Gene Kelly
(born August 23, 1912, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died February 2, 1996, Beverly Hills, California) American dancer, actor, choreographer, and motion picture director whose athletic style of dancing, combined with classical ballet technique, transformed the movie musical and did much to change the American public’s conception of male dancers. Read the rest of this entry »
Sheldon Leonard
Sheldon Leonard (February 22, 1907 – January 10, 1997) was a pioneering American film and television producer, director, writer, and actor.
Biography
Leonard was born Sheldon Leonard Bershad in New York City, the son of middle class Jewish parents Anna and Frank Bershad. Read the rest of this entry »
Hoagy Carmichael
Hoagland Howard “Hoagy” Carmichael (November 22, 1899 – December 27, 1981) was an American composer, pianist, singer, actor, and bandleader. He is best known for writing “Stardust” (1927), “Georgia On My Mind,” and “Heart and Soul”, three of the most-recorded American songs of all time.
Roman Polanski
Director, actor. Born Raimund Polanski, on August 18, 1933, in Paris, France. At the age of three, Polanski moved with his family to his father’s native city of Krakow, Poland. In 1941, his parents were imprisoned in various Nazi concentration camps, where his mother eventually died in Auschwitz. In order to escape deportation, Polanski lived [...]
Mariel Hemingway
Actress, producer. Born on November 22, 1961 in Mill Valley, Idaho. The granddaughter of celebrated author Ernest Hemingway, Mariel began her career in the shadow of her two famous relatives: her grandfather and her older sister, model/actress Margaux Hemingway.
Anthony Quinn
Actor. Born Anthony Ruldolph Oaxaca Quinn on April 21, 1915, in Chihuahua, Mexico. Quinn and his family left Mexico for the United States shortly after his birth and eventually settled in Los Angeles, California. His father died when he was only nine years old. Quinn then quit school and worked odd jobs to help support [...]
Ernest Borgnine
Actor. Born Ermes Effron Borgnine, on January 24, 1917, in Hamden, Connecticut. His parents, Charles and Anna, immigrated to America from Italy at the turn of the century. The family settled in Connecticut, where Borgnine attended public school in New Haven. Upon graduating from high school, in 1935, he joined the Navy as an apprentice [...]
Ringo Starr
Musician, singer, songwriter, actor. Born Richard Starkey on July 7, 1940, in Liverpool, England. Known for his easy-going personality, Ringo Starr first rose to fame in the early 1960s as the drummer for the legendary rock group the Beatles. He grew up poor in Liverpool, and his father left the family when Starr was only [...]
Jim Backus
Actor, author. Born James Gilmore Backus on February 25, 1913, in Cleveland, Ohio. For five decades, Jim Backus entertained audiences in a variety of media, starting out in radio and moving on to film and television. Two of his trademark roles were the wealthy and snooty Thurston Howell III on Gilligan’s Island and Mr. Magoo, [...]
Sal Mineo
Actor Sal Mineo enjoyed great success as a teen idol during the late ’50s, shooting to fame opposite James Dean in the perennial Rebel Without a Cause. Born January 10, 1939, in the Bronx, NY, Mineo was an incorrigible youth, tossed out of parochial school and by age eight a member of a street gang. [...]
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