Herbert Jon “Tex” Antoine, Jr (1923 - 1983)

He was born as Herbert Jon Antoine, Jr., in Illinois, and was raised in California and Texas. His father was Herbert Jon Antoine, Sr. (1894–1972), an auto supply salesman. His mother was Bertha Campbell, and by 1930 the family was living in Los Angeles.  Antoine (whose nickname “Tex” came from his growing up in Texas) […]

Rodney “Yokozuna” Anoai (1966 - 2000)

Anoaʻi’s career in professional wrestling began as he grew up in a family full of wrestlers, the Anoaʻi family. His uncles were the Wild Samoans, Afa and Sika, who trained him from an early age in the family business. Anoa’i took on the name of the Great Kokina while wrestling overseas in Japan. He also […]

Ken Annakin (1914 - 2009)

Annakin was born in and grew up in Beverley, East Riding of Yorkshire where he attended the grammar school. He began his career in feature films following an early experience making documentaries. Injured in the Liverpool blitz, he joined the RAF Film Unit, where he worked as camera operator on propaganda films for the Ministry […]

Richard Angas (1942 - 2013)

The Angas family were keen amateur musicians, and Richard, who was born in Esher in Greater London, became a chorister at the Royal School of Church Music as well as joining a local choral group. From 1960 until 1964 he studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and in 1965 won both the […]

Lucien Andriot (1892 - 1979)

Born in Paris, Andriot began his career in France in 1909 working for Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset. His elder sister Josette Andriot was a French film actress, working for Jasset. He then came to the U.S. some time before 1914 as an employee of the Éclair American Company based in Fort Lee, New Jersey, The outbreak of […]

Lindsay Anderson (1923 - 1994)

Of Scottish parentage, Anderson was the son of a British Army officer. He was born in Bangalore, South India, and educated at Saint Ronan’s School in Worthing, West Sussex, and at Cheltenham College, where he met his lifelong friend and biographer, the screenwriter and novelist Gavin Lambert; and at Wadham College, Oxford, where he studied […]

Rex Elvie Allen (1920 - 1999)

Allen was born to Horace E. Allen and Luella Faye Clark on a ranch in Mud Springs Canyon, 40 miles from Willcox, Arizona. As a boy he played guitar and sang at local functions with his fiddle-playing father until high school graduation when he toured the Southwest as a rodeo rider. He got his start […]

Lew Anderson (1922 - 2006)

Anderson was born in Kirkman, Iowa, the son of a railroad telegrapher. He began playing his sister’s clarinet when she tired of it, and by high school had formed his own dance band. After a year in junior college in Fort Dodge, Iowa, he received a music scholarship to Drake University in Des Moines. He […]

Juliet Anderson (1938 - 2010)

Juliet Anderson Judith Carr was born and grew up in Burbank, California, the daughter of a jazz trumpet player and an aspiring nurse. She was afflicted with both childhood arthritis and Crohn’s disease and spent a sizable portion of her youth in the hospital or on bedrest. Graduating from Burbank High School in 1956 (where […]

John Murray Anderson (1886 - 1954)

John Murray Anderson was born in 1886 in St. John’s, Newfoundland, the son of Hon. John Anderson and his wife. His brother was Hugh Abercrombie Anderson. Anderson received his early education at Bishop Feild College in St. John’s. He was sent to Europe for additional studies at Edinburgh Academy in Scotland. He entered college at […]

Ernie Anderson (1923 - 1997)

Born in Lynn, Massachusetts, Anderson planned to go to law school but was instead drafted into the U.S. Navy during World War II. In an interview, his son Paul Thomas Anderson spoke of his military service: “He (Ernie) was in the Navy stationed mainly in Guam. I don’t think he did any fighting. I think […]

Carmen Amaya (1918 - 1963)

Carmen Amaya was born on 2 November 1918 in a slum of Somorrostro, Barcelona, Catalonia, to José Amaya and Micaela Amaya Moreno. She came from a very poor family that lived in a wagon. She was born under their wagon turned home during an early winter storm. Amaya was second of six surviving children of […]

Robert Altman (1925 - 2006)

Altman was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the son of Helen (née Matthews), a Mayflower descendant from Nebraska, and Bernard Clement Altman, a wealthy insurance salesman and amateur gambler, who came from an upper-class family. Altman’s ancestry was German, English and Irish; his paternal grandfather, Frank Altman, Sr., anglicized the spelling of the family name […]

Wayne Allwine (1947 - 2009)

Allwine was born in Glendale, California on February 7, 1947. In 1966, Allwine started work in the mailing room at the Disney studios, before working in the sound effects department under Jimmy MacDonald.  After auditioning for the role, Allwine became the voice of Mickey Mouse from 1977 until his death in 2009. He succeeded MacDonald, […]

Sheldon Allman (1924 - 2002)

Sheldon Allman (June 8, 1924 – January 22, 2002) was a Jewish American-born Canadian raised actor, singer, and songwriter.  He began his singing career with the Royal National Guard during his World War II service with the RCAF. Relocating to Los Angeles, he appeared in twelve movies, including such notable films as Nevada Smith, The […]

Robert Allman (1927 - 2013)

Robert Allman was born in Melbourne in 1927. He studied in Paris and sang at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden for three seasons from 1955. He then moved to Germany, where he sang in over a dozen opera houses. He also sang in opera houses including Zurich, New Orleans, Singapore and Vienna.  In 1965, he […]

Irwin Allen (1916 - 1991)

Allen was born in New York City. His film credits include the 3-D film Dangerous Mission (1954), The Animal World (1956), The Story of Mankind (1957), The Big Circus (1959), The Lost World (1960), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961) (later the basis of his TV series of the same name), and Five […]

Irving Allen (1905 - 1987)

Irving Allen (November 24, 1905 – December 17, 1987) was a theatrical and cinematic producer and director.  He won an Academy Award in 1948 for producing the short movie Climbing the Matterhorn. In the early 1950s he formed Warwick Films with partner Albert “Cubby” Broccoli and relocated to England to leverage film making against a […]

Chesney Allen (1893 - 1982)

He was born William Ernest Chesney Allen in Battersea, London, England, married Aleta Cosette Turner in Leeds in 1926 and died in Midhurst, Sussex, England.  He began his career in straight acting, making his debut in stock at the Wimbledon Theatre, London, in 1912. As music hall comedians, they would often feature a mixture of […]

Annisteen Allen (1920 - 1992)

Annisteen Allen (born Ernestine Letitia Allen) (November 11, 1920, Champaign, Illinois – August 10, 1992, Harlem, New York City) was an American blues singer.  Allen’s first recordings were made in 1945, and included “Miss Annie’s Blues” and “Love for Sale”. She sang with Big John Greer, Wynonie Harris, and Lucky Millinder, and in 1951, Federal […]

Grigori Alexandrov (1903 - 1983)

Aleksandrov was born Grigori Vasilyevich Mormonenko in Ekaterinburg, Russia in 1903. Starting at age nine, Aleksandrov worked odd jobs at the Ekaterinburg Opera Theater, eventually making his way to assistant director. He also pursued a musical education, studying violin at the Ekaterinburg Musical School, from which he graduated in 1917. Aleksandrov came to Moscow after […]

Peter Alexander (1926 - 2011)

Peter Alexander Ferdinand Maximilian Neumayer (30 June 1926 – 12 February 2011), commonly known as Peter Alexander, was an Austrian actor, singer and entertainer. His fame emerged in the 1950s and 1960s through popular film comedies and successful recordings, predominantly of Schlager and operetta repertory. Later, Alexander established himself as the acclaimed host of television […]

Lennie Aleshire (1890 - 1987)

Lennie Aleshire was born April 27, 1890 in Christian County, Missouri, just south of Springfield. He was playing the fiddle by age six and learned the guitar, banjo and other instruments by ear. At 15, he lived with the Creek Indians near Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, though his mother was half Cherokee. After his parents died, […]

Robert Aldrich (1918 - 1983)

Aldrich was born in Cranston, Rhode Island, the son of Lora Lawson and newspaper publisher Edward Burgess Aldrich. He was a grandson of U.S. Senator Nelson W. Aldrich and a cousin to Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller. He was educated at the Moses Brown School in Providence, and studied economics at the University of Virginia where he […]

Al Alberts (1922 - 2009)

Born Al Albertini in Chester, Pennsylvania, he went to South Philadelphia High School. As a teenager, he appeared on the Horn and Hardart Children’s Hour, a radio program.  After graduating from South Philadelphia High, he went to Temple University and the United States Navy, where he met Dave Mahoney. They went on to found The […]

Lou Albano (1933 - 2009)

Albano’s parents, Carmen Louis Albano and Eleanor Albano née Morrone, were of Italian heritage but both born in the United States. Eleanor was a classical concert pianist who had performed at Carnegie Hall and later became a registered nurse. Her brother, a physician, introduced her to Carmen in the 1930s, who was training to be […]

Moustapha Akkad (1930 - 2005)

Al Akkad was born July 1, 1930 in Aleppo, Syria. He received his high school degree from the Aleppo American College. His father, then a customs officer, gave him $200 and a copy of the Quran before he left for the United States to study film direction and production at the University of California, Los […]

Alvin Ailey Jr (1931 - 1989)

Alvin Ailey Jr Ailey was born to his 17-year-old mother, Lula Elizabeth Ailey, in Rogers, Texas. His father, also named Alvin, abandoned the family when Alvin was only six months old. Like many African Americans living in Texas during the Great Depression, Ailey and his mother moved often and had a hard time finding work. […]

Antonio Aguilar Barraza (1919 - 2007)

Aguilar was born José Pascual Antonio Aguilar Márquez Barraza in Villanueva, Zacatecas, the son of Jesús Aguilar Aguilar and Ángela Márquez Barraza Valle, both of Villanueva.  He spent his early childhood in “La Casa Grande de Tayahua”, an hacienda first built in 1596 in the town of Tayahua, about 35 km from Villanueva. Aguilar’s ancestors […]

Joey Adams (1911 - 1999)

Adams was born in Brooklyn, New York as Joseph Abramowitz. For many years, he wrote the “Strictly for Laughs” column in the New York Post. His wife, Cindy Adams (to whom he was married from 1952 until his death), remains a society/gossip columnist for the same paper.  Adams’ career spanned more than 70 years and […]