John Dunsworth (1946 - 2017)

John Dunsworth studied acting at the University of Guelph, but dropped out in his fourth year. He went on to act in numerous CBC radio dramas, and has had starring roles in many stage productions at the Neptune Theatre in Halifax. In 1970, Dunsworth leased an abandoned building on Halifax’s waterfront, and converted it into a […]

Scott Putesky (1968 - 2017)

Scott Putesky and Brian Warner met at a Fort Lauderdale club called The Reunion Room and later at a local after-party in December 1989. The two created the concept of Marilyn Manson & The Spooky Kids poking fun at American media hypocrisy and its obsessions with serial killers and beautiful women. Scott Putesky, who had at […]

Judy Martz (1943 - 2017)

Upon becoming governor, Judy Martz’ first legislative session resulted in the single largest increase in the education budget in Montana history, as well as tax cuts intended to stimulate the stagnant state economy. Martz was put under a statewide microscope in November 2001 when a 1999 real estate deal between the Martzes and ARCO was uncovered. […]

Luciano Berio (1925 - 2003)

Luciano Berio was born in Oneglia (now part of Imperia), on the Ligurian coast of Italy. He was taught how to play the piano by his father and grandfather, who were both organists. During World War II he was conscripted into the army, but on his first day, he injured his hand while learning how […]

Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928 - 2007)

Karlheinz Stockhausen (German pronunciation: [kaʁlˈhaɪnts ˈʃtɔkhaʊzn̩]; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important (Barrett 1988, 45; Harvey 1975b, 705; Hopkins 1972, 33; Klein 1968, 117) but also controversial (Power 1990, 30) composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. A critic […]

Pierre Boulez (1925 - 2016)

Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez CBE (French: [pjɛʁ bu.lɛːz]; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor, writer and organiser of institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of the post-war classical music world. Born in Montbrison in the Loire department of France, the son of an engineer, Boulez studied at the Conservatoire […]

Alban Berg (1885 - 1935)

Alban Berg was a part of Vienna’s cultural elite during the heady fin de siècle period. His circle included the musicians Alexander von Zemlinsky and Franz Schreker, the painter Gustav Klimt, the writer and satirist Karl Kraus, the architect Adolf Loos, and the poet Peter Altenberg. In 1906, Berg met the singer Helene Nahowski, daughter […]

Claude Debussy (1862 - 1918)

Claude Debussy’s private life was often turbulent. At the age of 18 he began an eight-year affair with Marie-Blanche Vasnier, the wife of Parisian civil servant Henri Vasnier. The relationship eventually faltered following his winning of the Prix de Rome in 1884 and obligatory residence in Rome. On his permanent return to Paris and his parents’ […]

Anton Webern (1883 - 1945)

Anton Friedrich Wilhelm (von) Webern (German: [ˈantɔn ˈveːbɐn]; 3 December 1883 – 15 September 1945) was an Austrian composer and conductor. Along with his mentor Arnold Schoenberg and his colleague Alban Berg, Webern was at the core among those within and more peripheral to the circle of the Second Viennese School, including Ernst Krenek and Theodor […]

Gustav Mahler (1860 - 1911)

Gustav Mahler (German: [ˈmaːlɐ]; 7 July 1860, Kaliště, Bohemia, now Czech Republic – 18 May 1911, Vienna, Austria-Hungary) was an Austrian late-Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th century Austro-German tradition and the modernism of the early 20th century. While […]

Arnold Schoenberg (1874 - 1951)

Arnold Franz Walter Schoenberg or Schönberg (; 13 September 1874 – 13 July 1951) was an Austrian composer, music theorist, and painter. He was associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School. With the rise of the Nazi Party, Schoenberg’s works were labelled degenerate music, because they […]

Alexander Young (1938 - 1997)

Alexander Young was born in Bridgeton, Glasgow, Scotland. When his family emigrated to Sydney, Australia, in 1963, he chose to remain in Britain to pursue musical interests. At that time he was in a band called the Bobby Patrick Big Six and spent some time in Germany. Later, in 1967, Alexander formed and played bass […]

Stevie Wright (1947 - 2015)

Stevie Wright was born in Leeds, England, in 1947 to George Wright and Dorothy Wright (née Longden); his family migrated to Melbourne, Australia, when he was nine. They moved to Sydney in 1960 and lived in Villawood near the Villawood Migrant Hostel. He was lead vocalist for local band, The Outlaws, and by 1964 had […]

George Young (1946 - 2017)

George Young started his music career in Sydney, where on rhythm guitar he formed a beat pop band, the Easybeats, in late 1964 alongside Dick Diamonde (born Dingernam Vandersluys) on bass guitar, Gordon “Snowy” Fleet on drums (ex-Mojos), Harry Vanda (born Johannes Vandenberg) on lead guitar (ex-Starfighters, Starlighters) and Stevie Wright on lead vocals (ex-Chris […]

James Stacy (1936 - 2016)

James Stacy made his film debut in Sayonara in 1957, and his television debut in Highway Patrol. He had a recurring role as “Fred” in The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet from 1958 to 1963. During the 1960s he made guest appearances in television shows, including Gunsmoke, Hazel, The Donna Reed Show, Have Gun – […]

Don Mitchell (1943 - 2013)

Don Michael Mitchell (March 17, 1943 – December 8, 2013) was an American actor, best known for appearing with Raymond Burr in the NBC television series Ironside (1967-1975). He played the role of Mark Sanger, and reprised the role in the made-for-TV “reunion” film in 1993 – his last TV appearance. Don Mitchell, who was a […]

Elizabeth Baur (1947 - 2017)

Elizabeth Baur (December 1, 1947 – September 30, 2017) was an American actress. She is perhaps best known for her roles as Teresa O’Brien on the CBS western series, Lancer, with Andrew Duggan, James Stacy, Wayne Maunder, and Paul Brinegar, and as Officer Fran Belding on NBC’s crime drama series Ironside. Elizabeth Baur was born in […]

Eugene Wigner (1902 - 1995)

Eugene Paul “E. P.” Wigner (Hungarian: Wigner Jenő Pál; November 17, 1902 – January 1, 1995), was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist, engineer and mathematician. He received half of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 “for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application […]

Julian Schwinger (1918 - 1994)

After having worked with Oppenheimer, Julian Schwinger’s first regular academic appointment was at Purdue University in 1941. While on leave from Purdue, he worked at the Radiation Laboratory at MIT instead of at the Los Alamos National Laboratory during World War II. He provided theoretical support for the development of radar. After the war, Schwinger […]

Lev Landau (1908 - 1968)

Lev Landau was the head of the Theoretical Division at the Institute for Physical Problems from 1937 until 1962. Landau was arrested on 27 April 1938, because he had compared the Stalinist dictatorship with that of Hitler, and was held in the NKVD’s Lubyanka prison until his release on 29 April 1939, after the head […]

Paul Dirac (1902 - 1984)

Paul Dirac was educated first at Bishop Road Primary School and then at the all-boys Merchant Venturers’ Technical College (later Cotham School), where his father was a French teacher. The school was an institution attached to the University of Bristol, which shared grounds and staff. It emphasised technical subjects like bricklaying, shoemaking and metal work, […]

Robert Herman (1914 - 1997)

Born in the Bronx, New York City, Robert Herman graduated cum laude with special honors in physics from the City College of New York in 1935, and in 1940 was awarded master’s and doctoral degrees in physics from Princeton University in the area of molecular spectroscopy. As a graduate student, Herman already exhibited eclectic tendencies […]

Edward Teller (1908 - 2003)

Edward Teller (Hungarian: Teller Ede; January 15, 1908 – September 9, 2003) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who was born in Hungary, and is known colloquially as “the father of the hydrogen bomb”, although he claimed he did not care for the title. He made numerous contributions to nuclear and molecular physics, spectroscopy (in particular the Jahn–Teller […]

George Gamow (1904 - 1968)

In the early 20th century, radioactive materials were known to have characteristic exponential decay rates, or half-lives. At the same time, radiation emissions were known to have certain characteristic energies. By 1928, Gamow in Göttingen had solved the theory of the alpha decay of a nucleus via tunnelling, with mathematical help from Nikolai Kochin. The […]

Vera Rubin (1928 - 2016)

Vera Rubin held various academic appointments for the next eleven years. She served for a year as an Instructor of Mathematics and Physics at Montgomery County Community College, then worked from 1955-1965 at Georgetown University, as a Research Associate Astronomer, Lecturer (1959-1962), and finally, Assistant Professor of Astronomy (1962-1965). She joined the Carnegie Institute in […]

Roy Lunn (1925 - 2017)

In 1953, Roy  Lunn joined Ford Motor Company in England and was assigned the task of starting a new Research Center in Birmingham. This center made the first prototype of what became the 105-E Anglia. Lunn transferred to Ford plant in Dagenham as the car’s product planning manager to follow the 105-E into mass production. He […]

Pete Domenici (1932 - 1932)

One of the first issues that Pete Domenici concerned himself with was waterway usage fees, in spite of his state lacking any waterway capable of commercial traffic. The idea behind a waterway usage fee was that the Army Corps of Engineers built dams and other expensive waterway projects, which the barge industry were able use […]

Ralphie May (1972 - 2017)

Ralphie May was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee on February 17, 1972, and raised in Clarksville, Arkansas. When he was 16, May broke 42 of his bones in an automobile accident. At 17, he won a contest to open for Sam Kinison, whom he considered his idol. Kinison suggested that May move to Houston to further develop […]

William Marston (1893 - 1947)

On October 25, 1940, an interview conducted by former student Olive Byrne (under the pseudonym “Olive Richard”) was published in The Family Circle (titled “Don’t Laugh at the Comics”), in which William Marston said that he saw “great educational potential” in comic books. (A follow-up article was published two years later in 1942.) The interview […]

Joe Shuster (1914 - 1992)

Siegel and Joe Shuster created a bald telepathic villain, bent on dominating the world, as the title character in the short story “The Reign of the Superman”, published in Siegel’s 1933 fanzine Science Fiction #3. The character was not successful, and Siegel eventually devised the more familiar version of the character. Shuster modeled the hero […]