Willoughby Gray (1916 - 1993)

Willoughby was born in London, his mother Mary Henderson had married John Gray, who was killed in action in Iraq soon after his birth. (Though several sources suggest he was born in Aberdeen, Scotland). In 1918 Mary re married and Willoughby became the stepson of Lieutenant General Henry Pownall.  He achieved popularity in the mid-1950s […]

Willy Birgel (1891 - 1973)

Willy Birgel began his acting career before World War I on the stage in his native city of Cologne, and came to movies rather late. He was about 43 years old before he got his first major film role as the English Camp Commandant in Paul Wegener’s Ein Mann will nach Deutschland (roughly translated A […]

Willy Fritsch (1901 - 1973)

Actor. Born Wilhelm Egon Fritz Fritsch, he was a popular German leading man in theatre and motion-pictures. In the early 1900s, he was performing drama at the Deutsches Theater and made his feature debut in films as a supporting player in “Miss Venus” (1921). Over the coarse of the next five decades, he appeared in […]

Wilma Mankiller (1945 - 2010)

Wilma Pearl Mankiller was born in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, the sixth of eleven children, to Charley Mankiller (November 15, 1914 – February 20, 1971) and Clara Irene Sitton (born September 18, 1921). Her father was a full-blooded Cherokee and her mother was a Caucasian woman of Dutch and Irish descent who acculturated herself to Cherokee life. […]

Wilmer Lawson Allison, Jr (1904 - 1977)

Oakwood CemeteryUSATexasProfessional Tennis Player. Born in San Antonio, Texas, Wilmer was one of two children of Dr. and Mrs. Wilmer L. Allison. A graduate of Fort Worth Central High School, where he was an outstanding amateur baseball player. He enrolled at the University of Texas in 1925 after his father refused to permit him to […]

Wilna “Willie” Hervey (1894 - 1979)

Actress, Artist. She appeared in a number of silent films, most notably the “Toonerville Trolley” comedies made by the Betzwood Film Company in Pennsylvania in 1920. At 6’3″ and weighing nearly 300 pounds, she was perfect in the role of “Powerful Katrinka,” one of the most popular characters of the “Toonerville” film series. She came […]

Wilna Hervey (1894 - 1979)

Known to friends and family as “Willie,” Wilna Hervey was the only child of the marriage of William Russell Hervey and Anna Van Horn Traphagen. She grew up in affluent circumstances at Beach Ninth Street, Far Rockaway. During her youth in late 1910s, Hervey studied at the Art Students League in New York City, Winold Reiss’ […]

Wilson Brown (1839 - 1916)

Wilson Brown was born December 25, 1837 in Logan County, Ohio, and enlisted September 6, 1861 at Findlay, Ohio in Company F, 21st Ohio Infantry, mustering into service September 19, 1861. He first saw action at Ivy Mountain, Ky., November 8–9, 1861. Chosen by James Andrews for his abilities as a locomotive engineer, as he had […]

Wilson Eyre, Jr (1858 - 1944)

Architect. He was enrolled in the architectural program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and then spent five years in the office of Philadelphia architect James Peacock Sims. He took over the office upon Sims’s death in May 1882. He was known for his picturesque assemblies of calculated asymmetries and his welcoming, informal planning. Eyre’s […]

Wilson Pickett (1941 - 2006)

Wilson Pickett Wilson Pickett, the soul music pioneer whose insistent wail turned songs like “In the Midnight Hour” into hits, died yesterday in Virginia. He was 64. The cause was a heart attack, Margo Lewis, his manager, said. She added that Mr. Pickett had spent the twilight of his career playing dozens of concert dates […]

Wilton Felder (1940 - 2015)

Wilton Lewis Felder (August 31, 1940 – September 27, 2015) was an American saxophone and bass player, and is best known as a founding member of The Jazz Crusaders, later known as The Crusaders. Wilton Felder was born in Houston, Texas and studied music at Texas Southern University. Felder, Wayne Henderson, Joe Sample, and Stix Hooper […]

Windell Middlebrooks (1979 - 2015)

Windell Middlebrooks was born in Fort Worth, Texas. He was an alumnus of Sterling College in Sterling, Kansas, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Theatre/Communications, the Los Angeles Film Studies Center, and University of California, Irvine, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts in acting in 2004. For one season, he worked at the […]

Winfield Scott Stratton (1848 - 1902)

Gold mining magnate.  Family links:  Parents:  Myron S. Stratton (1812 – 1886)  Mary Halstead Stratton (1820 – 1865)  Siblings:  Frank Myron Stratton*  Charles Stratton*  Diantha Jane Stratton (1838 – 1865)*  Anna Augusta Stratton Chamberlain (1846 – 1894)*  Winfield Scott Stratton (1848 – 1902)  Louella Stratton (1856 – ____)*  Jesse Eliza Stratton (1858 – ____)*  Ada […]

Wini Shaw (1910 - 1982)

Actress, Singer. She is probably best remembered for introducing the song “Lullaby of Broadway” in the 1935 musical “Gold Diggers of 1935.” Born Winifred Lei Momi to parents of Hawaiian and Irish descent, she was the youngest of thirteen children and started her show career as a child in her parents’ vaudeville act. When the […]

Winifred Bryson (1892 - 1987)

Actress. A talented stage and film performer, Bryson is best remembered for her role as Fleur de Lys in the 1923 film, “The Hunchback Of Notre Dame.” Born in Columbus, Ohio, Bryson headed to Los Angeles in 1915. Her first professional acting appearance was in the play “Regeneration”, opposite Bert Lytell. Known for her sultry, […]

Winifred Emms (1883 - 1972)

Winifred Emms was born in New Brighton, a seaside resort in Cheshire, and performed with her father on the beach in a company of minstrels. Winifred Emms adopted the name Hetty King when she first appeared on the stage of the Shoreditch Theatre, at the age of six with her father, William Emms (1856–1954), a comedian […]

Winnie Lightner (1899 - 1971)

Winnie Lightner was born in Greenport, New York, but was raised in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen by her aunt and uncle, Margaret and Andrew Hansen. She had a successful career in vaudeville and finally made it to Broadway, where she performed in George White’s Scandals of 1922, 1923, and 1924, in the musical revue Gay Paree […]

Winona Winter (1970 - 1940)

Actress. She was a musical comedy star on stage and was married to sports analyst Norman L. Sper. There son Norman Sper Jr. was a diving and swimming champion at the age of 14. She also appeared in vaudeville, and in the 1914 film, “The Man From Mexico” as ‘Sally.’ (bio by: K)  Family links: […]

Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. Widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the 20th century, Churchill was also an officer in the British […]

Winston Doty (1914 - 1934)

Child Actor. Born one of a set of identical twins in Malta, Ohio, he and his brother were numbered among the first stars of the “Our Gang” comedy shorts. They appeared in three shorts together; “Our Gang,” “Fire Fighters,” and “One Terrible Day” in 1922, and Winston in an additional two; “A Pleasant Journey” and […]

Winston Gama (1970 - 2004)

Actor. Gama who was from Johannesburg, South Africa, played in the films, “Shaka Zulu” (1986), “Purgatory” (1988), “Dragonard” (1987), “Roten Elefanten, Die” (1986), and Master Of Dragonard Hill” (1989). (bio by: K)

Winthrop Rutherfurd (1862 - 1944)

Winthrop Chanler Rutherfurd (February 4, 1862 – March 19, 1944) was an American socialite from New York, best known for his romance with Consuelo Vanderbilt and his marriage to Lucy Mercer, mistress to American President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Winthrop Rutherfurd was a direct descendant of Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch Director-General of New Netherland before it […]

Wisława Szymborska (1923 - 2012)

Wisława Szymborska was born on 2 July 1923 in Prowent, Poland (now part of Kórnik, Poland), the daughter of Wincenty and Anna (née Rottermund) Szymborski. Her father was at that time the steward of Count Władysław Zamoyski, a Polish patriot and charitable patron. After the death of Count Zamoyski in 1924, her family moved to […]

Wojciech Boguslawski (1757 - 1829)

Actor, Director, Producer, Playwright. “The Father of Polish Theatre”, he devoted his 50-year career to disseminating nationalist ideals and broadening his homeland’s cultural horizons through drama. The son of nobility, Boguslawski was born at the family estate in Glinno, near Poznan, Poland. As a teen he was an avid participant in amateur theatre, but in […]

Wolf Albach Retty (1906 - 1967)

Actor. A popular leading man in Austrian cinema, he made his motion picture debut in the silent “Das grobe Hemd.” Some of his well know works were roles in the filns “The Black Hussar,” “Tales from Vienna Woods” and “Hotel Sacher.” He was the son of actress Rosa Albach Retty, and the father of actress […]

Wolfe Barzell (1898 - 1969)

Polish-born stage, motion picture, and television actor of the 1930s through the 1960s. Appeared in many classic TV series such as “The Twilight Zone,” “Perry Mason,” and “Green Acres.” Uncle of stage and film producer Emanuel Azenberg. (bio by: A.J. Marik)  Family links:  Spouse:  Bertha Barzell (1902 – 1970)* *Calculated relationship

Wolfgang Anheisser (1929 - 1974)

Baritone Opera Singer. Born into a musical family, he studied at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg in Germany, the Conservatorio Verdi in Milan, and the University of Witwatersrand. While he had many opportunities in the business world, as a result of his studies (he worked his way through school as a clerk in a German […]

Wolfgang Borchert (1921 - 1947)

Author. Considered by many to be one of the leading figures in German post-war literature, the so-called Trümmerliteratur, or “Rubble Literature”, which attempted to deal with the lost war and the devastation that resulted. He was from an artistic family and was anti-Nazi from the start, as he refused to attend Hitler Youth meetings. He […]

Wolfgang Grönebaum (1927 - 1998)

Actor. Played ‘Egon Kling’ in the famous TV-Series “Lindenstrasse.” (bio by: JSesto) Cause of death: Pneumonia

Wolfgang Preiss (1910 - 2002)

Wolfgang Preiss (27 February 1910 – 27 November 2002) was a German theatre, film and television actor. The son of a teacher, Preiss studied philosophy, German and drama in the early 1930s. He also took private acting classes with Hans Schlenck, making his stage début in Munich in 1932. He went to appear in various theatre […]