Kieron Moore (1924 - 2007)

Kieron Moore grew up in County Cork in an Irish-speaking household. His father, Peadar Ó hAnnracháin (born 1873) (also known as Peter/Peadar Hourihane and Peadar O’Hourihane) was a writer and poet, and a staunch supporter of the Irish language. Peadar, a son of Seaghan Ó hAnnracháin (born 1834) and Máire Ní Dhonabháin (also born 1834) […]

Dick Shawn (1923 - 1987)

Dick Shawn was born Richard Schulefand in Buffalo, New York and raised in adjacent Lackawanna. The best remembered roles of his career are the hot-headed Sylvester Marcus, son of Mrs. Marcus (Ethel Merman), in Stanley Kramer’s It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) and easygoing Lorenzo St. DuBois/Adolf Hitler in the musical Springtime for […]

Arthur Treacher (1894 - 1975)

Arthur Treacher was the son of a Sussex solicitor. He was educated at boarding school in Uppingham in Rutland. Treacher was a veteran of World War I, serving as an officer in the Royal Garrison Artillery; his father had served with the Sussex Volunteer Artillery before his son’s birth. After the war, he established a stage […]

Herbert Biberman (1900 - 1971)

Herbert J. Biberman (March 4, 1900 – June 30, 1971) was an American screenwriter and film director. He may be best known for having been one of the Hollywood Ten as well as directing Salt of the Earth, a 1954 film about a zinc miners’ strike in Grant County, New Mexico. His membership in the […]

Vicki Morgan (1952 - 1983)

Vicki Morgan Vicki Morgan had a disadvantaged childhood, a lack of education tied into having become an unwed mother as a teenager after a years long relationship, and, it could be argued, had only beauty as an asset, so what hope did she have to escape her past, especially because she spoke with a lisp? She’d […]

Michael Wilding (1912 - 1979)

Born in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, England, and educated at Christ’s Hospital, Michael Wilding was a successful commercial artist when he joined the art department of a London film studio in 1933. He soon embarked on an acting career. He appeared in numerous British films, often opposite Anna Neagle, but had a less productive career in Hollywood. His […]

Joe Pasternak (1901 - 1991)

Born to a Jewish family in Szilágysomlyó, Austria-Hungary (now Șimleu Silvaniei, Sălaj County, Romania), Joe Pasternak was a successful film producer in Germany and Austria by the time he was 28 years old. He worked for Universal Pictures in Europe, where he made German-language musicals for the international market. He hit upon a successful formula, […]

Charles Walters (1911 - 1982)

Charles Walters (November 17, 1911 – August 13, 1982) was a Hollywood director and choreographer most noted for his work in MGM musicals and comedies in from the 1940s to the 1960s. He was born in Pasadena California and educated at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Charles Walters is notable for directing many popular and […]

Frank Morgan (1890 - 1949)

Frank Morgan “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain,” exclaimed beloved character actor Frank Morgan during a key moment in “The Wizard of Oz” (1939) and his beautifully conveyed expression of embarrassment and desperation perfectly exemplified the capacity he displayed in so much of his work. He first established himself on stage, making […]

Mike Douglas (1925 - 2006)

Mike Douglas Mike Douglas, who drew on his affable personality and singing talent during 21 years as host of a syndicated television talk show, died today (Aug. 11) on his 81st birthday, his wife said.He died at 5:30 a.m. at a Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., hospital, Genevieve Douglas said. She wasn’t sure of the cause […]

Mike DiBiase (1923 - 1969)

Mike DiBiase Mike DiBiase was a legendary professional wrestler.  After serving in the Navy during World War II, he wrestled at the University of Nebraska, where he captured AAU National and Big Seven Wrestling Titles.  DiBiase’s wife was wrestler Helen Hilde and his son Ted was also a legendary pro-grappler out of West Texas. DiBiase made […]

Jim Hutton (1934 - 1979)

Jim Hutton was born in Binghamton, New York, the son of Helen and Thomas R. Hutton, an editor and managing editor of the Binghamton Press. Hutton’s parents divorced while he was an infant, and he never knew his father. Hutton was expelled from five high schools due to behavior problems but had excellent grades and […]

David Wayne (1914 - 1995)

David Wayne was born Wayne James McMeekan in Traverse City, Michigan, the son of Helen Matilda (née Mason) and John David McMeekan. His mother died when he was 4. He grew up in Bloomingdale, Michigan. When World War II began Wayne volunteered as an ambulance driver with the British Army in North Africa. When the […]

Nunnally Johnson (1897 - 1977)

Nunnally Hunter Johnson was born on December 5, 1897 in Columbus, Georgia. He was the first of two sons born to Johnny Pearl “Onnie” (née Patrick) and James Nunnally “Jim” Johnson. He and his younger brother, Cecil Patrick Johnson, were raised in Columbus, Georgia. His father was a journeyman mechanic, turned tinsmith and coppersmith, turned […]

Alexander Schmorell (1917 - 1943)

Alexander Schmorell’s father, a medical doctor, was German-born and raised in Russia. Schmorell’s mother was Russian, the daughter of a Russian Orthodox priest. Schmorell was baptised in the Russian Orthodox Church. His mother died of typhus during the Russian Civil War when he was two years old. In 1920 his widowed father married a German […]

Kurt Huber (1893 - 1943)

Kurt Huber was born in Chur, Switzerland, to German parents. He grew up in Stuttgart and later, after his father’s death, in Munich. He showed an aptitude for such subjects as music, philosophy and psychology. Huber became a professor of Psychology and Music in 1926 at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Huber was appalled by […]

James J Braddock (1905 - 1974)

James J Braddock James J Braddock was born on June 7th, 1905, to Irish immigrant parents Joseph Braddock and Elizabeth O’Toole Braddock in a tiny apartment on West 48th Street in New York City. The Braddock family was growing and with five boys and two girls, Joseph and Elizabeth relocated across the Hudson River to […]

Christoph Probst (1919 - 1943)

Christoph Hermann Probst (born 6 November 1918, Murnau am Staffelsee – 22 February 1943, Munich) was a German student of medicine and member of the White Rose (Weiße Rose) resistance group. White Rose was the name of a resistance group in Munich in the time of the Third Reich. The group, founded in June 1942, consisted […]

Inge Scholl (1917 - 1998)

Inge Aicher-Scholl (11 August 1917 – 4 September 1998), born in present-day Crailsheim, Germany was the daughter of Robert Scholl, mayor of Forchtenberg, and elder sister of Hans and Sophie Scholl, who studied at the University of Munich in 1942, and were core members of the White Rose student resistance movement in Nazi Germany. Inge […]

Willi Graf (1918 - 1943)

Willi Graf (2 January 1918 in Kuchenheim near Euskirchen – 12 October 1943 in Munich) was a Roman Catholic member of the White Rose (Weiße Rose) resistance group in Nazi Germany. Willi Graf’s family moved to Saarbrücken in 1922, where his father ran a wine wholesaler, and was the manager of the Johannishof, the second largest […]

Sophie Scholl (1921 - 1943)

Sophie Scholl was brought up a Lutheran. She entered junior or grade school at the age of seven, learned easily, and had a carefree childhood. In 1930, the family moved to Ludwigsburg and then two years later to Ulm where her father had a business consulting office. In 1932, Scholl started attending a secondary school for […]

Hans Scholl (1918 - 1943)

Hans Scholl was born in Ingersheim (now a part of Crailsheim, Baden-Württemberg). In 1933 he joined the Hitler Youth, but quickly became disillusioned when he realised the true meaning behind the group. He was raised as a Lutheran, although he did at one point consider converting to Catholicism. After this, Hans Scholl studied in the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität […]

Edward Said (1935 - 2003)

Edward Wadie Said (Arabic pronunciation: [wædiːʕ sæʕiːd] Arabic: إدوارد وديع سعيد‎‎, Idwārd Wadīʿ Saʿīd; 1 November 1935 – 25 September 2003) was a professor of literature at Columbia University, a public intellectual, and a founder of the academic field of postcolonial studies. Born in Mandatory Palestine, Said was an American citizen from birth by way […]

John Brown (1800 - 1859)

John Brown (May 9, 1800 – December 2, 1859) was an American abolitionist who believed armed insurrection was the only way to overthrow the institution of slavery in the United States. During the 1856 conflict in Kansas, Brown commanded forces at the Battle of Black Jack and the Battle of Osawatomie. Brown’s followers killed five slavery […]

Robert Ford (1861 - 1892)

Robert Ford was born in 1861, in Ray County, Missouri. He was the youngest child of James Thomas Ford and his wife, the former Mary Bruin. As a young man, Robert became an admirer of Jesse James for his Civil War record and criminal exploits. In 1880, at the age of 19, he finally met […]

Zerelda James (1825 - 1911)

Born as Zerelda Elizabeth Cole in Woodford County, Kentucky her parents were James and Sarah Lindsay Cole; she had one younger brother, Jesse Richard Cole. One year younger than she, her brother committed suicide in 1895 for undisclosed reasons. When Zerelda James was a small child, her father broke his neck in a riding accident leaving […]

William T. Anderson (1840 - 1864)

William T. Anderson (1840 – October 26, 1864), better known as Bloody Bill, was one of the deadliest and most brutal pro-Confederate guerrilla leaders in the American Civil War. Anderson led a band that targeted Union loyalists and Federal soldiers in Missouri and Kansas. Raised by a family of Southerners in Kansas, William Anderson began supporting […]

Cole Younger (1844 - 1916)

Thomas Coleman “Cole” Younger, was born on January 15, 1844 on the Younger family farm. He was a son of Henry Washington Younger, a prosperous farmer from Greenwood, Missouri and Bersheba Leighton Fristoe, daughter of a prominent Jackson County farmer. Cole was the seventh of fourteen children. During the American Civil War, savage guerrilla warfare wracked […]

Jim Younger (1848 - 1902)

James Hardin Younger (January 15, 1848 – October 19, 1902) was a notable American outlaw and member of the James–Younger Gang. He was the brother of Cole, John and Bob Younger. Born in Missouri on January 15, 1848. He was the ninth of fourteen children born to Henry Washington Younger and Bersheba Leighton Fristoe. Jim Younger […]

Bob Younger (1853 - 1889)

Robert Ewing “Bob” Younger (October 29, 1853 – September 16, 1889) was an American criminal and outlaw, the younger brother of Cole, Jim and John Younger. He was a member of the James–Younger Gang. Born in Missouri on October 29, 1853, Robert was the thirteenth of fourteen children born to Henry Washington Younger and Bersheba Leighton […]