Alan Crofoot (1929 - 1979)

Alan Crofoot was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He attended the University of Toronto where he earned a Master’s degree in psychology. His operatic career began at the Canadian Opera, as Spoletta in Tosca, in 1956. Crofoot also appeared in stage productions of musicals such as Man of La Mancha, in London’s West End, and […]

Alan Curtis (1909 - 1953)

Alan Curtis began his career as a model before becoming an actor, appearing in local newspaper ads. His looks did not go unnoticed in Hollywood. He began appearing in films in the late 1930s (including a Technicolor appearance in the Alice Faye-Don Ameche film Hollywood Cavalcade and a memorable role in High Sierra (1941). He […]

Alan Dante “The Horse” Ameche (1933 - 1988)

Professional Football Player. A hard-running fullback, he won the 1954 Heisman Trophy as a senior at the University of Wisconsin. Not selected by his home-state Green Bay Packers, he became the first round pick of the Baltimore Colts. On his first NFL play against the Chicago Bears on September 25, 1955, he galloped for a […]

Alan Dinehart (1889 - 1944)

Alan Dinehart, (born October 3, 1889 in St. Paul, Minnesota – died July 17, 1944, in Hollywood, California), was an American actor, director, writer, and stage manager. He left school to appear on stage with a repertory company and had no screen experience when he signed a contract with Fox in May 1931. He became a […]

Alan Dixon (1927 - 2014)

Alan Dixon served as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives from 1951 to 1963 and as a member of the Illinois State Senate from 1963 to 1971, serving as Minority Whip for part of that time. In the fall of 1970, Karl Rove, a future White House Deputy Chief of Staff in the George […]

Alan Edwards (1892 - 1954)

American stage and screen actor. He entered films with the Edison Company in 1912. Married to actress Nita Pike. (bio by: A.J. Marik)

Alan Fudge (1944 - 2011)

Actor. Raised in Tucson, Arizona, he initiated his career as an entertainer with the folk music group the Ash Alley Singers, with whom he recorded several tracks during the Summer of 1962. A change in career direction took place, as he began to focus on acting and attended the University of Arizona, where he majored […]

Alan Hale (1892 - 1950)

Actor. Born Rufus Alan McKahan in Washington, D.C. he first attempted to gain entry to the stage via opera, but his career as an operatic singer was effectively stillborn. By 1911 his attention had been diverted to Hollywood where he made his film debut in the silent film ‘The Cowboy and the Lady.’ With his […]

Alan Hale Jr. (1921 - 1990)

Actor. He is best remembered for his role of “The Skipper” in the classic television comedy series, “Gilligan’s Island” (1964 to 1967). Born Alan Hale Mackahan in Los Angeles, California, he was the son of film actor Rufus Edward Mackahan (1892-1950), who used the stage name of Alan Hale. Young Alan adopted his father’s stage […]

Alan Hale, Jr (1921 - 1990)

Actor. He is best remembered for his role of “The Skipper” in the classic television comedy series, “Gilligan’s Island” (1964 to 1967). Born Alan Hale Mackahan in Los Angeles, California, he was the son of film actor Rufus Edward Mackahan (1892-1950), who used the stage name of Alan Hale.  Young Alan adopted his father’s stage […]

Alan J. Pakula (1928 - 1998)

Alan J. Pakula started his Hollywood career as an assistant in the cartoon department at Warner Brothers. In 1957, he undertook his first production role for Paramount Pictures. In 1962, he produced To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award. Alan J. Pakula had a successful professional relationship […]

Alan Jay Lerner (1918 - 1986)

Born in New York City, he was the son of Edith Adelson Lerner and Joseph Jay Lerner, whose brother, Samuel Alexander Lerner, was founder and owner of the Lerner Stores, a chain of dress shops. One of Lerner’s cousins was the radio comedian/television game show panelist Henry Morgan. Lerner was educated at Bedales School in […]

Alan King (1927 - 2004)

The youngest of several children, King was born in New York City, New York, the son of Polish-Russian-Jewish immigrants Minnie (née Solomon) and Bernard Kinberg, a handbag cutter. He spent his first years on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Later, King’s family moved to Brooklyn. King used humor to survive in the tough neighborhoods. […]

Alan Ladd (1913 - 1964)

Alan Ladd Actor. He is best remembered for his 1953 role of ‘Shane’ in the western movie of the same name. Although short (five feet, five inches), with a laconic manner and a face that never seemed to change expression, he quickly became a star. Born in Hot Springs, Arkansas to an accountant father and […]

Alan Matheney (1950 - 2005)

Alan Lehman Matheney (6 November 1950 – 28 September 2005) was an American convicted of beating to death his ex-wife, Lisa Bianco, with a .410 bore shotgun, while on an eight-hour release from prison on 4 March 1989. At the time he was serving a sentence at Pendleton Correctional Facility for battery and confinement of […]

Alan Merrill (1951 - 2020)

Alan Merrill Alan Merrill who was born as Allan Preston Sachs on February 19, 1951, was an American vocalist, guitarist, songwriter, actor, and model. Singer, guitarist, and songwriter, Alan Merrill, passed away on Sunday, March 29, 2020. Alan was always there for the people he loved and his gentle and joyful soul will live on […]

Alan Napier (1903 - 1988)

Napier was the son of Claude Gerald Napier-Clavering (1869–1938) and Mary Millicent Kenrick (1871–1932), sister of Wilfred Byng Kenrick, and a first cousin once removed of Neville Chamberlain,[2] Britain’s prime minister from 1937 to 1940. After graduating from Clifton College, he studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He was engaged by the Oxford Players, […]

Alan Owston (1853 - 1915)

Businessman, Naturalist, Yachtsman. In 1871, he left England to go to Asia, to work as a merchant in Japan and a marine naturalist. There, he collected over 1,300 of Asian fish specimens from Japan and China. In addition, he also collected reptiles, birds, clams, frogs and giant sea sponges. His collections can be found in […]

Alan Poindexter (1961 - 2012)

Selected by NASA in June 1998, Alan Poindexter reported for training in August 1998. Initially, Poindexter served in the Astronaut Office Shuttle Operations Branch performing duties as the lead support astronaut at Kennedy Space Center. In December 2002, he was named as Pilot on STS-120 mission to deliver the Harmony connecting node to the International […]

Alan Reed (1907 - 1977)

Born Herbert Theodore Bergman in New York City, he majored in journalism at Columbia University, and then began his acting career in the city, eventually working on Broadway. He was Jewish. For a time, he continued to list himself either as Bergman or Alan Reed, depending on the role he was playing (Reed for more comedic […]

Alan Rickman (1946 - 2016)

Alan Rickman…Born February 21, 1946, in West London, England.   Alan Rickman showed an early penchant for the performing arts. He cut his teeth as an actor in 1978, when he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company. He earned a Tony Award nomination as the star of 1988’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses, then came to American consciousness […]

Alan Shepard (1923 - 1998)

Alan Shepard American Astronaut. The first American into space, he is currently the oldest man to have walked on the moon. Born in Derry, New Hampshire, the son of Army Lieutenant Colonel Alan B. Shepard and Renza Emerson Shepard, Alan Jr graduated from the Admiral Farragut Academy (military high school) in 1941, and received a […]

Alan Thicke (1947 - 2016)

Alan Thicke was born Alan Willis Jeffrey on March 1, 1947 in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, the son of Shirley “Joan” Isobel Marie (née Greer), a nurse, and William Jeffrey, a stockbroker. They divorced in 1953. His mother remarried to Brian Thicke, a physician, and they moved to Elliot Lake. He graduated from Elliot Lake Secondary […]

Alan Turing (1912 - 1954)

Alan Mathison Turing OBE FRS (/ˈtjʊərɪŋ/; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English computer scientist, mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and theoretical biologist. He was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model […]

Alan Vega (1938 - 2016)

Alan Vega was raised in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Until the announcement of the 70th birthday release of his recordings in 2008, Vega was widely thought to have been ten years younger; the 2005 book Suicide: No Compromise lists 1948 as his birth year and quotes a 1998 interview in which Vega talks about watching Elvis Presley on […]

Alan Young (1919 - 2016)

Alan Young Alan Young — who answered to the name “Willburrrrrrrrrrrrr” on Mister Ed, the wacky 1960s sitcom that revolved around a talking horse — has died. He was 96. Young — who for six seasons played straight man to a golden palomino, a gelding who was named Bamboo Harvester — died Thursday of natural causes at the Motion Picture & Television Home […]

Alban Berg (1885 - 1935)

Alban Berg was a part of Vienna’s cultural elite during the heady fin de siècle period. His circle included the musicians Alexander von Zemlinsky and Franz Schreker, the painter Gustav Klimt, the writer and satirist Karl Kraus, the architect Adolf Loos, and the poet Peter Altenberg. In 1906, Berg met the singer Helene Nahowski, daughter […]

Alban Jasper Conant (1821 - 1915)

Portrait painter, author, preacher and teacher. Conant is best known for his famous “Smiling Lincoln” portraits. Upon seeing his first painting, Mary Todd Lincoln was quoted as saying “That is excellent. That is the way he looks when he has his friends about him!” That portrait now hangs in Lovejoy Library at Southern Illinois University. […]

Albert “Al” Boasberg (1891 - 1937)

Motion Picture Screenwriter. Born in Buffalo, New York, he wrote scripts for both dramatic and comedy films, although comedy was his primary field. Films with his screenplays included “Freaks” and “A Night at the Opera”. He also wrote jokes for live comedy acts. Comedians who used his material include George Burns, Jack Benny, Milton Berle, […]

Albert “Bud” Duncan (1883 - 1960)

Actor. The son of a ventriloquist, Albert Edward Duncan was born in Brooklyn. He made his vaudeville debut at 15 and first appeared in films for the Biograph studio in 1908. Diminutive (4’11”) and pudgy, he was typed in comic roles. In 1914 Duncan joined the Kalem Co.,  where he was teamed with the hulking, […]