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People: Famous People born in 1898

People in chronological context: 1898 (MDCCCXCVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar, the 1898th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 898th year of the 2nd millennium, the 98th year of the 19th century, and the 9th year of the 1890s decade. As of the start of 1898, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923. ()

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989 people found (page 1/33):

Regis Toomey(† 93)

Actor | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (US)

John Francis Regis Toomey (August 13, 1898 – October 12, 1991) was an American film and television actor.

Known for: The Big Sleep, His Girl Friday, Guys and Dolls, Spellbound
* 08/13/1898

Norma Varden(† 90)

Actress | London, England (GB)

Norma Varden Shackleton (20 January 1898 – 19 January 1989), known professionally as Norma Varden, was an English-American actress with a long film career.

Known for: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Strangers on a Train, Witness for the Prosecution, The Sound of Music
* 01/20/1898

Irene Dunne(† 91)

Actress | Louisville, Kentucky (US)

Irene Dunne (born Irene Marie Dunn; December 20, 1898 – September 4, 1990) was an American actress who appeared in films during the Golden Age of Hollywood. She is best known for her comedic roles, though she performed in films of other genres. After her father died when she was 14, Dunne's family relocated from Kentucky to Indiana. She was determined to become an opera singer, but when she was rejected by The Met, she performed in musicals on Broadway until she was scouted by RKO and made her Hollywood film debut in the musical Leathernecking (1930). She later starred in the successful musical Show Boat (1936). Overall, she starred in 42 movies and was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Actress—for her performances in the western drama Cimarron (1931), the screwball comedies Theodora Goes Wild (1936) and The Awful Truth (1937), the romance Love Affair (1939), and the drama I Remember Mama (1948). Dunne is considered one of the finest actresses never to have won an Academy Award. Some critics feel that her performances have been underappreciated and largely forgotten, often overshadowed by later remakes and better-known co-stars. After the success of The Awful Truth, she was paired with Cary Grant, her co-star in that movie, two further times; in another screwball comedy, My Favorite Wife (1940), and in the melodrama Penny Serenade (1941). She has been praised by many during her career, and after her death, as one of the best comedic actresses in the screwball genre. The popularity of Love Affair also led to two additional movies with her co-star of that film, Charles Boyer; those were When Tomorrow Comes (1939) and Together Again (1944). Her last film role was in 1952 but she starred in and hosted numerous television anthology episodes until 1962 after having done numerous radio performances from the late 1930s until the early 1950s. She was nicknamed "The First Lady of Hollywood" for her regal manner despite being proud of her Irish-American, country-girl roots. Dunne devoted her retirement to philanthropy and was chosen by President Dwight D. Eisenhower as a delegate for the United States to the United Nations, in which she advocated world peace and highlighted refugee-relief programs. She also used the time to be with her family—her husband, dentist Dr. Francis Griffin, and their daughter Mary Frances, whom they adopted in 1938. She received numerous awards for her philanthropy, including honorary doctorates, a Laetare Medal from the University of Notre Dame, and a papal knighthood—Dame of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre. In 1985, she was awarded a Kennedy Center Honor for her services to the arts.

Known for: The Awful Truth, Love Affair, I Remember Mama, My Favorite Wife
* 12/20/1898

Wallace Ford(† 68)

Actor | Bolton, Lancashire, England (GB)

Wallace Ford (born Samuel Grundy Jones; 12 February 1898 – 11 June 1966) was an English-born naturalized American vaudevillian, stage performer and screen actor. Usually playing wise-cracking characters, he combined a tough but friendly-faced demeanor with a small but powerful, stocky physique.

Known for: Freaks, A Patch of Blue, Harvey, Shadow of a Doubt
* 02/12/1898

Bess Flowers(† 85)

Actress | Sherman, Texas (US)

Bess Flowers (November 23, 1898 – July 28, 1984) was an American actress best known for her work as an extra in hundreds of films. She was known as "The Queen of the Hollywood Extras," appearing in more than 350 feature films and numerous comedy shorts in her 41-year career. She holds the record for appearances in films nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture (23).

Known for: We Faw Down, The Shadow, Sinister Hands, Hands Across the Border
* 11/23/1898

Randolph Scott(† 89)

Actor | Orange County, Virginia (US)

George Randolph Scott (January 23, 1898 – March 2, 1987) was an American film actor, whose Hollywood career spanned from 1928 to 1962. As a leading man for all but the first three years of his cinematic career, Scott appeared in dramas, comedies, musicals, adventures, war, horror and fantasy films, and Westerns. Out of his more than 100 film appearances, more than 60 of them were Westerns. At 6 ft 2 in (188 cm), lanky and muscular, Scott displayed a Southern drawl that offset his limitations. During the early 1950s, Scott was a consistent box-office draw. In the annual Motion Picture Herald Top Ten Polls, his name appeared on the list for four consecutive years, from 1950 to 1953. Scott also appeared in Quigley's Top Ten Money Makers Poll, from 1950 to 1953.

Known for: Roberta, Ride the High Country, The Stranger Wore a Gun, The Tall T
* 01/23/1898

Shirley Booth(† 94)

Actress | Brooklyn (US)

Shirley Booth was an American actress. One of only 24 performers to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting, Booth was the recipient of an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards and three Tony Awards. Primarily a theater actress, Booth began her career on Broadway in 1925.

Known for: Come Back, Little Sheba, The Matchmaker, About Mrs. Leslie, Hazel
* 08/30/1898

Oskar Homolka(† 79)

Actor | Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]

Oskar Homolka (August 12, 1898 – January 27, 1978) was an Austrian film and theatre actor, who went on to work in Germany, Britain, and America. Both his voice and his appearance fitted him for roles as communist spies or Soviet officials, for which he was in regular demand. By the age of 30, he had appeared in more than 400 plays; his film career covered at least 100 films and TV shows. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in I Remember Mama (1948).

Known for: The Seven Year Itch, War and Peace, I Remember Mama, Ball of Fire
* 08/12/1898

Molly Picon(† 93)

Actress | New York City, New York (US)

Molly Picon (Yiddish: מאָלי פּיקאָן; born Malka Opiekun; February 28, 1898 – April 5, 1992) was an American actress of stage, screen, radio and television, as well as a lyricist and dramatic storyteller. She began her career in Yiddish theatre and film, rising to a star, before transitioning into character roles in English-language productions.

Known for: Fiddler on the Roof, The Cannonball Run, Mamele
* 06/01/1898

George Chandler(† 86)

Actor | Waukegan, Illinois (US)

George Chandler (June 30, 1898 – June 10, 1985) was an American actor who starred in over 140 feature films, usually in smaller supporting roles, and he is perhaps best known for playing the character of Uncle Petrie Martin on the television series Lassie, and as the unfortunate young man who drank The Fatal Glass of Beer in a 1933 short comedy starring W.C. Fields.

Known for: The High and the Mighty, Every Which Way but Loose, Roxie Hart, The Twilight Zone
* 06/30/1898

George Eldredge(† 78)

Actor | San Francisco, California (US)

George Edwin Eldredge (September 10, 1898 – March 12, 1977) was an American actor who appeared in over 180 movies during a career that stretched from the 1930s to the early 1960s. He also had a prolific television career during the 1950s. He was the older brother of actor John Dornin Eldredge.

Known for: Riders to the Stars, Captain Video, Master of the Stratosphere, Fury of the Congo, Crossroads
* 09/10/1898

Robert Keith(† 68)

Actor | Fowler, Indiana (US)

Rolland Keith Richey (February 10, 1898 – December 22, 1966), known professionally as Robert Keith, was an American stage and film actor who appeared in several dozen films, mostly in the 1950s as a character actor.

Known for: Guys and Dolls, Written on the Wind, Young at Heart, My Man Godfrey
* 02/10/1898
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Gladys Hurlbut(† 89)

Actress | Dresden, New York (US)

- No description / details available yet. -

Known for: Higher and Higher, The Rains of Ranchipur, The Mating Season, By Your Leave
* 12/09/1898

Queenie Smith(† 79)

Actress | New York City / NYC (US)

Queenie Smith (September 8, 1898 – August 5, 1978) was an American stage, television, and film actress.

Known for: The Great Rupert, Show Boat, Sleep, My Love, Masks and Memories
* 09/08/1898

John George(† 70)

Actor | Aleppo (SY)

John George was a Syrian actor who came to the United States in 1912 via France. He appeared in numerous films beginning in 1916. Much later in his career he appeared in several television series. The vast majority of his roles throughout the years were uncredited bit parts.Mr. George's original name was Tufei Filhela; on his 1925 United States citizenship naturalization Declaration of Intention document, he signed his name "Tufei Filhela known as John George". His surname was neither Filthela nor Fatella, as today sometimes is claimed.

Known for: The Unknown, Scaramouche, The Night of Love, The Adventures of Daredevil Jack
* 01/20/1898

Arthur Lubin(† 96)

Crew | Los Angeles, California (US)

Arthur Lubin (July 25, 1898 – May 12, 1995) was an American film director and producer who directed several Abbott & Costello films and created the TV series Mr. Ed.Arthur Lubin was born Arthur William Lubovsky in Los Angeles, California in 1898. Lubin created his own film and music studio, Lubin Studios, in the 1920s, where he acted in silent films in the later half of the decade. Lubin directed the Abbott and Costello movies Buck Privates (1941), In the Navy (1941), Hold That Ghost (1941), Keep 'Em Flying (1942) and Ride 'Em Cowboy (1942). His most successful film at the box office was probably Phantom of the Opera (1943). Another may be Rhubarb (1951) about a cat that inherits a baseball team by proxy.Lubin also directed the "Francis the Talking Mule" series and brought the idea to TV as the series Mr. Ed. He was the first producer to give a contract to Clint Eastwood. Lubin also directed episodic TV shows like Bronco (1958), Maverick (1959), Bonanza (1960), Mister Ed (1961) and The Addams Family (1965). Lubin's last work was the TV series called Little Lulu (1978).Lubin's career ended in the late 1970s, and he lived the rest of his life with his life partner Frank Burford[citation needed] and died in Glendale, California of an unspecified cause on May 12, 1995 at age 96.

Known for: Phantom of the Opera, The Incredible Mr. Limpet, Black Friday, Yellowstone
* 07/25/1898

Harold Bennett(† 82)

Actor | Hastings, Sussex, England (GB)

Harold Frank Bennett (17 November 1898 - 11 September 1981) was an English actor, active in stage, television and film best remembered for having played 'Young Mr. Grace' in the 1970s British sitcom Are You Being Served? (1972-1985).

Known for: Are You Being Served?, Are You Being Served?, Whack-O!
* 11/17/1898

Lotte Lenya(† 83)

Actress | Vienna-Penzing, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]

Lotte Lenya (born Karoline Wilhelmine Charlotte Blamauer; 18 October 1898 – 27 November 1981) was an Austrian-American singer, diseuse, and actress, long based in the United States. In the German-speaking and classical music world, she is best remembered for her performances of the songs of her first husband, Kurt Weill. In English-language cinema, she was nominated for an Academy Award for her role as a jaded aristocrat in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961). She also played the murderous and sadistic Rosa Klebb in the James Bond movie From Russia with Love (1963).

Known for: From Russia with Love, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, The 3 Penny Opera, Seven Years in Tibet
* 10/18/1898

Joyce Carey(† 94)

Actress | London, England (GB)

Joyce Carey, OBE (30 March 1898 – 28 February 1993) was an English actress, best known for her long professional and personal relationship with Noël Coward. Her stage career lasted from 1916 until 1987, and she was performing on television in her 90s. Although never a star, she was a familiar face both on stage and screen. In addition to light comedy, she had a large repertory of Shakespearean roles.

Known for: Brief Encounter, Blithe Spirit, Happy Go Lovely, Miss Marple: A Murder Is Announced
* 03/30/1898

Tudor Owen(† 81)

Actor | Penarth (GB)

Roy Tudor Owen (20 January 1898 – 13 March 1979), known professionally as just Tudor Owen, was a Welsh character actor. Owen is most famous for voicing the role of Towser in the 1961 Disney movie One Hundred and One Dalmatians.

Known for: One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Against All Flags, My Cousin Rachel, Shirley Temple's Storybook
* 01/20/1898

Nanda Primavera(† 97)

Actress | L’Aquila (IT)

Nanda Primavera (23 August 1898 – 9 August 1995) was an Italian actress. She appeared in more than thirty films from 1936 to 1988.

Known for: The Wayward Wife, Moglie e buoi..., Beautiful but Dangerous, The Widower
* 08/23/1898

Totò(† 69)

Actor | Napoli, Campania (IT)

Totò was born Antonio Clemente in a poor district of Naples, the illegitimate son of Anna Clemente from Sicily and Marquis Giuseppe De Curtis from Naples. Nicknamed “il principe della risata’ ("the prince of laughter"), he was an Italian comedian, film and theatre actor, writer, singer and songwriter, and widely considered one of the greatest Italian artists of the 20th century. While he first gained his popularity as a comic actor, his dramatic roles, poetry, and songs are all of cultural import; his style and a number of his recurring jokes and gestures have become universally known memes in Italy.As a comic actor, Totò is classified as an heir of the Commedia dell'Arte tradition, and has been compared to such figures as Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. At the age of 15, he was already acting as a comedian in small theatres, under pseudonym "Clerment". His early repertoire mostly consisted in imitations of Gustavo De Marco's characters. He served in the army during World War I and then went back to acting to develop the trademarks of his style. In 1937, he appeared in his first movie "Fermo con le mani", and later starred in other 96 films, many of which are still frequently broadcast on Italian television.In his vast cinematographic career, Totò had the opportunity to act side by side with virtually all major Italian actors of the time. Totò's unmistakable figure, with his peculiarly irregular face (due to an accident in his teen years), and his unique trademark ability to disarticulate his body like a marionette, soon became very popular and his comic gags became part of the Italian culture. Totò died at the age of 69 in Rome, after a series of heart attacks. Due to overwhelming popular request there were three funeral services: the first in Rome, and the second and third in Naples. Totò's birth home has been recently opened to the public as a museum.

Known for: Cops and Robbers, The Hawks and the Sparrows, The Mandrake, Totó in color
* 02/15/1898

Lewis R. Foster(† 75)

Crew | Brookfield, Missouri (US)

Lewis Ransom Foster (August 5, 1898 – June 10, 1974) was an American screenwriter, film/television director, and film/television producer. He directed and wrote over one hundred films and television series between 1926 and 1960.

Known for: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Captain China, Tropic Zone, Crashout
* 08/05/1898

Sara Haden(† 82)

Actress | Galveston, Texas (US)

Sara Haden (born Catherine Haden, November 17, 1898 – September 15, 1981) was an American actress of the 1930s through the 1950s and in television into the mid-1960s. She may be best remembered for appearing as Aunt Milly Forrest in 14 of the 16 entries in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Andy Hardy film series.

Known for: The Shop Around the Corner, The Courtship of Andy Hardy, Captain January, The Bishop's Wife
* 11/17/1898

Ivan Triesault(† 81)

Actor | Reval, Russian Empire [now Tallinn, Estonia]

Ivan Triesault (born Johann Constantin Treisalt; 13 July [O.S. 1 July] 1898 in Reval (now Tallinn) – January 3, 1980 in Los Angeles) was an Estonian-American actor. His parents were from the island of Hiiumaa.

Known for: Notorious, The Bad and the Beautiful, The Amazing Transparent Man, The 300 Spartans
* 07/14/1898

René Clair(† 82)

Crew | Paris (FR)

René Clair was a French filmmaker and writer. He first established his reputation in the 1920s as a director of silent films in which comedy was often mingled with fantasy. He went on to make some of the most innovative early sound films in France, before going abroad to work in the UK and USA for more than a decade. Returning to France after World War II, he continued to make films that were characterised by their elegance and wit, often presenting a nostalgic view of French life in earlier years. He was elected to the Académie française in 1960. Clair's best known films include The Italian Straw Hat (1928), Under the Roofs of Paris (1930), Le Million (1931), À nous la liberté (1931), I Married a Witch (1942), and And Then There Were None (1945).In 1924, while Clair was working on Ciné-sketch for the theatre with France Picabia, he first met a young actress, Bronja Perlmutter, who subsequently appeared in his film Le Voyage imaginaire (1926) premiered at the newly opened Studio des Ursulines. They married in 1926, and their son, Jean-François, was born in 1927. René Clair died at home on 15 March 1981, and he was buried privately at Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois.Clair's reputation as a film-maker underwent a considerable reevaluation during the course of his own lifetime: in the 1930s he was widely seen as one of France's greatest directors, alongside Renoir and Carné, but thereafter his work's artifice and detachment from the realities of life fell increasingly from favour. The avant-gardism of his first films, and especially Entr'acte, had given him a temporary notoriety, and a grounding in surrealism continued to underlie much of his comedy work. It was however the imaginative manner in which he overcame his initial scepticism about the arrival of sound which established his originality, and his first four sound films brought him international fame.Clair's years of working in the UK and USA made him still more widely known but did not show any marked development in his style or thematic concerns. It was in the post-war films that he made on his return to France that some critics have observed a new maturity and emotional depth, accompanied by a prevailing sense of melancholy but still framed by the elegance and wit that characterised his earlier work.However, in the 1950s the critics who heralded the arrival of the French New Wave, especially those associated with Cahiers du Cinéma, found Clair's work old-fashioned and academic. The paradox of Clair's reputation has been further heightened by those commentators who have seen François Truffaut as the French cinema's true successor to Clair, notwithstanding the occasions of their mutual disdain.

Known for: Silence Is Golden, Beauties of the Night, The Grand Manoeuvre, À Nous la Liberté
* 11/11/1898

Norman Z. McLeod(† 65)

Crew | Grayling, Michigan (US)

Norman Zenos McLeod (September 20, 1898 – January 27, 1964) was an American film director. McLeod's most acclaimed work was made in collaboration with major comic performers of the 1930s, and included such films as the first original Marx Brothers comedies Monkey Business (1931) and Horse Feathers (1932), the most acclaimed W.C. Fields film It's a Gift (1934), the Danny Kaye vehicle The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), and The Paleface starring Bob Hope (1948). He also directed the first two installments of the Topper franchise. Other significant films McLeod made include Taking a Chance (1928), Alice in Wonderland (1933), Pennies from Heaven (1936), There Goes My Heart (1938), Merrily We Live (1938), Little Men (1940), Panama Hattie (1942), Jackass Mail (1942), and his last, Alias Jesse James (1959). In his later years, McLeod was recruited by writer Rod Serling to direct silent film comedy legend Buster Keaton in the 1961 Richard Matheson-penned "Once Upon a Time" episode of Serling's classic CBS television series The Twilight Zone.

Known for: Remember?, Swing Shift Maisie, Coronado, Redheads on Parade, The Twilight Zone
* 09/20/1898

Arletty(† 94)

Actress | Courbevoie, Seine (FR)

Léonie Marie Julie Bathiat (15 May 1898 – 23 July 1992), known professionally as Arletty, was a French actress, singer, and fashion model. As an actress she is particularly known for classics directed by Marcel Carné, including Hotel du Nord (1938), Le jour se lève (1939) and Children of Paradise (1945). She was found guilty of treason for an affair with a German officer during World War II.

Known for: Children of Paradise, The Longest Day, Hôtel du Nord, The Devil's Envoys
* 05/15/1898

Walter Abel(† 88)

Actor | St. Paul, Minnesota (US)

Walter Abel (June 6, 1898 – March 26, 1987) was an American stage, film, and radio actor whose career spanned nearly seven decades.

Known for: 13 Rue Madeleine, Hold Back the Dawn, Mr. Skeffington, Holiday Inn
* 06/06/1898

Therese Giehse(† 76)

Actress | München (DE)

Therese Giehse (6 March 1898 – 3 March 1975), born Therese Gift, was a distinguished German actress. Born in Munich to German-Jewish parents, she first appeared on the stage in 1920. She became a major star on stage, in films, and in political cabaret. In the late 1920s through 1933, she was a leading actress at the famous Munich Kammerspiele.

Known for: Black Moon, Children, Mother, and the General, Wassa Schelesnowa, Münchner Geschichten
* 03/06/1898
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