Jeremy Blake (1971 - 2007)

A graduate of the both School of the Art Institute of Chicago (BFA ’93) and California Institute of the Arts (MFA 95), Jeremy Blake was selected for the Whitney Biennial in 2000, 2002 and 2004. His “Winchester” series, inspired by the story of Sarah Winchester and the Winchester Mystery House, was shown at the San […]

Capital Steez (1993 - 2012)

Courtney Everald Dewar, Jr. was born in New York City to Jamaican parents. His father died when he was in high school. He began rapping in 2009, then known as Jay STEEZ, with his friend Jakk the Rhymer. Together they formed a group called The 3rd Kind. Their first mixtape was titled The Yellow Tape, […]

Donald Cammell (1934 - 1996)

Donald Cammell was born in the Camera Obscura (then known as Outlook Tower) on Castlehill, near the castle in Edinburgh, Scotland, the son of the poet and writer Charles Richard Cammell (who authored a book on occultist Aleister Crowley). Donald Cammell was educated at Shrewsbury House School and Westminster School. Brought up in a bohemian atmosphere, […]

Joseph Brooks (1938 - 2011)

In the 1960s, Joseph Brooks composed advertising jingles for clients including Pepsi (“You’ve Got a Lot to Live”) and Maxwell House (“Good to the Last Drop Feeling”). He received numerous Clio Awards for his work, as well as a People’s Choice Award. Credited as “Joey Brooks”, he also wrote the song “My Ship Is Comin’ […]

Richard Brautigan (1935 - 1984)

In San Francisco, Richard Brautigan sought to establish himself as a writer. He was known for handing out his poetry on the streets and performing at poetry clubs. In early 1956, Brautigan typed a three-page manuscript and sent it to The Macmillan Company for publication. The manuscript consisted of two pages with 14 poems and […]

Mike Brant (1947 - 1975)

Mike Brant’s parents were from Poland. His mother, Bronia Rosenberg, originally from Łódź, was a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp. His father, Fishel Brand, from Biłgoraj, had been a resistance fighter during World War II, and was 20 years his wife’s senior. His parents married following the war, and they applied to emigrate to […]

Clara Bloodgood (1870 - 1907)

Clara Bloodgood was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, the daughter of Edward and Annie (née Sutton) Stephens.  Her father, a prominent New York attorney, was the son of author Ann S. Stephens. Her mother was one of three sisters once called “the beautiful Sutton girls” by New York’s high society. As a young girl […]

Adele Blood (1886 - 1936)

Adele Blood was born on April 23, 1886 in San Francisco, California to Ira E. Blood and Frances Emma Stewart. Frances was a member of the Alameda school department for many years. Adele moved to the eastern United States some years before 1917. As a youth, she was a talented equestrienne, had an interest in […]

David Birnie (1951 - 2005)

David Birnie was the eldest of five children. In his formative years, he lived in the semi-rural suburb of Wattle Grove, east of Perth. School friends and parishioners from the Wattle Grove Baptist Church of the period remember the family as particularly dysfunctional. Rumours abounded about the family’s promiscuity, alcoholism and that they engaged in incest. When […]

Bob Birch (1956 - 2012)

Soon after graduating college, Bob Birch joined a band with his brother Dan and sister-in-law Martha, becoming one of the top bands on the Detroit circuit.[citation needed] While performing at lounges in local hotels, Birch met many musicians from some of the top touring bands of the time including the Doobie Brothers, George Benson, Chicago […]

Jovan Belcher (1987 - 2012)

The son of John Belcher and Cheryl Shepard, Jovan Belcher grew up on Long Island, New York, and attended West Babylon High School in West Babylon, New York. He wrestled and played football there under head coach Albert Ritacco between 2001 and 2004. He was a three-time All-American as a wrestler, and played as a […]

Herb Baumeister (1947 - 1996)

Herb Baumeister was the oldest of four children born to Herbert and Elizabeth Baumeister. His childhood was reportedly normal. By the onset of adolescence, however, he began exhibiting anti-social behavior; acquaintances later recalled the young Baumeister playing with dead animals and urinating on a teacher’s desk. As a teenager, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, but […]

Joe Ball (1896 - 1938)

Joe Ball (January 5, 1896 – September 24, 1938) was an American serial killer, sometimes referred to as “The Alligator Man”, the “Butcher of Elmendorf” and the “Bluebeard of South Texas”. He is known to have killed two and is said to have killed as many as 20 women in the 1930s. His existence was […]

James Robert Baker (1946 - 1997)

James Robert Baker was born in Long Beach, California and raised in what he considered a “stifling, Republican Southern Californian household”. Rebelling against his parents, he became attracted to the fringe elements of society, including beatniks (anyone living as a bohemian, acting rebelliously, or appearing to advocate a revolution in manners), artists and gays. In […]

David Bairstow (1951 - 1998)

Born in Bradford, Yorkshire, David Bairstow excelled at school in several sports, and he played football several times for Bradford City, but eventually he settled on cricket, and played his first county match against Gloucestershire in 1970 after taking an A-level at 6am in order to play. He played for Yorkshire throughout his career, and captained […]

Gene Wilder (1933 - 2016)

Gene Wilder Gene Wilder was one of America’s foremost comic actors known by all generations for his performances in such classics as ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ (1971), ‘Young Frankenstein’ (1974) and ‘Stir Crazy’ (1980). He studied theater at the University of Iowa, then studied Shakespeare at the Bristol Old Vic Theater School in […]

John King (1909 - 1987)

John King (born Miller McLeod Everson, July 11, 1909 – November 11, 1987) was a singer and film actor renowned for his Westerns particularly the Range Busters series. Everson was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. A graduate of the University of Cincinnati, Everson travelled the country working a variety of jobs, such as chauffeuring motorcars from Detroit […]

Budd Boetticher (1916 - 2001)

Budd Boetticher was born in Chicago, raised in Evansville in southwest Indiana, and was a star athlete at Ohio State University. After college he traveled to Mexico, where he learned the art of bullfighting. A chance encounter with Rouben Mamoulian landed him his first film job, as technical advisor on Blood and Sand (1941). He […]

Phil Karlson (1908 - 1985)

Phil Karlson (born Philip N. Karlstein; July 2, 1908 – December 12, 1985) was an American film director. Karlson directed 99 River Street, Kansas City Confidential and Hell’s Island all with actor John Payne in the early 1950s. Other films include Rocky (1948), The Texas Rangers (1951), The Phenix City Story (1955), 5 Against the House […]

Johnny Lewis (1983 - 2012)

Johnny Lewis began making television appearances while in his late teens, with guest starring roles in Boston Public (2000), The Guardian (2001), and American Dreams (2002), among others. His debut feature film performance premiered in 2004, in New Line Cinema’s Raise Your Voice, and he followed that up with Miramax Films’ Underclassman in 2005. He […]

Sherry Britton (1918 - 2008)

Sherry Britton (July 28, 1918 – April 1, 2008) was an American burlesque performer of the 1930s and early 1940s. The 5-foot-3-inch (1.60 m) Britton had an 18-inch (46 cm) waist, and was once said to have a “figure to die for.” She got her stage name from a liquor store on a bottle of […]

Diane Arbus (1923 - 1971)

Diane Arbus was born Diane Nemerov to David Nemerov and Gertrude Russek Nemerov, a Jewish couple who lived in New York City and owned Russek’s, a famous Fifth Avenue department store. Because of her family’s wealth, Arbus was insulated from the effects of the Great Depression while growing up in the 1930s. Her father became […]

Doris Angleton (1951 - 1997)

Doris Angleton was the first child born to Randy McGown, a Dow Chemical engineer, and his wife, Ann. She grew up in Lake Jackson, Texas, and had one sibling, a younger brother, Steven McGown. She graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in speech pathology. After graduation, she began a career as a […]

Forrest Anderson (1913 - 1989)

Forrest Anderson (January 30, 1913 – July 20, 1989) was an American politician and judge who served as the 17th governor of Montana from 1969 to 1973. Forrest Anderson was born in Helena, Montana. He was graduated from the University of Montana Law School and the Columbus School of Law at Catholic University. He married Margaret […]

Jeff Alm (1968 - 1993)

Jeff Alm (March 31, 1968 – December 14, 1993) was an American football player who played defensive tackle for the Houston Oilers of the National Football League. According to a witness, Jeff Alm and his best friend, Sean P. Lynch, had dinner at a Houston-area steakhouse on December 13, 1993. At 2:45 a.m. Central Standard Time […]

Leonard Lake (1945 - 1985)

Leonard Lake was born in San Francisco, California. His parents separated when he was 6 years old, after which he and his siblings were sent to live with their maternal grandmother. He was reportedly a bright child, but had an obsession with pornography that stemmed from taking nude photos of his sisters, apparently with the […]

Don Lapre (1964 - 2011)

Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Don Lapre moved to Phoenix, Arizona with his family when he was a child. He married Sally Redondo in 1988. A high-school dropout, in 1990, Lapre and his wife started a credit repair business called Unknown Concepts. Lapre then began selling a 36-page booklet explaining how to recover a Federal […]

Philip Loeb (1891 - 1955)

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Philip Loeb first performed in a high school production of Lady Gregory’s The Workhouse Ward. He served in the Army, then worked as stage manager of The Green Goddess. His stage career gained strength in the early 1920s when he became associated with the newly formed Theatre Guild in New York […]

Mark Linkous (1962 - 2010)

Shortly after graduating from high school in the early 1980s, Mark Linkous moved to New York City, where he co-founded the band Dancing Hoods. The band featured Linkous on guitar and vocals, Bob Bortnick on vocals and guitar, Don Short on drums, and Eric Williams on bass. In 1984, the group released a self-titled EP; […]

Chris Lighty (1968 - 2012)

Chris Lighty got his start in the music industry by carrying vinyl record crates for DJ Red Alert. Then Russell Simmons’ company, Rush Management, hired him. Lighty founded a management company in the early 1990s called Violator; the company is named after the gang he belonged to in the Bronx. Violator was responsible for getting […]