Yvonne Brill (1924 - 2013)

Yvonne Brill was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her parents were immigrants from Belgium. She attended the University of Manitoba, but was barred from studying engineering because of her gender, so she studied chemistry and mathematics.  Brill’s work in satellite propulsion systems resulted in a number of significant developments. She developed the concept for a new rocket […]

Joe Weider (1920 - 2013)

Weider was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, to Louis and Anna, Jewish immigrants from Poland. He published the first issue of Your Physique magazine in 1936 when he was 17 years old, and built a set of barbells out of car wheels and axles the same year out of the family garage on Coloniale street […]

Rise Stevens (1913 - 2013)

Stevens was born Risë Steenberg, on June 11, 1913, in New York City, the daughter of Sarah “Sadie” (née Mechanic) and Christian Steenberg, an advertising salesman. Her father was of Norwegian Lutheran descent and her mother was Jewish (of Polish and Russian descent). She had a younger brother, Lewis “Bud” Steenberg, who died in World […]

Harry Reems (1947 - 2013)

Reems was born Herbert Streicher. He attended the University of Pittsburgh for a year before briefly serving in the United States Marine Corps, from which he received an honorable discharge following hardship leave. He then elected to pursue an acting career, principally in off-Broadway theater.  Prior to appearing in Deep Throat, Herb Streicher was chosen […]

Bonnie Franklin (1944 - 2013)

Bonnie Franklin Franklin was born in Santa Monica, California, the daughter of Claire (née Hersch) and Samuel Benjamin Franklin, an investment banker. Her parents were both Jewish immigrants, her father from Russia and her mother from Romania.  Her family moved to Beverly Hills when she was thirteen years old, and she graduated from Beverly Hills […]

Mary Thom (1944 - 2013)

Thom was born in Akron, Ohio in 1944. Her father was an engineer. He worked in the steel industry. Her mother worked from home as a homemaker. Thom listened to jazz and enjoyed Shakespeare. She credits these two interests at triggering her interest in activism. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1966. While there, […]

Deanna Durbin (1921 - 2013)

Edna Mae Durbin was born on December 4, 1921 at Grace Hospital in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, the daughter of James Allen Durbin and his wife Ada (née Read), who were originally from Manchester, England. In 1923, her family moved from Winnipeg to southern California, and her parents soon become United States citizens. At the age […]

Jeff Buckley (1966 - 1997)

Jeff Buckley Musician. Born in Anaheim, California, he was a singer, songwriter, guitarist, whom emerged in New York City’s avant-garde club scene in the 1990’s. Signed to Columbia Records, he released his first album “At Sin-é” (1993) followed by his full-band album, “Grace” (1994). With the success of the albums, he went on an extensive […]

Buddy Holly (1936 - 1959)

When Elvis Presley died, 25,000 people gathered outside Graceland in the sweltering Memphis heat. John Lennon’s murder drew millions of people to Central Park for a silent vigil. But when Buddy Holly’s plane went down in an Iowa cornfield at a little past 1 a.m. on Feb. 3, 1959, there was nobody waiting for him […]

Janos Starker (1924 - 2013)

Starker was born in Budapest to a father of Polish descent and a mother who had immigrated from Ukraine, both Jewish. His two older brothers were violinists, and the young János (named for the hospital in which he was born) was given a cello before his sixth birthday. A child prodigy, Starker made his first […]

Al Neuharth (1924 - 2013)

Al Neuharth was born into a German-speaking family in rural South Dakota. Neuharth’s parents were Daniel J. and Christina, who married on January 11, 1922. Daniel died when Al was two. Al needed to help his family survive the Great Depression. He worked on his grandfather’s farm. As a youngster, he also delivered the Minneapolis […]

E. L. Konigsburg (1930 - 2013)

Elaine Lobl was born in New York City on February 10, 1930, but grew up in small Pennsylvania towns, the second of three daughters. She was an avid reader, although reading was only “tolerated” in her family, “not sanctioned like dusting furniture or baking cookies”. She was high school valedictorian in Farrell, Pennsylvania, where there […]

François Jacob (1920 - 2013)

Jacob was born the only child of Simon, a merchant, and Thérèse (Franck) Jacob, in Nancy, France. An inquisitive child, he learned to read at a young age. Albert Franck, Jacob’s maternal grandfather, a four-star general, was Jacob’s childhood role model. At seven he entered the Lycée Carnot, where he was schooled for the next […]

Hilary Koprowski (1916 - 2013)

Hilary Koprowski was born in Warsaw, Poland, to Paweł (Paul) and Sonia Koprowski. The parents had met in 1906 while Hilary Koprowski’s father was serving in the Russian Army, and they had moved to Warsaw soon after their marriage in 1912. Hilary Koprowski attended Warsaw’s Mikołaj Rej Secondary School, and from age twelve he took […]

Robert G. Edwards (1925 - 2013)

Edwards was born in Batley, Yorkshire, and attended The Henry Box School in Witney. After finishing Manchester Central High School on Whitworth Street in central Manchester, he served in the British Army, and then completed his undergraduate studies in biology at the Bangor University. He studied at the Institute of Animal Genetics and Embryology at […]

Zao Wou-Ki (1920 - 2013)

Zao was born in Beijing with family roots in Dantu, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province. In his childhood he was brought back to his hometown Dantu where he studied calligraphy. From 1935 to 1941, he studied painting at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. In 1948, he went with his wife Lan-lan, a composer, […]

Marvin Gaye (1939 - 1984)

Marvin Gaye Marvin Gaye (April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984), born Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr., was an American singer-songwriter and musician. Gaye helped to shape the sound of Motown Records in the 1960s with a string of hits, including “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” and “I Heard It Through the […]

John Lennon (1940 - 1980)

John Lennon John Ono Lennon, MBE, born John Winston Lennon; (9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980), was an English musician, singer and songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as a founder member of the rock band the Beatles, the most commercially successful band in the history of popular music. With Paul McCartney, he formed a songwriting partnership that is one of […]

James Dean (1931 - 1955)

James Dean James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955) was an American actor. He is a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which he starred as troubled teenager Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his stardom were loner Cal Trask in East of […]

Annette Funicello (1942 - 2013)

Annette Joanne Funicello was born in Utica, New York, to Italian Americans Virginia Jeanne (née Albano) and Joseph Funicello. Her family moved to Southern California when she was four years old.  Annette took dancing and music lessons as a child in order to overcome shyness. In 1955, the 12-year-old was discovered by Walt Disney when […]

Kurt Cobain (1967 - 1994)

Kurt Cobain Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1967 – c. April 5, 1994) was an American musician who was best known as the lead singer, guitarist, and primary songwriter of the rock band Nirvana. Cobain formed Nirvana with Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington, in 1985 and established it as part of the Seattle music scene, having its debut album Bleach released on the independent record label Sub Pop in […]

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1927 - 2013)

Ruth Prawer was born in Cologne, Germany to Jewish parents Marcus and Eleanora (Cohn) Prawer. Marcus was a lawyer who moved to Germany from Poland to escape conscription and Eleanora’s father was cantor of Cologne’s largest synagogue. Her father was accused of communist links, arrested and then released and she witnessed the violence unleashed against […]

Jimi Hendrix (1942 - 1970)

James Marshall “Jimi” Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970) was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music, and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century. […]

Chuck Fairbanks (1933 - 2013)

Born in Detroit, Fairbanks graduated from Michigan State University in 1955, following three years of football with the Spartans. That fall, he began the first of three years as head coach of Ishpeming High School in Michigan.  In 1958, he accepted an assistant coaching position at Arizona State University in Tempe, spending four years there […]

Barbara Piasecka Johnson (1937 - 2013)

Piasecka Johnson was born in Staniewicze near Grodno, Poland (now in Belarus). Her father was a farmer. She graduated from Wroclaw University with a M.A. in Art History. She left Poland in 1968, with just $100.  Piasecka was hired as a cook by Esther Underwood Johnson, then wife of John Seward Johnson I. Her cooking […]

Jack Pardee (1936 - 2013)

As a teenager, Pardee moved to Christoval, Texas, where he excelled as a member of the six-man football team. He was an All-American linebacker at Texas A&M University and a two-time All-Pro with the Los Angeles Rams (1963) and the Washington Redskins (1971). He was one of the few six-man players to ever make it […]

Jean Stapleton (1923 - 2013)

Stapleton was born in Manhattan, New York City, to Joseph E. Murray (a billboard advertising salesman) and Marie Stapleton Murray (an opera singer). At age 18, while she was a student at Manhattan’s Hunter College, she began her career in 1941 in summer stock theatre, and made her New York debut in the Off-Broadway play […]

Mulgrew Miller (1955 - 2013)

Mulgrew Miller was born in Greenwood, Mississippi, to parents who had been raised on plantations. He had three brothers and four sisters. His family was not musical, but they had a piano, which no-one in the house could play. Miller, however, played tunes on the piano from the age of six, playing by ear. He […]

Haynes Johnson (1931 - 2013)

Johnson was born in New York City to journalist Malcolm Johnson and Emma Ludie (née Adams), a pianist. He earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri in 1952 and his master’s in American history from the University of Wisconsin in 1956. He then served in the U.S. Army as a first […]

Henri Dutilleux (1916 - 2013)

Henri Dutilleux was born on 22 January 1916 in Angers, Maine-et-Loire. He was the great-grandson of the painter Constant Dutilleux and of the composer Julien Koszul. He was also a cousin of the mathematician Jean-Louis Koszul. As a young man he studied harmony, counterpoint and piano with Victor Gallois at the Douai Conservatory before leaving […]