Gustav Mahler (1860 - 1911)

Gustav Mahler (German: [ˈmaːlɐ]; 7 July 1860, Kaliště, Bohemia, now Czech Republic – 18 May 1911, Vienna, Austria-Hungary) was an Austrian late-Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th century Austro-German tradition and the modernism of the early 20th century. While […]

Arnold Schoenberg (1874 - 1951)

Arnold Franz Walter Schoenberg or Schönberg (; 13 September 1874 – 13 July 1951) was an Austrian composer, music theorist, and painter. He was associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School. With the rise of the Nazi Party, Schoenberg’s works were labelled degenerate music, because they […]

Alexander Young (1938 - 1997)

Alexander Young was born in Bridgeton, Glasgow, Scotland. When his family emigrated to Sydney, Australia, in 1963, he chose to remain in Britain to pursue musical interests. At that time he was in a band called the Bobby Patrick Big Six and spent some time in Germany. Later, in 1967, Alexander formed and played bass […]

Stevie Wright (1947 - 2015)

Stevie Wright was born in Leeds, England, in 1947 to George Wright and Dorothy Wright (née Longden); his family migrated to Melbourne, Australia, when he was nine. They moved to Sydney in 1960 and lived in Villawood near the Villawood Migrant Hostel. He was lead vocalist for local band, The Outlaws, and by 1964 had […]

George Young (1946 - 2017)

George Young started his music career in Sydney, where on rhythm guitar he formed a beat pop band, the Easybeats, in late 1964 alongside Dick Diamonde (born Dingernam Vandersluys) on bass guitar, Gordon “Snowy” Fleet on drums (ex-Mojos), Harry Vanda (born Johannes Vandenberg) on lead guitar (ex-Starfighters, Starlighters) and Stevie Wright on lead vocals (ex-Chris […]

James Stacy (1936 - 2016)

James Stacy made his film debut in Sayonara in 1957, and his television debut in Highway Patrol. He had a recurring role as “Fred” in The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet from 1958 to 1963. During the 1960s he made guest appearances in television shows, including Gunsmoke, Hazel, The Donna Reed Show, Have Gun – […]

Don Mitchell (1943 - 2013)

Don Michael Mitchell (March 17, 1943 – December 8, 2013) was an American actor, best known for appearing with Raymond Burr in the NBC television series Ironside (1967-1975). He played the role of Mark Sanger, and reprised the role in the made-for-TV “reunion” film in 1993 – his last TV appearance. Don Mitchell, who was a […]

Elizabeth Baur (1947 - 2017)

Elizabeth Baur (December 1, 1947 – September 30, 2017) was an American actress. She is perhaps best known for her roles as Teresa O’Brien on the CBS western series, Lancer, with Andrew Duggan, James Stacy, Wayne Maunder, and Paul Brinegar, and as Officer Fran Belding on NBC’s crime drama series Ironside. Elizabeth Baur was born in […]

Eugene Wigner (1902 - 1995)

Eugene Paul “E. P.” Wigner (Hungarian: Wigner Jenő Pál; November 17, 1902 – January 1, 1995), was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist, engineer and mathematician. He received half of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 “for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application […]

Julian Schwinger (1918 - 1994)

After having worked with Oppenheimer, Julian Schwinger’s first regular academic appointment was at Purdue University in 1941. While on leave from Purdue, he worked at the Radiation Laboratory at MIT instead of at the Los Alamos National Laboratory during World War II. He provided theoretical support for the development of radar. After the war, Schwinger […]

Lev Landau (1908 - 1968)

Lev Landau was the head of the Theoretical Division at the Institute for Physical Problems from 1937 until 1962. Landau was arrested on 27 April 1938, because he had compared the Stalinist dictatorship with that of Hitler, and was held in the NKVD’s Lubyanka prison until his release on 29 April 1939, after the head […]

Paul Dirac (1902 - 1984)

Paul Dirac was educated first at Bishop Road Primary School and then at the all-boys Merchant Venturers’ Technical College (later Cotham School), where his father was a French teacher. The school was an institution attached to the University of Bristol, which shared grounds and staff. It emphasised technical subjects like bricklaying, shoemaking and metal work, […]

Robert Herman (1914 - 1997)

Born in the Bronx, New York City, Robert Herman graduated cum laude with special honors in physics from the City College of New York in 1935, and in 1940 was awarded master’s and doctoral degrees in physics from Princeton University in the area of molecular spectroscopy. As a graduate student, Herman already exhibited eclectic tendencies […]

Edward Teller (1908 - 2003)

Edward Teller (Hungarian: Teller Ede; January 15, 1908 – September 9, 2003) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who was born in Hungary, and is known colloquially as “the father of the hydrogen bomb”, although he claimed he did not care for the title. He made numerous contributions to nuclear and molecular physics, spectroscopy (in particular the Jahn–Teller […]

George Gamow (1904 - 1968)

In the early 20th century, radioactive materials were known to have characteristic exponential decay rates, or half-lives. At the same time, radiation emissions were known to have certain characteristic energies. By 1928, Gamow in Göttingen had solved the theory of the alpha decay of a nucleus via tunnelling, with mathematical help from Nikolai Kochin. The […]

Vera Rubin (1928 - 2016)

Vera Rubin held various academic appointments for the next eleven years. She served for a year as an Instructor of Mathematics and Physics at Montgomery County Community College, then worked from 1955-1965 at Georgetown University, as a Research Associate Astronomer, Lecturer (1959-1962), and finally, Assistant Professor of Astronomy (1962-1965). She joined the Carnegie Institute in […]

Roy Lunn (1925 - 2017)

In 1953, Roy  Lunn joined Ford Motor Company in England and was assigned the task of starting a new Research Center in Birmingham. This center made the first prototype of what became the 105-E Anglia. Lunn transferred to Ford plant in Dagenham as the car’s product planning manager to follow the 105-E into mass production. He […]

Pete Domenici (1932 - 1932)

One of the first issues that Pete Domenici concerned himself with was waterway usage fees, in spite of his state lacking any waterway capable of commercial traffic. The idea behind a waterway usage fee was that the Army Corps of Engineers built dams and other expensive waterway projects, which the barge industry were able use […]

Ralphie May (1972 - 2017)

Ralphie May was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee on February 17, 1972, and raised in Clarksville, Arkansas. When he was 16, May broke 42 of his bones in an automobile accident. At 17, he won a contest to open for Sam Kinison, whom he considered his idol. Kinison suggested that May move to Houston to further develop […]

William Marston (1893 - 1947)

On October 25, 1940, an interview conducted by former student Olive Byrne (under the pseudonym “Olive Richard”) was published in The Family Circle (titled “Don’t Laugh at the Comics”), in which William Marston said that he saw “great educational potential” in comic books. (A follow-up article was published two years later in 1942.) The interview […]

Joe Shuster (1914 - 1992)

Siegel and Joe Shuster created a bald telepathic villain, bent on dominating the world, as the title character in the short story “The Reign of the Superman”, published in Siegel’s 1933 fanzine Science Fiction #3. The character was not successful, and Siegel eventually devised the more familiar version of the character. Shuster modeled the hero […]

Bud Collyer (1908 - 1969)

In 1950 Bud Collyer got the job which genuinely made him a household name: Beat the Clock, a game show that pitted couples (usually, but not exclusively, married) against the clock in a race to perform silly (sometimes messy) tasks, which were called “problems” but could with more accuracy be called “stunts.” The grand prizes […]

Mark Goodson (1915 - 1992)

Mark Goodson and long-time partner Bill Todman produced some of the longest-running game shows in US television history. Their first television show, Winner Take All, debuted on CBS television on July 1, 1948. The long list of Goodson-Todman productions includes The Price Is Right, Family Feud, Match Game, Password, Beat the Clock, To Tell the […]

Jay Stewart (1918 - 1989)

Jay Stewart was perhaps best known for his work on Let’s Make a Deal and in the 1980s on Sale of the Century. Let’s Make a Deal host Monty Hall called Stewart “the best second banana you ever found in your life” and said that “it was a very, very good feeling between us.” On […]

Marilyn Hall (1927 - 2017)

Marilyn Hall began her career in radio for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. She subsequently became a songwriter; her song “Is It Possible That I’ve Been Gone So Long” was recorded by Hildegarde. She was a television writer for Love, American Style and Lights, Camera, Monty! She was an associate producer of Jelly’s Last Jam and […]

Monty Hall (1921 - 2017)

Monty Hall started his career in Winnipeg at CKRC radio while still a student. He moved to Toronto in 1946 and found a job with radio station CHUM, where management shortened his name to Hall and misspelled his first name as “Monty” on billboards, giving him the stage name “Monty Hall”. For the next decade […]

Frank Hamblen (1947 - 2017)

Frank Alan Hamblen, II (April 16, 1947 – September 30, 2017) was an American basketball coach and scout. He played college basketball at Syracuse. He died in San Diego on September 30, 2017. Born in Terre Haute, Indiana, Frank Hamblen graduated from Garfield High School in Terre Haute in 1965. As a Sophomore, he was a […]

Emil Sitka (1914 - 1998)

Emil Sitka’s first Three Stooges’ film was Half-Wits Holiday. It was a reworking of their earlier Hoi Polloi. Both films were adaptations of George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion (1913). The Three Stooges’ films dealt with the idea that two professors bet on the outcome of turning the Three Stooges into gentlemen—with predictable results. Sitka played […]

Del Lord (1894 - 1970)

Del Lord (October 7, 1894 – March 23, 1970) was a Canadian film director and actor best known as a director of Three Stooges films. Delmer Lord was born in the small town of Grimsby, Ontario, Canada. Interested in the theatre, he traveled to New York City, then when fellow Canadian Mack Sennett offered him a job […]

Jules White (1900 - 1985)

In 1933, Jules White was appointed head of Columbia Pictures’ short-subject division, which became the most prolific comedy factory in Hollywood. In a time when theaters were playing more double-feature programs, fewer short comedies were being made; by the mid-1930s the three major comedy producers — Hal Roach, Educational Pictures and Universal Pictures — scaled […]