Actors and Celebrities Who Died of Cancer | Celebrity deaths in 2004

Actors and Celebrities Who Died of Cancer | Celebrity deaths in 2004

Jerry Goldsmith

Veteran film composer Jerry Goldsmith, born November 10, 1929, in Pasadena, California, died at the age of 75 on July 21, 2004, in Westlake Village, California, succumbing to colon cancer after a distinguished career that reshaped the sound of cinema. A one‐time student of Oscar‑winning composer Miklós Rózsa, Goldsmith blended classical rigor with bold experimentation, first earning acclaim for his dramatic score to “Lonely Are the Brave” (1962) and following with an Academy Award–nominated original composition for “Lilies of the Field” (1963). His collaboration with director Franklin J. During his tenure as an in‑house composer for the Columbia Broadcasting System, Goldsmith provided unforgettable themes for television classics such as “Playhouse 90,” “Dr. Kildare,” “The Twilight Zone” and “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” demonstrating a versatility that soon made him a go‑to artisan for Hollywood’s leading directors. Goldsmith’s pioneering spirit thrived in genre film: his ominous, percussion‑driven score for Franklin Schaffner’s “Planet of the Apes” (1968) remains a landmark in science‑fiction music, while his chilling choral motif for Richard Donner’s “The Omen” (1976) earned him an Academy Award for Best Original Score. In 1979 alone, he delivered two genre innovations—an eerie, avant‑garde electronic palette for Ridley Scott’s “Alien,” and the stately, majestic overture for Robert Wise’s “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”—each showcasing his ability to invoke otherworldly atmospheres. His later work with New Hollywood auteurs included Paul Verhoeven’s “Total Recall,” Joe Dante’s “Gremlins 2” and Curtis Hanson’s “L.A. Confidential,” even as he sustained his association with the “Star Trek” franchise into the twenty‐first century. With more than one hundred feature films to his credit and six Oscar nominations, Goldsmith’s legacy endures in the imaginative textures and emotional depth of his music, which bridged the distant past and the unforeseeable future with an infectious measure of wonder and optimism.

Syreeta Wright

Syreeta Wright, born Rita Wright on August 3, 1946, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, emerged as one of Motown’s most gifted singer‑songwriters, initially joining the label as a receptionist in 1965 before quickly moving into demo singing and songwriting. Discovered by Edward Holland of Holland‑Dozier‑Holland, she lent her voice to background tracks for the Supremes and Martha and the Vandellas and made her first major songwriting impact co‑writing “It’s a Shame” for the Spinners in 1969. In 1968 she met Stevie Wonder, and their partnership blossomed both personally—they married in September 1970—and professionally, producing classics such as “Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours)” and “If You Really Love Me.” After their 1972 divorce, Wonder produced her self‑titled solo debut album, and she went on to release several records on Motown’s Gordy and Motown labels, including the critically praised Stevie Wonder Presents: Syreeta (1974), which yielded the UK Top 20 single “Your Kiss Is Sweet.” In the late 1970s, Wright forged a fruitful collaboration with Billy Preston, scoring an international hit with “With You I’m Born Again” in 1980 and two duet albums thereafter. She also toured as Mary Magdalene in the national production of Jesus Christ Superstar (1993–1995) before retiring to Los Angeles. After a courageous battle with breast and bone cancer, Wright died on July 6, 2004, at age 57, of congestive heart failure—a complication of her chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments—and was laid to rest at Inglewood Park Cemetery, leaving behind a rich legacy as a pioneering voice in soul and R&B.

Gennadi Strekalov

Gennadi Mikhailovich Strekalov, born October 26, 1940, in Minsk, Belorussian SSR, was a distinguished Soviet engineer and cosmonaut whose career spanned the Cold War’s most daring era of human spaceflight. After graduating as an engineer from Bauman Moscow State Technical University, he joined OKB‑1 (later RSC Energia) and became involved in the development of life‑support and escape systems for crewed spacecraft. Selected as a cosmonaut in 1972, Strekalov flew on five missions: Soyuz T‑3 in 1980, Soyuz T‑8 in 1983 (during which the crew survived a catastrophic launch‑pad fire and ejected via the emergency escape tower), the long‑duration Salyut 7 EO‑4 expedition aboard Soyuz T‑11 in 1983–84, and the Mir EO‑2 and EO‑4 missions in 1987 and 1990, respectively. Across these flights, he accumulated over 268 days in orbit, conducting pioneering experiments in materials science, medical monitoring, and docking procedures, and performing crucial maintenance and repairs on aging space station hardware. Twice honored as Hero of the Soviet Union, he became one of only four people ever to use an active launch‑escape system and played a key role in refining crew safety protocols. Following his final flight, Strekalov transitioned to management at RSC Energia, where he oversaw crew training programs and contributed to the design of the Mir‑2 and International Space Station modules. He died on December 25, 2004, leaving a legacy of innovation in spacecraft safety and an enduring example of courage under the most perilous conditions of human exploration.

Lincoln Kilpatrick

Lincoln Kilpatrick was a prolific American film, television, and stage actor whose career spanned more than four decades. Born February 12, 1931 in St. Louis, Missouri, he earned a drama degree from Lincoln University before making his professional debut in the 1959 Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun, thanks in part to encouragement from Billie Holiday . Over the 1960s and ’70s, Kilpatrick became known for guest roles on series such as Medical Center, Ironside and Police Story, as well as for his portrayal of Joe Bond—a high school history teacher—on the daytime soap Love of Life from 1968 to 1970 .On the big screen, Kilpatrick appeared in groundbreaking science‑fiction classics like Soylent Green (1973) and The Omega Man (1971), and took the role of Jacques in the 1975 Western The Master Gunfighter . In 1998, he joined the cast of NYPD Blue as Darwin in the episode “Honeymoon at Viagra Falls,” showcasing his versatility in both drama and crime genres .A trailblazer off‑screen as well, Kilpatrick co‑founded the Kilpatrick‑Cambridge Theatre Arts School in Hollywood and was the first African‑American member of the Lincoln Center Repertory Company . Married for 47 years to singer and stage performer Helena Ferguson, he and his wife raised five children—including actors Lincoln Jr. and Erik Kilpatrick. Kilpatrick succumbed to complications from lung cancer at Cedars‑Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on May 18, 2004, at the age of 73, and was laid to rest at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills .

Susan Sontag

Susan Sontag was a towering figure in twentieth‑century letters and cultural criticism, whose prodigious output spanned essays, novels, film, theater, activism and teaching. Born January 16, 1933 Susan Rosenblatt in New York City, she published her first major essay, “Notes on ‘Camp,’” in 1964, establishing her as a fresh, incisive voice on aesthetics and sensibility; her celebrated anthology Against Interpretation (1966) argued for a more sensual, less hermeneutic approach to art. In On Photography (1977), she examined the medium’s ethical and philosophical implications, probing its power to shape our relationship to reality; later books such as Illness as Metaphor (1978) and AIDS and Its Metaphors (1989) offered deeply humane analyses of disease, stigma and language. Sontag’s novels—The Volcano Lover (1992) and In America (2000)—combined historical sweep with psychological nuance, while her travel‑memoir The Way We Live Now (1986) and reportage pieces from Sarajevo under siege testified to her unwavering commitment to bearing witness in zones of conflict. A passionate advocate for human rights, she spoke out against the Vietnam War, visited guerrilla camps in El Salvador, and campaigned tirelessly against censorship and for the LGBT community. Appointed to teach at Harvard, the University of Chicago and Columbia, she influenced generations of students with her rigorous seminars and intellectual fearlessness. Even as her essays sometimes provoked controversy for their uncompromising judgments and leftist sympathies, she was hailed by peers as “one of the most influential critics of her generation.” Sontag died in New York of complications from leukemia at age 71, leaving a vast legacy of inquiry into the intersections of art, politics, illness and the image-saturated world.

Francis Crick

Francis Harry Compton Crick (8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004) was a towering figure in twentieth‐century biology whose insight and rigor reshaped our understanding of life’s molecular underpinnings. Trained originally as a physicist, Crick shifted to biology during World War II and by 1953, in collaboration with James D. Watson, he co‑authored the seminal paper that described DNA’s elegant double helix, a discovery that revealed how genetic information is stored and replicated. For this breakthrough—built in part on X‑ray diffraction data produced by Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling and further developed alongside Maurice Wilkins—Crick, Watson and Wilkins were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material.” Beyond the double helix, Crick introduced the concept of the “central dogma,” succinctly expressing that genetic information flows from DNA to RNA to protein and cannot reverse course, a framework that remains foundational to molecular biology. Following his Nobel‐winning work, he was appointed J. W. Kieckhefer Distinguished Research Professor at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, where he devoted his later career to theoretical neurobiology and the scientific study of consciousness. Remarkably, Crick continued his intellectual pursuits until the very end—editing a manuscript on his deathbed—leaving behind a legacy of interdisciplinary curiosity and transformative contributions to science.

John Barrymore

John Drew Barrymore (born John Blyth Barrymore Jr.; June 4, 1932 – November 29, 2004) was an American film actor and a member of the storied Barrymore acting dynasty, which included his father John Barrymore and his aunts and uncles Lionel and Ethel Barrymore . He made his screen debut at 17 in the Robert Preston Western The Sundowners (1950) and was promoted to leading‐man status in Joseph Losey’s The Big Night (1951), in which he played George LaMain . Over the next decade, Barrymore alternated between supporting film roles—most notably as J.I. Coleridge in MGM’s High School Confidential! (1958)—and guest appearances on television series such as Gunsmoke, Rawhide, The Wild Wild West and Winchester ’73 . Despite early promise, his career faltered amid well‐publicized struggles with alcoholism and legal troubles, including arrests for drug possession and public intoxication. After a lengthy hiatus from acting following an uncredited stint in the 1976 film Baby Blue Marine, Barrymore resurfaced briefly with a small role in Stephen Frears’s neo‐noir The Grifters (1990), joining a cast led by Anjelica Huston and John Cusack .Off‐screen, Barrymore married five times and fathered four children, including actor John Blyth Barrymore III and, most famously, Drew Barrymore. Estranged from much of his family in later years, he was brought to live near Drew in 2003; she covered his medical expenses until he succumbed to cancer at age 72 in Los Angeles. His ashes were scattered at Joshua Tree National Park, his favorite retreat.

Marianna Komlos

Marianna Komlos was born on September 3, 1969, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and began her career as a competitive bodybuilder and fitness model before transitioning to the world of professional wrestling. Standing out with her athletic physique and charisma, she caught the eye of World Wrestling Federation (WWF) talent scouts in 1999 and debuted under the ring name Marianna, soon paired with the comical “Mrs. Cleavage” persona. In this gimmick, she served as both manager and on‑screen “mother” to the wrestler Beaver Cleavage—a parody of the wholesome 1950s sitcom Leave It to Beaver—helping to introduce a lighthearted, tongue‑in‑cheek storyline to WWF programming. The Beaver Cleavage experiment was short‑lived; after a scripted backstage “storm out” by wrestler Charles Warrington, due to the intentionally absurd nature of the gimmick, the characters’ relationship pivoted. Warrington dropped the Beaver Cleavage gimmick, adopting his own identity as “Chaz,” and Marianna reemerged as his onscreen girlfriend, shedding the parody persona and aligning with a more conventional valet role. Though she never captured any championships, her tenure in the WWF showcased her versatility in the ring and on the microphone. Off‑camera, Komlos faced a far more serious battle: in late 2003, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. After a valiant fight, she succumbed to the disease on September 26, 2004, at the age of 35. Her passing was mourned by fans and colleagues alike, who remembered her for her pioneering presence as a female bodybuilder in wrestling and her warm, spirited personality.

Elmer Bernstein

Elmer Bernstein, born on April 4, 1922, in New York City, was one of Hollywood’s most prolific and versatile composers, whose career spanned more than fifty years and encompassed over 150 feature‐film scores and nearly eighty television productions. After studying piano and composition at the Juilliard School and the University of Southern California, Bernstein broke into film in the early 1950s, quickly earning acclaim for his sweeping, colorfully orchestrated themes. His score for Cecil B. DeMille’s epic "The Ten Commandments" (1956) showcased his gift for grandeur, while "The Magnificent Seven" (1960) delivered one of the most instantly recognizable heroic motifs in Western cinema. Over subsequent decades he demonstrated remarkable range, moving from the moral intensity of "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1962) to the galloping rhythms of "The Great Escape" (1963), the buoyant comedy of "Animal House" (1978), and the mischievous ghost‑chasing fun of "Ghostbusters" (1984). He earned fourteen Academy Award nominations—winning for “Thoroughly Modern Millie” (1967)—alongside two Golden Globes, an Emmy, and multiple Grammy nods. In his later years, Bernstein continued to reinvent himself, scoring David O. Russell’s elegiac drama "The Fighter" (2010) just months before his death. On August 18, 2004, at the age of 82, he passed away at his home in Ojai, California, following a battle with cancer. His expansive and emotionally rich body of work remains a touchstone of film music, celebrated for both its melodic invention and its profound ability to capture the spirit of the stories it accompanies.

Harold Leek

Harold Clifford Leek—better known to millions as Howard Keel—was born on April 13, 1919, in Gillespie, Illinois. Blessed with a robust bass‐baritone and striking matinee‐idol looks, he caught the attention of Rodgers and Hammerstein producers in 1944 and was offered the lead in the original Broadway production of Oklahoma! Yet, ever patriotic, Keel honored his commitment to Douglas Aircraft, shelving his theatrical ambitions to support the Allied war effort. Following World War II, his captivating stage presence led him to London’s West End and, in 1948, to his silver‐screen debut with British filmmakers. Stateside, MGM swooped in: Keel headlined a string of Technicolor musicals—Annie Get Your Gun (1950), Show Boat (1951) and, most iconically, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)—becoming one of Hollywood’s premier male singers of the golden age. As the studio system waned, Keel transitioned to action fare, starring in Britain’s Floods of Fear (1958) and the sci‑fi cult classic Day of the Triffids (1962), even sharing the screen with John Wayne and Kirk Douglas in The War Wagon (1967). Nightclubs and summer stocks filled the lean years until television revived his fortunes: from 1981 to 1991, he portrayed the steely oil baron Clayton Farlow on Dallas, endearing himself to new generations. In the twilight of his career, Keel returned to his first love—singing—releasing four albums before succumbing to colon cancer at his Palm Desert home on November 7, 2004, at age 85.