Janos Starker (1924 - 2013)

Starker was born in Budapest to a father of Polish descent and a mother who had immigrated from Ukraine, both Jewish. His two older brothers were violinists, and the young János (named for the hospital in which he was born) was given a cello before his sixth birthday. A child prodigy, Starker made his first […]

Al Neuharth (1924 - 2013)

Al Neuharth was born into a German-speaking family in rural South Dakota. Neuharth’s parents were Daniel J. and Christina, who married on January 11, 1922. Daniel died when Al was two. Al needed to help his family survive the Great Depression. He worked on his grandfather’s farm. As a youngster, he also delivered the Minneapolis […]

E. L. Konigsburg (1930 - 2013)

Elaine Lobl was born in New York City on February 10, 1930, but grew up in small Pennsylvania towns, the second of three daughters. She was an avid reader, although reading was only “tolerated” in her family, “not sanctioned like dusting furniture or baking cookies”. She was high school valedictorian in Farrell, Pennsylvania, where there […]

François Jacob (1920 - 2013)

Jacob was born the only child of Simon, a merchant, and Thérèse (Franck) Jacob, in Nancy, France. An inquisitive child, he learned to read at a young age. Albert Franck, Jacob’s maternal grandfather, a four-star general, was Jacob’s childhood role model. At seven he entered the Lycée Carnot, where he was schooled for the next […]

Hilary Koprowski (1916 - 2013)

Hilary Koprowski was born in Warsaw, Poland, to Paweł (Paul) and Sonia Koprowski. The parents had met in 1906 while Hilary Koprowski’s father was serving in the Russian Army, and they had moved to Warsaw soon after their marriage in 1912. Hilary Koprowski attended Warsaw’s Mikołaj Rej Secondary School, and from age twelve he took […]

Robert G. Edwards (1925 - 2013)

Edwards was born in Batley, Yorkshire, and attended The Henry Box School in Witney. After finishing Manchester Central High School on Whitworth Street in central Manchester, he served in the British Army, and then completed his undergraduate studies in biology at the Bangor University. He studied at the Institute of Animal Genetics and Embryology at […]

Zao Wou-Ki (1920 - 2013)

Zao was born in Beijing with family roots in Dantu, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province. In his childhood he was brought back to his hometown Dantu where he studied calligraphy. From 1935 to 1941, he studied painting at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. In 1948, he went with his wife Lan-lan, a composer, […]

Marvin Gaye (1939 - 1984)

Marvin Gaye Marvin Gaye (April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984), born Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr., was an American singer-songwriter and musician. Gaye helped to shape the sound of Motown Records in the 1960s with a string of hits, including “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” and “I Heard It Through the […]

John Lennon (1940 - 1980)

John Lennon John Ono Lennon, MBE, born John Winston Lennon; (9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980), was an English musician, singer and songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as a founder member of the rock band the Beatles, the most commercially successful band in the history of popular music. With Paul McCartney, he formed a songwriting partnership that is one of […]

James Dean (1931 - 1955)

James Dean James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955) was an American actor. He is a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which he starred as troubled teenager Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his stardom were loner Cal Trask in East of […]

Annette Funicello (1942 - 2013)

Annette Joanne Funicello was born in Utica, New York, to Italian Americans Virginia Jeanne (née Albano) and Joseph Funicello. Her family moved to Southern California when she was four years old.  Annette took dancing and music lessons as a child in order to overcome shyness. In 1955, the 12-year-old was discovered by Walt Disney when […]

Kurt Cobain (1967 - 1994)

Kurt Cobain Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1967 – c. April 5, 1994) was an American musician who was best known as the lead singer, guitarist, and primary songwriter of the rock band Nirvana. Cobain formed Nirvana with Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington, in 1985 and established it as part of the Seattle music scene, having its debut album Bleach released on the independent record label Sub Pop in […]

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1927 - 2013)

Ruth Prawer was born in Cologne, Germany to Jewish parents Marcus and Eleanora (Cohn) Prawer. Marcus was a lawyer who moved to Germany from Poland to escape conscription and Eleanora’s father was cantor of Cologne’s largest synagogue. Her father was accused of communist links, arrested and then released and she witnessed the violence unleashed against […]

Jimi Hendrix (1942 - 1970)

James Marshall “Jimi” Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970) was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music, and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century. […]

Chuck Fairbanks (1933 - 2013)

Born in Detroit, Fairbanks graduated from Michigan State University in 1955, following three years of football with the Spartans. That fall, he began the first of three years as head coach of Ishpeming High School in Michigan.  In 1958, he accepted an assistant coaching position at Arizona State University in Tempe, spending four years there […]

Barbara Piasecka Johnson (1937 - 2013)

Piasecka Johnson was born in Staniewicze near Grodno, Poland (now in Belarus). Her father was a farmer. She graduated from Wroclaw University with a M.A. in Art History. She left Poland in 1968, with just $100.  Piasecka was hired as a cook by Esther Underwood Johnson, then wife of John Seward Johnson I. Her cooking […]

Jack Pardee (1936 - 2013)

As a teenager, Pardee moved to Christoval, Texas, where he excelled as a member of the six-man football team. He was an All-American linebacker at Texas A&M University and a two-time All-Pro with the Los Angeles Rams (1963) and the Washington Redskins (1971). He was one of the few six-man players to ever make it […]

Jean Stapleton (1923 - 2013)

Stapleton was born in Manhattan, New York City, to Joseph E. Murray (a billboard advertising salesman) and Marie Stapleton Murray (an opera singer). At age 18, while she was a student at Manhattan’s Hunter College, she began her career in 1941 in summer stock theatre, and made her New York debut in the Off-Broadway play […]

Mulgrew Miller (1955 - 2013)

Mulgrew Miller was born in Greenwood, Mississippi, to parents who had been raised on plantations. He had three brothers and four sisters. His family was not musical, but they had a piano, which no-one in the house could play. Miller, however, played tunes on the piano from the age of six, playing by ear. He […]

Haynes Johnson (1931 - 2013)

Johnson was born in New York City to journalist Malcolm Johnson and Emma Ludie (née Adams), a pianist. He earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri in 1952 and his master’s in American history from the University of Wisconsin in 1956. He then served in the U.S. Army as a first […]

Henri Dutilleux (1916 - 2013)

Henri Dutilleux was born on 22 January 1916 in Angers, Maine-et-Loire. He was the great-grandson of the painter Constant Dutilleux and of the composer Julien Koszul. He was also a cousin of the mathematician Jean-Louis Koszul. As a young man he studied harmony, counterpoint and piano with Victor Gallois at the Douai Conservatory before leaving […]

Ray Manzarek (1939 - 2013)

Manzarek was of Polish descent, born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, as were his parents, Helena and Raymond Manzarek, Sr. Growing up, he took private piano lessons from Bruno Michelotti and others. He originally wanted to play basketball, but he only wanted to play power forward or center. When he was […]

Ken Venturi (1931 - 2013)

Born in San Francisco, California, Venturi learned to play golf at an early age, and developed his game at Harding Park Golf Course and other public courses in the Bay Area. In the early 1950s, he was a pupil of Byron Nelson, and was also influenced by playing partner Ben Hogan. Venturi won the California […]

Billie Sol Estes (1925 - 2013)

Billie Sol Estes Estes was born January 10, 1925 to John and Lillian Estes on a farm near Clyde, Texas. He was one of six children. He did not attend college, but served in the U.S. Merchant Marine during World War II.  In the late 1950s, Estes was heavily involved in the Texas anhydrous ammonia […]

Joyce Brothers (1927 - 2013)

Joyce Diane Bauer was born in 1927 in Brooklyn, New York, to Estelle (née Rapaport) and Morris K. Bauer, attorneys who shared a law practice. Her family was Jewish. She graduated from Far Rockaway High School in January 1944. She entered Cornell University, double majoring in home economics and psychology and was a member of […]

Ottavio Missoni (1921 - 2013)

Ottavio Missoni was born in Dubrovnik, on the Dalmatian coast. His mother, Teresa de Vidovich, was Countess of Capocesto and Rogoznica, and his father, Vittorio Missoni, was a Friulian sea captain who had moved to Dalmatia whilst it was under Austrian rule. He was educated in Zara, Trieste, and Milan.  Aged 16, Missoni joined the […]

Ray Harryhausen (1920 - 2013)

Harryhausen was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Martha L. (née Reske) and Frederick W. Harryhausen. Of German descent, the family surname was originally spelled “Herrenhausen”.  After having seen King Kong (1933) for the first of many times on its initial release, Harryhausen spent his early years experimenting in the production of animated […]

Eleanor Adair (1926 - 2013)

Eleanor Adair Eleanor Campbell Reed was born on Nov. 28, 1926, in Arlington, Massachusetts. Her father had a Dodge dealership; prior to marriage her mother had worked as a fashion illustrator. Adair (then Reed) received a degree from Mount Holyoke College in 1948. Her doctorate from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1955 is in physics […]

Christian de Duve (1917 - 2013)

de Duve was born of a shopkeeper Alphonse de Duve and wife Madeleine Pungs in the village of Thames Ditton, near London. His parents fled Belgium at the outbreak of the First World War. After the war in 1920, at age three, he and his family returned to Belgium. He was a precocious boy, always […]

Frederic Franklin (1914 - 2013)

Born in Liverpool, England, Frederic Franklin claimed that on seeing Peter Pan, his only thought was to go on the stage. He began his career in 1931 at the Casino de Paris with Josephine Baker, briefly danced with the Vic-Wells (early Royal Ballet) and joined the Markova-Dolin Ballet in 1935. Three years later, Franklin became […]