Bobby Murcer (1946 - 2008)

Bobby Ray Murcer (May 20, 1946 – July 12, 2008) was an American Major League Baseball outfielder who played for 17 seasons between 1965 and 1983, mostly with the New York Yankees, whom he later rejoined as a longtime broadcaster. A Gold Glove winner and five-time All-Star, Murcer led the American League in on-base percentage […]

Darren Daulton (1962 - 2017)

The Philadelphia Phillies selected Darren Daulton in the 25th round of the 1980 Major League Baseball draft. On September 25, 1983, Daulton made his major league debut for the Phillies. He received three at bats for the Phillies in 1983. Through 1988, Daulton played sparingly, due chiefly to the presence of all-star catchers Ozzie Virgil Jr. […]

Don Baylor (1949 - 2017)

The Baltimore Orioles selected Don Baylor in the second round of the 1967 MLB draft. He received a $7,500 signing bonus from the Orioles. In 1970, he led the league with 34 doubles, 15 triples, 127 runs, and 140 games-played while playing for Rochester. The following year, he again led the league in doubles with […]

Glen Campbell (1936 - 2017)

Glen Campbell In 1960, Glen Campbell moved to Los Angeles to become a session musician. That October, he joined the Champs. By January 1961, Campbell had found a daytime job at publishing company American Music, writing songs and recording demos. Because of these demos Campbell soon was in demand as a session musician and became […]

Marcel Pagnol (1895 - 1974)

In 1926, on a visit to London, Marcel Pagnol attended a screening of one of the first talking films and he was so impressed that he decided to devote his efforts to cinema. He contacted Paramount Picture studios and suggested adapting his play Marius for cinema. This was directed by Alexander Korda and released on […]

Pierre Fresnay (1897 - 1975)

Pierre Fresnay (4 April 1897 in Paris, France – 9 January 1975) was a French stage and film actor. Born Pierre Jules Louis Laudenbach, he was encouraged by his uncle, actor Claude Garry, to pursue a career in theater and film. During the 1920s, Fresnay appeared in many popular stage productions, most notably in the title […]

Henri Decoin (1890 - 1969)

Henri Decoin (18 March 1890 – 4 July 1969) was a French film director and screenwriter, who directed more than 50 films between 1933 and 1964. He was also a swimmer who won the national title in 1911 and held the national record in the 500 m freestyle. He competed in the 400 m freestyle […]

Henri Verneuil (1920 - 2002)

Henri Verneuil was born Ashot Malakian (Armenian: Աշոտ Մալաքեան) to Armenian parents in Rodosto, East Thrace, Turkey. In 1924, when Ashot was a little child his family fled to Marseille in France, to escape persecution after the Armenian Genocide. He later recounted his childhood experience in the novel Mayrig, which he dedicated to his mother […]

Marcel Carné (1906 - 1996)

Born in Paris, France, the son of a cabinet maker whose wife died when their son was five, Marcel Carné began his career as a film critic, becoming editor of the weekly publication, Hebdo-Films, and working for Cinémagazine and Cinémonde between 1929 and 1933. In the same period he worked in silent film as a […]

René Clément (1913 - 1996)

René Clément studied architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts where he developed an interest in filmmaking. In 1936, he directed his first film, a 20-minute short written by and featuring Jacques Tati. Clément spent the latter part of the 1930s making documentaries in parts of the Middle East and Africa. In 1937, he and archaeologist […]

Georges Auric (1899 - 1983)

Georges Auric’s early compositions were marked by a reaction against the musical establishment and the use of referential material. Because of this and his association with Cocteau and Satie, Auric was grouped into Les Six by music critic Henri Collet, and was friends with the artist Jean Hugo. His participation led to writing settings of […]

Henri Alekan (1909 - 2001)

Henri Alekan (10 February 1909, Paris – 15 June 2001, Auxerre, Bourgogne) was a French cinematographer. Alekan was born in Montmartre in 1909. At the age of sixteen he and his brother became travelling puppeteers. A little later he started work as third assistant cameraman at the Billancourt Studios. He then spent a short time […]

Anatole Dauman (1925 - 1998)

Anatole Dauman (7 February 1925 in Warsaw – 8 April 1998 in Paris) was a French film producer. He produced films by Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Bresson, Wim Wenders, Nagisa Oshima, Andrei Tarkovsky, Chris Marker, Volker Schlöndorff, Walerian Borowczyk, and Alain Resnais. He was a principal figure in Argos Films, a company that was a very […]

Jean Cayrol (1911 - 2005)

Jean Cayrol (French: [kɛʁɔl]; 6 June 1911 – 10 February 2005) was a French poet, publisher, and member of the Académie Goncourt born in Bordeaux. He is perhaps best known for writing the narration in Alain Resnais’s 1955 documentary film, Night and Fog. He was a major contributor to the subversive, philosophical French publication Tel […]

Marguerite Duras (1914 - 1996)

Marguerite Duras was the author of many novels, plays, films, interviews, essays, and short fiction, including her best-selling, highly fictionalized autobiographical work L’Amant (1984), translated into English as The Lover, which describes her youthful affair with a Chinese man. This text won the Goncourt prize in 1984. The story of her adolescence also appears in […]

Alain Resnais (1922 - 2014)

Alain Resnais (French: [alɛ̃ ʁɛnɛ]; 3 June 1922 – 1 March 2014) was a French film director and screenwriter whose career extended over more than six decades. After training as a film editor in the mid-1940s, he went on to direct a number of short films which included Night and Fog (1955), an influential documentary […]

Claude Chabrol (1930 - 2010)

Claude Henri Jean Chabrol (French: [klod ʃabʁɔl]; 24 June 1930 – 12 September 2010) was a French film director and a member of the French New Wave (nouvelle vague) group of filmmakers who first came to prominence at the end of the 1950s. Like his colleagues and contemporaries Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Éric Rohmer and […]

François Truffaut (1932 - 1984)

After starting his own film club in 1948, François Truffaut met André Bazin, who would have great effect on his professional and personal life. Bazin was a critic and the head of another film society at the time. He became a personal friend of Truffaut’s and helped him out of various financial and criminal situations […]

Jeanne Moreau (1928 - 2017)

In 1947, Jeanne Moreau made her theatrical debut at the Avignon Festival. She debuted at the Comédie-Française in Ivan Turgenev’s A Month in the Country and, by her twenties, was already one of leading actresses in the theatre’s troupe. After 1949, she began appearing in films with small parts but continued primarily active in the […]

Sam Shepard (1943 - 2017)

Sam Shepard began his acting career in earnest when cast in a major role as the land baron in Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven (1978), opposite Richard Gere and Brooke Adams. This led to other important film roles, including that of Cal, Ellen Burstyn’s love interest, in the film Resurrection (1980), and most notably his […]

George Duning (1908 - 2000)

In his early 20s George Duning played trumpet and piano for the Kay Kyser band, later arranging most of the music for Kyser’s radio program, Kollege of Musical Knowledge. It was during the Kyser band’s appearance in Carolina Blues (1944) that Duning’s work was noticed, leading to a Columbia contract. Duning joined the Navy in […]

Erich Zeisl (1905 - 1959)

Born to a middle class Jewish family in Vienna, Erich Zeisl was the son of Kamilla (Feitler) and Siegmund Zeisl. His musical precocity enabled him to gain a place at the Vienna State Academy (against the wishes of his family) when he was 14, at which age his first song was published. While there, he […]

Philip Yordan (1914 - 2003)

Philip Yordan (April 1, 1914 – March 24, 2003) was an American screenwriter of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s who also produced several films. He was also known as a highly regarded script doctor. Born to Polish immigrants, he earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Illinois and a law degree at Chicago-Kent College […]

Lennie Hayton (1908 - 1971)

While playing at the Park Central, Lennie Hayton was heard by Paul Whiteman and immediately engaged by him in April 1928 as second pianist, playing piano and celeste as well as acting as a part-time arranger. Whilst with the Paul Whiteman orchestra, he played with musicians such as Frankie Trumbauer, Bix Beiderbecke, Red Nichols and […]

Massimo Amfiteatrof (1907 - 1990)

Massimo Amfiteatrof was born Maksim Aleksandrovič Amfiteatrov (russian: Максим Александрович Амфитеатров) from a russian family. His mother, Ilariā Vladimirovna Amfiteatrova, was an actress and a singer, while his father, Alexander Amfiteatrov, was a writer and a journalist. His brother, Daniele Amfitheatrof, became an orchestra conductor. He lived in St. Petersburg until 1917. When the Russian […]

Marty Paich (1925 - 1995)

From the beginning of his professional career, Marty Paich also learned music in the time-honored ways: he transcribed tunes and charts from recordings, he attended concerts, and he sat-in on a jams. After finishing his formal studies, Paich took a series of jobs in the Los Angeles music and recording industry. These included arranging (and […]

Bud Shank (1926 - 2009)

Clifford Everett “Bud” Shank, Jr. (May 27, 1926 – April 2, 2009) was an American alto saxophonist and flautist. He rose to prominence in the early 1950s playing lead alto and flute in Stan Kenton’s Innovations in Modern Music Orchestra and throughout the decade worked in various small jazz combos. He spent the 1960s as […]

Shorty Rogers (1924 - 1994)

Shorty Rogers worked first as a professional musician with Will Bradley and Red Norvo. From 1947 to 1949, he worked extensively with Woody Herman and in 1950 and 1951 he played with Stan Kenton. Rogers appeared on the 1954 Shelly Manne album The Three and the Two along with Jimmy Giuffre. Much of the music […]

Daniele Amfitheatrof (1901 - 1983)

Following his graduation, Daniele Amfitheatrof took his place in Italian music circles of the day. In 1924 he was appointed pianist, organist, and assistant choral conductor of the Augusteo Symphony of Rome. Successive appointments included a position as the artistic director of the Italian Radio in Genoa and Trieste (1929–1932), as well as the management […]

Leith Stevens (1909 - 1970)

The music accompanying the film The James Dean Story was composed and conducted by Leith Stevens. An eponymous album containing this music was released by Capitol Records in 1957, and its anonymous sleeve notes say, “Here is the music direct from the soundtrack of The James Dean Story, a different kind of motion picture. This […]