James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, the hardest-working man in show business, died yesterday, December 25.
I recently wrote about people who were born on Christmas Day. In honor of James Brown, here's a partial list of people who died on that day.
Linus Yale, Jr. (d. 1868) perfected the cylinder lock
Karel Čapek (d. 1938), Czech writer, popularized the word "robot" with his play R.U.R.Rossum's Universal Robots)
Charlie Chaplin (d. 1977), cinematic genius
Joan Blondell (d. 1979), actress
Billy Martin (d. 1989), frequent Yankees manager
Nicolae and Elena Ceauşescu (d. 1989), Mr. and Mrs. Romanian dictator
Dean Martin (d. 1995), singer/actor
Denver Pyle (d. 1997), actor
