Ralph Meeker (1920 - 1988)

Ralph Meeker made his film debut in 1951 with a small role in MGM’s Teresa, followed by a starring role in the Swiss-made Four in a Jeep (1951), directed by Leopold Lindtberg. In 1953, he was cast as a misfit ex-cavalryman in the classic western The Naked Spur directed by Anthony Mann. For his performance in […]

George Macready (1899 - 1973)

George Macready made his Broadway debut in 1926 in a stage adaptation of The Scarlet Letter. Through 1958, he appeared in fifteen plays, both drama and comedy, including The Barretts of Wimpole Street, based on the family of the English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Macready’s penchant for acting was spurred in part by the director Richard […]

Glenn Ford (1916 - 2006)

Glenn Ford Legendary actor Glenn Ford was born Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford in Sainte-Christine-d’Auvergne, Quebec, Canada, to Hannah Wood (Mitchell) and Newton Ford, a railroad executive. His family moved to Santa Monica, California when he was eight years old. His acting career began with plays at high school, followed by acting in West Coast, a […]

Glenn Sutton (1937 - 2007)

Glenn Sutton Glenn Sutton,  Funeral services will be held Friday (April 20) in Nashville for songwriter-producer Glenn Sutton, a key figure in the success of Tammy Wynette, Lynn Anderson and David Houston. Sutton, 69, died Tuesday (April 18) of an apparent heart attack at his Nashville home. A 1999 inductee into the Nashville Songwriters Hall […]

Glenn Miller (1904 - 1944)

Glenn Miller Alton Glenn Miller was born in Clarinda, Iowa on March 1, 1904. But it was in North Platte, Nebraska, several years later that Glenn actually got his musical start when, one day, his father brought home a mandolin. Glenn promptly traded it for an old battered horn, which he practiced every chance he […]

John Glenn (1921 - 2016)

John Glenn John Glenn, a freckle-faced son of Ohio who was hailed as a national hero and a symbol of the space age as the first American to orbit Earth, then became a national political figure for 24 years in the Senate, died on Thursday in Columbus, Ohio. He was 95. Ohio State University announced […]

John Wesley Hardin (1853 - 1895)

John Wesley Hardin John Wesley Hardin, one of the bloodiest killers of the Old West, is murdered by an off-duty policeman in a saloon in El Paso, Texas. Born in central Texas on May 26, 1853, Hardin killed his first man when he was only 15 during the violent period of post-Civil War reconstruction. During […]

Debbie Reynolds (1932 - 2016)

Debbie Reynolds Debbie Reynolds, who personified celebrity life in Hollywood’s Golden Age through roles in classics like “Singin’ in the Rain” on screen and a paparazzi-feeding family life off-screen, died Wednesday after having a stroke. She was 84 years old. Ms. Reynolds died a day after her daughter, “Star Wars” actress and author Carrie Fisher, […]

Sammy Fain (1902 - 1989)

Sammy Fain was born in New York City. In 1923, Fain appeared with Artie Dunn in a short film directed by Lee De Forest filmed in DeForest’s Phonofilm sound-on-film process. In 1925, Fain left the Fain-Dunn act to devote himself to music. Fain was a self-taught pianist who played by ear. He began working as […]

Billy Rose (1899 - 1966)

William Samuel Rosenberg (later Billy Rose) was born to a Jewish family in New York City. He attended Public School 44, where he was the 50-yard dash champion. While in high school, Billy studied shorthand under John Robert Gregg, the inventor of the Gregg System for shorthand notation. He won a dictation contest using Gregg […]

Noel Langley (1911 - 1980)

Born on Christmas Day in Durban, South Africa, Noel Langley was the son of Durban High School headmaster Aubrey Samuel Langley and Dora Agnes Allison. Noel Langley attended his father’s school (Durban High School- KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa) until 1930. Noel’s relationship with his headmaster father was a strained one as he did meet his father’s […]

Roger Edens (1905 - 1970)

Roger Edens was born in Hillsboro, Texas. His parents were of Scots-Irish ancestry. He worked as a piano accompanist for ballroom dancers before going to work as a musical conductor on Broadway. He went to Hollywood in 1932 along with his protege Ethel Merman, writing and arranging her material for her films at Paramount. In […]

Hank Jones (1918 - 2010)

Born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, Henry “Hank” Jones moved to Pontiac, Michigan, where his father, Henry Jones Sr. a Baptist deacon and lumber inspector, bought a three-story brick home. One of seven children, Jones was raised in a musical family. His mother Olivia Jones sang; his two older sisters studied piano; and his two younger brothers—Thad, […]

Joe Henderson (1937 - 2001)

Joe Henderson spent two years (1960–62) in the U.S. Army: first in Fort Benning, where he even competed in the army talent show and won first place, then in Fort Belvoir, where he was chosen for a world tour, with a show to entertain soldiers. While in Paris, he met Kenny Drew and Kenny Clarke. […]

Bob Cranshaw (1932 - 2016)

Some of Cranshaw’s best-known performances include Lee Morgan’s The Sidewinder and Grant Green’s Idle Moments. Bob Cranshaw also served as the sole session bassist to Sesame Street and The Electric Company songwriter and composer Joe Raposo, and played bass guitar on all songs, tracks, buttons and cues recorded by the Children’s Television Workshop during Raposo’s […]

Charles Lamont (1895 - 1993)

Charles Lamont (May 5, 1895 – September 12, 1993) was a prolific filmmaker, directing over 200 titles and producing and writing many others. A California native, Lamont was born in San Francisco and died in Los Angeles. Some of Lamont’s earliest directorial jobs were silent short-subject comedies for Educational Pictures. One of the studio’s popular series […]

Eddie Fisher (1928 - 2010)

By 1946, Eddie Fisher was crooning with the bands of Buddy Morrow and Charlie Ventura. He was heard in 1949 by Eddie Cantor at Grossinger’s Catskill Resort Hotel in the Borscht Belt. Cantor’s so-called discovery of Fisher was later described as a totally contrived, “manipulated’ arrangement by Milton Blackstone, Grossinger’s publicity director. After performing on […]

Leonard Cohen (1934 - 2016)

Leonard Cohen Legendary singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen died after falling in his home, his manager has now revealed, but can falls signal poor health in older adults? Cohen’s death was first reported last week, but on Wednesday (Nov. 16), Cohen’s manager Robert Kory released a statement with more details, saying the songwriter fell in the middle […]

George Michael (1963 - 2016)

George Michael Pop superstar George Michael’s death at the age of 53 from suspected heart failure is being treated by police as “unexplained but not suspicious”. The singer died peacefully at home, his family said on Sunday night. “It is with great sadness that we can confirm our beloved son, brother and friend George passed away […]

Zsa Zsa Gabor (1917 - 2016)

Zsa Zsa Gabor Zsa Zsa Gabor, whose 60-year career of playing herself helped paved the way for today’s celebrity-obsessed culture, has died. She was 99. Publicist Ed Lozzi confirmed to Variety that Gabor died Sunday in her Bel Air mansion. She had been on life support for the last five years, and according to TMZ, […]

Don Calfa (1939 - 2016)

Don Calfa was born on December 3, 1939 in Brooklyn, New York, and was raised in Ozone Park, Queens and later West Hempstead, Long Island. According to his official biography, Calfa was originally interested in pursuing a career in the fine arts, but diverted his interest to acting after seeing Rebel Without a Cause. He […]

Sammy Lee (1920 - 2016)

Sammy Lee was born in Fresno, California to parents of Korean descent who owned what he described as “a little chop suey restaurant”. His father, who was fluent in English and Korean and who tutored in French, graduated with a degree in civil engineering from Occidental College, but was unable to find work due to […]

Elisabeth Carron (1922 - 2016)

Elisabeth Carron (born Elisabetta Caradonna; February 12, 1922 – December 1, 2016), was an American operatic soprano from Newark, New Jersey, who had an active international career from the 1940s through the 1980s. In 1954 she portrayed the Young Woman in the world premiere of Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Saint of Bleecker Street. From 1988 […]

Joe McKnight (1988 - 2016)

Joe McKnight was drafted by the New York Jets in the fourth round (112th overall) of the 2010 NFL Draft. To select McKnight, the Jets traded up twelve spots in the fourth round with the Carolina Panthers. In return, the Jets sent their fourth (124th overall) and sixth (198th overall) round selections to Carolina. McKnight […]

Alan Thicke (1947 - 2016)

Alan Thicke was born Alan Willis Jeffrey on March 1, 1947 in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, the son of Shirley “Joan” Isobel Marie (née Greer), a nurse, and William Jeffrey, a stockbroker. They divorced in 1953. His mother remarried to Brian Thicke, a physician, and they moved to Elliot Lake. He graduated from Elliot Lake Secondary […]

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, […]

Adolf Dassler (1900 - 1978)

Born in the Franconian town of Herzogenaurach and trained as a cobbler, Adolf Dassler started to produce his first sports shoes in his mother’s laundry room after his return from the First World War. His father, Christoph, who worked in a shoe factory, and the Zehlein brothers, who produced the spikes for track shoes in […]

Pavel Lednyov (1943 - 2010)

Pavel Serafimovich Lednyov (Russian: Павел Серафимович Леднëв; 25 March 1943 Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhny, Russia – 23 November 2010 Moscow, Russia) was a Soviet modern pentathlete and Olympic Champion. He won a total of seven Olympic medals in modern pentathlon, more than any other player to date. He won four individual World Championships, and two gold […]

Frederick Lorz (1884 - 1914)

Born in New York City, Frederick Lorz was reported to have done all his training at night due to his profession as a bricklayer. An announcement in the August 6, 1904 issue of The New York Times indicated that the Metropolitan Association of the Amateur Athletic Union would hold a “special seven-mile race” at Celtic Park […]

Dora Ratjen (1918 - 2008)

A file containing the findings of an investigation conducted in 1938 and 1939 into Ratjen’s life was made public by Der Spiegel in 2009. Dora Ratjen was born in Erichshof, near Bremen, into a family described as “simple folk”. The father, Heinrich Ratjen, stated in 1938: “When the child was born the midwife called over to […]