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Handsome, chisel-jawed character actor Kevin McCarthy appeared in nearly 100 movies in a career that spanned seven decades. He also had some starring roles, most notably the horror cult classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). He played the disillusioned son Biff Loman in the 1951 screen adaptation of Arthur Miller's classic Death of a Salesman (1951), for which he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar and won the Golden Globe Award for most promising newcomer (male).

He is the younger brother of the late author Mary McCarthy and distant cousin of former U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy.

McCarthy was orphaned at the age of four when both his parents died in the great flu epidemic of 1918. He was raised by his father's parents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and later by an uncle and aunt. He graduated from Campion Jesuit High School in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, in 1932. He attended the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, Washington, DC, in 1933, intending to enter into the diplomatic field. He also attended the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, in 1936 and the Actors Studio New York, New York. He had roles in two short-lived TV series: The Survivors (1969), with Lana Turner, and Flamingo Road (1980) as Claude Weldon, the father of the character played by Morgan Fairchild.

The stage-trained McCarthy frequently appeared on Broadway. He starred as Jerry in "Two for the Seesaw" (1959) and as Van Ackerman in "Advise and Consent" (1960). He also played President Harry S. Truman in the one-man show "Give 'Em Hell, Harry!"

McCarthy showed no signs of retiring as late as June 2007. McCarthy acted in the film The Ghastly Love of Johnny X (2012), playing the role of the Grand Inquisitor, at age 93, which was finally released in 2011. He died of pneumonia on September 11, 2010.

Thespian Betty Field was born in Boston on February 8, 1916, the daughter of a salesman and his wife. Ancestors on her father's side were Mayflower colonists Priscilla and John Alden. Her parents divorced while she was still young and Betty eventually learned to speak Spanish while traveling with her mother to various Spanish-speaking countries during her childhood. Mother and daughter settled in Newton, Massachusetts, after the mother remarried. Betty's passion for the theatre was sparked during her early teens and by 1932 she was enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Art. She made her professional debut in a 1933 summer stock production of "The First Mrs. Fraser" and soon was cast in stage roles elsewhere. She even found work in a London theater production of "She Loves Me" in early 1934.

Rather plaintive in appearance with flat but highly distinctive tones, Betty's Broadway debut came about as an understudy in the comedy "Page Miss Glory" in November of 1934, courtesy of George Abbott, in which Betty also had a minor role. Therafter she performed frequently in the comedy mold, and in the service of Abbott, with such delightful plays as "Three Men on a Horse (1935), "Boy Meets Girl" (1936) "Room Service" (1937) and "The Primrose Path (1939), and earning fine reviews for the last two.

After seeing her performance on stage as Henry Aldrich's girlfriend Barbara in "What a Life" (1938), Paramount executives utilized her services when they transferred What a Life (1939) to film. The studio not only liked what they saw but signed her to a seven-year contract. Throughout the 1940s Betty appeared in a variety of leading ingénue and co-star roles. The important part of Mae, the farm girl, in John Steinbeck's classic Of Mice and Men (1939) starring Burgess Meredith and Lon Chaney was an early highlight, although it didn't provide her the necessary springboard for stardom. Part of the problem was that the rather reserved actress tended to shun the Hollywood scene (she still lived quietly with her mother).

While performing for Abbott again on Broadway in "Ring Two" (1939), Betty met the show's playwright Elmer Rice and the couple married in 1942. Their three children, John Alden, Judith and Paul, would appear on occasion with their mother on the summer stock stage. Betty also enhanced husband Rice's plays "Flight to the West" (1940) and "A New Life" (1943), which were designed especially for her.

Betty offered consistent, quality work even when the movies she appeared in met with less-than-stellar reviews. She was afforded the opportunity to work with some of Hollywood's finest leading men, including Fredric March in Victory (1940) and Tomorrow, the World! (1944), John Wayne in The Shepherd of the Hills (1941), Robert Cummings in Flesh and Fantasy (1943) and Joel McCrea in The Great Moment (1944). Tops on the list was her heart-tugging performance as the anguished daughter victimized by father Claude Rains in the classic soaper Kings Row (1942).

She purposely did not renew her Paramount contract at this point and, following another sterling performance in The Southerner (1945), took a long break from camera work. Back on Broadway, she appeared in such distinguished plays as "The Voice of the Turtle" and her husband's "Dream Girl" (Rice also directed) for career sustenance. She won the New York Drama Critics Circle award for the latter in 1946. Her Hedvig in Ibsen's "The Wild Duck" was also critically lauded.

An isolated return to Paramount to play what should have been a career highlight ended up a major disappointment,. While her Daisy Buchanan in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1949) had mixed reviews (some felt she was miscast and not glamorous enough for the part), the movie itself (which was extensively trimmed) and her underwhelming co-star Alan Ladd were also cited as problems. Still a marquee value on Broadway, however, she displayed great range in such fare as "Twelfth Night", "The Rat Race", "Peter Pan" (taking over for Jean Arthur), "The Fourposter" (she and Burgess Meredith replaced Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn) and "Ladies of the Corridor"

Betty's soulful features took on a hardened, careworn veneer by the time she returned to Hollywood in the mid-1950's. Nevertheless, she had a "Field" day as a character player appearing in a number of drab, dressed-down roles. She lent credence to a number of fascinatingly flawed small-town moms and matrons in films, among them cream-of-the-crop hits Picnic (1955), starring Kim Novak, Bus Stop (1956) with Marilyn Monroe and Peyton Place (1957) headlining Lana Turner and Hope Lange. The stage plays "The Seagull", "Waltz of the Toreadors", "Touch of the Poet" and "Separate Tables" also accentuated this newly mature phase of her career.

TV took up a large percentage of Betty's time in the 1950s and 1960s with a number of showcase roles. She continued at a fairly steady pace but without much fanfare (as she preferred). Divorced from Rice in 1956, she married and split from lawyer and criminologist Edwin J. Lukas before settling down permanently with husband/artist Raymond Olivere in 1968. Betty's swan song in films was a small, featured part in Clint Eastwood's Coogan's Bluff (1968) as a floozie type, looking noticeably older than she was. Mixing in such stalwart, brittle roles on stage as Amanda in "The Glass Menagerie" and Birdie in "The Little Foxes", she made one of her last theater appearances in the difficult role of the mother in "The Effect of Gamma Rays on "Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds" in 1971.

Betty suffered a fatal cerebral hemorrhage in Hyannis, Massachusetts in 1973, just as she was about to leave and film The Day of the Locust (1975). Cast in the flashy role of "Big Sister", an evangelist, her part was taken over by Geraldine Page. At age 57, Hollywood lost a somewhat undervalued talent who enjoyed the work more than the stardom that often accompanied it.

Edward Moore Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on February 22, 1932. His parents were Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Kennedy. He was the younger brother of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy. "Ted" Kennedy graduated Harvard University in 1956 and the University of Virginia Law School in 1959. He campaigned for his brother John during the latter's 1960 presidential bid. Ted was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1962 and held that position until his death. As a Senator, he had served as majority whip and chaired Senate committees. His rise was hampered by the Chappaquiddick Island incident on July 18, 1969, when he accidentally drove his car off a bridge, resulting in the drowning of his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne. He was convicted of leaving the scene of an accident. In 1980, he unsuccessfully challenged Jimmy Carter for the Democratic presidential nomination. In May of 2008, Kennedy experienced a stroke that resulted in hi being diagnosed with brain cancer. He remained active and endorsed President Barack Obama's candidacy early-on. He died at his family compound on Cape Cod in Hyannis, Massachusetts, August 25, 2009.

Patriarch of a famous political family, Kennedy had a brief Hollywood career: He was one of the first financiers to play a leading role in the movie industry. Although he grew up in modest East Boston, where his father was a barkeeper and politician, Kennedy was educated with the Establishment's children at Boston Latin School and Harvard. In 1914, he married Rose Fitzgerald, daughter of Boston's mayor. Billed as "America's youngest bank president" at 25 (his father and his friends owned the bank.) He became a prominent stock market "operator" in the 1920s. In 1926, as the front man for Wall Street interests, he became chief executive of Film Booking Office, a distributor of low-budget features for unsophisticated audiences. Soon Kennedy also assumed power at another studio, Pathe, and at the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chain. Through "financial engineering" of these companies - some of their pieces went into a new major studio, RKO - Kennedy added to his already substantial fortune. (A sidelight in his Hollywood period was his business and sexual relationship with Gloria Swanson, recounted in detail in her autobiography.) In the 1930s, Kennedy turned his attention to politics: an early fund-raiser for Franklin D. Roosevelt, he became the first chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, then U.S. ambassador to England (1938-40). Kennedy's pessimistic statements about Britain's chances in World War II alienated Roosevelt and made Kennedy deeply unpopular in America. After the war, Kennedy steered his surviving sons, John, Robert and Edward, into politics and served as financier and strategist for their campaigns. In 1961, he suffered a stroke that left him unable to speak, but by all accounts he was aware of many calamities that befell his family until his own death in 1969. Some say that the scandal of his son Teddy at Chappaquiddick was what killed him. Some historians see Kennedy's rapacious greed for success as a fatal flaw that he passed on to his sons, none of whom could transcend it.

Joseph N. Welch was born on 22 October 1890 in Primghar, Iowa, USA. He was an actor, known for Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Kraft Theatre (1947) and Startime (1959). He was married to Agnes Mevay (Rodgers) Brown and Judith Hampton Lyndon. He died on 6 October 1960 in Hyannis, Massachusetts, USA.

Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy was born Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald on July 22, 1890 to Josie Hannon and the future mayor of Boston, John Francis Fitzgerald. She grew up with several brothers and sisters and thanks to her father, the family was very well off. Rose went to a series of Catholic Schools in Boston, and when she graduated her father presented her diploma and their picture appeared in the newspaper. Rose wanted to go to Wellesley Collage, but during that time her father was in the middle of a scandal and needed the support of the Catholics of Boston and said no to her going to a WASP school. Instead she, her parents,and her sister went to Europe that summer so that the Fitzgeralds could get their daughters into a Catholic boarding school in Holland.

The stay in Holland was a very difficult time for Rose. It was very strict and English was not spoken, only French and German. She and her sister spent about a year there before going home. Shortly after she came home she re-met the son of one of her father's cronies, Joseph Patrick Kennedy. They fell in love, but it was not until Joe, as he was called, became a bank manager, did Honey Fitz (John Fitzgerald's nickname) allow her to marry. Joe and Rose were married on October 7, 1914 and soon got busy making babies. First was Joe, Jr. in 1915, then John Fitzgerald in 1917, Rosemary in 1918, Kathleen Agnes in 1920, Eunice in 1921, Patricia in 1924, Robert Francis in 1925, Jean in 1928, and Edward Moore in 1932. These years were far from easy for Rose. When she was very pregnant with Kathleen she left Joe and went to live with her parents for a while because she could not take it anymore. She went back shortly before the birth. Also during this time she had to contend with her absent husband. Joe was almost always away, either in California with his mistress Gloria Swanson, or in New York making money.

When the youngest of the Kennedy brood were young the family moved to New York, so that they could be closer to Joe. Also during this time Rose became the wife of the Ambassador to the Court of Saint James. Joe had gotten president Franklin Roosevelt to appoint him the ambassador to the Court of Saint James and soon had his family over to London in waves. Joe and Rose were only in London for a short time thought before World War Two began and Rose and the children went back to the United States. Shortly after, Joe wanted out and he gave a speech that said that Democracy might be gone in England and maybe in the United States, as well, that ended his political career. During this time Rose watched as her children helped in World War Two. Joe, Jr. was an aviator in England and was killed when his plane exploded in 1944. John (Jack) was on a boat in the Pacific, and Kathleen was a nurse for the red cross in London.

During the war, Rose had problems with Kathleen who was in London. Kathleen wanted to marry William Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington, a Protestant. Rose, a devout Catholic, was very upset at this and felt it was divine intervention when months after their marriage William died fighting in World War Two. She was also mad when she heard that Kathleen was set on marrying a not yet divorced Protestant in 1948 and also felt that it was divine intervention when the plane that they were in crashed killing everybody on board in May 1948.

After these tragedies Rose helped her family. She campaigned for her sons John and Robert and watched as her children married and had grandchildren. She was thrilled in 1961 when her son John became the 35th President of the United States and since John's wife Jacqueline had just given birth, Rose and her daughters Pat, and Eunice, as well as her daughter-in-law Ethel (the wife of Robert) helped host some of the events that were held at the White House.

While this was going on another tragedy happened. Joe had a stroke and was partially paralyzed. Then came November 22, 1963 when President Kennedy was assassinated and the 1968 assassination of Robert Kennedy, as well as the 1969 scandal involving son Edward in Chappaquidick. Shortly after that scandal Joe died.

Rose spent the rest of her life in relative peace. She watched her grandchildren grow up, some getting married and giving her great grandchildren before dying at the ripe old age of 104 on January 22, 1995. Luckily she died before seeing the death and scandals associated with her grandchildren: JFK Jr, Michael Kennedy, and divorce scandal of Kerry Kennedy Cuomo.

Ms. Andrews and her sisters, Patty and Laverne, were one of the most successful women's singing groups, with 19 gold records and sales of nearly 100 million copies. The sisters began performing in the early 1930's when the Depression wiped out their father's business. In 1937, the trio of sisters scored their first big hit with 'Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen'. In addition to 'Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, ' their best-known songs included 'Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree' and 'Rum and Coca Cola'. The trio officially broke up after the death of Laverne in 1967, but temporarily interrupted their feud to star in the 1974 Broadway musical "Over Here!". Ms. Andrews began a solo career in 1979. Her album and its title, were released in 1990, 'Maxene: An Andrews Sister'. Her last performance was on Sunday, October 8th, 1995, in the show 'Swing Time Canteen', at New York City's Blue Angel Theater.

Saoirse Hill, a former vice president of College Democrats at Boston College, Saoirse was passionately moved by the causes of human rights and women's empowerment and found great joy in volunteer work, working alongside indigenous communities to build schools in Mexico. Daughter of Paul Hill and Courtney Kennedy, the fifth of 11 children of Ethel Kennedy and Robert Kennedy.

Hill, who majored in communications, was a spokeswoman for awareness of depression and mental illness. In a 2016 article for The Deerfield Scroll, the student newspaper at Deerfield Academy in Deerfield, Massachusetts, Hill wrote that she attempted suicide before her junior year at the institution. "People talk about cancer freely; why is it so difficult to discuss the effects of depression, bi-polar, anxiety, or schizophrenic disorders?" she wrote. "Just because the illness may not be outwardly visible doesn't mean the person suffering from it isn't struggling.

Joseph Anthony made his Broadway debut in 1937, and in the years following he was the partner of dancer Agnes de Mille, was employed as a set designer on films and dabbled as a film actor. His main interest, however, was the stage, and he became one of Broadway's most accomplished directors. In addition to occasionally acting on stage and in TV, he directed a handful of films, with varying success, and tried his hand at directing for television, becoming the house director on the series "Brenner" (1964).

Edward Gorey was born on 25 February 1925 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was a writer, known for Edward Gorey's Neglected Murderesses, The Doubtful Guest and A Gorey Hallwoeen (1978). He died on 15 April 2000 in Hyannis, Massachusetts, USA.

Marc London was born on 30 September 1927 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (1967), The Muppet Show (1976) and Sinatra and Friends (1977). He died on 9 February 2010 in Hyannis, Massachusetts, USA.

Paul Brodeur was born on 16 May 1931 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He was a writer, known for The Stunt Man (1980) and The Dick Cavett Show (1989). He was married to Malabar Schleiter, Margaret Staats and Milane Christiansen. He died on 2 August 2023 in Hyannis, Massachusetts, USA.

Robert M. Murphy was born on 7 July 1925 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He died on 3 October 2008 in Hyannis, Massachusetts, USA.

Keith Curran was born on 29 February 1956 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Keith was a writer, known for Trump Unauthorized (2005). Keith died on 18 September 2024 in Hyannis, Massachusetts, USA.

Hope Ryden was born on 1 August 1929 in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA. She was a producer, known for The Loving Story (2011), Jane (1962) and A President to Remember (2008). She died on 18 June 2017 in Hyannis, Massachusetts, USA.

Mentored by Marty Glickman, Most called road games for baseball's New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers, and football's New York Giants and Army. In 1953, Boston Celtics owner Walter Brown and head coach Red Auerbach tapped him to replace Curt Gowdy as the team's radio play-by-play man "high above court side" as Most always described his perch at Boston Garden.

Unlike Chick Hearn - who criticized his Los Angeles Lakers when he felt it warranted - Most never pretended to be objective. His Celtics were near-saints who could do no wrong, and everyone else were nothing less than the scum of the Earth. Mosts's praise of Michael Jordan's performance in Game 2 of the first round of the 1986 playoffs was a rare exception -- all His Airness had to do was score 63 points! Dennis Johnson also felt Most's ire until he donned the Celtic green in 1983, and turned into the beloved "D.J.". Critics blasted Most for being a "homer", but the Celtics fans loved him for it. A life-long smoker, Most was forced to retire in 1990.

Victor Bernard Stevens Jr. was born on 23 June 1934 in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. He died on 22 August 2009 in Hyannis, Massachusetts, USA.

Milt Gaston was born on 27 January 1896 in Ridgefield Park, New Jersey, USA. He died on 26 April 1996 in Hyannis, Massachusetts, USA.

Dick Glendon was born on 14 April 1870 in Harwich, Massachusetts, USA. He died on 8 July 1956 in Hyannis, Massachusetts, USA.

Glenn Sarty was born on 9 September 1929 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Glenn was a producer and director, known for Telescope (1963), The Sound of August (1971) and Gzowski & Co. (1985). Glenn died on 6 February 2007 in Hyannis, Massachusetts, USA.

Charles Coleman was born on 4 July 1947 in Teaneck, New Jersey, USA. He was an editor, known for The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977), Prime Target (1991) and Monsters (1988). He died on 11 July 2000 in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, USA.

Cleve Roller was born on 15 April 1934 in Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for Recess (1969). He died on 18 December 2004 in Hyannis, Massachusetts, USA.