Mel Allen (1913 - 1996)

Allen was born in Birmingham, Alabama. (Biographer Stephen Borelli noted that he added the second middle name Avrom after his deceased grandfather.) He attended the University of Alabama, where he was a member of the Kappa Nu Fraternity as an undergraduate. During his time at Alabama, Israel served as the public address announcer for Alabama Crimson Tide football games. In 1933, when the […]

Mel Blanc (1908 - 1989)

Mel Blanc Mel Blanc, the voice of Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny, Barney Rubble, Daffy Duck and countless other animated vertebrates, died Monday afternoon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He was 81 and had been hospitalized since May 19 suffering from heart disease and related medical problems, said hospital spokesman Ron Wise. With Blanc when he died […]

Mel Daniels (1944 - 2015)

Mel Daniels attended Pershing High School in Detroit, Michigan, which also produced players like Spencer Haywood, Ralph Simpson, Kevin Willis and Steve Smith. Daniels then played for the University of New Mexico Lobos basketball team, where he averaged 20 points per game and was named an all-American. He was the ninth pick of the 1967 […]

Mel Ferrer (1917 - 2008)

Ferrer was born Melchor Gastón Ferrer in the Elberon section of Long Branch, New Jersey, of Cuban and Irish descent. His father, Dr. José María Ferrer (1857–1920), was born in Cuba, of Spanish ancestry, and was an authority on pneumonia and served as chief of staff of St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York City. His […]

Mel McDaniel (1942 - 2011)

Melvin Huston “Mel” McDaniel was born in Checotah, Oklahoma, a small town in McIntosh County, Oklahoma. McDaniel, the son of a truck driving father, grew up in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. He was inspired to play music after seeing Elvis Presley on television. His first interest in music was when he learned the trumpet in the fourth grade, but he soon learned […]

Mel Street (1933 - 1978)

Mel Street Street was born in Rowe, Virginia to a coal mining family. Publications cite his year of birth as 1933, although his family maintains that he was born in 1935. He began performing on western Virginia and West Virginia radio shows at the age of sixteen. Street subsequently worked as a radio tower electrician […]

Mel Tillis (1932 - 2017)

Although Mel Tillis charted on his own Billboard’s Hot Country Songs list, he had more success as a songwriter. He continued to be Webb Pierce’s songwriter. He wrote the hits “I Ain’t Never” (Tillis’ own future hit) and “Crazy, Wild Desire”. Bobby Bare, Tom Jones (“Detroit City”), Wanda Jackson, and Stonewall Jackson also covered his […]

Mel Turpin (1960 - 2010)

A 6’11” center, Mel Turpin was born in Lexington, Kentucky and attended Fork Union Military Academy in Fork Union, Virginia from 1979–80. He was FUMA’s most valuable player for the postgraduate squad under coach Fletcher Arritt, also being voted the number one player in the state for varsity basketball; he averaged 19 points, 12 rebounds […]

Melanie Susan “Mel” Appleby (1966 - 1990)

Pop Music Singer. Born in Hackney, in East London, she formed the pop music singing duo “Mel and Kim” with her older sister Kim Appleby. They recorded two full length releases in the late 1980s, and had four hit singles, one of which, “Respectable”, reached Number One in the popular music charts. Diagnosed with cancer […]

Melbert Ford (1960 - 2010)

Melbert Ford An American convicted double murderer who in 2010 was executed by lethal injection by the U.S. state of Georgia after being convicted of murder in 1987.  Ford was born in Georgia, America. He was convicted in 1987 of killing his former girlfriend, Martha Chapman Matich, and Lisa Chapman, her 11-year-old niece, in a […]

Melbourne Brindle (1904 - 1995)

Artist. Born Ewart Melbourne Brindle, he began drawing as a teenager and in 1918 moved to San Francisco, where he worked on department store advertisements and painted several scenes, including a now well known one of a tower on the Golden Gate Bridge. In 1938 he relocated to the eastern United States and illustrated for […]

Meles Zenawi (1955 - 2012)

Meles was born in Adwa, Tigray, in northern Ethiopia, to an Ethiopian father Zenawi Asres from Adwa and Alemash Guebreluel from Adi Quala, Eritrea. He was the third of six children in the family. His first name at birth was “Legesse” (thus Legesse Zenawi, Ge’ez: ለገሰ ዜናዊ legesse zēnāwī). However, he eventually became better known […]

Melina Mercouri (1920 - 1994)

After her graduation, Mercouri joined the National Theatre of Greece and played the role of Electra in Eugene O’Neill’s play Mourning Becomes Electra in 1945. In 1949, she had her first major success in the theatre playing Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, written by Tennessee Williams and staged by Karolos Koun’s Art Theatre. […]

Melody Patterson (1949 - 2015)

Melody Patterson (April 16, 1949 – August 20, 2015) was an American actress known for her role as Wrangler Jane in the 1960s television series F Troop. Patterson, who began her career performing in plays at the age of four, attended the Hollywood Professional School and later studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in […]

Melvil Dewey (1851 - 1931)

Melvil Dewey is best known as the originator of the Dewey Decimal System. His name was originally Louis Kossuth, he later went by Melville Dewey, then shortened his first name to Melvil. He proposed a decimal-based cataloging system after working in his college library for some time. He was a founding member of the American […]

Melville Cooper (1896 - 1973)

George Melville Cooper was born on 15 October 1896 in Aston, Birmingham, Warwickshire to W.C.J. and Frances (née Brennan) Cooper. He was brought up in Britain and attended public schools, including King Edward’s School in Birmingham. He began to develop an interest in acting as a teenager. At the age of eighteen, he made his […]

Melvin Belli (1907 - 1996)

Attorney. A native of Sonora, California, Belli graduated from the University of California Berkeley in 1929 and received his law degree from the Boalt Hall School of Law in 1933. Establishing his practice in San Francisco, he quickly made a name for himself as an expert in personal injury cases. His many successes in such […]

Melvin Burkhart (1907 - 2001)

Melvin Burkhart Was a legendary sideshow performer who billed himself as the Human Blockhead and proved it by hammering nails and spikes up his nose in front of millions of Americans in thousands of places — from the 1939 World’s Fair to countless dusty midways to the Coney Island boardwalk to an off-Broadway theater just […]

Melvin Horace Purvis, Jr (1903 - 1960)

Former FBI agent. In 1933 he became famous for leading the group that gunned down John Dillinger in Chicago. In 1934 he made headlines again by leading the group that gunned down Pretty Boy Floyd in an Ohio farm field. J. Edgar Hoover did not like FBI agents to receive so much fame and he […]

Melvin Purvis (1903 - 1960)

Melvin Purvis was born in Timmonsville, South Carolina, to Melvin Horace Purvis, Sr. (1869–1938), a tobacco farmer and businessman, and Janie Elizabeth (née Mims, 1874–1927) as the fifth of eight siblings. Purvis was a well-educated man, and known to be a crack shot.[4] He received his law degree from the University of South Carolina School of […]

Melvyn Douglas (1901 - 1981)

Melvyn Douglas developed his acting skills in Shakespearean repertory while in his teens and with stock companies in Sioux City, Iowa, Evansville, Indiana, Madison, Wisconsin and Detroit, Michigan. He served in the United States Army in World War I. He established an outdoor theatre in Chicago. He had a long theatre, film and television career […]

Menchu Quesada (1918 - 2005)

Actress. She participated in 15 movies, but she is specially remembered for her role of ‘Lucía Campanelli’ in the successful television comedy “Los Campanelli” (1969 to 1974.) and for her secondary roles in many soap operas. Between 1954 and 1960 she lived and worked in Spain, achieving good critics. (bio by: 380W)

Mentor Graham (1970 - 1970)

Abraham Lincoln’s Tutor.  Family links:  Spouse:  Sarah Rafferty Graham (____ – 1869)* *Calculated relationship

Mercedes McCambridge (1916 - 2004)

McCambridge was born in Joliet, Illinois, the daughter of Irish American Roman Catholic parents Marie (née Mahaffry) and John Patrick McCambridge, a farmer. She graduated from Mundelein College in Chicago before embarking on a career. She began her career as a radio actor during the 1930s while also performing on Broadway and continued through the 40s […]

Mercedes Palomino (1913 - 2006)

Stage actress, director. She was born in Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain. she emigrated with her family to Argentina where, at five, she began to participate in theatre. She studied at the Conservatory of Dramatic Art of Argentina and began a career in journalism and radio. After another move with her family to Peru, she became the […]

Mercedes Prendes (1970 - 1981)

Noted Spanish Actress. She is one of the best Spanish Stage Actresses of the 40s. She triumphed in plays such as “Macbeth,” “Romeo y Julieta,” “Fuenteovejuna” and “La Dama Duende”. She also appeared in a few films but, leave the cinema after Spanish Civil War. Among others she appeared in “Estudiantes y Modistillas” (1927),”La Bien […]

Mercedes Vecino (1916 - 2004)

Actress. She began her career as a singer in the Stage Company of Pedro Terol and Marcos Redondo. She was the first woman to give a kiss in a spanish film in “El Pobre Rico” (1942). She also appeared in “El sobre lacrado” (1942), “Los Ladrones somos gente honrada” (1942), “El Escándalo” (1943), “¿Dónde vas […]

Mercer Ellington (1919 - 1996)

Mercer Ellington was born in Washington, DC, the son of the composer, pianist, and bandleader Duke Ellington and Edna Thompson. By the age of eighteen he had written his first piece to be recorded by his father (“Pigeons and Peppers”). He attended New College for the Education of Teachers at Columbia University, New York University […]

Meredith Edwards (1917 - 1999)

Welsh Actor. He was born in Rhosllannerchrugog, Wales and died in Denbighshire, Wales. He stood and lost as a Welsh Nationalist candidate in the 1966 General Election. Film and television credits include “Gulliver’s Travels,” “Coronation Street,” “The Great St. Trinian’s Train Robbery,” “Doctor in Love,” “The Trials of Oscar Wilde,” “Dunkirk,” “Town on Trial,” “The […]

Meredith Kercher (1985 - 2007)

Meredith Susanna Cara Kercher (born 28 December 1985 in Southwark, South London), known to her friends as “Mez”, lived in Coulsdon, South London. She had two older brothers, John and Lyle, and an older sister, Stephanie. Her father, also named John, is a freelance journalist, and her mother, Arline, is a housewife. Kercher attended the […]