William Rice (1816 - 1900)

William Rice was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, the third of ten children of David and Patty (née Hall) Rice. His first job was as a grocery store clerk in Springfield, at the age of 15. By age 22, he had purchased the store from its owner. In 1838, Rice traveled to Texas in search of […]

Thelonious Monk (1917 - 1982)

Thelonious Sphere Monk (/θəˈloʊniəs/, October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including “‘Round Midnight”, “Blue Monk”, “Straight, No Chaser” “Ruby, My Dear”, “In Walked Bud”, and “Well, You Needn’t”. Monk is the second […]

Oscar Peterson (1925 - 2007)

Oscar Peterson was born to immigrants from the West Indies; his father worked as a porter for Canadian Pacific Railway. Peterson grew up in the neighbourhood of Little Burgundy in Montreal, Quebec. It was in this predominantly black neighbourhood that he found himself surrounded by the jazz culture that flourished in the early 20th century. […]

Coleman Hawkins (1904 - 1969)

Coleman Hawkins was born in Saint Joseph, Missouri, in 1904. Although some sources say 1901, there is no evidence to prove an earlier date; instead, there is record of Hawkins’s parents’ first child, a girl, being born in 1901 and dying at the age of two, possibly the basis for the mistaken belief. He was […]

Earl Hines (1903 - 1983)

Earl Kenneth Hines, universally known as Earl “Fatha Hines (December 28, 1903 – April 22, 1983), was an American jazz pianist and bandleader. He was one of the most influential figures in the development of jazz piano and, according to one major source, is “one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the […]

Andy Razaf (1895 - 1973)

Andy Razaf (December 16, 1895 – February 3, 1973) was an African-American poet, composer and lyricist of such well-known songs as “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “Honeysuckle Rose”. Razaf was born in Washington, D.C. His birth name was Andriamanantena Paul Razafinkarefo. He was the son of Henri Razafinkarefo, nephew of Queen Ranavalona III of Imerina kingdom in Madagascar, […]

Thad Jones (1923 - 1986)

Thad Jones was born in Pontiac, Michigan, on March 28, 1923, to Henry and Olivvia Jones, a musical family of 10 (an older brother was pianist Hank Jones and a younger brother was drummer Elvin Jones). A self-taught musician, Thad began performing professionally at the age of 16. He served in U.S. Army bands during […]

Fats Waller (1904 - 1943)

Against the opposition of his father, a clergyman, Waller became a professional pianist at the age of 15, working in cabarets and theaters.[citation needed] In 1918 he won a talent contest playing Johnson’s “Carolina Shout”, a song he learned from watching a player piano play it. Fats Waller became one of the most popular performers of […]

Dizzy Gillespie (1917 - 1993)

John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie (/ɡᵻˈlɛspi/; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, and singer. AllMusic’s Scott Yanow wrote, “Dizzy Gillespie’s contributions to jazz were huge. One of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time (some would say the best), Gillespie was such a complex player that his contemporaries ended […]

Count Basie (1904 - 1984)

William James “Count” Basie (August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984) was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. His mother taught him to play the piano and he started performing in his teens. Dropping out of school, he learned to operate lights for vaudeville and to improvise accompaniment for silent films at a […]

Ella Fitzgerald (1917 - 1996)

Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996) was an American jazz singer often referred to as the First Lady of Song, Queen of Jazz and Lady Ella. She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing and intonation, and a “horn-like” improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing. After tumultuous teenage […]

Arthur Marx (1921 - 2011)

Arthur Marx was a nationally ranked tennis player before he was 18. While he was attending the University of Southern California, he won the National Freshman Intercollegiate Tennis title at Montclair, New Jersey. At the Tri-State Tennis Tournament, the event that evolved into today’s Cincinnati Masters, Marx reached the singles final in 1941 before falling to […]

Al Shean (1868 - 1949)

Al Shean (12 May 1868 – 12 August 1949) was the stage name for comedian Abraham Elieser Adolph Schönberg, although other sources give his birth name variously as Adolf Schönberg, Albert Schönberg, or Alfred Schönberg. He is most remembered for being half of the vaudeville team Gallagher and Shean, and as the uncle of the […]

Samuel Marx (1859 - 1933)

Samuel Marx (born Simon Marx; October 23, 1859 – May 10, 1933) was the husband of Minnie Marx, and father of the Marx Brothers. According to his birth certificate, Marx was born as Simon Marx in Alsace, France. Due to his place of birth, he was known as “Frenchie”. He met Minnie in New York where […]

Minnie Marx (1865 - 1929)

Minnie Marx (9 November 1865 or 1864 – 13 September 1929) was the mother and manager of the Marx Brothers, wife of Sam Marx, and the sister of vaudeville star Al Shean. Marx was born Miene Schönberg in Dornum, Germany. Her parents Fanny née Salomons (1829–1898) and Levy “Lafe” Schönberg (1823–1919) were members of the local […]

Gummo Marx (1892 - 1977)

Gummo Marx was born in Manhattan, New York City on October 23, 1892. His parents were Sam Marx (called “Frenchie” throughout his life), and his wife, Minnie Schoenberg Marx. Marx’s family was Jewish. His mother was from Dornum in East Frisia, and his father was a native of Alsace and worked as a tailor. Although the […]

Zeppo Marx (1901 - 1979)

Zeppo Marx was born in Manhattan, New York City on February 25, 1901. His parents were Sam Marx (called “Frenchie” throughout his life), and his wife, Minnie Schönberg Marx. Minnie’s brother was Al Shean. Marx’s family was Jewish. His mother was from East Frisia in Germany; and his father was a native of France, and […]

Robert Florey (1900 - 1979)

Robert Florey grew up in Paris near the studio of George Melies, and as a young man served as assistant to Louis Feuillade. In the 1920s he worked as a journalist, in Hollywood as assistant director to Josef von Sternberg, and shooting newsreel footage in New York, before making his feature directing debut in 1926. In […]

Curt Siodmak (1902 - 2000)

Curt Siodmak was born Kurt Siodmak in Dresden, Germany, the son of Rosa Philippine (née Blum) and Ignatz Siodmak. His parents were both from Jewish families in Leipzig. Siodmak acquired a degree in mathematics before beginning to write novels. He invested early royalties earned by his first books in the movie Menschen am Sonntag (1929) […]

Edgar Ulmer (1904 - 1972)

Edgar Ulmer was born in Olomouc, in what is now the Czech Republic. As a young man he lived in Vienna, where he worked as a stage actor and set designer while studying architecture and philosophy. He did set design for Max Reinhardt’s theater, served his apprenticeship with F. W. Murnau, and worked with directors […]

Ralph Meeker (1920 - 1988)

Ralph Meeker made his film debut in 1951 with a small role in MGM’s Teresa, followed by a starring role in the Swiss-made Four in a Jeep (1951), directed by Leopold Lindtberg. In 1953, he was cast as a misfit ex-cavalryman in the classic western The Naked Spur directed by Anthony Mann. For his performance in […]

George Macready (1899 - 1973)

George Macready made his Broadway debut in 1926 in a stage adaptation of The Scarlet Letter. Through 1958, he appeared in fifteen plays, both drama and comedy, including The Barretts of Wimpole Street, based on the family of the English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Macready’s penchant for acting was spurred in part by the director Richard […]

Glenn Ford (1916 - 2006)

Glenn Ford Legendary actor Glenn Ford was born Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford in Sainte-Christine-d’Auvergne, Quebec, Canada, to Hannah Wood (Mitchell) and Newton Ford, a railroad executive. His family moved to Santa Monica, California when he was eight years old. His acting career began with plays at high school, followed by acting in West Coast, a […]

Glenn Sutton (1937 - 2007)

Glenn Sutton Glenn Sutton,  Funeral services will be held Friday (April 20) in Nashville for songwriter-producer Glenn Sutton, a key figure in the success of Tammy Wynette, Lynn Anderson and David Houston. Sutton, 69, died Tuesday (April 18) of an apparent heart attack at his Nashville home. A 1999 inductee into the Nashville Songwriters Hall […]

Glenn Miller (1904 - 1944)

Glenn Miller Alton Glenn Miller was born in Clarinda, Iowa on March 1, 1904. But it was in North Platte, Nebraska, several years later that Glenn actually got his musical start when, one day, his father brought home a mandolin. Glenn promptly traded it for an old battered horn, which he practiced every chance he […]

John Glenn (1921 - 2016)

John Glenn John Glenn, a freckle-faced son of Ohio who was hailed as a national hero and a symbol of the space age as the first American to orbit Earth, then became a national political figure for 24 years in the Senate, died on Thursday in Columbus, Ohio. He was 95. Ohio State University announced […]

John Wesley Hardin (1853 - 1895)

John Wesley Hardin John Wesley Hardin, one of the bloodiest killers of the Old West, is murdered by an off-duty policeman in a saloon in El Paso, Texas. Born in central Texas on May 26, 1853, Hardin killed his first man when he was only 15 during the violent period of post-Civil War reconstruction. During […]

Debbie Reynolds (1932 - 2016)

Debbie Reynolds Debbie Reynolds, who personified celebrity life in Hollywood’s Golden Age through roles in classics like “Singin’ in the Rain” on screen and a paparazzi-feeding family life off-screen, died Wednesday after having a stroke. She was 84 years old. Ms. Reynolds died a day after her daughter, “Star Wars” actress and author Carrie Fisher, […]

Sammy Fain (1902 - 1989)

Sammy Fain was born in New York City. In 1923, Fain appeared with Artie Dunn in a short film directed by Lee De Forest filmed in DeForest’s Phonofilm sound-on-film process. In 1925, Fain left the Fain-Dunn act to devote himself to music. Fain was a self-taught pianist who played by ear. He began working as […]

Billy Rose (1899 - 1966)

William Samuel Rosenberg (later Billy Rose) was born to a Jewish family in New York City. He attended Public School 44, where he was the 50-yard dash champion. While in high school, Billy studied shorthand under John Robert Gregg, the inventor of the Gregg System for shorthand notation. He won a dictation contest using Gregg […]