Jim Jeffords (1934 - 2014)

Jim Jeffords won a seat in the Vermont State Senate in 1966. He followed that success in 1968 with a victory in the race for attorney general of Vermont. He was a Presidential Elector for Vermont in 1972, and voted for reelection of the Nixon-Agnew ticket. Jeffords sought the Republican Party nomination for Governor in 1972, […]

Edward Brooke (1919 - 2015)

In 1966, Edward Brooke defeated former Governor Endicott Peabody with 1,213,473 votes to 744,761, and served as a United States Senator for two terms, from January 3, 1967, to January 3, 1979. The black vote had, Time wrote, “no measurable bearing” on the election as less than 3% of the state’s population was black, and […]

Wendell Ford (1924 - 2015)

Wendell Ford (September 8, 1924 – January 22, 2015) was an American politician from the Commonwealth of Kentucky. He served for twenty-four years in the U.S. Senate and was the 53rd Governor of Kentucky. He was the first person to be successively elected lieutenant governor, governor and United States senator in Kentucky history. The Senate […]

Richard Schweiker (1926 - 2015)

In 1960, Richard Schweiker was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania’s 13th congressional district. At the time, the Montgomery County-based district included Schweiker’s home town of Norristown and several affluent suburban communities in the Philadelphia Main Line. A moderate to liberal Republican, he defeated conservative incumbent John Lafore in the Republican primary. […]

Dale Bumpers (1925 - 2016)

Dale Bumpers was virtually unknown when he announced his campaign for governor in 1970. Despite his lack of name recognition, his oratorical skills, personal charm, and outsider image put him in a runoff election for the Democratic nomination with former Governor Orval Faubus. Two other serious candidates were Attorney General Joe Purcell of Benton in […]

Marlow Cook (1926 - 2016)

Marlow Cook was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1957 and again in 1959. He served on a special committee analyzing education in the state and also on a planning committee. Cook was elected to two terms as Jefferson County Judge, the equivalent of a mayoral position administering populous Jefferson County, which, by the […]

Conrad Burns (1935 - 2016)

Conrad Burns faced an unexpectedly difficult reelection campaign in 2000. In February 1999, he announced that he would break his 1988 promise to hold office for only two terms, saying, “Circumstances have changed, and I have rethought my position.” Later that same month, while giving a speech about American dependence on foreign oil to the […]

Johnny Desmond (1919 - 1985)

Johnny Desmond was born in Detroit, Michigan; and as a boy, sang on a local radio station, but at age 15 he quit to work at his father’s grocery. He still retained a love of music, however, and briefly attended the Detroit Conservatory of Music before heading to the nightclub circuit, playing piano and singing. In […]

Bob Denver (1935 - 2005)

While teaching at Corpus Christi in 1958, Bob Denver shot the pilot for the TV series The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, and left teaching for his first professional acting job as a regular on the series when it was picked up in 1959. From 1959 to 1963, Denver appeared on Dobie Gillis as Maynard […]

Vernon Dent (1895 - 1963)

In the early 1920s, Vernon Dent was a fixture at the Mack Sennett studio, working with comedians Billy Bevan, Andy Clyde, and especially Harry Langdon. Dent alternately played breezy pals and blustery authority figures opposite Langdon’s timid character. Sennett voided all contracts when it came time to retool his studio for sound, and Dent moved […]

Reginald Denny (1891 - 1967)

Born in Richmond, Surrey, England, Reginald Denny (sources differ on his birth name giving variously Reginald Daymore, Reginald Leigh Daymore and Reginald Leigh Dugmore Denny) began his stage career at age seven in The Royal Family and in The Merry Widow at age 16, the year he left St. Francis Xavier College, Mayfield, Sussex. Years […]

Michael Denison (1915 - 1998)

After graduating, Michael Denison attended the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, where he met Dulcie Gray, a fellow student, who later became his wife in 1939 and his acting partner. They appeared in more than 100 West End productions, together in some 28 plays in London and countless tours of Britain and elsewhere. They […]

William Demarest (1892 - 1983)

William Demarest started in show business working in vaudeville, appearing with his wife as “Demarest and Colette”, then moved on to Broadway. Demarest worked regularly with director Preston Sturges, becoming part of a “stock” troupe of actors that Sturges repeatedly cast in his films. He appeared in ten films written by Sturges, eight of which […]

Afeni Shakur (1947 - 2016)

Afeni Shakur (born Alice Faye Williams; January 10, 1947 – May 3, 2016) was an American music businesswoman, philanthropist, political activist and Black Panther. She was the mother of the late rapper Tupac Shakur. She acted as her own criminal defense attorney after being accused of taking part in numerous bombings as a member of […]

Kenny Delmar (1910 - 1984)

Kenny Delmar was born September 5, 1910, in Boston, but moved to New York City in infancy after the separation of his parents. His mother, Evelyn Delmar, was a vaudevillian who toured the country with her sister. Kenny Delmar was on the stage from age seven. His first screen appearance was in the D. W. […]

Albert Dekker (1905 - 1968)

Albert Dekker was born Thomas Albert Ecke Van Dekker in Brooklyn, New York, the only child of Thomas and Grace Ecke Van Dekker. He attended Richmond Hill High School where he appeared in stage productions. He then attended Bowdoin College where he majored in pre-med with plans to become a doctor. On the advice of […]

Richard Deacon (1921 - 1984)

This tall, bald and usually bespectacled character actor often portrayed pompous, prissy, and/or imperious figures. Richard Deacon made appearances on The Jack Benny Program as a salesman and a barber, and on NBC’s Happy as a hotel manager. He had a brief role in Alfred Hitchcock’s film The Birds (1963) as Mitch’s (Rod Taylor) neighbor […]

Dennis Day (1916 - 1988)

Dennis Day appeared for the first time on Jack Benny’s radio show on October 8, 1939, taking the place of another famed tenor, Kenny Baker. He remained associated with Benny’s radio and television programs until Benny’s death in 1974. He was introduced (with actress Verna Felton playing his mother) as a young (nineteen-year-old), naive boy […]

Thayer David (1927 - 1978)

Thayer David was born March 4, 1927, in Medford, Massachusetts. His father, Thayer Frye Hersey, was an executive in the paper pulp industry. David attended Harvard University in the 1940s but did not graduate, concentrating instead upon a career on the stage. With financial support from his father, he co-founded the Brattle Theater Company (1948–1952) […]

Bobby Darin (1936 - 1973)

Bobby Darin’s career took off with a songwriting partnership, formed in 1955 with Don Kirshner, who he met at a candy store in Washington Heights. They wrote jingles and songs, beginning with “Bubblegum Pop.”  In 1956 his agent negotiated a contract with Decca Records. The songs recorded at Decca had very little success. A member of […]

Severn Darden (1929 - 1995)

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Severn Darden attended the University of Chicago. Darden’s offbeat and intellectual sense of humor, appropriate for someone who attended the University of Chicago and in fact a major element in the style of The Second City at that time, is evident throughout his work. One example of his offbeat humor is […]

Helmut Dantine (1918 - 1982)

Helmut Dantine enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and began his U.S. acting career at the Pasadena Playhouse. He was spotted by a talent scout and signed to a Warner Bros. contract. Dantine spent the early 1940s there, appearing in Casablanca (1942), Edge of Darkness (1943; his first lead role), Northern Pursuit […]

Henry Daniell (1894 - 1963)

In April 1921, Henry Daniell appeared at the Empire Theatre in New York City, as Prince Charles of Vaucluse in Clair de Lune, and subsequently toured for the next three years, reappearing in London at the Garrick Theatre in August 1925 as Jack Race in Cobra. He again went to New York for the first […]

Marcel Dalio (1899 - 1983)

Marcel Dalio was born Israel Moshe Blauschild in Paris to Romanian-Jewish immigrant parents. He performed in cabarets, revues and stage plays in the 1920s and acted in French films in the 1930s. After divorcing his first wife, Jany Holt, he married the young actress Madeleine Lebeau in 1939. In June 1940, Lebeau and Dalio left Paris […]

Keene Curtis (1923 - 2002)

Keene Curtis (February 15, 1923 – October 13, 2002) was an American character actor. Curtis was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, to Polley Francella (née Holbrook), a teacher, and Ira Charles Curtis, a railway and civil service employee. Curtis made his film debut in the 1948 Orson Welles adaptation of Macbeth. Additional film credits included American […]

Billy Curtis (1909 - 1988)

Billy Curtis, born Luigi Curto, (June 27, 1909 – November 9, 1988) was an American film and television actor with dwarfism who had a 50-year career in the entertainment industry. The bulk of his work was in the western and science fiction genres. One of his early roles was uncredited as a Munchkin city father in […]

Alan Curtis (1909 - 1953)

Alan Curtis began his career as a model before becoming an actor, appearing in local newspaper ads. His looks did not go unnoticed in Hollywood. He began appearing in films in the late 1930s (including a Technicolor appearance in the Alice Faye-Don Ameche film Hollywood Cavalcade and a memorable role in High Sierra (1941). He […]

Finlay Currie (1878 - 1968)

Finlay Currie (20 January 1878 – 9 May 1968) was a Scottish actor of stage, screen and television. Currie was born in Edinburgh, where he later attended George Watson’s College. His acting career began on the stage. He and his wife, Maude Courtney, did a song-and-dance act in the USA in the late 1890s. He made […]

Joel Crothers (1941 - 1985)

During the 1950s and 1960s, Joel Crothers made guest appearances on numerous primetime shows, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Defenders, Have Gun – Will Travel, Death Valley Days, Rescue 8, The Investigators, Zane Grey Theater, Studio One, Playhouse 90, Kraft Television Theatre, and Goodyear Playhouse. His later daytime television credits included First Ladies Diaries: Martha […]

Gary Crosby (1933 - 1995)

Gary Crosby was born in Los Angeles and attended Stanford University but dropped out. He fell into the entertainment business, and performed in a harmony singing group, The Crosby Boys, with his three brothers, Philip, Lindsay, and Dennis, during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. As a teenager, he duetted with his father on two songs, […]