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 […]

Jerry Weintraub (1937 - 2015)

Jerry Weintraub Weintraub’s career as a promoter took a giant step in 1970 when after a lengthy courtship he persuaded Elvis Presley’s manager, Col. Tom Parker, to let him promote Presley concerts. It was at a time when Presley was beginning to do live shows after years of concentrating on movies. The relationship began with […]

Ken Stabler (1945 - 2015)

Ken Stabler Stabler first showed his professional chops in a 1972 playoff game best known for the Immaculate Reception. Mostly forgotten was that Stabler replaced starter Daryle Lamonica and led the Raiders to what seemed to be the winning touchdown in the fourth quarter — until Franco Harris’ spectacular catch and run won the game […]

Carole Landis (1919 - 1948)

Landis was born Frances Lillian Mary Ridste in Fairchild, Wisconsin. She was the youngest of five children (two of whom died in childhood) born to Clara (née Stentek), a Polish farmer’s daughter, and Norwegian-American Alfred Ridste, a “drifting railroad mechanic” who abandoned the family after Landis’ birth.  According to Landis’ biographer E.J. Felming, circumstantial evidence […]

Colette Marchand (1925 - 2015)

Colette Marchand Marchand was born in Paris, France, the daughter of Alice (née Lioret) and Roger Marchand. She began her career at the Paris Opera Ballet   She married Jacques Bazire, the musical director for the Roland Petit Ballet. She died on June 5, 2015, aged 90, and was survived by her sister, Yvonne (Marchand) Le […]

Laura Antonelli (1941 - 2015)

Laura Antonelli was born Laura Antonaz in Pola, Italy (present-day Pula, Croatia), former capital of Istria. She moved with her family first to Genoa and then to Venice, before they all eventually settled in Naples. She had a childhood interest in education, and as a teenager she became proficient at gymnastics. In an interview for […]

Diana Douglas (1923 - 2015)

Douglas was born Diana Love Dill in Devonshire, Bermuda on January 22, 1923. Her father Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Melville Dill (also the name of her great-grandfather, a mariner) was a former Member of the Colonial Parliament (MCP) (representing the Parish of Devonshire in the Parliament of Bermuda), Attorney General of Bermuda, and former Commanding Officer […]

Rod Taylor (1930 - 2015)

Taylor was born on 11 January 1930 in Lidcombe, a suburb of Sydney, the only child of William Sturt Taylor, a steel construction contractor and commercial artist, and Mona Taylor (née Thompson), a writer of more than a hundred short stories and children’s books. His middle name comes from his great-great grand uncle, Captain Charles […]

Julie Wilson (1924 - 2015)

Wilson was born in Omaha, Nebraska, the daughter of Emily (née Bennett), a hairdresser, and Russell Wilson, a coal salesman. She first found a musical outlet with local musical group “Hank’s Hepcats” in her teenage years and briefly attended Omaha University. She won the title of Miss Nebraska and would have competed in the Miss […]

Karel Soucek (1947 - 1985)

Karel Soucek (born April 19, 1947 in Czechoslovakia, died January 20, 1985 in Houston, Texas) was a Canadian professional stuntman who went over Niagara Falls in a barrel in 1984. He lived in Hamilton, Ontario.  Soucek prepared for his 1984 Niagara Falls stunt by researching previous attempts, by sending unmanned barrels over the falls to […]

Jim Fixx (1932 - 1984)

Born in New York City, Fixx was a graduate of Trinity School in New York and Oberlin College in Ohio. His father, Calvin Fixx, was an editor at Time who worked with Whittaker Chambers.  Fixx was a member of the high-IQ club, Mensa, and published three collections of puzzles: Games for the Super-Intelligent, More Games […]

James C. Donnell (1854 - 1927)

James C Donnell was born on April 20, 1854, in County Armagh, Ireland, to James Donnell and Elizabeth Doyle. At the age of two, Donnell and his family moved to the United States and settled in Waterford, Pennsylvania. At the age of eighteen, he began his career in the oil industry by hauling crude oil […]

J. R. D. Tata (1904 - 1993)

J. R. D. Tata was born on 29 July 1904 in Paris, France, the second child of Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata and his French wife, Suzanne “Sooni” Brière. His father was a first cousin of Jamsetji Tata, a pioneer industrialist in India. He had one elder sister Sylla, a younger sister Rodabeh and two younger brothers […]