Paul Fussell (1924 - 2012)

Born and raised in Pasadena, California, Fussell was the second of three children. His father, Paul Fussell (1895–1973), son of a widowed schoolteacher, became a corporate lawyer in Los Angeles with the firm of O’Melveny & Myers. His mother, Wilhma Wilson Sill (1893–1971), was the daughter of a carriage trimmer in Illinois. His brother, Edwin […]

Donna Summer (1948 - 2012)

LaDonna Adrian Gaines (December 31, 1948 – May 17, 2012), known by her stage name, Donna Summer, was an American singer, songwriter, and painter. She gained prominence during the disco era of the late 1970s. A five-time Grammy Award winner, she was the first artist to have three consecutive double albums reach No. 1 on […]

Carlos Fuentes (1928 - 2012)

Fuentes was born in Panama City to Berta Macías and Rafael Fuentes, the latter of whom was a Mexican diplomat. As the family moved for his father’s career, Fuentes spent his childhood in various Latin American capital cities, an experience he later described as giving him the ability to view Latin America as a critical […]

Carroll Hall Shelby (1923 - 2012)

Shelby was born on January 11, 1923, in Leesburg, Texas, to Warren Hall Shelby, a rural mail carrier, and his wife, Eloise (Lawrence) Shelby. Shelby suffered heart valve leakage problems by age 7 and spent most of his childhood in bed. By age 14, Shelby’s health improved and he was subsequently declared to have “outgrown” […]

Vidal Sassoon (1928 - 2012)

Sassoon was born in Hammersmith, London, and lived in Shepherd’s Bush. His parents were Sephardic Jews. His mother, Betty (Bellin), came from a family of immigrants from Spain, and his father, Jack Sassoon, was from Thessaloniki, Greece.[citation needed] Sassoon had a younger brother, Ivor, who died from a heart attack at the age of 46. […]

Nicholas Katzenbach (1922 - 2012)

Katzenbach was born in Philadelphia and raised in Trenton. His parents were Edward L. Katzenbach, who served as Attorney General of New Jersey, and Marie Hilson Katzenbach, who was the first female president of the New Jersey State Board of Education. His uncle, Frank S. Katzenbach, served as mayor of Trenton and as a Justice […]

Maurice Sendak (1928 - 2012)

Sendak was born in New York City in the borough of Brooklyn to Polish Jewish immigrant parents named Sadie (née Schindler) and Philip Sendak, a dressmaker. Sendak described his childhood as a “terrible situation” due to the death of members of his extended family during the Holocaust which exposed him at a young age to […]

Adam Yauch (1964 - 2012)

Born in Brooklyn, New York City, Adam Yauch was the only child of a social worker and a painter and architect. Yauch had a non-religious upbringing. His father had been raised a Catholic and his mother was Jewish.  Yauch attended Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn’s Midwood neighborhood. In high school, he taught himself […]

Bill Skowron (1930 - 2012)

Skowron was born in Chicago, Illinois, and was of Polish descent. His father was a garbage collector. After his grandfather gave the seven-year-old Skowron a haircut that looked like the dictator’s and his friends jokingly called him “Mussolini”, his family shortened the nickname to “Moose.” The name stuck throughout his career.  Skowron attended Weber High […]

Charles Colson (1931 - 2012)

Charles “Chuck” Wendell Colson (October 16, 1931 – April 21, 2012) was an Evangelical Christian leader who founded Prison Fellowship and BreakPoint. Prior to his conversion to Christianity, he served as Special Counsel to President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1973.  Once known as President Nixon’s “hatchet man,” Colson gained notoriety at the height of […]

Ahmed Ben Bella (1916 - 2012)

Ben Bella volunteered for service in the French Army in 1936. The Army was one of the few avenues of advancement for Algerians under colonial rule and voluntary enlistment was common. Posted to Marseille he played center mid-field for Olympique de Marseille in 1939–1940. His only appearance for the club was in a game against […]

Mike Wallace (1918 - 2012)

Mike Wallace Wallace, whose family’s surname was originally Wallik, was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, to Russian Jewish immigrant parents, Frank and Zina Sharfman Wallace. His father was a grocer and insurance broker. Wallace attended Brookline High School, graduating in 1935. He graduated from the University of Michigan four years later with a Bachelor of Arts. […]

Gil Noble (1932 - 2012)

In 1962 he got his professional break into broadcast media when he was hired as a part-time announcer at WLIB radio. He began reading and reporting newscasts. Noble joined WABC-TV in July 1967 as a reporter, after reporting on the 1967 Newark riots. Starting in January 1968 he became an anchor of its Saturday and […]

Ferdinand Porsche (1875 - 1951)

Ferdinand Porsche was born to German-speaking parents in Maffersdorf (Czech: Vratislavice nad Nisou), northern Bohemia, part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at that time, and today part of the Czech Republic. Porsche was his parents’ third child. His father, Anton Porsche, was a master panel-beater. He showed a strong aptitude for mechanical work at a very […]

Elizabeth Catlett (1915 - 2012)

Catlett was born in Washington, D.C., the youngest of three children.  She attended the Lucretia Mott Elementary School, Dunbar High School, and then Howard University where she studied design, printmaking and drawing. In an interview in December 1981 in Artist and Influence magazine, she stated that she changed her major to painting because of the […]

Miguel de la Madrid (1934 - 2012)

Miguel de la Madrid was born in La Ciudad de Colima, Colima, Mexico. He was the son of the late Miguel de la Madrid Castro a notable lawyer, who died when Miguel was only two, and his mother Alicia Hurtado. His grandfather was Enrique O. de la Madrid who was governor of the state of […]

Albert Hadley (1920 - 2012)

Hadley was born in Springfield, Tennessee, in 1920. He attended Peabody College in Nashville, and was a graduate of and teacher at Parsons School of Design, in New York City and Paris. He trained with the South’s best-known decorator, A. Herbert Rodgers.  After serving overseas in World War II, Hadley studied and taught at Parsons […]

Harry Crews (1935 - 2012)

He was born in Bacon County, Georgia in 1935 and served in the Marines during the Korean War. He attended the University of Florida on the GI Bill, but dropped out to travel. Eventually returning to the university, Harry finally graduated and moved his wife, Sally, and son, Patrick Scott, to Jacksonville where he taught […]

Earl Scruggs (1924 - 2012)

Earl Scruggs Earl Scruggs was born and grew up in the Flint Hill community in Cleveland County, North Carolina, to Georgia Lula Ruppe and George Elam Scruggs, a farmer and bookkeeper, who played banjo and died when Scruggs was four years old. His older brothers, Junie and Horace, plus his two older sisters, Eula Mae […]

Diem Brown (1982 - 2014)

Diem Brown Diem Brown (June 12, 1982 – November 14, 2014) was a recurring cast member on MTV’s reality television series The Challenge and entertainment reporter. Brown was also the founder and creator of MedGift, a website that provides support pages to people going through any medical or health experience. They provide resources to support […]

Hilton Kramer (1928 - 2012)

Kramer was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and was educated at Syracuse University, receiving a Bachelor’s degree in English; Columbia University; he studied literature and philosophy at Harvard University, Indiana University, and the New School for Social Research.  Kramer worked as the editor of Arts Magazine, art critic for The Nation, and from 1965 to 1982, […]

Bert Sugar (1937 - 2012)

Born in Washington, D.C., Sugar graduated from the University of Maryland. He earned a JD and MBA from the University of Michigan in 1961. After passing the bar exam, he worked in the advertising business in New York City for ten years. During his time in the advertising business, he worked at several different agencies, […]

John Demjanjuk (1920 - 2012)

John Demjanjuk (born Ivan Mykolaiovych Demianiuk; Ukrainian: Іван Миколайович Дем’янюк; 3 April 1920 – 17 March 2012) was a retired Ukrainian-American auto worker, a former soldier in the Soviet Red Army, and a POW during the Second World War.  Although he was a survivor of the notorious Nazi concentration camps system, he was convicted in […]

Robert B. Sherman (1925 - 2012)

Robert Bernard Sherman was born on December 19, 1925, in New York City, to Russian Jewish immigrants, Rosa and Al Sherman. Al Sherman, a songwriter, paid for Robert’s hospital delivery costs with a royalty check that had arrived that day for the song “Save Your Sorrow”. Al Sherman was to become a well known Tin […]

Alex Webster (1931 - 2012)

As the son of recent Scottish immigrants James and Alexandrina Webster, Alex Webster grew up in Kearny, New Jersey, where he attended and played high school football at Kearny High School. Webster played a key role on Kearny High School’s football team which won the 1948 New Jersey High School State Championship. In spite of […]

Fontella Bass (1940 - 2012)

Fontella Bass was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of gospel singer Martha Bass (a member of the Clara Ward Singers). She was the older sister of the R&B singer David Peaston. At an early age, Fontella showed great musical talent. At five years old she was providing the piano accompaniment for her grandmother’s […]

Harry Carey Jr. (1921 - 2012)

Harry Carey, Jr. was born in the Saugus neighborhood of Santa Clarita, California, the son of actor Harry Carey (1878–1947) and actress Olive Carey (1896–1988). His maternal grandfather was vaudeville entertainer George Fuller Golden. As a boy, he was nicknamed “Dobe”, short for adobe, because of the color of his hair. He served with the […]

James Q. Wilson (1931 - 2012)

James Wilson completed his B.A. at the University of Redlands in 1952, where he was the national collegiate debate champion in 1951 and 1952. He completed an M.A. (1957) and a Ph.D. (1959) in political science at the University of Chicago. From 1961 to 1987, he was the Shattuck Professor of Government at Harvard University. […]

Ken Price (1935 - 2012)

Price was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. Price’s earliest aspirations were to be an artist, “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be an artist. Even when I was a kid I would make drawings and little books, and cartoons..,” he states. Price enrolled in his first art ceramics […]

Barney Rosset (1922 - 2012)

Rosset was born and raised in Chicago to a Jewish father, Barnet Rosset, and an Irish Catholic mother, Mary (née Tansey). He attended the progressive Francis Parker School, where he was best friends with renowned cinematographer Haskell Wexler. He went on to study at Swarthmore College, UCLA and the New School for Social Research. He […]