Jean Cayrol (1911 - 2005)

Jean Cayrol (French: [kɛʁɔl]; 6 June 1911 – 10 February 2005) was a French poet, publisher, and member of the Académie Goncourt born in Bordeaux. He is perhaps best known for writing the narration in Alain Resnais’s 1955 documentary film, Night and Fog. He was a major contributor to the subversive, philosophical French publication Tel […]

Marguerite Duras (1914 - 1996)

Marguerite Duras was the author of many novels, plays, films, interviews, essays, and short fiction, including her best-selling, highly fictionalized autobiographical work L’Amant (1984), translated into English as The Lover, which describes her youthful affair with a Chinese man. This text won the Goncourt prize in 1984. The story of her adolescence also appears in […]

Alain Resnais (1922 - 2014)

Alain Resnais (French: [alɛ̃ ʁɛnɛ]; 3 June 1922 – 1 March 2014) was a French film director and screenwriter whose career extended over more than six decades. After training as a film editor in the mid-1940s, he went on to direct a number of short films which included Night and Fog (1955), an influential documentary […]

Claude Chabrol (1930 - 2010)

Claude Henri Jean Chabrol (French: [klod ʃabʁɔl]; 24 June 1930 – 12 September 2010) was a French film director and a member of the French New Wave (nouvelle vague) group of filmmakers who first came to prominence at the end of the 1950s. Like his colleagues and contemporaries Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Éric Rohmer and […]

François Truffaut (1932 - 1984)

After starting his own film club in 1948, François Truffaut met André Bazin, who would have great effect on his professional and personal life. Bazin was a critic and the head of another film society at the time. He became a personal friend of Truffaut’s and helped him out of various financial and criminal situations […]

Jeanne Moreau (1928 - 2017)

In 1947, Jeanne Moreau made her theatrical debut at the Avignon Festival. She debuted at the Comédie-Française in Ivan Turgenev’s A Month in the Country and, by her twenties, was already one of leading actresses in the theatre’s troupe. After 1949, she began appearing in films with small parts but continued primarily active in the […]

Sam Shepard (1943 - 2017)

Sam Shepard began his acting career in earnest when cast in a major role as the land baron in Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven (1978), opposite Richard Gere and Brooke Adams. This led to other important film roles, including that of Cal, Ellen Burstyn’s love interest, in the film Resurrection (1980), and most notably his […]

George Duning (1908 - 2000)

In his early 20s George Duning played trumpet and piano for the Kay Kyser band, later arranging most of the music for Kyser’s radio program, Kollege of Musical Knowledge. It was during the Kyser band’s appearance in Carolina Blues (1944) that Duning’s work was noticed, leading to a Columbia contract. Duning joined the Navy in […]

Erich Zeisl (1905 - 1959)

Born to a middle class Jewish family in Vienna, Erich Zeisl was the son of Kamilla (Feitler) and Siegmund Zeisl. His musical precocity enabled him to gain a place at the Vienna State Academy (against the wishes of his family) when he was 14, at which age his first song was published. While there, he […]

Philip Yordan (1914 - 2003)

Philip Yordan (April 1, 1914 – March 24, 2003) was an American screenwriter of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s who also produced several films. He was also known as a highly regarded script doctor. Born to Polish immigrants, he earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Illinois and a law degree at Chicago-Kent College […]

Lennie Hayton (1908 - 1971)

While playing at the Park Central, Lennie Hayton was heard by Paul Whiteman and immediately engaged by him in April 1928 as second pianist, playing piano and celeste as well as acting as a part-time arranger. Whilst with the Paul Whiteman orchestra, he played with musicians such as Frankie Trumbauer, Bix Beiderbecke, Red Nichols and […]

Massimo Amfiteatrof (1907 - 1990)

Massimo Amfiteatrof was born Maksim Aleksandrovič Amfiteatrov (russian: Максим Александрович Амфитеатров) from a russian family. His mother, Ilariā Vladimirovna Amfiteatrova, was an actress and a singer, while his father, Alexander Amfiteatrov, was a writer and a journalist. His brother, Daniele Amfitheatrof, became an orchestra conductor. He lived in St. Petersburg until 1917. When the Russian […]

Marty Paich (1925 - 1995)

From the beginning of his professional career, Marty Paich also learned music in the time-honored ways: he transcribed tunes and charts from recordings, he attended concerts, and he sat-in on a jams. After finishing his formal studies, Paich took a series of jobs in the Los Angeles music and recording industry. These included arranging (and […]

Bud Shank (1926 - 2009)

Clifford Everett “Bud” Shank, Jr. (May 27, 1926 – April 2, 2009) was an American alto saxophonist and flautist. He rose to prominence in the early 1950s playing lead alto and flute in Stan Kenton’s Innovations in Modern Music Orchestra and throughout the decade worked in various small jazz combos. He spent the 1960s as […]

Shorty Rogers (1924 - 1994)

Shorty Rogers worked first as a professional musician with Will Bradley and Red Norvo. From 1947 to 1949, he worked extensively with Woody Herman and in 1950 and 1951 he played with Stan Kenton. Rogers appeared on the 1954 Shelly Manne album The Three and the Two along with Jimmy Giuffre. Much of the music […]

Daniele Amfitheatrof (1901 - 1983)

Following his graduation, Daniele Amfitheatrof took his place in Italian music circles of the day. In 1924 he was appointed pianist, organist, and assistant choral conductor of the Augusteo Symphony of Rome. Successive appointments included a position as the artistic director of the Italian Radio in Genoa and Trieste (1929–1932), as well as the management […]

Leith Stevens (1909 - 1970)

The music accompanying the film The James Dean Story was composed and conducted by Leith Stevens. An eponymous album containing this music was released by Capitol Records in 1957, and its anonymous sleeve notes say, “Here is the music direct from the soundtrack of The James Dean Story, a different kind of motion picture. This […]

Daniel Mainwaring (1902 - 1977)

Daniel Mainwaring (July 22, 1902 – January 31, 1977) was an American novelist and screenwriter. A native of Oakland, California, he began his professional career as a journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle and enjoyed a successful career as a mystery novelist (under the name Geoffrey Homes). He worked as a film publicist and eventually […]

Dudley Nichols (1895 - 1960)

Dudley Nichols (April 6, 1895 – January 4, 1960) was an American screenwriter and director. Dudley Nichols was born April 6, 1895, in Wapakoneta, Ohio. He studied at the University of Michigan where he was active member of the Sigma Chapter of Theta Xi fraternity. After working as a reporter for the New York World, Nichols moved […]

Jennings Lane (1915 - 1996)

Jennings Lang (May 28, 1915, New York City – May 29, 1996, Palm Desert, California) was an American film producer, as well as a screenwriter and actor. Lang was born to a Jewish family in New York City, New York. Originally a lawyer, from New York City, he came to Hollywood in 1938 and set up […]

Walter Wagner (1894 - 1968)

Walter Wanger’s job was to help meet the studio’s large annual requirement for fresh stories . One of Wanger’s major successes in his early years with the company was his identification of the British novel The Sheik as a story with potential. In 1921 it was turned into an extremely successful film starring Rudolph Valentino. […]

Joe Hyams (1923 - 2008)

Joe Hyams was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on June 6, 1923, and grew up in nearby Brookline, Massachusetts. While attending Harvard University, he enlisted in the United States Army in 1942. He received a Purple Heart and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal while serving in the South Pacific. He later covered the war for […]

Frank Parker (1916 - 1997)

Frank Parker is one of the few Americans to win both the French Championships (1948, 1949) and the U.S. Championships (1944, 1945). Parker became the singles champion at Cincinnati, then called the Tri–State Tennis Tournament in 1941 and was a four-time singles finalist (1932, 1933, 1938, 1939). He won the Canadian title in 1938. He was […]

Gardnar Mulloy (1913 - 2016)

While Gardnar Mulloy was the tennis coach at the University of Miami, Mulloy recruited Pancho Segura for the tennis team. Segura won three straight NCAA singles titles in 1943, 1944, and 1945, a college record now matched by Steve Johnson, who won in 2010, 2011, and 2012. Segura went on to enjoy a successful professional […]

Elwood Cooke (1913 - 2004)

Elwood Thomas Cooke (July 5, 1913 – April 16, 2004) was an amateur American tennis player in the 1930s and 1940s. Cooke was ranked in Top 10 in the United States in 1938 (ranked No. 7), 1939 (No. 6), 1940 (No. 9), and 1945 (No. 4), whilst reaching as high as World No. 8 in Gordon […]

Cilly Aussem (1909 - 1963)

In 1928 Cilly Aussem’s mother claimed that Paula von Reznicek had twice beaten her daughter by using hypnotism, which led to a lawsuit in which Von Reznicek filed charges of ‘defamation of character’ and Aussem’s mother charged her with ‘insulting assault.’ She lost her German Championships singles title in 1928 after a three-sets defeat in […]

Bobby Riggs (1918 - 1995)

After the war, as a professional, Bobby Riggs won the US Pro titles in 1946, 1947, and 1949, beating Don Budge in all three finals. In the 1946 tour against Budge, Riggs won 24 matches and lost 22, plus 1 match tied at Birmingham, Alabama establishing himself as the best player in the world (source : […]

Jack Kramer (1921 - 2009)

Jack Kramer began his tennis career by taking lessons from teaching professional, Dick Skeen. Within a year, he was playing junior tournaments. He played on the Montebello High School tennis team with George Richards. Because of his obvious ability and his family’s lack of money, he came under the guidance of Perry T. Jones. at […]

Ken Hubbs (1941 - 1964)

Kenneth Douglass Hubbs (December 23, 1941 – February 13, 1964) was an American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a second baseman for the Chicago Cubs from 1961 to 1963. He was killed in a plane crash near Provo, Utah prior to the 1964 season. In his short big-league career, Hubbs was […]

John Kundla (1916 - 2017)

John Kundla was born in the mining town of Star Junction, Pennsylvania to an Austro-Hungarian mother and Slovak father. He moved to Minneapolis at age 5. After attending and playing basketball for Minneapolis Central High School (which closed in 1982), Kundla attended the University of Minnesota and was a standout for the Minnesota Golden Gophers basketball […]