Michael Blake (1945 - 2015)

Author, Motion Picture Screenwriter. He will be remembered for penning the bestselling novel “Dances with Wolves” (1988). The work was made into a motion picture adaptation in 1990, which starred and was directed by Kevin Costner. Blake earned both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for his writing of the script. Born Michael […]

Eugene Carson Blake (1906 - 1985)

Religious figure, Author. Presbyterian Church leader and author of several books relating to the church and the changing world. (bio by: Chuck Kearns)

Clay Drewry Blair, Jr (1925 - 1998)

Author,  Journalist.  Considered an outstanding authority on submarine warfare,  which he called “silent service”.  Clay Drewry Blair, Jr. was born in Lexington,  Virginia.  During World War II he served as a Quarter Master second class aboard the submarine USS Guardfish on two war patrols. After the war ended he attended Tulane and Colombia Universities. In […]

Charles Francis Blair, Jr (1909 - 1978)

United States Army Officer, Author. He served first in the the United States Army Air Corps, then the United States Air Force, rising to the rank of Brigadier General. His long career in military and commerical aviation was highlighted by his making the first solo crossing of the North Pole in a single engine plane. […]

Richard Doddridge Blackmore (1825 - 1900)

British Author. He is best remembered for his novel “Lorna Doone” (1869), a recreation of his native Exmoor during the 17th century, which established him in the front rank of British novelists of that time. He was born at Longworth in Berkshire (now Oxfordshire), England where his father was Curate-in-Charge of the local parish. His […]

George Blackburn (1916 - 2006)

Author, Canadian World War II Veteran. Born in Wales, Ontario, Canada, he wrote the acclaimed three-part memoir “The Guns of Normandy: A Soldier’s Eye View, France 1944”, “The Guns of Victory” and “Where the Hell are the Guns?” which reflected on his experiences serving as a forward artillery observer during World War II. Blackburn received […]

Richard Bissell (1913 - 1977)

American novelist and playwright. He wrote the novel, “7 And A Half Cents” (1953). In 1954 his novel was turned into a Broadway musical play and film in called, “The Pajama Game.”  Family links:  Parents:  Frederick Ezekiel Bissell (1878 – 1958)  Edith Mary Pike Bissell (1879 – 1976)  Spouse:  Marian Van Patten Grilk Bissell (1918 […]

Thomas Brigham Bishop (1835 - 1905)

Songwriter. He produced the melody and lyrics for the song “John Brown’s Body” in 1859. Published in 1861, it gained popularity during the Union troops in the Civil War, and the melody was used as the basis for Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic”. During the Civil War he played as a clarinetist […]

James Alonzo “Jim” Bishop (1907 - 1987)

Writer, Author. He was a newspaper columnist and author whose works include “The Day Christ Died,” “The Days of Martin Luther King, Jr.,” and “The Day Kennedy Was Shot.” (bio by: Ron Moody)  Family links:  Spouse:  Elizabeth Bishop (1929 – 2012)* *Calculated relationshipCause of death: Respiratory Failure

Elizabeth Bishop (1911 - 1979)

Poet; “North and South: A Cold Spring”, won Pulitzer Prize for poetry, 1955; elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1976.  Family links:  Parents:  William Thomas Bishop (1872 – 1911)  Gertrude May Bulmer Bishop (1879 – 1934)  Spouses:  Maria Carlota Costallat de Macedo Soares (1910 – 1967)*  Louise Crane (1913 – 1997)* […]

Curtis Kent Bishop (1912 - 1967)

Author. He was a widely recognized writer penning books about sports and life in the old west. Born in Bolivar, Tennessee he moved to Texas as a boy where at the age of sixteen he began his professional writing career working for an Austin newspaper. During World War II he worked for the Foreign Broadcast […]

Furman Bisher (1918 - 2012)

Sports Journalist, Author. An esteemed and celebrated sports writer who made a lasting impression on the landscape of American sports journalism, he was known nationally for his association with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (in addition to Sports Illustrated and the Saturday Evening Post) from 1950 until his retirement in 2009. Born James Furman Bisher, his father […]

Herman Hoffman Birney, Jr (1891 - 1958)

Author. Wrote such books as “King of the Mesa,” “Vigilantes,” and “Two Little Navajos.”  Family links:  Parents:  Herman Hoffman Birney (1866 – 1926)  Elizabeth C Boude Birney (1867 – 1931)  Spouse:  Marguerite Bovington Birney (1902 – 1975)*  Sibling:  Herman Hoffman Birney (1891 – 1958)  Knox Boude Birney (1892 – 1918)* *Calculated relationship

Russell Birdwell (1903 - 1977)

Motion-Picture Publicist. He won almost legendary status as one of Hollywood’s most flamboyant press agents. Birdwell launched his first big publicity stunt in 1927, when he hired an actress to dress in widow’s garb and place flowers at the tomb of Rudolph Valentino on the first anniversary of his death. An anonymous “Woman in Black” […]

Robert Montgomery Bird (1806 - 1854)

Playwright. Known for plays such as “The Gladiator” (1834) and “The Broker of Bogota” (1834).  Family links:  Spouse:  Mary Elizabeth Mayer Bird (1809 – 1868)* *Calculated relationship

Laurence Binyon (1869 - 1943)

British poet and critic. Robert Laurence Binyon was born in Lancaster, the son of a clergyman. He was educated at St. Paul’s School in London and at Trinity College, Oxford; where, in 1890, he won the Newdigate Prize for his poem “Persephone.” After he graduated, he worked at the British Museum in the Department of […]

Claude Binyon (1905 - 1978)

Writer and film director of the 1930s through the 1960s. Wrote the famous 1929 Variety headline concerning the stock market carsh, ‘Wall Street Lays An Egg.’ He died in 1978 of a heart condition. (bio by: A.J. Marik)

Micha Josef Bin-Gorion (1865 - 1921)

Author. Born Micah Josef Berdichevsky, the son of an Hasidic Rabbi, at Medzhaybizh, Ukraine. An early marriage was ended when his traditionally minded father-in-law found that he was studying the so called Haskala or Enlightenment, which was a movement advocating that Jews integrate into modern secular society. After study at Volozhin Yeshiva, in 1890, he […]

Ray Allen Billington (1903 - 1981)

Educator, historian and author. Billington held two Ph.D. degrees (University of Wisconsin 1926, and Harvard University 1933), taught at several universities in the U.S. served as a professor at Oxford University in England. He retired from his teaching career in 1960 and became the Senior Research Associate at the renowned Huntington Library. He wrote more […]

Earl Derr Biggers (1884 - 1933)

Mystery Novelist. He created the fictional Chinese detective Charlie Chan. Born in Warren, Ohio, he graduated from Harvard in 1907. His first novel,  “Seven Keys to Baldpate” (1913),  was adapted into a hit Broadway play by George M. Cohan,  and later filmed several times.  With “The House Without a Key” (1925) Biggers introduced Charlie Chan, […]

Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1970)

Author, Journalist. Best known for his classic Civil War story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (1890) and the satirical lexicon “The Devil’s Dictionary” (1911). Bierce vanished without a trace in late 1913, allegedly in Mexico while covering the exploits of Pancho Villa. His disappearance is one of literature’s great mysteries.  Family links:  Parents:  Marcus […]

Albert Isaac Bezzerides (1908 - 2007)

Albert Isaac Bezzerides Albert Isaac Bezzerides, screenwriter of film noir classics “Kiss Me Deadly,” “On Dangerous Ground” and “Thieves Highway,” died Jan. 1 in Woodland Hills after a brief illness. He was 98. Albert Isaac Bezzerides, known as “Buzz,” started as a novelist and short-story writer. He was working for the Los Angeles Dept. of […]

Edyth Gertrude Carter Beveridge (1970 - 1927)

Journalist. A pioneering female photojournalist, she gained recognition with photo-essays in the “Confederate Veteran” in 1896 and “Illustrated American”, the first photojournalism magazine in the United States, in 1897. Her later commissions included works for “Collier’s”, “Harper’s Weekly”, and her most famous photo-essay, “Where Southern Memories Cluster”, in “Ladies’ Home Journal” in 1906. (bio by: […]

Donald Bevan (1920 - 2013)

Playwright, Screenwriter, Artist. He will be best remembered for co-penning “Stalag 17” which became a successful Broadway production and motion picture adaptation. Raised in Springfield, Massachusetts, his father was an engineer whom became a victim of “the Depression”, Donald has a fondness for drawing an upon high school graduation, he enrolled at the Grand Central […]

Hubert Beuve-Mery (1902 - 1989)

He founded the great french Newspaper “Le Monde.”

Hugo Bettauer (1872 - 1925)

Austrian novelist, journalist and playwright. One of his most famous novels is Die freudlose Gasse (The Joyless Street), which was filmed by G. W. Pabst with Greta Garbo, and he was also famous for his anti-Nazi satire of anti-semitism Die Stadt ohne Juden (The State without Jews), which was subsequently made into a play and […]

Sir John Betjeman (1906 - 1984)

Poet. British poetry figure known for the works “Summoned by Bells” (1960), “Mount Zion”, “Collected Poems” (1958), “High and Low” (1966), “A Nip in the Air” (1974), “Church Poems” (1981), and “Uncollected Poems” (1982).

Elsa Maartman Beskow (1874 - 1953)

Children’s book writer, artist. She both wrote and illustrated numerous children’s books, many of which have reached international fame. (bio by: Klas Grönqvist)

Louis Nicolas Bescherelle (1802 - 1970)

French grammarian and lexicograph.

Walter Besant (1836 - 1901)

Influential social reformer and  also a novelist, sometimes in collaboration with James Rice. Besant also finished Wilkie Collin’s last novel, Blind Love, after the author died. He was knighted in 1895. (bio by: Mark McManus)