is best remembered as the host of his CBS television talk show, “The Merv Griffin Show,” which ran from 1965 to 1986. Additionally, he created the game shows “Jeopardy!” (1964), “Wheel of Fortune” (1975), “Ruckus” (1991), “Click” (1997), and “Merv Griffin’s Crosswords” (2007) with his own television production companies, Merv Griffin Enterprises […]

Meshach Taylor (1947 - 2014)

Taylor was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Hertha Mae (née Ward) and Joseph T. Taylor, former dean of students at Dillard University in New Orleans, who was also the first dean of arts and sciences at Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis.  After the family moved from New Orleans to Indianapolis, Taylor graduated from Crispus […]

Meyer Cohen (1913 - 1976)

Gangster. Born in a poverty-stricken part of New York in 1913. His Jewish mother was from Kiev in the Ukraine. After running away from home at fifteen, he picked up his swagger in the fight clubs of Cleveland, then the nation’s fifth largest city. Lifelong connections with major underworld players were forged there, and in […]

Meyer Lansky (1902 - 1983)

Meyer Lansky One of the most powerful and richest of U.S. crime syndicate chiefs and bankers, who had major interests in gambling, especially in Florida, pre-Castro Cuba, Las Vegas, and the Bahamas. A Polish Jew born in Russia’s Pale of Settlement, Lansky immigrated with his parents to New York’s Lower East Side in 1911. By […]

Michael Adams (1930 - 1967)

Born in Sacramento, California, Adams graduated from Sacramento Junior College. He enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1950 and earned his pilot wings and commission in 1952 at Webb Air Force Base, Texas. He served as a fighter-bomber pilot during the Korean War, followed by 30 months with the 813th Fighter-Bomber Squadron at […]

Michael Ansara (1922 - 2013)

Michael Ansara Michael George Ansara was born in a small village in Syria, and his family emigrated to the United States when he was two years old. They resided in Lowell, Massachusetts, for a decade before moving to California. He originally wanted to be a physician, but developed a passion for becoming a performer after […]

Michael Balcon (1896 - 1977)

Born in Birmingham, Michael Balcon was the youngest son and fourth of five children of Louis Balcon (c. 1858–1946) and his wife, Laura (née Greenberg; c. 1863–1934), Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who had met in Britain. Growing up in a respectable but impoverished setting, in 1907 Balcon won a scholarship to Birmingham’s George Dixon […]

Michael Bates (1920 - 1978)

The son of Harry Stuart Bates, CSI (1893–1985, son of Albert Bates, of Congleton, Cheshire), an Anglo-Indian civil servant, by his wife Sarah Clarke (1896-1982, daughter of William Hammond Walker of Congleton, Cheshire), Bates was educated at Uppingham School and St Catharine’s College, Cambridge. In 1954, he married Margaret M. J. Chisholm. They had three […]

Michael Bruce Ross (1959 - 2005)

Ross was born in Putnam, Connecticut on July 26, 1959 to Patricia Hilda Laine and Dan Graeme Ross. The oldest of four children, having two younger sisters and a younger brother, he grew up on a chicken farm in Brooklyn, Connecticut. Ross’s home life was extremely dysfunctional; his mother, who had abandoned the family at […]

Michael Clarke Duncan (1957 - 2012)

Duncan was born in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up in a single-parent household with his sister, Judy, and mother, Jean Duncan (a house cleaner), after his father left. He always wanted to act, but had to drop out of the Communications program at Alcorn State University to support his family when his mother became ill. Duncan’s large frame—6 feet […]

Michael Coppola (2024 - 1966)

Organized Crime Figure. Known as “Trigger Mike,” he was a Made-Member in the Costello/Genovese Organized Crime Family, and ran a large gambling operation in Harlem. He was also major drug trafficker and was considered one of the most vicious enforcers in American Mafia history. In 1931, he took control of the artichoke rackets in New […]

Michael Curtiz (1886 - 1962)

Michael Curtiz was born Manó Kaminer to a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary (then Austria-Hungary). In 1905 he Hungaricised his name to Mihály Kertész. He claimed to have been born December 24, 1886. Both the date and the year are open to debate: he was fond of telling tall tales about his early life, including […]

Michael Elphick (1946 - 2002)

Elphick grew up in Chichester, Sussex, where his family had a butcher’s shop. He was educated at Lancastrian Secondary Modern Boys School in Chichester, where he took part in several school productions including Noah and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He initially considered joining the Merchant Navy and helped out in his local boatyard during school […]

Michael Gothard (1939 - 1992)

Michael Gothard was born in London in 1939. As a small child, he lived in both Wales and London. After leaving Haverstock School, he travelled in France for several months before returning home. He went through various jobs, including being a building labourer and a trainee reporter. He even had a brief spell as a […]

Michael Hordern (1911 - 1995)

Hordern was born in the Poplars, an 18th-century townhouse in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, the son of Margaret Emily (Murray) and Capt. Edward Joseph Calverly Hordern. He was educated at Windlesham House School and Brighton College, as was his elder brother Peter, who played rugby for Gloucester in the 1930s and was capped four times by England. […]