End Credits #34: Cinema's 2015 Lost Treasures Dickie Moore, Martin Milner
These are some of Cinema's sad departures of 2015 taken from my personal notes soon after the events took place:
Some really sad news to report. The enormously talented actor Dickie Moore just a couple of days shy of his 90th birthday, has died at age 89. He played an infant John Barrymore in 1929's The Beloved Rogue, one of Hal Roach's 'Little Rascals' in the Our Gang series of shorts between 1932-1933, Oliver Twist in the 1933 version of Dickens' literary classic, a teenage George York in Sergeant York, at 16 gave Shirley Temple her first on screen kiss in Miss Annie Rooney and 5 years later, perhaps most memorably, portrayed Robert Mitchum's silent, life-saving friend in Out of the Past. He was a constantly working child actor appearing in dozens of features and short films, many before he turned 12, including Blonde Venus with Marlene Dietrich and The Story of Louis Pasteur with Paul Muni. His last film appearance was as a soldier in 1952's The Member of the Wedding. He started his own public relations firm in 1966. Dickie Moore (September 12, 1925 - September 10, 2015) R.I.P.
Dickie Moore as 'The Kid' in Out of the Past...
...has the last, so memorable, "word."
Same to you Dickie!
Martin Milner (December 28, 1931 - September 6, 2015) has died at age 83. He lent many of his more important characters a highly believable, good-natured integrity in films such as Sands of Iwo Jima, Halls of Montezuma (where he fortuitously befriended fellow actor Jack Webb), Operation Pacific, The Captive City, Mister Roberts, Pete Kelly's Blues, Gunfight at the OK Corral, and especially his crucial and indelible role as Steve Dallas in Sweet Smell of Success. He went on to appear in Marjorie Morningstar, Compulsion and The Swiss Family Robinson. Milner will be remembered by a greater TV audience for starring in the aforementioned Jack Webb's co-creation Adam-12 (1968 - 1975) and to a lesser extent, the earlier Route 66 (1960 - 1964). He also made numerous other TV appearances including Webb's Dragnet (1952 -1955), The Life of Riley (1953 - 1958) an original Twilight Zone episode entitled 'Mirror Image' (1960), Swiss Family Robinson (1975 -1976), Murder She Wrote (1985 - 1996) and his last Diagnosis Murder (1997). R.I.P.
Other important losses this year in the motion picture industry can be read about on the Cinema Cafe's Pinterest Board here.