Marsha Traeger · CC BY 4.0

A 4-foot-6 actress who turned a strange, high-pitched authority into a defining screen presence as the medium Tangina Barrons in the Poltergeist films, telling a terrified family exactly how to get their daughter back from the other side. Off screen she was an outspoken activist for people with dwarfism and one of the earlier public voices campaigning against the neglect of the AIDS crisis.