May 14 - Richard Deacon

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On this day, in 1921, Richard Deacon was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a young boy, Richard’s family moved across the state border to Binghamton, New York where he would finish his childhood years. After graduating from Binghamton Central High School, alongside the other future Binghamton star Rod Serling, he would serve in the Army Medical Corps during World War II. Following the end of the war, Richard returned home, began working as a lab technician at Binghamton General Hospital and started taking courses at nearby Ithaca College with the intent of becoming a doctor. Along the way, he was bitten by the acting bug, though, and he never become a actual doctor, but he did get to play one on tv several times.

Richard began acting in the late Forties in college productions which naturally led to regional theater stages. He eventually crossed paths with Helen Hayes, who told him that while he would probably never become a leading man, he should definitely pursue a career as a character actor. He took the advice to heart and built a massive body of work on it.

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Richard’s film and television careers both started in the Fifties. His first film role was as an MP in 1953’s Invaders from Mars, which also featured future co-star Barbara Billingsley. Over the next five years, before his debut on the small screen, Richard appeared in 34 films, ranging from comedies like Abbot and Costello meet the Mummy (pictured) to dramas like The Power and the Prize to musicals like Carousel. He would grace the cast list of over 100 movies before his career was over, but it wasn’t until he started making weekly visits in everyone’s living rooms that he became someone everyone knew.

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Richard made his television debut on The Jack Benny Show in 1954 but his first recurring role was on the venerable sitcom Leave It To Beaver.  He spent six years as Fred Rutherford, father to Lumpy Rutherford, one of Wally Cleaver’s friends. His most famous role started in 1961 (and actually overlapped his Beaver gig for a year). Richard was cast as Melvin Cooley on The Dick Van Dyke Show (pictured). For five seasons, he masterfully played the butt of Morey Amsterdam’s jokes, occasionally also doing producer duties for his brother in law Allen Brady on the show within a show. Following the end of that series, Richard had recurring roles on The Phyllis Diller Show, The Beverly Hillbillies and The Mothers-In-Law. In 1969, he returned to the stage, making his Broadway debut as a replacement Horace Vandergelder in Hello, Dolly, reteaming with Phyllis Diller for almost a year.

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Richard joined the Disney family early in his career. In 1958, he starred as Uncle Archie McCloud in the serial Walt Disney Presents: Annette on the original Mickey Mouse Club (pictured). He later appeared in a string of films for the company throughout the Sixties, including That Darn Cat!, Lt. Robin Crusoe, USN, The Gnome-Mobile, Blackbeard’s Ghost, and The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band. His final Disney appearance came in 1984 when he was part of the cast of The Hoboken Chicken Emergency, a film that aired on the newly minted Disney Channel.

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Throughout the Seventies and into the Eighties, Richard made dozens of guest appearances on everything from Maude to The Love Boat (of course) to a recurring role as Sheriff Masters on BJ and the Bear. He even continued to land a handful of big screen roles in films like The Man From Clover Grove, Rabbit Test (Billy Crystal’s debut) and The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood (pictured). He was also something of a gourmet chef in his private life and hosted a microwave cooking show in Canada, publishing a companion cookbook to go along with it. In 1983, twenty years after Leave It To Beaver went off the air, Richard reprised his role of Fred Rutherford for a made for tv reunion movie, Still the Beaver. The reunion was so successful that a new Beaver series was developed (which would air its first season on the Disney Channel) and Richard was slated to be a part of it, but it wasn’t to be. Before filming could start, he suffered a heart attack on August 8, 1984 at his home in Los Angeles, California. Paramedics rushed him to the hospital, but he was pronounced dead on arrival. He was 63.

March 25 - Matthew Garber

On this day, in 1956, Matthew Adam Garber was born in Stepney, London, England. Matthew's parents were stage actors, the kind that work steadily but never become famous, so it was natural that when one of their friends, a Shakespearian actor of the time named Roy Dotrice, came scouting for child actors, Matthew caught his eye. Roy let his boss, the Walt Disney Company, know about the precocious young man. At the ripe old age of seven, Michael was cast in his first film, The Three Lives of Thomasina. He played opposite a young lady named Karen Dotrice, who happened to be Roy's daughter (he apparently didn't feel the need to look very far for his prospects).

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The mild success of Thomasina, led to Michael and Karen being cast as the Banks children in Walt's magnum opus, Mary Poppins, the very next year. Poppins became an international sensation and catapulted its two young stars to fame. Which neither of them were quite sure how to respond to. Michael and Karen would team up a third time three years later for The Gnome-Mobile as Walter Brennan's grandchildren. Gnome would mark the last film both kids ever did as adolescents. Karen would star in one more movie in the late Seventies, The Thirty Nine Steps, and several television productions before retiring from acting in 1984 to raise a family (she does make a cameo in Mary Poppins Returns). Michael never got that chance.

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Following the release of Gnome, Michael, already a bit uneasy with stardom, would take a break from acting to finish his schooling. He graduated from Highgate School in North London in 1972. We'll never know if he ever intended to return to acting. He took a trip to India in 1976 and contracted hepatitis. By the time he could make it back to England, and better health care, it was too late. The virus had attacked his pancreas. On June 13, 1977, Matthew passed away in Hampstead, London from haemorrhagic necrotising pancreatitis. He was cremated and lays at rest in St. Marylebone Crematorium in East Finchley. In 2004, Michael was posthumously made an official Disney Legend for his short but highly acclaimed career. He was only 21 when he died.

November 9 - Ed Wynn

On this day, in 1886, Isaiah Edwin Leopold was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Isaiah attended high school only until the age of 15. He then ran away from home, found work as a hat salesman (the job his father held) and eventually found his way into show business. To spare his family the embarrassment of having a comedian in the family, he morphed his middle name into the stage name Ed Wynn.

Ed started out on the Vaudeville circuit in 1903. By the mid Teens, he was starring in the annual Broadway revues, the Ziegfeld Follies, working alongside the likes of W.C. Fields. Ed would appear in several other shows on Broadway, including ones he wrote and directed like 1921's The Perfect Fool.

In the early Thirties, Ed, like many other vaudevillians, made the transition to radio. He was the host of Texaco's The Fire Chief and would even play the role in two movies, Follow the Leader and The Chief. Ed even started his own radio network, the Amalgamated Broadcasting Network, but it went belly up after just a few weeks. The effects on his marriage, his finances and his mental health were all devastating. Ed continued appearing on Broadway and in movies throughout the rest of the Thirties and most of the Forties.

In 1949, Ed made the leap to the small screen, although technically his first appearance was as part of an experimental broadcast in 1936. As the host of one of the first variety shows on television he welcomed comedians such as Lucille Ball, Buster Keaton and the Three Stooges. From 1950-52, Ed also hosted Four Star Revue on a rotational basis with Danny Thomas, Jack Carson and Jimmy Durante. He even got his own show, The Ed Wynn Show, though it only lasted one season.

It was around this time that Ed's son, Keenan (who was also an actor), encouraged him to branch out into more dramatic roles. The two would appear together a number of times over the years. The first time was 1956's Requiem for a Heavyweight. Ed was terrified to do a straight acting gig but shined for the actual performance. The second time was the same year in the movie The Great Man. The final time was, oddly enough, in a 1960 piece about the making of the 1956 Requiem. Ed had established himself so well as a serious actor, he appeared in 1959's Diary of Anne Frank and nabbed an Oscar nomination. One of my favorite television appearance's of Ed's around this time was for The Twilight Zone in an episode that Rod Serling wrote specifically for him, "One for the Angels."

Ed joined the Disney family in 1951 as the Mad Hatter of Alice in Wonderland. Full of wonderfully quotable lines ("Mustard? Don't let's be silly."), Ed's Hatter is a delightful island of fun in a totally surreal film. Ten years later, he would become the Toymaker opposite Annette Funicello in Babes in Toyland. My favorite Disney role of Ed's, though, has to be Uncle Albert in 1964's Mary Poppins. As a child I couldn't help but wish that a fit of laughter would make me flit around the ceiling. Ed would also appear in That Darn Cat!, The Absent Minded Professor (another production with his son Keenan), Son of Flubber and, his final film appearance, The Gnome-mobile, which was released posthumously.

Ed passed away on June 19, 1966 at the age of 79 from throat cancer. Reportedly, Walt Disney, who once referred to Ed as "our good luck charm," was one of his pall bearers. He was made an official Disney Legend in 2013.