Six Actors Killed by Heart Disease

Around three hundred thousand Americans pass away each year due to congestive heart failure, a condition in which the heart is unable to properly pump blood throughout the body, depriving organs of oxygen. The leading cause of hospitalization for those 65 or older, heart failure has killed a number of celebrities over the years. Six whose faces if not names are well recognized include a "good witch", a screwy uncle, a hapless criminal from the original "Star Trek" series, a doting aunt, an African veterinarian, and a plump private eye.

Billie Burke was born in 1885 and became a Broadway star in the early part of the Twentieth century, in musical comedies. She went from the stage to silent movies and then back to theater before hitting it big once "talkies" came about, where she could have speaking parts in films. She was nominated for an Oscar for her performance in 1938's "Merrily We Live" and continued acting in motion pictures until 1960. Everything Burke did in her career is now overshadowed by one role, as she played Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, in "The Wizard of Oz" in 1938. Her minutes on screen was limited, and amazingly, she was 53 when the movie was shot, but she will never be forgotten due to the overwhelming popularity of the movie as time rolls by. Billie Burke died of heart failure in Los Angeles at the age of 84 in Los Angeles on May 14th, 1970.

Jackie Coogan was an incredibly famous child-actor who teamed with Charlie Chaplin in 1921, when he was only six, to make the silent movie classic "The Kid." Coogan's film work earned him millions, but the money was frittered away by his mother and step-dad on drugs, which caused Coogan to sue them in 1935. He received a fraction of what he deserved, but a bill was passed that protected child-actors after that, which was known as the Coogan Act. Jackie was briefly married to Betty Grable in the late 1930s. Coogan kept working in films after he enlisted in the Army in March of 1941, and then garnered the role for which he is most remembered; he was Uncle Fester on the television show "The Addams Family." Coogan was 69 when heart failure killed him in 1984; he was married to his fourth wife at the time, having been with her since 1952.

Roger C. Carmel was a character actor who played small parts in films and in television series. "Star Trek" fans though will always fondly recall him, as he played the same character in two episodes of the original series. Harcourt Fenton Mudd, "Harry" Mudd, was a small time intergalactic con-man who twice had run-ins with the crew of the Enterprise, once in "Mudd's Women" and the other time in "I, Mudd." Carmel also was a regular on "The Mothers-In-Law" in the late 1960s, but his alcoholism and drug abuse got him fired from the show. He kept working in guest appearances on TV series and did some voiceover work as well, before his lifestyle contributed to his heart failure, which killed him in 1986 at 54.

Frances Bavier won an Emmy Award for her portrayal of Aunt Bee on "The Andy Griffith Show" in 1967, one of her ten seasons on the show. Bavier had previously been a Broadway staple and appeared in many films, such as the 1951 sci-fi classic "The Day the Earth Stood Still." Reportedly she was not as warm and cuddly off the set as her character was, a woman who took care of Griffith and his son Opie, played by Ron Howard, but she apologized to Griffith for it shortly before her death from heart failure in 1989, eight days short of her 87th birthday.

Marshall Thompson appeared in many films, including a dozen war movies. He was a good-looking actor, a direst descendant of the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Marshall, and many thought that he would become a huge star, but it was his television role in the series "Daktari" for which he is recalled today. In 1965 he made a movie called "Clarence the Cross-eyed Lion" in which he played a veterinarian on an animal behavioral center in Africa. Thompson reprised the role in the series, which ran from 1966 until 1969. Thompson did many TV guest appearances after "Daktari" went off the air and became involved in the conservation effort. Thompson succumbed to heart failure in 1992 when he was 66 years old.

William Conrad was a rotund actor who weighed in at around three hundred pounds. A veteran of movies such as "The Naked Jungle" with Charlton Heston in 1954, Conrad did lots of radio work and also narrated "Rocky and Bullwinkle" and "The Fugitive" on television. His big break came when he was cast as private investigator Frank Cannon in the CBS drama "Cannon", which ran from 1971 until 1976. He then starred in "Jake and the Fatman" from 1987 until 1992; Joe Penny played Jake and Conrad was the Fatman, a Los Angeles district attorney. Conrad's size unfortunately made him a prime candidate for a condition such as heart failure, and the disease overtook him at the age of 73 in 1994.