Violet Carson (1898 - 1983)

Actress. At the age of three, she began taking piano lessons, which would be handy in her later years, as she appeared on Songs of Praise,  playing the piano and sang in a beautiful soprano voice, which very few could believe came from her mouth. The reason being, on “Coronation Street,” she played battle axe […]

Walter J. Biggs (1886 - 1968)

Artist. His illustrations over the years have appeared in Ladies’ Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, McCall’s, Cosmopolitan, and in 1963, the Society of Illustrators elected him to the Hall of Fame. (bio by: Laurie)  Family links:  Parents:  Walter Joseph Biggs (1850 – 1905)  Annie Rebecca Southall Biggs (1851 – 1948)  Siblings:  Walter J Biggs (____ – […]

Fred Biesel (1893 - 1954)

Noted Artist. He and his wife Frances Strain were both students of the School of the Chicago Art Institute and were among the earliest of the painters who had settled in the Indiana Dunes. They were both members of a group of radical artists of their time known as “The Ten” or “Ten Artists” and […]

Frances Strain Biesel (1898 - 1962)

Noted Artist. She and her husband Fred Biesel had been students of the School of the Chicago Art Institute. She was a member of the group “The Ten” sometimes referred to “Ten Artists” that exhibited mostly at Marshall Field’s in Chicago from 1920 through the early 1940s. She also exhibited at the Chicago Art Institute […]

Helena Carroll (1928 - 2013)

Actress. Born in Glasgow to parents of Irish descent, her father was acclaimed playwright Paul Vincent Carroll (“Shadow and Substance”, 1937), her mother was a dress designer. Influenced by her father’s profession, she took to the stage. She received private schooling and began her stage career locally (for which included appearing in some of her […]

Albert Bierstadt (1830 - 1902)

Artist. He is best remembered for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. His exhibition pieces were brilliantly crafted images that glorified the American West as a land of promise. Born in Solingen, Rhine Province, Prussia (now Germany), he immigrated with his family to New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1831. He became interested in art […]

Herluf Bidstrup (1912 - 1988)

Artist, Illustrator. After training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen from 1931 to 1935, he began a career as a satirical cartoonist with the Social Democratic daily press, where his cartoons of Hitler and other Nazi leaders provoked several protests from the German embassy. During the German occupation of Denmark he supplied the […]

Jeanne Carpenter (1916 - 1994)

Actress. Appeared while a child in silent films. (bio by: A.J. Marik)

Louise Blanchard Bethune (1856 - 1913)

Architect. She was the first American woman known to have worked as a professional architect. She was born in Waterloo, New York. Blanchard worked primarily in Buffalo, New York and partnered with her husband at Bethune, Bethune & Fuchs. Her work includes the Hotel Lafayette. The Buffalo Meter Company Building was renamed Bethune Hall in […]

Alfred Edmeades Bestall (1892 - 1985)

Artist. He was the Illustrator of the “Rupert Bear” stories in the Daily Express for 30 years. Invited to take over the “Rupert Bear” strip in 1935 when its originator, Mary Tourtel, had to retire due to failing eyesight, he developed and wrote over 270 Rupert adventures, and remained the regular artist and author until […]

Harry Bertoia (1915 - 1978)

Metal sculptor, designer and painter. Bertoia was well-known for his unique work involving metal. He sculpted furniture out of metal and was best known for his Bertoia chair. The chair was a padded wire web resting upon a steel cradle. The chair became a classic of modern design. Bertoia also made many other acclaimed architectural […]

Brenda Hosbrook Carlin (1939 - 1997)

Actress and wife of comedian George Carlin. Between 1977 and 1997 she helped work on many of his television, video and other specials. They include “George Carlin: You Are Diseased” (1999), “George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy” (1997), “George Carlin: What Am I Doing In New Jersey” (1988), George Carlin: The Envelope” (1986) and George […]

Miguel Berrocal (1933 - 2006)

Sculptor.  Born Miguel Ortiz Berrocal in Villanueva de Algaidas, Málaga, Andalucía,  he was a disciple of Ramón Stolz Viciano and was influenced by sculptors Eduardo Chillida and Jorge Oteiza. He is best remembered for the design of the Goya Awards, equivalent to the Oscar in the Spanish Cinema. Berrocal lived and worked for almost 20 […]

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598 - 1680)

Artist. A renowned sculptor, he is considered to be the founder of the Baroque style. (bio by: GP)

Antonio Berni (1905 - 1981)

Famed painter, engraver and sculptor. One of the founders of the Argentine new realism. (bio by: 380W)  Family links:  Children:  Lily Berni (1930 – 2013)* *Calculated relationship

Ruth Bernhard (1905 - 2006)

Photographer. Her black-and-white images of compelling shapes from female nudes to seashells are regarded as some of the finest in still-life photo art. Her contemporaries, including Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Wynn Bullock and Dorothea Lange, called her “the greatest photographer of the nude.” One of her most famous photographs, “In the Box, Horizontal” (1962), shows […]

Cesáreo Bernaldo de Quirós (1879 - 1969)

Painter. In 1899 won the “Scholarship Europe”, and in the next year moved  to Rome to improve their knowledge. At the Venice Biennale of 1901 earned a “Commendation Award” and in the exhibition in Saint Louis, United States, 1904, he won a Bronze Medal. He returned to Buenos Aires in 1905 and exhibited his works […]

Hendrik Petrus Berlage (1856 - 1934)

Architect. Born in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Some of his most famous works include the Amsterdam Commodities Exchange, the plan for extension of Amsterdam, the ‘plan Zuid’ or ‘plan Berlage’, the Berlage brug (bridge) in Amsterdam and the St. Hubertusslot part of the Kröller-Müller Museum. He is considered to be the “Father of Modern architecture” in the […]

Ferenc Berko (1916 - 2000)

Photographer. Born in Hungary, he was orphaned as a child and raised by friends of the family in Germany, where he was exposed to the artists of the Bauhaus movement. When the Nazis came to power  he fled to England in 1933, where he studied with the photographer Otto Emil Hoppe. In 1938 he moved […]

George Edwin Bergstrom (1876 - 1955)

Architect.  Bergstrom, who received a degree in architecture from MIT in 1899, moved to Los Angeles, California in 1901, and two years later married Nancy Cheney Kimberly, daughter of one of Kimberly-Clark Corp.’s founders. From 1905 to 1915 Bergstrom was in partnership with architect John Parkinson. The firm of Parkinson & Bergstrom designed numerous public […]

Sy Berger (1923 - 2014)

Designer. Known as “The Father of the modern day baseball card”, Berger (while an employee at the Topps Company) created a revolutionary appearance for the baseball trading card which evolved from a hobby into a multi-million dollar business. Born Seymour Perry Berger, he served with the United States Army Air Forces during World War II […]

Christian Bérard (1902 - 1949)

Artist. Born in Paris, he exhibited his paintings as early as 1924 but won fame later in the decade as a fashion illustrator. He worked for Vogue magazine from 1935 to 1948 and his designs influenced Christian Dior and Elsa Schiaparelli. Berard was also active in movies and the theatre, and is probably best remembered […]

August Benziger (1867 - 1955)

Artist. He was a portrait painter best known of his portraits of Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, which are in the Historical Society of Chicago. He was also was commissioned to do portaits of Popes Leo XIII and Pius XI. (bio by: Laurie)  Family links:  Spouse:  Gertrude L. Lytton Benziger (1875 – 1966)* *Calculated […]

Thomas Hart Benton (1889 - 1975)

Painter,  Muralist.  Along with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry,  he was the outstanding figure in the American Regionalist movement of the 1930s and 1940s. Benton is best known for his murals of everyday and historical scenes of the Midwest and Southern United States.  Although he declared himself “an enemy of modernism” his work is […]

Arthur Burnett Benton (1858 - 1927)

American Architect. In 1887, Benton studied at the Topeka School of Art and Design in Kansas. The following year he went to work for two years as a draftsman in the architectural department of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. In 1890, he relocated to Omaha, Nebraska, where he worked as a draftsman in […]

John Bentley (1839 - 1902)

John Francis Bentley was born in Doncaster, Yorkshire. As a boy, he enjoyed sketching and architecture, but his father disapproved and found him a job as an apprentice with a firm of engineers in Manchester. In 1855, however, he moved to London and began a five-year indenture with a firm of architects. The following year, […]

Marilyn Burns (1950 - 2014)

American Actress. Burns, who graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in Drama, made her first film appearance in the Robert Altman movie ‘Brewster McCloud’ (1970). She appeared in small parts in other films, but her breakout came in 1974 when she landed the lead role of Sally Hardesty in Tobe […]

John Prentiss Benson (1865 - 1947)

Maritime realist painter and architect. He was born into a wealthy Salem merchant family. His brother, Frank W. Benson was a renowned impressionist painter. Although he aspired to a career in art, he made his living as an architect and was well into his fifties before he began his career painting maritime scenes. He is […]

Frank Weston Benson (1862 - 1951)

Last of the Great American Impressionist painters and one of the most honored and successful artists of his time. He is famed for works that capture dazzling plays of light in both indoors and outdoors settings. He was born to a wealthy merchant family in Salem. His brother, John Prentiss Benson, was a well known […]

Dallas McDonald Burnette (1900 - 1976)

Stage and screen actress. She is buried next to her husband, actor Smiley Burnette. (bio by: A.J. Marik)  Family links:  Spouse:  Smiley Burnette (1911 – 1967)* *Calculated relationship