Wahoo McDaniel (1938 - 2002)

Wahoo McDaniel Wahoo McDaniel, who capitalized on his American Indian heritage as a football player and then a professional wrestler, died last Thursday at a hospital in Houston. He was 63. McDaniel was on the waiting list to receive a kidney when he died because of complications arising from renal failure, the National Football League […]

Ernie Ladd (1938 - 2007)

Ernie Ladd Ladd started wrestling in 1961. As a publicity stunt, some wrestlers in the San Diego area challenged Ladd to a private wrestling workout. Before long, Ladd was a part-time competitor in Los Angeles, during football’s off-season. Ladd became a huge draw in short order. When knee problems cut his football career short, Ladd […]

Haystack Calhoun (1934 - 1989)

Haystack Calhoun Born on August 3, 1934, William Dee Calhoun grew up on a farm in McKinney, Texas; a rural suburb located in Collin County about 30 mi (48 km) north of Dallas. William was an unusually large child with an extraordinary appetite, it was said that he regularly ate a dozen eggs for breakfast; and by […]

Johnny Valentine (1928 - 2001)

Johnny Valentine Wisniski was originally from Maple Valley, Washington. He was a devout Christian for many years. He was married to a woman named Sharon, who plans to write a book titled A Never Ending Love Story of a Wrestler and His Wife about their life together. He also had a son, Greg Valentine, who […]

Johnny Weaver (1935 - 2008)

Johnny Weaver Funerals are never fun to attend. But there was something uplifting about what took place at Johnny Weaver’s funeral. That was due largely to the honest and moving words delivered by two who eulogized him, and the grace of a grieving daughter still wounded by the sudden and unexpected loss of her father. […]

Randy Savage (1952 - 2011)

Randy Savage was an American professional wrestler and occasional color commentator best known for his time in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and World Championship Wrestling (WCW). He is considered to be one of the greatest pro wrestlers in history. Savage won 20 championships during his 32-year career. He held six world championships between the […]

Big John Studd (1948 - 1995)

Big John Studd Studd jumped to the World Wrestling Federation in late 1982, and was paired with manager “Classy” Freddie Blassie. Studd quickly became a monster heel, adopting a gimmick of bringing a stretcher to the ring and beating his opponents so badly they would be taken out on the stretcher. While Studd became a […]

Adolph Ochs (1858 - 1935)

Adolph Ochs Ochs was born to a Jewish family in Cincinnati, Ohio, on March 12, 1858. His parents Julius Ochs and Bertha Levy were both German immigrants. His father had left Bavaria for the United States in 1846. He was a highly educated man and fluent in six languages which he gave instruction in at […]

Millicent Fawcett (1847 - 1929)

Millicent Garrett was born on 11 June 1847 in Aldeburgh to Newson Garrett, a warehouse owner, and his wife Louise Dunnell. Her parents Newson and Louisa Garrett were of a highly privileged background, he was a wealthy merchant and ship owner. Newson and Louise had six daughters and four sons, including Millicent and Elizabeth, later […]

Sam Shockley (1909 - 1948)

Richard Samuel “Sam” Shockley Jr. (January 12, 1909 – December 3, 1948) was an inmate at Alcatraz prison who participated in the Battle of Alcatraz in 1946.  Shockley was the son of Richard “Dick” Shockley and Anna Bearden. He was born in Arkansas City, Arkansas. Shockley was arrested for bank robbery and kidnapping in Oklahoma […]

James Mitose (1916 - 1981)

James Mitose James Masayoshi (Masakichi Kosho Kenposai) Mitose was born in Kailua-Kona, North Kona District, Hawaii on December 30, 1916. On October 22, 1920, at the age of four, he and his two sisters were taken by their mother back to Japan to be given formal education and upbringing with family living there. While there, […]

Louise Peete (1880 - 1947)

Peete’s family was relatively wealthy, and she received an expensive education, but was expelled from school for inappropriate behavior. In 1903, she married a traveling salesman named Henry Bosley; he committed suicide after discovering his wife with another man. She then spent time in Boston, working as a high-class prostitute and stealing from her clients. […]

Leavander Johnson (1969 - 2005)

Leavander Johnson was an American lightweight boxer from Atlantic City, New Jersey, who once held the International Boxing Federation version of the world title. He won the title on June 17, 2005, against the Italian fighter Stefano Zoff, winning after the referee stopped the fight in the seventh round. Johnson made his debut as a […]

Jack Johnson (1878 - 1946)

Jack Johnson Boxer. First African-American to hold the heavyweight boxing championship in the world. Until his fight with Burns, discrimination limited Johnson’s opportunities and purses. When he became champion, a hue and cry for a “Great White Hope” produced numerous opponents. At the height of his career Johnson was excoriated by the press for having […]

Laurence Olivier (1907 - 1989)

Laurence Olivier Laurence Olivier could speak William Shakespeare‘s lines as naturally as if he were “actually thinking them”, said English playwright Charles Bennett, who met Olivier in 1927. Laurence Kerr Olivier was born in Dorking, Surrey, England, to Agnes Louise (Crookenden) and Gerard Kerr Olivier, a High Anglican priest. His surname came from a great-great-grandfather […]

Stephen Wayne Anderson (1953 - 2002)

Anderson had been incarcerated for one count of aggravated burglary in 1971 and three counts of aggravated burglary in 1973. While incarcerated at Utah State Prison, Anderson murdered an inmate, assaulted another inmate, and assaulted a correctional officer. Anderson also admitted to six other contract killings in Las Vegas, Nevada that happened prior to the […]

Barbara Graham (1923 - 1955)

Graham was born Barbara Elaine Ford in Oakland, California to young unwed mother Hortense Ford. On February 23, 1925, Hortense Ford gave birth to a second daughter out of wedlock, Claire Elizabeth. Hortense Ford later married a man by the name of Joseph Wood, whose surname was then given to Barbara and Claire. Hortense had […]

Robert Alton Harris (1953 - 1992)

Robert Alton Harris was born at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the fifth of nine children of Kenneth and Evelyn Harris. Kenneth was a sergeant in the United States Army who was awarded a Silver Star and Purple Heart for his service in World War II. Both parents were alcoholics, and Robert reportedly was born […]

Black Bart (2024 - 1888)

Charles Bowles was born in Norfolk, England to John and Maria Bowles (sometimes spelled Bolles). He was the third of ten children, having six brothers and three sisters. When Charles was two years old, his parents emigrated to Jefferson County, New York, where his father purchased a farm, four miles north of Plessis Village in […]

Harvey Glatman (1927 - 1959)

Born in the Bronx to a Jewish family and raised in Colorado, Glatman exhibited antisocial behavior and sadomasochistic sexual tendencies from an early age. At the age of 12, his parents noticed he had a red, swollen neck, and he described being in the bathtub, placing a rope around his neck, running it through the […]

Mack Ray Edwards (2024 - 1971)

Mack Ray Edwards was born in Arkansas. He moved to Los Angeles County in 1941. As a heavy equipment operator contracted by Caltrans, he worked on freeways. The body of one of his victims was found underneath the Santa Ana Freeway, and he claimed to have disposed another of his victims under the Ventura Freeway. […]

Henry Cowell (1897 - 1965)

Born in rural Menlo Park, California, to two bohemian writers—his father was an Irish immigrant and his mother, a former schoolteacher, had relocated from Iowa—Cowell demonstrated precocious musical talent and began playing the violin at the age of five. After his parents’ divorce in 1903, he was raised by his mother, Clarissa Dixon, author of […]

William Bonin (1947 - 1996)

Bonin was born in Connecticut in January 1947, the second of three brothers. His father was a compulsive gambler and alcoholic, Bonin’s mother, Alice, was also an alcoholic, who frequently left Bonin and his brothers in the care of their grandfather, a convicted child molester. Bonin and his brothers were neglected as children, and were […]

Annie Besant (1847 - 1933)

Annie Besant (1 October 1847 – 20 September 1933) was a prominent British socialist, theosophist, women’s rights activist, writer and orator and supporter of Irish and Indian self-rule.  In 1867, Annie at age 20, married Frank Besant, a clergyman, and they had two children, but Annie’s increasingly anti-religious views led to a legal separation in […]

Helen Keller (1880 - 1968)

Helen Adams Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Her family lived on a homestead, Ivy Green, that Helen’s grandfather had built decades earlier. She had two younger siblings, Mildred Campbell and Phillip Brooks Keller, two older half-brothers from her father’s prior marriage, James and William Simpson Keller.  Her father, Arthur H. […]

Helena Rubinstein (1872 - 1965)

Rubinstein was the eldest of eight daughters born to a Jewish couple, Augusta – Gitte (Gitel) Shaindel Rubinstein née Silberfeld and Horace – Naftoli Hertz Rubinstein; who was a shopkeeper in Kraków.  Rubinstein emigrated from Poland to Australia in 1902, with no money and little English. Her stylish clothes and milky complexion did not pass […]

Tony Curtis (1925 - 2010)

Tony Curtis The star’s career all but collapsed in 1962, however, when he divorced Janet Leigh after having an affair with 17-year-old German actress Christine Kaufmann. By then, he and Leigh had two children: Kelly Lee and Jamie Lee Curtis. Curtis and Kaufmann married in 1963 and divorced in 1967. Shortly thereafter, in 1968, the […]

Hank Greenberg (1911 - 1986)

Hank Greenberg Just nine years after Babe Ruth’s record setting sixty home run season and long before Ford Frick would attach an asterisk to Roger Maris, Hammerin’ Hank Greenberg came within three home runs of breaking the Babe’s record in 1938. Despite Greenberg’s career being significantly shortened by military service he stands out as one […]

Carl Smith (1927 - 2010)

Carl Smith Country Musician. He was raised listening to music of the Grand Ole Opry, influenced by Roy Acuff (also a native of Maynardville, Tennessee) and Bill Monroe. While a teenager, he gained recognition as a guitarist, bass player and singer at WROL Radio in Knoxville before graduation from high school. Following a stint in […]

Bob Crane (1928 - 1978)

Bob Crane Robert Edward Crane was born in Waterbury, Connecticut on July 13th, 1928. By his early teens, he was demonstrating musical talent and had set his sights on becoming a drummer, and fantasizing about being the next Buddy Rich. At age sixteen, he began drumming for the Connecticut Symphony Orchestra, but was let go […]