Foster Brooks (1912 - 2001)

Foster Brooks Brooks regularly appeared on The Dean Martin Show television program in the 1970s (for which he garnered an Emmy Award nomination in 1974) as well as many situation comedies, talk shows, and a few films. Although he had only one basic signature character, he exhibited such extraordinary timing and subtlety that he was […]

Ed Gein (1906 - 1984)

Edward Theodore Gein was born in La Crosse County, Wisconsin on August 27, 1906, the second of two boys of George Philip (August 4, 1873 – April 1, 1940) and Augusta Wilhelmine (née Lehrke) Gein (July 21, 1878 – December 29, 1945), the daughter of Prussian immigrants.[citation needed] Gein had an older brother, Henry George […]

Aileen Wuornos (1956 - 2002)

Wuornos was born Aileen Carol Pittman in Rochester, Michigan, on February 29, 1956. Her mother, Diane Wuornos (born 1939), was 14 years old when she married Aileen’s father, Leo Dale Pittman, on June 3, 1954. Less than two years later, and two months before Aileen was born, Diane filed for divorce. Aileen’s older brother Keith […]

Jeffrey Dahmer (1960 - 1994)

Serial Killer, having killed an estimated 16 men and boys.   Jeffrey Dahmer was born on May 21, 1960 in West Allis, Wisconsin, the first son of Joyce Annette (née Flint) and Lionel Herbert Dahmer. Dahmer’s mother worked as a teletype machine instructor, whereas his father was a student at Marquette University, working towards a degree […]

Jerry Reed (1937 - 2008)

Jerry Reed Musician, Songwriter, Actor. Born Jerry Reed Hubbard, he caught the eye of Chet Atkins and was signed by RCA records after a failed attempt with Capitol Records, a stint in the United States Army and another failed attempt with Columbia Records. His time with RCA under Chet Atkins nurtured his session playing skills, […]

Bob Wills (1905 - 1975)

Bob Wills American Western swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader. Considered by music authorities as the co-founder of Western swing,he was universally known as the King of Western Swing (after the death of Spade Cooley who used the moniker “King Of Western Swing” from 1942 to 1969.) Wills formed several bands and played radio stations around […]

Spade Cooley (1910 - 1969)

Spade Cooley One of the groups which played at the Venice Pier Ballroom in Venice, California, was led by Jimmy Wakely with Spade Cooley on fiddle. Several thousand dancers would turn out on Saturday night to swing and hop. “The hoards (sic) of people and jitterbuggers loved him.” When Wakely got a movie contract at […]

Joe Simon (1913 - 2011)

Joe Simon was born in 1913 as Hymie Simon and raised in Rochester, New York, the son of Harry Simon, who had emigrated from Leeds, England, in 1905, and Rose, whom Harry met in the United States. Harry Simon moved to Rochester, then a clothing-manufacturing center where his younger brother Isaac lived, and the couple […]

Christopher Hitchens (1949 - 2011)

Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British American author, philosopher, polemicist, debater, and journalist. He contributed to New Statesman, The Nation, The Atlantic, The London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement and Vanity Fair. Hitchens was the author, co-author, editor and co-editor of over thirty books, including five […]

Vaclav Havel (1936 - 2011)

Vaclav Havel Václav Havel (Czech pronunciation: [ˈvaːt͡slav ˈɦavɛl] ( listen); 5 October 1936 – 18 December 2011) was a Czech writer, philosopher, dissident, and statesman. From 1989 to 1993, he served as the first democratically elected president of Czechoslovakia in 41 years. He then served as the first president of the Czech Republic (1993–2003) after […]

Sam Rivers (1923 - 2011)

Rivers was born in El Reno, Oklahoma. His father was a gospel musician who had sung with the Fisk Jubilee Singers and the Silverstone Quartet, exposing Rivers to music from an early age. Rivers was stationed in California in the 1940s during a stint in the Navy. Here he performed semi-regularly with blues singer Jimmy […]

Millie Kirkham (1923 - 2014)

Millie Kirkham Singer. Kirkham will best be remembered for her soaring soprano vocals which were heard on classic recordings by Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, George Jones, Loretta Lynn, Perry Como, Rosemary Clooney, Jerry Lee Lewis and many others on a number of pop, country and rock ‘n’ roll recordings from the mid-1950s through the 1980s. […]

Ferlin Husky (1925 - 2011)

Ferlin Husky Country Musician, Actor. Born Ferlin Eugene Husky, he was raised on a Missouri farm and learned how to play the guitar from an uncle at the age of ten. Following service with the US Merchant Marines (he served as a troop ship gunner in the European Theater) during World War II, he worked […]

Dorothy Stratten (1960 - 1980)

Dorothy Stratten Stratten was born in a Salvation Army hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia, to Simon and Nelly Hoogstraten, who were Dutch immigrants. In 1961 her brother John Arthur was born. Her sister Louise Stratten followed in May 1968. In 1977 she was attending Centennial High School in Coquitlam when, while working part-time at a […]

Zig Ziglar (1926 - 2012)

Zig Ziglar was born in Coffee County in southeastern Alabama to John Silas Ziglar and Lila Wescott Ziglar. He was the tenth of twelve children.  In 1931, when Ziglar was five years old, his father took a management position at a Mississippi farm, and his family moved to Yazoo City, Mississippi, where he spent most […]

Dave Brubeck (1920 - 2012)

David Warren “Dave” Brubeck (December 6, 1920 – December 5, 2012) was an American jazz pianist and composer, considered to be one of the foremost exponents of cool jazz. He wrote a number of jazz standards, including “In Your Own Sweet Way” and “The Duke”. Brubeck’s style ranged from refined to bombastic, reflecting his mother’s […]

Jack Klugman (1922 - 2012)

Jack Klugman Klugman was born in Philadelphia, the son of Rose, a hat maker, and Max Klugman, a house painter. His parents were Russian Jewish immigrants, though the family name is German in origin. He attended Carnegie Institute of Technology, now Carnegie Mellon University, from which he graduated in 1948. While there his drama teacher […]

Charles Durning (1923 - 2012)

Durning was born in Highland Falls, New York, the ninth of ten children. His three brothers and sister, James (Roger) (1915–2000), Clifford (1916–1994), Frances (born 1919) and Gerald (born 1926), survived to adulthood but five sisters lost their lives to scarlet fever and smallpox as children. He was the son of Louise (née Leonard; 1894–1982), […]

Jean Harlow (1911 - 1937)

Jean Harlow Jean suffered from scarlet fever at the age 15 in 1926. This may have contributed to her untimely death from kidney disease on June 7, 1937 at the age of 26. Production for Harlow’s final film Saratoga, co-starring  Clark Gable, was scheduled to begin filming in March 1937. However, production was delayed when […]

Jayne Mansfield (1933 - 1967)

Jayne Mansfield In Biloxi, Mississippi, for an engagement at the Gus Stevens Supper Club, Mansfield stayed at the Cabana Courtyard Apartments near the club. After an evening appearance on June 28, 1967, Mansfield, her lover Sam Brody, their driver, Ronnie Harrison, with three of her children – Miklós, Zoltán and Mariska – set out in […]

Molly Glynn (1968 - 2014)

Molly Glynn (June 14, 1968 – September 6, 2014) was an American actress: She was a well-known Chicago stage actress, and also played several roles in film and television, including a recurring role on the television series Chicago Fire.  Glynn, the youngest of five children, grew up as part of a prominent family in Hartford, […]

Polly Bergen (1930 - 2014)

Bergen was born in Knoxville, Tennessee to Lucy (née Lawhorn) and William Hugh Burgin, a construction engineer. “Bill Bergen”, as he was later known, had singing talent and appeared with his daughter in several episodes of her 18-episode NBC comedy/variety show, The Polly Bergen Show, which aired during the 1957-1958 television season.  Bergen appeared in […]

Elizabeth Pena (1959 - 2014)

Elizabeth Peña Peña was born and raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey on September 23, 1959 to Mario Peña, an actor, director, and writer who co-founded the Latin American Theatre Ensemble, and Estella Margarita (Toirac) Peña, an arts administrator and producer.  She was of Cuban descent and spent her early years in Cuba. At age 8, […]

Christine Cavanaugh (1963 - 2014)

Cavanaugh was born to Rheta Mason (née Sharky) and Waldo Eugene Sandberg. She graduated from Layton High School in 1981. She first attended Utah State University, then the University of Hawaii, where she met her future husband, Kevin Cavanaugh. The couple married in 1985 but divorced in 1988.  In 1991, Cavanaugh voiced Gosalyn Mallard, the […]

Edward Herrmann (1943 - 2014)

Edward Kirk Herrmann was born on July 21, 1943 in Washington, D.C., the son of Jean Eleanor (née O’Connor) and John Anthony Herrmann. Of German and Irish descent, Herrmann grew up in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and graduated from Bucknell University in 1965, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi. He studied acting at […]

Little Jimmy Dickens (1920 - 2015)

Little Jimmy Dickens Toward the end of his life, Dickens made appearances in a number of music videos by fellow country musician and West Virginia native Brad Paisley. He was also featured on several of Paisley’s albums in bonus comedy tracks, along with other Opry mainstays such as George Jones and Bill Anderson. They were […]

Greg Page (1958 - 2009)

Greg Page Professional Boxer. He was the former WBA Heavyweight Champion from 1984 to 1985. He defeated Gerrie Coetzee to win the title and relinquished it to Tony Tubbs. Prior to turning professional, Page was a two-time National AAU Heavyweight Champion (1977 and 1978), and the National Golden Gloves Heavyweight Champion in 1978. He compiled […]

Sheb Wooley (1921 - 2003)

Sheb Wooley Wooley was born in Erick, Oklahoma, and was raised on a farm. He learned to ride horses at an early age and was a working cowboy and rodeo rider. He also played in a country-western band. Wooley tried to enlist during World War II, but was turned down for military service because of his rodeo injuries. Instead, […]

Johnny Russell (1940 - 2001)

Johnny Russell Russell penned the country standard “Act Naturally,” which Buck Owens recorded in 1963 and took to No. 1. Two years later, the Beatles cut the song with Ringo Starr on vocals. Artists such as Burl Ives, George Strait, Bobby Vinton, Patti Page, George Jones, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, and Del Reeves also recorded […]

Joe Louis (1914 - 1981)

Joe Louis Professional Boxer. Heavyweight Champion of the World from 1937 to 1949. He began his pro career in 1934, and by 1936 he had beaten such great heavyweights as Stanley Poreda, Natie Brown, and Rosco Toles. He was seemingly invincible, until his meeting with Max Schmeling on June 19, 1936. Schmeling was the underdog […]