Betty Ford (1918 - 2011)

Betty Ford She was born Elizabeth Ann Bloomer in 1918 in Chicago, Illinois, the third child and only daughter of Hortense (née Neahr; July 11, 1884 – November 20, 1948) and William Stephenson Bloomer, Sr. (July 19, 1874 – July 18, 1934), who was a traveling salesman for Royal Rubber Co. She was called Betty as a child. Hortense and William married […]

Jim Henson (1936 - 1990)

Henson was born in Greenville, Mississippi, the younger of two boys. His parents were Betty Marcella (née Brown) and Paul Ransom Henson, an agronomist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He was raised as a Christian Scientist and spent his early childhood in Leland, Mississippi, before moving with his family to Hyattsville, Maryland, near Washington, D.C., in the late 1940s. He later remembered […]

Jane Henson (1934 - 2013)

Jane Nebel Henson Jane Nebel Henson met Jim Henson in a puppetry class at the University of Maryland and soon after became an integral creative and business partner in what would become the world famous Muppets. As a fine arts education major studying at the University of Maryland in 1954, Jane Nebel shared with Jim […]

Joe Simon (1913 - 2011)

Joe Simon was born in 1913 as Hymie Simon and raised in Rochester, New York, the son of Harry Simon, who had emigrated from Leeds, England, in 1905, and Rose, whom Harry met in the United States. Harry Simon moved to Rochester, then a clothing-manufacturing center where his younger brother, Isaac, lived and the couple had a daughter, Beatrice, in 1912. A […]

Chris Farley (1964 - 1997)

Farley was born in Madison, Wisconsin. His father, Thomas “Tom” Farley, Sr., owned an oil company, and his mother was Mary Anne (née Crosby), a housewife. He had four siblings: Tom Jr., Kevin, John, and Barbara. His cousin, Jim, is a vice president at Ford Motor Company. Farley’s family is traditionally Roman Catholic, and Farley attended numerous Catholic schools in his hometown, […]

Aaliyah (1979 - 2001)

Aaliyah Dana Haughton was born on January 16, 1979, in Brooklyn, New York. Born of African American descent, with Oneida heritage from her grandmother, she was the second and youngest child of Diane and Michael Haughton. At a young age, Aaliyah was enrolled in voice lessons by her mother. She started performing at weddings, church […]

Michael Clarke Duncan (1957 - 2012)

Duncan was born in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up in a single-parent household with his sister, Judy, and mother, Jean Duncan (a house cleaner), after his father left. He always wanted to act, but had to drop out of the Communications program at Alcorn State University to support his family when his mother became ill. Duncan’s large frame—6 feet […]

Brittany Murphy (1977 - 2009)

Brittany Anne Bertolotti was born in Atlanta, Georgia to Sharon Kathleen Murphy and Angelo Joseph Bertolotti, who divorced when she was two years old, and Murphy was raised by her mother in Edison, New Jersey. Bertolotti was so estranged from the family that he was not named as the father on the first death certificate. Prior to her enrolling at Edison High […]

Pauline Boty (1938 - 1966)

Boty was born in suburban south London in 1938 into a middle-class, Catholic family. The youngest of four children, she had three older brothers and a stern father who made her keenly aware of her position as a girl. In 1954 she won a scholarship to the Wimbledon School of Art which she attended despite her father’s disapproval (Boty’s mother, […]

Jack Kirby (1917 - 1994)

Jack Kirby was born Jacob Kurtzberg on August 28, 1917, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, where he was raised. His parents, Rose and Benjamin Kurtzberg, were Austrian Jewish immigrants, and his father earned a living as a garment factory worker. In his youth, Kirby desired to escape his neighborhood. He liked to draw, and sought out places he could learn more about art. Essentially […]

Bill Melendez (1916 - 2008)

A native of the Mexican city of Hermosillo, Sonora, Melendez was educated in U.S. public schools in Douglas, Arizona. He was a very good student, and later attended the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles (which would later become California Institute of the Arts). Following the 1941 Disney strike, Bill was hired by Leon Schlesinger to animate in Bob Clampett’s unit. After Clampett’s departure, […]

E. C. Segar (1894 - 1938)

E. C. Segar E.C. Segar was born on 8 December 1894, and raised in Chester, Illinois, a small town near the Mississippi River. The son of a handyman, his earliest work experiences included assisting his father in house painting and paper hanging. Skilled at playing drums, he also provided musical accompaniment to films and vaudeville acts in the local theater, where he was eventually given the job […]

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606 - 1669)

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was born on 15 July 1606 in Leiden, in the Dutch Republic, now the Netherlands. He was the ninth child born to Harmen Gerritszoon van Rijn and Neeltgen Willemsdochter van Zuytbrouck. His family was quite well-to-do; his father was a miller and his mother was a baker’s daughter. Religion is a central theme in Rembrandt’s paintings and the religiously fraught […]

Paul Cezanne (1839 - 1906)

The Cézannes lived in the town of Cesana now in West Piedmont, and the surname may be of Italian origin. Paul Cézanne was born on 19 January 1839 in Aix-en-Provence, in Provence in the South of France. On 22 February, Paul was baptized in the Église de la Madeleine, with his grandmother and uncle Louis as godparents. His father, Louis-Auguste Cézanne (28 […]

King George III (1738 - 1820)

George was born in London at Norfolk House. He was the grandson of King George II, and the son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. As Prince George was born two months premature and was thought unlikely to survive, he was baptised the same day by Thomas Secker, who was both Rector of St James’s and the Bishop of Oxford.  […]

Andrew Johnson (1808 - 1875)

Andrew Johnson With the Assassination of Lincoln, the Presidency fell upon an old-fashioned southern Jacksonian Democrat of pronounced states’ rights views. Although an honest and honorable man, Andrew Johnson was one of the most unfortunate of Presidents. Arrayed against him were the Radical Republicans in Congress, brilliantly led and ruthless in their tactics. Johnson was […]

Todd Christensen (1956 - 2013)

Christensen was born in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, on August 3, 1956, to Ned Jay and June Christensen. His father was working on a doctorate degree at Pennsylvania State University at that time. After teaching in West Virginia, his father was offered a professorship in Eugene, Oregon, when Todd was 5 and the family relocated. Athletically, Christensen’s early desire was to continue […]

Junior Seau (1969 - 2012)

Tiaina Baul Seau Jr. was born January 19, 1969, in San Diego, California, the fifth child of Tiaina Seau, Sr., and Luisa Mauga Seau of Aunu’u, American Samoa. Tiaina Sr.’s grandfather was a village chief in Pago Pago. Tiaina Sr. worked at a rubber factory and was a school custodian, and Luisa worked at the commissary of Camp Pendleton in Southern […]

Reggie White (1961 - 2004)

White was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He played high school football at Howard High School under Coach Robert Pulliam, a former defensive lineman at Tennessee. During his senior year, White recorded 140 tackles (88 solo) and 10 sacks, and received All-American honors. He was rated the number one recruit in Tennessee by the Knoxville News Sentinel. White played college football […]

Walter Payton (1954 - 1999)

Payton was one of three children born to Peter and Alyne Payton in Columbia, Mississippi. His father was a factory worker who had played semi-professional baseball. Payton was an active member of the Boy Scouts, Little League, and his local church. At John J. Jefferson High School, Payton played drums in the marching band, participated in the track team and sang in the […]

Derrick Thomas (1967 - 2000)

Born in Miami, Florida, Thomas was raised by his mother. His father, Air Force Captain and B-52 pilot Robert James Thomas, died during a mission in the Vietnam War. Thomas started playing football when he was three years old. He played high school football at South Miami Senior High School. Alongside Cornelius Bennett and later Keith McCants, Thomas spearheaded one of the best defensive lines in college […]

Jack Ramsay (1925 - 2014)

Growing up in Milford, Connecticut, Jack Ramsay was encouraged to participate in sports in grade school by his parents, Anne and John. With his family moving to a Philadelphia suburb, Ramsay graduated from Upper Darby High School in 1942. Years after playing basketball, baseball and soccer in high school, he was inducted into the school’s Wall of Fame […]

Lee Marshall (1949 - 2014)

Lee Marshall (born Marshall Aaron Mayer; November 28, 1949 – April 26, 2014) was a professional wrestling announcer formerly of the American Wrestling Association (AWA), World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and Women of Wrestling (WOW!). Marshall joined the broadcast team when the AWA Championship Wrestling show was on ESPN. A big deal was made by Rod Trongard about Marshall being from Los Angeles. During his AWA stint […]

Mel McDaniel (1942 - 2011)

Melvin Huston “Mel” McDaniel was born in Checotah, Oklahoma, a small town in McIntosh County, Oklahoma. McDaniel, the son of a truck driving father, grew up in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. He was inspired to play music after seeing Elvis Presley on television. His first interest in music was when he learned the trumpet in the fourth grade, but he soon learned […]

Liz Anderson (1930 - 2011)

Elizabeth Jane Anderson (née Haaby; January 13, 1927 – October 31, 2011) was an American country music singer-songwriter who was one in a wave of new-generation female vocalists in the genre during the 1960s to write and record her own songs on a regular basis. Born Elizabeth Jane Haaby in Roseau, Minnesota, she played the […]

Jack Greene (1930 - 2013)

Jack Greene Jack Henry Greene was born on January 7, 1930, in Maryville, Tennessee. He learned to play guitar at age ten, and Greene’s first involvement with the music industry came when he was still a teenager, working as a disc jockey at radio station WGAP in Maryville. By the age of 18, Jack Greene was a regular on the Tennessee Barn Dance show on WNOX,Knoxville, Tennessee. […]

Jim Foglesong (1922 - 2013)

Foglesong was born in Lundale, West Virginia. As a teenager, he sang on a local radio show and in quartets and trios into his young adult years. He began his career in the music industry at Columbia Records’ label in 1951, transferring 78 RPM records into LP formats. Over the next 20 years, he worked for RCA-Victor until moving to Nashville in 1970 to head the A&R division at Dot […]

Waylon Jennings (1937 - 2002)

Waylon Jennings Waylon Arnold Jennings was born in Littlefield, Texas, the seat of Lamb County, the son of Lorene Beatrice (née Shipley) and William Albert Jennings. His original birth name was Wayland, meaning land by the highway, but it was changed after a Baptist preacher visited Jennings’s parents and congratulated his mother for naming him after the Wayland Baptist […]

Ray Price (1926 - 2013)

Ray Price was born on a farm near the small, now gone, community of Peach, Near Perryville in Wood County, Texas. He was the son of Walter Clifton Price and Clara Mae Bradley Cimini. His Grandfather James MM Price was an early settler of the area.  Price was three years old when his parents divorced and his mother […]

Pat Tillman (1976 - 2004)

Tillman was born on November 6, 1976, in Fremont, California. The eldest of three sons, with Kevin and Richard as the other two, Tillman excelled at football. He went to Bret Harte Middle School and helped lead Leland High School to the Central Coast Division I Football Championship. Tillman then went to Arizona State University on a football scholarship. Tillman was […]