Wyatt Emory Cooper (1927 - 1978)

Wyatt Emory Cooper was born in the small town of Quitman, Mississippi, outside of Meridian, Mississippi, the son of Rixie Jane Annie (née Anderson) and Emmet Debro Cooper. Cooper was from a poor family with deep Southern roots, and later moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, as a young child. In his twenties, Cooper moved to […]

Leopold Stokowski (1882 - 1977)

Leopold Stokowski (18 April 1882 – 13 September 1977) was a British conductor of Polish and Irish descent. One of the leading conductors of the early and mid-20th Century, he is best known for his long association with the Philadelphia Orchestra and for appearing in the film Fantasia. He was especially noted for his free-hand […]

Sidney Lumet (1924 - 2011)

Sidney Lumet (/luːˈmɛt/ loo-met; June 25, 1924 – April 9, 2011) was an American director, producer and screenwriter with over 50 films to his credit. He was nominated for the Academy Award as Best Director for 12 Angry Men (1957), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Network (1976) and The Verdict (1982). He did not win an […]

Jay Dratler (1911 - 1968)

Jay Dratler (September 14, 1910- September 25, 1968) was an American screenwriter and novelist. Born in New York City, his mother was from Austria. After attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the late 1920s, he studied at the Sorbonne in France and the University of Vienna, becoming fluent in French and […]

Mitchell Leisen (1898 - 1972)

Mitchell Leisen entered the film industry in the 1920s, beginning in the art and costume departments. He directed his first film in 1933 with Cradle Song and became known for his keen sense of aesthetics in the glossy Hollywood melodramas and screwball comedies he turned out. His best known films include the Alberto Casella adaptation […]

Quentin Reynolds (1902 - 1965)

Quentin Reynolds (April 11, 1902 – March 17, 1965) was a journalist and World War II war correspondent. He was a member of Delta Tau Delta International Fraternity. As associate editor at Collier’s Weekly from 1933 to 1945, Reynolds averaged twenty articles a year. He also published twenty-five books, including The Wounded Don’t Cry, London […]

Basil Wright (1907 - 1987)

After leaving Sherborne School, a well known independent school in the market town of Sherborne in Dorset, Basil Wright was the first recruit to join John Grierson at the Empire Marketing Board’s film unit in 1930, shortly after he graduated from Cambridge University. Wright’s 1934 film Song of Ceylon is his most celebrated work. Shot […]

Daniel Chaplin (1820 - 1864)

Daniel Chaplin (January 22, 1820 – August 20, 1864) was a Union army officer in the American Civil War. Under Chaplin’s command, the ill-fated charge of the 1st Maine Heavy Artillery Regiment against Confederate breastworks during Siege of Petersburg resulted on the greatest single loss of life by a Union Regiment in a single action. […]

Alexander Chambers (1832 - 1888)

Alexander Chambers (August 23, 1832 – January 2, 1888) was a US Army officer, who became a general during the American Civil War. Chambers was born in Cattaraugus, New York. He graduated from West Point with the class of 1853 (which also included John Schofield and Philip Sheridan), and was commissioned a second lieutenant. He […]

Joshua Chamberlain (1828 - 1914)

Joshua Chamberlain (born Lawrence Joshua Chamberlain, September 8, 1828 – February 24, 1914)was an American college professor from the State of Maine, who volunteered during the American Civil War to join the Union Army. He became a highly respected and decorated Union officer, reaching the rank of brigadier general (and brevet major general). He is […]

Jack Catton (1920 - 1990)

General Jack Catton (February 5, 1920 – December 5, 1990) was a United States Air Force four-star general and was commander of the Air Force Logistics Command with headquarters at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and of the Military Airlift Command. General Catton was born in Berkeley, California, in 1920. He attended Fairfax High School in […]

Isaac Catlin (1835 - 1916)

Immediately after President Abraham Lincoln’s call for volunteers at the beginning of the Civil War, Catlin raised a company of infantry and was appointed its captain. The unit, said to be “the first full company which enlisted in the North,” was mustered in on May 14, 1861, as part of Frederick Townsend’s 3rd New York […]

David Anthony Kennedy (1955 - 1984)

David Anthony Kennedy The Palm Beach County authorities said today that David Anthony Kennedy died of ”multiple ingestion” of three drugs found in his body fluids. They also announced the arrest of two men in connection with his death. Cocaine, Demerol and Mellaril were found in the body of David Anthony Kennedy, the authorities said. […]

Leo Clarke (1892 - 1916)

Leo Clarke was born in Waterdown, Ontario. He spent his early years in England, home of his parents, but later returned and settled in Winnipeg, Manitoba in about 1903. When World War I started, he was working as a surveyor for the Canadian Northern Railway in the Canadian north. He returned to Winnipeg to enlist […]

Champ Clark (1850 - 1921)

Champ Clark was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1892. After a surprise loss in 1894 to William M. Treloar, he regained the seat in 1896, and remained in the House until his death, the day before he was to leave office. Clark ran for House Minority Leader in 1903 but was defeated […]

Bennett Clark (1890 - 1954)

The son of Champ Clark, a prominent Democratic Party leader of the early 20th century, Bennett Clark was born in Bowling Green, Missouri. After graduating with a B.A. from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri in 1912, he earned an LL.B. at George Washington University. Bennett Clark became parliamentarian of the United States House of […]

Charles Elwood Brown (1834 - 1904)

Charles Elwood Brown (July 4, 1834 – May 22, 1904) was a U.S. Representative from Ohio. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Brown attended the common schools and Greenfield Academy, He was graduated from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, in 1854. He went south and, while serving as tutor at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, studied law. He was admitted to […]

Dick Foran (1910 - 1979)

Dick Foran was born in Flemington, New Jersey, the first of five sons to Arthur F. and Elizabeth Foran. His father Arthur F. Foran was a Republican member of the New Jersey Senate, as was Dick Foran’s younger brother, Walter E. Foran. After graduation he attended the Hun School, a college preparatory school in nearby […]

Wallace Ford (1898 - 1966)

Following military service as a trooper at Fort Riley, in Kansas with the United States Army Cavalry during World War I, he became a vaudeville stage actor in an American stock company. In 1919, he performed in an adaptation of Booth Tarkington’s Seventeen, which played to full houses in Chicago for several months, before transferring […]

Christy Cabanne (1888 - 1950)

Christy Cabanne (pronounced “CAB-a-nay”) spent several years in the US Navy, leaving the service in 1908. He decided on a career in the theater, and became a director as well as an actor. Although acting was his main profession, when he finally broke into the film industry it was chiefly as a director after appearing […]

Mark Sandrich (1900 - 1945)

Mark Sandrich was born in New York City, to a Jewish family. His sister was Ruth Harriet Louise. He was an engineering student at Columbia University when he began in the film business by accident. While visiting a friend on a film set, he saw that the director had a problem in setting up a […]

Benjamin Bristow (1832 - 1896)

Benjamin Helm Bristow (June 20, 1832 – June 22, 1896) was the 30th U.S. Treasury Secretary, the first Solicitor General, an American lawyer, a Union military officer, Republican Party politician, reformer, and civil rights advocate. Benjamin Bristow, during his tenure as Secretary of Treasury, is primarily known for breaking up and prosecuting the Whiskey Ring, […]

Bryan Budd (1977 - 2006)

Born in Belfast together with twin sister Tracy, Bryan Budd moved to the north of England as a child. He attended Thomas Sumpter School in Scunthorpe. Budd had been in the British Army for ten years, serving with the elite Pathfinder Platoon, which carries out reconnaissance deep behind enemy lines. As part of the Pathfinders, […]

William Alfred Buckingham (1804 - 1875)

William Alfred Buckingham entered into a career in the mercantile industry, and in 1848 helped to organize the Hayward Rubber Company, a business that developed into a successful enterprise. Buckingham served as the mayor of Norwich, Connecticut from 1849 to 1850, and again from 1856 to 1857. He also served as Norwich’s town treasurer and a […]

Ralph Buckland (1812 - 1892)

Born in Leyden, Massachusetts Ralph Buckland moved with his parents to Ravenna, Ohio, the same year. He attended the country schools, Tallmadge (Ohio) Academy, and Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. After studying law, he was admitted to the bar in 1837 and commenced practice in Fremont, Ohio. He served as the mayor of Fremont from […]

Alexander Buckley (1891 - 1918)

Alexander Buckley was born on 22 July 1891 to James and Julia Buckley at Gulargambone, New South Wales, Australia. One of four children, he was home schooled on his parents’ property Homebush during his childhood. After completing his schooling, he worked on the family farm with his father. Buckley enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on […]

Wilson Brown (1839 - 1916)

Wilson Brown was born December 25, 1837 in Logan County, Ohio, and enlisted September 6, 1861 at Findlay, Ohio in Company F, 21st Ohio Infantry, mustering into service September 19, 1861. He first saw action at Ivy Mountain, Ky., November 8–9, 1861. Chosen by James Andrews for his abilities as a locomotive engineer, as he had […]

John Calvin Brown (1827 - 1889)

In May 1861, John Calvin Brown enlisted as a private in the Confederate infantry, and was elected Colonel of the 3rd Tennessee Infantry shortly afterward. He was later placed in charge of a brigade consisting of three Tennessee regiments. Following the surrender of Fort Donelson, he was held as a prisoner of war for six months […]

Harvey Brown (1795 - 1874)

Harvey Brown was born in Bridgetown (part of present-day Rahway, New Jersey). He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York on July 24, 1818, as a second lieutenant of light artillery. He spent the first years of his military career on garrison duty in Boston, Massachusetts and New London, Connecticut […]

Aldo Rossi (1931 - 1997)

Aldo Rossi began his professional career at the studio of Ignazio Gardella in 1956, moving on to the studio of Marco Zanuso. In 1963 also he began teaching, firstly as an assistant to Ludovico Quaroni (1963) at the school of urban planning in Arezzo, then to Carlo Aymonino at the Institute of Architecture in Venice. […]