Gilbert M. “Bronco Billy” Anderson (1882 - 1971)

Actor. He began his career at age 18, as a stage perform in vaudeville and is best known as the first star of the Western film genre. As the character “Bronco Billy”, he was the first silent screen cowboy star appearing in “The Great Train Robbery” (1903). As “Bronco Billy”, he played the first real […]

Gilbert Roland (1905 - 1994)

He was born Luis Antonio Dámaso de Alonso in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, and originally intended to become a bullfighter like his father. When the family moved to the United States, however, he became interested in acting when he was picked at random for a role as an extra. He chose his screen name by […]

Gilbert White Ganong (1851 - 1917)

Canadian Businessman and Politician. He was a co-founder, along with his brother James Ganong, of Ganong Brothers, Limited, the oldest candy company in Canada. It was the first company to introduce a heart-shaped box of chocolates in North America, originally used for presents over the Christmas season before it became successful on Valentine’s Day. One […]

Gilda Gray (1901 - 1970)

Gilda Gray was born as Marianna Michalska in Kraków (then part of Galicia-Lodomeria, Austria-Hungary, now part of Poland) on 24 October 1901, to Max and Wanda Michalski, who emigrated to the United States in 1909 and settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She had one sibling, Josephine. When Marianna was 14 or 15 years old[citation needed] she married […]

Gilda Langer (1896 - 1920)

Actress. Dark, mysterious leading lady of silent films. Born Hermengild Langer in Oderfurt, Moravia (now in the Czech Republic), she made her acting debut at Berlin’s Residenz-Theatre in 1917 and was soon playing leads for the Star and Decla movie studios.  Her brief affair with author Carl Mayer inspired him to write the original scenario […]

Gilda Lousek (1937 - 1998)

Actress. Born Ilda Aida Hlousek, she acted on stage and in cinema and television for more than 40 years. (bio by: 380W)

Gilda Radner (1946 - 1989)

Actress, Comedienne. She gained wide fame in the mid-1970s as an original cast member of television’s hit comedy series, “Saturday Night Live” (SNL).  Born Gilda Susan Radner in Detroit, Michigan, to Henrietta Dworkin Radner, a legal secretary, and Herman Radner, a businessman who operated Detroit’s Seville Hotel, where many nightclub performers and actors stayed when […]

Giles Edwin Miller, Sr (1920 - 1989)

Professional Football Team Owner. In 1953 he bought the Dallas Texans, the first professional football team in Texas. The Texans moved in the 1960’s to Kansas City and became the Chiefs.  He was editor and publisher of the “Park Cities News” from 1957 to 1963 and later owned Dallas radio stations KPCN, KOKE, KIXZ and […]

Gilly Coman (1955 - 2010)

Actress. As star of British television in the 1980s and 1990s, she shall be best remembered as Aveline Boswell from the late-1980s series “Bread”. Born Gillian Helen Coman to a theatrical family, she was raised in Liverpool, studied at the Shelagh Elliot-Clarke School of Drama from age eight, appeared in commercials, and refined her craft […]

Gina Cigna (1900 - 2001)

Gina Cigna (6 March 1900 – 26 June 2001) was a French-Italian dramatic soprano. Gina Cigna was born in Angers, department of Maine-et-Loire, to parents of Italian origin. She trained as a pianist at the Paris Conservatory studying with Alfred Cortot and graduated with a gold medal. She then started a career as a recitalist. […]

Ginette Leclerc (1912 - 1992)

Actress. She began her film career in 1937. Most remembered in such films as “Le Corbeau,” “The Man From Nowhere,” “Cab Number 13,” “Baker’s Wife” and “Tropic of Cancer.” (bio by: MC)

Ginger Rogers (1911 - 1995)

Ginger Rogers Rogers was an only child, and she maintained a close relationship with her mother throughout her life. Lela Rogers (1891–1977) was a newspaper reporter, scriptwriter, and movie producer. She was also one of the first women to enlist in the Marine Corps, was a founder of the successful “Hollywood Playhouse” for aspiring actors […]

Ginjiro “The Paper Manufacturing King of Japan” Fujiwara (1869 - 1960)

Businessman. He is best know for establishing the Fujihara Foundation of Science in 1959. He headed the former Oji Paper before the Pacific War. (Oji Paper was the predecessor of today’fs Nippon Paper Industries Co., Ltd. and Oji Paper Co., Ltd.) To establish the Foundation, Mr. Fujiwara contributed 100 million yen from his own funds. […]

Ginko Kishida (1970 - 1970)

Publisher. Pioneer newspaper businessman. (bio by: Warrick L. Barrett)

Ginny Tyler (1925 - 2012)

Actress. A popular Mouseketeer from the 1960s, she shall be remembered for providing the voices of numerous Disney cartoon characters. Born Merrie Virginia Erlandson, she was raised in Seattle from infancy and early-on evidenced a talent for story telling and animal mimicry. As a young girl she became a fixture on the local kids’ radio […]

Gino Cervi (1901 - 1974)

Actor. The son of renowned theatre critic Antonio Cervi, he was one of the most popular actors in Italy, first on stage (for example, as Falstaff and Cyrano de Bergerac), then on screen and finally on television. Making his stage debut in 1924, he entered films in 1932. Robust and commanding, Cervi was for more […]

Gino Corrado (1893 - 1982)

Gino Corrado (9 February 1893 – 23 December 1982) was an Italian-born film actor. He appeared in nearly 400 films between 1916 and 1954, almost always in small roles as a character actor. He was often cast as a waiter, headwaiter or maitre d’. Born in Florence, Italy, Gino Corrado is considered to have one of […]

Gio Ponti (1891 - 1979)

Ponti’s parents were Enrico Ponti and Giovanna Rigone. He did military service during World War I in the Pontonier Corps with the rank of captain, from 1916 to 1918, receiving the Bronze Medal and the Italian Military Cross. Gio Ponti graduated with a degree in Architecture in 1921 from the Politecnico di Milano University. Also in […]

Giordano Bruno (1970 - 1600)

Philosopher. For his theories, he was burned alive in Rome by the Inquisition. His ashes were scattered. (bio by: Cristian Italia)

Giorgio Bassani (1916 - 2000)

Author. Born in Bologna, Italy, into a Jewish family. He published his first book, “Una Città di Pianura” (1940),  under a pseudonym because of Mussolini’s anti-Semitic policies,  and was active as an anti-fascist fighter during World War II.  Bassani is best remembered for his novel “Il Giardino dei Finzi-Contini”,  which earned him the Viareggio Award. […]

Giorgio de Chirico (1888 - 1978)

De Chirico was born in Volos, Greece, to a Genovese mother and a Sicilian father. After studying art in Athens—mainly under the guidance of the influential Greek painter Georgios Roilos and Georgios Jakobides—and Florence, he moved to Germany in 1906, following his father’s death in 1905. He entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where he read the writings of the philosophers Nietzsche, Arthur Schopenhauer and Otto Weininger and studied the […]

Giorgio Gaber (1939 - 2003)

He was born in Milan into a lower-middle-class family. His father, Guido Gaberscik, was born in Trieste, when the city was still part of Austria-Hungary. The surname Gaberscik is in of Slovene origin (Gaberščik). His mother was from the Veneto region. The two met and married in Veneto and later moved to Milan, where Giorgio […]

Giorgio Tozzi (1923 - 2011)

Giorgio Tozzi was born George John Tozzi in Chicago, Illinois. He studied at DePaul University with Rosa Raisa, Giacomo Rimini and John Daggett Howell. He later studied singing in New York City with Beverley Peck Johnson. He made his professional debut in the Broadway production of Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia in 1948 as Tarquinius. […]

Giotto (1970 - 1337)

Artist,  Architect.  Acknowledged as the most important painter of the 1300s.  Giotto’s art represented the first stirrings of the Italian Renaissance.  He broke with the flat,  unrealistic Byzantine style of his day and painted from direct observation of nature.  Although he rarely used genuine perspective,  he achieved a sense of depth through skillful use of […]

Giovanni Agnelli (1866 - 1945)

Industrialist. He was the founder of the Fiat automobile company. Born in Villar Perosa, a small town near Pinerolo, Italy, his father, the mayor of Villar Perosa, died at age 40, when Giovanni was just five. He studied at the Collegio San Giuseppe in Turin; then embarked on a military career until 1893 when he […]

Giovanni Angelli (1921 - 2003)

Agnelli was born in Turin but he maintained a strong ties with the village of Villar Perosa, near Turin in the Piedmont region. His father was the prominent Italian industrialist Edoardo Agnelli and his mother was Virginia Bourbon del Monte, daughter of Carlo, 4th Principe di San Faustino, head of a noble family established in […]

Giovanni Boccaccio (1313 - 1375)

Author. The illegitimate son of a French noblewoman and a merchant from Florence, he became one of the most prolific writers of the late Middle Ages, best-known today for “The Decameron”, which consists of 100 stories told over ten days, by seven young women and three young men who have taken a short respite from […]

Giovanni Cantisano, Sr (1886 - 1973)

Businessman. He was one of the two founders of Ragu Foods, International. (bio by: Kevin Mannara)  Family links:  Spouse:  Assunta Masiello Cantisano (1892 – 1980)* *Calculated relationship

Giovanni Giacometti (1868 - 1933)

Artist.  He helped introduce modernism to Swiss painting in the early 20th Century. Giacometti was born in Stampa,  Switzerland,  into a family of Italian descent.  He studied painting in Munich and Paris (1886 to 1891),  and lived in Italy before settling in his hometown.  On a visit to Munich in 1901 he discovered the work […]

Gisela Uhlen (1919 - 2007)

Actress. Original name Gisela Friedlinde Schreck. Her career spanned more than seven decades and nearly 100 roles, starting with UFA Film in the late 1930s, and she made numerous TV appearances in recent years. She was not related to “Nosferatu” actor Max Schreck but to avoid confussion adopted the moniker Uhlen soon after she started […]