Eileen Herlie, Actress
Friday, October 10th, 2008
“All My Children” star as well as stage actress Eileen Herlie passed away on Wednesday, October 8, 2008 at the age of 90 due to pneumonia. Herlie played the motherly Myrtle Fargate on the popular American TV soap opera for more than 30 years. She last appeared on the program in June 2008. Before joining the ranks of soap opera characters, she was a bright Broadway star, playing in Thornton Wilder’s “The Matchmaker.” She also performed in “Take Me Along” with Jackie Gleason and “All American” with Ray Bolger. She was nominated for a Tony for her performance in “Take Me Along.”
Eric Dowling, Royal Air Force Flight Lt. nicknamed “Digger” who helped create the tunnels used to breakout of the Stalag Luft III prison in what was then eastern Germany died July 21, a day before his 93rd birthday. The work he contributed - forging documents, creating maps and digging three secret tunnels known as Tom, Dick and Harry - brought to fruition what is now known as The Great Escape. The story inspired the 1963 movie “The Great Escape” starting Steve McQueen. Mr. Dowling was not one of the 76 men that crawled free from the prison. Of the 76 prisons, only three successfully escaped. Fifty of the captured escapees were executed by orders given by Adolf Hitler.