Livvi Franc
Livvi Franc Performing at 2009 B96 Jingle Bash on December 12, 2009
Background information
Birth name	Olivia Charlotte Waithe
Born	(1988-05-31) May 31, 1988 (age 24) Harrogate, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Genres	Pop, R&B, folk, reggae
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, dancer
Years active	2007-present
Labels	Jive, Beluga Heights

Olivia Charlotte Waithe (born May 31, 1988), better known by her stage name Livvi Franc, is a British singer-songwriter of Barbadian descent.

Life and career[link]

Franc was born in Harrogate, North Yorkshire,^[1] England to an English mother and a Bajan father.^[2] Franc's stage name was inspired by her late maternal grandfather, Frank Wilson, she explained to Flavour Magazine that he had "noticed me playing the piano and predicted I was going to be a musician. Sadly he’s no longer here. So, in honour of him, I called myself Livvi Franc; Livvi because it’s my nickname, and Franc because it’s a funkier version of Frank."^[3] When Franc was five, the family moved to Barbados, because her parents decided that their daughters, Franc and her elder sister, should experience their Barbadian heritage.^[1] They would return to England during the summer holidays.^[3] Franc wrote her first song at age eleven and learned the guitar at fifteen and sang in school talent shows and pagaents growing up.^[1][4]

Franc's first manager discovered her when a friend of Franc's who babysitted for her gave her one of Franc's cassette tape demos.^[1] Franc then went on to record proper demos in studio in Barbados and Miami, where she met her next manager. Soon after, she was in New York meeting label heads and auditioning.^[1] She finally signed with Jive Records, after months of negotiations,^[2] after singing an Etta James song for them.^[3] Prior to signing with Jive, Franc had gone through three years of artist development and attended workshops on it.^[2][5] She had attended Queens College in Barbados.^[5] Jordin Sparks recorded a song written by Livvi Franc, "Walking On Snow",^[6] Franc has also written for Cheryl Cole, Marie Digby, Michael Jackson,and Britney Spears,^[3] and Cher Lloyd.

2008-present: Debut album[link]

Franc's debut single, "Now I'm That Bitch" was released in the summer of 2009. The song topped the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs chart and became a top 40 hit in New Zealand and the UK.^[7] Another song, "This is a Raid" appeared on the reboot of Melrose Place.^[7] Franc released her second single named Automatik. Produced by RedOne, the single peaked at #6 on the US Hot Dance Club Songs chart. During the end of 2010, the album was eventually shelved by Jive and so Livvi left Jive Records, however quickly signed to Beluga Heights/Warner Bros., where she is currently finishing her debut album.

Artistry[link]

Franc has listed Nelly Furtado, Alicia Keys, Alanis Morissette as her biggest musical inspirations.^[3]

Discography[link]

Singles[link]

Music videos[link]

Notable songwriting credits[link]

• "Rain on Me" by Cheryl Cole (2009: 3 Words)
• "Walking on Snow" by Jordin Sparks (2009: Battlefield)
• "Trouble for Me" by Britney Spears (2011: Femme Fatale)
• "The War Is Over" by Kelly Clarkson (2011: Stronger)
• "Dub on the Track" by Cher Lloyd (2011: Sticks + Stones)

Other appearances[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website

George Kelly Barnes
Mugshot of George "Machine Gun Kelly" Barnes
Born	(1895-07-18)July 18, 1895 Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.
Died	July 18, 1954(1954-07-18) (aged 59) Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary, Leavenworth, Kansas, U.S.
Charge(s)	Conspiracy to kidnap and bank robbing
Occupation	Gangster, bootlegger and businessman
Spouse	Kathryn Kelly

George Celino Barnes (July 18, 1895 – July 18, 1954), better known as "Machine Gun Kelly", was an American gangster during the prohibition era.^[1][2] His nickname came from his favorite weapon, a Thompson submachine gun. His most famous crime was the kidnapping of oil tycoon and businessman Charles Urschel in July 1933 for which he, and his gang, earned $200,000 ransom. Unfortunately, their victim had collected and left considerable evidence that assisted the subsequent FBI investigation that eventually led to Kelly's arrest in Memphis, Tennessee on September 26, 1933.^[2] His crimes also included bootlegging and armed robbery.

Career[link]

During the Prohibition era of the 1920s and 1930s Kelly worked as a bootlegger for himself as well as a colleague. After a short time, and several run-ins with the local Memphis police, he decided to leave town and head west with his girlfriend. To protect his family and escape law enforcement officers, he changed his name to George R. Kelly.^[3] He continued to commit smaller crimes and bootlegging. He was arrested in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for smuggling liquor onto an Indian Reservation in 1928 and sentenced for three years to Leavenworth Penitentiary, Kansas, beginning February 11, 1928. He was reportedly a model inmate and was released early. Shortly thereafter, Kelly married Kathryn Thorne, who purchased Kelly’s first machine gun and went to great lengths to familiarize his name in the underground crime circles. She was known to hand out the expended .45cal cartridge casings from his Tommy Gun as souvenirs. Some historians claim that Kathryn even went so far as to plot some small bank robberies.^{[citation needed]}

George "Machine Gun" Kelly is led from Shelby County Jail enroute to the Memphis airport and Oklahoma City for his trial for the kidnapping of Charles F. Urschel, October 2, 1933

Nonetheless, Kelly’s last criminal activity proved disastrous when he kidnapped a wealthy Oklahoma City resident, Charles F. Urschel and his friend Walter R. Jarrett. Urschel, having been blindfolded, made sure to foil his kidnappers by noting all possible evidence of his experience such as background sounds, counting footsteps and leaving fingerprints on every surface in reach. This in turn proved invaluable for the FBI in their investigation, as they learned that Urschel had been held in Paradise, Texas.

Machine Gun Kelly's hideout at 1408 Rayner Street in Memphis, Tennnessee (2010)

An investigation conducted at Memphis disclosed that after 56 days on the run, the Kellys were staying at the residence of J.C. Tichenor. Special Agents from Birmingham, Alabama, headed by Special Agent in Charge, William "ash" Rorer, were immediately dispatched to Memphis on the orders of J. Edgar Hoover, where, in the early morning hours of September 26, 1933 a raid was conducted, led by agent Rorer. George and Kathryn Kelly were taken into custody and Memphis police officers Sergeant William Raney and officer Thomas Waterson. Caught without a weapon, George Kelly supposedly cried, "Don’t shoot, G-Men! Don’t shoot, G-Men!" as he surrendered to FBI Agents. The term (which had applied to all federal investigators, meaning simply 'Government Men') became synonymous with FBI Agents. Reports of the raid, however, indicate that George Kelly came to the door, dropped his pistol and said, "Okay, boys, I’ve been waiting for you all night." Recent research revealed a 1933 newspaper interview with one of the federal agents at the arrest. He commented that, upon their arrest, Kathryn Kelly put her arms around George and said, "These G-men will never leave us alone." The FBI press machine generated the G-Man story to build its own reputation.^[4] The arrest of the Kellys, however, was overshadowed by the escape of John Dillinger's gang from Michigan City, Indiana.

In October 1933, George and Kathryn Kelly were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. The trial was held at the Post Office, Courthouse and Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City. Kathryn Kelly and her mother had all charges dropped and were released in 1958 from prison in Cincinnati.

The kidnapping of Urschel and the two trials that resulted were historic in several ways: 1) they were the only federal criminal trials in the United States in which moving cameras were allowed to film; 2) the first kidnapping trials after the passage of the so-called Lindbergh Law, which made kidnapping a federal crime; 3) the first major case solved by J. Edgar Hoover’s evolving and powerful FBI. For that, Kelly got sent into Alcatraz; 4) the first crime in which defendants were transported by airplane. At the time, it was the largest ransom ever paid in the United States.

Death[link]

His gravestone marked "George B. Kelley"

Machine Gun Kelly spent his remaining 21 years in prison. During his time at Alcatraz he got the nickname "Pop Gun Kelly." This was in reference, according to a former prisoner, to the fact that Kelly was a model prisoner and was nowhere near the tough, brutal gangster his wife made him out to be. He spent 17 years on Alcatraz, working in the prison industries, and was quietly transferred back to Leavenworth in 1951. He died of a heart attack at Leavenworth Federal Prison, Kansas on July 18, 1954, his 59th birthday. He is buried at Cottondale Texas Cemetery with a small headstone marked "George B. Kelley 1954".^[5]

In popular culture[link]

• Crime novelist Ace Atkins' 2010 book Infamous is based on the Urschel kidnapping and subsequent multi-state misadventures of George and Kathryn Kelly as they attempted to flee both the FBI and other gangsters eager to claim the Urschel ransom money.
• Machine Gun Kelly and Kathryn Kelly were the inspiration for "Machine Gun Kelly" (1970), a song written by Danny "Kootch" Kortchmar and recorded by James Taylor on his 1971 Album Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon.
• Machine Gun Kelly and his crimes were (loosely) portrayed in the 1958 film Machine-Gun Kelly starring Charles Bronson.
• Machine Gun Kelly is a central character in the 1974 TV film Melvin Purvis: G-Man.
• Kelly is (along with Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson) one of the main characters of the comic book series Pretty, Baby, Machine.
• Punk band the Angelic Upstarts released a single in 1984 titled Machine Gun Kelly.
• Machine Gun Kelly is referenced in the film So I Married an Axe Murderer by Phil Hartman's character while touring Alcatraz.
• In the song "MVP" by the late Harlem rapper Big L, he says: "I run up like Machine Gun Kelly, with a black skully, put one in your belly, leave you smelly, then take your Pelle Pelle."
• In the song "Bluesman" by Harry Chapin, there's a line that goes "No! A fool plays the blues like Machine Gun Kelly, Five hundred notes to the bar...".
• Female Rapper Foxy Brown refers to "Machine Gun Kelly" in her song "Massacre"
• Mentioned in These Animal Men's I'm Not Your Babylon: "Machine Gun Kelly was the first to crack".
• Rapper of the same name from Cleveland, Ohio. See Machine Gun Kelly (rapper).

References[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Machine Gun Kelly

Further reading[link]

• Hamilton, Stanley (2003). Machine Gun Kelly's Last Stand. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-1247-5. 
• Atkins, Ace (2010). Infamous. G.P. Putnam's Sons. 
• Dowd, James (April 26, 2010). Book tells tale of capturing infamous Machine Gun Kelly. Memphis Commercial Appeal (newspaper). http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/apr/26/capturing-kelly/. 

External links[link]

• Machine Gun Kelly at Find a Grave
• FBI file on George "Machine Gun Kelly" Barnes