Ruan Lingyu (1910 - 1935)

Ruan Lingyu was born to a working class family in Shanghai. Her father died when she was young, and her mother brought her up working as a housemaid. In 1926, to help make ends meet, Ruan signed up for the prominent Mingxing Film Company. She made her first film at the age of 16. The film, […]

Rube Goldberg (1883 - 1970)

Cartoonist.  His strips included “Boob McNutt” and “Foolish Questions”.  Best known for “Goldberg’s Inventions” – extremely roundabout ways to a simple end, using a chain of living and mechanical agents.  Won Pulitzer prize in 1948 for editorial cartooning. (bio by: Ginny M)  Family links:  Parents:  Max Goldberg (1851 – 1946)  Hannah Cohn Goldberg (1858 – […]

Ruben Cantu (1966 - 1993)

Ruben Cantu grew up with his mother and father, until the age of 14, when the couple split up, with Ruben’s mother moving 20 miles (30 km) away, and Ruben and his father continuing to live in a trailer in a crime-ridden south San Antonio barrio. The neighborhood was home to a loose band of […]

Rubén Darío (1867 - 1916)

Poet. Born in Nicaragua, he is the highest figure of the Modernism Movement. Among his best remembered books are “Prosas Profanas,” “Cantos de Vida y Esperanza,” “Epístolas y Poemas,” “Azul,” and “Los Raros.” His real name was Félix Rubén García Sarmiento. (bio by: José L Bernabé Tronchoni)

Rubén Green (1946 - 2003)

Stage, television and cinema actor. Best known for his roles in soap operas. (bio by: 380W)

Rubin “Hurricane” Carter (1937 - 2014)

Carter was born in Clifton, New Jersey, the fourth of seven children. He acquired a criminal record and was sentenced to a juvenile reformatory for assault, having stabbed a man when he was 11. Carter escaped from the reformatory in 1954 and joined the Army. A few months after completing infantry basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, he was sent to West Germany. While in Germany, Carter […]

Ruby Dee (1922 - 2014)

Ruby Dee Dee was born Ruby Ann Wallace in Cleveland, Ohio in 1922, to Gladys Hightower and Marshall Edward Nathaniel Wallace, a cook, waiter and porter. After her mother left the family, Dee’s father remarried, to Emma Amelia Benson, a schoolteacher. Dee was raised in Harlem, New York. She attended Hunter College High School and went on to graduate from Hunter College with a degree inromance languages in […]

Ruby Jean Butler Dandridge (1900 - 1987)

Actress, American stage and screen figure of the 1930s through the 1950s. Mother of actress Dorothy Dandridge. Their ashes are together within the same niche. (bio by: A.J. Marik)  Family links:  Children:  Vivian Alferetta Dandridge (1921 – 1991)*  Dorothy Jean Dandridge (1922 – 1965)* *Calculated relationship

Ruby Keeler (1910 - 1993)

Keeler was born in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada, to an Irish Catholic family, one of six siblings. Two sisters, Helen and Gertrude, had brief performing careers. Her father was a truck driver, and when she was three years old, her family packed up and moved to New York City where he knew he could get […]

Rudolf Blind (1970 - 1916)

Artist,  Translator. He was born in Brussels to Karl Blind and his wife Friederica (nee Ettlinger), who were from Mannheim in Germany but had been expelled from France for plotting against Louis Napoleon. In 1852, they arrived in England, where Rudolf was educated at University College School in Frognal, North London, and at the Royal […]

Rudolf Dassler (1898 - 1974)

Adolf Dassler, Rudolf’s younger brother, started to produce sports shoes in his mother’s kitchen after his return from World War I. His father, Christoph, who worked in a shoe factory, and the brothers Zehlein, who produced the handmade spikes for track shoes in their blacksmith’s shop, supported Adolf in starting his own business. In 1924, […]

Rudolf Ivanovich Abel (1903 - 1971)

Soviet Union Intelligence Officer. He was a Russian Cold War spy who had been captured by the United States while engaged in espionage. Born Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher in England to revolutionary parents who fled Czarist Russia, he served in the Russian Army during World War II, engaging in clandestine operations behind Nazi German lines. Trained […]

Rudolf Sprüngli-Ammann (1816 - 1897)

Confectioner. He was one of the founders of the Swiss chocolate and candy company Lindt & Sprüngli. He began making chocolates in the confectionary shop of his father, David Sprüngli, in Zurich, Switzerland in 1845. He opened his own chocolate production company in 1847. In 1892, he turned the company over to his sons, David […]

Rudolf Virchow (1821 - 1902)

Rudolf Ludwig Carl Virchow (English /ˈvɪərkoʊ, ˈfɪərxoʊ/; German: [ˈvɪɐ̯çoː]; 13 October 1821 – 5 September 1902) was a German physician, anthropologist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist, writer, editor, and politician, known for his advancement of public health. He is known as “the father of modern pathology” because his work helped to discredit humourism, bringing more science to […]

Rudolph Ackermann (1764 - 1834)

He attended the Latin school in Stollberg, but his wish to study at the university was made impossible by lack of financial means, and he therefore became a saddler like his father.  He worked as a saddler and coach-builder in different German cities, then moved to Paris, and then London, where in 1795 he established […]

Rudolph Hass (1892 - 1952)

After reading a magazine article illustrating an avocado tree with dollar bills hanging from it in 1925, Rudolph Hass used all the money he had, plus a loan from his sister, Ida Hass, to buy a small acre and a half avocado grove at 430 West Road La Habra Heights, California. The trees were old […]

Rudolph Moshammer (1940 - 2005)

Born in Munich, Germany, Moshammer had an education in retail industry trading. He began to design fashion in the 1960s.  His base of existence was his boutique “Carnaval de Venise” in Munich’s high society street, Maximilianstraße. There he created fashion for wealthy men from furs, cashmere, and silk. With this strategy he attracted the high […]

Rudolph Schaefer (1863 - 1923)

Businessman.  He was the son of Maximilian Schaefer, and at one time was the president of F&M Schaefer Brewing Co.  Max and his brother Frederick were the ones who founded the F&M Schaefer Brewing Co in 1848.  Family links:  Spouse:  Frederica Vilette Beck Schaefer (1864 – 1931)* *Calculated relationship

Rudolph Wurlitzer (1831 - 1914)

Founder of The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company. Makers of musical instruments for bands, carousels, and theaters. His three sons Howard, Rudolph, and Farny were also part of the company.  (bio by: Paul Deluca)  Family links:  Children:  Howard W. Wurlitzer (1871 – 1928)*  Rudolph H. Wurlitzer (1873 – 1948)*  Percival Wurlitzer (1877 – 1878)*  Farny Reginald Wurlitzer […]

Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936)

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (/ˈrʌdjərd ˈkɪplɪŋ/ RUD-yərd KIP-ling (rhotic); 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936) was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. Rudyard Kipling’s works of fiction include The Jungle Book (1894), Kim (1901), and many short stories, including “The Man Who Would Be King” (1888). His poems include “Mandalay” (1890), “Gunga Din” […]

Rue McClanahan (1934 - 2010)

Actress. Best known as the co-star of the popular TV sitcom The Golden Girls. Born Eddi-Rue McClanahan, she grew up in Ardmore, Oklahoma, graduated from the University of Tulsa, and began a career as an actress in 1957. In 1969 she made her Broadway debut as Sally Weber in the original production of the musical […]

Rufe Davis (1908 - 1974)

American motion-picture and television actor of the 1930s, 40s, 50s, and 60s. He played the role of ‘Lullaby Joslin’ in a number of Republic western serials and Floyd Smoot (1963-68,70), the conductor-fireman-brakeman of the Hooterville Cannonball (and partner-in-blunders with Smiley Burnett who portrayed engineer Charley Pratt (1962-1967)). (bio by: A.J. Marik)  Family links:  Spouse:  Nettie […]

Rufino Blanco Fombona (1874 - 1944)

Venezuelan poet, essayist and novelist, one of the leaders of Modernismo.  Active in Venezuelan political affairs, he lived exiliated many years in Europe and contributed to spread the knowledge of Spanish American literature abroad.  His poems, as the collection “Cantos de la Prisión y del Destierro” are better than his novels.  Among his novels are […]

Rufus Bernhard Von Kleinsmid (1875 - 1964)

Educator. He was recognized as one of the nation’s most distinguished citizens and educators through the National Institute of Social Sciences Gold Medal Award. From 1914 to 1921, he served as the seventh president of the University of Arizona. In 1921, he became the fifth president the University of Southern California serving until 1947. Under […]

Rufus Sibley (1841 - 1928)

Businessman. He co-founder of Sibley, Lindsay and Curr, which was for over a hundred years one of the most successful department stores in the United States. It was eventually bought out by Kaufmanns in the late 20th century.  (bio by: Mount Hope NY)  Family links:  Spouses:  Martha A Sibley (1846 – 1883)*  Elizabeth Conkey Sibley […]

Ruggiero “Richie the Boot” Boiardo (1890 - 1984)

Organized Crime Figure. He was a Capo in the Genovese Family from the days of Joe the Boss Masseria in the 1920’s until his retirement in the early 1970’s. He was based in the North Ward of Newark, New Jersey and he had absolute power over all organized crime in that city. His influence in […]

Ruggiero Boiardo (1890 - 1984)

Ruggiero Boiardo Was a caporegime in the Genovese crime family who ran mob operations in the Newark, New Jersey area. Born in Naples, Italy, Boiardo’s family immigrated to the Newark area in 1910. His first criminal activity involved bookmaking while he worked as a milkman. Boiardo eventually controlled criminal activities in the First Ward section […]

Rulon Allred (1906 - 1977)

Having turned away from the polygamous religion of his father and grandfather as a young man, Rulon Allred’s decision to take plural wives came in his twenties following what he described as a vision; the decision resulted in the estrangement of his first wife, Katherine. Allred began to assume greater responsibilities in the Short Creek, Arizona, […]

Rupert Chawner Brooke (1887 - 1915)

Rupert Chawner Brooke made friends among the Bloomsbury group of writers, some of whom admired his talent while others were more impressed by his good looks. Virginia Woolf boasted to Vita Sackville-West of once going skinny-dipping with Brooke in a moonlit pool when they were in Cambridge together. Brooke belonged to another literary group known as […]

Rupert Davies (1916 - 1976)

Rupert Davies was born in Liverpool. After service in the British Merchant Navy he was a Sub-Lieutenant Observer with the Fleet Air Arm during the Second World War. In 1940, the Swordfish aircraft in which he was flying ditched in the sea off the Dutch coast, following which Davies was captured and interned in the […]