Beau Kazer (1951 - 2014)

Beau Kazer (May 22, 1951 – December 30, 2014) was a Canadian actor who worked primarily on television. He was best known for his recurring role as Brock Reynolds on the American soap opera The Young and the Restless.  Kazer studied drama at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. After graduation, Kazer landed his first […]

Stuart Scott (1965 - 2015)

Scott was born Stuart Orlando Scott in Chicago, Illinois on July 19, 1965 to O. Ray and Jacqueline Scott. When he was 7, Scott and his family moved to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Scott had a brother named Stephen and two sisters named Susan and Synthia.  He attended Mount Tabor High School for 9th and 10th […]

Taylor Negron (1957 - 2015)

Negron was born in Glendale, California, the son of Lucy (née Rosario) and Conrad Negron, Sr. He was born of two parents of Puerto Rican descent. Often Taylor joked that he was of Jewish, Iranian, or other nationalities, but those were loving light-hearted jokes. Negron grew up in La Cañada Flintridge, California, and was an […]

David Adler (1882 - 1949)

David Adler was born on January 3, 1882 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to a German Jewish family. He was the only son to Isaac David Adler, a prosperous wholesale manufacturer of men’s clothing, and Therese Hyman Adler. David Adler had one sister, Frances, who would go on to become a prominent interior designer. He also had […]

Ruth Sobotka (1925 - 1967)

The daughter of prominent Austrian architect and interior designer, Walter Sobotka (1888–1972) and Viennese actress, Gisela Schönau, Ruth Sobotka immigrated to the United States from Vienna with her parents in 1938. She studied set design at The University of Pennsylvania and graduated from the Carnegie Institute of Technology. After studying at the School of American […]

Syrie Maugham (1879 - 1955)

Gwendoline Maud Syrie Barnardo was born in England, a daughter of Thomas John Barnardo, the founder of the Barnardo’s charity for destitute children, and his wife, the former Sarah Louise “Syrie” Elmslie.  In a career that lasted from 1922 until her death, Syrie Maugham became a legendary interior designer credited for designing the first all-white […]

Jean-Michel Frank (1895 - 1941)

Jean-Michel Frank was born in Paris, a son of Léon Frank, a banker, and his wife and cousin, the former Nanette Frank. From 1904, he attended the Lycée Janson de Sailly in Paris. He began law school in 1911, but in 1915, he was hit by the double blow of the death of his two […]

Lorenzo Mongiardino (1916 - 1998)

In 1936 Renzo Mongiardino moved from Genoa to Milan to study architecture; in 1942 he graduated from the Politecnico di Milano, together with Giò Ponti.  Beginning in 1944, Mongiardino collaborated Domus magazine, writing many articles. During this period he also began his multifaceted career, focusing primarily on the creation of residential and theatre environments.  In […]

Kenneth Battelle (1927 - 2013)

Kenneth Everette Battelle was born in Syracuse, New York, the eldest son with four younger sisters. His father was a shoe salesman, who divorced his mother when Kenneth was 12, leaving their son to support his family through cooking and washing dishes, selling beer and working as an elevator operator. Aged 17, he joined the […]

Rosalía Mera (1944 - 2013)

Rosalia Mera was born in A Coruña, Galiza, Spain in 1944. She dropped out of school at age eleven to work as a sales assistant in a clothing shop.  Mera began designing gowns and lingerie in her home with her then-husband, Amancio Ortega Gaona. The couple opened the first Zara store in 1975 in A […]

Christian Audigier (1958 - 2015)

Audigier was born Christian Ginutti on 21 May 1958 in Avignon.  Audigier began working in the fashion industry at the age of fifteen. He designed a line of denim that was inspired by his love for rock and roll, specifically The Rolling Stones. His designs became so popular that a top executive from MacKeen Jeans […]

Dorothea Dix (1802 - 1887)

Born in the town of Hampden, Maine, she grew up first in Worcester, Massachusetts. At the age of twelve, she sought refuge with her wealthy grandmother in Boston to get away from her alcoholic parents and abusive father. She was the first child of three born to Joseph Dix and Mary Bigelow, who had deep […]

Ron Woodroof (1950 - 1992)

Woodroof was born in Dallas, Texas, on February 3, 1950, to Garland Odell Woodroof (March 17, 1917, in Texas – December 3, 1983, in Dallas) and Willie Mae Hughes (November 25, 1917, in Oklahoma – November 19, 1996, in Dallas).  His first marriage was to Mary Etta Pybus on June 28, 1969, in Dallas; and […]

Corrie ten Boom (1892 - 1983)

Born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Corrie ten Boom grew up in the nearby city of Haarlem as the youngest of four children born to Cornelia Johanna Arnolda (died 1921 of a cerebral haemorrhage) and Casper (1859–1944). She had two sisters, Betsie ten Boom (died 1944 in the Ravensbrück concentration camp) and Nollie (died in 1953); […]

Harold Pinter (1930 - 2008)

Harold Pinter, CH, CBE (/ˈpɪntər/; 10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008) was a Nobel Prize-winning English playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party (1957), The Homecoming (1964), and Betrayal (1978), each of which […]

Levi Strauss (1829 - 1902)

Levi Strauss was born in Buttenheim, Germany, on February 26, 1829, in the Franconian region of Bavaria, Germany, to an Ashkenazi Jewish family. He was the son of Hirsch Strauss and his second wife Rebecca Strauss. At the age of 18, Strauss, his mother and two sisters traveled to the United States to join his […]

Isadora Duncan (1877 - 1927)

Angela Isadora Duncan was born in San Francisco, California to Joseph Charles Duncan (1819–1898), a banker, mining engineer and connoisseur of the arts, and Mary Isadora Gray (1849–1922). Duncan was the youngest of four children. Her two brothers were Augustin Duncan and Raymond Duncan; her sister Elizabeth Duncan was also a dancer.[citation needed] Soon after […]

Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau (1859 - 1915)

Gautreau was born Virginie Amélie Avegno in New Orleans, Louisiana, on 29 January 1859, the daughter of Anatole Placide Avegno (3 July 1835 – 7 April 1862) and Marie Virginie de Ternant of Parlange Plantation, a descendant of French nobility. She had a sister, Valentine, who died of yellow fever. Her parents were white Creoles; […]

Luisa Casati (1881 - 1957)

The younger daughter of Alberto Amman and his wife, the former Lucia Bressi, Luisa Adele Rosa Maria Amman was born in Milan to a life of luxury. Luisa’s father was of Austrian descent, while her mother was Italian and Austrian. Luisa’s father was made a count by King Umberto I. Countess Amman died when Luisa […]

Wallis Simpson (1896 - 1986)

Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (previously Wallis Simpson and Wallis Spencer, born Bessie Wallis Warfield; 19 June 1896 – 24 April 1986) was an American socialite. Her third husband, Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII, abdicated his throne to marry her.  Wallis’s father died shortly after her birth, and she and her widowed […]

Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873 - 1954)

Colette was born to retired military officer Jules-Joseph Colette and his wife Adèle Eugénie Sidonie “Sido” Colette (nėe Landoy) in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye, Yonne, in the Burgundy Region of France. She studied piano as a child and received her primary school diploma with high marks in mathematics and dictation. In 1893, at age 20, she married Henry […]

Judy Lewis (1935 - 2011)

Lewis was the biological daughter of actress Loretta Young and actor Clark Gable. She was conceived while her parents were working on the film The Call of the Wild. She was the only biological child that Gable had while he was still alive (his only son was born four months after his death), but he […]

Jewel Carmen (1897 - 1984)

Born Florence Lavina Quick in Danville, Kentucky, Carmen made her film debut in the 1912 film The Will of Destiny. She went on to appear in Daphne and the Pirate (1916), opposite Lillian Gish and D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916).  In 1917, Carmen contracted with Fox Film Corporation, but finding the deal unsatisfactory opened a […]

Thelma Todd (1905 - 1935)

Todd was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts to John and Alice Todd, and was a bright student who achieved good academic results. She intended to become a school teacher. However, in her late teens, she began entering beauty pageants, winning the title of Miss Massachusetts in 1925. While representing her home state, she was spotted by […]

Maria Montez (1912 - 1951)

Montez was born María Antonia García Vidal de Santo Silas (some sources cite María África Gracia Vidal or María África Antonia García Vidal de Santo Silas as her birth name) in Barahona, Dominican Republic. She was one of ten children born to Ysidoro García, who worked as the Spanish consul in Dominican Republic, and his […]

Barbara Stanwyck (1907 - 1990)

Barbara Stanwyck was born Ruby Catherine Stevens on July 16, 1907, in Brooklyn, New York. She was the fifth and youngest child of Catherine Ann (née McPhee) and Byron E. Stevens. Her parents were working class. Her father was a native of Massachusetts and her mother was an immigrant from Nova Scotia. Ruby was of […]

Bugsy Siegel (1906 - 1947)

Bugsy Siegel Has Bugsy Siegel’s killer finally been identified? According to an article in October’s Los Angeles Magazine, the killer behind the grisly 1947 murder of the feared gangster, who was instrumental in the creation of the Las Vegas Strip, wasn’t a mobster hit man. Rather, the man who reportedly pulled the trigger on Benjamin […]

Johnny Torrio (1882 - 1957)

Johnny Torrio Born in a village near Naples, Torrio was brought to New York City by his widowed mother when he was two. He became a brothel-saloonkeeper and leader of the James Street Boys, allying them with the Five Points Gang (1904–08). He then rose to become a rackets boss (i.e., engaged in activities involving […]

Cab Calloway (1907 - 1994)

Cab Calloway After graduating from high school, Calloway briefly attended a law school in Chicago but quickly turned to performing in nightclubs as a singer. He began directing his own bands in 1928 and in the following year went to New York City. There he appeared in an all-black musical, Fats Waller’s Connie’s Hot Chocolates, […]

Jack Stapp (1912 - 1980)

Jack Stapp Jack Smiley Stapp was born in Nashville in 1912, but in 1923 he moved with his family to Atlanta. There, while still in his teens, he broke into radio at the Winecoff Hotel, programming a station that was piped into the hotel’s rooms. While studying at Georgia Tech University, he became involved with […]