Hans Hotter (1909 - 2003)

Born in Offenbach am Main, Hesse, Hans Hotter studied with Matthäus Roemer in Munich. He worked as an organist and choirmaster before making his operatic debut in Opava in 1930. He performed in Germany and Austria under the Nazi regime, avoiding pressure on performers to join the Nazi Party, and made some appearances outside the country, […]

Leonard Hokanson (1931 - 2003)

Leonard Hokanson (August 13, 1931 – March 21, 2003) was an American pianist who achieved prominence in Europe as a soloist and chamber musician. Born in Vinalhaven, Maine, he attended Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts and Bennington College in Vermont, where he received a master of arts degree with a major in music. He made […]

Lucia Popp (1939 - 1993)

Lucia Popp was born Lucia Poppová in Záhorská Ves in the Slovak State (later Czechoslovakia and today Slovakia). Popp initially entered the Bratislava Academy to study drama. While she began her vocal lessons during this period as a mezzo-soprano, her voice developed a high upper register to the degree that her professional debut was as the […]

Hermann Prey (1929 - 1998)

Hermann Prey was born in Berlin and grew up in Germany. He was scheduled to be drafted when World War II ended. He studied voice at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin and won the prize of the Frankfurt contest of the Hessischer Rundfunk in 1952. He began to sing in song recitals and made his […]

Waldemar Kmentt (1929 - 2015)

Waldemar Kmentt (Wien, 2 February 1929 – Ibidem, 21 January 2015) was an Austrian operatic tenor, who was particularly associated with the German repertory, both opera and operetta. Born in Vienna, Kmentt studied at the Vienna Music Academy, first the piano, and later voice with Adolf Vogel, Elisabeth Radó and Hans Duhan. In 1950, he sang […]

Walter Berry (1929 - 2000)

Walter Berry (8 April 1929 – 27 October 2000) was an Austrian lyric bass-baritone who enjoyed a prominent career in opera. Walter Berry was born in Vienna. He studied voice at the Vienna Music Academy and made his stage debut with the Vienna State Opera in 1947. He became a permanent member of the company in […]

Rita Streich (1920 - 1987)

Rita Streich (December 18, 1920 – March 20, 1987) was one of the most admired and recorded lyric coloratura sopranos of the post-war period. Rita Streich was born in Barnaul, southern Siberia, in the Russian part of what was then the Soviet Union, to a German father who had been a prisoner of war there, and […]

Sena Jurinac (1921 - 2011)

Sena Jurinac was born in Travnik, Bosnia-Herzegovina (then part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia), the daughter of a Croatian father (a doctor) and a Viennese mother. She studied at the Zagreb Academy of Music, and with Milka Kostrenčić. Her voice was pitched exactly between soprano and mezzo. Her repertoire included Poppea, Elisabetta (Don Carlos), Desdemona (Otello), […]

Anneliese Rothenberger (1926 - 2010)

Anneliese Rothenberger was born in Mannheim, Germany. She studied with Erika Müller, and took up her first engagement in Koblenz in 1943. In 1947, Günther Rennert offered her a job at the Hamburg Opera House, where she sang in Rennert’s now famous production of Alban Berg’s Lulu twenty years later, a role she would also […]

Peter Kreuder (1905 - 1981)

Peter Paul Kreuder (18 August 1905 – 28 June 1981) was a German-Austrian pianist, composer and conductor. Peter Kreuder was born in Aachen, the son of a Kammersänger. He enrolled as a piano student at the Cologne Conservatory in 1910, where he performed his first concert one year later, and at music academies in Munich, Berlin […]

Marika Rökk (1913 - 2004)

Marie Karoline Rökk was born in 1913 in Cairo, Egypt, as the daughter of Hungarian architect and contractor Eduard Rökk and his wife Maria Karoline Charlotte née Karoly. She spent her childhood in Budapest, but in 1924 her family moved to Paris. Here she learned to dance and starred with the Hoffmann Girls at the […]

Oskar Karlweis (1894 - 1956)

Oskar Karlweis (10 July 1894, Hinterbrühl – 24 January 1956, New York City) was an Austrian stage and film actor, active internationally. Son of a playwright, Karlweis abandoned his youthful law studies for the stage, first for eight years at Vienna’s Stadttheater. After service in World War I, he was active with Max Reinhardt’s Theater in […]

Mischa Spoliansky (1898 - 1985)

Mischa Spoliansky was born into a Jewish, musical family in Białystok, then part of the Belostok Oblast of the Russian Empire. His father was an opera singer and his sister would later become a pianist and his brother a cellist. After the birth of Mischa the family moved to Warsaw, and later Kalisz. After the […]

Heinz Roemheld (1901 - 1985)

Heinz Roemheld (May 1, 1901 – February 11, 1985) was an American composer. Born Heinz Eric Roemheld in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he was one of four children of German immigrant Heinrich Roemheld and his wife Fanny Rauterberg Roemheld. Heinrich was a pharmacist, but all the members of the family were musical. Heinz’s brother Edgar (1898-1964) became […]

Victor Young (1900 - 1956)

Victor Young was born in Chicago on August 8, 1900, into a very musical Jewish family, his father being a member of one Joseph Sheehan’s touring Opera company. The young Victor began playing violin at the age of six, and was sent to Poland when he was ten to stay with his grandfather and study […]

Leo Robin (1900 - 1984)

Leo Robin (April 6, 1900 – December 29, 1984) was an American composer, lyricist and songwriter. He is probably best known for collaborating with Ralph Rainger on the 1938 Oscar-winning song “Thanks for the Memory”, sung by Bob Hope and Shirley Ross in the film The Big Broadcast of 1938. Robin was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, […]

Grete Mosheim (1905 - 1986)

Grete Mosheim was born in Berlin, Germany on 8 January 1905, the daughter of Markus Mosheim (1868-1956) and his wife Clara Mosheim née Hilger (1875-1970). Her sister was actress Lore Mosheim, who appeared in at least nine movies. Mosheim started her acting career at the age of 17 and was a member of Deutsches Theater, Berlin […]

Friedrich Hollaender (1896 - 1976)

Friedrich Hollaender was born in London, where his father, operetta composer Victor Hollaender, worked as a musical director at the Barnum & Bailey Circus. Young Hollaender had a solid music and theatre family background: his uncle Gustav was director of the Stern Conservatory in Berlin, his uncle Felix Hollaender was a well-known novelist and drama […]

William Nigh (1881 - 1955)

William Nigh (October 12, 1881 – November 27, 1955) was an American film director, writer, and actor. His film work sometimes lists him as either “Will Nigh” or “William Nye”. Nigh was born in Berlin, Wisconsin. He began his film career as an actor, appearing in 17 films in 1913 and 1914; he also directed […]

Warren William (1894 - 1948)

Warren William appeared in his first Broadway play in 1920, and had soon made a name for himself in New York. William appeared in 22 plays on Broadway between 1920 and 1931. During this period he also appeared in two silent films, The Town That Forgot God (1922) and Plunder (1923). William moved from New […]

Donald Woods (1906 - 1998)

Born Ralph Lewis Zink in Brandon, Manitoba, Donald Woods moved with his family to California and was raised in Burbank. A son of William and Margaret Zink (the family was of German descent; their religion was Presbyterian), his younger brother was actor Russell Conway, born Russell Clarence Zink, in Brandon, Manitoba, Canada, on April 25, […]

James Cruze (1884 - 1942)

James Cruze (March 27, 1884 near Ogden, Utah – August 3, 1942 in Hollywood, California) was a silent film actor and film director. Cruze was born Jens Vera Cruz Bosen. The Vera Cruz middle name came from the battle of Vera Cruz. He was raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but did […]

Frank O’Connor (1881 - 1959)

Born on April 11, 1881, in New York City, Frank O’Connor would begin his film career with a starring role in the 1915 silent film, The Voice in the Fog, which also starred Donald Brian and Adda Gleason. He starred or had featured roles in six more films between 1917 and 1920, before focusing on […]

Theodore Hardeen (1876 - 1945)

Theodore Hardeen was born as Ferenc Dezső Weisz (also spelled Ferencz Dezso Weisz) in Budapest, Hungary, and went by the name of Theodore Weiss when the family was living in Appleton, Wisconsin. He was known as “Deshi” and later “Dash” by his parents. In 1893, Hardeen performed with Houdini at Coney Island as “The Brothers Houdini”. […]

Bess Houdini (1876 - 1943)

Wilhelmina Beatrice Rahner (January 23, 1876 – February 11, 1943), better known as Bess Houdini, was the stage assistant and wife of Harry Houdini. Wilhelmina Beatrice Rahner was born in Brooklyn, New York, U.S. in 1876 to German immigrants Gebhard Rahner (a cabinet maker) and Balbina Rahner (née Bugel). Bess Houdini was working at Coney Island in […]

Dai Vernon (1894 - 1992)

Dai Vernon was born in Ottawa as David Frederick Wingfield Verner. While performing, he often mentioned that he had learned his first trick from his father at age seven, adding that he had “wasted the first 6 years” of his life. His father was a government worker and an amateur magician. Vernon studied mechanical engineering […]

Douglas Henning (1947 - 2000)

Douglas James Henning (May 3, 1947 – February 7, 2000) was a Canadian magician, illusionist, escape artist and politician. Shortly after university, Henning was awarded a Canada Council for the Arts grant. The terms of the grant required Henning to study magic. He did so, traveling to view first hand the talents of such magic greats […]

Robert Harbin (1908 - 1978)

Robert Harbin (born Ned Williams 14 February 1908 Balfour, South Africa – 12 January 1978 Westminster, London, UK) was a British magician and author. He is noted as the inventor of a number of classic illusions, including the Zig Zag Girl. He also became an authority on origami. The young Ned Williams first got interested in […]

Duke Ellington (1899 - 1974)

Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American composer, pianist, and bandleader of a jazz orchestra, which he led from 1923 until his death in a career spanning over fifty years. Born in Washington, D.C., Duke Ellington was based in New York City from the mid-1920s onward, and gained a […]

Ben Webster (1909 - 1973)

Ben Webster learned to play piano and violin at an early age before taking up the saxophone, although he did return to the piano from time to time, even recording on the instrument occasionally. Once Budd Johnson showed him some basics on the saxophone, Webster began to play that instrument in the Young Family Band […]