Deaths 2022

Deaths 2021

Deaths 2020

Deaths 2019

Deaths 2018

Deaths 2017

Deaths 2016

Deaths 2015

Deaths 2014

Deaths 2013

Deaths 2012

Deaths 2011

Deaths 2010

Deaths 2009


Full list by date of death

Jan Merlin

Actor

Born - 3 April 1924, New York City, USA
Died - 20 September 2019

Fair-haired, not-too-tall, lean-jawed, youthful-looking American actor with mean eyes and hyena smile. Good-looking in a slightly threatening sort of way, the New Yorker, born Jan Wasylewski of Polish stock, enrolled in theatrical school as a teenager, then struggled along in stock before TV success in Tom Corbett: Space Cadet - his exclamation 'Go blow your jets!' became a national catchphrase. After a couple of bit roles, Universal-International signed him up for films, and he stayed in the movie capital for the next two decades, mainly playing tearaway, sometimes psychotic villains, although his best work continued to be for the theatre. After a debut in Fourteen Hours (1951), he made Them! (1954), Six Bridges to Cross (1955), Running Wild (1955), Screaming Eagles (1956), A Day of Fury (1956), Triangle on Safari (1957), Cole Younger, Gunfighter (1958), Hell Bent for Leather (1960), Gunfight at Comanche Creek (1963), Guns of Diablo (1964), The Oscar (1966), The St Valentine's Day Massacre (1967), Take the Money and Run (1969), Twilight People (1972), I Escaped from Devil's Island (1973), The Hindenburg (1975), Aliens from Another Planet (1982), Permanent Record (1988), Nowhere to Run (1989), False Identity (1990) and The Mercurian Invasion (1998), his last. His first wife Patricia died after 35 years of marriage, and he remarried two years later, that union lasting another 31 years to his death. He also wrote TV scripts (he won an Emmy for one) and novels.