thanks, Sarah!
TV
Tina Louise (née Blacker; 1934 – )
Louise got her first role at age two in an advertisement for her father’s candy store. She began studying acting, singing, and dancing at age 17 under Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in Manhattan. Her acting debut came in 1952 in the Bette Davis musical revue Two’s Company, followed by roles in such other Broadway productions as John Murray Anderson’s Almanac, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, and the hit musical Li’l Abner. She appeared in live television dramas in the anthology series, Studio One and Producers’ Showcase.
Louise made her film debut in 1958 in God’s Little Acre. That same year, the National Art Council named her the “World’s Most Beautiful Redhead.” The next year, she starred in Day of the Outlaw with Robert Ryan. Among her Italian film credits were The Siege of Syracuse and Garibaldi (both in 1960). In 1962, she guest-starred on the situation comedy The Real McCoys, portraying a country girl from West Virginia in the episode “Grandpa Pygmalion”. She appeared with Bob Denver two years later in the beach party film For Those Who Think Young (1964) and later portayed movie star Ginger Grant on the situation comedy Gilligan’s Island. She maintained a steady acting career after the series ended, going on to appear in the Matt Helm spy spoof The Wrecking Crew (1969) with Dean Martin and in The Stepford Wives (1975).
Louise took darker roles as well, such as a heroin addict in a 1974 episode of Kojak and as a cruel corrections officer in the 1976 television movie Nightmare in Badham County. Other credits from this era include the made-for-TV films Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby (1976) and SST: Death Flight (1977), and the soap opera Dallas during the 1978–1979 seasons. In the fall of 1984, she succeeded Jo Ann Pflug as Taylor Chapin on the syndicated soap opera Rituals.
Later film roles included O.C. and Stiggs (1987) as well as the independent satire Johnny Suede (1992) starring Brad Pitt. She appeared in the situation comedy Married… with Children as Miss Beck in episode “Kelly Bounces Back” (1990). In the 1990s, she was reunited with costars Bob Denver, Dawn Wells, and Russell Johnson in an episode of Roseanne. In 2014, Louise appeared in the spiritual drama Tapestry and the horror film Late Phases.
Today she works one hour a week, tutoring school children in reading at an Upper East Side Manhattan public school, saying: “It’s better than vitamins.”
Michele Ann Marie Fabares (1944-2026)
Shelley Fabares was known for her television roles beginning with her coming-of-age role as the ever-wholesome daughter on the sitcom The Donna Reed Show (1958–1963) and as Christine Armstrong on the sitcom Coach (1989–1997), the latter of which earned her two Primetime Emmy Awards nominations. In 1962, her recording of “Johnny Angel” reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
After her Donna Reed Show character went to college and therefore written off, Shelley become part of the bikini-clad blonde set with top femme parts in such fun-and-frolic fare as Ride the Wild Surf (1964), Hold On! (1966), and three of Elvis Presley’s less-acclaimed vehicles of the later 1960s: Girl Happy (1965), Spinout (1966) and Clambake (1967).
After a notoriously dry spell, she bounced back as the altruistic wife of a dying footballer “Brian Piccolo” in Brian’s Song (1971), opposite James Caan, and settled comfortably again on the small screen with bright co-star roles on the series The Little People (1972), The Practice (1976), and Highcliffe Manor (1979). A more prickly character than usual, however, reared its head in the late-night soap spoof Forever Fernwood (1977), and this led to the equally malicious, vainglorious role of Bonnie Franklin’s business competitor on the already-established hit sitcom One Day at a Time (1975). In the late 1980s, Shelley found a fleshier character as Craig T. Nelson’s resourceful mate on Coach (1989), earning steady work for eight seasons and two Emmy nominations in the process.
In 1984, she married actor Mike Farrell (BJ Hunnicutt from M.A.S.H.). She had no biological children, but was a stepmother to Farrell’s two children from his previous marriage.In October 2000 she was diagnosed with Autoimmune Hepatitis and received a liver transplant.
Shelley Fabares died at the age of 82 on August 22, 2026.
Nellie Elizabeth “Irish” McCalla (1928-2002)
In 1951, she married insurance salesman Patrick McIntyre, with whom she had two sons. McCalla was already a popular pinup model by 1952, when several other models and she appeared in the film River Goddesses, comprising voluptuous young women frolicking in Glen Canyon.She recalled being discovered by a Nassour Studios representative while throwing a bamboo spear on a Malibu, California, beach, adding of her Sheena experience, “I couldn’t act, but I could swing through the trees”. Her 26-episode series aired in first-run syndication from 1955 to 1956.
She performed her own stunts on the series, filmed in Mexico, until the day she grabbed an unsecured vine and slammed into a tree, breaking her arm. Her elder son, Kim McIntyre, once told the press he remembered watching his mother swinging from vine to vine and wrestling mechanical alligators. Following the one-season Sheena, McCalla appeared in five films from 1958 to 1962, and had guest roles on the TV series Have Gun — Will Travel and Route 66.
McCalla and McIntyre divorced in 1957, and the following year, McCalla married the English actor and James Joyce / Sherlock Holmes scholar Patrick Horgan. They divorced in January 1969. In 1982, McCalla, then living in Malibu, California, married Chuck Rowland, a national sales manager for an auto-glass firm, and moved with him to Prescott, Arizona, where she lived out her days.
Now an artist, she produced numerous oil paintings and collector plates, and sold prints of her work. She was a member of Woman Artists of the American West, and her work has been displayed at the Los Angeles Museum of Arts and Sciences. She made personal appearances at autograph conventions, appearing as late as 1996 in a faux-leopard Sheena costume.
in 2002, died of a stroke and complications from a brain tumor. She was 73
an unlikely friendship between generations
A young Kurt Russell worked together with Charles Bronson on the TV series The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters. During shooting, Russell found out it was Charles Bronson’s birthday. So he got his older co-star a gift. Bronson looked at it, took it… then walked out of the room, without saying a word. Russell was terrified, worried he had insulted the man.
A little while later, Russell was called to the dressing room of Bronson. Bronson was silent, looked down and said to the child actor: “No one has ever given me a birthday gift before…” Charles Bronson was the son of dirt poor immigrants. He had fourteen siblings, and worked in the mines as a child. Never finished schooling, never had a kind word, he was worked like a mule since the day he learned to walk.
Charles Bronson hadn’t known a lot of kindness in his life. It caught him off guard to receive some from his young co-star. He later gave Russell a skateboard on his own birthday to play with between takes.
The two men remained friends until Bronson’s death
