Born on July 4, 1995

He filmed 403 episodes without a single mistake making it to air, painting 381 of those canvases in under 26 minutes each. Bob Ross died of lymphoma at 52, having spent twenty years teaching Americans that "we don't make mistakes, just happy accidents." His Air Force drill sergeant days—20 years of yelling—made him vow never to raise his voice again. And he didn't. The permed hair he hated? Kept it because it saved money on haircuts. His paintings, given away to PBS stations for free, now sell for $10,000 each. He never saw a dime from any of them.

She answered fan mail until two days before she died. Eva Gabor, who'd turned a thick Hungarian accent into a Hollywood asset, spent her final weeks at Cedars-Sinai writing thank-you notes in her own hand. The youngest Gabor sister had voiced Disney's Duchess in *The Aristocats* and played Lisa Douglas on *Green Acres* for six seasons, making a Park Avenue socialite farming in Hooterville somehow believable. She died from respiratory failure and infection at 76. Her last role was still airing—she'd just finished voicing Miss Bianca in Disney's *The Rescuers Down Under*. Turns out the woman famous for five marriages left behind thousands of personal replies to strangers.