Valley of Life | Online Memorial Blog

Lena Horne died Sunday in New York. The New York Times reports Horne was the first black performer to have a long-term Hollywood contract with a major studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) Studios.

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Born into theater royalty in London on March 8, 1943, actress and playwright Lynn Redgrave died Sunday due to complications from a seven-year battle with breast cancer.

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The Kiss Me Deadly film actress, Maxine Cooper Gomberg died of natural causes on April 4 at her Los Angeles home, the LA Times reports.  The actress was 84 years old. Then Gomberg, as Maxine Cooper, acted alongside Cloris Leachman and Ralph Meekers in the film noir classic.  The film itself has been studied and been at the heart of several conspiracy theories, making it one of the most recognized classics of the 1950s.  Gomberg also appeared in television shows like Dragnet, Perry Mason and The Twilight Zone.
Gomberg quit acting in the early 1960s to raise her children. It was then that she became a Hollywood activist, organizing the stars to march for Martin Luther King Jr. and protest during the Vietnam War.

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The actor who played Walt the trapper on the 1990s TV series Northern Exposure, Moultrie Patten, passed away on Wednesday, March 18, 2009 at his home in Beaverton. He was 89 years old.  Patten was not only an actor but a jazz musician who sang and played piano in jazz clubs. He recorded a CD of his favorites in 1997.

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Natasha Richardson was a sparkling, beautiful woman whose work on stage and screen was captivating and warm. She had a wonderful smile.  Her colleagues in Hollywood and Broadway have come out to send their condolences over the last 24 hours to Liam Neeson, Natasha’s husband, and their two boys.

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