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Died September 21

by Legacy Staff

We remember famous people who died this day, September 21, in history, including world’s fastest woman Florence Griffith Joyner.

2015

BEN CAULEY, U.S. trumpet player, singer, and songwriter who was a founder of soul group the Bar-Kays and the only survivor of the plane crash that killed Otis Redding, dies at 67.

2012

MICHAEL RYE, U.S. voice and television actor who provided the voice of the Lone Ranger on the 1960s animated cartoon version and was the voice of the Green Lantern on Super Friends, dies at 94.

2007

ALICE GHOSTLEY, Tony Award-winning U.S. actress known best for her roles as Esmeralda on “Bewitched” and as Bernice Clifton on “Designing Women,” dies of cancer at 83.

In the 1960s, Ghostley received a Tony nomination for various characterizations in the Broadway comedy The Beauty Part” and eventually won for best featured actress in “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window.” From 1969 to 1972, she played the good witch and ditzy housekeeper Esmeralda on TV’s “Bewitched.” She played Bernice Clifton on “Designing Women” from 1987 to 1993, for which she earned an Emmy nomination in 1992. Read more

2006

BOZ BURRELL, English musician known best as a founding member and bass player for Bad Company, who also played bass with King Crimson, dies of a heart attack at 60.

1998

FLORENCE GRIFFITH JOYNER, U.S. track and field athlete who won three gold medals at the 1988 Olympics and still holds world records in the 100- and 200- meter races, dies of an epileptic seizure at 38.

At the 1988 Olympic trials, outfitted in a one-legged purple track suit and sporting four-inch fingernails, Flo-Jo set a world record in the 100 meters, running it at 10.49 seconds, knocking more than a quarter of a second off her best-ever time despite not even being one of the country’s best in the event a year earlier. The result was not without controversy – today, most admit it was almost certainly wind-aided – but her drug tests came back negative and the record stood. It still stands to this day. Read more

1997

JENNIFER HOLT, U.S. actress who appeared mostly in Western movies in the 1940s, including “The Lone Star Trail” opposite Tex Ritter, dies at 76.

1991

ANGELO ROSSITTO, U.S. actor who had dwarfism and was known as “Little Mo,” who appeared with John Barrymore in “The Beloved Rogue,” and was known for his appearances on the television series “Baretta,” dies at 83.

1987

JACO PASTORIUS, U.S. bassist who was very influential in jazz music, was known for his work with the group Weather Report and is one of the few bass players inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame, dies at 35 of injuries sustained in a beating at a nightclub.

1974

JACQUELINE SUSANN, U.S. author and actress whose novel “Valley of the Dolls” sold 30 million copies, dies of metastatic breast cancer at 56.

Susann’s 1966 best-seller, “Valley of the Dolls,” certainly doesn’t read as if it were written yesterday. Characters wear the fashions of the time (some of which are actually back in style today, but not enough to keep the book from showing its age). The writing has that wide-eyed hipness common in the 1960s, and the references can be unrecognizable to a modern audience (“The fellow not only expects me to keep my job, but at the same time I should look like Carole Landis in a negligee while I whip up a few gourmet dishes.”) … But the themes at its heart are just as current as they can be. Read more

WALTER BRENNAN, U.S. actor who is one of three actors to win three acting Academy awards, along with Jack Nicholson and Daniel Day-Lewis, dies of emphysema at 80.

1973

DIANA SANDS, U.S. actress known best for her critically acclaimed role as Beneatha Younger in the movie “A Raisin in the Sun” with Sidney Poitier, dies of cancer at 39.

1964

BO CARTER, U.S. blues musician who was a member of the Mississippi Sheiks and whose best-known song was “Corrine, Corrina,” dies at 71.

1961

EARLE DICKSON, U.S. inventor known for creating the adhesive bandage known as the Band-Aid for the Johnson & Johnson Co., dies at 68.

1947

HARRY CAREY, U.S. film actor who was a star in the silent era, mostly in Westerns, and later became a noted character actor in the “talkies,” dies at 69.


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