Dennis Cole (1940 - 2009)

Dennis Cole A performer of mainly television, he is best known for his role as ‘Detective Jim Briggs’ in the police drama “Felony Squad” (1966 to 1969). With his athletic build, the Detroit native was able to find work as a model and later as a Hollywood stuntman, which led to bit acting parts. His […]

David Nelson (1936 - 2011)

David Nelson David Nelson, the elder son of Ozzie and Harriet Nelson and the last surviving member of the family that became an American institution in the 1950s and ’60s as the stars of the classic TV sitcom “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet,” died Tuesday. He was 74. Nelson died at his Century City […]

Claire Whitney (1890 - 1969)

Claire Whitney Claire Whitney was born in New York City on May 6, 1890. Her acting career first started out on the stage, but as time wore on, it was evident that films were taking the place of plays, at least for a while. Her first film was The Star of India (1913) when she […]

Buster Keaton (1895 - 1966)

Buster Keaton Legendary motion picture comic actor, writer, producer, and director of the 1910s thru 1960s. Born on October 4, 1895, in Piqua, Kansas, as Joseph Francis Keaton. The oldest son of Joseph and Myra Keaton, who were stage comedians. Buster joined his family’s act at a very young age. It soon developed into a […]

Divya Bharti (1974 - 1993)

Divya Bharti was born on 25 February 1974, in Mumbai, India, as the child of Om Prakash Bharti, an insurance officer, and his second wife, Meeta Bharti. She had a younger brother named Kunal and two half siblings who were the result of her father’s first marriage. She spoke Hindi, English and Marathi fluently. In […]

Burt Mustin (1884 - 1977)

Burt Mustin Life literally began at 60 for American actor Burt Mustin, who didn’t enter show business until that age and didn’t make his film debut until Detective Story (1951), at which time he was 68. After a decade of uncredited movie roles as hillbilly patriarchs and Town’s Oldest Citizens, Mustin began getting name recognition […]

George William, Elector of Brandenburg (1595 - 1640)

Born in Cölln on the Spree, George William was the son of John Sigismund, Margrave of Brandenburg and Anna of Prussia. His maternal grandfather was Albert Frederick, Duke of Prussia.  In 1616 George William married Elisabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate. Their only son Frederick William later became known as the “Great Elector”. Of his two […]

William Crookes (1832 - 1919)

Crookes made a career of being a meteorologist and lecturer at multiple places. Crookes worked in chemistry and physics. His experiments were notable for the originality of their design. He executed them skillfully. His interests, ranging over pure and applied science, economic and practical problems, and psychiatric research, made him a well-known personality. He received […]

Felix Adler (1851 - 1933)

Felix Adler was born in Alzey, Grand Duchy of Hesse, Germany, the son of a rabbi, Samuel Adler, a leading figure in European Reform Judaism. The family immigrated to the United States from Germany when Felix was six years old so that his father could accept the appointment as head rabbi at Temple Emanu-El in […]

Bonnie Lee Bakley (1956 - 2001)

Bonnie Lee Bakley Born in Morristown, New Jersey to Edward and Marjorie Bakley. She was raised by and lived with her grandmother. Bonny dropped out of high school and decided to go to New York City to pursue a career in modeling and acting at the Barbizon School of Modeling. She was unsuccessful, however, in […]

Bette Davis (1908 - 1989)

Bette Davis At age ten her parents divorced and she was raised by her mother after a move to New York City. She began her career on Broadway. Bette Davis appeared in over 100 films receiving two Oscars, 10 nominations and three Emmy awards. A few of her major motion pictures: “Dangerous (Oscar winner) Jezebel […]

Art Linkletter (1912 - 2010)

Art Linkletter He hosted two of the longest-running programs in broadcast history and was a presence in American media for more than six decades. “Art Linkletter’s House Party,” a variety show, debuted on radio in 1944 and was seen on CBS television from 1952 to 1969, and “People Are Funny”, which he helmed on radio […]

Ann Harding (1902 - 1981)

Ann Harding Ann Harding, who was known for her stage and screen portrayals of beautiful, aristocratic women in the 1920’s and 30’s, died Tuesday at her home in Sherman Oaks, Calif., after a long illness. She was 79 years old. Miss Harding made her Broadway debut in 1921 in ”Like a King.” In his review […]

Freddie Prinze (1954 - 1977)

Freddie Prinze Freddie Prinze was born Frederick Karl Pruetzel in New York City, New York, to a Puerto Rican mother, Aurea Elena Ruiz, and a German immigrant father, Edward Karl Pruetzel. Freddie grew up in the Washington Heights section of New York City. As a chubby child, he was often bullied, but was quite creative […]

Ritchie Valens (1941 - 1959)

Ritchie Valens Born Richard Steven Valenzuela in a largely Hispanic community north of Los Angeles known as the San Fernando Valley, his father was a devotee of flamenco music and blues and instilled his love of music to Ritchie. At the age of eleven he started playing guitar and took it with him everywhere. During […]

Otis Redding (1941 - 1967)

Otis Redding One of the most popular and critically acclaimed soul vocalist, songwriter and musician representatives of the R&B style known as Southern soul. He is generally regarded as the single most influential male soul artist of the 1960s. He was one of the first artists to broaden his appeal to white audiences with a […]

Sam Cooke (1931 - 1964)

Sam Cooke Singer, Gospel, Blues, Soul and Pop, Songwriter. Sam Cooke is considered the father of soul music and was immensely popular in both the black and white communities. This intelligent performer was not only the overseer and manager of the business side of his own career but founded his own record label and publishing […]

Philip Carey (1925 - 2009)

Carey was born in Hackensack, New Jersey. Carey served in the United States Marine Corps and was wounded as part of the ship’s detachment of the USS Franklin during World War II and served again in the Korean War.  One of his earliest roles was at Lt. (jg) Bob Perry in John Wayne’s Operation Pacific. […]

Macdonald Carey (1913 - 1994)

Born in Sioux City, Iowa, Carey graduated from the University of Iowa in Iowa City with a bachelor’s degree in 1935, after attending the University of Wisconsin–Madison for a year where he was a member of Alpha Delta Phi. He first made his career starring in various B-movies of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. He […]

Frances Reid (1914 - 2010)

Born in Wichita Falls, Texas, to banker Charles William and Anna May (Priest) Reid,[6] Reid grew up in Berkeley, California. Her acting career started in 1938 with a bit part in the movie Man-Proof.  Reid’s Broadway debut was as Juliette Lecourtois in Where There’s a Will There’s a Way at the John Golden Theatre in […]

William Bast (1931 - 2015)

Bast was born in Wauwatosa, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, the son of Gilbert Bast and Bernice Fleischmann. He began his early education in Milwaukee, transferring to Kenosha when his family moved there. Moving back to Milwaukee, he subsequently graduated from Wauwatosa High school, then enrolled at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. When his family moved to Los […]

Ryan White (1971 - 1990)

Ryan White was born at St. Joseph Memorial Hospital in Kokomo, Indiana, to Jeanne Elaine Hale and Hubert Wayne White. He was circumcised and the bleeding would not stop. When he was three days old, doctors diagnosed him with severe hemophilia A, a hereditary blood coagulation disorder associated with the X chromosome, which causes even […]

Malcolm Forbes (1919 - 1990)

Forbes was born on August 19, 1919 in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Adelaide (Stevenson) and Scottish-born financial journalist and author B. C. Forbes. He graduated from the Lawrenceville School in 1937 and Princeton University. Forbes enlisted in the Army in 1942 and served as a machine gun sergeant in Europe. Forbes received a […]

Robert Schuller (1926 - 2015)

Robert Harold Schuller was born on September 16, 1926, near Alton, Iowa, the son of Jennie (née Beltman) and Anthony Schuller. He was the youngest of four children. All of his grandparents were Dutch immigrants, and he was raised on his parents’ farm nearby in a small-knit community of Dutch-Americans, without running water. As a […]

Oral Roberts (1918 - 2009)

Roberts was born in Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, the fifth and youngest child of the Reverend Ellis Melvin Roberts and Claudius Priscilla Roberts (née Irwin) (d. 1974). According to an interview on Larry King Live, Irwin was of Cherokee descent. Roberts was a card-carrying member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.  Roberts began life in poverty […]

John Joseph O’Connor (1920 - 2000)

O’Connor was born in Philadelphia, the fourth of five children of Thomas J. and Dorothy Magdalene (née Gomple) O’Connor (1886–1971), daughter of Gustave Gumpel, a kosher butcher and Jewish rabbi. In 2014, his sister Mary O’Connor Ward discovered through genealogical research that their mother was born Jewish and was baptized as a Roman Catholic at […]

Sun Myung Moon (1920 - 2012)

Sun Myung Moon was born Mun Yong-myeong on 25 February 1920, in modern-day North P’yŏng’an Province, North Korea, at a time when Korea was under Japanese rule. He was the younger of two sons in a farming family of eight children. Moon’s family rejected the Shinto faith pushed by the country’s Japanese rulers and followed […]

Rex Humbard (1919 - 2007)

Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, to Pentecostal evangelists, Rex Humbard was the first evangelist to have a weekly nationwide television program in the United States, running from 1952 to 1983, although his first television broadcast was in 1949. Humbard’s $4 million Cathedral of Tomorrow church in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, a suburb of nearby Akron, was […]

Gordon Hinckley (1910 - 2008)

A muiti-generational Latter-day Saint, Hinckley was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, to prominent LDS writer and educator Bryant S. Hinckley and Ada Bitner Hinckley. He graduated from LDS High School in 1928. He grew up on a residential farm in East Millcreek. His home library contained approximately a thousand volumes of literary, philosophical and […]

Jerry Falwell (1933 - 2007)

Jerry Falwell Falwell and twin brother Gene were born in the Fairview Heights region of Lynchburg, Virginia, the sons of Helen Virginia (Beasley) and Carey Hezekiah Falwell. His father was an entrepreneur and one-time bootlegger who was agnostic. His grandfather was a staunch atheist. Jerry Falwell married the former Macel Pate on April 12, 1958. […]