Orane Demazis (1894 - 1991)

Actress. In a theater and motion picture career that lasted over fifty years, she appeared in twenty four films. Born to an Alsatian family that had emigrated to Algeria, she took her stage name from the city of her birth, and from Mazis, a neighboring town. She entered the Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in Paris, […]

Randolph Caldecott (1846 - 1886)

Artist. Prominent 19th Century Illustrator for whom the Caldecott Award, given each year by the American Libaray Association to an outstanding illustrator of children’s books, is named. (bio by: Allan Reichert)  Family links:  Parents:  John Caldecott (1812 – 1875)  Spouse:  Marian Harriet Brind Caldecott (1850 – 1932)*  Siblings:  John George Caldecott (1843 – 1879)*  Randolph […]

Gustave Caillebotte (1848 - 1894)

Artist. Born to a wealthy family who had made their money in textiles and real estate during the redevelopment of Paris in the 1860s, Gustave Caillebotte was an engineer by profession, but also attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He met Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, and Pierre Auguste Renoir in 1874 and helped organize […]

Henry Newell Cady (1849 - 1935)

Artist, Author. He was an 1869 graduate of Brown University and briefly attended the National Academy of Design in New York. Largely self-taught, his paintings were mostly New England coastal scenes. Among the places they were seen during his lifetime were the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, the St. Louis Exposition of 1904, and the Expostion […]

Petra Cabot (1907 - 2006)

Inventor, Artist.  Born Emma Mearns in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on February 21, 1907, she was an only child. In 1945 she crafted a montage of newspaper clippings and photographs making up a historical mural representing the evolution of the National Maritime Union, which is 840 square feet in size and located at the union’s New York […]

Marisa Del Frate (1931 - 2015)

Actress, Singer. A pretty brunette who was a sought after model in her youth, she went on to a successful career in Italian cinema and television. Raised in the Italian Capital, she was attractive from an early age and got her start in show business by modelling, competing in beauty pageants, and appearing on the […]

Paul Cabet (1815 - 1970)

Sculptor. He studied at the art school of Dijon. Thereafter, he entered the studio of François Rude in 1834 and joined the Ecole des Beaux-Arts the following year. He works for a decade in the work of Rude . He even takes responsibility for the workshop Rude when he left for Italy in 1843.  After […]

Abraham M. Byers (1970 - 1920)

Abraham Byers was born in 1836 on a farm near Harrisburg, PA. At the age of 22 he acquired a photographic studio after settling a debt in Beardstown, Illinois. On May 7, 1858 Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer arguing the famous Duff Armstrong case in the Beardstown Courthouse. That day Lincoln won the aquittal of […]

Lady Elizabeth Southerden Thompson Butler (1846 - 1933)

Artist.  Encouraged by her parents to sketch and paint from an early age, she began studying art about 1862, and in 1866 entered the Female School of Art in London.  As a young woman, she and her younger sister, poet and essayist Alice Meynell, and their parents spent much time in Italy, and there the […]

Dorothy DeBorba (1925 - 2010)

Actress. She appeared as a child performer in some 30 Hollywood films, memorably as the Little Rascal Dorothy in two dozen “Our Gang” comedy shorts. The child of a musician in Paul Whiteman’s orchestra, little Dorothy made her silver screen bow with the 1930 “A Royal Romance” and was spotted by “Our Gang” producer Hal […]

Ferruccio Busoni (1866 - 1924)

Composer and Virtuoso Pianist. Ferruccio Busoni was the only child of two professional musicians: his Italian/German mother a pianist, his Italian father a clarinetist. He was a child prodigy. He made his public debut on the piano with his parents, at the age of seven. A couple of years later he played some of his […]

Ernie Bushmiller (1905 - 1982)

Cartoonist. The son of Ernest George Bushmiller, artist, vaudevillian, and bartender; and Elizabeth Hall. Ernie quit school at the tender age of 14 to work as a copy boy at the New York World newspaper. He attended classes at the National Academy of Design. Running errands for the staff cartoonists, he  persuaded occasional drawing assignments, […]

Joseph Henry Bush (1970 - 1865)

Artist. A portraitist, he studied under famed artist Thomas Sully in Philadelphia from 1814 to 1817 in an apprenticeship financed by statesman Henry Clay. Painted well known subjects such as Henry Clay, Dr. Benjamin Dudley and Zachary Taylor. One portrait of President Taylor crafted by Bush is now displayed in the White House Collection in […]

Lorella De Luca (1940 - 2014)

Actress. She made her film debut at the age of fifteen in the Federico Fellini’s film ‘Il bidone’ (1955). Later, she attended the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome. In 1952, he obtained a role in Dino Risi’s film ‘Povera ma Bella’. The film’s success, made her one of the most popular actresses in the […]

Wilhelm Busch (1832 - 1908)

Painter and Poet. The first of seven children to the marriage of Henriette Kleine and Friedrich Wilhelm Busch. His six siblings followed shortly after: Fanny (1834), Gustav (1836), Adolf (1838), Otto (1841), Anna (1843) and Hermann (1845); all survived childhood. In 1859, after study at academies in Düsseldorf, Antwerp, and Munich, Busch began to contribute […]

Decimus Burton (1800 - 1881)

Architect. He was responsible for planning the layout in 1825 of Hyde Park in London. He studied under the tutorship of his father James Burton (1761-1837) and then John Nash for whom he elaborated on the designs of Cornwall Terrace, facing London’s Regents Park. He was also a noted garden designer in the classical style […]

René Burri (1933 - 2014)

Photographer. He photographed almost all the wars and crises and many of the movers and shakers of the last sixty years, with many of his photographs becoming iconic. Many of his colleagues considered him the last great photojournalist of the twentieth century. He worked for Magnum Photos and became a full member in 1959. In […]

Edward Burra (1905 - 1976)

Artist. He is best known for his surreal paintings of urban subcultures.  Burra also designed the costumes and sets for many ballet productions, including “The ABC of Theatre” (1932), “Rio Grande” (1932), “Barabau” (1936), “Miracle of the Gorbals” (1944), “Carmen” (1947), “Don Juan” (1948) and “Don Quixote” (1950). In his later years he focused on […]

Silas Reese Burns (1855 - 1940)

American Architect. Burns graduated with a degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1875. From 1881 through 1907, he was a partner in the firm of Peters and Burns of Dayton, Ohio, which specialized in institutional and educational buildings. He moved to Los Angeles in 1907 and three years later, formed a partnership with […]

Daniel Hudson Burnham (1846 - 1912)

Architect. Known as”The Father of American City Planning”, he is best remembered for his direction of the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1892 to 1893, and for designing several famous buildings, including the New York City, New York’s Flatiron Building and the Postal Square Building in Washington, DC.  Born in Henderson, New York and raised in […]

Havis Olson Davenport (1933 - 1975)

Actress. She made her film debut in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” (1954) followed by “Scandal Incorporated” (1956) and “Casey Jones” (1957). She also appeared on the television series “The George Sanders Mystery Theater”, “The O. Henry Playhouse”, “The Adventures of Jim Bowie” and retired from acting in 1957. (bio by: John “J-Cat” Griffith)

Philip Burne-Jones (1861 - 1926)

Painter of portraits & figure subjects. Son of painter Edward Coley Burne-Jones, his portraits included such personages as Rayleigh, Kipling & G.F. Watts. His best known painting is A Vampire(1897). He also made some book illustrations. (bio by: Connie Nisinger)  Family links:  Parents:  Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833 – 1898)  Sibling:  Christopher Burne-Jones (____ – 1864)* […]

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833 - 1898)

Artist. Born in Birmingham, he was the son of Edward, a frame-maker and gilder, and Elizabeth, who died within days of his birth. He was raised by his father and a housekeeper. Educated at Exeter College, Oxford, he originally studied theology and intended to go into the Church. But a visit to France in 1855 […]

Edward Loomis Davenport (1815 - 1877)

Stage actor in the 1800s. He is best known for his roles as ‘Hamlet’,  ‘Brutus’ in “Julius Caesar”, and ‘Sir Giles Overreach’ in “A New Way to Pay Old Debt”s. He began acting in 1836 and starred on the stage in the United States and England.  He is the father of actors Edgar, Harry and […]

William Burn (1789 - 1870)

Architect. Burn was born in Edinburgh. He was the son of another famous architect, Robert Burn. He worked in London and Edinburgh during his career. Burn was a pioneer of the Scottish Baronial style, perfected by his pupil David Bryce (1803-76). He designed many Scottish churches, public buildings and country houses, including Blairquhan Castle, South […]

Francis Boucher Franklin Burgess (1868 - 1935)

Architect.  He is known for building Cedar Grove, using late-Federal styling.  Popular from about 1800 to 1860, the house is of interest for several reasons. It is one of the very few substantial brick houses built between 1845 and 1880, a period experiencing extreme economic instability. The house is nearly unique in that the two-part […]

Jane O’Brien Dart (1918 - 2009)

Actress. She appeared in around twenty movies in the late 1930s, then later helped persuade her friend Ronald Reagan to enter politics. Raised in Los Angeles, she was signed to a Warner Brothers contract in 1936, and performed in the 1937 “Marked Woman”; her most acclaimed role was as Paul Muni’s doomed mistress in the […]

James Bunstone Bunning (1802 - 1863)

Architect of Holloway Prison and Billingsgate Market. Helped lay out Highgate Cemetery.

Joseph Bulova (1970 - 1935)

Businessman, Manufacturer. He founded the J. Bulova Watchmaking Company, which is today the highly successful Bulova Watch Company.  Family links:  Spouse:  Bertha Bulova (1862 – 1943)*  Children:  Hannah Bulova (1887 – 1971)*  Arde Bulova (1889 – 1958)*  Emily B Bulova Henshel (1892 – 1989)*  Stella Bulova (1894 – 1912)* *Calculated relationship

Jean Darling (1922 - 2015)

Jean Darling Child star of the Our Gang comedies who went on to perform as an adult in Broadway musicals and radio shows The popularity of the long-running Our Gang series of comedy shorts (1922-44), created by the producer Hal Roach, which followed the adventures of a group of poor urban children, made unlikely film […]