Al Silvani (26 March 1910 - 10 January 1996) was an American boxing trainer and actor.

As one of the most sought-after trainers in the business, Silvani trained over twenty world champions, including Jake LaMotta, Henry Armstrong, Carmen Basilio, Fritzie Zivic, Pone Kingpetch, Rocky Graziano, Ingemar Johansson, and Lou Ambers.

He also had a lengthy career in the film industry as an actor, stunt man, and as a technical advisor—most note-worthy a lead role in Robin and the Seven Hoods. He also appeared in From Here to Eternity, Ocean's Eleven, Rocky, Rocky II and Rocky III.

He was a close personal friend of Frank Sinatra and hung out with Sinatra's Rat Pack.

Inducted into the World Boxing Hall of Fame.

2006 California Boxing Hall of Fame Inductee.

Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr.; January 17, 1942) is an American former professional boxer, philanthropist and social activist. Considered a cultural icon, Ali was both idolized and vilified.

Originally known as Cassius Clay, Ali changed his name after joining the Nation of Islam in 1964, subsequently converting to Sunni Islam in 1975, and more recently practicing Sufism.^{[clarification needed]} In 1967, three years after Ali had won the World Heavyweight Championship, he was publicly vilified for his refusal to be conscripted into the U.S. military, based on his religious beliefs and opposition to the Vietnam War. Ali stated, "I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong... No Viet Cong ever called me nigger" – one of the more telling remarks of the era.

Widespread protests against the Vietnam War had not yet begun, but with that one phrase, Ali articulated the reason to oppose the war for a generation of young Americans, and his words served as a touchstone for the racial and antiwar upheavals that would rock the 1960s. Ali's example inspired Martin Luther King Jr. – who had been reluctant to alienate the Johnson Administration and its support of the civil rights agenda – to voice his own opposition to the war for the first time.

Floyd Patterson (January 4, 1935 – May 11, 2006) was an American professional boxer and former Undisputed Heavyweight Champion. At 21, Patterson became the youngest man to win the world heavyweight title. He was also the first heavyweight boxer to regain the title. He had a record of 55 wins, 8 losses and 1 draw, with 40 wins by knockout. He won the gold medal at the 1952 Olympic Games as a middleweight.

Although Mike Tyson later became the youngest boxer to win a world heavyweight title, Patterson remains the youngest Undisputed Heavyweight Champion.

Born into a poor family in Waco, North Carolina, Patterson was the youngest of eleven children and experienced an insular and troubled childhood. His family moved to Brooklyn, New York, where Floyd was a truant and petty thief. At age ten, he was sent to the Wiltwyck School for Boys, a reform school in upstate New York, which he credited with turning his life around. He stayed there for almost 2 years.

At age fourteen, he started to box, trained by Cus D'Amato at his Gramercy Gym. Aged just 17, Patterson won the Gold medal in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics as a middleweight. 1952 turned out to be a good year for the young Patterson; in addition to Olympic gold Patterson won the National Amateur Middleweight Championship and New York Golden Gloves Middleweight Championship.

Catherine Feller is an actor and educator. She is perhaps best known for her role as Oliver Reed's love interest in the Hammer Film Productions' The Curse of the Werewolf (1961). She also appeared in Waltz of the Toreadors (1962) with Peter Sellers.

Ms. Feller has experience as an actress in several theatre performances, films and TV series in Italy and the United Kingdom, working for the BBC, the RAI and many other theatres and broadcasting companies. She has collaborated with several public and private schools as a lecturer of expressiveness and conversation courses addressed to teachers and students. She has performed her shows and laboratory activities sponsored by L’Astrolabio throughout Italian schools. Fluent in Italian she also works as a translator for the magazine Vogue Gioiello.

Gabriele D'Annunzio or d'Annunzio (ennobled by the King of Italy in 1924 as Principe di Montenevoso; Italian pronunciation: [ɡabriˈɛːle danˈnuntsjo]; 12 March 1863 – 1 March 1938) was an Italian poet, journalist, novelist, dramatist, and soldier during World War I. He was a prominent Italian nationalist figure. His role in politics is controversial due to his influence on the Italian Fascist movement and his status as the alleged forerunner of Benito Mussolini.

D'Annunzio was of Dalmatian extraction. He was born in Pescara, Abruzzo, the son of a wealthy landowner and mayor of the town whose name was originally Francesco Rapagnetta, to which both father and son legally added D'Annunzio. The son was baptized Gaetano and gained the name of Gabriele as a nickname in childhood, from his angelic looks. His precocious talent was recognised early in life, and he was sent to school at the Liceo Cicognini in Prato, Tuscany. He published his first poetry while still at school at the age of sixteen with a small volume of verses called Primo Vere (1879), influenced by Giosuè Carducci's Odi barbare, in which, side by side with some almost brutal imitations of Lorenzo Stecchetti, the fashionable poet of Postuma, were some translations from the Latin, distinguished by such agile grace that Giuseppe Chiarini on reading them brought the unknown youth before the public in an enthusiastic article. In 1881 D'Annunzio entered the University of Rome La Sapienza, where he became a member of various literary groups, including Cronaca Bizantina and wrote articles and criticism for local newspapers. In those university years he started to promote Italian irredentism.