Jewel Cobb (1924 - 2017)

Jewel Plummer was born in Chicago on January 17, 1924 as the only child of Frank V. Plummer, and Carriebel (Cole) Plummer. She was the great-granddaughter of a freed slave. Her grandfather was a pharmacist, her father Frank was a physician. Her mother Carriebel was a physical education teacher. Jewel Cobb enjoyed an upper-middle-class background […]

Tony Atkinson (1944 - 2017)

Tony Atkinson attended Cranbrook School. After considering studying mathematics, he graduated from the University of Cambridge in 1966 with a first-class degree before spending time at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He cited his interest in inequality as beginning from volunteering in a German hospital in the 1960s. He served as Warden of Nuffield College, Oxford, […]

Tom Pryce (1949 - 1977)

Thomas Maldwyn Pryce (11 June 1949 – 5 March 1977) was a British racing driver from Wales,[1][2] famous for winning the Brands Hatch Race of Champions, a non-championship Formula One race, in 1975 and for the circumstances surrounding his death. Pryce is the only Welsh driver to have won a Formula One race and is […]

Ronnie Peterson (1944 - 1978)

Bengt Ronnie Peterson (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈrɔni ˈpɛtɛˈʂon]; 14 February 1944 – 11 September 1978) was a Swedish racing driver. Known by the nickname ‘SuperSwede’, he was a two-time runner-up in the FIA Formula One World Drivers’ Championship. Ronnie Peterson began his motor racing career in kart racing, traditionally the discipline where the majority of race […]

Peter Revson (1939 - 1974)

Peter Revson began racing in 1960 while at the University of Hawaii. He previously attended both Columbia University and Cornell University, although he never graduated from college. Revson finished second in a local club event, driving a Plus Four Morgan. He proceeded in his racing career, becoming experienced in Formula cars, Trans-Am sedans, Can-Am Group […]

Ben Reitman (1879 - 1942)

Ben Reitman was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to poor Russian Jewish immigrants in 1879, and grew up in Chicago. At the age of ten, he became a hobo, but returned to Chicago and worked in the Polyclinic Laboratory as a “laboratory boy”. In 1900, he entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Chicago, […]

Wesley Ruggles (1889 - 1972)

Wesley Ruggles (June 11, 1889 – January 8, 1972) was an American film director. He was born in Los Angeles, younger brother of actor Charles Ruggles. He began his career in 1915 as an actor, appearing in a dozen or so silent films, on occasion with Charles Chaplin. In 1917, he turned his attention to directing, making […]

Gordon Jones (1911 - 1963)

Iowa-born GordonJones had been a student athlete and star football guard (“Bull” Jones) at University of California, Los Angeles, and had also played a few seasons of professional football. He started out playing small roles in Wesley Ruggles’ and Ernest B. Schoedsack’s The Monkey’s Paw (1933), his first credited role in Sam Wood’s Let ‘Em […]

Ron Ormond (1910 - 1981)

Ron Ormond was born Vittorio Di Naro, anglicised to Vic Narro. He took his surname from his friend the magician and hypnotist Ormond McGill. Ron Ormond married the vaudeville singer and dancer June Carr (1912–2006) six weeks after he met her when they were performing on stage in 1935. Ormond was performing as a magician […]

Hal Wallis (1898 - 1986)

Aaron Blum Wolowicz was born October 19, 1898 in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Eva (née Blum) and Jacob Wolowicz, Ashkenazi Jews from the Suwałki region of Poland who changed their surname to Wallis. His family moved in 1922 to Los Angeles, California, where he found work as part of the publicity department at Warner Bros. […]

Irving Rapper (1898 - 1999)

Irving Rapper (16 January 1898 – 20 December 1999) was an England-born American film director. Born in London, England, Rapper emigrated to the United States and became an actor and stage director on Broadway while studying at New York University. In 1936, he went to Hollywood, where he was hired by Warner Bros. as an assistant […]

Walter Lang (1896 - 1972)

Walter Lang was born in Tennessee. As a young man he went to New York City where he found clerical work at a film production company. The business piqued his artistic instincts and he began learning the various facets of filmmaking and eventually worked as an assistant director. However, Lang also had ambitions to be […]

Frank Orth (1880 - 1962)

By 1897, Frank Orth was performing in vaudeville with his wife, Ann Codee, in an act called “Codee and Orth”. In 1909, he expanded into song writing, with songs such as “The Phone Bell Rang” and “Meet Me on the Boardwalk, Dearie”. His first contact with motion pictures was in 1928, when he was part […]

Will Hudson (1908 - 1981)

Will Hudson (né Arthur Murray Hainer; 8 March 1908 Grimsby, Ontario – 16 July 1981 Isle of Palms, South Carolina) was a Canadian-born American composer, arranger, and big band leader who flourished from the mid-1930s through the mid-1950s. He co-wrote his two biggest hits “Moonglow” and “Organ Grinder’s Swing” in 1934 and 1936, respectively. Hudson’s […]

Matty Malneck (1903 - 1981)

Matty Malneck (December 9, 1903 – February 25, 1981) was an American jazz bandleader, violinist, violist and songwriter. Malneck’s first professional gigs as a violinist began when he was age 16. He worked with Paul Whiteman from 1926 to 1937, and also recorded in the same period with Frank Signorelli, Frankie Trumbauer, Bix Beiderbecke, and […]

Mitchell Parish (1900 - 1993)

Mitchell Parish was born Michael Hyman Pashelinsky to a Jewish family in Lithuania. His family emigrated to the United States, arriving on February 3, 1901 on the SS Dresden when he was less than a year old. They settled first in Louisiana where his paternal grandmother had relatives, but later moved to New York City. […]

Margie Hines (1909 - 2011)

Margret “Margie” Hines was an American voice actress. She was known for her work as a voice artist at Fleischer Studios, where she voiced Olive Oyl in the Popeye the Sailor cartoons from 1939 to 1944. Margie Hines was the first voice actress for Fleischer’s cartoon character Betty Boop, who debuted in the cartoon short […]

Dave Fleischer (1894 - 1979)

Dave Fleischer was the youngest of five brothers and grew up in Brownsville, Brooklyn, a poor Jewish ghetto. By the time Dave was born, his father has lost his means of livelihood due to The Industrial Revolution and the mass production of garments. Dave worked as an Usher at the famous Palace Theater on Broadway, […]

Jack Lawrence (1912 - 2009)

Jack Lawrence was born Jacob Louis Schwartz in Brooklyn, New York to an Orthodox Jewish family of modest means as the third of four sons. His parents Barney (Beryl) Schwartz and Fanny (Fruma) Goldman Schwartz were first cousins who had run away from their home in Belaya Tserkov (Bila Tserkva, Ukraine) to come to America […]

Carolyn Leigh (1926 - 1983)

Carolyn Leigh (August 21, 1926 – November 19, 1983) was an American lyricist for Broadway, film, and popular songs. She is best known as the writer with partner Cy Coleman of the pop standards “Witchcraft” and “The Best Is Yet to Come.” With Johnny Richards she wrote the million-seller “Young at Heart” for the film […]

Herman Hupfeld (1894 - 1951)

Herman Hupfeld was born in Montclair, New Jersey, the son of Fredericka (Rader), a church organist, and Charles Ludwig Hupfeld. He was sent to study violin in Germany at age 9. Returning to the United States he served in the military during World War I, and he entertained camps and hospitals during World War II. […]

Max Steiner (1888 - 1971)

Maximilian Raoul “Max” Steiner (May 10, 1888 – December 28, 1971) was an Austrian-born American music composer for theatre and films. Max Steiner was a child prodigy who conducted his first operetta when he was twelve and became a full-time professional, either composing, arranging, or conducting, when he was fifteen. He worked in England, then […]

Peter Lorre (1904 - 1964)

Peter Lorre (born László Löwenstein; 26 June 1904 – 23 March 1964) was an Austro-Hungarian-American actor. In Austria, he began his stage career in Vienna before moving to Germany where he had his breakthrough, first on the stage, then in film in Berlin in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Lorre caused an international sensation […]

Dooley Wilson (1886 - 1953)

Dooley Wilson was born in Tyler, Texas, and broke into show business at the age of 12, playing in a vaudeville minstrel show. He sang and played the drums in black clubs in the Tyler area before he moved to Chicago. He received the nickname “Dooley” while working in the Pekin Theatre in Chicago, circa […]

Leonid Kinskey (1903 - 1998)

Leonid Kinskey (18 April 1903 – 8 September 1998) was a Russian-born film and television actor who enjoyed a long career. Kinskey is best known for his role as Sascha in the film Casablanca (1942). Leonid Kinskey was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. He fled the Russian Revolution and acted on stage in Europe and […]

Russell Simpson (1880 - 1959)

Russell Simpson was born on June 17, 1880 in Danville, California. He attended grammar school in the Danville District in Contra Costa County, California; he graduated on July 2, 1892. At age 18, Simpson prospected for gold in Alaska. He began taking acting classes in Seattle, Washington. He was married to Gertrude Alter from New […]

Rex Ingram (1895 - 1969)

Rex Ingram was born near Cairo, Illinois, on the Mississippi River; his father was a steamer fireman on the riverboat Robert E. Lee. Ingram graduated from the Northwestern University medical school in 1919 and was the first African-American man to receive a Phi Beta Kappa key from Northwestern University. He went to Hollywood as a […]

John Justin (1917 - 2002)

John Justin (24 November 1917 – 29 November 2002) was a British stage and film actor. John Justinian de Ledesma was born in London, England, the son of a well-off Argentine rancher. Though he grew up on his father’s ranch, he was educated at Bryanston School in Bryanston, Dorset. He developed an interest in flying […]

Robert Reed (1932 - 1992)

Robert Reed Robert Reed is best remembered as playing the role of ‘Kenneth Preston’ on the television drama “The Defenders,” that aired from 1961 to 1965 as well as the character ‘Mike Brady’ on the ABC television sitcom “The Brady Bunch,” which aired from 1969 to 1974. Born John Robert Rietz, Jr. in Highland Park, Illinois, […]

Shoeless Joe Jackson (1887 - 1951)

Shoeless Joe Jackson Shoeless Joe Jackson is best known today for being the most recognizable of the eight Chicago White Sox players who were banned forever from Major League baseball for his role in the 1919 “Black Sox” Scandal. Born in Greenville, South Carolina, in 1902 he became a cotton textile worker with Brandon Mills, sweeping […]