Jane Russell (1921 - 2011)

Jane Russell Russell had three husbands: Bob Waterfield, (a UCLA All American, Cleveland Rams quarterback, Los Angeles Rams quarterback, Los Angeles Rams head coach, and Pro Football Hall of Fame member (married on April 24, 1943, then divorced in July 1968)); actor Roger Barrett, (married on August 25, 1968, until his death of a heart […]

Bobby Helms (1933 - 1997)

Bobby Helms Born in Bloomington, Indiana into a musical family, Helms began performing as a duo with his brother, Freddie, before going on to a successful solo career in country music. In 1956, Helms made his way to Nashville, Tennessee, where he signed a recording contract with Decca Records. The following year was filled with […]

Jerry Giesler (1886 - 1962)

Jerry Giesler Giesler garnered attention in the 1920s by defending a woman involved in the infamous “Love in the Loft Case”, but became truly famous by defending theater mogul Alexander Pantages. Errol Flynn relied on him to win acquittal on charges of statutory rape. Other famous clients included actor Robert Mitchum, and director Busby Berkeley. […]

Rosa Luxemburg (1871 - 1919)

Luxemburg was born to a Jewish family in Zamość on 5 March 1871, in Russian-controlled Congress Poland. She was the fifth child of timber trader Eliasz Luxemburg and Line Löwenstein. The family moved to Warsaw in 1873. After being bedridden with a hip ailment at the age of five, she was left with a permanent […]

Emily Murphy (1868 - 1933)

Emily Murphy was born in Cookstown, Ontario, the third child of Isaac and Emily Ferguson. Isaac Ferguson was a successful businessman and property owner. As a child, Murphy frequently joined her two older brothers Thomas and Gowan in their adventures; their father encouraged this behaviour and often had his sons and daughters share responsibilities equally. […]

Marie Curie (1867 - 1934)

Maria Skłodowska was born in Warsaw, in the Russian partition of Poland, on 7 November 1867, as the fifth and youngest child of well-known teachers Bronisława, née Boguska, and Władysław Skłodowski. Maria’s older siblings were Zofia (born 1862), Józef (1863), Bronisława (1865) and Helena (1866).  On both the paternal and maternal sides, the family had […]

Emmeline Pankhurst (1858 - 1928)

Emmeline Pankhurst (born Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was a British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement who helped women win the right to vote. In 1999 Time named Pankhurst as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, stating: “she shaped an idea of women […]

Florence Nightingale (1820 - 1910)

Florence Nightingale was born on 12 May 1820 into a rich, upper-class, well-connected British family at the Villa Colombaia, in Florence, Italy, and was named after the city of her birth. Florence’s older sister Frances Parthenope had similarly been named after her place of birth, Parthenopolis, a Greek settlement now part of the city of […]

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815 - 1902)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the eighth of 11 children, was born in Johnstown, New York, to Daniel Cady and Margaret Livingston Cady. Five of her siblings died in early childhood or infancy. A sixth sibling, her elder brother Eleazar, died at age 20 just prior to his graduation from Union College in Schenectady, New York. Only […]

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811 - 1896)

Harriet Elisabeth Beecher was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, on June 14, 1811. She was the seventh of 13 children, born to outspoken religious leader Lyman Beecher and Roxana (Foote), a deeply religious woman who died when Stowe was only five years old. Roxana’s grandfather was General Andrew Ward of the Revolutionary War. Her notable siblings […]

Margaret Fuller (1810 - 1850)

Sarah Margaret Fuller was born May 23, 1810, in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, the first child of Timothy Fuller and Margaret Crane Fuller. She was named after her paternal grandmother and her mother; by the age of nine, however, she dropped “Sarah” and insisted on being called “Margaret”. The Margaret Fuller House, in which she was born, […]

Billy Wilder (1906 - 2002)

Billy Wilder From the late 1930s to the early 1960s, Billy Wilder dominated Hollywood’s Golden Age. With over fifty films and six Academy Awards to his credit, he is one of Hollywood’s all-time greatest directors, producers and screenwriters. His films range from stark melodrama, like DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944), THE LOST WEEKEND (1945) and SUNSET BOULEVARD […]

Donald Wesley Reno (1927 - 1984)

Donald Wesley Reno Bluegrass Musician. He was playing for the local radio station by the time he turned 12, by 14 he was working with the Morris Brothers who introduced Don to a type of bluegrass music termed “mountain music,” that was quickly gaining popularity. Bill Monroe was impressed by Reno and asked him to […]

Jane Austen (1775 - 1817)

Austen’s parents, George Austen (1731–1805), and his wife Cassandra (1739–1827), were members of substantial gentry families. George was descended from a family of woollen manufacturers, which had risen through the professions to the lower ranks of the landed gentry. Cassandra was a member of the prominent Leigh family. They married on 26 April 1764 at […]

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759 - 1797)

Wollstonecraft was born on 27 April 1759 in Spitalfields, London. She was the second of the seven children of Edward John Wollstonecraft and Elizabeth Dixon. Although her family had a comfortable income when she was a child, her father gradually squandered it on speculative projects. Consequently, the family became financially unstable and they were frequently […]

Catherine the Great (1729 - 1796)

Catherine the Great Yekaterina Alexeevna or Catherine II, also known as Catherine the Great (Russian: Екатерина II Великая, Yekaterina II Velikaya; 2 May 1729 – 17 November 1796), was the most renowned and the longest-ruling female leader of Russia, reigning from 9 July 1762 until her death in 1796 at the age of 67. Her […]

Burton Abbott (1928 - 1957)

Burton W. Abbott (February 8, 1928 – March 15, 1957) was a University of California at Berkeley accounting student living in Alameda, California, who was tried for the rape and murder of 14-year-old Stephanie Bryan in November 1955. Although the evidence against him was entirely circumstantial, he was convicted and sentenced to death in California’s […]

Eldridge Cleaver (1935 - 1998)

Born in Wabbaseka, Arkansas, as a child Cleaver moved with his family to Phoenix and then to Los Angeles. He was the son of Leroy Cleaver and Thelma Hattie Robinson. He had 4 siblings: Wilhelima Marie, Helen Grace, James Weldon, and Theophilus Henry. In 1967, he married Kathleen Neal Cleaver; they divorced in 1987. They […]

Neal Cassady (1926 - 1968)

Cassady was born to Maude Jean (Scheuer) and Neal Marshall Cassady in Salt Lake City, Utah. His mother died when he was ten, and he was raised by his alcoholic father in Denver, Colorado. Cassady spent much of his youth either living on the streets of skid row with his father or in reform school. […]

Edward Bunker (1933 - 2005)

Bunker was born “on New Year’s Eve, 1933” into a troubled family in Los Angeles. His mother, Sarah (née Johnston), was a chorus girl from Vancouver, and his father, Edward N. Bunker, a stage hand. His parents lived in a constant state of alcohol-fueled argument. His first clear memories were of his parents screaming at […]

Junior Samples (1926 - 1983)

Junior Samples A sixth grade dropout, Samples was a stock car racing driver and carpenter by trade who went on the radio at the age of 40 and told a story about catching the largest fish ever seen in his hometown. The story was a humorous tall tale, and the recording of this radio story […]

James Monroe (1758 - 1831)

James Monroe was the fifth President of the United States (1817–1825). Monroe was the last president who was a Founding Father of the United States and the last president from the Virginia dynasty and the Republican Generation. He was of French and Scottish descent. Born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, Monroe was of the planter class […]

Roscoe Brumbaugh (1928 - 2006)

Roscoe Brumbaugh During an era of inequality, regional wrestling favorite Sputnik Monroe refused to perform unless black patrons were allowed to sit in any seat at the Ellis Auditorium. At the time, African-Americans were forced to sit in a separate section far away from the Caucasian patrons until Sputnik Monroe made a stand, refusing to […]

Jim Hager (1941 - 2008)

Jim Hager Musician, Entertainer. He, along with his twin brother Jon Hager, is best remembered as a regular cast performer on the television series “Hee Haw” that ran from 1969 until 1986, in which they were known for their rapid delivery of cornball one-liners. Born in Chicago, Illinois, he and his brother were adopted by […]

Jon Hager (1941 - 2009)

Jon Hager Sam Lovullo, who produced “Hee-Haw” and was a friend of Hager’s, said Hager was found dead in his apartment Friday morning. He was found in bed and apparently died in his sleep.Lovullo said Hager had been in poor health and was depressed since his identical twin brother, Jim Hager, died in May 2008.The […]

Teddy Wilson (1912 - 1986)

Teddy Wilson Mr. Wilson spent much of his career as a soloist or leader of his own small combos, but rose to prominence during a four-year stint with the Benny Goodman Orchestra. ”What I got out of playing with Teddy was something, in a jazz way, like what I got from playing Mozart in a […]

Billie Holiday (1915 - 1959)

Billie Holiday By early 1959 Holiday had cirrhosis of the liver. She stopped drinking on doctor’s orders, but soon relapsed. By May she had lost 20 pounds (9 kg). Friends Leonard Feather, Joe Glaser, and Allan Morrison unsuccessfully tried to get her to a hospital. On May 31, 1959, Holiday was taken to Metropolitan Hospital in […]

Francine Hurd Barker (1947 - 2005)

Francine Hurd Barker Born in Washington, DC, in 1947, Francine Hurd earned the childhood nickname “Peaches” because of her genteel manner. As a schoolgirl she sang in numerous groups before joining the Keynotes as lead vocalist. Later, she formed her own trio, the Darlettes, with Dyanne Stewart and Nancy J. Johnson. Their recording debut, 1965’s […]

Tammy Faye Baker (1942 - 2007)

Tammy Faye Baker She and Mr. Bakker, an Assemblies of God minister, worked as traveling evangelists in the early years of their marriage. He preached; she sang and played the accordion. They began their television career in the mid-1960s, joining Pat Robertson’s fledgling Christian Broadcasting Network as the original hosts of “The 700 Club.” In […]

Josephine Baker (1906 - 1975)

Josephine Baker Singer, entertainer. Easily the most successful Black woman of her time, Josephine was born Freda Carson into poverty in St. Louis, Missouri. Her ticket out was her comedic and dance abilities, which powered her rise to early American fame on Broadway. Tiring of performing in demeaning minstrel reviews, she jumped at the chance of a […]