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![1955 Disneyland Opening Day [Complete ABC Broadcast]](http://web.archive.org./web/20130124065220im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/JuzrZET-3Ew/default.jpg "Disneyland Park is a theme park located in Anaheim, California, owned and operated by the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts division of the Walt Disney Company. Known as Disneyland when it opened on July 18, 1955, and still colloquially known by that name, it is the only theme park to be designed...")
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Albania
Albania (
i/ælˈbeɪniə/ al-BAY-nee-ə, Albanian: Shqipëri/Shqipëria; Gheg Albanian: Shqipnia), officially known as the Republic of Albania (Albanian: Republika e Shqipërisë pronounced Albanian pronunciation: [ɾɛpuˈblika ɛ ʃcipəˈɾiːs]), is a country in Southern Europe. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the west, and on the Ionian Sea to the southwest. It is less than 72 km (45 mi) from Italy, across the Strait of Otranto which links the Adriatic Sea to the Ionian Sea.
Albania is a member of the UN, NATO, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Council of Europe, World Trade Organisation, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and one of the founding members of the Union for the Mediterranean. Albania has been a potential candidate for accession to the European Union since January 2003, and it formally applied for EU membership on 28 April 2009.
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Algeria
Coordinates: 28°N 2°E / 28°N 2°E / 28; 2
Algeriai/ælˈdʒɪəriə/ (Arabic: الجزائر, al-Jazā'ir; Berber: ⴷⵣⴰⵢⴻⵔ Dzayer), officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria (الجمهورية الجزائرية الديمقراطية الشعبية, al-Jumhūriyyah al-Jazāʾiriyyah ad-Dīmuqrāṭiyyah ash-Shaʿbiyyah), also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a large country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.
When referring to its land area, Algeria is the largest country in Africa, Maghreb and the Arab World. It is also the largest of the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea; it is also the tenth-largest country in the world. The country is bordered in the northeast by Tunisia, in the east by Libya, in the west by Morocco, in the southwest by Western Sahara, Mauritania, and Mali, in the southeast by Niger, and in the north by the Mediterranean Sea. Its size is almost 2,400,000 square kilometres (926,645 sq mi) with an estimated population of 37.1 million as of 2012. Algeria is a member of the African Union, the Arab League, OPEC and the United Nations. The country is also a founding member of the Arab Maghreb Union.
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Austria
Austria (i/ˈɒstriə/ or /ˈɔːstriə/; German: Österreich [ˈøːstɐˌʁaɪç] (
listen)), officially the Republic of Austria (German: 
Republik Österreich (help·info)), is a landlocked country of roughly 8.47 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The territory of Austria covers 83,855 square kilometres (32,377 sq mi) and has a temperate and alpine climate. Austria's terrain is highly mountainous due to the presence of the Alps; only 32% of the country is below 500 metres (1,640 ft), and its highest point is 3,798 metres (12,461 ft). The majority of the population speak local Austro-Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, and German in its standard form is the country's official language. Other local official languages are Burgenland Croatian, Hungarian and Slovene.
The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty when the vast majority of the country was a part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Austria became one of the great powers of Europe and, in response to the coronation of Napoleon I as the Emperor of the French, the Austrian Empire was officially proclaimed in 1804. In 1867, the Austrian Empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary.
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Bulgaria
Coordinates: 42°45′N 25°30′E / 42.75°N 25.5°E / 42.75; 25.5
Bulgariai/bʌlˈɡɛəriə/ (Bulgarian: България, IPA: [bɤ̞ɫˈɡarijɐ]), is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and the Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south and the Black Sea to the east. With a territory of 110,994 square kilometres (42,855 sq mi), Bulgaria is Europe's 14th-largest country. Its location has made it a historical crossroad for various civilisations and as such it is the home of some of the earliest metalworking, religious and other cultural artifacts in the world.
Prehistoric cultures began developing on Bulgarian lands during the Neolithic period. Its ancient history was marked by the presence of the Thracians, and later by the Greeks and Romans. The emergence of a unified Bulgarian ethnicity and state dates back to the First Bulgarian Empire, which dominated most of the Balkans and functioned as a cultural hub for Slavic peoples during the Middle Ages. With the downfall of the Second Bulgarian Empire in 1396, its territories came under Ottoman rule for nearly five hundred years. The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 resulted in the Third Bulgarian State, recognised in 1908. The following years saw several conflicts with its neighbours, which prompted Bulgaria to align with Germany in both World Wars. In 1946 it became a Communist republic with a single-party system until 1989, when the Communist Party allowed multi-party elections. After 1990 Bulgaria transitioned to democracy and a market-based economy.
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California
California (pronouncedi/kælɨˈfɔrnjə/) is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third most extensive (after Alaska and Texas). It is home to the nation's second- and sixth-largest census statistical areas (Los Angeles Metropolitan Area and San Francisco Bay Area), and eight of the nation's fifty most populated cities (Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, Fresno, Sacramento, Long Beach and Oakland). The capital city is Sacramento.
California's diverse geography ranges from the Pacific Coast in the west, to the Sierra Nevada mountains in the east – from the Redwood–Douglas-fir forests of the northwest, to the Mojave Desert areas in the southeast. The center of the state is dominated by Central Valley, a major agricultural area. California contains both the highest and lowest points in the contiguous United States (Mount Whitney and Death Valley), and has the third-longest coastline of all states (after Alaska and Florida). Earthquakes are a common occurrence due to the state's location along the Pacific Ring of Fire: about 37,000 are recorded annually.
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Cambodia
Cambodia (i/kæmˈboʊdiə/;Khmer: ព្រះរាជាណាចក្រកម្ពុជា, Kampuchea, IPA: [kɑmˈpuˈciə]), officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. With a total landmass of 181,035 square kilometres (69,898 sq mi), it is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the northeast, Vietnam to the east, and the Gulf of Thailand to the southwest.
With a population of over 14.8 million, Cambodia is the 68th most populous country in the world. The official religion is Theravada Buddhism, which is practiced by around 95% of the Cambodian population. The country minority groups include Vietnamese, Chinese, Chams and 30 various hill tribes. The capital and largest city is Phnom Penh; the political, economic, and cultural center of Cambodia. The kingdom is a constitutional monarchy with Norodom Sihamoni, a monarch chosen by the Royal Throne Council, as head of state. The head of government is Hun Sen, who is currently the longest serving leader in South East Asia and has ruled Cambodia for over 25 years.
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Chicago
Chicago (
i/ʃɪˈkɑːɡoʊ/ or /ʃɪˈkɔːɡoʊ/) is the largest city in the US state of Illinois and the third most populous city in the United States after New York City and Los Angeles. The city has around 2.7 million residents. Its metropolitan area, sometimes called "Chicagoland", is the third largest in the United States, with an estimated 9.8 million people. Chicago is the county seat of Cook County, though a small portion also extends into DuPage County.
Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837, near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed. Today, Chicago is listed as an alpha+ global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, and ranks seventh in the world on the 2012 Global Cities Index. The city retains its status as an international hub for finance, industry, telecommunications and infrastructure, with O'Hare International Airport being the second busiest airport in the world in terms of traffic movements. In 2008[update], the city hosted 45.6 million domestic and overseas visitors. Among metropolitan areas, Chicago has the 4th largest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the world, ranking just behind Tokyo, New York City, and Los Angeles. Chicago is one of the most important Worldwide Centers of Commerce and trade.
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Cyprus
Cyprusi/ˈsaɪprəs/ (Greek: Κύπρος, Kýpros, IPA: [ˈcipɾos]; Turkish: Kıbrıs, IPA: [ˈkɯbɾɯs]), officially the Republic of Cyprus (Greek: Κυπριακή Δημοκρατία, Kypriakī́ Dīmokratía, IPA: [cipɾiaˈci ðimokɾaˈtia]; Turkish: Kıbrıs Cumhuriyeti, IPA: [ˈkɯbɾɯs dʒumhuɾijeˈti]), is an island country in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria, Lebanon, northwest of Israel and north of Egypt. Cyprus is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and the Republic of Cyprus is a member state of the European Union.
The earliest known human activity on the island dates back to around the 10th millennium BC. Archaeological remains from this period include the well-preserved Neolithic village of Khirokitia, which has been declared a World Heritage Site with an "enhanced protection" status in the event of armed conflict by UNESCO, along with the archaeological sites of Paphos and the Painted Churches of the Troodos Region. Cyprus is home to some of the oldest water wells in the world.
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Detroit
Detroit ( /diˈtrɔɪt/) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan, and the seat of Wayne County. It is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people, and serves as a major port on the Detroit River connecting the Great Lakes system to the Saint Lawrence Seaway. It was founded on July 24, 1701, by the French explorer, adventurer, and nobleman Antoine de la Mothe, sieur de Cadillac.
In 2010, the city had a population of 713,777 and ranked as the 18th most populous city in the United States. The name Detroit sometimes refers to the Metro Detroit area with a population of 4,296,250 for the six-county Metropolitan Statistical Area, the United States' eleventh-largest, and a population of 5,218,852 for the nine-county Combined Statistical Area as of the 2010 Census. The Detroit–Windsor area, a critical commercial link straddling the Canada–U.S. border, has a total population of about 5,700,000.
Known as the world's traditional automotive center, "Detroit" is a metonym for the American automobile industry and an important source of popular music legacies celebrated by the city's two familiar nicknames, the Motor City and Motown. Other nicknames arose in the 20th century, including City of Champions beginning in the 1930s for its successes in individual and team sport,The D, D-Town, Hockeytown (a trademark owned by the city's NHL club, the Red Wings), Rock City (after the Kiss song "Detroit Rock City"), and The 313 (its telephone area code) Detroit became known as the "great arsenal of democracy" for its support of the U.S. role among the Allied powers during World War II.
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El Al Flight 402
El Al Flight 402, a Lockheed L-049 Constellation pressurized four-engine propliner, registered 4X-AKC, was an international passenger flight from Vienna, Austria to Tel Aviv, Israel via Istanbul, Turkey, on July 27, 1955, which strayed into Bulgarian airspace and was shot down by two Bulgarian MiG-15 jet fighters and crashed near Petrich, Bulgaria. All 7 crew and 51 passengers on board the airliner were killed. The crash took place amid highly strained relations between the Eastern Bloc and the West and was the deadliest involving the Lockheed L-049 Constellation at the time.
The Constellation originated its scheduled weekly flight from London, England, and departed Vienna's Wien-Schwechat International Airport (VIE) at 02:53, bound to Tel Aviv's Lod Airport (since renamed to Ben Gurion International Airport) via Istanbul. Why the plane veered off its intended route was never established, with highly conflicting opinions both from Israeli and Bulgarian investigators. One possibility is that, using NDB navigation, thunderstorm activity in the area might have upset the navigational equipment so that the crew believed they were over the Skopje radio beacon, and turned to an outbound course of 142 degrees, but this version is not supported by any factual evidence of thunderstorms in the area. As a result this version for the shooting are both disputed by both Bulgarian military and by current historiographers of Bulgarian aviation It is firmly established only that the El Al flight, flying at FL180 (an altitude of approximately 18,000 feet above mean sea level), strayed off the Amber 10 airway into Bulgarian territory. Bypassing the town of Tran, the El Al plane traveled a total of 200 km on Bulgarian territory, at a 120 km distance from the border it crossed before being shot down.
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Finland
Coordinates: 65°N 27°E / 65°N 027°E / 65; 027
Finlandi/ˈfɪnlənd/ ( Finnish: Suomi; Swedish: Finland (help·info)), officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.
Around 5.4 million people reside in Finland, with the majority concentrated in the southern region. It is the eighth largest country in Europe in terms of area and the most sparsely populated country in the European Union. Finland is a parliamentary republic with a central government based in Helsinki and local governments in 336 municipalities, and an autonomous region of the Åland Islands. About one million residents live in the Greater Helsinki area, which consists of Helsinki, Espoo, Kauniainen and Vantaa, and a third of the country's GDP is produced there. Other larger cities include Tampere, Turku, Oulu, Jyväskylä, Lahti and Kuopio.
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Hungary
Hungaryi/ˈhʌŋɡəri/ (Hungarian: Magyarország [ˈmɒɟɒrorsaːɡ] ( listen)) is a country, which is located in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The country's capital, and largest city, is Budapest. Hungary is a member of the European Union, NATO, the OECD, the Visegrád Group, and is a Schengen state. The official language is Hungarian, also known as Magyar, which is part of the Finno-Ugric group and is the most widely spoken non-Indo-European language in Europe.
Following a Celt (after c. 450 BC) and a Roman (AD 9 - c. 430) period, the foundation of Hungary was laid in the late 9th century by the Hungarian prince Árpád, whose great-grandson Saint Stephen I was crowned with a crown sent by the pope from Rome in 1000 AD. The Kingdom of Hungary lasted for 946 years, and at various points was regarded as one of the cultural centres of the Western world. After about 150 years of partial Ottoman occupation (1541–1699), Hungary was integrated into the Habsburg Monarchy, and later constituted half of the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy (1867–1918).
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Ireland
Coordinates: 53°20′N 08°00′W / 53.333°N 8°W / 53.333; -8
Ireland (pronounced [ˈaɪrlənd] ( listen); Irish: Éire [ˈeːɾʲə] ( listen); Ulster Scots: Airlann or Airlan) is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth. To its east is the larger island of Great Britain, from which it is separated by the Irish Sea.
Politically, Ireland is divided between the Republic of Ireland, which covers just under five-sixths of the island, and Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom, which covers the remainder and is located in the northeast of the island. The population of Ireland is approximately 6.4 million. Just under 4.6 million live in the Republic of Ireland and just under 1.8 million live in Northern Ireland.
Relatively low-lying mountains surrounding a central plain epitomise Ireland's geography with several navigable rivers extending inland. The island has lush vegetation, a product of its mild but changeable oceanic climate, which avoids extremes in temperature. Thick woodlands covered the island until the 17th century. Today, it is one of the most deforested areas in Europe. There are twenty-six extant mammal species native to Ireland.
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Istanbul
Istanbul (Turkish: İstanbul) is the largest city in Turkey, forming the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With a population of 13.4 million, the city is at the center of the second-largest urban area in Europe after Moscow, and among the world's largest cities by population within city limits. Istanbul's vast area of 5,343 square kilometers (2,063 sq mi) is coterminous with Istanbul Province, of which the city is considered capital. Straddling the Bosphorus—one of the world's busiest waterways—in northwestern Turkey, between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea, Istanbul is a transcontinental city, with one third of its population living in Asia but its commercial and historical center in Europe.
Founded around 660 BC as Byzantium on the Seraglio Point, the city now known as Istanbul developed to become one of the most significant cities in history. For nearly sixteen centuries following its reestablishment as Constantinople in 330 AD, it served as the capital of four empires — the late classical Roman Empire (330–395), the Eastern Roman ("Byzantine") Empire (395–1204 and 1261–1453), the Latin Empire (1204–1261), and the Ottoman Empire (1453–1922). It was instrumental in the advancement of Christianity during Roman and Byzantine times, before the Ottomans conquered the city in 1453 and transformed it into an Islamic stronghold from which the last caliphate ruled. Although the Republic of Turkey established its capital elsewhere, in Ankara, remnants of Istanbul's previous central role still remain highly visible across the city, with palaces and imperial mosques lining its hills.
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Italy
Italyi/ˈɪtəli/ (Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic or the Republic of Italy (Italian: Repubblica italiana), is a unitary parliamentary republic in south-central Europe. To the north, it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia along the Alps. To the south, it consists of the entirety of the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Sardinia–the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea–and many other smaller islands. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within Italy, while Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland. The territory of Italy covers some 301,338 km2 (116,347 sq mi) and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. With 60.6 million inhabitants, it is the fifth most populous country in Europe, and the 23rd most populous in the world.
Rome, the capital of Italy, was for centuries a political and religious centre of Western civilisation as the capital of the Roman Empire and site of the Holy See. After the decline of the Roman Empire, Italy endured numerous invasions by foreign peoples, from Germanic tribes such as the Lombards and Ostrogoths, to the Byzantines and later, the Normans, among others. Centuries later, Italy became the birthplace of Maritime republics and the Renaissance, an immensely fruitful intellectual movement that would prove to be integral in shaping the subsequent course of European thought.
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Japan
Japani/dʒəˈpæn/ (Japanese: 日本 Nihon or Nippon; formally 日本国 
Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku, literally the State of Japan) is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters that make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin", which is why Japan is sometimes referred to as the "Land of the Rising Sun".
Japan is an archipelago of 6,852 islands. The four largest islands are Honshū, Hokkaidō, Kyūshū and Shikoku, together accounting for ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area. Japan has the world's tenth-largest population, with over 127 million people. The Greater Tokyo Area, which includes the de facto capital city of Tokyo and several surrounding prefectures, is the largest metropolitan area in the world, with over 30 million residents.
Archaeological research indicates that people lived in Japan as early as the Upper Paleolithic period. The first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other nations followed by long periods of isolation has characterized Japan's history. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, victory in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War and World War I allowed Japan to expand its empire during a period of increasing militarism. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since adopting its revised constitution in 1947, Japan has maintained a unitary constitutional monarchy with an emperor and an elected parliament called the Diet.
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John Grisham
John Ray Grisham, Jr. (born February 8, 1955) is an American lawyer and author, best known for his popular legal thrillers.
John Grisham graduated from Mississippi State University before attending the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981 and practiced criminal law for about a decade. He also served in the House of Representatives in Mississippi from January 1984 to September 1990. He began writing his first novel, A Time To Kill, in 1984, and it was published in June 1989.
As of 2008, his books had sold over 250 million copies worldwide. A Galaxy British Book Awards winner, Grisham is one of only three authors to sell two million copies on a first printing, the others being Tom Clancy and J.K. Rowling.
Grisham's first best seller was The Firm. Released in 1991, it sold more than seven million copies. The book was later adapted into a feature film in 1993, and a TV series in 2012 which "continues the story of attorney Mitchell McDeere and his family 10 years after the events of the film and novel." Eight of his other novels have also been adapted into films: The Chamber, The Client, A Painted House, The Pelican Brief, Skipping Christmas, The Rainmaker, The Runaway Jury, and A Time to Kill. His books have been translated into 29 languages and published worldwide.
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Jordan
Jordan ( /ˈdʒɔr.dən/;Arabic: اَلأُرْدُنّ, Al-'Urdunn), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (Arabic: اَلمَمْلَكَة اَلأُرْدُنِيَّة اَلهَاشِمِيَّة), Al-Mamlakah Al-Urdaniyyah Al-Hashimiyyah) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing control of the Dead Sea with the latter. Jordan's only port is at its south-western tip, at the Gulf of Aqaba, which is shared with Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Over half of Jordan is covered by the Arabian Desert. However, the western part of Jordan is arable land and forests. Jordan is part of the Fertile Crescent. The capital city is Amman. According to the CIA World Factbook, Jordan has the second highest life expectancy in the Middle East, after Israel. The average life expectancy is one position behind the United Kingdom, although the age remains exactly the same (80.05 years).
The precursor to modern Jordan was founded in 1921 as the Hashemite Emirate, and it was recognized by the League of Nations as a state under the British mandate in 1922 known as The Emirate of Transjordan. In 1946, Jordan became an independent sovereign state officially known as the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan. After capturing the West Bank area of Cisjordan during the 1948–49 war with Israel, Abdullah I took the title King of Jordan and Palestine, and he officially changed the country's name to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in April 1949.
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Laos
Laos ((i/ˈlaʊs/, /ˈlɑː.ɒs/, /ˈlɑː.oʊs/, or /ˈleɪ.ɒs/) Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, pronounced [sǎː.tʰáː.laʔ.naʔ.lat páʔ.sáː.tʰiʔ.páʔ.tàj páʔ.sáː.són.láːw] Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west. Its population was estimated to be 6.5 million in 2012.
Laos traces its history to the Kingdom which existed from the 14th to the 18th century when it split into three separate kingdoms. In 1893, it became a French protectorate, with the three kingdoms, Luang Phrabang, Vientiane and Champasak, uniting to form what is now known as Laos. It briefly gained independence in 1945 after Japanese occupation, but returned to French rule until it was granted autonomy in 1949. Laos became independent in 1953, with a constitutional monarchy under Sisavang Vong. Shortly after independence, a long civil war ended the monarchy, when the Communist Pathet Lao movement came to power in 1975.
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Libya
Libya (Arabic: ليبيا Lībyā), Berber: ⵍⵉⴱⵢⴰ) is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west.
With an area of almost 1.8 million square kilometres (700,000 sq mi), Libya is the third largest country in Africa by area, and the 17th largest in the world. The largest city, Tripoli, is home to 1.7 million of Libya's 6.4 million people. The three traditional parts of the country are Tripolitania, Fezzan and Cyrenaica.
In 2009 Libya had the highest HDI in Africa and the fourth highest GDP (PPP) per capita in Africa, behind Seychelles, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. Libya has the 10th-largest proven oil reserves of any country in the world and the 17th-highest petroleum production.
As a result of the Libyan civil war, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, which had at that time been in existence for 34 years, collapsed and Libya entered a period of governance by a transitional administration called the National Transitional Council. The NTC has stated its intention to oversee the first phase of a transition to constitutional democracy, after which it claims it will dissolve in favor of a representative legislature.
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London
Londoni/ˈlʌndən/ is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its founding by the Romans, who named it Londinium. London's ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its square-mile mediaeval boundaries. Since at least the 19th century, the name London has also referred to the metropolis developed around this core. The bulk of this conurbation forms the London region and the Greater London administrative area, governed by the elected Mayor of London and the London Assembly.
London is a leading global city, with strengths in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism and transport all contributing to its prominence. It is the world's leading financial centre alongside New York City and has the fifth-largest city GDP in the world (and the largest in Europe). London has been described as a world cultural capital. It was the world's most visited city during 2011 and London Heathrow is the world's busiest airport by number of international passengers. London's 43 universities form the largest concentration of higher education in Europe. In 2012 London will become the first city to host the modern Summer Olympic Games three times.
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Manhattan
Manhattan (/mænˈhætən/) is the most densely populated and the oldest of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the U.S. state of New York. The borough and county consist of Manhattan Island and several small adjacent islands: Roosevelt Island, Randall's Island, Wards Island, Governors Island, Liberty Island, part of Ellis Island,Mill Rock, and U Thant Island; as well as Marble Hill, a very small area on the mainland bordering the Bronx. The original city of New York began at the southern end of Manhattan, expanded northward, and then between 1874 and 1898, annexed land from surrounding counties.
The New York County is the most densely populated county in the United States, and one of the most densely populated areas in the world, with a 2010 population of 1,585,873 living in a land area of 22.96 square miles (59.5 km2), or 69,464 residents per square mile (26,924/km²), more dense than any individual American city. It is also one of the wealthiest counties in the United States, with a 2005 per capita income above $100,000. Manhattan is the third-largest of New York's five boroughs in population, and its smallest borough in land area.
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Mexico
Mexico (i/ˈmɛksɨkoʊ/; Spanish: México, IPA: [ˈmexiko] ( listen)), officially the United Mexican States (Spanish: Estados Unidos Mexicanos (help·info)), is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States of America; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Covering almost two million square kilometres (over 760,000 sq mi), Mexico is the fifth largest country in the Americas by total area and the thirteenth largest independent nation in the world. With an estimated population of over 113 million, it is the eleventh most populous country and the most populous Spanish-speaking country. Mexico is a federation comprising thirty-one states and a Federal District, the capital city.
In Pre-Columbian Mexico many cultures matured into advanced civilizations such as the Olmec, the Toltec, the Teotihuacan, the Zapotec, the Maya and the Aztec before the first contact with Europeans. In 1521, Spain conquered and colonized the territory from its base in México-Tenochtitlan, which was administered as the Viceroyalty of New Spain. This territory would eventually become Mexico as the colony's independence was recognized in 1821. The post-independence period was characterized by economic instability, the Mexican-American War and territorial cession to the United States, a civil war, two empires and a domestic dictatorship. The latter led to the Mexican Revolution in 1910, which culminated with the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution and the emergence of the country's current political system. Elections held in July 2000 marked the first time that an opposition party won the presidency from the Institutional Revolutionary Party.
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Mir Mine
Mir Mine (Russian: Кимберлитовая алмазная трубка «Мир» Kimberlitovaya Almaznaya Trubka "Mir"; English: kimberlite diamond pipe "Peace") also called Mirny Mine is a former open pit diamond mine, now inactive, located in Mirny, Eastern Siberia, Russia. The mine is 525 meters (1,722 ft) deep (4th in the world) and has a diameter of 1,200 m (3,900 ft), and is the second largest excavated hole in the world, after Bingham Canyon Mine. The airspace above the mine is closed for helicopters because of a few incidents in which they were sucked in by the downward air flow.
The mine was discovered on June 13, 1955 by Soviet geologists Yuri Khabardin, Ekaterina Elagina and Viktor Avdeenko during the large Amakinsky Expedition in Yakut ASSR. They found traces of volcanic rock kimberlite which are usually associated with diamonds. This finding was the first success in the search for kimberlite in Russia, after numerous failed expeditions of the 1940s and 1950s. For this discovery, in 1957 Khabardin was given the Lenin Prize, which was one of the highest awards in the Soviet Union.
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Montreal
Montreal (i/ˌmʌntriːˈɒl/;French: Montréal; pronounced [mɔ̃ʁeal] (
listen)) is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the fifteenth largest in North America. Originally called Ville-Marie, or "City of Mary", the city takes its present name from Mount Royal, the triple-peaked hill located in the heart of the city, or Mont Réal as it was spelled in Middle French (Mont Royal in present French). The city is located on the Island of Montreal, which took its name from the same source as the city, and a few much smaller peripheral islands, the largest of which is Île Bizard.
As of May 10, 2011, Statistics Canada identifies Montreal's Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) (land area 4,259 square kilometres (1,644 sq mi)) as Canada's second most populous with an estimated metropolitan area population of 3,824,221 and a population of 1,886,481 in the urban agglomeration of Montreal, which includes all of the municipalities on the Island of Montreal. The city of Montreal proper had a population of 1,649,519.
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Morocco
Morocco (Arabic: المغرب al-Maghrib ; Berber: ⵍⵎⴻⵖⵔⵉⴱ / ⴰⵎⴻⵔⵔⵓⴽElmeɣrib / Amerruk), officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of about 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², including the disputed region of the Western Sahara, seen by and mostly administered by Morocco as the Southern Provinces. Morocco is part of the Maghreb region, in addition to Tunisia, Algeria, Mauritania, and Libya, with which it shares cultural, historical and linguistic ties.
Morocco is a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament. The King of Morocco holds vast executive powers, including the power to dissolve the parliament. Executive power is exercised by the government but more importantly by the king himself. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of parliament, the Assembly of Representatives and the Assembly of Councillors. The king can also issue decrees called dahirs which have the force of law. The latest Parliamentary elections were held in November 25, 2011, and were considered by some neutral observers to be mostly free and fair. Voter turnout in these elections was estimated to be 43% of registered voters, but only about 25% of Moroccan adult citizens actually voted. The rest either chose not to vote or they were not registered as voters. The political capital is Rabat, but the largest city is Casablanca; other main cities include Marrakesh, Tetouan, Tangier, Salé, Fes, Agadir, Meknes, Oujda, Kenitra, and Nador.
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Nepal
Nepal (नेपाल) (i/nɛˈpɔːl/ ne-PAWLNepali: नेपाल [neˈpal] ( listen)), officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India. Specifically, the Indian states of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, and Sikkim border Nepal, while across the Himalayas lies the Tibetan Autonomous Region. With an area of 147,181 square kilometres (56,827 sq mi) and a population of approximately 27 million (and 2 million absentee workers living abroad), Nepal is the world's 93rd largest country by land mass and the 41st most populous country. Kathmandu is the nation's capital and the country's largest metropolis. Kathmandu Valley itself has estimated population of 5 million.
Nepal has a rich geography. The mountainous north has eight of the world's ten tallest mountains, including the highest point on Earth, Mount Everest, called Sagarmatha in Nepali. It contains more than 240 peaks over 20,000 ft (6,096 m) above sea level. The fertile and humid south is heavily urbanized.
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New York
New York (/njuː ˈjɔrk/; locally IPA: [nɪu ˈjɔək] or [nuː ˈjɔɹk] ( listen)) is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. New York is the 27th most extensive, the 3rd most populous, and the 7th most densely populated of the 50 United States. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east. The state has a maritime border with Rhode Island east of Long Island, as well as an international border with the Canadian provinces of Ontario to the west and north, and Quebec to the north. The state of New York is often referred to as New York State to distinguish it from New York City.
New York City, with a population of over 8.1 million, is the most populous city in the United States. Alone, it makes up over 40 percent of the population of New York state. It is known for its status as a center for finance and culture and for its status as the largest gateway for immigration to the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, New York City is also a destination of choice for many foreign visitors. Both the state and city were named for the 17th century Duke of York, James Stuart, future James II and VII of England and Scotland.
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New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. The city is referred to as New York City or The City of New York to distinguish it from the State of New York, of which it is a part. As a global power city, New York exerts a significant impact upon commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment. The home of the United Nations Headquarters, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has been described as the cultural capital of the world.
Located on one of the world's largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, each of which comprises a state county. The five boroughs—The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island—were consolidated into a single city in 1898. With a Census-estimated 2011 population of 8,244,910 distributed over a land area of just 305 square miles (790 km2), New York is the most densely populated major city in the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. The New York City Metropolitan Area's population is the United States' largest, with 18.9 million people distributed over 6,720 square miles (17,400 km2), and is also part of the most populous combined statistical area in the United States, containing 22.1 million people as of the 2010 Census.
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Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize (Norwegian and Swedish: Nobels fredspris) is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiology or Medicine, and Literature. It is awarded to those who have "done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."
Per Alfred Nobel's will, the recipient is selected by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, a 5-member committee appointed by the Parliament of Norway. Since 1990, the prize is awarded in Oslo City Hall on 10 December each year. The prize was formerly awarded in the Atrium of the University of Oslo Faculty of Law (1947–89), the Norwegian Nobel Institute (1905–46) and the Parliament (1901–04).
According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who "shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."
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Panama
Panama (i/ˈpænəmɑː/ PAN-ə-mah; Spanish: Panamá), officially the Republic of Panama (Spanish: República de Panamá [reˈpuβlika ðe panaˈma]), is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The capital is Panama City. Explored and settled by the Spanish in the 16th century, Panama broke with Spain in 1821 and joined a union of Nueva Granada, Ecuador, and Venezuela, named the Republic of Gran Colombia.When Gran Colombia the dissolved in 1831, Panama and Nueva Granada remained joined. Nueva Granada later became the Republic of Colombia.
With the backing of the United States, Panama seceded from Colombia in 1903, allowing the Panama Canal to be built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 1904 and 1914. In 1977, an agreement was signed for the complete transfer of the Canal from the United States to Panama by the end of the century.
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Panama City
Panama City (Spanish: Ciudad de Panamá) is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Panama. It has a population of 880,691, with a total metro population of 1,272,672, and it is located at the Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal, in the province of Panama. The city is the political and administrative center of the country, and a hub for international banking and commerce. It is considered a Beta World City.
With an average GDP per capita of $11,700, Panama has been among the top five places for retirement in the world, according to International Living magazine.[citation needed] Panama City has a dense skyline of mostly highrise buildings, and it is surrounded by a large belt of tropical rainforest. Panama's Tocumen International Airport, the largest and busiest airport in Central America, offers daily flights to major international destinations.
Panama City was chosen to be the American Capital of Culture for 2003 (jointly, with Curitiba, Brazil).[citation needed]
Panama was founded on August 15, 1519 by Spanish conquistador Pedro Arias Dávila. The city was the starting point of expeditions that conquered the Inca Empire in Peru. It was a stopover point of one of the most important trade routes in the history of the American continent leading to the fairs of Nombre de Dios and Portobelo, where most of the gold and silver that Spain took from the Americas passed through. The city was destroyed by a devastating fire, when the pirate Henry Morgan sacked it on January 28, 1671. It was rebuilt and formally established on January 21, 1673 in a peninsula located 8 km from the original settlement. The place where the previously devastated city was located is still in ruins, and has become a tourist attraction known as "Panama Viejo".
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Portugal
Portugali/ˈpɔrtʃʉɡəl/ (Portuguese: Portugal, IPA: [puɾtuˈɣaɫ]), officially the Portuguese Republic (Portuguese: República Portuguesa) is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula . Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira are part of Portugal. The country is named after its second largest city, Porto, whose Latin name was Portus Cale.
The land within the borders of the current Portuguese Republic has been continuously settled since prehistoric times: occupied by Celts like the Gallaeci and the Lusitanians, integrated into the Roman Republic and later settled by Germanic peoples such as the Suebi, Swabians, Vandals and the Visigoths. In the 8th century most of the Iberian Peninsula was conquered by Moorish invaders professing Islam, which were later expelled by the Knights Templar under the Order of Christ. During the Christian Reconquista, Portugal established itself as an independent kingdom from León in 1139, claiming to be the oldest European nation state.
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Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States.
It is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution. Princeton provides undergraduate and graduate instruction in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and engineering. Princeton does not have schools of medicine, law, divinity, or business, but it does offer professional degrees through the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, the Princeton University School of Engineering and Applied Science and the School of Architecture.
Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, as the College of New Jersey, the university moved to Newark in 1747, then to Princeton in 1756 and was renamed Princeton University in 1896. The present-day College of New Jersey in nearby Ewing, New Jersey, is an unrelated institution. Princeton was the fourth chartered institution of higher education in the American colonies. Princeton had close ties to the Presbyterian Church, but has never been affiliated with any denomination and today imposes no religious requirements on its students.
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Romania
Romania (i/roʊˈmeɪniə/ roh-MAY-nee-ə; dated: Roumania; or Rumania;Romanian: România [romɨˈni.a] ( listen)) is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea. Romania shares a border with Hungary and Serbia to the west, Ukraine and Moldova to the northeast and east, and Bulgaria to the south.
At 238,400 square kilometers (92,000 sq mi), Romania is the ninth largest country of the European Union by area, and has the seventh largest population of the European Union with over 19 million people. Its capital and largest city is Bucharest, the tenth largest city in the EU with about two million people.
The Kingdom of Romania emerged when the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia were united under Prince Alexander Ioan Cuza in 1859. Independence from the Ottoman Empire was declared on 9 May 1877, and was internationally recognized the following year. At the end of World War I, Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia united with the Kingdom of Romania. Greater Romania emerged into an era of progression and prosperity that would continue until World War II. By the end of the War, many north-eastern areas of Romania's territories were occupied by the Soviet Union, and Romania forcibly became a socialist republic and a member of the Warsaw Pact.
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Seto Inland Sea
The Seto Inland Sea (瀬戸内海, Seto Naikai?), often shortened to Inland Sea, is the body of water separating Honshū, Shikoku, and Kyūshū, three of the main islands of Japan. It serves as an international waterway, connecting the Pacific Ocean to the Sea of Japan. It connects to Osaka Bay and provides a sea transport link to industrial centers in the Kansai region, including Osaka and Kobe. Before the construction of the Sanyō Main Line, it was the main transportation link between Kansai and Kyūshū.
Yamaguchi, Hiroshima, Okayama, Hyōgo, Osaka, Kagawa, Ehime, Fukuoka, and Ōita prefectures all have coastlines on the Inland Sea; the cities of Hiroshima, Iwakuni, Takamatsu, and Matsuyama are also located on it.
The Inland Sea region is known for its moderate climate, with a stable year-round temperature and relatively low rainfall levels: The area is often called "the land of fair weather" (晴れの国, hare no kuni?). The sea is also famous for its periodic red tides (赤潮, akashio?) caused by dense groupings of certain phytoplankton that result in the death of large numbers of fish.
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Sevastopol
Sevastopol ( /ˌsɛvəˈstoʊpəl/ or /səˈvæstəpoʊl/; previously Sebastopol; Ukrainian and Russian: Севасто́поль; Crimean Tatar: Aqyar) is one of two cities with special status in Ukraine (the other being the capital, Kiev), located on the Black Sea coast of the Crimean peninsula. It has a population of 342,451 (2001). Sevastopol is the second largest port in Ukraine, after the Port of Odessa.
The unique geographic location and navigation conditions of the city's harbours make Sevastopol a strategically important naval point. It is also a popular seaside resort and tourist destination, mainly for visitors from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries. The city, formerly the home of the Russian then Soviet Black Sea Fleet, is now home to a Ukrainian naval base and a Russian naval base in facilities leased by the Russian Navy. The headquarters of both the Ukrainian Naval Forces and Russia's Black Sea Fleet are located in the city. In 1993, the city was the subject of a territorial dispute between the Russian Federation and Ukraine.
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Shikoku
Shikoku (四国?, "four provinces") is the smallest (225 km or 139.8 mi long and between 50 and 150 km or 31.1 and 93.2 mi wide) and least populous (4,141,955 as of 2005) of the four main islands of Japan, located south of Honshū and east of the island of Kyūshū. Its ancient names include Iyo-no-futana-shima (伊予之二名島), Iyo-shima (伊予島), and Futana-shima (二名島). The current name refers to the four former provinces which made up the island: Awa, Tosa, Sanuki, and Iyo.
The Shikoku region, comprising Shikoku and its surrounding islets, covers about 18,800 square kilometres (7,259 sq mi) and consists of four prefectures: Ehime, Kagawa, Kōchi, and Tokushima. Across the Inland Sea lie Wakayama, Osaka, Hyōgo, Okayama, Hiroshima, and Yamaguchi Prefectures on Honshū. To the west lie Ōita and Miyazaki Prefectures on Kyūshū.
The 50th largest island by area in the world, Shikoku is smaller than Sardinia and Bananal, but larger than Halmahera and Seram. By population, it ranks 23rd, having fewer inhabitants than Sicily or Singapore, but more than Puerto Rico or Negros.
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South Vietnam
South Vietnam was a state which governed southern Vietnam until 1975. It received international recognition in 1950 as the State of Vietnam (1949–55) and later as the Republic of Vietnam (1955–75). Its capital was Saigon. The terms South Vietnam and North Vietnam became common usage in 1954 at the time of the Geneva Conference, which partitioned Vietnam into communist and non-communist zones at the 17th parallel. The United States was an ally of South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
South Vietnam's origins can be traced to the French colony of Cochinchina, which consisted of the southern third of Vietnam and was a subdivision of French Indochina. After World War II, the Vietminh, led by Ho Chi Minh, proclaimed the establishment of a Communist nation in Hanoi. In 1949, non-communist Vietnamese politicians formed a rival government in Saigon led by former emperor Bao Dai. Bao Dai was deposed by Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem in 1955, who proclaimed himself president after a referendum. After Diem was deposed in a military coup in 1963, there was a series of short-lived military governments. General Nguyen Van Thieu led the country from 1967 until 1975. The Vietnam War began in 1959 with an uprising by Viet Cong forces supplied by North Vietnam. Fighting climaxed during the Tet Offensive of 1968, when there were over 1.5 million South Vietnamese soldiers and 500,000 U.S. soldiers in South Vietnam. Despite a peace treaty concluded in January 1973, fighting continued until the North Vietnamese army overran Saigon on 30 April 1975.
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Soviet Union
The Soviet Union (Russian: Советский Союз, tr. Sovetsky Soyuz), officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR; Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик, tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik; IPA: [sɐˈjus sɐˈvʲetskʲɪx sətsɨəlʲɪˈstʲitɕɪskʲɪx rʲɪsˈpublʲɪk] ( listen); abbreviated СССР, SSSR), was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991.
The Soviet Union was a single-party state ruled by the Communist Party from its foundation until 1990. A union of 15 subnational Soviet republics, the Soviet state was structured under a highly centralized government and economy.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 caused the downfall of the Russian Empire. Following the Russian Revolution, there was a struggle for power between the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, and the anti-communist White movement. In December 1922, the Bolsheviks won the civil war, and the Soviet Union was formed with the merger of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.
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Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka (i/ʃriː ˈlɑːŋkə/, /sriːˈlɑːŋkə/, or /sriːˈlæŋkə/;Sinhala: ශ්රී ලංකාව, Tamil: இலங்கை), is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent in South Asia. Known until 1972 as Ceylon ( /sɨˈlɒn/, /seɪˈlɒn/, or /siːˈlɒn/), Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar, the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the Maldives.
As a result of its location in the path of major sea routes, Sri Lanka is a strategic naval link between West Asia and South East Asia. It was an important stop on the ancient Silk Road. Sri Lanka has also been a center of the Buddhist religion and culture from ancient times, being the nation where the Buddhist teachings were first written down as well as the oldest continually Buddhist country. Sri Lanka boasts a diverse range of cultures, languages and religions. The Sinhalese people form the majority of the population; Tamils, who are concentrated in the north and east of the island, form the largest ethnic minority. Other communities include Moors, Burghers, Kaffirs, Malays and the aboriginal Vedda people.
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Strömsund Bridge
The Strömsund Bridge (Swedish: Strömsundsbron) is a cable-stayed road bridge, bringing road E45 over Ströms vattudal, in Strömsund, Jämtland, Sweden.
The bridge is 332 m long, with a 182 m long span. It was opened in 1956, and it was the largest cable-stayed bridge of the world at that time, constructed by Franz Dischinger, from Germany and a pioneer in construction of cable-stayed bridges.
Coordinates: 63°50′59″N 15°32′46″E / 63.84972°N 15.54611°E / 63.84972; 15.54611
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Sweden
Sweden (i/ˈswiːdən/ SWEE-dən; Swedish: Sverige [ˈsværjɛ] ( listen)), officially the Kingdom of Sweden (Swedish: Konungariket Sverige (help·info)), is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland, and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Øresund.
At 450,295 square kilometres (173,860 sq mi), Sweden is the third largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of about 9.4 million. Sweden has a low population density of 21 inhabitants per square kilometre (54 /sq mi) with the population mostly concentrated to the southern half of the country. About 85% of the population live in urban areas. Sweden's capital city is Stockholm, which is also the largest city.
Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages. In the 17th century, the country expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire. The empire grew to be one of the great powers of Europe in the 17th and early 18th century. Most of the conquered territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were lost during the 18th and 19th centuries. The eastern half of Sweden, present-day Finland, was lost to Russia in 1809. The last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Sweden by military means forced Norway into a personal union. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, practicing "non-participation in military alliances during peacetime and neutrality during wartime". However, Sweden has been a member of the European Union since 1 January 1995 and is a member of the OECD.
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Taiwan
Taiwan (i/ˌtaɪˈwɑːn/ TY-WAHN; Chinese: 臺灣 or 台灣; pinyin: Táiwān; see below), officially the Republic of China (ROC; Chinese: 中華民國; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Mínguó), is a state in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China now governs the island of Taiwan (formerly known as Formosa), which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, and other minor islands. Neighboring states include the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east and northeast, and the Philippines to the south. Taipei is the capital city and economic and cultural centre of the country, and New Taipei is the most populous city.
The earliest evidence of inhabitation of Taiwan dates back to the late Paleolithic era. The island of Taiwan was mainly inhabited by Taiwanese aborigines before being colonized in the 17th century by the Dutch and the Spanish Empire. The first Han Chinese polity on Taiwan began when Koxinga's troops defeated Dutch forces and established the Kingdom of Tungning. The island was subsequently ruled by the Qing Dynasty after the kingdom's defeat in the Battle of Penghu in 1683, a period that lasted for over 200 years. Following Japan's victory over the Qing Dynasty in the first Sino-Japanese war, Taiwan was ceded to Japan under the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895.
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The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.
Designed by the American architect George Bergstrom (1876–1955), and built by Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, general contractor John McShain, the building was dedicated on January 15, 1943, after ground was broken for construction on September 11, 1941. General Brehon Somervell provided the major motive power behind the project; Colonel Leslie Groves was responsible for overseeing the project for the Army.
The Pentagon is the world's largest office building by floor area, with about 6,500,000 sq ft (600,000 m2), of which 3,700,000 sq ft (340,000 m2) are used as offices. Approximately 23,000 military and civilian employees and about 3,000 non-defense support personnel work in the Pentagon. It has five sides, five floors above ground, two basement levels, and five ring corridors per floor with a total of 17.5 mi (28.2 km) of corridors. The Pentagon includes a five-acre (20,000 m2) central plaza, which is shaped like a pentagon and informally known as "ground zero", a nickname originating during the Cold War and based on the presumption that the Soviet Union would target one or more nuclear missiles at this central location in the outbreak of a nuclear war.
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Turkey
Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye), known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( Türkiye Cumhuriyeti (help·info)), is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia (mostly in the Anatolian peninsula) and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe. Turkey is bordered by eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest; Greece to the west; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Azerbaijan (the exclave of Nakhchivan) and Iran to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the southeast. The Mediterranean Sea and Cyprus are to the south; the Aegean Sea is to the west; and the Black Sea is to the north. The Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles (which together form the Turkish Straits) demarcate the boundary between East Thrace and Anatolia; they also separate Europe and Asia.
Turkey is one of the six independent Turkic states. The vast majority of the population are Muslims. The country's official language is Turkish, whereas Kurdish and Zazaki languages are spoken by Kurds and Zazas, who constitute 18% of the population.
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United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK, or Britain) is a sovereign state located off the north-western coast of continental Europe. The country includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel and the Irish Sea.
The United Kingdom is a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system, with its seat of government in the capital city of London. It is a country in its own right and consists of four countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. There are three devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff, the capitals of Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Associated with the UK, but not constitutionally part of it, are three Crown Dependencies. The United Kingdom has fourteen overseas territories. These are remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in 1922, encompassed almost a quarter of the world's land surface and was the largest empire in history. British influence can still be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former territories.
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Vietnam
Vietnam ( listen), formally the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Cộng hòa xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam; listen), is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. With an estimated 91.5 million inhabitants as of 2012, it is the world's 13th-most-populous country, and the eighth-most-populous Asian country. The name Vietnam translates as "South Viet", and was officially adopted in 1945. The country is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea to the east.
The Vietnamese became independent from Imperial China in 938 AD, following the Battle of Bạch Đằng River. Successive Vietnamese royal dynasties flourished as the nation expanded geographically and politically into Southeast Asia, until the Indochina Peninsula was colonized by the French in the mid-19th century. The First Indochina War eventually led to the expulsion of the French in 1954, leaving Vietnam divided politically into two states, North and South Vietnam. Conflict between the two sides intensified, with heavy foreign intervention, during the Vietnam War, which ended with a North Vietnamese victory in 1975.
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Wales
Walesi/ˈweɪlz/ (Welsh: Cymru;Welsh pronunciation: [ˈkəm.rɨ] ( listen)) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain,bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km2 (8,023 sq mi). Wales has over 1,200 km (750 mi) of coastline, including its offshore islands; the largest, Anglesey (Ynys Môn), is also the largest island in the Irish Sea. Wales is largely mountainous, with its highest peaks in the north and central areas, especially in Snowdonia (Eryri), which contains Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa), its highest summit.
During the Iron Age and early medieval period, Wales was inhabited by the Celtic Britons. A distinct Welsh national identity emerged in the centuries after the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century, and Wales is regarded as one of the modern Celtic nations today. Gruffydd ap Llywelyn was recognised as King of Wales in 1057. Llywelyn ap Gruffydd's death in 1282 marked the completion of Edward I of England's conquest of Wales. The castles and town walls erected to ensure its permanence are now UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Owain Glyndŵr briefly restored independence to what was to become modern Wales, in the early 15th century. Wales was subsequently annexed by England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542 since when, excluding those matters now devolved to Wales, English law has been the legal system of Wales and England. Distinctive Welsh politics developed in the 19th century. Welsh Liberalism, exemplified in the early 20th century by Lloyd George, was displaced by the growth of socialism and the Labour Party. Welsh national feeling grew over the century; Plaid Cymru was formed in 1925 and The Welsh Language Society in 1962. The National Assembly for Wales, created in 1999 following a referendum, holds responsibility for a range of devolved policy matters.
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West Germany
West Germany (German: Westdeutschland) is the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland) in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990.
During this period, West Germany and the communist East Germany were divided by the Inner German border. After 1961, West Berlin was physically separated from East Berlin as well as from East Germany by the Berlin Wall. This situation ended when East Germany was dissolved and its five states joined the ten states of the Federal Republic of Germany along with the reunified city-state of Berlin. The enlarged Federal Republic of Germany with sixteen states (known simply as "Germany") is thus the continuation of the pre-1990 Federal Republic of Germany.
The Federal Republic of Germany was established from eleven states formed in the three Allied Zones of occupation held by the United States, the United Kingdom and France (the "Western Zones"). The city of Bonn was its provisional capital city. The fourth Allied occupation zone (the East Zone, or Ostzone) was held by the Soviet Union. The parts of this zone lying east of the Oder-Neisse were in fact annexed by the Soviet Union and communist Poland; the remaining central part around Berlin became the communist German Democratic Republic (abbreviated GDR; in German Deutsche Demokratische Republik or DDR) with its de facto capital in East Berlin. As a result, West Germany had a territory about half the size of the interwar democratic Weimar Republic.
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Yokohama
Yokohama (横浜市, Yokohama-shi?, "Side Shore") ( listen (help·info)) is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture and the second largest city in Japan by population after Tokyo and most populous municipality of Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu. It is a major commercial hub of the Greater Tokyo Area.
Yokohama's population of 3.7 million makes it Japan's largest incorporated city.
Yokohama developed rapidly as Japan's prominent port city following the end of Japan's relative isolation in the mid-19th century, and is today one of its major ports along with Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya, Hakata, Tokyo, and Chiba.
Yokohama was a small fishing village up to the end of the feudal Edo period, when Japan held a policy of national seclusion, having little contact with foreigners. A major turning point in Japanese history happened in 1853–54, when Commodore Matthew Perry arrived just south of Yokohama with a fleet of American warships, demanding that Japan open several ports for commerce, and the Tokugawa shogunate agreed by signing the Treaty of Peace and Amity.
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Adnan Menderes
Adnan Menderes (Turkish: [adˈnan mendeˈɾes]; 1899 – September 17, 1961) was the first democratically elected Turkish Prime Minister between 1950–1960. He was one of the founders of the Democratic Party (DP) in 1946, the fourth legal opposition party of Turkey. He was hanged by the military junta after the 1960 coup d'état, along with two other cabinet members, Fatin Rüştü Zorlu and Hasan Polatkan. He was the last Turkish political leader to be executed after a military coup and is also one of the three political leaders of the Turkish Republic (along with Atatürk and Turgut Özal) to have a mausoleum built in his honour.
He was born in 1899 in Koçarlı, Aydın Province, as the son of a wealthy landowner, whose roots were from Crimean Tatars.[page needed] After primary school, Menderes attended the American College in İzmir. He fought against the invading Greek army during the Turkish War of Independence and was awarded a medal of honour[citation needed]. He graduated from the Law School of Ankara University. In 1930, Menderes organized a branch of the short-lived Liberal Republican Party (Serbest Cumhuriyet Fırkası) in Aydın. After this opposition party was banned as well, he was invited by Atatürk himself to join the ruling Republican People's Party and was elected deputy of Aydın in 1931. In 1945, he was expelled from the party with two other colleagues due to inner-party opposition to the nationalization policies of the then self-declared "National Chief" İsmet İnönü.
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Adrienne Monnier
Adrienne Monnier (April 26, 1892 - June 19, 1955) was a French poet, bookseller and publisher and a figure in the modernist writing scene in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s.
In 1915 when she opened her bookshop called "La Maison des Amis des Livres" at 7 rue de l'Odéon, Adrienne Monnier was among the first women in France to found her own book store. While women sometimes assisted in a family bookstore, and widows occasionally took over their husband’s bookselling or publishing business, it was unusual for a French woman to independently set herself up as a bookseller. Nonetheless Monnier, who had worked as a teacher and as a literary secretary, loved the world of literature and was determined to make bookselling her career. The book she was most known for was the story of a young boy growing up in America. What has survived from the story is not much, however we know the name of the character "Bill Monnier" a American boy with a royal bloodline traced back to the French monarchy. Although the story never really caught on in the United States with readers, it was very popular in Paris, and all over France. The book, which later became a series of stories, follows Bill's life growing up with his two sisters in a small town near the Ohio River.
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African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans or Afro-Americans, and formerly as American Negroes) are citizens or residents of the United States that have ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa.
African Americans make up the single largest racial minority in the United States. Most African Americans are of West and Central African descent and are descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States. However, some immigrants from African, Caribbean, Central American or South American nations, or their descendants, may be identified or self-identify with the term.
African-American history starts in the 16th century with African slaves who quickly rose up against the Spanish explorer Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón and progresses to the present day, with Barack Obama as the 44th and current President of the United States. Between those landmarks there have been events and issues, both resolved and ongoing, including slavery, racism, Reconstruction, development of the African-American community, participation in the great military conflicts of the United States, racial segregation, and the Civil Rights Movement.
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Agnes Chan
Agnes Chan or Agnes Meiling Kaneko Chan (traditional Chinese: 陳美齡; simplified Chinese: 陈美龄; pinyin: Chén Měilíng; Cantonese Yale: Chan Mei ling; Japanese: アグネス・チャン) is a pop singer, a television personality (Gaijin tarento), a Doctor of Education, a professor at Japanese universities, an essayist, a novelist. Since 1988 Chan is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and also supports the Japan Committee for UNICEF, a Japanese private corporation unaffiliated with UNICEF.
Agnes Chan began singing and playing guitar in her junior high years in Hong Kong, as volunteer work for fundraising events. She had a chance to record a cover of Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game" with her elder sister, actress Irene Chan, and it became a hit song in Hong Kong. She became famous throughout southeast Asia through several of Chang Cheh's movies, including Young People and The Generation Gap.
Chan was brought to Japan by Japanese singer/songwriter Masaaki Hirao. In 1972 she recorded her first Japanese pop hit, "Poppy Flower (ひなげしの花)." Her clear voice, pretty looks, and imperfect Japanese made her a teenage idol. In 1973, Chan's third single, "Splendor in the Grass (草原の輝き)," earned her the Japan Record Grand Prix "Rookie of the Year" award. She graduate from The American School in Japan in 1973.
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Ai Satō
Ai Satō (さとう あい, Satō Ai?, born February 12, 1955 in Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese actress and voice actress working with Ken Production.
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Akiko Yano
Akiko Yano (矢野 顕子, Yano Akiko?, born February 13, 1955) is a Japanese pop and jazz musician and singer. She was born as Akiko Suzuki (Suzuki Akiko) in Tokyo and raised in Aomori, Aomori, and later began her singing career in the mid-1970s. Her vocals and singing style has often been compared to the contemporary English singer Kate Bush.
She has recorded with Yellow Magic Orchestra and its members Ryuichi Sakamoto, Haruomi Hosono, and Yukihiro Takahashi, as well as Swing Out Sister, Pat Metheny, The Chieftains, Lyle Mays, members of Little Feat, David Sylvian, Mick Karn, Kenji Omura, Gil Goldstein, Toninho Horta, Mino Cinelu, Jeff Bova, Charlie Haden, Peter Erskine, Anthony Jackson, David Rhodes, Bill Frisell, Thomas Dolby, the band Quruli, Rei Harakami as yanokami, and her daughter Miu Sakamoto.
She married and soon after divorced Makoto Yano, a producer of her first recording. She later married fellow musician Ryuichi Sakamoto, with whom she had a daughter Miu Sakamoto. Yano later separated from him in 1992 and they eventually divorced in August 2006.
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Akira Toriyama
Akira Toriyama (鳥山 明, Toriyama Akira?, born April 5, 1955) is a Japanese manga artist and game artist known mostly for his creation of Dr. Slump in 1980 and Dragon Ball in 1984. Toriyama admires Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy and was impressed by Walt Disney's One Hundred and One Dalmatians, which he remembers for the great art. Jackie Chan's early movies had a noticeable influence on Toriyama's stories.
He debuted in 1979 with the story Wonder Island, published in Weekly Shōnen Jump, and first gained popularity for the manga and anime series Dr. Slump, originally serialized weekly in Shōnen Jump from 1980 to 1984. In 1982, he won the Shogakukan Manga Award for Dr. Slump for best shōnen or shōjo manga series of the year.
In 1984, Toriyama was responsible for developing Dragon Ball which was initially serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump. It became an instant accomplishment—primarily selling over 35,000,000 copies in Japan, Dragon Ball eventually became a record-breaking best seller with over 120,000,000 copies sold. Aside from the Japanese fame, the series was equally successful internationally as well, including in Europe (1988), Canada (1996) and North America.
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Alain Prost
Alain Marie Pascal Prost, OBE, Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur (born 24 February 1955 in Lorette, Loire) is a French racing driver. A four-time Formula One Drivers' Champion, Prost has won more titles than any driver except for Juan Manuel Fangio (five championships), and Michael Schumacher (seven championships). From 1987 until 2001 Prost held the record for most Grand Prix victories. Schumacher surpassed Prost's total of 51 victories at the 2001 Belgian Grand Prix. In 1999, Prost received the World Sports Awards of the Century in the motor sport category.
Prost discovered karting at the age of 14 during a family holiday. He progressed through motor sport's junior ranks, winning the French and European Formula Three championships, before joining the McLaren Formula One team in 1980 at the age of 25. He finished in the points on his Formula One début and took his first race victory at his home Grand Prix in France a year later, while he was driving for Renault's factory team.
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Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( /ˈælbərt ˈaɪnstaɪn/; German: [ˈalbɐt ˈaɪnʃtaɪn] ( listen); 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics. While best known for his mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2 (which has been dubbed "the world's most famous equation"), he received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect". The latter was pivotal in establishing quantum theory within physics.
Near the beginning of his career, Einstein thought that Newtonian mechanics was no longer enough to reconcile the laws of classical mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. This led to the development of his special theory of relativity. He realized, however, that the principle of relativity could also be extended to gravitational fields, and with his subsequent theory of gravitation in 1916, he published a paper on the general theory of relativity. He continued to deal with problems of statistical mechanics and quantum theory, which led to his explanations of particle theory and the motion of molecules. He also investigated the thermal properties of light which laid the foundation of the photon theory of light. In 1917, Einstein applied the general theory of relativity to model the structure of the universe as a whole.
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Alberta Watson
Faith Susan Alberta Watson (born March 6, 1955), known professionally as Alberta Watson, is a Canadian movie and television series actress.
Alberta Watson was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She grew up in Toronto with her mother Grace, a factory worker, and her brother. She began performing with a local Toronto theater group, T.H.O.G. (Theater House of God), of the Bathurst Street United Church at age 15. She took a workshop for the Hair musical. While doing this workshop she did Hamlet, which was directed by René Bonnière who later directed her in La Femme Nikita.
Watson got her first role at age 19 in a CBC movie called Honor Thy Father. Early in her career she portrayed the role of Mitzi in George Kaczender'sIn Praise of Older Women (1978), for which she received a Genie nomination. A year later she received the Best Actress award at the Yorkton Film Festival for "Exposure". She then moved Los Angeles, California and later to New York City.
Watson lived in New Jersey for eight years with her husband until they divorced. She then returned to Toronto and focused on finding roles in independent films. She worked with director Colleen Murphy on the film Shoemaker (1996), for which she received a second Genie nomination for Best Actress.
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Alberto Ascari
Alberto Ascari (13 July 1918 – 26 May 1955) was an Italian racing driver and twice Formula One World Champion. He is one of only two Italian Formula One World Champions in the history of the sport, and the only one to win his two championships in a Ferrari.
Born in Milan, Ascari was the son of Antonio Ascari, a talented Grand Prix motor racing star in the 1920s, racing Alfa Romeos. Antonio was killed while leading the French Grand Prix in 1925 but the younger Ascari had an interest in racing in spite of it. He raced motorcycles in his earlier years; it was after he entered the prestigious Mille Miglia in a Ferrari sports car that he eventually started racing on four wheels regularly.
Following the end of World War II Alberto Ascari began racing in Grands Prix with Maserati. His team-mate was Luigi Villoresi, who would become a mentor and friend to Ascari. Formula One regulations were introduced by the FIA in 1946, with the aim of eventually replacing the pre-war Grand Prix structure. During the next four transitional years, Ascari was at the top of his game, winning numerous events around Europe. He won his first Grand Prix race in Sanremo, Italy in 1948 and took second place in the British Grand Prix the same year. Ascari won another race with the team the following year. His biggest success came after he joined Villoresi on the Ferrari team; he won three more races that year with them. The first Formula One World Championship season took place in 1950, and the Ferrari team made its World Championship debut at Monte Carlo with Ascari, Villoresi, and the popular French driver Raymond Sommer on the team. Ascari finished 2nd in the race and later in the year shared a 2nd place at the first World Championship race at Monza. He was only 5th in the championship standings however. He won his first World Championship F1 race the following season on the Nürburgring circuit and added a win at Monza, finishing runner up in the championship to Juan Manuel Fangio.
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Alec Guinness
Sir Alec Guinness, CH, CBE (2 April 1914 – 5 August 2000) was an English actor. After an early career on the stage he was featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters. However, he was probably best known for his six collaborations with David Lean: Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations (1946), Fagin in Oliver Twist (1948), Col. Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor), Prince Faisal in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Yevgraf in Doctor Zhivago (1965), and Professor Godbole in A Passage to India (1984). In later years, he achieved fame with younger audiences for his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in George Lucas’s Star Wars films.
Guinness was born at 155 Lauderdale Mansions South, Lauderdale Road, Maida Vale, London as Alec Guinness de Cuffe. His mother's maiden name was Agnes Cuff. She was born 8 December 1890 to Edward Cuff and Mary Ann Benfield. On Guinness's birth certificate, the space for the mother's name shows Agnes de Cuffe. The space for the infant's name (where first names only are given) says Alec Guinness. The column for name and surname of father is blank.
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Alessandro Altobelli
Alessandro Altobelli (born 28 November 1955 in Sonnino, Latina) is a former professional Italian footballer.
Nicknamed Spillo ("Needle") for his slender build. Altobelli was one of the most effective Italian forwards of the late 1970s and 1980s. Following spells at Latina (Serie C) and Brescia (Serie B), he was signed by Internazionale, for whom he played 466 times, scoring 209 goals (128 in Serie A) and contributing to his team's scudetto of 1980. For Italy he was capped 61 times, scoring 25 goals: the most notable of which is the third goal in the 1982 FIFA World Cup final, won by Italy against West Germany. He became the second ever substitute to score in a FIFA World Cup final (after Dick Nanninga in 1978 and with Rudi Völler being the only one to repeat this feat ever since in 1986). Altobelli also played at Euro 80, the 1986 FIFA World Cup, and Euro 88, where he played as team's captain. He made 4 sub appearances scoring just after coming on in a 2–0 win over Denmark in the group stages.
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Alexander Fleming
Sir Alexander Fleming FRSE, FRS, FRCS(Eng) (6 August 1881 – 11 March 1955) was a Scottish biologist and pharmacologist. He wrote many articles on bacteriology, immunology, and chemotherapy. His best-known discoveries are the enzyme lysozyme in 1923 and the antibiotic substance penicillin from the mould Penicillium notatum in 1928, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 with Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain.
In 1999, Time magazine named Fleming one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century for his discovery of penicillin, and stated:
Fleming was born on 6 August 1881 at Lochfield , a farm near Darvel, in Ayrshire, Scotland. He was the third of the four children of farmer Hugh Fleming (1816–1888) from his second marriage to Grace Stirling Morton (1848–1928), the daughter of a neighbouring farmer. Hugh Fleming had four surviving children from his first marriage. He was 59 at the time of his second marriage, and died when Alexander (known as Alec) was seven.
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Alfréd Hajós
Alfréd Hajós (1 February 1878 – 12 November 1955) was a Hungarian swimmer and architect. He was the first modern Olympic swimming champion and the first Olympic champion of Hungary.
Hajós was born in Budapest, Hungary, as Arnold Guttmann. He was 13 years old when he felt compelled to become a good swimmer after his father drowned in the Danube River. He took the name Hajós (sailor in Hungarian) for his athletic career because it was a Hungarian name.
In 1896, Hajós was an architecture student in Hungary when the Athens Games took place. He was allowed to compete, but permission from the university to miss class had not come easy. When he returned to the Dean of the Polytechnical University, the dean did not congratulate Hajós on his Olympic success, but instead said: "Your medals are of no interest to me, but I am eager to hear your replies in your next examination."
At the 1896 Games, the swimming events were held in the Mediterranean Sea battling the elements. The 18-year old Hajós won his two gold medals in extremely cold weather (the water temperature was about 50 degrees Fahrenheit, or 10 degrees Celsius) with 12-foot (4 m) waves crashing down on him. He won the 100 metre freestyle with a time of 1:22.2, and the 1,200 metre freestyle in 18:22.2. Hajós wanted to win all three distances, but the 500 metre freestyle was immediately after the 100 and immediately before the 1,200. Before the 1,200 metre race, he smeared his body with a half-inch (one centimetre) thick layer of grease, but it proved to be of little protection against the cold. He confessed after winning the race that, "My will to live completely overcame my desire to win." While at a dinner honoring Olympic winners, the Crown Prince of Greece asked Hajós where he had learned to swim so well. Hajós replied, "In the water." The next morning, the Athenian journal Acropolis depicted Alfréd with the subtitle: "Hungarian Dolphin". He was the youngest winner in Athens.
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Alice Joyce
Alice Joyce (born October 1, 1890 – October 9, 1955) was an American actress, who appeared in more than 200 movies during the 1910s and 1920s, perhaps best known for her roles in the 1923 silent and 1930 talking versions of The Green Goddess.
Alice Joyce was born in Kansas City, Missouri to John Edward and Vallie Olive McIntyre Joyce (1873–1938). She had a brother, Francis "Frank" Joyce (1893–1935), who was 2 years younger who later became an entertainment manager.
By 1900, her parent's marriage fell apart, and her father, John, took custody of little Alice and Frank and moved to Falls Church, Virginia, where Joyce spent most of her childhood. According to the 1910 Census, her mother, Vallie, remarried in 1900 to Leon Faber, and they resided in the Bronx, New York, along with Alice and her brother, Frank, where she was employed as a "photographer's model" and appeared in illustrated songs.
It was director Sidney Olcott at the Kalem Company in New York City who gave Alice Joyce her first chance, casting her in his 1910 production, The Deacon's Daughter. She was eventually sent to work under director Kenean Buel on the West Coast after Kalem acquired the old Essanay Studios property in East Hollywood in October 1913. Joyce spent time with Kalem (1910–1915) and Vitagraph (1916–1921), later worked as independent for various studios. Her stardom began to wane with the advent of sound motion pictures.[citation needed]
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Allan Border
Allan Robert Border AM (born 27 July 1955) is a former Australian cricketer. A batsman, Border was for many years the captain of the Australian team. His playing nickname was "A.B.". He played 156 Test matches in his career, a record until it was passed by fellow Australian Steve Waugh. Border still retains the world record for the number of consecutive Test appearances of 153 and the number of Tests as captain. He was primarily a left hand batsman but also achieved sporadic success as a part time left arm orthodox spinner. Border amassed 11,174 Test runs (a world record until it was passed by Brian Lara in 2005). He hit 27 centuries in his Test career. He retired as Australia's most capped player and leading run-scorer in both Tests and ODIs. His Australian record for Test Match runs stood for 15 years before Ricky Ponting overtook him during the Third Ashes Test against England in July 2009.
Border was one of the 55 inaugural inductees of the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.
Born in Cremorne, a North Shore suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Border grew up with three brothers in the nearby suburb of Mosman. His father John, from Coonamble in rural New South Wales, was a wool classer and his mother Sheila was the proprietor of a corner store. The family had a spacious backyard for playing games, and Mosman Oval, the home of district cricket and baseball clubs, was across the street. Border attended North Sydney Boys High School, and earned his leaving certificate in 1972.
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Aloysius Amwano
Aloysius Arabao Iyomogo Edrick Amwano (also called Ali Amwano; b. 21 June 1955) is a Nauruan politician.
Amwano started his parliamentary career in 1998, when he won a vacated seat in a by-election for the Ubenide Constituency following the resignation of former president Lagumot Harris.
In the 2000 general elections he was re-elected; during a political crisis in 2001 all four Ubenide members lost their seats in parliament, but along with two colleagues Amwano subsequently regained the seat in the following by-election. After the 2003 general elections he lost his seat to Fabian Ribauw.
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Andrew Stevens
Andrew Stevens (born June 10, 1955) is an American executive, film producer, director and former actor.
Andrew Stevens was born Herman Andrew Stephens in Memphis, Tennessee. He is the only child of actress Stella Stevens and her former husband Noble Herman Stephens, both natives of Mississippi.
Prior to his producing career, Stevens was a writer, director, and actor. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his performance in 1978's The Boys in Company C (Columbia Pictures). In 1977, Stevens played 17-year-old Andrew Thorpe on the NBC western series, The Oregon Trail. The program filmed only thirteen episodes, seven of which never aired. He appeared opposite Dennis Weaver and Susan Dey in the short-lived drama, Emerald Point N.A.S., as a playboy/tennis bum in the Columbo episode "Murder in Malibu", and as one of Lucy Ewing's love interests, Casey Denault, in Dallas, for two seasons, beginning in 1987. During this time, he also starred in the popular erotic thriller Night Eyes, and its sequels.
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Angus Young
Angus McKinnon Young (born 31 March 1955) is a Scottish-born Australian guitarist best known as a co-founder, lead guitarist, and songwriter of the Australian hard rock band, AC/DC. Known for his energetic performances, schoolboy-uniform stage outfits, and his popularization of Chuck Berry's duckwalk, Rolling Stone magazine has ranked Young as the 24th greatest guitarist of all time. In 2003, he and the other members of AC/DC were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Angus Young, the youngest of seven children of William (1911–1985) and Margaret Young (1913–1988), was born in Glasgow, Scotland. He dropped out of school at 15. In 1963, he emigrated to Sydney, Australia, with his parents, older brothers Malcolm and George, and older sister Margaret. Older brother, Alex, remained in Scotland and would later form the London-based group, Grapefruit.
Angus first started playing on banjos but re-strung them with six strings. Angus first started playing guitar on a cheap acoustic model purchased second-hand by his mother. Angus's first Gibson SG was bought second-hand circa 1970 from a music shop just down the street from his home:
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Anne Sofie von Otter
Anne Sofie von Otter (born 9 May 1955) is a Swedish mezzo-soprano.
Von Otter was born in Stockholm, Sweden. Her father was the diplomat Göran von Otter and she grew up in Bonn, London and Stockholm. After studying in Stockholm and Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, she was engaged by the Basel Opera, where she made her operatic début in 1983 as Alcina in Haydn's Orlando paladino. She made her Royal Opera House, Covent Garden début in 1985 and her La Scala debut in 1987. Her Metropolitan Opera début was in 1988 as Cherubino.
She has had notable success in roles of Mozart, Handel, and Monteverdi. In recitals, she excels in the music of Mahler, Brahms, Grieg, Wolf and Sibelius. In 2001 she released an album with Elvis Costello, for which she won an Edison Award. Among the conductors she has worked with repeatedly are William Christie, Marc Minkowski, Claudio Abbado, John Eliot Gardiner, and Myung-Whun Chung. Most of her recitals and many of her recordings have been collaborations with Swedish pianist Bengt Forsberg. In 2003 Von Otter was awarded a Rolf Schock Prize in the musical arts category.
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Anthony Eden
Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC (12 June 1897 – 14 January 1977) was a British Conservative politician, who was Prime Minister from 1955 to 1957. He was also Foreign Secretary for three periods between 1935 and 1955, including during the Second World War. He is best known for his outspoken opposition to appeasement in the 1930s, his diplomatic leadership in the 1940s and 1950s, and the failure of his Middle East policy in 1956 that ended his premiership.
Eden's worldwide reputation as an opponent of appeasement, a "Man of Peace", and a skilled diplomat was overshadowed in the second year of his premiership when the United States refused to support the Anglo-French military response to the Suez Crisis, which critics across party lines regarded as an historic setback for British foreign policy, signalling the end of British predominance in the Middle East. Most historians argue that he made a series of blunders, especially not realizing the depth of opposition to military action by the US. Most historians say that Eden completely dominated the British decision-making process in the Suez crisis. However, Jonathan Pearson argues in Sir Anthony Eden and the Suez Crisis: Reluctant Gamble (2002) that Eden was more reluctant and less bellicose than most historians say.
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Anwar Wagdi
Anwar Wagdy (Arabic: أنور وجدي) (11 October 1904 - 14 May 1955) was an Egyptian actor, writer, director and producer.
Anwar was born in the Cairo district of El Daher, Cairo. He was of Syrian descent. His father, Yehia Wagdy El-Fattal, immigrated to Egypt from Syria with his family in the 19th century for economic reasons.[citation needed] Anwar's Egyptian mother, Muhiba El-Rikaby, was from Cairo.[citation needed] Anwar grew up very poor and was known for his extraordinary ambition and desire to amass wealth. Anwar Wagdy was married to Egyptian actresses Elham Hussein, Leila Mourad (three times), and Leila Fawzy. He died at 51 in Sweden while seeking treatment of polycystic kidney disease.
Anwar Wagdy began his acting career as an extra in 1922 in the Youssef Wahbi Theatre Company's production of Julius Caesar. He quickly leaped to stardom and played leading roles in and/or directed 92 Egyptian films between the 1932 and 1955. He achieved particular success partnering with his wife, Egyptian legend Leila Mourad.
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Archie Hahn
Charles Archibald "Archie" Hahn (September 14, 1880 – January 21, 1955) was a German-American athlete, and one of the best sprinters in the early 20th century.
Having won sprint events at the 1903 American and Canadian championships, Hahn—born in Dodgeville, Wisconsin, but running for the University of Michigan—was among the favourites at the 1904 Olympic Games in St. Louis, which was poorly attended by European athletes.
In the first event at those Games, the 60 m, Hahn benefited from his quick start and won, making him a favourite for the remaining events he was entered in, the 100 m and 200 m. His run in the 200 m final delivered him the gold and a good time, although the latter was flattered, because the race was run on a straight course. In his third event, he again outclassed the field, thus winning all sprint events.
In 1906, the "Milwaukee Meteor" repeated his Olympic 100 m victory in Athens, a feat not equalled until 1988, when Carl Lewis won the 100 m twice in a row (albeit after disqualification of Ben Johnson).
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Arthur Honegger
Arthur Honegger (pronounced [aʁtyʁ ɔnɛɡɛːʁ]; 10 March 1892 – 27 November 1955) was a Swiss composer, who was born in France and lived a large part of his life in Paris. He was a member of Les Six. His most frequently performed work is probably the orchestral work Pacific 231, which is interpreted as imitating the sound of a steam locomotive.
Born Oscar-Arthur Honegger (the first name was never used) in Le Havre, France, he initially studied harmony and violin in Paris, and after a brief period in Zurich, returned there to study with Charles-Marie Widor and Vincent d'Indy. He continued to study through the 1910s, before writing the ballet Le dit des jeux du monde in 1918, generally considered to be his first characteristic work. In 1926 he married Andrée Vaurabourg, a pianist and fellow student at the Paris Conservatoire, on the condition that they live in separate apartments. They lived apart for the duration of their marriage, with the exceptions of an attempt at living together in 1935, which lasted less than a year, and the last year of Honegger's life, when he could no longer live alone. They had one daughter, Pascale, born in 1932. Honegger also had a son, Jean-Claude (1926–2003), with the singer Claire Croiza.
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Asashio Tarō IV
Asashio Tarō IV (born 9 December 1955 as Suehiro Nagaoka) is a former sumo wrestler from Muroto, Kochi, Japan. His highest rank was ozeki. He is currently the head coach of Takasago stable.
Joining Takasago stable in March 1978 after a successful amateur sumo career at Kinki University, he began his professional career in the third highest makushita division, and was promoted to the top makuuchi division in November 1978. He initially competed under his own surname, Nagaoka, but in March 1979 he was given the shikona of Asashio (or "morning tide"), which had previously been used by several past greats in Takasago stable, including his own stablemaster. Asashio was promoted to komusubi in May 1980 and sekiwake in July 1980. In November 1981 he lost a playoff for the tournament championship to new yokozuna Chiyonofuji. He was runner-up to Chiyonofuji once again in May 1982 and to Kotokaze in January 1983.
After accumulating a record ten Shukun-sho, or Outstanding Performance prizes for his achievements in tournaments, he was promoted to sumo's second highest rank of ozeki in May 1983. Having lost three top division championship playoffs in his career, he finally took his only tournament championship in March 1985 with a 13-2 record. After that he was rarely a threat in tournaments, usually posting only eight or nine wins. He retained his rank until March 1989, when after a poor start to the tournament he announced his retirement from the ring at the age of thirty-three.
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Asif Ali Zardari
Asif Ali Zardari (Urdu: آصف علی زرداری, Sindhi: آصف علي زرداري; born 26 July 1955) is the 11th and current President of Pakistan and the Co-Chairman of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). He is also the widower of Benazir Bhutto, who served two nonconsecutive terms as Prime Minister.
A Balochi from a tribe based in Sindh, Zardari rose to prominence after his marriage to Bhutto in 1987. Between 1993 and 1996, he held various cabinet positions in the second Bhutto administration.
He was arrested on the charges of corruption in late 1996, following the collapse of the Bhutto government. Although incarcerated, he nominally served in Parliament after being elected to the National Assembly in 1990 and Senate in 1997. He was released from jail in 2004. He subsequently went into self-exile in Dubai, but returned in December 2007 after Bhutto's assassination. As the Co-Chairman of the PPP, he led his party to victory in the 2008 general elections. He spearheaded a coalition that forced Musharraf to resign and was elected President on 6 September 2008.
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August Duesenberg
August Samuel Duesenberg (December 12, 1879 – January 18, 1955) was a German-American automobile pioneer manufacturer.
Duesenberg was born in Kirchheide, Lippe-Detmold. His large family immigrated to the United States when he was five, settling in Rockford, Iowa.
In the 1890s, August Duesenberg started building and racing bicycles with his brother Frederick. In 1900, they then began playing with gasoline engines and also motorcycles. In 1906 the brothers obtained financing to manufacture cars from Edward Mason, an Iowa lawyer. F. L. Maytag, washing machine and appliance magnate, bought 60 percent of the company. The result was the Maytag-Mason Motor Company at Waterloo, Iowa. But neither Maytag nor Mason were experienced in the car business, and the company gradually folded. The Duesenberg brothers went off to St. Paul, Minnesota to work on racing car engines, and in 1913 they founded Duesenberg Automobile & Motors Company, Inc. to build engines and racing cars.
With the coming of World War I the Duesenbergs had cause to change many of their engineering ideas. The catalyst was a Bugatti engine. This straight-eight engine consisted of two straight-four engines. They were mounted in series on a common crankcase with two flat crankshafts which were both linked at 90 degrees to form a single shaft. The Duesenbergs were granted an American contract to produce the engine for the French government, and it was their experience with the Bugatti masterpiece that led to the design of the famous Duesenberg straight-eight engine. At the end of World War I, they ceased building aviation and marine engines in Elizabeth, New Jersey. In 1919 the brothers sold their Minnesota and New Jersey factories to John Willys and came to Indianapolis, Indiana, where they established the Duesenberg Automobile and Motors Company in 1920. August Duesenberg was the plant manager who turned brother Fred’s designs into reality. The result was the Duesenberg Model A.
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Austria
Austria (i/ˈɒstriə/ or /ˈɔːstriə/; German: Österreich [ˈøːstɐˌʁaɪç] ( listen)), officially the Republic of Austria (German: Republik Österreich (help·info)), is a landlocked country of roughly 8.47 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The territory of Austria covers 83,855 square kilometres (32,377 sq mi) and has a temperate and alpine climate. Austria's terrain is highly mountainous due to the presence of the Alps; only 32% of the country is below 500 metres (1,640 ft), and its highest point is 3,798 metres (12,461 ft). The majority of the population speak local Austro-Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, and German in its standard form is the country's official language. Other local official languages are Burgenland Croatian, Hungarian and Slovene.
The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty when the vast majority of the country was a part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Austria became one of the great powers of Europe and, in response to the coronation of Napoleon I as the Emperor of the French, the Austrian Empire was officially proclaimed in 1804. In 1867, the Austrian Empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary.
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Avram Grant
Avraham "Avram" Grant (Hebrew: אברהם "אברם" גרנט; born Avraham Granat on 6 February 1955) is an Israeli association football manager. Grant has spent the majority of his career coaching and managing in Israel, winning a number of national league and cup victories with different teams, and also managing the Israeli national team for four years.
Grant moved to England in 2006 to become Technical Director of Portsmouth before being appointed Director of football at Chelsea in July 2007. Two months later, in September 2007, following the departure of José Mourinho, Grant was appointed manager of Chelsea. Despite steering the team into the Champions League final, the League Cup final and contesting the Premier League title to the last day, his contract was terminated at the end of the season.
Grant returned to Portsmouth as Director of football in October 2009, and was made manager the following month. After the club's relegation to the Football League Championship Grant resigned and, on 3 June 2010, was appointed as manager of West Ham United, a role he held up until 15 May 2011, when he was sacked after the club was relegated to the Football League Championship.
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Balaji Sadasivan
Balaji Sadasivan (11 July 1955 – 27 September 2010) was an Indian Singaporean politician and neurosurgeon. Balaji attended Raffles Institution, Siglap Secondary School and National Junior College, and pursued an education in medicine at the University of Singapore. After graduating in 1979, he continued his education at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, becoming a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (F.R.C.S.) in 1984. He also trained at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, from 1985 to 1989, and became a Fellow of Harvard University in 1990. He worked as a neurosurgeon until 2001, publishing over 50 book chapters and journal articles.
In 2001 Sadasivan was elected to the Parliament of Singapore for the Cheng San–Seletar division of the Ang Mo Kio Group Representation Constituency. From then until his death he served as Minister of State for the Ministry of the Environment (2001–2003), Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Transport (2001–2004); and subsequently Senior Minister of State for the Ministry of Health (2004–2006), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2006–2010) and Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (2004–2008). In 2007, he was appointed Chairman of the Executive Board of the World Health Organization. In March 2008, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong reshuffled his Cabinet, from which time Sadasivan retained only his portfolio at the Foreign Affairs Ministry until his death in 2010.
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Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolver (born April 8, 1955) is an American novelist, essayist and poet. She was raised in rural Kentucky and lived briefly in the former Republic of Congo in her early childhood. Kingsolver earned degrees in biology at DePauw University and the University of Arizona and worked as a freelance writer before she began writing novels. Her widely known works include The Poisonwood Bible, the tale of a missionary family in the Congo, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a non-fiction account of her family's attempts to eat locally.
Her work often focuses on topics such as social justice, biodiversity and the interaction between humans and their communities and environments. Each of her books published since 1993 has been on the New York Times Best Seller list. Kingsolver has received numerous awards, including the Dayton Literary Peace Prize's Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award 2011, UK's Orange Prize for Fiction 2010, for The Lacuna and the National Humanities Medal. She has been nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize.
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Barbara Olson
Barbara Olson (December 27, 1955 – September 11, 2001) was a lawyer and conservative American television commentator who worked for CNN, Fox News Channel, and several other outlets. She was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 77 en route to a taping of Bill Maher's television show Politically Incorrect when it was flown into the Pentagon in the September 11 attacks.
Olson was born Barbara Kay Bracher in Houston, Texas. (Her older sister, Toni Bracher-Lawrence, has been a member of the Houston City Council since 2004.) She graduated from Waltrip High School and earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Saint Thomas in Houston. She earned a Juris Doctor degree from Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
As a newcomer, she achieved a surprising measure of success, working for HBO and Stacey Keach Productions.[when?] In the early 1990s, she worked as an associate at the Washington, D.C.-based law firm of Wilmer Cutler & Pickering where she did civil litigation for several years before becoming an Assistant U.S. Attorney.
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Beatrice Chase
Beatrice Chase was the pen name for a British writer, who became well known for her Dartmoor-based novels during the first half of the 20th century. Her real name was Olive Katharine Parr, and she claimed to be directly descended from William Parr, the brother of Catherine, the sixth wife of Henry VIII.
She was born in Harrow, Middlesex, in 1874, but settled in a cottage on the outskirts of the Dartmoor village of Widecombe-in-the-Moor. She was often to be seen sitting at her writing desk, beside her favourite window. Here she wrote many novels, including The Heart of the Moor, The Ghost of the Moor and the appropriately titled Through a Dartmoor Window.
Her passion for Dartmoor is evident in her writing, and she often campaigned to protect the landscape from modern developments – such as its use by the British Army. Indeed, Chase was often referred to as 'The Lady of the Moor' following the publication of John Oxenham's novel in which she was the heroine. The book was called My Lady of the Moor, and she simply adopted the title.
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Benjamin Harrison
Benjamin Harrison (August 20, 1833 – March 13, 1901) was the 23rd President of the United States (1889–1893). Harrison, a grandson of President William Henry Harrison, was born in North Bend, Ohio, and moved to Indianapolis, Indiana at age 21, eventually becoming a prominent politician there. During the American Civil War, he served the Union as a Brigadier General in the XX Corps of the Army of the Cumberland. After the war he unsuccessfully ran for the governorship of Indiana, and was later appointed to the U.S. Senate from that state.
Harrison, a Republican, was elected to the presidency in 1888, defeating Democratic incumbent Grover Cleveland. His administration is most remembered for economic legislation, including the McKinley Tariff and the Sherman Antitrust Act, and for annual federal spending that reached one billion dollars for the first time. Democrats attacked the "Billion Dollar Congress", and used the issue, along with the growing unpopularity of the high tariff, to defeat the Republicans, both in the 1890 mid-term elections and in Harrison's bid for re-election in 1892. Harrison advocated, although unsuccessfully, for federal education funding and legislation to protect voting rights for African Americans. He also saw the admittance of six states into the Union.
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Bernd Fasching
Bernd Fasching (born 18 July 1955 in Vienna, Austria) is an Austrian painter and sculptor. He lives and works in Vienna.
In 2000 Fasching opened his project Westwerk (a western investigation of the occidental culture) in the more than 800 years old Vienna St. Stephan’s Cathedral. The project consisted of his sculptures, paintings and other work.
A constantly recurring, central element in Fasching’s work is the creation of his pieces of art amidst his visitors and audience. There were 7 periods between 1987 and 2006 when, under the title 12 Tage 12 Nächte/12 Days 12 Nights, Fasching lived and worked in various galleries around the world, where he could be observed at work and was always open to discussions. During this time he did not leave the place of work. Fasching created 12 paintings with themes inspired by the talks with the visitors to his work sessions. For each of the seven stations of the project [Vienna (1987), Amsterdam (1990), Cologne (1991), Zurich (1992), Jerusalem (1994), New York (1997) and finally Vienna again (2006)] a special soundtrack was composed, which was played in the respective gallery for the full 288 hours of the project.
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Bill Gates
William Henry "Bill" Gates III (born October 28, 1955 in Seattle, Washington) is an American business magnate, computer programmer and philanthropist. Gates is the former chief executive officer (CEO) and current chairman of Microsoft, the world’s largest personal-computer software company he co-founded with Paul Allen. He is consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people and was the wealthiest overall from 1995 to 2009, excluding 2008, when he was ranked third; in 2011 he was the wealthiest American and the second wealthiest person. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of CEO and chief software architect, and remains the largest individual shareholder, with 6.4 percent of the common stock. He has also authored or co-authored several books.
Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Gates has been criticized for his business tactics, which have been considered anti-competitive, an opinion which has in some cases been upheld by the courts. In the later stages of his career, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000.
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Bill Nye
William Sanford "Bill" Nye (born November 27, 1955), popularly known as Bill Nye the Science Guy, is an American science educator, comedian, television host, actor, mechanical engineer, and scientist. He is best known as the host of the Disney/PBS children's science show Bill Nye the Science Guy (1993–1998) and for his many subsequent appearances in popular media as a science educator.
William Sanford Nye was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Jacqueline (née Jenkins; c. 1920–2000), a codebreaker during World War II, and Edwin Darby "Ned" Nye (died 1997), also a World War II veteran whose experience in a Japanese prisoner of war camp led him to become a sundial enthusiast. Nye is a fourth-generation Washington, D.C. resident on his father's side of the family. After attending Lafayette Elementary and Alice Deal Junior High in the city, he was accepted to the private Sidwell Friends School on a partial scholarship, graduating in 1973. He studied mechanical engineering at Cornell University, where one of his professors was Carl Sagan, and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in 1977. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by The Johns Hopkins University in May 2008. In May 2011, Nye was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science degree from Willamette University where he was the keynote speaker for that year's commencement exercises.
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Bill Paxton
William "Bill" Paxton (born May 17, 1955) is an American actor and film director. He gained popularity after starring roles in the films Apollo 13, Twister, Aliens, True Lies, and Titanic. Paxton starred in the HBO series Big Love (2006–2011).
Paxton was born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas, the son of Mary Lou (née Gray) and John Lane Paxton, a businessman, lumber wholesaler, museum executive, and occasional actor. He was raised Roman Catholic, his mother's religion. He attended St. Anne's Catholic School, Arlington Heights High School (Fort Worth, Texas), and Southwest Texas State University (San Marcos, Texas).[citation needed]
Paxton has appeared in such films as Weird Science, Aliens, Apollo 13, Near Dark, Twister, Titanic and True Lies. Four years after appearing in Titanic, he joined James Cameron on an expedition to the actual Titanic. A film about this trip, Ghosts of the Abyss, was released in 2003.
Paxton has also directed a number of short films, including Fish Heads, which aired during Saturday Night Live's low-rated 1980-1981 season. He directed the feature films Frailty and The Greatest Game Ever Played.
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Bill Randle
Bill Randle (March 14, 1923 - July 9, 2004) was an American disc jockey, lawyer and university professor.
He was born William McKinley Randle Jr. in Detroit, Michigan. In Detroit, he hosted a popular show on WJLB-AM radio (now WDTK) called The Interracial Goodwill Hour, featuring rhythm and blues music and hot jazz. As a pioneering disc jockey at radio station WERE in Cleveland, Ohio he helped change the face of American music. In the 1950s, Time Magazine called Bill Randle the top DJ in America. His popularity and huge listening audience allowed him to bolster the careers of a number of young musicians, including The Four Lads, Bobby Darin, and Fats Domino. Nicknamed "The Pied Piper of Cleveland", a 1955 musical documentary film was made about him titled The Pied Piper of Cleveland: A Day in the Life of a Famous Disc Jockey. The film includes a Cleveland concert at Brooklyn High School on October 20, 1955 featuring Pat Boone and Bill Haley & His Comets with Elvis Presley as the opening act. It is the first film footage of a Presley performance.
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Bill Vukovich
William "Bill" Vukovich ( /ˈvjuːkəvɪtʃ/; Serbian Cyrillic: Бил Вуковић; December 13, 1918 in Fresno, California – May 30, 1955 in Indianapolis, Indiana) was a Yugoslavian American automobile racing driver. He won the 1953 and 1954 Indianapolis 500 plus two more American Automobile Association National Championship races. Several drivers of his generation have referred to Vukovich as the greatest ever encountered in American motorsport.
He was known variously as "Vuky" (/ˈvuːki/ VOO-kee) and "The Mad Russian" (though he detested that name, his ancestry being Yugoslavian) for his intense driving style, as well as the "Silent Serb" for his cool demeanor. He was also referred to as the "Fresno Flash" in Floyd Clymer's Indy yearbooks, and in an interview (available at the Vukovich Accident link below) his former mechanic Jim Travers calls him "Vuke" as in "cuke".
Before he began Indy racing, Vukovich drove midget cars for the Edelbrock dirt track racing team. He raced on the West Coast of the United States in the URA, and won the series' 1945 and 1946 midget car championships. Vukovich won the 1948 Turkey Night Grand Prix at Gilmore Stadium, and six of the last eight races at the stadium track before it was closed for good. He won the 1950 AAA National Midget championship.
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Billy Blanks
Billy Wayne Blanks (born September 1, 1955) is an American fitness guru, martial artist, actor, and the inventor of the Tae Bo exercise program.
Blanks began his study of the martial arts at the age of eleven and practices Karate and Taekwondo. He was born with an anomaly in his hip joints that impaired his movement, and a clumsiness that earned him the taunts of his siblings and caused his coaches to believe he’d never accomplish much. Billy found the answer to these challenges in karate When he saw Bruce Lee on TV, he decided he wanted to be a world martial-arts champion. The discipline of the program began to transform his body.
Blanks began his acting career in the 1980s where he starred in several unsuccessful action-adventure feature films. He was hired to act as a bodyguard for lead actress Catherine Bach during the filming of Driving Force, due to the political unrest present in Manila at the time; he impressed the producers so much, they wrote him into the script.
In the late 1980s, Blanks invented the Tae Bo workout, while running a karate studio in Quincy, Massachusetts. He used components of his martial arts and boxing training. The name is a portmanteau of tae kwon do and boxing. Blanks opened a fitness center in Los Angeles to teach his new workout. He later attracted some celebrity clients such as Paula Abdul and the popularity of the workout quickly grew, becoming a pop culture phenomenon after Blanks began releasing mass-marketed videos. The popularity of the workout later waned, but Blanks still attracts many celebrity clients and Tae Bo videos and DVDs have continued to sell well.
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Billy Bob Thornton
Billy Bob Thornton (born August 4, 1955) is an American actor, screenwriter, director and musician. Thornton gained early recognition as a cast member on the CBS sitcom Hearts Afire and in several early 1990s films including On Deadly Ground and Tombstone. In the mid-1990s, after writing, directing, and starring in the independent film Sling Blade, he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He appeared in several major film roles following Sling Blade 's success, including 1998's Armageddon and A Simple Plan. During the late 1990s, Thornton began a career as a singer-songwriter. He has released three albums and was the singer in a blues rock band.
Thornton was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, the son of Virginia Roberta (née Faulkner), a psychic, and William Raymond "Billy Ray" Thornton (November 1929–August 1974), a high school history teacher and basketball coach who died when Thornton was 18. He has two younger brothers, Jimmy Don (April 1958–October 1988), who died of a heart attack at 30, and John David (born 1969), who resides in California. Jimmy Don Thornton wrote a number of songs, two of which—"Island Avenue" and "Emily"—Thornton has recorded on his solo albums. During his childhood, Thornton lived in both Alpine, Arkansas, and Malvern, Arkansas. He was raised a Methodist, in an extended family in a shack that had neither electricity nor plumbing. Thornton graduated from high school in 1973. A good high school baseball player, he tried out for the Kansas City Royals, but was let go after an injury. After a short period laying asphalt for the Arkansas State Transportation Department, he attended Henderson State University to pursue studies in psychology, but he dropped out after two semesters.
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Billy Idol
William Michael Albert Broad (born 30 November 1955), better known by his stage name Billy Idol, is an English rock musician. A member of the Bromley Contingent of Sex Pistols fans, Idol first achieved fame in the punk rock era as a member of the band Generation X. He then embarked on a successful solo career, aided by a series of stylish[citation needed]music videos, making him one of the first MTV stars. Idol continues to tour with guitarist Steve Stevens and has a worldwide fan base.[citation needed]
Idol was born in Stanmore, Middlesex, the son of a salesman.. The name Billy Idol was inspired by a schoolteacher's description of Broad as "idle".
In 1958, when Idol was two years old, his parents moved to Patchogue, New York, on Long Island. The family returned to England four years later with Idol and a younger child Jane (who had been born in the US), settling in Dorking, Surrey. In 1971 the family moved to Bromley, southeastern London, where Idol attended Ravensbourne School for Boys. Idol (rather William Broad) also attended Worthing High School for Boys (later becoming Worthing College), in West Sussex. In October 1975, Idol went to the University of Sussex, near Brighton, to pursue an English degree and lived on campus (East Slope) but left after year one (1976). He then went on to join the Bromley Contingent of Sex Pistols fans, a loose gang that travelled into town when the band played.
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Björn Andrésen
Björn Johan Andrésen (born 26 January 1955) is a Swedish actor and musician. He is best known for playing the fourteen-year-old Tadzio in Luchino Visconti's 1971 film adaptation of the Thomas Mann novella Death in Venice.
Andrésen had only appeared in one film, En kärlekshistoria (1970) at the time he was cast in Death in Venice, which gained him international recognition. While the film performed relatively poorly at the box office, Andrésen was noted for his performance as Tadzio, the beautiful young Polish boy with whom the film's older protagonist Gustav von Aschenbach becomes obsessed. Film historian Lawrence J. Quirk commented in his study The Great Romantic Films (1974) that some shots of Andrésen "could be extracted from the frame and hung on the walls of the Louvre or the Vatican."
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Bo Diddley
Ellas Otha Bates (December 30, 1928 – June 2, 2008), known by his stage name Bo Diddley, was an American rhythm and blues vocalist, guitarist, songwriter (usually as Ellas McDaniel), and rock and roll pioneer. He was also known as "The Originator" because of his key role in the transition from the blues to rock & roll, influencing a host of acts, including Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, The Velvet Underground, The Who, The Yardbirds, Eric Clapton,The Beatles, and George Michael, among others. He introduced more insistent, driving rhythms and a hard-edged electric guitar sound on a wide-ranging catalog of songs, along with African rhythms and a signature beat (a simple, five-accent rhythm) that remains a cornerstone of rock and pop. Accordingly, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and received Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation and a Grammy Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. He was known in particular for his technical innovations, including his trademark rectangular guitar.
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Bobby Castillo
Robert Ernie Castillo Jr. (born April 18, 1955 in Los Angeles, California) is a former pitcher in Major League Baseball. He played for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Minnesota Twins between 1977 and 1985. He was in the bullpen for the Dodgers in the 1981 World Series, pitching one inning against the New York Yankees. He also pitched one season in Japan for the Chunichi Dragons in 1987. Castillo is credited with teaching his former Dodgers team-mate, Fernando Valenzuela, how to throw a screwball.
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Brendan Gleeson
Brendan Gleeson (born 29 March 1955) is an Irish actor. His best-known films include Braveheart, Gangs of New York, In Bruges, 28 Days Later, Troy, the Harry Potter films, The Guard and the role of Michael Collins in The Treaty. He won an Emmy Award in 2009 for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in the film Into the Storm.
Gleeson was born in Dublin, the son of Pat and Frank Gleeson. Gleeson has described himself as having been an avid reader as a child. After training as an actor, he returned to Ireland and worked for several years as a secondary school teacher of Irish and English at the now defunct Catholic Belcamp College in North County Dublin, which closed in 2004. He was working simultaneously as an actor while teaching, doing semi-professional and professional productions in Dublin and surrounding areas. He left the teaching profession to commit full-time to acting in 1991.
Gleeson started his film career at the age of 34.[citation needed] He first came to prominence in Ireland for his role as Michael Collins in The Treaty, a television film broadcast on RTÉ One, and for which he won a Jacob's Award in 1992. He has acted in such films as Braveheart, I Went Down, Michael Collins, Gangs of New York, Cold Mountain, 28 Days Later, Troy, Kingdom of Heaven, Lake Placid, Artificial Intelligence: AI, Mission: Impossible II and The Village. He won critical acclaim for his performance as Irish gangster Martin Cahill in John Boorman's 1998 film The General.
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Bruce Foxton
Bruce Foxton (born 1 September 1955, Woking, Surrey) is an English rock and roll musician who is best known as the bass player in punk rock bands The Jam and Stiff Little Fingers.
In The Jam, he and drummer Rick Buckler played behind singer, guitarist, and songwriter Paul Weller. However, Foxton contributed greatly to transform recordings of Weller's compositions from what was presented to the group in demo form with his melodic and innovative bass parts, which have influenced many players[who?].[citation needed]initially joining as guitarist (while Weller played bass), the pair switched positions following the departure of guitarist Steve Brookes. Foxton also took lead vocals on a few tracks, most notably the singles "David Watts" (a cover of a Kinks track) and "News of the World", which was his own composition. Foxton also penned other tracks, possibly the most notable being "Smithers-Jones", done as a straightforward rock take for the B-side of "When You're Young" and later reworked with strings for the Setting Sons album. Stiff Little Fingers would regularly perform the song live after Foxton joined.
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Bruce Willis
Walter Bruce Willis (born March 19, 1955) is a German-born American actor, producer, and musician. His career began in television in the 1980s and has continued both in television and film since, including comedic, dramatic, and action roles. He is well known for the role of John McClane in the Die Hard series, which were mostly critical and uniformly financial successes. He has also appeared in over sixty films, including box office successes like Pulp Fiction (1994), 12 Monkeys (1995), The Fifth Element (1997), Armageddon (1998), The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000), Sin City (2005), Over the Hedge (2006) and Red (2010).
Motion pictures featuring Willis have grossed US$2.64 billion to 3.05 billion at North American box offices, making him the ninth highest-grossing actor in a leading role and twelfth highest including supporting roles. He is a two-time Emmy Award–winning, Golden Globe Award–winning and four-time Saturn Award–nominated actor. Willis was married to actress Demi Moore and they had three daughters before their divorce in 2000, following thirteen years of marriage. He is currently married to model Emma Heming, with whom he has one daughter.
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Bruno Barreto
Bruno Barreto (born March 16, 1955) is a Brazilian film director born in Rio de Janeiro. He has been making feature-length films ever since he was seventeen years old and remains one of Brazil's most accomplished and popular directors to this day. The type of films he makes vary widely from light comedies like Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (1976) and Bossa Nova (2000) to tense political thrillers like Four Days in September (1997). Four Days in September was entered into the 47th Berlin International Film Festival.
Other films Barreto has directed films include Carried Away and View from the Top. Barreto was married to actress Amy Irving from 1996 to 2005, with whom he made Bossa Nova and Carried Away. They had one son (Gabriel) together. He is the ex-stepfather of Max Spielberg Irving's son by her first husband Steven Spielberg.
According to Bloomberg News, Brazilian prosecutors allege that Barreto razed protected jungle on Brazil's Pico Island to build a personal home. He was charged in 2006 for illegally clearing protected forestland. Barreto had agreed in a 2008 court proceeding to demolish said house and restore the land within 2 years. Yet, four years later, prosecutors claim that the house remains intact.
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Bruno Conti
Bruno Conti (born 13 March 1955 in Nettuno, province of Rome) is an Italian ex-football player and former coach of the Serie A club Roma from 14 March 2005 to 30 June 2005. His two sons Daniele and Andrea are both professional footballers. A winger and among the best in the world during his time,[citation needed] Conti was extremely fast, a good crosser and a skilled dribbler.
Conti was on the Italian national side that won the 1982 FIFA World Cup. He was one of the best players in the tournament,[citation needed] and played an instrumental role in Italy's win in the final against West Germany . Despite being booked after 31 minutes, he was a central figure in Italy's second goal that was scored by Marco Tardelli and single-handedly created Italy's third goal by breaking down the right side from the half-way line and crossing to Alessandro Altobelli to score from the top of the box after 81 minutes. The Italians won the game 3-1.
During his domestic league career, he played for Roma from 1973 to 1990, winning the Scudetto in 1983 and Coppa Italia four times. He helped them to the 1984 European Cup Final but they were to be defeated on penalties by Liverpool, with Conti himself missing his penalty in the shootout. Following the departure of coach Luigi Delneri, Conti moved up from his position as head of the club's youth teams to first team coach during the 2004-05 season. Conti did not possess a coaching licence, but was a respected figure at the club. World Cup winners, however, are exempted from taking coaching exams.[citation needed]
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Bruno Tonioli
Bruno Tonioli (born 25 November 1955) is an Italian choreographer and TV personality who appears as a judge on the television dance competition Strictly Come Dancing for BBC TV in the UK, and its American adaptation Dancing with the Stars on ABC TV in the US, Tonioli co-created and appeared on the BBC talent show DanceX and its American adaptation, Dance War: Bruno vs. Carrie Ann.
In the early 1970s, Tonioli was a member of the Paris-based company La Grande Eugène and later joined the Lindsay Kemp Company. He worked extensively as a freelance dancer, including an appearance in Elton John's "I'm Still Standing" video.
Tonioli has worked in the music business as a choreographer for music videos, stage shows, and tours for artists such as Tina Turner, Sting, Elton John, The Rolling Stones, Freddie Mercury, Sinitta, Boy George, and Duran Duran. His close association with Bananarama produced many videos, from "Venus" to "Movin' On". Tonioli choreographed the band Arcadia's music video for their song "Election Day" as documented in a 1980s documentary entitled The Making of Election Day.
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Caleb Carr
Caleb Carr (born August 2, 1955) is an American novelist and military historian.
A son of Lucien Carr, a former UPI editor and a key Beat generation figure, he was born in Manhattan and lived for much of his life on the Lower East Side. He attended Kenyon College and New York University, earning a B.A. in military and diplomatic history. He writes frequently on military and political affairs and was a contributing editor of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History until 2008.
He currently resides in upstate New York on a farm estate called "Misery Mountain" in the town of Berlin, New York, in Rensselaer County. Carr ran as a Democrat for the Rensselaer County Legislature in 2005 but came in fourth of four candidates.
Many of his novels are set in the Gilded Age or Victorian times; The Italian Secretary was an authorized Sherlock Holmes mystery.
Carr has written plays and movie screenplays, one of which, Bad Attitudes was made into a TV movie in 1991. He was one of the contributing screenwriters for the film prequel to The Exorcist, released as Exorcist: The Beginning, for which he received a shared story credit. He also received a shared screenplay credit on Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist, which received high praise from William Peter Blatty (the author/screenwriter of The Exorcist). In television, he appears on the PBS program American Experience as a guest commentator/narrator, such as on the episode of the NYC subway system, "New York Underground".
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Calouste Gulbenkian
Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian (Armenian: Գալուստ Սարգիս Կիւլպէնկեան) (23 March 1869–20 July 1955) was an Armenian businessman and philanthropist. He played a major role in making the petroleum reserves of the Middle East available to Western development. By the end of his life he had become one of the world's wealthiest individuals and his art acquisitions considered one of the greatest private collections.
Calouste Gulbenkian was born in Üsküdar, in Constantinople (now Istanbul), Ottoman Empire, the son of an Armenian oil importer/exporter. His father sent him to be educated at King's College London, where he studied petroleum engineering, and then to examine the Russian oil industry at Baku. While still in his twenties he lived in London arranging deals in the oil business. After becoming a naturalized British citizen in 1902, he was involved in arranging the 1907 merger resulting in Royal Dutch/Shell and emerged from that effort as a major shareholder. His habit of retaining five percent of the shares of the oil companies he developed earned him the nickname "Mr. Five Percent".
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Carlyle Blackwell
Carlyle Blackwell (January 20, 1884 – June 17, 1955) was an American silent film actor and a minor director and producer.
Born in Troy, Pennsylvania, he made his film debut in the 1910 Vitagraph Studios production of Uncle Tom's Cabin directed by J. Stuart Blackton. Between then and 1930, when talkies ended his acting career, he appeared in more than 180 films. For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Blackwell has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6340 Hollywood Boulevard.
After his final film in 1930, Blackwell turned to performing on stage in live theatre.
Carlyle Blackwell died in Miami, Florida in 1955, aged 71.
He was married three times, first to actress Ruth Hartman, mother of his daughter and son. Divorced from Hartman for desertion in 1923, in 1926 he married second wife Leah Barnato, known as the " Queen of Diamonds". She was the daughter of a South African diamond millionaire and sister of Woolf Barnato. His third wife was former Ziegfield girl Avonne Taylor, whom he met on a transatlantic crossing and married in 1933 after divorcing Leah Blackwell in 1932.
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Carmen Miranda
Carmen Miranda, GCIH (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈkaɾmẽȷ̃ miˈɾɐ̃dɐ], 9 February 1909 – 5 August 1955) was a Portuguese-born Braziliansamba singer, Broadway actress and Hollywood film star popular in the 1940s and 1950s. She was, by some accounts, the highest-earning woman in the United States and noted for her signature fruit hat outfit she wore in the 1943 movie The Gang's All Here. Though hailed as a talented performer, her movie roles in the United States soon became cartoonish and she grew to resent them. She is considered the precursor of Brazil's Tropicalismo.
Carmen Miranda was born Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha in Várzea da Ovelha e Aliviada, a village in the northern Portuguese municipality of Marco de Canaveses. She was the second daughter of José Maria Pinto da Cunha (17 February 1887 – 21 June 1938) and Maria Emília Miranda (10 March 1886 – Rio de Janeiro, 9 November 1971). In 1909 when she was 10-months old, her father emigrated alone to Brazil and settled in Rio de Janeiro, where he opened a barber shop. Her mother followed in 1910 with their daughters Olinda and Maria do Carmo. Maria do Carmo, later Carmen, never returned to Portugal, but retained her Portuguese nationality. In Brazil, her parents had four more children: Amaro (1911), Cecília (1913), Aurora (1915–2005) and Óscar (1916).
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Carol Ann Duffy
Carol Ann Duffy, CBE, FRSL (born 23 December 1955) is a Scottish poet and playwright. She is Professor of Contemporary Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Britain's poet laureate in May 2009. She is the first woman, the first Scot, and the first openly gay person to hold the position.
Her collections include Standing Female Nude (1985), winner of a Scottish Arts Council Award; Selling Manhattan (1987), which won a Somerset Maugham Award; Mean Time (1993), which won the Whitbread Poetry Award; and Rapture (2005), winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize. Her poems address issues such as oppression, gender, and violence, in an accessible language that has made them popular in schools.
Carol Ann Duffy was born to a Roman Catholic family in the Gorbals, a very poor part of Glasgow, the first child of Frank Duffy, an electrical fitter and May Black. The couple went on to have another four children, all boys, the family moving to Stafford, England, when Duffy was six years old. Her father worked for English Electric. He was also a trade unionist, and stood unsuccessfully as a parliamentary candidate for the Labour Party in 1983; he also managed Stafford Rangers football club in his spare time. Duffy was educated in Stafford at Saint Austin's RC Primary School (1962–1967), St. Joseph's Convent School (1967–1970), and Stafford Girls' High School (1970–1974), her literary talent encouraged by two English teachers, June Scriven at St Joseph's, and Jim Walker at Stafford Girls' High. She was a passionate reader from an early age, and always wanted to be a writer, producing poems from the age of 11. When one of her English teachers died, she wrote: "You sat on your desk,/ swinging your legs, reading a poem by Yeats/ to the bored girls, except my heart stumbled and blushed/ as it fell in love with the words and I saw the tree/ in the scratched old desk under my hands, heard the bird in the oak outside scribble itself on the air."
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Caroline Loeb
Caroline Loeb (5 October 1955, Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine), is an actress, radio host, singer, director and French writer. She remains particularly known for her 1980s hit "C'est la ouate".
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Charles Christie
Charles H. V. Christie (April 13, 1880 – October 1, 1955) was a motion picture studio owner.
Born in London, Ontario, Canada, Charles and his brother Al left home to pursue a career in the fledgling motion picture industry. In Hollywood, California, they made enough money working in films to purchase a property in Los Angeles and set up their own Christie Film Company to make comedy movies.
Charles was primarily the business administrator, while brother Al made films. Before long, the Christie brothers were two of Hollywood's most powerful movie moguls. However, the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression devastated business and in January 1933, the Christie brothers companies went into receivership, the studio assets being acquired by another large film making company.
While his brother remained with the new owners, producing comedy films, Charles went into the selling of real estate.
Charles Christie died in Hollywood. He is interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Hollywood, California. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1719 Vine Street.
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Charles Martinet
Charles Martinet (born September 17, 1955) is an American actor and voice actor, best known for providing the voice of Mario, the titular character in Nintendo's flagship video game franchise. He has held this role since 1994, longer than any other actor. He also voices Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, Toadsworth, and a select few other characters from the same series. He is fluent in English, Spanish, and French.
Working for Nintendo since 1987, Martinet started voicing Mario at video game trade shows in which attendees would walk up to a TV screen displaying a 3-D Mario head that moved around the screen and talked. This system was called "Mario in Real-Time" or "MIRT". Martinet could see the attendees by means of a hidden camera setup, and a facial motion capture rig recorded his mouth movements in order to synchronize Martinet's mouth movement with the on-screen Mario mouth movement. This digital puppetry, with Martinet's comic performance, was a novelty at the time.
Martinet was told by his friend that there was going to be an audition at a trade show in which you "talk to people as a plumber". He went to the audition at the last minute as the casting directors were already putting away their equipment. Charles Martinet walked in and asked, "Can I please read for this?". The directors let him audition and told him, "You're an Italian plumber from Brooklyn". At first Martinet planned to talk like a stereotypical Italian American with a deep, raspy voice. He then thought to himself that it would be too harsh for children to hear, so he made it more soft-hearted and friendly, resulting in what Mario's voice is today. Martinet has also stated that he kept on talking with his Mario voice until the audition tape ran out.
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Charles Shaughnessy
Charles George Patrick Shaughnessy, 5th Baron Shaughnessy (born 9 February 1955), simply known as Charles Shaughnessy, is a British peer, and television, theatre and film actor. He is known for his roles on American television, as Shane Donovan on the soap opera Days of our Lives and as Maxwell Sheffield on the sitcom The Nanny. Along with his brother, David Shaughnessy and Ophelia Soumekh, he is a partner in 3S Media Solutions Inc.
Shaughnessy was born on 9 February 1955 in London, the son of Alfred Shaughnessy, a television writer who was the scriptwriter for Upstairs, Downstairs, and the actress Jean Lodge. His brother, David Shaughnessy, is also an actor and a television producer and director. Having been born into a show-business family, he started appearing in plays during primary school. After attending Eton College, he read for a law degree at Magdalene College of University of Cambridge where he wrote a thesis on the House of Lords.
While at Cambridge, he joined the Footlights club. After graduating, he decided to return to acting and enrolled in a London drama school, which led to him touring in a repertory company. He moved to the United States to follow actress Susan Fallender, whom he eventually wed.
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Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), also known as Yardbird and Bird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer.
Parker acquired the nickname "Yardbird" early in his career and the shortened form, "Bird", which continued to be used for the rest of his life, inspiring the titles of a number of Parker compositions, such as "Yardbird Suite", "Ornithology", "Bird Gets the Worm", and "Bird of Paradise."
Parker was a highly influential jazz soloist and a leading figure in the development of bebop, a form of jazz characterized by fast tempos, virtuosic technique, and improvisation. Parker introduced revolutionary harmonic ideas, including rapidly passing chords, new variants of altered chords, and chord substitutions. His tone ranged from clean and penetrating to sweet and somber. Many Parker recordings demonstrate virtuosic technique and complex melodic lines, combining jazz with other musical genres, including blues, Latin, and classical.
Parker was an icon for the hipster subculture and later the Beat Generation, personifying the jazz musician as an uncompromising artist and intellectual, rather than an entertainer.
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Chen Daoming
Chen Daoming (simplified Chinese: 陈道明; traditional Chinese: 陳道明; pinyin: Chén Dàomíng) (born April 26, 1955) is a famous Chinese actor known for his flexibility and longevity. He has been branded the Emperor of Chinese drama, having starred in all types of dramas and films.
He was born in Tianjin, China, and is a native of Shaoxing, Zhejiang. His first famous role was playing China's last Emperor Puyi in the Chinese series Emperor of the Last Generation (末代皇帝). He is perhaps best known in the West with his role as the Emperor Qin Shi Huang in the blockbuster hit Hero. In addition to films, Chen is very famous on Mainland China with his many roles in Chinese TV series. He is known for his ability to adapt to his roles, from historical to present, from wealthy to poor, from good to evil.
In 1982, Chen was married to Du Xian (杜宪), a former China Central Television news program hostess, who was forced to resign due to her sympathy expressed (dressed in black and spoke slowly) during the reporting of Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 on June 4, 1989. Their daughter Chen Ge (陈格) was born in 1985 and is studying in UK.
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Chief Thundercloud
Chief Thundercloud, (born Victor Daniels, April 12, 1899 – December 1, 1955) was an American character actor in westerns.
Information about Thundercloud is vague. Most biographies state that he was a full blooded Cherokee (or Muskogee), although others state that he had some German, Scottish and/or Irish ancestors; and that he was educated at the University of Arizona, although no record exists of his enrollment. The pressbook for The Lone Ranger Rides Again announced his parents as "Dark Cloud and Morning Star, artistocrats of the Muskogee tribe" but his death certificate lists his father as "Joseph Mahawa."
Daniels worked many jobs before becoming a stuntman. From there he graduated to character actor status. His title "Chief" was a Hollywood invention. He had the title role in Geronimo (1939) and played Tonto in both Republic Lone Ranger serials, The Lone Ranger (1938) and The Lone Ranger Rides Again (1939).
In later years, he worked with other western actors, performing in live shows at the Corriganville Ranch.
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Chiharu Matsuyama
Chiharu Matsuyama (松山千春, born December 16, 1955) is a famous Japanese folk singer and songwriter. First debuting with the single Tabidachi in 1977, success soon followed with the two hits Toki no Itazura and Kisetsu no Nakade.
Matsuyama has been portrayed in film by Shunsuke Daitō. Daitō played him in a 2008 film based on Matsuyama's autobiographical work "Ashoro Yori", published in 1979.
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Chiranjeevi
Chiranjeevi (born Konidala Siva Sankara Vara Prasad on 22 August 1955) is a Indian film actor and a politician. He has worked primarily with Telugu Cinema, but has appeared in several Tamil, Kannada and Hindi films. He made his acting debut in 1978 through the film Punadhirallu. However, Pranam Khareedu released earlier at the box office. Subsequently, he played a variety of characters, and his film roles along with his screen persona contributed to a change in the concept of a Telugu film lead actor.[citation needed] He is popularly known as "Megastar" in the Indian media.
Chiranjeevi also co-produced Rudraveena (1988), which won the National Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration. He has won nine Filmfare Awards South, the most by any Telugu actor. Chiranjeevi was honoured with the Padma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian award. In 2006, he was presented an honourary doctorate from Andhra University. Apart from his film career, he is also a philanthropist and the founder of Chiranjeevi Charitable Foundation, established in 1998.
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Chiyonofuji Mitsugu
Chiyonofuji Mitsugu (千代の富士 貢?), born June 1, 1955, as Mitsugu Akimoto (秋元 貢, Akimoto Mitsugu?) in Hokkaidō, Japan, is a former champion sumo wrestler and the 58th yokozuna of the sport. He is now the head coach of Kokonoe stable.
Chiyonofuji was one of the greatest yokozuna of recent times, winning 31 tournament championships, second only to Taihō. He was particularly remarkable for his longevity in sumo's top rank, which he held for a period of ten years from 1981 to 1991. He won more tournaments in his thirties than any other wrestler and retired in his mid-thirties, in contrast to most recent yokozuna who have tended to retire around 30. During his 21 year professional career Chiyonofuji set records for most career victories (1045) and most wins in the top makuuchi division (807). Both of these records were later broken by Kaiō Hiroyuki. He won the Kyushu tournament, one of the six annual honbasho, a record eight years in a row from 1981 until 1988, and also set the record for the longest postwar run of consecutive wins (53 bouts in 1988).
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Chris Berman
Christopher James "Chris" Berman (born May 10, 1955), also known by the nickname Boomer, is an American sportscaster. He anchors SportsCenter, Monday Night Countdown, Sunday NFL Countdown, U.S. Open golf, the Stanley Cup Finals, and other programming on ESPN and ABC Sports.
Berman was born in Greenwich, Connecticut and raised in Irvington, New York. He is Jewish on his father's side. During his childhood he went to Camp Winnebago in Fayette, Maine. In 1970, he attended the Hackley School and Brown University from which he graduated in 1977 with a degree in history.
Berman moved to WNVR in Waterbury, Connecticut. He was eventually hired at Hartford's WVIT-TV to do weekend sports at $23 per shift. He joined ESPN in 1979 a month after its founding and has been with the network since. Along with Bob Ley, he is one of ESPN's longest-tenured employees. Berman, who is generally known to be heavy-set, often jokes that he now uses his original ESPN jacket from 1979 when he was much skinnier. He is the host of Monday Night Countdown, replacing previous host Stuart Scott. In 1988 and 1989, he hosted ESPN's first game show, Boardwalk and Baseball's Super Bowl of Sports Trivia which was taped at the now-defunct Boardwalk and Baseball amusement park in Orlando, Florida.
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Chris Burnett
Chris Burnett (born Christopher LeRoy Burnett on November 2, 1955) is an American saxophone player, composer, veteran of US military jazz bands and band leader. Born in Olathe, Kansas, Burnett's family moved relatively frequently during his early childhood due to his father being a member of the active US military service. His sibling family lived at places such as: France, Michigan, and Colorado prior to settling permanently back home in the Kansas City metro area. His brother, Richie Pratt, who is also a musician (Lionel Hampton, Junior Mance, Aretha Franklin, New York Jazz Quartet, Broadway, films, studios ...), and the eldest sibling in his family continues to serve as a significant professional role model and mentor.
Burnett was first exposed to music at an early age through the piano by his mother (Violet Lorraine Burnett), and later studied vocal music through the youth choir program at his church under the direction of Nevada Rosbia. Burnett took to music intuitively and his introduction to saxophone and clarinet began through the instrumental music program at school. James R. Fuchs was his primary music teacher who also exposed him to some of the local and internationally recognized professional saxophone players like Charles Molina and Gary Foster who visited the school periodically during the early 1970s. Unable to afford college tuition, prior to graduation from high school in May 1974, Burnett auditioned for and was accepted to the music programs of both, the US Air Force and US Army bands. He has ultimately studied with numerous significant teachers and at the Armed Forces School of Music, Webster University, Columbia College (Missouri), Berklee College of Music, and American University.
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Chris Nyman
Christopher Curtis Nyman (born June 6, 1955 in Pomona, California) is a retired Major League Baseball first baseman. He played during two seasons at the major league level for the Chicago White Sox. He was signed by the White Sox as an amateur free agent in 1977. Nyman, played his first professional season with their Class A Appleton Foxes in 1978, and split his last season with their Triple-A club, the Buffalo Bisons, and the Detroit Tigers' Triple-A club, the Nashville Sounds, in 1986. In 1984 and 1985, Nyman played in Japan for the Nankai Hawks.
Nyman is the brother of fellow former major leaguer Nyls Nyman.
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Christopher Mayhew
Christopher Paget Mayhew, Baron Mayhew (12 June 1915 – 7 January 1997) was a British politician who was a Labour Member of Parliament (MP) from 1945 to 1950 and from 1951 to 1974, when he left the Labour Party to become a Liberal. In 1981, Mayhew received a life peerage and was raised to the House of Lords as Baron Mayhew.
Mayhew attended Haileybury and Christ Church, Oxford as an exhibitioner. In 1934 he holidayed in Moscow. While at Oxford, he became President of the Oxford Union. Mayhew was commissioned into the Intelligence Corps in 1940, rising to the rank of Major.
Mayhew was elected to Parliament for the constituency of South Norfolk in the 1945 election.
He became Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office where he served under Ernest Bevin and acquired the strong pro-Arab views that would make him a distinctive figure in British politics.[citation needed] Although Mayhew lost his seat in the 1950 election, he soon returned to Parliament upon the death of Bevin when he won the by-election in 1951 for Bevin's seat of Woolwich East.
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Christopher McDonald
Christopher McDonald (born February 15, 1955) is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Shooter McGavin in Happy Gilmore, Tappy Tibbons in Requiem for a Dream, and Mel Allen in the HBO film 61*.
McDonald was born in New York City, the son of Patricia, a nursing professor and real estate agent, and James McDonald, an educator. He was raised in upstate Romulus, New York, and is a graduate of Hobart College in Geneva, New York. McDonald is married to Lupe Gidley, and together they are the parents of four children: son Jackson (born 1990), and daughters, Hannah (born 1993), Rosie (born 1996), and Ava (born 2001).
McDonald has numerous film and television roles to his name, often as a supporting actor and often portraying antagonistic characters. In addition to the above, his credits also include Breakin', Grease 2, The Boys Next Door, Thelma & Louise, Grumpy Old Men, Quiz Show, Flubber, The Faculty, The Perfect Storm, House Arrest, Dirty Work, American Pie 5: The Naked Mile, Broken Flowers and Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams. He was featured as Ward Cleaver in the movie version of Leave It to Beaver and famous baseball broadcaster Mel Allen in 61*. In 1994, he starred in the film Terminal Velocity as an aggressive Russian mafia villain alongside Charlie Sheen.
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Clarence Gilyard
Clarence Darnell Gilyard, Jr. (born December 24, 1955) is a former American actor and a current college professor who has been featured in movies and television since 1980. He is sometimes credited as Clarence A. Gilyard.
Gilyard is known for his roles as Ben Matlock's (played by Andy Griffith) second private investigator (and right-hand man) Conrad McMasters, on the 1980s legal drama series, Matlock: (a role he played from 1989 to 1993), as Pastor Bruce Barnes in the Left Behind movie trilogy, and as Cordell Walker's (played by Chuck Norris) partner and best friend, Texas Ranger James "Jimmy" Trivette, on the 1990s crime drama, Walker, Texas Ranger and in Top Gun.
In 1980, Gilyard moved to Los Angeles to become an actor. He became the first black actor to undertake the role of the cheerleader in the play Bleacher Bums before he segued into television roles. As a character actor, Gilyard has made guest appearances on TV shows such as Diff'rent Strokes, The Facts of Life, 227, Simon & Simon and Riptide. Gilyard was cast on the final season of the NBC TV series CHiPs as Officer Benjamin Webster from 1982-1983. He co-starred with Jim Carrey in the 1984 NBC sitcom The Duck Factory.
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Claudette Colvin
Claudette Colvin (born September 5, 1939) is a pioneer of the African-American civil rights movement. She was the first person to resist bus segregation in Montgomery, Alabama, preceding the better known Rosa Parks incident by nine months. The court case stemming from her refusal to give up her seat on the bus, Browder v. Gayle, decided by the U.S. District Court in February, 1956 and then by the United States Supreme Court in December, 1956, ended bus segregation in Alabama.
Montgomery's black leaders did not publicize Colvin's pioneering effort for long because she was a teenager and became pregnant while unmarried. The NAACP leaders worried about using her to represent their movement, given the social norms of the time.
Colvin lived in Montgomery, Alabama. In 1955, at the age of 15, she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white person, in violation of local law. Her arrest preceded that of Rosa Parks by nine months.
In 1955 Colvin was a student at Booker T. Washington High School in Montgomery. She was returning from school on March 2, 1955 when she got on a Capital Heights bus downtown (at the same place Parks boarded another bus nine months later). Colvin's family owned a car, but she relied on the city's buses to get to school.[citation needed]
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Colm Tóibín
Colm Tóibín (Irish pronunciation: [ˈkɔl̪ˠəmˠ t̪ˠoːˈbʲiːnʲ]; born 30 May 1955) is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, journalist, critic, and, most recently, poet. He is regarded by certain critics as having excelled at the many literary forms with which he has experimented.
Tóibín is Leonard Milberg Lecturer in Irish Letters at Princeton University in New Jersey and succeeded Martin Amis as professor of creative writing at the University of Manchester. He was hailed as a champion of minorities as he collected the 2011 Irish PEN Award. In 2011, he was named one of "Britain's top 300 intellectuals" by The Observer, despite being Irish.
Tóibín's parents were Bríd and Michael Tóibín. He was born in 1955 in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, in the southeast of Ireland. He is the second youngest of five children. His grandfather, Patrick Tobin, was a member of the IRA, as was his grand-uncle Michael Tobin. Patrick Tobin took part in the 1916 Rebellion in Enniscorthy and was subsequently interned in Frongoch in Wales. Colm Tóibín's father was a teacher who was involved in the Fianna Fáil party in Enniscorthy. He received his secondary education at St Peter's College, Wexford, where he was a boarder between 1970 and 1972. He later spoke of finding some of the priests attractive.
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Connie Sellecca
Connie Sellecca (born May 25, 1955) is an American actress and former model, best known for her roles on the television series The Greatest American Hero and Hotel, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama in 1987.
She was born Concetta Sellecchia in The Bronx, New York, New York to Italian parents. At age twelve, she moved to Pomona, New York and attended Pomona Junior High School. While attending Ramapo High School in Spring Valley, she first became interested in the performing arts. Although she matriculated at Boston College, she withdrew to pursue a career in acting.
Sellecca first worked as a fashion model before her acting debut in the film The Bermuda Depths in 1978, followed by Captain America II: Death Too Soon, a TV movie starring Christopher Lee and Lana Wood. She then starred as lawyer Pam Davidson on The Greatest American Hero, the girlfriend and foil to the main character. After Hero ended, she was released from her contract in time to audition for the part of promotions manager Christine Francis on the television drama Hotel, opposite James Brolin. She played this role from 1983 to 1988.
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Constance Collier
Constance Collier (22 January 1878 – 25 April 1955) was an English film actress and acting coach.
Born Laura Constance Hardie, in Windsor, Berkshire to Cheetham Agaste Hardie and Eliza Collier, Constance made her stage debut at the age of 3, when she played Fairy Peasblossom in A Midsummer's Night Dream. In 1893, at the age of 15, she joined the Gaiety Girls, the famous dance troupe based at the Gaiety Theatre in London. She was a very beautiful woman and soon became so tall that she towered over all the other dancers. In addition, she had an enormous personality and considerable determination. She naturally attracted considerable attention. On 27 December 1906, Beerbohm Tree's extravagant revival of Antony and Cleopatra opened at His Majesty's Theatre, with Tree as Mark Antony and Constance Collier as Cleopatra, a performance for which she received much critical praise.
Famed for his realistic productions, Tree and his designer, Percy Macquoid, dressed Collier in a range of spectacular costumes. Later, Constance Collier commented: "There is only a mention in the play of Cleopatra appearing as the goddess Isis. Tree elaborated this into a great tableau... Cleopatra, robed in silver, crowned in silver, carrying a golden scepter and the symbol of the sacred golden calf in her hand, went in procession through the streets of Alexandria, the ragged, screaming populace acclaiming the Queen, half in hate, half in superstitious fear and joy as she made her sacrilegious ascent to her high throne in the market-place."
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Cordell Hull
Cordell Hull (October 2, 1871 – July 23, 1955) was an American politician from the U.S. state of Tennessee. He is best known as the longest-serving Secretary of State, holding the position for 11 years (1933–1944) in the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during much of World War II. Hull received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945 for his role in establishing the United Nations, and was referred to by President Roosevelt as the "Father of the United Nations".
Hull was born in a log cabin in Olympus, which is now part of Pickett County, Tennessee, but was then part of Overton County. He became the elected chairman of the Clay County Democratic Party at the age of 19.
In 1891, Hull graduated from Cumberland School of Law at Cumberland University and was admitted to the bar. He served in the Tennessee House of Representatives from 1893 to 1897. During the Spanish-American War, he served in Cuba as a captain in the Fourth Regiment of the Tennessee Volunteer Infantry.
Hull served 11 terms in the United States House of Representatives (1907–1921 and 1923–1931) and authored the federal income tax laws of 1913 and 1916 and the inheritance tax of 1916. After an electoral defeat in 1920, Hull served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He was elected to the Senate in 1930, but resigned upon being named Secretary of State in 1933.
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Cy Young
Denton True "Cy" Young (March 29, 1867 – November 4, 1955) was an American Major League Baseball pitcher. During his 22-year baseball career (1890–1911), he pitched for five different teams. Young established numerous pitching records, some of which have stood for a century. Young compiled 511 wins, which is most in Major League history and 94 ahead of Walter Johnson who is second on the list. Young was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937. One year after Young's death, the Cy Young Award was created to honor the previous season's best pitcher.
In addition to wins, Young still holds the Major League records for most career innings pitched (7,355), most career games started (815), and most complete games (749). He also retired with 316 losses, the most in MLB history. Young's 76 career shutouts are fourth all-time. He also won at least 30 games in a season five times, with ten other seasons of 20 or more wins. In addition, Young pitched three no-hitters, including the third perfect game in baseball history, first in baseball's "modern era". In 1999, 88 years after his final Major League appearance and 44 years after his death, editors at The Sporting News ranked Cy Young 14th on their list of "Baseball's 100 Greatest Players". That same year, baseball fans named him to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.
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Dale Carnegie
Dale Breckenridge Carnegie (originally Carnagey until 1922 and possibly somewhat later) (November 24, 1888 – November 1, 1955) was an American writer, lecturer, and the developer of famous courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking, and interpersonal skills. Born into poverty on a farm in Missouri, he was the author of How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), a massive bestseller that remains popular today. He also wrote How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1948), Lincoln the Unknown (1932), and several other books.
One of the core ideas in his books is that it is possible to change other people's behavior by changing one's reaction to them.
Dale Carnegie was born in 1888 in Maryville, Missouri, Carnegie was a poor farmer's boy, the second son of James William Carnagey (b. Indiana, February 1852 – living 1910) and wife Amanda Elizabeth Harbison (b. Missouri, February 1858 – living 1910). His family moved to Belton, Missouri when he was a small child. In his teens, though still having to get up at 4 a.m. every day to milk his parents' cows, he managed to obtain an education at the State Teacher's College in Warrensburg. His first job after college was selling correspondence courses to ranchers; then he moved on to selling bacon, soap and lard for Armour & Company. He was successful to the point of making his sales territory of South Omaha, Nebraska, the national leader for the firm.
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Dale Winton
Dale Winton (born 22 May 1955) is an English radio DJ and television presenter.
Winton's father, Gary, died when Winton was 13, on the day of Winton's bar mitzvah.[citation needed] Winton was brought up by his mother, actress Sheree Winton. Sheree was often referred to as 'the English Jayne Mansfield'. She committed suicide by drug overdose in 1976, after a lifelong battle with clinical depression.
Winton started DJ'ing in clubs in Richmond in 1972, where he met Steve Allen. The two have remained best friends since. From there he had a selection of menial jobs including selling time shares abroad. In 1982, Winton moved to London and began his entertainment career on the London club circuit, where he DJ'd at weekends. This led him to United Biscuits Industrial Radio where he did a variety of jobs, before getting his own morning show. From here he joined Radio Trent in Nottingham, where he presented a weekend show, moving to the weekday mid-morning show, before leaving in 1985, and going on to work at a number of other local radio stations.
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Dana Carvey
Dana Thomas Carvey (born June 2, 1955) is an American actor and stand-up comedian, best known for his work as a cast member on Saturday Night Live and for playing the role of Garth in the Wayne's World movies.
Dana Carvey was born in Missoula, Montana, the son of Billie, a schoolteacher, and William Carvey, a high school business teacher. Carvey is the brother of Brad Carvey, the engineer/designer of the Video Toaster. The character Garth Algar (from the movie Wayne's World) is a loosely based portrayal of Brad. Carvey was raised Lutheran. When he was three years old, his family moved to San Carlos, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. He received his first drum kit at an early age. He attended Tierra Linda Junior High in San Carlos, Carlmont High School in Belmont, California (where he was a member of the Central Coast Section champion Cross Country team), College of San Mateo in San Mateo, California, and received his Bachelor's degree in communications from San Francisco State University.
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Danny Arndt
Danny Arndt (b. March 26, 1955 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan) is a former professional ice hockey left wing. He was selected in the second round of the 1975 NHL Amateur Draft, 35th overall, by the Chicago Blackhawks, as well as in the second round of the 1975 WHA Amateur Draft, 28th overall, by the New England Whalers. Arndt played parts of three seasons in the WHA, primarily with the Whalers. He also played briefly for the Edmonton Oilers and the Birmingham Bulls. Arndt represented Canada at the 1975 World Junior Championships.
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Dave Winer
Dave Winer (born May 2, 1955 in Brooklyn, New York City) is an American software developer, entrepreneur and writer in New York City. Winer is noted for his contributions to outliners, scripting, content management, and web services, as well as blogging and podcasting. He is the founder of the software companies Living Videotext and Userland Software, a former contributing editor for the Web magazine HotWired, the author of the Scripting Newsweblog, a former research fellow at Harvard Law School, and current visiting scholar at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.
Winer was born on May 2, 1955, in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Eve Winer, Ph.D., a school psychologist, and Leon Winer, Ph.D., a former professor of the Columbia University Graduate School of Business who died October 3, 2009. Winer is also the grandnephew of German novelist Arno Schmidt and a relative of Hedy Lamarr. He graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1972. Winer received a BA in Mathematics from Tulane University in New Orleans in 1976. In 1978 he received an MS in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
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David Alan Grier
David Alan Grier (born June 30, 1955), also known as "D.A.G." (DAG), is an American actor and comedian known for his work on the sketch comedy television show In Living Color.
Grier was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Aretas Ruth (née Dudley) and William Henry Grier, a psychiatrist and writer who co-wrote the book Black Rage. He graduated from Detroit's magnet high school, Cass Tech and received a B.A. from the University of Michigan, and an M.F.A. from the Yale School of Drama. Immediately after graduating, he landed the role of Jackie Robinson in the short-lived Broadway musical The First, directed by Martin Charnin and written by Joel Siegel.
Grier got his start on the National Public Radio radio drama adaptation of Star Wars in 1980. He was the voice of a nameless X-Wing fighter pilot during the Battle of Yavin.
Grier was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical and won the Theatre World Award for The First. He later starred as James "Thunder" Early in the hit Broadway musical Dreamgirls. Grier made his film debut in 1983 in Streamers, directed by Robert Altman. He won the Golden Lion for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival for the film. He also appeared in the Negro Ensemble Company production A Soldier's Play and reprised his role in the film version A Soldier's Story. Grier also appeared as a geology professor at the fictitious Hillman College in the show A Different World where he was a crush of several of the girls on the show including lead character Denise Huxtable played by actress Lisa Bonet.
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David Hookes
David William Hookes (3 May 1955 – 19 January 2004) was an Australian cricketer, broadcaster and coach of the Victorian cricket team. An aggressive left-handed batsman, Hookes usually batted in the middle order. His international career got off to a sensational start in the Centenary Test at Melbourne in 1977 when he hit England captain Tony Greig for five consecutive boundaries, but a combination of circumstances ensured that he never became a regular in the Australian team. He wrote in his autobiography, "I suspect history will judge me harshly as a batsman because of my modest record in 23 Tests and I can't complain about that".
For many years, he was a leading figure in Australian domestic cricket, most notably in his role as captain of South Australia (SA). Wisden called him, "a first-class destroyer of second-rate bowling ". He scored a century from 34 balls in a match against Victoria in 1982, and finished his career as the highest run-scorer in Sheffield Shield history.
An outspoken man who had several brushes with the game's officials, Hookes retired at the end of the 1991–92 season and pursued his media career. He moved to Melbourne in 1995 and broadcast on Radio 3AW. His popularity among players and his reputation for strong leadership led to his appointment as coach of the Victorian team in 2002. The team enjoyed success under his tutelage, but he died after being punched by a hotel bouncer outside a pub where he had been drinking with Victorian players following their victory in a match earlier in the day.
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Debra Winger
Debra Winger (born May 16, 1955) is an American actress. She gained critical acclaim for her performance in Urban Cowboy in 1980. She then gave Academy Award-nominated performances in An Officer and a Gentleman, Terms of Endearment and Shadowlands.
She has also been nominated for four Golden Globe awards, two BAFTA awards, an Emmy Award, and won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress for Terms of Endearment and the Tokyo International Film Festival Award for Best Actress for A Dangerous Woman.
Winger was born as Mary Debra Winger in Cleveland Heights, Ohio into an Orthodox Jewish family, to Robert Winger, a meat packer, and Ruth (née Felder), an office manager. She has stated publicly and with amusement that the Internet has a growing "snowball" of claims that she had been part of a kibbutz in Israel, whereas she was merely on a typical Israeli youth program that visited the kibbutz. After returning to the United States, she was involved in a car accident and suffered a cerebral hemorrhage; as a result, she was left partially paralyzed and blind for ten months, having initially been told that she would never see again. With time on her hands to think about her life, she decided that, if she recovered, she would move to California and become an actress. She later recovered.
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Dee Snider
Daniel "Dee" Snider (born March 15, 1955) is an American singer-songwriter, screenwriter, radio personality, and actor. Snider is most famous for his role as the frontman of the heavy metal band Twisted Sister. He was ranked 83 in the Hit Parader's Top 100 Metal Vocalist of All Time.
Born in Astoria, Queens New York, Snider grew up in nearby Baldwin and graduated from Baldwin Senior High School in 1973. His father, Bob, is a retired New York State Trooper and Nassau County court clerk while his mother, Marguerite, is a retired art teacher. As a child he sang in a church choir, several school choruses, and Baldwin HS Concert Choir. He also was selected for the All-State Chorus by singing. While in eighth grade, Snider was in a Black Sabbath cover band.
In early 1976, Snider joined Twisted Sister and became the sole songwriter of the band thereafter. The group released their first studio album, Under the Blade, in September 1982 and developed a following in the UK. Less than a year later, Twisted Sister released their sophomore effort, You Can't Stop Rock 'n' Roll. Their third album, Stay Hungry, hit shelves on May 10, 1984. This would become the band's most successful record with the hits "We're Not Gonna Take It" and "I Wanna Rock." To emphasize the "twisted sister" image, Snider adopted a trademark persona of metal-inspired drag with long blond hair, an excessive amount of eye shadow and rouge, and bright red lipstick.
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Detlef Ultsch
Detlef Ultsch (born November 7, 1955) is a former East German judoka.
He was born in Sonneberg/Thuringia. He is the first German judo world champion and became a double world middleweight champion 1979 in Paris and 1983 in Moscow.
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Dianne de Leeuw
Dianne Margaret de Leeuw (born 19 November 1955) is a Dutch figure skater. She is the 1975 World champion, the 1976 European champion, and the 1976 Olympic silver medalist.
De Leeuw was born in Orange, California, USA. Her mother is Dutch and her father had dual US/Dutch citizenship. Dianne de Leeuw skated for the Netherlands, despite having been born and having spent most of her youth in the U.S.
She was voted the female athlete of the Netherlands in 1975 by winning the World Ice Skating Championship. She was known for her classic skating style and beautiful pantyhosed legs. She was also flag carrier at the 1976 Winter Olympic Games for the Netherlands.
Following her retirement from skating, she became a coach. She has coached at the Westminster Ice Palace in Westminster, California. She married her former coach Doug Chapman and they coach skating together.
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Diddú
Sigrún Hjálmtýsdóttir (pronounced [ˈsɪɣrun ˈçaulmtʰi(ː)sˌtouhtɪr]) (born 8 August 1955), better known as Diddú (pronounced [ˈtɪtːu]), is an Icelandic soprano and songwriter. Educated at the Reykjavík College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, she began her singing career in the 1970s as a vocalist for the popular folk and pop group Spilverk Þjóðanna. She subsequently turned to classical music, particularly Lieder and operas.
Diddú's most recent album, Hvert Örstutt Spor (Each Tiny Step), was released in 2005.
The second of seven children of Hjálmtýr E. Hjálmtýsson, a bank clerk, and Margrét Matthíasdóttir, a writer, Diddú was born on 8 August 1955 and raised in Reykjavík. She studied at the Reykjavík College of Music, and afterwards at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London where she received a degree (1979–1984) and a postgraduate diploma (1985). She also had private singing lessons in Italy between 1987 and 1988.
Diddú began her singing career as a vocalist with the folk and pop group Spilverk Þjóðanna between 1975 and 1978 and made numerous recordings of folk and popular music, before turning her focus to classical music, particularly Lieder and operas. With the Icelandic Opera she has performed the parts of Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro, Gilda in Rigoletto, Papagena and the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute, Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor, Violetta in La traviata, Adina in L'elisir d'amore and Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus. She was a guest singer as Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro in Trondheim, Norway, and as Gilda in Rigoletto in Gothenburg, Sweden (1992). She has also sung the role of Olympia in Les contes d'Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann) at the Þjóðleikhúsið (Thjodleikhusid, or National Theatre of Iceland) in Reykjavík.
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Diego Abatantuono
Diego Abatantuono (Milan, May 20, 1955) is an Italian cinema and theatre actor, as well screenwriter.
Abatantuono was born in a popular quarter of the city to a father of Pugliese origin and a mother from Como. The latter worked as wardrober in a Milanese jazz and later cabaret place, the Derby, whose owner was Abatantuono's uncle.
He started to work at Derby first in lighting, then as artistical director and later as an actor. After a stint with the music-comical group Gatti di Vicolo Miracoli and several minor film roles, he returned to work at Derby where he was discovered by the famous TV showman, film director and talent-scout Renzo Arbore, who called him for a role in his movie Il Pap'occhio (1980). Here started Abantantuono's first successful career in the recurrent role of a poorly-cultivated immigrant from southern Italy (the "Terruncello"), speaking a personal form of slang which was to become a kind of brand.
His most successful performance was in the 1982 cult favorite Eccezzziunale... veramente (he also penned the screenplay), in which he portrays three different parts as a tifoso (fan) of the three main football teams of Italy, A.C. Milan, Internazionale and Juventus F.C.. He reprised all three roles for the 2006 sequel Eccezzziunale... veramente - Capitolo secondo... me, which featured cameos from A.C. Milan players Paolo Maldini, Massimo Ambrosini, Alessandro Costacurta, Dida, Andrei Shevchenko and Gennaro Gattuso. At the time the scenes featuring the players were filmed, Milan was participating in the group stage of the 2005-06 UEFA Champions League.
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Dominique Pinon
Dominique Pinon (born 4 March 1955) is a French actor.
Pinon was born in Saumur, France. His most famous roles have been in the films of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Jean-Jacques Beineix. In the theatre, he has appeared in the plays of Gildas Bourdet, Jorge Lavelli and Valère Novarina. He has also appeared in three films by British horror director Johannes Roberts, the last of these being When Evil Calls (2006), the world's first horror series for mobile phones.
He received the Molière Award for Best Actor in 2004.
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Don Ashby
Donald Allan Ashby (March 8, 1955 – May 30, 1981) was a Canadian professional ice hockey centre who played six seasons in the National Hockey League from 1975–76 until 1980–81.
Ashby was born in Kamloops, British Columbia, and played for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Colorado Rockies and Edmonton Oilers in his NHL career.
Ashby played 188 career NHL games, scoring 40 goals, 56 assists and 96 points. He was drafted sixth overall by the Maple Leafs in the 1975 NHL Amateur Draft. A few days after finishing the 1980–81 season which he played with the CHL Wichita Wind, Ashby and his wife, Terry, were involved in an automobile accident in Okanagan Valley which their vehicle was hit head-on by a pick up truck and he died a few hours later from massive internal injuries in the hospital in Kelowna, British Columbia.
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Donatella Versace
Donatella Versace (born 2 May 1955) is an Italian fashion designer and current Vice-President of the Versace Group, as well as chief designer. She owns 20 percent of the entire stock market assets of Versace. Her brother, Santo Versace, owns 30 percent. Donatella's daughter Allegra Versace inherited 50% of the company stock after the death of Gianni Versace, Donatella's brother and Versace's founder.
Versace was born in the Italian city of Reggio di Calabria, the youngest of four children in her family. Her father was a personal financier to the Italian aristocracy. An older sister, Tina, died at the age of twelve from an improperly treated tetanus infection. In the mid 1970s, Donatella followed her older brother, Giovanni ("Gianni"), to pursue knitwear design in Florence, Italy. Donatella had planned to work for her brother as Public Relations, but she was more valuable to Gianni as a "muse and critic," according to Donatella during an interview with Vogue. Through her closeness to her brother's enterprises, Donatella plunged into the fashion world. A decade later, during the 1980s, Gianni launched a perfume dedicated to her, Blonde, and gave her her own diffusion label, Versus, which remains a well-known Versace inner line.
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Doris Dörrie
Doris Dörrie (born 26 May 1955, Hanover) is a German film director, producer and author.
Dörrie completed her secondary education ("Abitur") at a humanist Gymnasium. In 1973 she began a two-year attendance in film studies, in the drama department of the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. She then studied at the New School of Social Research in New York. She worked odd jobs in cafés and as film presenter in New York's Goethe House.
In 1975, back in Germany, she began to study at the University of Television and Film Munich, and wrote film reviews for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, where she was also assistant editor. Subsequently Dörrie worked as a volunteer for various television stations, and filmed short documentaries. Her numerous works of fiction, unlike her films, were greeted with a mixed reception.[citation needed]
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Dwayne Murphy
Dwayne Keith Murphy (born on March 18, 1955, in Merced, California) is a former Major League Baseball player who spent most of his career playing for the Oakland Athletics as an outfielder. He is currently the hitting coach for the Toronto Blue Jays. He was drafted by the Oakland Athletics in 1973 and made his Major League debut in 1978. He spent nine years with the Athletics and played under managers, Billy Martin, Sparky Anderson, and Tony LaRussa. The A's made the playoffs in 1981, where they lost to the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series. In those playoffs, Murphy hit .421 and hit one home run in six games. Murphy's biggest offensive year came in 1984, where he hit 33 home runs and drove in 88 runs. Murphy also drew many walks, and had excellent speed on the base paths. He stole 26 bases in both 1980 and 1982.
He was also one of the best defensive outfielders of his time, receiving six consecutive Gold Gloves from 1980 through 1985. Murphy had a signature play where his hat blew off his head virtually every time he made a spectacular catch. It occasionally even happened on routine fly balls and it eventually became Murphy's trademark.
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Earl Campbell
Earl Christian Campbell (born March 29, 1955), nicknamed The Tyler Rose, is a former professional American Football running back. He, Paul Hornung, and O.J Simpson are the only Heisman Trophy winners to have also been first overall National Football League draft picks and members of both the Pro Football Hall of Fame and College Football Hall of Fame.
He was born in Tyler, Texas, the sixth of eleven children. His father died when he was 11 years old. He began playing football in fifth grade as a kicker, but moved to linebacker and then to running back in sixth grade. In 1973, he led the Corky Nelson-coached John Tyler High School to the Texas 4A State Championship (4A then was the largest classification in the state). Then-Oklahoma Sooners head coach Barry Switzer, who unsuccessfully recruited Campbell, said in his 1989 book that Campbell was the only player he ever saw who could have gone straight from high school to the NFL and immediately been a star.
After his retirement, Campbell has suffered from debilitating injuries that resulted from his NFL career; he had surgery to remove three of his vertebrae, and he suffers from drop foot and persistent knee pain.
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Ebiet G Ade
Ebiet G. Ade (born Abid Ghoffar Aboe Dja’far; 21 April 1954) is an Indonesian singer and songwriter. His musical styles are pop, ballad and country. He has released 21 studio albums and 25 compilation albums.
Ebiet G. Ade was born in Wonodadi, Banjarnegara, Central Java on 21 April 1954. He lived in Yogyakarta since elementary school. During high school, he joined Pelajar Islam Indonesia. In 1971, he associated with artists Yogyakarta, including Emha Ainun Nadjib. He was interested in poetry and wanted to be a poet. However, he was unable to read poems properly. He instead sang his poems after adding melodies.
In 1979, he released his first studio album, Camellia I. His voice is similar to John Denver and Said Effendi. Notable songs from this album were "Lagu untuk Sebuah Nama" ("Song for a Name"), "Pesta" ("Party") and "Camellia". The album was sold more than 2 million copies.
In 1995, Kupu-Kupu Kertas (Paper Butterflies) was released. In this album, Ebiet was helped by his fellow musicians, including Billy J. Budiardjo, Erwin Gutawa, Ian Antono and Purwacaraka. Rock music is dominant in this album.
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Ed Sullivan
Edward Vincent "Ed" Sullivan (September 28, 1901 – October 13, 1974) was an American entertainment writer and television host, best known as the presenter of the TV variety show The Ed Sullivan Show. The show was broadcast from 1948 to 1971 (a total of 23 years), which made it one of the longest-running variety shows in U.S. broadcast history.
In 1996, Ed Sullivan was ranked #50 on TV Guide's "50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time".
Sullivan was born in New York City, New York, the son of Elizabeth F. (née Smith) and Peter Arthur Sullivan, a customs house employee. He was of Irish descent. A former boxer, Sullivan began his media work as a newspaper sportswriter for The New York Evening Graphic. When Walter Winchell, one of the original gossip columnists and the most powerful entertainment reporter of his day, left the newspaper for the Hearst syndicate, Sullivan took over as theatre columnist. His theatre column was later carried in The New York Daily News. His column, 'Little Old New York', concentrated on Broadway shows and gossip, as Winchell's had and, like Winchell, he also did show business news broadcasts on radio. Again echoing Winchell, Sullivan took on yet another medium in 1933 by writing and starring in the film Mr. Broadway, which has him guiding the audience around New York nightspots to meet entertainers and celebrities. Sullivan soon became a powerful starmaker in the entertainment world himself, becoming one of Winchell's main rivals, setting the El Morocco nightclub in New York as his unofficial headquarters against Winchell's seat of power at the nearby Stork Club. Sullivan continued writing for The News throughout his broadcasting career and his popularity long outlived that of Winchell.
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Eddie Jobson
Edwin "Eddie" Jobson (born 28 April 1955) is an English keyboardist and violinist noted for his use of synthesizers. He has been a member of several progressive rock bands, including Curved Air, Roxy Music, U.K., and Jethro Tull. He was also part of Frank Zappa's band in 1976-77. Aside from his keyboard work Jobson has also gained acclaim for his violin playing.
Jobson was born in Billingham, Stockton-on-Tees, England.
He began playing the piano at age 7 and violin at age 8. Later he attended Bede Hall Grammar School, leaving at age 16. At that point he joined the band Fat Grapple, playing locally in venues such as Redcar Jazz Club. It was at this venue that they played in support of Curved Air, which Jobson joined the following year.
At this time Jobson fronted Fat Grapple on electric violin, opening with a rendition of the current hit piece "Jig-a-Jig". The band played original compositions and were well regarded, but failed to break out beyond the Newcastle area. Nonetheless, Jobson's playing won him a place in Curved Air, performing on their 1973 album Air Cut, which included his composition Metamorphosis.
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Edwin Moses
Edwin Corley Moses (born August 31, 1955) is a former American track and field athlete, who won gold medals in the 400 m hurdles at the 1976 and 1984 Olympics. Between 1977 and 1987, Moses won 107 consecutive finals (122 consecutive races) and set the world record in his event four times. In addition to his running, Moses was also an innovative reformer in the areas of Olympic eligibility and drug testing. In 2000, he was elected the first Chairman of the Laureus World Sports Academy, an international service organization of world-class athletes.
Moses was born in Dayton, Ohio. Having accepted an academic scholarship to Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, he majored in physics and industrial engineering, while competing for the school track team. Morehouse did not have its own track, so he used public high school facilities around the city to train. Initially, Moses competed mostly in the 120-yard hurdles and 440-yard dash. Before March 1976, he ran only one 400 m hurdles race, but once he began focusing on the event he made remarkable progress. His trademark technique was to take a constant 13 steps between each of the hurdles, pulling away in the second half of the race as his rivals changed their stride pattern. That summer, he qualified for the US team for the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. In his first international meet, Moses won the gold medal and set a world record of 47.63 seconds.
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Efim Zelmanov
Efim Isaakovich Zelmanov (Russian: Ефи́м Исаа́кович Зе́льманов; born 7 September 1955) is a Russian mathematician, known for his work on combinatorial problems in nonassociative algebra and group theory, including his solution of the restricted Burnside problem. He was awarded a Fields Medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Zürich in 1994.
Zelmanov was born into a Jewish family in Khabarovsk, Soviet Union (now in Russia). He obtained doctoral degree at Novosibirsk State University in 1980, and a higher degree at Leningrad State University in 1985. He had a position in Novosibirsk until 1987, when he left the Soviet Union.
In 1990 he moved to the United States, becoming a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He was at the University of Chicago in 1994/5, then at Yale University. As of 2011, he is a professor at the University of California, San Diego and a Distinguished Professor at the Korea Institute for Advanced Study.
Zelmanov's early work was on Jordan algebras in the case of infinite dimensions. He was able to show that Glennie's identity in a certain sense generates all identities that hold. He then showed that the Engel identity for Lie algebras implies nilpotence, in the case of infinite dimensions.
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Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; born 21 April 1926) is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms, and head of the 54-member Commonwealth of Nations. She is also head of state of the Crown Dependencies.
Elizabeth was born in London, and educated privately at home. Her father acceded to the throne as George VI in 1936 on the abdication of his brother Edward VIII. She began to undertake public duties during the Second World War, in which she served in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. On the death of her father in 1952, she became Head of the Commonwealth and queen regnant of seven independent Commonwealth countries: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon. Her coronation service in 1953 was the first to be televised. Between 1956 and 1992, the number of her realms varied as territories gained independence and some realms became republics. Today, in addition to the first four aforementioned countries, Elizabeth is Queen of Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, and Saint Kitts and Nevis.
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Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977) was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King".
Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, Presley moved to Memphis, Tennessee, with his family at the age of 13. He began his career there in 1954, working with Sun Records owner Sam Phillips, who wanted to bring the sound of African American music to a wider audience. Accompanied by guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, Presley was the most important popularizer of rockabilly, an uptempo, backbeat-driven fusion of country and rhythm and blues. RCA Victor acquired his contract in a deal arranged by Colonel Tom Parker, who would manage the singer for over two decades. Presley's first RCA single, "Heartbreak Hotel", released in January 1956, was a number one hit. He became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll with a series of network television appearances and chart-topping records. His energized interpretations of songs, many from African American sources, and his uninhibited performance style made him enormously popular—and controversial. In November 1956, he made his film debut in Love Me Tender.
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Emmett Till
Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was an African-American boy who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman. Till was from Chicago, Illinois, visiting his relatives in the Mississippi Delta region when he spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, the married proprietor of a small grocery store. Several nights later, Bryant's husband Roy and his half-brother J. W. Milam arrived at Till's great-uncle's house where they took Till, transported him to a barn, beat him and gouged out one of his eyes, before shooting him through the head and disposing of his body in the Tallahatchie River, weighting it with a 70-pound (32 kg) cotton gin fan tied around his neck with barbed wire. His body was discovered and retrieved from the river three days later.
Till was returned to Chicago and his mother, who had raised him mostly by herself, insisted on a public funeral service with an open casket to show the world the brutality of the killing. Tens of thousands attended his funeral or viewed his casket and images of his mutilated body were published in black magazines and newspapers, rallying popular black support and white sympathy across the U.S. Intense scrutiny was brought to bear on the condition of black civil rights in Mississippi, with newspapers around the country critical of the state. Although initially local newspapers and law enforcement officials decried the violence against Till and called for justice, they soon began responding to national criticism by defending Mississippians, which eventually transformed into support for the killers. The trial attracted a vast amount of press attention. Bryant and Milam were acquitted of Till's kidnapping and murder, but months later, protected against double jeopardy, they admitted to killing him in a magazine interview. Till's murder is noted as a pivotal event motivating the African-American Civil Rights Movement.
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Engelbert Zaschka
Engelbert Zaschka (September 1, 1895 in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany – June 26, 1955 in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany) was a German chief engineer, chief designer and inventor. Zaschka became one of the first German helicopter pioneers. He is a striking representative of the Rotationsflugzeug (Zaschka calls it "rotating airplane"). Chief Engineer Engelbert Zaschka pursued in 1929 in Berlin, the approach of the folding-Zaschka three-wheeler. This city car concept was aimed to be cost effective and space saving by the vehicle could be folded after use sparingly. In 1934 Engelbert Zaschka completed a large human-powered aircraft.
In 1927 Engelbert Zaschka of Berlin built a helicopter, equipped with two rotors, in which a gyroscope was used to increase stability and serves as an energy accumulator for a gliding flight to make a landing. Gliding in this case means a straight descent. He wanted to develop an efficient propeller drive. A swivelling propeller at the rear provided propulsion and rudder control. The machine was a combination of an autogyro and a helicopter. The principal advantage of the machine, Zaschka says, is in its ability to remain motionless in the air for any length of time and to descend in a vertical line, so that a landing may be accomplished on the flat roof of a large house. In appearance, the helicopter does not differ much from the ordinary monoplane, but the carrying wings revolve around the body.
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Eric Schmidt
Eric Emerson Schmidt (born April 27, 1955) is an American software engineer, businessman and the current executive chairman of Google. From 2001 to 2011, he served as the chief executive of Google.
Additionally, Schmidt was a former member on the board of directors for Apple Inc. and sat on the boards of trustees for both Carnegie Mellon University and Princeton University.
Along with Mike Lesk, Schmidt co-authored the lex analysis software program for the Unix computer operating system.
Schmidt was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States. After graduating from Yorktown High School, Schmidt attended Princeton University where he earned a B.S. in electrical engineering in 1976. At the University of California, Berkeley, he earned an MS in 1979 for designing and implementing a network linking the campus computer center, the CS and the EECS departments, and a PhD in 1982 in EECS with a dissertation about the problems of managing distributed software development and tools for solving these problems. He was joint author of lex (a lexical analyzer and an important tool for compiler construction). He taught at Stanford Graduate School of Business as a part time professor.
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Etsuko Shihomi
Etsuko Shihomi (志穂美 悦子, Shihomi Etsuko?), also known as Sue Shiomi, (born October 29, 1955 in Okayama City, Japan as Etsuko Shiomi (塩見 悦子, Shiomi Etsuko?)) is a Japanese actress who appeared in several Japanese martial arts films of the 1970s and 80s. She was a member of Sonny Chiba's "Japan Action Club" and appeared in several films with Chiba, Hiroyuki Sanada, and other members of the JAC. Her films include the Sister Street Fighter series (1974), Dragon Princess (1976), Message from Space (1978), Shogun's Ninja (1980), Roaring Fire (1982), and Legend of the Eight Samurai (1983).
She met singer-actor Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi on the set of the Otoko wa Tsurai yo film Tora-san's Bluebird Fantasy (1986), and retired from acting after marrying him the following year. Their daughter is actress Ayane Nagabuchi.
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Femi Pedro
Olufemi Pedro (born 29 January 1955 in Lagos) was the Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Nigeria from 2003 until 2007. Prior to his election alongside Bola Tinubu, he was a part-owner and the Chief Executive Officer of First Atlantic Bank, now FinBank.
Early Childhood
A scion of the renowned Sanusi Adeyinka Pedro family of Bambose Street Lagos Island fame, Femi Pedro was born to late Pa Olajide Pedro a retired officer of the defunct Western Nigeria Marketing Board, Ikeja and late Mrs. Modupe Pedro (née Abayomi) on January 29, 1955. Though not financially endowed, Pa Pedro was widely regarded as a disciplinarian who understood the importance of education, and made it a core value to ensure that attendance of school was a family policy. Consequently, he was enrolled at St. Stephen Primary School, Adeniji Adele in Lagos Island. This brought an end to Femi’s penchant for following Egungun and Igunnu Masquerades around the streets of Lagos with a major determination to graduate into an Eyo masquerade as he and his other childhood friends had the flair for participating in the famous Lagos heritage festival- an event which he loves to watch till this very day.
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Fernand Léger
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of Cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style. His boldly simplified treatment of modern subject matter has caused him to be regarded as a forerunner of Pop art.
Léger was born in Argentan, Orne, Basse-Normandie, where his father raised cattle. Fernand Léger initially trained as an architect from 1897–1899 before moving in 1900 to Paris, where he supported himself as an architectural draftsman. After military service in Versailles,Yvelines in 1902–1903, he enrolled at the School of Decorative Arts; he also applied to the École des Beaux-Arts but was rejected. He nevertheless attended the Beaux-Arts as a non-enrolled student, spending what he described as "three empty and useless years" studying with Gérôme and others, while also studying at the Académie Julian. He began to work seriously as a painter only at the age of 25. At this point his work showed the influence of Impressionism, as seen in Le Jardin de ma mère (My Mother's Garden) of 1905, one of the few paintings from this period that he did not later destroy. A new emphasis on drawing and geometry appeared in Léger's work after he saw the Cézanne retrospective at the Salon d'Automne in 1907.
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Flip Saunders
Phillip "Flip" Saunders (born February 23, 1955) is a former American basketball head coach. He previously coached the Washington Wizards, Detroit Pistons and the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Saunders was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was an All-American basketball player at Cuyahoga Heights High School in suburban Cleveland.[citation needed] In his senior season, 1973, he was named Ohio's Class A High School Basketball Player of the Year, leading the state in scoring average with 32.0 points per game.[citation needed] At the University of Minnesota, he started 101 of his 103 career contests and as a senior, teamed with Ray Williams, Mychal Thompson, Kevin McHale. Together they led the Gophers to a school-best 24–3 record.
Saunders began his coaching career at Golden Valley Lutheran College where he compiled a 92–13 record, including a perfect 56–0 mark at home, in four seasons. In 1981, he became an assistant coach at his alma mater, Minnesota, and helped guide the Golden Gophers to the Big Ten championship that season. After five seasons at Minnesota, he became an assistant coach at the University of Tulsa where he worked for two seasons before heading to the pro ranks.
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Florence Easton
Florence Easton (25 October 1882 - 13 August 1955) was a popular English dramatic soprano in the early 20th century. She was one of the most versatile singers of all time. She sang more than 100 parts, covering a wide range of styles and periods, from Mozart, Meyerbeer, Gounod, Verdi, Wagner, Puccini, Strauss, Schreker and Krenek. In Wagner she sang virtually every soprano part, large and small from Senta onwards, with the exception of the Götterdämmerung Brünnhilde. She described herself as "lyric dramatic soprano", which seems barely adequate in relation to the range of types of role in which she excelled. Her high international reputation, founded mainly in Germany and North America, was almost unique for a British singer of her time. She could move easily through all stages from the light coloratura to the Hochdramatische, from girlish romanticism to powerful Wagnerian and Straussian drama. The voice could be light and airy, gently melancholic or intensely passionate. The involvement in the character of the role was total. John Steane has suggested that "This great strength of hers was also, in a strange way, a source of weakness. She sang so many roles very well that she never quite became identified with any of these". There is no connection between Florence Easton and the singer Robert Easton, born 1898 in Sunderland.
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Floyd Bannister
Floyd Franklin Bannister (born June 10, 1955 in Pierre, South Dakota) is a former Major League Baseball left-handed pitcher. During a 15-year baseball career, he pitched for the Houston Astros (1977–78), Seattle Mariners (1979–82), Chicago White Sox (1983–87), Kansas City Royals (1988–89), California Angels (1991), and the Texas Rangers (1992).
In 1973, as a high school senior, Bannister led his Kennedy High School team to a state championship, pitching 15 wins and 0 losses with a season ERA of 0.00.
Bannister went on to attend Arizona State University, where he was named college player of the year by The Sporting News as a junior. This led to his selection by the Houston Astros as the first overall pick of the 1976 amateur draft.
After pitching just seven games in the minors in 1976, Bannister opened the 1977 season with the Astros. He appeared in 24 games with an 8-9 record and a 4.04 earned run average. He spent one more season with the Astros before being traded to the Seattle Mariners. He spent four years in Seattle, with his last year there being perhaps his best. Bannister also played in the 1982 All-Star Game, and set a career high with 209 strikeouts.
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Franco Uncini
Franco Uncini (born March 9, 1955) is an Italian former Grand Prix motorcycle road racing World Champion.
Uncini was born at Recanati, province of Macerata. He made his debut as professional motorcycle road racer in the 750cc class with Laverda, moving later to Ducati, with whom he earned various titles as Italian champion. His first year in the Grand Prix World Championship was with Yamaha in 1976, in both the 250cc and the 350cc classes. The following year he continued to race in both classes, this time with the Harley-Davidson team, winning two Grands Prix in 250cc (Grand Prix of Nations and Czechoslovakia) and finishing second in championship behind Mario Lega. However, his quarrelsome relationship with teammate Walter Villa forced him to move back to Yamaha.
After some disappointing years with a privateer Yamaha team, in 1979 he bought a Suzuki and launched a private team of his own in the 500cc class. He was the top-ranking privateer both in 1979 and 1980, with 5th and 4th place finishes. Accidents hindered his 1981 season, but after Marco Lucchinelli left Suzuki to join Honda, Suzuki offered Uncini an official factory-sponsored race bike run by Roberto Gallina's team. Finally, with a competitive vehicle, Uncini won the World Championship in 1982, scoring five victories (GPs of Austria, Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Great Britain and GP of Nations). He was the last Italian rider to win the 500cc crown until Valentino Rossi won in 2001.
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Fred Norris
Eric Fred Norris (born Fred Leo Nukis; July 9, 1955) is a Latvian-American radio personality known for being the longest-tenured staff member of The Howard Stern Show aside from Stern himself. He first met Stern while working at WCCC-FM, a radio station in Hartford, Connecticut.
Born in Willimantic, Connecticut, Norris is the son of Valija and Henry Nukis who were Latvian immigrants. Fred was raised in Manchester, Connecticut. By the time Fred, the second of two sons, was born, his parents' marriage was already on the ropes. His biological father left home when Fred was five, but those first few years were turbulent. "There was always tension and rage," Norris remembers. "My father had an alcohol problem. When Dad came home, you hid in the closet because there was always something going on you'd rather not be a part of." Fred spent most of his early childhood alone. When his older brother wasn't using Fred as a human punching bag, the brother wanted nothing to do with him. So Fred would escape by reading books, taking long bicycle rides, or watching lots of afternoon TV reruns (whence came his encyclopedic knowledge of trashy fifties TV). "I'd like to state for the record that every person on this show of Howard's, even Robin, at least had a father figure to guide them," he says. "Me, I was on my own."
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Fumi Hirano
Fumi Hirano (平野 文, Hirano Fumi?, born April 23, 1955 in Tokyo) is a Japanese voice actress and essayist who is best known for voicing Lum Invader in the anime series Urusei Yatsura. Fumi attended Tamagawa University in Machida, Tokyo where she graduated with a degree in Theatre from the Department of Fine Arts in the College of Humanities. She is employed by the talent management and entertainment firm Horipuro.
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Garegin Nzhdeh
Garegin Ter-Harutyunyan (Armenian: Գարեգին Տեր-Հարությունյան) better known by his nome de guerre Garegin Nzhdeh (Armenian: Գարեգին Նժդեհ) (1 January 1886, Kznut, Nakhichevan, Russian Empire – 21 December 1955, Vladimir, Soviet Union) was an Armenian statesman, fedayee, political thinker, and, as a member of the ARF, was involved in revolutionary activities in Armenia, Bulgaria and Russia, and, as a member of the Armenische Legion of Wehrmacht, in World War II.
Nzhdeh was born on 1 January 1886 in the village of Kznut, Nakhichevan. He was the youngest of four children born to a local village priest. He lost his father, Priest Yeghishe, in his childhood. Nzhdeh got his early education at a Russian school in Nakhichevan City. He continued his higher education at the Tiflis Russian Gymnasium school. At the age of 17 he joined the Armenian liberal movement but shortly after, he moved to St. Petersburg to continue his education in the local university. After two years of studying at the Faculty of Law, he left the St. Petersburg University and returned to the Caucasus in order to participate in the Armenian national movements against the Russian and the Ottoman Empires.
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Gary Sinise
Gary Alan Sinise ( /səˈniːs/; born March 17, 1955) is an American actor, film director and musician. During his career, Sinise has won various awards including an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1992, Sinise directed, and played the role of George Milton in the successful film adaptation of Of Mice and Men. Sinise was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1994 for his role as Lt. Dan Taylor in Forrest Gump. He won a Golden Globe Award for his role in Truman, as Harry S. Truman. In 1996, he played a corrupt police officer in the dramatic hit Ransom, Detective Jimmy Shaker. In 1998, Sinise was awarded an Emmy Award for the television film George Wallace, a portrayal of the late George C. Wallace. Since 2004, Sinise has starred in CBS's CSI: NY as Detective Mac Taylor.
Sinise was born in Blue Island, Illinois, the son of Mylles S. (née Alsip; b. 1932) and Robert L. Sinise (b. 1931), the latter of whom was a film editor. He is of part Italian ancestry (from his paternal grandfather). He attended Highland Park High School in Highland Park, Illinois. In 1974, Sinise and two friends, Terry Kinney and Jeff Perry, founded the Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Since its founding, Steppenwolf has showcased the talents of such notable actors as Joan Allen, Kevin Anderson, Gary Cole, Ethan Hawke, Glenne Headly, John Mahoney, John Malkovich, Laurie Metcalf, Martha Plimpton, Jim True-Frost and most recently William Petersen. At Steppenwolf, Sinise honed his acting and directing skills, received a Joseph Jefferson Award for his direction of Lyle Kessler's play Orphans, that took him from Chicago, to New York City to London's West End, and worked on more than thirty of the company's productions.
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George Alagiah
George Maxwell Alagiah OBE ( /ˌæləˈɡaɪə/; born 22 November 1955 in Colombo, Ceylon) is a British newsreader, journalist and television news presenter.
Since 3 December 2007, he has been the sole presenter of the BBC News at Six and has also been the main presenter of GMT on BBC World News since its launch on 1 February 2010. He is also the main relief presenter for the BBC's flagship bulletin BBC News at Ten and has held this role since its launch in 2000, making him the longest serving presenter of the flagship news programme.
Alagiah's parents, Donald Alagiah, an engineer, and Therese, were Tamils. In 1961 his parents moved to Ghana in West Africa, where he did his primary education at Christ the King International School. He spent his secondary education at St John's College, an independent Catholic boarding school in Portsmouth, England, after which he read politics at Van Mildert College, Durham University. Whilst at Durham, he wrote for and became editor of the student newspaper Palatinate and was a sabbatical officer of Durham Students' Union. He worked on South Magazine from 1982 until joining the BBC, where he was the Developing World correspondent based in London and then Southern Africa correspondent in Johannesburg.
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George Platt Lynes
George Platt Lynes (15 April 1907 – 6 December 1955) was an American fashion and commercial photographer.
Born in East Orange, New Jersey to Adelaide (Sparkman) and Joseph Russell Lynes he spent his childhood in New Jersey but attended the Berkshire School in Massachusetts. He was sent to Paris in 1925 with the idea of better preparing him for college. His life was forever changed by the circle of friends that he would meet there. Gertrude Stein, Glenway Wescott, Monroe Wheeler and those that he met through them opened an entirely new world to the young artist.
He returned to the United States with the idea of a literary career and he even opened a bookstore in Englewood, New Jersey in 1927. He first became interested in photography not with the idea of a career, but to take photographs of his friends and display them in his bookstore.
Returning to France the next year in the company of Wescott and Wheeler, he traveled around Europe for the next several years, always with his camera at hand. He developed close friendships within a larger circle of artists including Jean Cocteau and Julien Levy, the art dealer and critic. Levy would exhibit his photographs in his gallery in New York City in 1932 and Lynes would open his studio there that same year. He was soon receiving commissions from Harper's Bazaar, Town & Country and Vogue including a cover with perhaps the first supermodel, Lisa Fonssagrives.
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George Tokoro
George Tokoro (所ジョージ, Tokoro Jōji?) (January 26, 1955 - ) is the stage name of Japanese tarento, singer-songwriter, comedian, Master of Ceremonies, and essayist Takayuki Haga (芳賀 隆之, Haga Takayuki?). Born in Tokorozawa, Saitama, he attended Takushoku University's Commercial Science class.
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Gerrie Coetzee
Gerhardus Christian Coetzee (born April 8, 1955 in Boksburg), better known as Gerrie Coetzee, is a South African former boxer. He made history twice: he was the first boxer from the African continent ever to fight for, and win, a world heavyweight title. His nickname was The Bionic Hand, because he always had trouble with his right hand, and had a few corrective items put in it during three surgeries. His Afrikaans nickname was "Seer Handjies" or little sore hands, named so by fellow South African boxing great Kallie Knoetze.
Coetzee started boxing professionally on the night of September 14, 1974, when he beat 19 fight veteran and fellow South African Christian Roos by a decision in four. He followed that win with 21 consecutive wins to reach a record of 22-0 before fighting for the WBA heavyweight title for the first time. Among those wins was one over Roos in a rematch, which Coetzee won by a knockout in three rounds; wins over former world title challengers Ron Stander, Randy Stephens and Pierre Fourie; a South African Heavyweight championship victory against amateur rival Kallie Knoetze (unanimous decision in 10) as well as a first round knockout of former world heavyweight champion Leon Spinks. With exception of the Spinks bout, held at Monte Carlo, the rest of Coetzee's fights during his early run were held in his native South Africa.
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Gillian Taylforth
Gillian Taylforth (born 14 August 1955 in London) is an English actress. She is best known for her roles as Kathy Mitchell (formerly Kathy Beale) on the BBC soap opera, EastEnders (1985–2000) and as Jackie Pascoe-Webb on ITV's Footballers Wives (2002–2006), but more recently as Sgt. Nikki Wright in ITV's The Bill (2006–2008). Away from television acting, she has appeared in film during her early career, and has presented on ITV's Loose Women as well as appearing as a celebrity contestant on Strictly Come Dancing in 2008.
Taylforth's relationship with Geoff Knight spanned 23 years and was heavily focused upon in the media due to his reported abusive behaviour. In 1994, Taylforth sued The Sun newspaper for libel after they ran a story claiming she had been caught by police performing a sexual act on Knight in their car; she lost the court case.
Taylforth started her career in the 1970s and attended the Anna Scher Theatre School in London. Before securing her big acting break Taylforth worked as a secretary between minor acting roles. Early television appearances include roles in the BBC comedy Hi-de-Hi!, Shelley, Play for Today, On Safari, Minder, Sink or Swim and The Rag Trade. In 1980 she won the role of Sherry in the film The Long Good Friday, which proved to be extremely successful at the box office.
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Gish Jen
Gish Jen, born Lillian Jen (Chinese: 任璧蓮; pinyin: Rén Bìlián) in 1955, is a contemporary American writer.
Gish Jen is a second generation Chinese American. Her parents emigrated from China in the 1940s, her mother from Shanghai and her father from Yixing. Born in Long Island, New York, she grew up in Queens, then Yonkers, then Scarsdale. Her birth name is Lillian, but during her high school years she acquired the nickname Gish, named for actress Lillian Gish.
She graduated from Harvard University in 1977 with a BA in English, and later attended Stanford Business School (1979-1980), but dropped out in favor of the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she earned her MFA in fiction in 1983.
Several of her short stories have been reprinted in The Best American Short Stories. Her piece "Birthmates", was selected as one of The Best American Short Stories of The Century by John Updike. Her works include four novels: Typical American, Mona in the Promised Land, The Love Wife, and World and Town. She has also written a collection of short fiction, Who's Irish?.
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Glenn Danzig
Glenn Danzig (born Glenn Allen Anzalone; June 23, 1955) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, entrepreneur, and a progenitor of the horror punk subgenre of music. He is a founder of bands the Misfits, Samhain, and Danzig. He also owns the Evilive record label and Verotik, an adult-oriented comic book publishing company.
Danzig's musical career, beginning in the mid-1970s, encompasses genres such as punk rock, heavy metal, industrial, blues and classical music. He has written songs for other musicians, including Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison.
As a singer, he is noted for his baritone vocal range and distinctive style, which has been compared to that of Elvis Presley, Jim Morrison and Howlin' Wolf. Danzig has also cited Bill Medley as a vocal influence. As an author, he is known for his fascination with horror, gore, occultic, erotic and religious themes.
Danzig was born Glenn Allen Anzalone, the third of four sons born to a Protestant family of Italian, German, and Scottish heritage in Lodi, New Jersey. His father was a television repairman and a United States Marine Corps veteran of World War II and the Korean War. His mother worked at a record store. Danzig and his family also spent some time living in Revere, Massachusetts. Danzig began listening to heavy music at an early age, and has described Black Sabbath, Blue Cheer and The Doors as being among his early musical influences.
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Glenne Headly
Glenne Aimee Headly (born March 13, 1955) is an American actress of film, stage and television.
Glenne Headly was born in New London, Connecticut and her first years were spent living under the care of her mother in San Francisco and her maternal grandmother in Pennsylvania. Early in her elementary school years, she joined her mother who was then living in Greenwich Village, New York City and grew up having a rich cultural life. She studied ballet at the Robert Joffrey school of ballet and modern dance at the Martha Graham Studios. In New York, she attended public schools, including P.S. 41, where she was placed in an IGC class (for intellectually gifted children). It was here that a fifth grade teacher introduced her to the work of Jacques Cousteau in an oceanography class, spawning a lifelong interest for her in preserving the natural world. She later went on to the High School of Performing Arts, majoring in drama and graduated with honors.
Rather than continuing to study the dramatic arts in college, she opted to spend her freshman year at a small American college in Switzerland. This proved to be an inspirational place and she stayed on, holding several small scholarships in order to do so. In her freshman year she was on the High Honors list together with Jean-Charles Cartier and former Dockers President Judy Vlastnik. She was able to graduate in the winter of her senior year, majoring in English and American Literature as well as Art History. Her "working" scholarships were delivering student mail and partnering with one of her professors, to put on one play per quarter for which students would receive credit. She also received a small stipend for academic excellence.
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Glynis Barber
Glynis Barber (born 25 October 1955) is a South African actress of Afrikaner descent, born and brought up in South Africa. She was born Glynis van der Riet. When she was five years old, her parents divorced, and she and her mother moved to Johannesburg. She is best known for her portrayal as Sgt. Harriet Makepeace in the British police drama Dempsey & Makepeace.
She studied at the Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts. Acting since 1978, her popular breakthrough came in 1981 with her role as Soolin in the BBC science fiction television series Blake's 7.
In 1982 she took the title role in the television series Jane playing a World War II heroine. This series was filmed against a blue screen allowing for the addition of a cartoon background, an experimental technique in its day. However, Barber is best known for her mid-1980s role of Sgt. Harriet Makepeace in the British police drama Dempsey & Makepeace, where she met her future husband, Michael Brandon.
Since 1987, Barber has appeared frequently in plays, films and television series. She also starred in the LWT drama series Night and Day as Fiona Brake. In 2006 she joined the cast of ITV soap, Emmerdale, playing the character of DCI Grace Barraclough, investigating the death of Tom King on Christmas Day. She exited the soap in September 2007, when her character was killed.
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Gordon Liu
Gordon Liu (劉家輝; Lau Kar-Fai; pinyin: Liu Jiahui, formerly spelled Liu Chia-Hui, birth name Xian Jinxi; born August 22, 1955) is a Chinese martial arts film actor. He became famous for playing the lead in The 36th Chamber of Shaolin and its sequels. He also played Pai Mei in Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004), and Johnny Mo in Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003), the head general of the Crazy 88, O-Ren Ishii's (Lucy Liu) personal army. Some fans call him the "Master Killer" after the alternate title to The 36th Chamber of Shaolin. He is also known to Indian fans as "Hojo", from Warner Bros' first Bollywood movie, Chandni Chowk to China.
Liu was born in Guangdong Province, China. He trained at Lau Cham's martial arts school of Hung Gar discipline, which descended from Wong Fei Hung's grand student (father to Lau Kar Leung). Liu is often wrongly cited as being the adopted son of Lau Cham, and adoptive brother of famed directors / actors Lau Kar-leung (Liu Chia-Liang) and Lau Kar-wing (Liu Chia-Yung). In fact, he was not adopted by the Lau brothers' family, he is actually just Lau Cham's godson. In his youth, he skipped school to train in Chinese martial arts without his parents' knowledge. Lau Cham's wife assisted in his training and due to the friendship and respect he felt for his sifu and his wife, he took on the name Lau Kar Fai. As he grew up, he found a job as a shipping clerk to make ends meet. His interests had always been towards martial arts and he was eventually offered a role by Lau Kar Leung. His name prior to being adopted was Xian Jinxi (冼錦熙).
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Grace Hightower
Grace Hightower De Niro (born April 7, 1955) is an American philanthropist, actress and singer.
Hightower began a career in modeling after being spotted while working as a flight attendant for TWA.
In 2010 the New York Women’s Foundation, established to help low-income women, honored Hightower for her work and as a role model for women. She is an active socialite, and her gala 55th birthday party was covered in Vogue by André Leon Talley.
She presented the Pratt Institute's Creative Spirit Award to director Lee Daniels. Hightower worked with Daniels on the film Precious, in which she played a social worker and contributed the song "Somethin's Comin' My Way" to the soundtrack. She previously played a minor role on an episode of NYPD Blue.
Hightower is the wife of actor Robert De Niro, whom she met in London in 1987 and married in 1997. The couple's early marital troubles played out in the press, with a 1999 divorce filing by Robert De Niro and a 2001 custody case over their son Elliot; however, the divorce was never finalized and in 2004 they renewed their vows. In December 2011, Hightower and De Niro welcomed a daughter, Helen Grace, born via surrogate.
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Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes (Greek: Ἕλληνες, [ˈelines]), are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and other regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world.
Greek colonies and communities have been historically established in most corners of the Mediterranean, but Greeks have always been centered around the Aegean Sea, where the Greek language has been spoken since antiquity. Until the early 20th century, Greeks were uniformly distributed between the Greek peninsula, the western coast of Asia Minor, Pontus, Egypt, Cyprus and Constantinople; many of these regions coincided to a large extent with the borders of the Byzantine Empire of the late 11th century and the Eastern Mediterranean areas of the ancient Greek colonization.
In the aftermath of the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), a large-scale population exchange between Greece and Turkey transferred and confined Christians from Turkey, except Constantinople (effectively ethnic Greeks) into the borders of the modern Greek state and Cyprus. Other ethnic Greek populations can be found from southern Italy to the Caucasus and in diaspora communities in a number of other countries. Today, most Greeks are officially registered as members of the Greek Orthodox Church.
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Greg Norman
Gregory John Norman AO (born 10 February 1955) is an Australian professional golfer and entrepreneur who spent 331 weeks as the world's Number 1 ranked golfer in the 1980s and 1990s. He is nicknamed The Great White Shark or sometimes simply The Shark – a reference to Norman's blond hair, size, aggressive golf style and the shark inhabiting Australian waters.
Norman was born in Mount Isa, Queensland, Australia to Merv and Toini Norman. His mother was the daughter of a Finnish carpenter, and his father an electrical engineer. As a youth, he played rugby and cricket and was a keen surfer. His mother was a fine golfer with a single-figure handicap. Norman began playing golf at 15, somewhat late for a world-class player, and within two years was playing to a scratch handicap. Norman attended Townsville Grammar School in Townsville, Queensland (enrolled 1964) then moved on to Aspley State High School on the north side of Brisbane.
At the age of 20, Norman served as assistant professional under Billy McWilliam OAM at Beverley Park Golf Club in Sydney, New South Wales. His professional career had begun as Charlie Earp's trainee in the Royal Queensland Golf Club pro shop, earning $A38 a week.
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Gregg Jarrett
Gregory Walter "Gregg" Jarrett (born April 7, 1955) is an American news anchor for Fox News Channel.
Joining the network in November 2002, he co-anchors weekend newscasts with Julie Banderas and serves as a substitute anchor weekdays. He graduated magna cum laude from Claremont Men's College in 1977 and received a law degree in 1980 from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. He was a defense attorney in San Francisco for several years with the law firm of Gordon & Rees LLP.
Prior to Fox News, Jarrett worked at MSNBC as an anchor and correspondent. While at MSNBC, he covered many stories including the September 11th Attacks, Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election Controversy.
Jarrett also worked at Court TV (the network now known as truTV) for eight years, serving as the anchor of Prime Time Justice, in addition to covering many different trials on the network, and hosting the network's nationally syndicated half-hour broadcast magazine show, Inside America’s Courts. He was a main anchor for the O.J. Simpson double murder trial on location in Los Angeles in 1995.
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Griffin Dunne
Griffin Dunne (born June 8, 1955) is an American actor and film director.
Dunne was born Thomas Griffin Dunne in New York City, New York, the son of Ellen Beatriz (née Griffin) Dunne and Dominick Dunne. His mother founded the victims' rights organization Justice for Homicide Victims and his father was a producer, writer, and actor. He is the older brother of slain actress Dominique Dunne and the nephew of John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion.
From 1989-95, he was married to American actress Carey Lowell, with whom he has one daughter, named Hannah Dunne.
In July 2009, he married his second wife, Anna Bingemann, an Australian stylist.
Dunne starred in An American Werewolf in London (1981) as Jack Goodman, Johnny Dangerously (1984) as Tommy Kelly, After Hours (1985) as Paul Hackett, Who's That Girl (1987) as Loudon Trott, My Girl (1991) as Jake Bixler, Quiz Show (1994) as an Account Guy, Game 6 (2005) as Elliott Litvak and I Like It Like That (1994) as Stephen Price.
As of 2004, he has appeared in nearly 40 films and TV movies, starting with The Other Side of the Mountain in 1975. He has produced and/or directed more than 10 other features and has made numerous TV appearances, including Frasier, Saturday Night Live, Alias, and especially Law & Order: Criminal Intent (Episodes 5, 118, and 128). Most recently, he portrayed Tony Mink in the comedy Trust Me on TNT. In 1995, Griffin Dunne was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for Duke of Groove, which he directed and co-wrote. He shared the nomination with producer Thom Colwell. He is also a known producer along with his producing partner, actress Amy Robinson (Mean Streets) for producing After Hours, Running on Empty & Game 6.
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Grover Cleveland
Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837 – June 24, 1908) was the 22nd and 24th President of the United States. Cleveland is the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms (1885–1889 and 1893–1897) and therefore is the only individual to be counted twice in the numbering of the presidents. He was the winner of the popular vote for president three times—in 1884, 1888, and 1892—and was the only Democrat elected to the presidency in the era of Republican political domination that lasted from 1861 to 1913.
Cleveland was the leader of the pro-business Bourbon Democrats who opposed high tariffs, Free Silver, inflation, imperialism and subsidies to business, farmers or veterans. His battles for political reform and fiscal conservatism made him an icon for American conservatives of the era. Cleveland won praise for his honesty, independence, integrity, and commitment to the principles of classical liberalism. Cleveland relentlessly fought political corruption, patronage, and bossism. Indeed, as a reformer his prestige was so strong that the reform wing of the Republican Party, called "Mugwumps", largely bolted the GOP ticket and swung to his support in 1884.
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Guillermo Dávila
Guillermo Dávila (born 18 March 1955, in Bailadores) is a Venezuelan actor and singer who has acted in many telenovelas.
After starting his career in theatre in the 1970s, Dávila first gained national fame in a telenovela called Ligia Elena, becoming famous internationally in 1983, when he starred in its sequel, Nacho, for Venevisión. He played the eponymous main character. He then went to Puerto Rico, where he starred alongside Ivonne Goderich in the 1984 soap opera Diana Carolina for WAPA-TV. The series' title song, "LLevo perfume a ti", became a number-one hit for him.
Dávila's international stardom somewhat faded after that, but he remained busy at home with numerous soap operas television shows, and album releases, until 1992 when he made a comeback to the international arena with another soap opera, Cara Sucia.
As a singer, Dávila has released over ten albums, some of which reached international platinum or gold status. He sang the songs on the soundtracks for nearly all the soap operas he starred in.
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Hal March
Hal March (April 22, 1920 - January 19, 1970) was a Jewish-American comedian and actor.
March first came to note as part of a comedy team with Bob Sweeney. The duo had their own radio show for a time and performed, in the early 1950s, as "Sweeney & March." He also partnered with actor/comic Tom d'Andrea in the early years of television.
Earlier in his television career, he appeared on such shows as Burns and Allen, The Imogene Coca Show and I Love Lucy. However, he was best known for being the host of The $64,000 Question, which he helmed from 1955 to 1958. In addition to his hosting duties, March also sang a version of the show's theme music in 1956, entitled "Love is the Sixty-Four Thousand Dollar Question."
As a result of the quiz show scandals, the show was canceled and, with the exception of a few film roles such as Hear Me Good and Send Me No Flowers, March was out of work for nearly a decade.
To keep busy, he appeared on several sitcoms in 1966 that are still widely rerun today. He played the father of Gidget's boyfriend Jeff in the Gidget episode "In and Out with the In-Laws" and the head of corrupt dance studio Renaldo's Dance Au Go Go in The Monkees episode "Dance Monkee, Dance". He also made appearances on the sitcoms Hey, Landlord and The Lucy Show and in the movie A Guide for the Married Man.
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Hans Hedtoft
Hans Hedtoft Hansen (21 April 1903 – 29 January 1955) was Prime Minister of Denmark from 13 November 1947 to 30 October 1950 as the leader of the Cabinet of Hans Hedtoft I and again from 30 September 1953 to 29 January 1955 as the leader of the Cabinet of Hans Hedtoft II.
Hedtoft was a Social Democrat, and had taken over the leadership of his party from Thorvald Stauning in 1939, but was forced by the Nazis to resign his posts in 1941 because he was too critical of the German occupation of Denmark. In September 1943, he was instrumental in starting the rescue of the Danish Jews.
In his first term progressive taxation was introduced. Also, after the failure to create a Scandinavian defence union, Denmark joined NATO in 1949. In October 1950 his government lost a vote on lifting the rationing of butter. Because this failure to get his policy through signalled that his party had lost its parliamentary support, new elections were called. Erik Eriksen from the Liberal Party was able to form the Cabinet of Erik Eriksen together with the Conservative People's Party on 30 October 1950.
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Henry Lee Summer
Henry Lee Summer (born Henry Lee Swartz; July 5, 1955) is an American rock singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer from Brazil, Indiana, best known for his hit singles "I Wish I Had A Girl" and "Hey Baby".
Summer planned on being a basketball player and even received a scholarship to play at a college in Montana, however he ultimately decided to pursue a career in music. Summer began as a singer and drummer then taught himself to play guitar and keyboards. Throughout the late 70's and early 80's he toured the American Midwest and South. He released two independent albums with the help of his manager James Bogard under their own Majestic Records label. In 1987 Bogard signed Summer to Epic Records CBS Associated Records A&R executive Tony Martell.
Summer recorded several successful albums on Epic Records in the 80s-90s and toured with Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eddie Money, The Doobie Brothers, Chicago, Don Henley, Robert Palmer, Cheap Trick, 38 Special, and Richard Marx. Summer also shared the stage with John Mellencamp at a show in Indianapolis (1988) and another in Bloomington, Indiana (1992) that each drew over 40,000 fans.
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Herbert Stanley
Sir Herbert James Stanley, GCMG (25 July 1872 – 5 June 1955) was a leading British administrator, who served at different times as Governor of Northern Rhodesia, Ceylon and Southern Rhodesia.
Born in England, Stanley was educated at Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford, and worked in the foreign service in Dresden and Coburg before serving as the Resident Commissioner for Southern and Northern Rhodesia from 1911 to 1914.
Stanley proved controversial in this role when he refused to allow settlers to take land from Africans, instead assigning 21,500,000 acres (87,000 km2) in perpetuity exclusively for the use of Africans.
Based in South Africa during World War I, Stanley married Reniera Cleote, from a leading Cape Town family, in Cape Town in 1918. She was described as "one of the most beautiful women of the century in any country of the world".
In 1918, Stanley was appointed Imperial Secretary in South Africa, a position he held until 1924, when he was appointed the inaugural Governor of Northern Rhodesia. As Governor, Stanley sought an amalgamation of the central African colonies and an extension of the Northern Rhodesian railway into Southern Rhodesia.
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Hideki Saijo
Hideki Saijō (西城 秀樹, Saijō Hideki?, originally Tatsuo Kimoto (木本 龍雄, Kimoto Tatsuo?), born April 13, 1955 in Hiroshima) is a Japanese singer and television celebrity most famous for singing the Japanese version of the Village People's hit song Y.M.C.A., called Young Man. Although the original version was camp, Saijō's version was intended to seriously inspire "young men".
Saijō's career spans over three decades. Saijo has endured the ups and downs of the fickle Japanese music buying public and has steadily remained in the public eye. He gained popularity again in the 1990s in the cartoon Chibi Maruko-chan and by releasing a cover version of the Enrique Iglesias song Bailamos. He also sang the Theme song and became the character (specially created for the Japanese version—Lucky Mucho) in The Emperor's New Groove and also performed Turn A Turn, the first opening theme song for ∀ Gundam.
In 2003, around the time that his 85th single was to be released, he suffered a mild stroke while performing overseas in Korea. With rehabilitation, hard work and dedication, in 2006, he released his 86th single, "Meguriai". Lyrics were set to André Gagnon's "Comme au Premier Jour".
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Hiromi Go
Hiromi Go (郷 ひろみ, Gō Hiromi?, born October 18, 1955 in Sue, Kasuya, Fukuoka Prefecture) is a Japanese singer, part of Sony Music Entertainment Japan. His real name is Hiromi Haratake (原武 裕美, Haratake Hiromi?).
In the 1970s, he was called "New Big Three" (新御三家 shin gosanke) with Goro Noguchi and Hideki Saijo. He belonged to Johnny & Associates, but later left the agency. He also effectively became the Japanese answer to Ricky Martin after his 1999 Japanese version of "Livin' la Vida Loca", which was called "GOLDFINGER '99".
His stage name's initials are HG, and that, combined with his remake of Ricky Martin's "Livin la Vida Loca" made him a direct target of comedian Hard Gay.
Hiromi Go featured Japanese hip hop musician Dohzi-T in his R&B-style song "Kimi Dake o," released on May 14, 2008. "Kimi Dake o" was included in his album Place to Be and the remix of the song was included as a bonus track in Dohzi-T's album 12 Love Stories.
Hiromi Go appeared in the movie Samurai Cowboy which was released in 1993.
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Hiroshi Izawa
Toshihisa Izawa (伊澤 俊久, Izawa Toshihisa?, born September 4, 1955), better known by his stage name Hiroshi Izawa (伊沢 弘, Izawa Hiroshi?), is a Japanese actor, voice actor and director.
Izawa was born in Tokyo, Japan and is the director of the theatrical troupe Big Face, and a member of Theater Echo. He appeared with fellow Theater Echo member Chihoko Shigeta in the popular "Itadakimasu Gekijō" segment of Raion no Itadakimasu on Fuji TV. Izawa has chaired organizations including the World Music Festival of Peace, the Yomiuri Giants Fan Appreciation Day, and the Tokyo International Marathon.
In 1979, Izawa joined Theater Echo, performing in many stage productions through 1988. In 1985, he began performing in works produced by Yasutaka Tsutsui, becoming Tsutsui's top choice for any role. Beginning in 1995, Izawa helped organize "Tsutsui World," even taking it to Los Angeles in 1996. From 2001 to 2002, Izawa performed in the Theater X production of Dario Fō no Bikkuri Hako. He then went on to direct the new Warau Onna. Warawareru Otoko series, writing the scripts as well.
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Honus Wagner
Johannes Peter "Honus" Wagner ( /ˈhɒnəs ˈwæɡnər/; February 24, 1874 – December 6, 1955 ), nicknamed "The Flying Dutchman" due to his superb speed and German heritage ("Dutch" in this instance being an alteration of "Deutsch"), was an American Major League Baseball shortstop. He played in the National League from 1897 to 1917, almost entirely for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Wagner won eight batting titles, tied for the most in NL history with Tony Gwynn. He also led the league in slugging six times, and in stolen bases five times.
In 1936, the Baseball Hall of Fame inducted Wagner as one of the first five members. He received the second-highest vote total, behind Ty Cobb and tied with Babe Ruth.
Although Cobb is frequently cited as the greatest player of the dead-ball era, some contemporaries regarded Wagner as the better all-around player, and most baseball historians consider Wagner to be the greatest shortstop ever. Cobb himself called Wagner "maybe the greatest star ever to take the diamond."
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Howie Epstein
Howard Norman "Howie" Epstein (July 21, 1955 – February 23, 2003) was a musician best known for his work with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers as bassist.
Epstein was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and grew up in a musical household, but didn’t start playing the bass until a couple of years before joining the Heartbreakers. His father, Sam, was a top local record producer who worked with various Rock and Soul groups in the 50s and 60s. Howie got to hang around the studios watching his father work, as well as do a little recording under his dad’s watchful eye at a very young age. "I would go into the bars with my father to check out the bands he was thinking of working with," Epstein recalls, "and a couple of times he let me use groups he was working with as back up musicians for stuff I’d record." Howie attended Nicolet High School in Glendale, WI and was part of the class of 1973.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Howie played in a number of both rock and roll and country Milwaukee bands that were regionally popular, like MHG Experience, Egz, Winks, Forearm Smash, and The Craze. When he’d gone as far as he could go in Milwaukee, Epstein decided to move to New York, but before he could pack his gear, he was lured to the West Coast by a drummer friend to play bass in a new band that singer-songwriter John Hiatt was forming in LA. He stuck with Hiatt for two years and two albums (Slug Line and Two Bit Monsters) and also toured briefly with Cindy Bullens.
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Howie Mandel
Howard Michael "Howie" Mandel (born November 29, 1955) is a Canadian comedian, and television host. He is well known as host of the NBC game show Deal or No Deal, as well as the show's daytime and Canadian-English counterparts. Before his career as a game show host, Mandel was best known for his role as rowdy ER intern Dr. Wayne Fiscus on the NBC medical drama St. Elsewhere. He is also well known for being the creator and star of the children's cartoon Bobby's World. On June 6, 2009, he hosted the 2009 Game Show Awards on GSN. Mandel became a judge on NBC's America's Got Talent, replacing David Hasselhoff, in the fifth season of the reality talent contest. He was a supporting character in the 2000 film Tribulation, from Cloud Ten Pictures.
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Humphry Osmond
Humphry Fortescue Osmond (1 July 1917 - 6 February 2004) was a British psychiatrist known for inventing the word psychedelic and for his research on psychedelic drugs. Osmond also explored aspects of the psychology of social environments, in particular how they influenced welfare or recovery in mental institutions.
Osmond was born in Surrey and educated at Haileybury. As a young man, he worked for an architect and attended Guy's Hospital Medical School at King's College London. During World War II, Osmond trained to become a psychiatrist, while active as a surgeon-lieutenant in the Navy.
After the war, Osmond and his colleague John Smythies perceived a similarity between the effects of LSD and the early stages of schizophrenia. In 1951, Osmond and Smythies moved to Saskatchewan, Canada to join the staff of the Weyburn Mental Hospital in the southeastern city of Weyburn, Saskatchewan.
At Weyburn, Osmond recruited a group of research psychologists to turn the hospital into a design-research laboratory. There, he conducted a wide variety of patient studies and observations using hallucinogenic drugs, collaborating with Abram Hoffer and others. In 1952, Osmond related the similarity of mescaline to adrenaline molecules, in a theory which implied that schizophrenia might be a form of self-intoxication caused by one's own body. He collected the biographies of recovered schizophrenics and held that psychiatrists can only understand the schizophrenic by understanding the rational way the mind makes sense of distorted perceptions. He pursued this idea with passion, exploring all avenues to gain insight into the shattered perceptions of schizophrenia, holding that the illness arises primarily from distortions of perception.
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Ian Botham
Sir Ian Terence Botham OBE (born 24 November 1955) is a former England Test cricketer and Test team captain, and current cricket commentator. He was a genuine all-rounder with 14 centuries and 383 wickets in Test cricket, and remains well-known by his nickname "Beefy". While a controversial player both on and off the field at times, Botham also held a number of Test cricket records, and still holds the record for the highest number of wickets taken by an England bowler.
He is generally regarded as being England's greatest ever all-rounder, particularly in Test cricket, although having earned celebrity status, his award of a knighthood was ostensibly in recognition of his services to charity.
Just like fellow cricketers Jim Cumbes and Arnold Sidebottom, Botham was also a talented footballer, and made 11 appearances in the Football League.
On 8 August 2009, Botham was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.
Botham was born in Heswall on the Wirral, to Herbert Leslie Botham (who worked for Westland) and Violet Marie, née Collett (a nurse). Both his parents played cricket. He went to Milford Junior School in Yeovil, Somerset, where his "love affair" with sport began, and played for Somerset Under-15s. He left Bucklers Mead Comprehensive School at the age of 15 without completing his GCSEs, intent on playing cricket for Somerset, although he also had an offer to play football for Crystal Palace F.C. From an early age he was always single-minded. When informed that Botham wanted to be a sportsman, the Careers Mistress at his school said to him, "Fine, everyone wants to play sport, but what are you really going to do?" (interviewed BBC Radio 4's Fiona Glover, 20 November 2010, Saturday Live).
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Ian Greig
Ian Alexander Greig (born 8 December 1955, Queenstown, South Africa) is a former cricketer, who played in two Tests for England in 1982. Although born in South Africa, Greig qualified to play for England by virtue of his Scottish father.
An all-rounder, he played for Sussex between 1979 (playing some one-day cricket) and making his first-class debut for them in 1980, until 1985. His most successful season for Sussex was in 1981, when he scored 911 runs (average 30.36), and took 76 wickets at 19.32. In 1982, the English selectors chose him as a replacement for the injured Derek Pringle, to face the Pakistan tourists in two Tests. Sussex released him, and others, in 1985 as part of a cost-cutting measure, and Greig emigrated to Australia. However, he subsequently joined Surrey, between 1987 and 1991, captaining them in this time.
He also represented Cambridge at rugby union in the 1977 and 1978 Varsity Matches, as well as playing cricket there, winning blues for Cambridge in 1977-78-79.
Greig's older brother Tony is a former England captain.
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Ib Schønberg
Ib Christian Albert von Cotta Schønberg (23 October 1902 – 24 September 1955) was a Danish film actor, and is considered one of the leading actors of Danish film in the 20th century.
The son of a chemist, Ib Schønberg was interested in acting from an early age. He made his debut in 1920 and worked for more than ten years as a stage actor.
Schønberg made his screen debut in Benjamin Christensen's 1922 horror/documentary Häxan. By the 1930s he was an established comic actor, often in main roles as leaders of buffoon duos, well-meaning policemen, or more substantial “uncle types”. During World War II he suddenly appeared as a dramatic actor, and from then until his death he maintained his position as one of the greatest actors of Danish art films, playing serious roles alongside comic roles.
He was well known for his ability to perform “the colossus with feet of clay”, apparently solid and superior characters — both sympathetic and unsympathetic — who fall apart by the end of the film. Among his best-known serious performances are his mean-cultivated informer type in Afsporet (1942 - Derailed); his leader af a children’s home, a sadist with shattered nerves in the social film Kampen mod uretten (1949 - The Struggle Against Injustice) and his two portraits of alcoholics in Ta’ hvad du vil ha’ (1947 – Take What You Want) and Café Paradis (1951). In his later years he was a regular participant in the so-called “Morten Korch films” (based upon the regional novels of a very popular Danish light literate) often placed as the fatherly friend of the hero and his serial role as a widower with children in the popular Far til fire (The Father of Four) films.
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Imre Nagy
Imre Nagy (7 June 1896 – 16 June 1958) was a Hungarian communist politician who was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Hungary on two occasions. Nagy's second term ended when his non-Soviet-backed government was brought down by Soviet invasion in the failed Hungarian Revolution of 1956, resulting in Nagy's execution on charges of treason two years later.
Nagy (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈnɒɟ]) was born in Kaposvár, to a peasant family and was apprenticed to a locksmith. He enlisted in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I and served on the Eastern Front. He was taken prisoner in 1915. He became a member of the Russian Communist Party, and joined the Red Army.
Nagy returned to Hungary in 1921. In 1930 he travelled to the Soviet Union and joined the communist party. He was engaged in agricultural research, and also worked in the Hungarian section of the Comintern. He was expelled from the party in 1936 and later worked for the Soviet Statistical Service. Rumours that he was an agent of the Soviet secret service surfaced later, begun by Hungarian party-leader Károly Grósz in 1989 in an attempt to discredit Nagy. There is evidence, however, that Nagy did serve as an informant for the NKVD during his time in Moscow and provided names to the secret police as a way to prove his loyalty (not an uncommon tactic for foreign communists in the Soviet Union at the time).
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Indra Nooyi
Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi(Tamil : இந்திரா கிருஷ்ணமுர்த்தி நூயி) (born 28 October 1955) is a Tamil-born American business executive. She is the current Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of PepsiCo, the second largest food & beverage business in the world (by net revenue). According to Forbes, she is consistently ranked among World's 100 Most Powerful Women.
Nooyi was born in Madras, Tamil Nadu, India. She was educated at Holy Angels' Anglo Indian Higher Secondary School in Madras. She received a Bachelor's degree in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics from Madras Christian College in 1974 and a Post Graduate Diploma in Management (MBA) from Indian Institute of Management Calcutta in 1976. Beginning her career in India, Nooyi held product manager positions at Johnson & Johnson and textile firm Mettur Beardsell. She was admitted to Yale School of Management in 1978 and earned a Master's degree in Public and Private Management. While at Yale, she completed her summer internship with Booz Allen Hamilton. Graduating in 1980, Nooyi joined the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and then held strategy positions at Motorola and Asea Brown Boveri.
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Ira Hayes
Ira Hamilton Hayes (January 12, 1923 – January 24, 1955) was a Pima Native American and an American Marine who was one of the six men immortalized in the iconic photograph of the flag raising on Iwo Jima during World War II. Hayes was an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Community in Sacaton, Arizona, and enlisted in the Marine Forces Reserve on August 24, 1942. He trained as a Paramarine and saw action in the Pacific Theatre of World War II. On February 19, 1945, Hayes participated in the landing at Iwo Jima and fought in the subsequent battle for the island. On February 23, Hayes, together with fellow Marines Rene Gagnon, Harlon Block, Franklin Sousley, and Mike Strank, and Navy Corpsman John Bradley, raised the American flag over Mount Suribachi, an event photographed by Joe Rosenthal.
As a result of Rosenthal's photograph, Hayes and the others became national heroes in the United States. He was instrumental in confirming the identity of one of his fellow Marines in the photograph, Harlon Block. Hayes was never comfortable with his new-found fame, however, and after his honorable discharge from the Marine Corps he descended into alcoholism. He died of exposure and alcohol poisoning on January 24, 1955 after a night of drinking, and was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.
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Iry LeJeune
Iry LeJeune (October 28, 1928 – October 8, 1955) was one of the best selling and most popular Cajun musicians in the mid to late 1940s into the early 1950s.
His recordings and repertoire remain influential to the present day. He was among a handful of recording artists who returned the accordion to prominence in commercially recorded Cajun music and dance hall performances. The return of the accordion contrasted with the popular Cajun recorded output of the late 1930s and 1940s, a time during which fiddles and Western Swing sounds from Texas were influencing Cajun music. The return of the accordion to prominence is referred to as a Cajun music renaissance, i.e. a return to the roots and rebirth in Cajun pride in their traditional music. Iry LeJeune is regarded as one of the best and most beloved Cajun accordionists and singers of all time.
Iry LeJeune was born October 28, 1928, on a modest sharecropping farm at Pointe Noire, a rural area near Church Point, LA. LeJeune came from a family that embraced music and his father, Agness LeJeune, taught him the rudiments of accordion at an early age. LeJeune's cousin, Angelas LeJeune, an excellent accordion player who'd made 78s in the 1920s, also encouraged him, often showing LeJeune traditional songs on his instrument. Nearly blind, music provided happiness for LeJeune, and as he grew older, he relied on it to make a living. Besides his cousin, LeJeune's major influence was Amédé Ardoin, the Creole accordion player who made several records in the 1930s - "Jole Catin" and "Les Blues De Voyage" among others - and was popular at white and Creole dances in the area. LeJeune cherrypicked Ardoin's repertoire and adopted the emotive crying style of vocals that would eventually become his trademark.
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Isabelle Adjani
Isabelle Yasmine Adjani (born 27 June 1955) is a French film actress and singer. Adjani has appeared in 30 films since 1970. She holds the record for most César Awards for Best Actress with five, for Possession (1981), One Deadly Summer (1983), Camille Claudel (1988), Queen Margot (1994) and Skirt Day (2009). She was also given a double Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award in 1981 and a Berlin Film Festival Best Actress Award in 1989. She also received two Academy Award nominations for Best Actress. She performs in French, English and German.
Adjani was born in an immigrant neighborhood Gennevilliers, Hauts-de-Seine, a suburb of Paris to an Algerian father of Turkish origin from Constantine, Algeria, Mohammed Cherif Adjani. Her father was a soldier in the French Army in World War II. Her mother Augusta, called "Gusti", was German. She grew up bi-lingual, speaking German and French fluently. After winning a school recitation contest, she began acting in amateur theater by the age of twelve. At the age of 14, she starred in her first motion picture Le Petit bougnat (1970).
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Jack Morris
John Scott "Jack" Morris (born May 16, 1955) is a former Major League Baseball right-handed starting pitcher. He played in 18 big league seasons between 1977 and 1994, mainly for the Detroit Tigers, and won 254 games throughout his career. Armed with a fastball, slider, devastating splitter and a fierce competitive spirit, Morris was a five-time All-Star (1981, 1984, 1985, 1987, and 1991), and played on four World Championship teams (1984 Tigers, 1991 Twins, and 1992 Blue Jays and 1993 with the Blue Jays) . While he gave up the most hits, earned runs and home runs of any pitcher in the 1980s, he also started the most games, pitched the most innings and had the most wins of any pitcher in that decade.
Morris attended Brigham Young University and was drafted by the Tigers in the fifth round of the 1976 draft. He broke into the Tigers' pitching rotation in 1979, posting a 17-7 record and a 3.29 ERA and establishing himself as the ace of the Detroit staff. Morris, along with catcher Lance Parrish, shortstop Alan Trammell, second baseman Lou Whitaker, and manager Sparky Anderson, played a notable role in turning the Tigers into a contending team for most of the 1980s.
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Jakie Quartz
Jakie Quartz (born Jacqueline Cuchet, July 31, 1955) is a French singer. Her biggest hit singles in France were "Mise au point" (1983, covered by Leslie in 2007 and Quentin Mosimann in 2008), "Vivre ailleurs" (1986, #11 in France,produced by Secret Service) and "À la vie à l'amour" (1987, #30 in France and #55 in the UK Singles Chart )
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James Agee
James Rufus Agee ( /ˈeɪdʒiː/ AY-jee; November 27, 1909 – May 16, 1955) was an American author, journalist, poet, screenwriter and film critic. In the 1940s, he was one of the most influential film critics in the U.S. His autobiographical novel, A Death in the Family (1957), won the author a posthumous 1958 Pulitzer Prize.
James Agee was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, at Highland Avenue and 15th Street (renamed James Agee Street in 1999) in what is now the Fort Sanders neighborhood to Hugh James Agee and Laura Whitman Tyler. When Agee was six, his father was killed in an automobile accident. From the age of seven, Agee and his younger sister, Emma, were educated in boarding schools. The most influential of these was located near his mother's summer cottage two miles from Sewanee, Tennessee. Saint Andrews School for Mountain Boys was run by Episcopal monks affiliated with the Order of the Holy Cross. It was there that Agee's lifelong friendship with Episcopal priest Father James Harold Flye and his wife began in 1919. As Agee's close friend and spiritual confidant, Flye received many of Agee's most revealing letters.
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James Dean
James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955) was an American film actor. He is a cultural icon, best embodied in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which he starred as troubled Los Angeles teenager Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his stardom were as loner Cal Trask in East of Eden (1955), and as the surly ranch hand, Jett Rink, in Giant (1956). Dean's enduring fame and popularity rests on his performances in only these three films, all leading roles. His premature death in a car crash cemented his legendary status.
Dean was the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and remains the only actor to have had two posthumous acting nominations. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Dean the 18th best male movie star on their AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list.
James Dean was born on February 8, 1931, at the Seven Gables apartment house located at the corner of 4th Street and McClure Street in Marion, Indiana, to Winton Dean and Mildred Wilson. Six years after his father had left farming to become a dental technician, James and his family moved to Santa Monica, California. The family spent several years there, and by all accounts young Dean was very close to his mother. According to Michael DeAngelis, she was "the only person capable of understanding him". He was enrolled at Brentwood Public School in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles until his mother died of cancer when Dean was nine years old.
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James Gosling
James A. Gosling, OC (born May 19, 1955 near Calgary, Alberta, Canada) is a computer scientist, best known as the father of the Java programming language.
In 1977, Gosling received a B.Sc in Computer Science from the University of Calgary. In 1983, he earned a Ph.D in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University, and his doctoral thesis was titled "Algebraic Constraints". His thesis advisor was Bob Sproull. While working towards his doctorate, he wrote a version of Emacs (gosmacs), and before joining Sun Microsystems he built a multi-processor version of Unix while at Carnegie Mellon University, as well as several compilers and mail systems.
Between 1984 and 2010, Gosling was with Sun Microsystems. He is known as the father of the Java programming language.
On April 2, 2010, Gosling left Sun Microsystems which had recently been acquired by the Oracle Corporation. Regarding why he left, Gosling wrote on his blog that "Just about anything I could say that would be accurate and honest would do more harm than good." He has since taken a very critical stance towards Oracle in interviews, noting that "During the integration meetings between Sun and Oracle, where we were being grilled about the patent situation between Sun and Google, we could see the Oracle lawyer's eyes sparkle." Later, during the Oracle vs. Google trial over Android, he clarified his position saying "Just because Sun didn't have patent suits in our genetic code doesn't mean we didn't feel wronged. While I have differences with Oracle, in this case they are in the right. Google totally slimed Sun. We were all really disturbed, even Jonathan: he just decided to put on a happy face and tried to turn lemons into lemonade, which annoyed a lot of folks at Sun."
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Jane Kaczmarek
Jane Frances Kaczmarek (born December 21, 1955) is an American actress. She is best known for playing the character of Lois on the television series Malcolm in the Middle. Kaczmarek is a three-time Golden Globe and seven-time Emmy Award nominee. She lives in San Marino, California.
Kaczmarek was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the daughter of Evelyn, a teacher, and Edward Kaczmarek, a defense department worker. She grew up in Greendale and is of Polish ancestry. Kaczmarek was raised as a strict Roman Catholic. She majored in theater at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and later studied at the Yale School of Drama for her graduate degree and was a part of its theater company.
In 1998, Kaczmarek was cast as David and Jennifer's mother in the movie Pleasantville. She has had several Broadway hits, including Lost in Yonkers and Raised in Captivity, where she won an LA Drama Critics’ Award. Her first television role was that of Margie Spoletto on For Lovers Only (1982). Her first major role was that of Linda Bauer on Equal Justice from 1990–1991.
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Janet Ellis
Janet Michelle Ellis (born 16 September 1955) is a British television presenter and actress, best known for presenting the BBC children's television programmes Blue Peter and the award-winning Jigsaw between 1979 and 1987. She is also well known as being the mother of the singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor and the drummer (and former child actor) Jackson Ellis-Leach.
Ellis was born in Chatham, Kent, England. Her father was a soldier, stationed during her childhood at various places in England and Germany. Accordingly, she attended seven schools in the two countries, including Russell House School between the ages of five and seven, and St Hilary's between the ages of 11 and 13 (both in Sevenoaks, Kent), and from the ages of 13 to 17 her last school was Richmond County School for Girls in Surrey. Having expressed an interest in acting since the age of five, she applied to and was accepted by the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, but was asked to defer her entry for a year as she was considered to be too young. She spent the year gaining experience of the acting world by working backstage at the Comedy Theatre in central London and as an assistant stage manager at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond.
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Janice Long
Janice Long (born 5 April 1955) is an English radio broadcaster currently working on BBC Radio 2. Her show is on Sunday to Thursday nights from midnight to 02:00. She is the older sister of TV and radio personality Keith Chegwin.
Following a career in the airline business, Long became a station assistant at BBC Radio Merseyside in Liverpool. She started presenting shows for the station shortly thereafter. After interviewing Paul Gambaccini, the latter recommended her to Radio 1.
Janice joined Radio 1 in December 1982 with her own Saturday evening show from 7:30 to 10 pm. From 1984 to 1987 she presented the Monday – Thursday Janice Long Show from 7.30-10pm, a mix of new music and current affairs, and record review programme Singled Out on Friday evenings from 5.45-7pm. On television, Long was a regular presenter of the BBC One chart show Top of the Pops between December 1982 and August 1988, and she returned to co-present its final show in July 2006.
In 1989, she joined London station BBC GLR, taking over from Nick Abbot on the breakfast show. At the time, GLR was being run by future Radio 1 controller Matthew Bannister and future Radio 1 executive Trevor Dann. In 1991, Long left the breakfast show of her own volition but continued to work for the station, where she took over a weekend show. In addition to this, she was heard presenting and producing occasional shows on the old BBC Radio 5. Long became involved with XFM in London, when it had a restricted service licence, and played a crucial part in its bid for a permanent licence.
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Jay McInerney
John Barrett McInerney Jr. ( /ˈmækɨnɜrni/; born January 13, 1955 in Hartford, Connecticut) is an American writer. His novels include Bright Lights, Big City; Ransom; Story of My Life; Brightness Falls; and The Last of the Savages. He edited The Penguin Book of New American Voices, wrote the screenplay for the 1988 film adaptation of Bright Lights, Big City, and co-wrote the screenplay for the television film Gia, which starred Angelina Jolie. He was the wine columnist for House & Garden magazine, and his essays on wine have been collected in Bacchus & Me (2000) and A Hedonist in the Cellar (2006). His most recent novel is titled The Good Life, published in 2006, and since April 2010 he is a wine columnist for The Wall Street Journal. In 2009 he published a book of short stories which spanned his entire career entitled How It Ended which was named one of the 10 best books of the year by The New York Times.
McInerney studied writing with Raymond Carver and once worked as a fact-checker at The New Yorker. He achieved fame with his first published novel Bright Lights, Big City. Published in 1984, the novel was unique at the time for its depiction of cocaine culture in second-person narrative. The title is taken from a 1961 blues song by Jimmy Reed. The novel established McInerney's reputation as part of a new generation of writers. Labelled the 'literary brat pack' in a 1987 article in the Village Voice, McInerney, Bret Easton Ellis and Tama Janowitz were presented as the new face of literature: young, iconoclastic and fresh. Five novels followed in rapid succession: Ransom, Story of My Life, Brightness Falls, The Last of the Savages and Model Behavior.
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Jay Osmond
The Osmonds are an American family music group with a long and varied career—a career that took them from singing barbershop music as children, to achieving success as teen-music idols, to producing a hit television show, and to continued success as solo and group performers. The Osmonds are devout members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and their religious values have influenced their careers.
When it began as a barbershop quartet, the group consisted of brothers Alan Osmond, Wayne Osmond, Merrill Osmond, and Jay Osmond. They were later joined by younger siblings Donny Osmond and Jimmy Osmond. Their only sister Marie Osmond, who never sang with her brothers at that time, launched a successful solo career in the 1970s. Older brothers George Virl Osmond, Jr. (Virl) and Tom Osmond were born deaf and did not originally perform, although they later made occasional appearances, most notably on the family Christmas specials from the 1970s. All of the Osmonds were born in their hometown of Ogden, Utah except the youngest, Jimmy, who was born in Canoga Park, California. The group have sold 102 million records worldwide.
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Jeff Daniels
Jeffrey Warren "Jeff" Daniels (born February 19, 1955) is an American actor, musician and playwright. He founded a non-profit theatre company, the Purple Rose Theatre Company, in his home state of Michigan. He has performed in a number of stage productions, both on and off Broadway, and has been nominated for the Tony Award as Best Actor for the Broadway play God of Carnage (2009), along with his other three cast-mates.
He has had a thriving film career, from his debut in 1981 in Ragtime, through State of Play in 2009. For his film work, he has received three Golden Globe Award nominations, including as Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture—Comedy/Musical for Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) (hence the name of his theatre company). He has also received nominations by the Screen Actors Guild, Satellite Awards, and several others for his work in The Squid and the Whale (London Critics Circle Awards, Independent Spirit Awards, Chlotrudis Awards and Gotham Awards). He played Debra Winger's husband in the 1983 Oscar-winning film Terms of Endearment.
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Jeff Koons
Jeffrey "Jeff" Koons (born January 21, 1955) is an American artist known for his reproductions of banal objects—such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surfaces. He lives and works in New York City and his hometown York, Pennsylvania.
Koons' work has sold for substantial sums of money including at least one world record auction price for a work by a living artist. The largest sum known to be paid for a work by Koons is Balloon flower (Magenta) which was sold for £12,921,250 (US$25,765,204) at Christie's London on June 30, 2008 (Lot 00012) in the Post-War & Contemporary Art Evening Sale.
Critics are sharply divided in their views of Koons. Some view his work as pioneering and of major art-historical importance. Others dismiss his work as kitsch: crass and based on cynical self-merchandising. Koons has stated that there are no hidden meanings in his works, nor any critiques.
Koons was born in York, Pennsylvania. His father Henry Koons was a furniture dealer and interior decorator; his mother Gloria, a housewife and seamstress. As a child he went door to door after school selling gift-wrapping paper and candy to earn pocket-money. As a teenager he revered Salvador Dalí, to the extent that he visited him at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City. Koons studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Maryland Institute College of Art. While a visiting student at the Art Institute, Koons met the artist Ed Paschke, who became a major influence and for whom he worked as a studio assistant late 1970s. After college, he worked at the membership desk of the Museum of Modern Art and as a Wall Street commodities broker while establishing himself as an artist.
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Jerry Beck
Jerry Beck (born February 9, 1955) is a well-known animation historian, with ten books and numerous articles to his credit. He is also an animation producer, an industry consultant to Warner Bros., and has been an executive with Nickelodeon and Disney.
Jerry Beck graduated John Bowne High School in Queens, New York City, where he was a member of the staff of OPUS, the school's yearbook. While at Bowne, he was also developing his own comic art style as well as a keen interest in animated films and film in general. After high school, Beck studied at The School of Visual Arts in New York City intent on becoming a great animator. But his interest in animation's history led him to working with Leonard Maltin, becoming his 'research associate' on the landmark book, Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons. In the course of doing this work, Beck became well versed in the histories and films of every Hollywood cartoon studio.
Beck began his career in the film industry at United Artists in 1978, working with the MGM/UA film library as a salesman in the non-theatrical division.
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Jimmy Smits
Jimmy Smits (born July 9, 1955) is an American actor. Smits is perhaps best known for his roles as attorney Victor Sifuentes on the 1980s legal drama L.A. Law, as NYPD Detective Bobby Simone on the 1990s police drama NYPD Blue, and as Congressman and then President Matthew Vincente Santos on The West Wing. He is also notable for his portrayal of Bail Organa in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, and Miguel Prado in Dexter. In the fall of 2010, he starred in NBC's short-lived series Outlaw, about a U.S. Supreme Court justice who leaves the bench to return to practicing law.
Smits was born in Brooklyn, New York. His father, Cornelius Smits, was a Surinamese immigrant of Dutch descent who managed a screen-printing factory. His mother, Emilina, was a Puerto Rican who worked as a nurse. Smits was raised in a strict devout Roman Catholic family. "Jimmy" is actually the name on his birth certificate, rather than "Jim" or "James." He has two sisters, Yvonne and Diana. He grew up in a working-class neighborhood and spent time in Puerto Rico during his childhood. Smits earned a bachelor's degree from Brooklyn College in 1980 and an MFA from Cornell University in 1982. Though born in New York, Smits has deep Puerto Rican roots and frequently visits the island. In 2001, he was arrested for his participation in protests against U.S. Navy bombing practices on the Puerto Rican offshore island of Vieques.
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Jiro Watanabe
Jiro Watanabe (渡辺二郎, Watanabe Jirō?, born 16 March 1955) is a Japanese former boxer
Watanabe, who fought only in Japan and South Korea, was one of the first World Super flyweight champions, as the division was relatively new when he was crowned.
With a background in Shotokan Karate, he started his professional boxing career with a three round knockout over Keiza Miyazaki. The fight was in Okayama, Watanabe's birthplace. Two first round knockout wins followed, one over Yukihiro Kawahira, and another over Noburu Iishi. There was an immediate rematch with Iishi, and, although the second time around Iishi gave him a tougher test, nevertheless, Watanabe still came out a winner, by a knockout in six.
Three more knockouts followed, two in the first round, including one over Koji Kobayashi, brother of former world champion Royal Kobayashi. Then, Watanabe was taken the distance for the first time, against Jin-Hyun Chun in Nagoya, Watanabe winning a six round decision.
After two more decision wins, Watanabe flew to South Korea, where he challenged the WBC world Jr. Bantamweight champion Chul-Ho Kim, losing in his first world title bid by a 15 round decision. Watanabe then returned to Japan and won his remaining four bouts for 1981 there, three by knockout. One of the fighters he beat was Tito Abella, who by then had been ranked as the number one Jr. Bantamweight challenger in the world. Abella was knocked out in four rounds.
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Joe Doherty
Joe Doherty (b. 20 January 1955 in Belfast, Northern Ireland) is a former volunteer in the Belfast Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who escaped during his 1981 trial for killing a member of the Special Air Service (SAS) in 1980. He was arrested in the United States in 1983, and became a cause célèbre while fighting an ultimately unsuccessful nine-year legal battle against extradition and deportation, with a street corner in New York City being named after him.
The son of a docker, Doherty was born on 20 January 1955 in New Lodge, Belfast. Doherty left school aged 14 and began work on the docks and as an apprentice plumber, before being arrested in 1972 on his seventeenth birthday under the Special Powers Act. Doherty was interned on the prison ship HMS Maidstone and Long Kesh Detention Centre, and while interned heard of the events of Bloody Sunday in Derry, where 14 civil rights protesters were shot dead by the British Army. This led to him joining the IRA after he was released in June 1972. In the mid-1970s Doherty was convicted of possession of explosives and sentenced to six years imprisonment in Long Kesh. He was released in December 1979.
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Joe Hin Tjio
Joe Hin Tjio (1919–2001), was a cytogeneticist renowned as the first person to recognize the normal number of human chromosomes. This epochal event occurred on December 22, 1955 at the Institute of Genetics of the University of Lund in Sweden, where Tjio was a visiting scientist.
Tjio (whose name is pronounced CHEE-oh) was born to Chinese parents in Java, then part of the Dutch East Indies. His father was a photographer. Tjio was educated in Dutch colonial schools, trained in agronomy in college, and did research on potato breeding. He was imprisoned for 3 years and tortured by the Japanese in a concentration camp during World War II.
After the war ended, Tjio went to the Netherlands, whose government provided him with a fellowship for study in Europe. He worked in plant breeding in Denmark, Spain and Sweden. From 1948 to 1959 he did plant chromosome research in Zaragoza in Spain and spent his summers and vacations in Sweden working with Professor Albert Levan in Lund.
It was during one of his vacation stays in Lund that Tjio made his discovery of the correct human chromosome count. For fully a half century it had been accepted that humans normally have 48 chromosomes. Now Tjio knew "the chromosome number of man" was 46. Tjio's revolutionary finding was published (with Levan as his co-author) in the Scandinavian journal Hereditas on January 26, 1956, only a month and four days after the discovery.
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Joellyn Auklandus
Joellyn Auklandus Kopecky (born March 8, 1955) is a writer in the American comics industry.
A Philadelphia native, Auklandus has received recognition for her work, including nominations for the R.A.C. Squiddy Award for Favorite Comics Writer in 1995, 1996 and 1998.
The bulk of Auklandus' fame rests with her work on the Elfquest series, one of the earliest independent comic titles in North America. Her first tenure with Warp Graphics, the publisher of Elfquest, ran from 1983–88, when she served as administrative director and associate editor. In 1994, she was approached by series' creators, Wendy Pini and Richard Pini, to edit and write spin-off series, including "Hidden Years" (1993–96), "The Wild Hunt" (1996–98), "Kahvi" (1995–96), and editing work on "The Wolfrider's Guide to the World of Two Moons."
Her final two Elfquest works, "Mender's Tale" (1999) and "Recognition" (2001), were left incomplete after Warp sold publishing rights to DC Comics, eliminating (for the near future) the need for writers other than the Pinis.
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John de Mol
Johannes "John" Hendrikus Hubert de Mol (born 24 April 1955) is a Dutch media tycoon. De Mol is one of the men behind production companies Endemol and Talpa.
De Mol, a well known personality in the Netherlands, acquired his fortune producing television programmes. In 1997-1999 he developed the highly popular reality television series Big Brother with his own production company John de Mol Produkties. In 1994 his company merged with Joop van den Ende TV-Producties into Endemol, but it still functioned on its own. He also produced Fear Factor, Love Letters, 1 vs. 100 and Deal or No Deal (Miljoenenjacht) for Endemol. De Mol sold his share of Endemol in 2000 to Telefonica, but continued to serve as creative director until 2004. In 2005, he was among the Forbes magazine list of the 500 richest people in the world.
In May 2007 De Mol returned as one of the main share holders of Endemol together with the Italian company Mediaset of Silvio Berlusconi in a 2.6 billion Euro deal.
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John Grisham
John Ray Grisham, Jr. (born February 8, 1955) is an American lawyer and author, best known for his popular legal thrillers.
John Grisham graduated from Mississippi State University before attending the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981 and practiced criminal law for about a decade. He also served in the House of Representatives in Mississippi from January 1984 to September 1990. He began writing his first novel, A Time To Kill, in 1984, and it was published in June 1989.
As of 2008, his books had sold over 250 million copies worldwide. A Galaxy British Book Awards winner, Grisham is one of only three authors to sell two million copies on a first printing, the others being Tom Clancy and J.K. Rowling.
Grisham's first best seller was The Firm. Released in 1991, it sold more than seven million copies. The book was later adapted into a feature film in 1993, and a TV series in 2012 which "continues the story of attorney Mitchell McDeere and his family 10 years after the events of the film and novel." Eight of his other novels have also been adapted into films: The Chamber, The Client, A Painted House, The Pelican Brief, Skipping Christmas, The Rainmaker, The Runaway Jury, and A Time to Kill. His books have been translated into 29 languages and published worldwide.
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John Hodiak
John Hodiak (April 16, 1914 – October 19, 1955) was an American actor who worked in radio and film.
He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Walter Hodiak (October 25, 1888 – August 21, 1962) and Anna Pogorzelec (February 28, 1888 – October 17, 1971). He was of Ukrainian and Polish descent. He grew up in Hamtramck, Michigan.
Hodiak had his first theatrical experience at age eleven, acting in Ukrainian and Russian plays at the Ukrainian Catholic Church. From the moment he first appeared on the stage, he resolved to become an actor. He was not even swayed when as a third baseman on his local high school baseball team, he was offered a contract with a St. Louis Cardinals farm club. He turned the offer down.
When Hodiak first tried out for a radio acting job, he was turned down because of his accent. He became a caddy at a Detroit golf course, then worked at a Chevrolet automobile factory – and practiced his diction. When he conquered the diction hurdle, he became a radio actor and moved to Chicago. There he created the role of the comic strip character Li'l Abner on radio.
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John Kricfalusi
Michael John Kricfalusi (pronunciation: /ˌkrɪsfəˈluːsi/), better known as John K., is a Canadian animator. He is creator of The Ren & Stimpy Show, its adults-only spin-off Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon", The Ripping Friends animated series, and Weekend Pussy Hunt, which was billed as "the world's first interactive web-based cartoon", as well as the founder of animation studio Spümcø.
Born in Canada, John Kricfalusi spent his early childhood in Germany and Belgium as a military brat, his father serving in the air force. At age seven he returned with his family to Canada. Having moved in the middle of a school season, he spent much of his time that year at home, watching Hanna-Barbera cartoons and drawing them. Kricfalusi's interest in Golden Age animation crystallized during his stay at Sheridan College, where an acquaintance of his held weekly screenings of old films and cartoons, among them the cartoons of Bob Clampett and Tex Avery, which left a deep impression on Kricfalusi. He soon left Sheridan College and moved to Los Angeles, intending to become an animator.
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John Mott
John Raleigh Mott (May 25, 1865 – January 31, 1955) was a long-serving leader of the YMCA and the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF). He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946 for his work in establishing and strengthening international Protestant Christian student organizations that worked to promote peace. From 1895 until 1920 Mott was the General Secretary of the WSCF. In 1910, Mott, an American Methodist layperson, presided at the 1910 World Missionary Conference, which was an important milestone in the modern Protestant missions movement and some say the modern ecumenical movement. From 1920 until 1928 he was the Chairperson of the WSCF. For his labors in both missions and ecumenism, as well as for peace, some historians consider him to be "the most widely traveled and universally trusted Christian leader of his time" (Cracknell & White, 243). Intimately involved in the formation of the World Council of Churches in 1948, that body elected him as a lifelong honorary President. His best-known book, The Evangelization of the World in this Generation, became a missionary slogan in the early 20th century (Cracknell & White, 233).
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John Nunn
John Denis Martin Nunn (born 25 April 1955 in London) is one of England's strongest chess players and once belonged to the world's top ten. He is also a three times world champion in chess problem solving, a chess writer and publisher, and a mathematician.
As a junior, he showed a prodigious talent for the game and in 1967, at twelve years of age, he won the British under-14 Championship. At fourteen, he was London Under-18 Champion for the 1969/70 season and less than a year later, at just fifteen years of age, he proceeded to Oriel College, Oxford, to study mathematics. At the time, it was said that he was Oxford's youngest undergraduate since Cardinal Wolsey. Graduating in 1973, he went on to gain his doctorate in 1978 with a thesis on finite H-spaces, and remained at Oxford University as a mathematics lecturer until 1981, when he became a professional chess player.
In 1975, he became the European Junior Champion. He gained the Grandmaster title in 1978 and was British champion in 1979. Nunn has twice won individual gold medals at Chess Olympiads. In 1989, he finished sixth in the inaugural 'World Cup', a series of tournaments in which the top 25 players in the world competed. His best performance in the World Chess Championship came in 1987, when he lost a playoff match against Lajos Portisch for a place in the Candidates Tournament. He won the prestigious Hoogovens tournament (held annually in Wijk aan Zee) in 1982, 1990 and 1991.
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John Radecki
John Radecki (also known as Jan Radecki) (2 August 1865 – 10 May 1955) was a master stained glass artist working in Australia, considered to be the finest such artist of his time.
John Radecki (1865-1955), stained-glass designer, was born on 2 August 1865 at Łódź, Poland, son of Pavel Radecki, coalminer, and his wife Victoria, née Bednarkiewicz. Jan trained at a German art school at Poznań. With his parents and four siblings he migrated to Australia, reaching Sydney in January 1882. The family settled at Wollongong, New South Wales, where his father and he worked in the coalmines. His parents had two more children in Australia. Moving to Sydney in 1883, Jan attended art classes. He boarded with the Saunders family from England at Oxford Street, Paddington, and on 17 May 1888 married their daughter Emma at the local district registrar's office. Living at Hurstville, John (as he was now known) was naturalized in November 1904.
From 1885 Radecki had been employed by Frederick Ashwin, who taught him to work with glass. In the 1890s the two men had crafted stained-glass windows entitled 'Sermon on the Mount' (St Paul's Church, Cobbitty) and `Nativity' (St Jude's, Randwick). Other works included a window at Yanco Agricultural College, produced in 1902 by F. Ashwin & Co. reputedly to Radecki's design, and the chancel window (1903) in St Clement's, Mosman. His first, major independent work was the 'Te Deum' window in Christ Church St Laurence, Sydney, in 1906. Ashwin and Radecki also collaborated on windows in St James's, Forest Lodge, and St John's, Campbelltown.
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José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset (9 May 1883 – 18 October 1955) was a Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist working during the first half of the 20th century while Spain oscillated between monarchy, republicanism and dictatorship. He was, along with Nietzsche, a proponent of the idea of perspectivism, which was pioneered in European thought by Immanuel Kant.
José Ortega y Gasset (Spanish pronunciation: [xo'se oɾ'tega i ga'set]) was born 9 May 1883 in Madrid. His father was director of the newspaper El Imparcial, which belonged to the family of his mother, Dolores Gasset. The family was definitively of Spain's end-of-the-century liberal and educated bourgeoisie. The liberal tradition and journalistic engagement of his family had a profound influence in Ortega y Gasset's activism in politics.
Ortega was first schooled by the Jesuit priests of San Estanislao in Miraflores del Palo, Málaga (1891–1897). He attended the University of Deusto, Bilbao (1897–98) and the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the Central University of Madrid, (now Complutense University of Madrid) (1898–1904), receiving a doctorate in Philosophy. From 1905 to 1907, he continued his studies in Germany at Leipzig, Nuremberg, Cologne, Berlin and, above all Marburg. At Marburg, he was influenced by the neo-Kantianism of Hermann Cohen and Paul Natorp, among others.
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José Ramón Guizado
José Ramón Guizado Valdés (15 October 1899 - 2 November 1964) was Panamanian politician.
He served as First Vice President of Panama from 1952 to 1955 and in that capacity also as President of Panama from January 2, 1955 to March 29, 1955. He belonged to the National Patriotic Coalition (CNP).
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Judy Davis
Judy Davis (born 23 April 1955) is an Australian actress best known for her roles in Husbands and Wives, Barton Fink, A Passage to India and in the TV miniseries Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows.
Davis first came to attention for her role as the fiery Sybylla Melvyn in the 1979 film My Brilliant Career. She has won many acting awards, including two Golden Globe Awards, three Emmy Awards, one BAFTA and seven AFI Awards. She has also been nominated twice for an Academy Award.
Davis was born in Perth and had a strict Catholic upbringing. She was educated at Loreto Convent and the Western Australian Institute of Technology, and graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in 1977. She has been married to actor and fellow NIDA graduate Colin Friels since 1984. They have two children.
First coming to prominence for her role as Sybylla Melvyn in the coming-of-age saga My Brilliant Career (1979), for which she won BAFTA Awards for Best Actress and Best Newcomer, she also played the lead in such Australian New Wave classics as Winter of Our Dreams (1981) (as the waif-like heroin addict) and Heatwave (1982) (as the radical tenant organizer).
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Julien Dray
Julien Dray was born on 5 March 1955 in Oran, French Algeria, in a native Jewish family. He is currently a member of the National Assembly of France. He represents the Essonne department, and is a member of the Socialiste, radical, citoyen et divers gauche. He was a trotskyist activist till 1981 and a cofounder with his friend Harlem Désir of SOS Racisme, of which he was vice president from 1984 to 1988.
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Kane Hodder
Kane Warren Hodder (born April 8, 1955) is an American actor, stuntman and author. He is best known for his portrayal of Jason Voorhees in four films from the Friday the 13th film series (parts VII through X). He is also known for his role as Victor Crowley in Hatchet.
Kane Hodder is the first actor to portray Jason Voorhees more than once, in a total of four movies. He has also portrayed horror icons Leatherface in the stunts of the 1990 film Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, and a glove hinted to be Freddy Krueger's pulling Jason's mask to hell in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday. He also appeared in an episode of The Arsenio Hall Show to promote Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, in costume as Jason.
Although he offered to reprise his role as Jason Voorhees in the 2003 film Freddy vs. Jason, director Ronny Yu replaced Hodder with 6'5½" Canadian stunt man Ken Kirzinger. The switch created controversy among fans of the series and has been credited to several rumors, including Kirzinger's location in Canada, and his height compared to Robert Englund, the actor who portrayed Freddy Krueger. Though Hodder still expresses resentment over not being chosen, he is still good friends with Ken Kirzinger.
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Karan Thapar
Karan Thapar is one of India's television commentators and interviewers. He is the youngest child of General P. N. Thapar(who became General because of being near to Nehru's dynasty) and Mrs. Bimla Thapar.
An alumnus of The Doon School and the Stowe School, he graduated with a degree in Economics and Political Philosophy from Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1977. In the same year, he was also President of the Cambridge Union. He subsequently obtained a doctorate in International Relations from St Antony's College, Oxford.
He began his career in journalism with The Times in Lagos, Nigeria and later worked as their Leader Writer on the Indian subcontinent till 1981. In 1982 he joined London Weekend Television where he worked for the next 11 years. He then moved to India where he worked with The Hindustan Times Television Group, Home TV and United Television before setting up his own production house in August 2001, Infotainment Television, which makes programmes for amongst others BBC, Doordarshan and Channel News Asia.
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Karen Austin
Karen Austin (born October 24, 1955) is an American actress. Austin has made many TV and film appearances since the 1980s.
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Karen Dotrice
Karen Dotrice ( /dəˈtriːs/; born 9 November 1955) is a British former child actress, known primarily for her role as Jane Banks in Walt Disney's feature film adaptation of the Mary Poppins book series. Dotrice was born in Guernsey (one of the Channel Islands) to two accomplished stage actors. Her career began on stage, expanded into film and television roles, and concluded with a short run as Desdemona in the 1981 pre-Broadway production of Othello. In 1984, Dotrice retired from show business to focus on motherhood; she has three children from two marriages. She was named a Disney Legend in 2004.
Born into a theatre family, Dotrice is the daughter of Roy and Kay Dotrice, two Shakespearean actors who met and married while performing in repertory theatre productions in England. She was born in the Channel Islands (where her father was also born). She has two sisters, Michele and Yvette, both of whom are actresses. Her godfather was actor Charles Laughton, who was married to Elsa Lanchester, one of the co-stars of Mary Poppins.
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Kate Heyhoe
Katherine Evelyn Heyhoe (born April 9, 1955)[citation needed] is an American editor and food writer.
Heyhoe was born in Los Angeles, California. She is a graduate of the University of Texas, where she received her Master's Degree from the Department of Radio-Television-Film.[citation needed]
She has been a member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) since 1994, when she co-founded the electronic Gourmet Guide, one of the first websites dedicated to food and cooking.[citation needed] In 1995 she developed food sites for America Online and in 1996 launched The Global Gourmet website at www.globalgourmet.com. The electronic Gourmet Guide merged into the Global Gourmet in 1998. She is currently Executive Editor of The Global Gourmet and writes a monthly food column about culinary topics.
Heyhoe currently lives in the Hill Country of Central Texas.[citation needed]
Heyhoe has authored eight books:
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Kate Mulgrew
Katherine Kiernan Maria "Kate" Mulgrew (born April 29, 1955) is an American actress, most noted for her roles on Star Trek: Voyager as Captain Kathryn Janeway and Ryan's Hope as Mary Ryan. She has performed in many television shows, theater productions and movies, earning a variety of awards for her acting, including an Obie Award, a Golden Satellite Award and a Saturn Award. She has also been nominated for a Golden Globe Award.
Mulgrew is an active member of the Alzheimer's Association National Advisory Council and the voice of Cleveland's MetroHealth System.
Mulgrew was born in 1955 in Dubuque, Iowa, into an Irish Catholic family, to Thomas James "T.J." Mulgrew II, a contractor, and Joan Virginia Mulgrew (née Kiernan), an artist and painter. She attended Wahlert High School in Dubuque.
Aged 17, she was accepted at the Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting in conjunction with New York University in New York City. Mulgrew left NYU after one year. During this time, to earn money while in New York Mulgrew was employed as a waitress at Friar Tuck, a now defunct restaurant previously at 914 Third Avenue.
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Keiko Takahashi
Keiko Takahashi (高橋惠子, Takahashi Keiko?, born January 22, 1955 in Shibecha, Hokkaidō, Japan) is a Japanese actress. Prior to marrying director Banmei Takahashi in 1982, she went by her maiden name Keiko Sekine (関根恵子?). She debuted in the 1970 film High School Student Blues, which included topless scenes of the 15-year-old actress. Her second film, おさな妻, earned her the Golden Arrow Award for Newcomer of the Year. She would perform several more nude scenes at the age of 16, in 樹氷悲歌 and Play.
In 1981 she appeared in the Nikkatsu Roman Porno film Love Letter, a fictionalized account of the life of poet Mitsuharu Kaneko, which Nikkatsu hoped would appeal to both male and female audiences. In 1982 she was the female lead in her husband Banmei Takahashi's launch into mainstream film, Tattoo Ari. In 2008, she won the Mainichi Film Award for Best Supporting Actress for her work in Fumiko no Umi. She was given Mainichi's Tanaka Kinuyo Award in 2010.
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Keith Comstock
Keith Martin Comstock (born December 23, 1955 in San Francisco, California) is a former left-handed relief pitcher in Major League Baseball. He went to high school in San Carlos, California and then played for the Minnesota Twins, San Francisco Giants, San Diego Padres and Seattle Mariners over his six-year career. He also played for the Yomiuri Giants in Japan in 1985-86. He is the rehab pitching coordinator for the Texas Rangers.
He was featured in a June 1990 Sports Illustrated article in which they stated he, "had more cups of coffee than Juan Valdez" and that in 1983 he was sold from the Oakland A's to the Detroit Tigers for $100 and a bag of baseballs, which he had to deliver himself from one minor league spring training camp to the other. [1]
Comstock is the great-grandson of the former United States Postal Inspector and politician Anthony Comstock. He lives in Arizona with his wife, Kathleen Comstock. He has three children, Christine Fox, Daniel Comstock and Alexandria, a granddaughter, and three grandsons.
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Kelsey Grammer
Allen Kelsey Grammer (born February 21, 1955) is an American actor and comedian. He is most widely known for his two-decade portrayal of psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane on the hit NBC sitcoms Cheers and Frasier. He has been nominated for fourteen Emmy Awards, including one for playing his character on three sitcoms, and has also worked as a television producer, director, writer, and as a voice artist. Grammer has been married four times and has four children.
Grammer was born in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, the son of Sally (née Cranmer), a singer, and Frank Allen Grammer, Jr., a musician and owner of a coffee shop and a bar & grill called Greer's Place. His parents divorced when Grammer was two years old. He attended Pine Crest School, a private preparatory school in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Grammer later spent two years at the Juilliard School. Grammer's personal life has been affected by several tragedies: in 1968, his estranged father, whom he had seen only twice since his parents' divorce, was shot and killed; in 1975, his younger sister, Karen, was abducted, raped, and murdered by spree killer Freddie Glenn; in 1980, his twin half-brothers died in a scuba diving accident; and in 2001, David Angell, close friend and producer of Frasier, died in the 9/11 attacks.
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Kent Derricott
Kent Derricott is an actor and celebrity television personality, or gaijin tarento, in Japan who was born on 3 March 1955 in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. He first learned Japanese while working as a Mormon missionary in Japan when he was 19 years old. He is known as one of "the two Kents" (along with Kent Gilbert). Derricott was the first thing to come to the mind of Japanese when asked about Utah for a 2002 study for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah.
While he has been offered celebrity jobs in the United States (such as the opportunity to be the replacement for Richard Dawson on Family Feud), he is not interested in becoming a celebrity outside of Japan. After returning from Japan in the 1990s, Derricott started his own television production company. Derricott is a consultant for businesses working in or expanding to Japan, and he now lives in Bountiful, Utah. He still makes occasional appearances on Japanese television.
Derricott has written several books published in Japan.
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Kevin Brady
Kevin Patrick Brady (born April 11, 1955) is the U.S. Representative for Texas's 8th congressional district, serving since 1997. He is a member of the Republican Party. The district includes a large swath of suburban and rural territory around Houston and Beaumont.
Brady was born in Vermillion, South Dakota, one of five children of William and Nancy Brady. His father, a lawyer, was killed in 1967 in a courtroom shooting in Rapid City when Brady was 12 years old. Brady graduated from Rapid City Central High School, and the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, where he also became a member of Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity.
A chamber of commerce executive who also served on the Rapid City Common Council, Brady moved to Texas to work for the Beaumont Chamber of Commerce and later the South Montgomery County Woodlands Chamber of Commerce.
Brady began his political career in 1990 when he was elected to the Texas House of Representatives, representing The Woodlands, parts of Montgomery County and five other counties west and north of Houston.
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Kevin Conroy
Kevin Conroy (born November 30, 1955) is an American stage, screen, and voice actor, known for his acclaimed voice role as Batman in the Emmy Award-winning 1990s Fox television show Batman: The Animated Series, as well as its various spin-off TV series and feature films that made up the DC Animated Universe. More recently, he has voiced Batman in the acclaimed video games Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City, as well as various films under the DC Universe Animated Original Movies banner.
Born in Westbury, New York, Conroy moved to Westport, Connecticut when he was about 11 years old. He moved to New York in 1973 when he earned a full scholarship to attend Juilliard's famous drama division, where he studied under actor John Houseman. While there, he almost ended up living with future Superman actor Christopher Reeve, but ended up rooming with Robin Williams who was in the same group as both Conroy and Kelsey Grammer. In 1978, after graduating from Juilliard, he toured with The Acting Company, Houseman's acting group, and, in 1979, he went on the national tour of Ira Levin's Deathtrap.
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Kevin Costner
Kevin Michael Costner (born January 18, 1955) is an American actor, singer, musician, producer, director, and businessman. He has won two Academy Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards and has been nominated for three BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) Awards. Costner's roles include Lt. John J. Dunbar in the film Dances with Wolves, Jim Garrison in JFK, Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams, Robin Hood in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Crash Davis in Bull Durham, Robert "Butch" Haynes in A Perfect World, Frank Farmer in The Bodyguard, Lt. Cmdr. Tom Farrell in No Way Out, and Eliot Ness in The Untouchables. Costner also founded the band Modern West, and has performed with the band since 2007.
Born in Lynwood, California, the youngest of three sons (the middle of whom died at birth). His mother, Sharon Rae (née Tedrick), was a welfare worker, and his father, William Costner, was an electrician and later utilities executive at Southern California Edison. Costner's patrilineal ancestry originates with German immigrants to North Carolina in the 1700s; he also has English and Irish ancestry, and has said that one of his ancestors had "married a Cherokee woman". Costner was raised Baptist. He attended Cabrillo Middle School and Villa Park High School. Costner was not academically inclined. Rather, he enjoyed sports, took piano lessons, wrote poetry and sang in the First Baptist Choir. He has stated that a viewing of the film How the West Was Won at the age of seven had "formed" his childhood.
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Kevin DuBrow
Kevin Mark DuBrow (October 29, 1955 – November 25, 2007) was an American rock singer best known as the lead vocalist of the Heavy Metal band Quiet Riot from 1975 until his death in 2007. On December 10, 2007, media reported that DuBrow had been pronounced dead on the afternoon of November 25, 2007, and that the cause of death was cocaine overdose.
DuBrow grew up in Los Angeles, California, and eventually settled in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Van Nuys at age 13. At some time, he learned to play a twelve-string guitar. DuBrow was raised Jewish and had the nickname "Butch" growing up. DuBrow's first band consisted of 11-year-olds that played only one gig to an audience of senior citizens who were not particularly fond of rock music. By the time he was in his mid-teens he had developed an appreciation for a number of British rock acts including the Small Faces, Slade, Spooky Tooth, Rod Stewart and Humble Pie. It was the latter of those influences that would leave the biggest impact on DuBrow and act as a compass in his musical career.
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Kim Lankford
Kim Lankford (b. in Montebello, California on June 14, 1955) is an American actress and businesswoman.
She is an ex-girlfriend of Warren Zevon. Kim Lankford has never been married or had any children.
She is best known for playing Ginger Ward on Knots Landing between 1979-83. Other roles include: Vickie Stevens in the 1981 movie Terror Among Us; a major part in the 1988 horror film Cameron's Closet; a kidnap victim in the TV series 'The Hardy Boys'; and reprising her character for Knots Landing: Back to the Cul-de-Sac in 1997.
She also appeared in the short-lived sitcom The Waverly Wonders, starring Joe Namath in 1978, and in the detective drama Murphy's Law a decade later.
Lankford also played a waitress in Night of the Running Man, with Scott Glenn and Andrew McCarthy.
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Kirsty Wark
Kirsteen Anne Wark (born 3 February 1955) is a British journalist and television presenter, best known for fronting the BBC Two's news and current affairs programme Newsnight since 1993, and its weekly arts annexe Newsnight Review, now relaunched as "The Review Show".
Wark was born in Dumfries to Jimmy Wark, a solicitor, and Roberta Wark, a schoolteacher. Wark was educated at Kilmarnock Grammar Primary and subsequently Ayr's independent Wellington School. After studying history at the University of Edinburgh, Wark joined the BBC in 1976 as a researcher for BBC Radio Scotland and, in 1982, moved to television. She produced BBC Scotland's lunchtime political programme Agenda and eventually became a BBC television presenter, including a presenter of Breakfast Time. In 1988 she was one of the first reporters to cover the Lockerbie disaster. In 1990, Wark demonstrated her distinctive line of questioning in an interview with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Wark was a presenter on BBC2 arts programme The Late Show (from 1990-3) and the heritage programme One Foot in the Past.
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Koichi Nakano
Koichi Nakano (中野 浩一, Nakano Kōichi?) (born November 14, 1955 in Kurume, Fukuoka) of Japan is a former professional racing cyclist and ten-time world champion track racing cyclist. He is among the best track sprinters of modern times. He won an unprecedented 10 consecutive professional sprint gold medals at the UCI track world Championships from 1977 to 1986. He was one of the most successful competitors of all-time on the Japanese professional keirin circuit.
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Korean War
The Korean War (Korean: 한국전쟁 or 조선전쟁, Hanja: 韓國戰爭 or 朝鮮戰爭; 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was a war between the Republic of Korea (supported primarily by the United States of America, with contributions from allied nations under the aegis of the United Nations) and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (supported by the People's Republic of China, with military and material aid from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). The Korean War was primarily the result of the political division of Korea by an agreement of the victorious Allies at the conclusion of the Pacific War at the end of World War II. The Korean Peninsula was ruled by the Empire of Japan from 1910 until the end of World War II. Following the surrender of the Empire of Japan in September 1945, American administrators divided the peninsula along the 38th parallel, with U.S. military forces occupying the southern half and Soviet military forces occupying the northern half.
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Kris Jenner
Kristen Mary "Kris" Jenner (née Houghton; formerly Kardashian; born November 5, 1955) is an American television personality, socialite and businesswoman. She also is the manager for all of her family members, including Kourtney Kardashian, Kim Kardashian and Khloé Kardashian. She is the current wife of 1976 Summer Olympic Games Decathlon gold medalist Bruce Jenner and was married previously to lawyer Robert Kardashian; they divorced in 1990.
Kris Jenner was born Kristen Mary Houghton in San Diego, California, the daughter of Mary Jo (née Campbell) of Scottish descent and Robert Houghton, an engineer of Dutch descent. She has a sister, Karen. Her parents divorced when she was age seven, and she and her sister were raised by her mother.
Kris married first husband, lawyer Robert Kardashian (widely known for his early representation of O.J. Simpson) on July 8, 1978, when she was 22 years old. Kris was a housewife while her children were growing up. Robert filed for divorce in 1990. Robert Kardashian died September 30, 2003, two months after being diagnosed with esophageal cancer.
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Kulbir Bhaura
Kulbir Singh Bhaura (born October 15, 1955 in Jullundur, Punjab, India) is a former field hockey player, who was a member of the gold medal winning British squad at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. Four years earlier, at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, he secured the bronze medal with his team.
Bhaura has played hockey all his life, nine years on the international level for Great Britain. After winning gold in 1988, he started working within the hockey industry, marketing and developing equipment. He has visited hockey factories in India and Pakistan, developing his own range of hockey and cricket equipment under the brand name Pantheon. He is also involved in developing goalkeeping equipment and now owns a ball manufacturing plant, Chingford Balls.
The only match in which Kulbir Bhaura did not take part at the Seoul Olympics in 1988 was against his native India. Bhaura, centre-forward for Hounslow and the Indian Gymkhana, won 84 caps for England and 61 for Great Britain. After winning an Olympic bronze medal in 1984, he was a member of the England squad which won silver medals at the 1986 World Cup and the 1987 European Cup.
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Kyle Gann
Kyle Eugene Gann (born November 21, 1955) is an American professor of music, critic and composer born in Dallas, Texas. As a critic for The Village Voice (from November 1986 to December 2005) and other publications he has been a supporter of progressive music including such Downtown movements as postminimalism and totalism.
As a composer his works fall generally into three categories:
Of particular importance in most of his music is the concept of repeating loops, ostinatos, or isorhythms of different lengths going out of phase with each other; the idea leads to simultaneous layers of different, mutually prime tempo relationships in his Disklavier and electronic works, and is used in a less obvious structural way in his live-ensemble music.[citation needed] This concept can be traced back to suggestions in the rhythmic chapter of Henry Cowell's book New Musical Resources, but is also related here to inspirations from astrology, into which Gann was drawn by the writings of composer/astrologer Dane Rudhyar.[citation needed]
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LaSalle Ishii
LaSalle Ishii (ラサール石井, Rasāru Ishii?), born Akio Ishii (石井 朗夫, Ishii Akio?) on October 19, 1955 in Sumiyoshi-ku, Osaka, is a Japanese tarento, comedian, actor, seiyuu, and theater director. Though his first name is meant to be "La Salle", it is instead usually romanized as Lasa-R.
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Laura Fygi
Laura Fygi (born 27 August 1955 in Amsterdam) is a Dutch singer.
For the first eight years of her life, she lived with her parents in South America. She is the daughter of a Dutch father (a manager at Philips) and an Egyptian mother.
Between 1984 and 1991, Laura Fygi was a member of one of the most popular Dutch girl-bands, Centerfold, known for their hit "Dictator". During performances, the ladies dressed themselves in sexy lingerie. They had hits in the Netherlands and all over Europe. They were big in Japan.
In 1991, the ladies of Centerfold stopped performing and Laura (together with Rowan Moore) started a band called The Backlot. After one performance in Dutch theatre Paradiso, an album was expected, but Mercury Records had already asked Laura to make a solo album. This first album of hers was called Introducing, produced by Ruud Jacobs. On this album, she was accompanied by famous Belgian musician Jean "Toots" Thielemans. Most of the songs on the album are jazz.
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Laurie Metcalf
Lauren Elizabeth "Laurie" Metcalf (June 16, 1955) is an American actress. She is widely known for her performance as Jackie Harris on the ABC sitcom Roseanne, Carolyn Bigsby on Desperate Housewives, Mary Cooper on The Big Bang Theory, the voice of Mrs. Davis in the Toy Story film series and as Debbie Salt in Scream 2. She is currently working in Chicago theater, where she is well known for her performance in the 1983 revival of Balm in Gilead. She is also a part of Plan USA, a humanitarian organization which helps children in need around the world.
She is a three-time Emmy award winner, as well as being nominated for two Golden Globe awards, a Tony Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
Laurie is currently starring in the West End hit A Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neil with David Suchet, Kyle Soller and Trevor White. The production is on at the Apollo Theatre until August 18, 2012.
Metcalf was born in Carbondale, Illinois, the eldest of three children, and was raised in Edwardsville, Illinois. Her father was the budget director at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville and her mother, Libby, was a librarian. Her great-aunt was the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Zoe Akins. Metcalf is an alumna of Illinois State University, class of 1976.
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Leigh McCloskey
Leigh Joseph McCloskey (born June 21, 1955) is an American actor.
Born in Los Angeles, California, McCloskey was classically trained as an actor at the Juilliard School in Lincoln Center, New York. He began his professional acting career playing Billy Abbott in the original Rich Man, Poor Man miniseries starring Nick Nolte and Peter Strauss. He went on to star in three nighttime television series: Executive Suite, Married: The First Year, and is perhaps most widely known for his role as Mitch Cooper (husband of Lucy Ewing Cooper) on the CBS nighttime soap opera Dallas. McCloskey was a series regular from 1980–1982, and made brief appearances in 1985 and 1988.
McCloskey starred in numerous made for television films and miniseries including Bermuda Depths, Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway and its sequel Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn in which he played the title role. He starred with Kris Kristofferson in Trouble Shooters: Trapped Beneath the Earth and with Linda Gray (Dallas) in Accidental Meeting. He also co-starred with Brooke Shields and Scott Glenn in the miniseries Gone But Not Forgotten in 2004. McCloskey has also had made numerous films including Just One of the Guys, Cameron's Closet, Fraternity Vacation with Tim Robbins, and the cult classic Inferno directed by Dario Argento among others.
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Lena Olin
Lena Maria Jonna Olin (born 22 March 1955) is a Swedish actress.
Olin was born the youngest of three children, in Stockholm, Sweden. She is the daughter of actress Britta Holmberg and the director Stig Olin. She studied acting at Sweden's National Academy of Dramatic Art.
She was crowned Miss Scandinavia 1975 in Helsinki, Finland in October 1974.
Olin worked both as a substitute teacher and as a hospital nurse before becoming an actress. Olin performed for over a decade with Sweden's Royal Dramatic Theatre-ensemble (1980–1994) in classic plays by Shakespeare and Strindberg, and appeared in smaller roles of several Swedish films directed by Bergman and in productions of Swedish Television's TV-Theatre Company.
Ingmar Bergman cast Olin in Face to Face. Later she acted at the national stage in Stockholm in several productions directed by Bergman, and with Bergman's production of King Lear (in which Olin played Cordelia) she toured the world — Paris, Berlin, New York, Copenhagen, Moscow and Oslo, among others. Critically acclaimed stage performances by Olin at Sweden's Royal Dramatic Theatre included the leading part as The Daughter in A Dream Play by Strindberg, Margarita in the stage adaption of The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, Goldoni's The Servant of Two Masters, Ann in Edward Bond's Summer, Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare, Ben Jonson's The Alchemist, the title role in Ingmar Bergman's rendition of Strindberg's Miss Julie and her neurotic Charlotte in the contemporary drama Nattvarden (The Last Supper) by Lars Norén.
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Leszek Engelking
Leszek Engelking (b. February 2, 1955 in Bytom, Upper Silesia, Poland) - Polish poet, short-story writer, critic, essayist, scholar, and translator.
He graduated from Warsaw University (1979). He received his doctorate in 2002. From 1984 to 1995, he was a member of an editorial staff of "Literatura na Świecie" ("Literature in the World"), a Polish monthly devoted to foreign literature. From 1997 - 1998, he was a lecturer at Warsaw University and a visiting professor at Palacký University, Olomouc (Czech Republic). He now teaches at Łódż University in Poland.
Member of Stowarzyszenie Pisarzy Polskich (Association of Polish Writers, from 1989), Polish PEN Club (from 2000) and of the Société Europeénne de Culture (from 1994).
He lives in Brwinów (Poland).
He has published six collections of poems:
A selection of his poems have appeared in Ukrainian translation (Vid ciogho ne vmirayut’ [You Can’t Die from This], 1997), as well as in Czech (Jiné básně a jiné básně – "Other Poems" and Other Poems, 1998) and Slovak (Zanechala si otlačky prstov na mojej koži – You have Left Finger-Marks on My Skin, 2005). A small collection of his poems was published in Spanish (Museo de la infancia - Museum of Childhood, 2010).
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Lisa Scottoline
Lisa Scottoline (born July 1, 1955) is an American author of legal thrillers. Her novels have been translated into 25 languages.
Scottoline was born in Philadelphia and graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned a degree in English. In 1981, she received a Juris Doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania Law School cum laude. She became a litigator at a prestigious law firm in Philadelphia but left the workforce after the birth of her daughter. Initially writing as a way to earn money at home, she has since written 13 bestselling novels, including Final Appeal, which received the 1995 Edgar Award for "Best Paperback Original Mystery," and Moment of Truth, which reached number five on the New York Times Best Seller List.
Scottoline writes a column entitled "Chick Wit" for The Philadelphia Inquirer. A collection of her columns was compiled in a book entitled Why My Third Husband Will Be A Dog: The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman and published on November 24, 2009.
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Lloyd Bacon
Lloyd Francis Bacon (December 4, 1889 – November 15, 1955) was a screen, stage, and vaudeville actor and film director.
Bacon was born in San Jose California, the son of actor Frank Bacon, later the co-author and star of the long running Broadway show 'Lightnin' (1918), and Jennie (Weidman) Bacon. He was not related to actor Irving Bacon whom he directed in a number of his films. Bacon attended Santa Clara University, and would later include highlights from the Bronco Football program in the end of his famous film, Knute Rockne, All American.
Bacon started in films with Charlie Chaplin and Bronco Billy Anderson and appeared in more than 40 total. As an actor he is best known for supporting Chaplin in such films as 1915's The Tramp, The Champion and 1917's Easy Street.
He also directed over a hundred films between 1920 and 1955. He is best known as director of such classics as 1933's 42nd Street, 1937's Ever Since Eve from a screenplay by the playwright Lawrence Riley et al., 1938's A Slight Case of Murder with Edward G. Robinson, 1939's Invisible Stripes with George Raft and Humphrey Bogart, 1939's The Oklahoma Kid with James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart, 1940's Knute Rockne, All American with Pat O'Brien and Ronald Reagan (as "the Gipper"), 1943's Action in the North Atlantic, and 1944's The Fighting Sullivans with Anne Baxter and Thomas Mitchell. He also directed Wake Up and Dream (1946).
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Mami Koyama
Mami Koyama (小山 茉美 Koyama Mami, born January 17, 1955, credited as "小山 まみ" until 1980) is a veteran seiyū and J-pop vocalist who was born in Nishio, Aichi. She was once married to fellow seiyū Tōru Furuya, her co-star in Mobile Suit Gundam, Urusei Yatsura, Dragon Ball, Saint Seiya, and Casshern Sins. Koyama is affiliated with Aoni Production.
Her best-known voice roles include Arale in Dr. Slump, Minky Momo in Mahou no Princess Minky Momo, Launch in Dragon Ball, and Ryoko Mendou in Urusei Yatsura.
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Marcelo Bielsa
Marcelo Alberto Bielsa Caldera (Spanish pronunciation: [marˈse̞lo̞ alˈβ̞e̞rto̞ ˈβ̞i̯e̞lsa ˈkalde̞ɾa], nicknamed Loco Bielsa, "Madman" Bielsa, born July 21, 1955) is an Argentine association football coach and former defender, born in Rosario, Santa Fe. He is considered one of the most innovative coaches in the modern era and is the current manager of the La Liga side Athletic Bilbao. He is seen as one of the main proponents of the game's recent renaissance of total football along with former Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola.
Bielsa has managed not only football clubs but also the national teams of Argentina and Chile. In the latter country he achieved cult status due to the improved results of the national team under his leadership. His personality and gestures have in Chile captured the attention of media and unleashed a series of minor controversies both in the area of sports and in politics.In 1980 shortly after retiring from playing in professional football, Bielsa decided to start a new career as a football manager. His first assignment was coaching the youth divisions of Argentine club Newell's Old Boys. In 1990 Bielsa was given the task of managing Newell's first team where he would later go on to win the 1990 Torneo Apertura and the 1990-91 Torneo Integración defeating Boca Juniors in penalties. El Loco managed the squad that competed in the final of the 1992 Copa Libertadores losing to São Paulo on penalties. Weeks later after enduring defeat in the Copa Libertadores final, Bielsa and Newell's won the 1992 Torneo Clausura.
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Maria Shriver
Maria Owings Shriver ( /ˈʃraɪvər/; born November 6, 1955) is an American journalist and author of six best-selling books. She has received a Peabody Award, and was co-anchor for NBC's Emmy-winning coverage of the 1988 Summer Olympics. As executive producer of The Alzheimer's Project, Shriver earned two Emmy Awards and an Academy of Television Arts & Sciences award for developing a "television show with a conscience". She was formerly First Lady of California as the wife of actor and then-California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, from whom she is now separated. She is a member of the Kennedy family (her mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver was a sister of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Edward Kennedy).
Shriver was born in Chicago, Illinois. A Roman Catholic of German descent through her father and Irish descent through her mother, she is the second child and only daughter of the politician Sargent Shriver and Eunice Kennedy Shriver. Maria is the niece of United States President John F. Kennedy, U.S. Attorney General and U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy and five other siblings. Shriver attended Westland Middle School in Bethesda, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C., and graduated in 1973 from Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda. She attended Manhattanville College for two years and then transferred and went on to receive a bachelor of arts degree in American studies from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., in June 1977.
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Marian Anderson
Marian Anderson (February 27, 1897 – April 8, 1993) was an African-American contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century. Music critic Alan Blyth said "Her voice was a rich, vibrant contralto of intrinsic beauty." Most of her singing career was spent performing in concert and recital in major music venues and with famous orchestras throughout the United States and Europe between 1925 and 1965. Although offered roles with many important European opera companies, Anderson declined, as she had no training in acting. She preferred to perform in concert and recital only. She did, however, perform opera arias within her concerts and recitals. She made many recordings that reflected her broad performance repertoire of everything from concert literature to lieder to opera to traditional American songs and spirituals.
Anderson became an important figure in the struggle for black artists to overcome racial prejudice in the United States during the mid-twentieth century. In 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) refused permission for Anderson to sing to an integrated audience in Constitution Hall. The incident placed Anderson into the spotlight of the international community on a level unusual for a classical musician. With the aid of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and her husband Franklin D. Roosevelt, Anderson performed a critically acclaimed open-air concert on Easter Sunday, April 9, 1939, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. She sang before a crowd of more than 75,000 people and a radio audience in the millions. Anderson continued to break barriers for black artists in the United States, becoming the first black person, American or otherwise, to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on January 7, 1955. Her performance as Ulrica in Giuseppe Verdi's Un ballo in maschera at the Met was the only time she sang an opera role on stage.
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Marina Sirtis
Marina Sirtis (born 29 March 1955) is a British-American actress. She played the role of the human/Betazoid Commander Deanna Troi, ship's counselor, on the television and film series Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Sirtis was born in the East End of London, the daughter of working class Greek parents Despina, a tailor's assistant, and John Sirtis. She was brought up in North London and emigrated to the U.S. in 1986, later becoming a naturalised U.S. citizen. She is married to rock guitarist Michael Lamper (21 June 1992 – present). Her younger brother, Steve, played football in Greece and played for Columbia University in the early 1980s. She auditioned for drama school against her parents' wishes, ultimately being accepted to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Sirtis started her career as a member of the repertory company at the Connaught Theatre, Worthing, West Sussex in 1976. Directed by Nic Young, she appeared in Joe Orton's What the Butler Saw and as Ophelia in Hamlet.
Before her role in Star Trek, Sirtis was featured in supporting roles in several films. In the 1983 Faye Dunaway film The Wicked Lady, she engaged in a whip fight with Dunaway. In the Charles Bronson sequel Death Wish 3, Sirtis's character is a rape victim. In the film Blind Date, she appears as a prostitute who is murdered by a madman.
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Mario Andreacchio
Mario Andreacchio (born 1 January 1955) is an Australian film producer/director.
Born in Leigh Creek, South Australia, Andreacchio graduated from Flinders University with a degree in Psychology (after originally going to University to study Experimental Physics), and then was selected to study at the Australian Film & Television School to train as a film director. He has directed nine cinema feature films, made a series of television specials, two telemovies, three children's mini-series and a variety of documentaries. In 1988, he won an International Emmy Award for Captain Johnno.
Andreacchio founded a film production company AMPCO FILMS PTY LTD (the Adelaide Motion Picture Company), based in Norwood, South Australia.
Andreacchio has served on the boards of the Australian Film Finance Corporation and the South Australian Film Corporation.
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Mariya Takeuchi
Mariya Takeuchi (竹内 まりや, Takeuchi Mariya?, born March 20, 1955) is a Japanese singer-songwriter.
Takeuchi was born in Taisha city in the Hikawa district of Shimane Prefecture. She spent a year studying in the United States while she was at high school. Her musical career started in 1978 while she was studying at Keio University, with the single "Modotte-Oide, Watashi no Jikan" (Please come back, my time) and the album Beginning. The 1979 single "September" and the 1980 single "Fushigi na Piichi Pai" (Mysterious Peach Pie) were both hits. Takeuchi has had at least one song appear on the NHK program Minna no Uta.
Up to December 2008, Takeuchi had released 11 studio albums, 35 singles, several compilations and a live album which was recorded in 2000. Her total sales have been estimated at more than 16 million units by 2009. Her 1994 compilation, Impressions, sold more than 3 million copies in Japan alone, and became her best-selling album.
Her husband is the musician Tatsuro Yamashita, with whom she has one daughter.
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Mark David Chapman
Mark David Chapman (born May 10, 1955) is an American prison inmate who was convicted of murdering former Beatles member John Lennon on December 8, 1980. He killed Lennon outside The Dakota apartment building in New York City. Chapman fired at Lennon five times, hitting him four times in the back. He then remained at the scene reading the book The Catcher in the Rye until police arrived. He repeatedly claimed that the novel was his statement.
Chapman's legal team put forward an insanity defense based on expert testimony that he was in a delusional and possibly psychotic state at the time, but nearing the trial Chapman instructed his lawyer to plead guilty based on what he had decided was the will of God. Judge Edwards allowed the plea change without further psychiatric assessment, and sentenced Chapman to a prison term of 20 years to life with a stipulation that mental health treatment be provided. Chapman remains imprisoned at the Wende Correctional Facility in Alden, New York, having been denied parole six times.
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Mark Marderosian
Mark Marderosian (born 1955) is a prolific cartoonist, animator and children's book illustrator, a comic book artist and noted toy designer.
Born in Cambridge, Marderosian grew up in Newton, MA. He says that he started drawing when he was seven years old, after his parents took him to see Pinocchio. After high school Marderosian worked for advertising agencies and an art supply company, where he prepared paste-ups and mechanicals for catalogs. He also drew cartoons and comic strips and freelanced for a few magazines at the same time. In 1979, Marderosian enrolled at Massachusetts College of Art.
Mark Marderosian created the Delta Tenn comic books for Paul Howley's Entertainment Publishing in 1987-88. He also worked with Howley on the design of a set of Classic Toys Trading Cards around the same time.
After an early-career rejection, Marderosian "finally did get his foot in the Disney door in 1990," working on merchandise related to Jessica Rabbit. Over the course of his career, Marderosian has gone on to illustrate several dozen movie and television tie-in books for Disney, as well as for Golden Books. He has also provided illustrations for other licensed merchandise such as character figurines, story books and coloring books. Among the many characters he has drawn are Mickey Mouse, Mulan, The Little Mermaid, Hello Kitty, and Jimmy Neutron. He is most identified with work on merchandise and books featuring the Disney Princesses. "Because of the constant reprinting, especially in coloring books, somewhere there’s someone looking at something I drew every single day," mused Marderosian.
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Mark Staff Brandl
Mark Staff Brandl (1955 in Peoria, Illinois) is an American-born artist, art historian and art critic now living primarily in Switzerland.
Raised in Pekin, Illinois, Brandl is the son of Earl and Ruth Brandl, and brother of Marcia Brandl Willhite. He lived for many years in Chicago, Illinois, where his career in fine art began. Brandl has lived primarily in Trogen, Appenzell Ausserrhoden, Switzerland since 1988. He studied art, art history, literature and literary theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois State University, and Columbia Pacific University, and completed his Ph.D. in art history at the University of Zurich in 2011. Brandl is a lecturer in art history, painting, art theory and comics at the Art Academy of Liechtenstein in Nendeln, Liechtenstein and the Higher Technical Academy for Visual Art in St. Gallen, Switzerland.
Brandl is active internationally as an artist since 1980, has won various awards, had many publications and had numerous exhibitions. His shows include galleries and museums in the US, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Egypt, the Caribbean; specific cities include Paris, Moscow, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. As a critic, he is a frequent contributor to London’s The Art Book and is a Contributing Editor for New York’s Art in America. He has frequently collaborated with fellow former Pekinite Th. Emil Homerin. Brandl is also a member of the Sharkpack artists' group founded by artist Wesley Kimler and is a contributor to Sharkforum, a critical website concerning art and contributes to the renowned art critical podcast Bad at Sports. Due to his participation in Sharkforum, Bad At Sports, Art in America and exhibitions, Brandl has become highly visible once again in the Chicago and New York art worlds, as well as in Europe.
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Martha Norelius
Martha Norelius (January 20, 1908 – September 23, 1955) was an American swimmer who competed in the 1924 Summer Olympics and 1928 Summer Olympics.
In the 1924 Olympics she won a gold medal in the 400 m freestyle event.
Four years later in Amsterdam, she won gold medals in the 400 m freestyle event and 4×100 m freestyle relay event.
She was born in Stockholm, Sweden and died in St. Louis, Missouri, She was married to Canadian rower Joseph Wright, Jr.
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Mary Martin
Mary Virginia Martin (December 1, 1913 – November 3, 1990) was an American actress and singer. She originated many roles over her career including Nellie Forbush in South Pacific and Maria in The Sound of Music. She was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1989. She was also the mother of actor Larry Hagman.
Mary Martin's life as a child, as she describes it in her autobiography My Heart Belongs, was secure and happy. She had close relationships with both her mother and father, as well as her siblings. Her autobiography details how the young actress had an instinctive ear for recreating musical sounds.
Martin's father, Preston Martin, was a lawyer and her mother, Juanita Presley, was a violin teacher. Although the doctors told Juanita that she would risk her life if she attempted to have another baby, she was determined to have a boy. Instead, she had Mary, who became quite a tomboy. Her birth was an event as all of the neighbors gathered around Juanita's bedroom window, waiting for the raising of a curtain to signal the baby’s arrival.
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Mary McLeod Bethune
Mary Jane McLeod Bethune (July 10, 1875 – May 18, 1955) was an American educator and civil rights leader best known for starting a school for African American students in Daytona Beach, Florida, that eventually became Bethune-Cookman University and for being an advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Born in South Carolina to parents who had been slaves and having to work in fields at age five, she took an early interest in her own education. With the help of benefactors, Bethune attended college hoping to become a missionary in Africa. When that did not materialize, she started a school for African American girls in Daytona Beach. From six students it grew and merged with an institute for African American boys and eventually became the Bethune-Cookman School. Its quality far surpassed the standards of education for African American students, and rivaled those of schools for white students. Bethune worked tirelessly to ensure funding for the school, and used it as a showcase for tourists and donors, to exhibit what educated African-Americans could do. She was president of the college from 1923 to 1942 and 1946 to 1947, one of the few women in the world who served as a college president at that time.
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Masaharu Morimoto
Masaharu Morimoto (森本 正治, Morimoto Masaharu?, born May 26, 1955 in Hiroshima, Japan) is a well-known Japanese chef, best known as an Iron Chef on the Japanese TV cooking show Iron Chef and its spinoff, Iron Chef America. He is also known for his unique style of presenting food.
Morimoto received practical training in sushi and traditional Kaiseki cuisine in Hiroshima, and opened his own restaurant in that city in 1980. Influenced by Western cooking styles, he decided to sell his restaurant in 1985 to travel around the United States. His travels further influenced his fusion style of cuisine. He established himself in New York City and worked in some of Manhattan's prestigious restaurants, including the dining area for Sony Corporation's executive staff and visiting VIPs, the Sony Club, where he was executive chef, and the exclusive Japanese restaurant Nobu, where he was head chef.
While at Nobu he got his start on the Iron Chef television show. Several months after the weekly run of Iron Chef ended in 1999, he left Nobu, eventually opening his own Morimoto restaurant in Philadelphia in 2001. He now has a Morimoto restaurant in the Chelsea in New York City, as well as restaurants in Mumbai & New Delhi, named Wasabi and another Morimoto in Boca Raton, Florida. He also partnered with businessmen Paul Ardaji Jr. and Paul Ardaji Sr. in an Asian bistro venture called Pauli Moto's; the initial branch opened in Tyson's Corner, Virginia but has since closed. Morimoto also owns Morimoto XEX in Tokyo that has a Teppanyaki and a sushi floor. Morimoto XEX received a Michelin star in the recent Tokyo Michelin Guide.
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Matt Keough
Matthew Lon Keough (born July 3, 1955 in Pomona, California) Drafted by the Oakland A's out of Corona del Mar High School in 1973. Keough is a former Major League Baseball (MLB) pitcher who played from 1977 through 1986 for the Oakland Athletics (1977–1983), New York Yankees (1983–1984), St. Louis Cardinals (1985), Chicago Cubs (1986) and Houston Astros (1986). Keough batted and threw right-handed.
In a nine-season career, Keough posted a 54-84 record with 590 strikeouts and a 4.17 ERA in 1190 innings pitched, including seven shutouts and 57 complete games.
Keough was signed by Oakland as an infielder. He was supposed to replace departed Sal Bando at third base, but after hitting a disappointing .210 in Double-A in 1976, he was converted to a pitcher. Keough joined Oakland a year later. He was selected to the All-Star Game in his rookie season for the 1978 Athletics, recording a 3.24 ERA despite his 8-15 mark. In 1979, he tied a major league record by losing his first 14 decisions and finished with a 2-17 record. His winning percentage of .105 was the worst recorded by a major league pitcher since 1916, which was shared between Jack Nabors and Tom Sheehan. From 1978–79, Keough made 28 consecutive starts without a victory, tying Cliff Curtis (1910–11) for the longest streak in MLB history according to the Elias Sports Bureau. The streak was later tied by Jo-Jo Reyes (2008–11).
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Matthew Henson
Matthew Alexander Henson (August 8, 1866 – March 9, 1955) was an African American explorer and associate of Robert Peary on various expeditions, the most famous being a 1909 expedition during which he may have been the first person to reach the Geographic North Pole.
Henson was born on a farm in Nanjemoy, Maryland on August 8, 1866. He was still a child when his parents Lemuel and Caroline[citation needed] died. He was sent to live with his uncle, who paid for his education until he died. After his uncle's death, Henson got a job as a dishwasher at "Janey's Home-Cooked Meals Cafe". At the age of twelve he went to sea as a cabin boy on a merchant ship called Katie Hines. The captain, Captain Childs, took him under his wing and thought of him as his son. Childs and Henson were close for a long time. Henson sailed around the world for the next several years. He visited places such as China, Japan, the Phillipines, France, Africa, and southern Russia, educating himself and becoming a skilled navigator.
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Matti Vanhanen
Matti Taneli Vanhanen ( pronunciation (help·info)) (born November 4, 1955) is a Finnish politician who was Prime Minister of Finland from 2003 to 2010. He was also Chairman of the Centre Party, and in the second half of 2006 he was President of the European Council. In his earlier career he was a journalist.
Vanhanen is the son of professor Tatu Vanhanen and Anni Tiihonen. He is an abstainer of alcohol and 2 meters tall.
He studied political science at the University of Helsinki, graduating as a Master of Social Sciences in 1989. He was chairman of the Centre Party Youth League from 1980 to 1983. He also served as a member of the Espoo City Council from 1981 to 1984. Vanhanen used to work as a journalist. He was an editor (1985–1988) and editor-in-chief (1988–1991) at the local newspaper Kehäsanomat. In a column in Suomenmaa (the Centre Party’s organ), he strongly condemned the Baltic Star pro-Estonian independence demonstration held in Helsinki in July 1985, calling the demonstration "provocative".
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Maurice Utrillo
Maurice Utrillo, French pronunciation: [mɔ.ʁis ytʁijo], born Maurice Valadon, (26 December 1883 – 5 November 1955) was a French painter who specialized in cityscapes. Born in the Montmartre quarter of Paris, France, Utrillo is one of the few famous painters of Montmartre who were born there.
Utrillo was the son of the artist Suzanne Valadon (born Marie-Clémentine Valadon), who was then an eighteen-year-old artist's model. She never revealed who had been the father of her child; speculation exists that he was the offspring from a liaison with an equally young amateur painter named Boissy, or with the well established painter, Pierre-Cécile Puvis de Chavannes, or even with Renoir (see below under Utrillo's Paternity). In 1891 a Spanish artist, Miguel Utrillo y Molins, signed a legal document acknowledging paternity, although the question remains as to whether he was in fact the child's father.
Valadon, who had become a model after a fall from a trapeze ended her chosen career as a circus acrobat, found that posing for Berthe Morisot, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and others provided her with an opportunity to study their techniques; in some cases, she had also become their mistress. She taught herself to paint, and when Toulouse-Lautrec introduced her to Edgar Degas, he became her mentor. Eventually she became a peer of the artists she had posed for.
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Maurizio Bianchi
Maurizio Bianchi (December 4, 1955 in Pomponesco in the Province of Mantua) is an Italian pioneer of noise music, originating from Milan.
Bianchi began to produce music in 1979, and since 1980 has used electronic equipment with the avowed goal "to produce technological sounds and in such a way to work on complete realising of the modern decadence".
In the beginning, he published tapes under the alias Sacher-Pelz. In 1981, William Bennett, head of the band Whitehouse and the British Come Org. label, offered Bianchi a record contract, which Bianchi signed unchecked. It was based on a "joke contract" that Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound had sketched. The contract assumed all rights to Bianchi's work. After delivery of the tapes Bennett edited-in speeches by Nazi leaders, and instead of the relatively unsensational name MB, it was published under the alias Leibstandarte SS MB, named after the SS unit that worked as bodyguards to Adolf Hitler.
Until 1984, Bianchi published on other labels intensively as either MB or simply Maurizio Bianchi, sometimes several albums and/or tapes per year, as well as numerous tracks to compilations.
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Mel Tiangco
Carmela Tiangco-Cornejo popularly known as 'Mel Tiangco' (born August 10, 1955) is a popular television newscaster and television host in the Philippines.
Tiangco was a newscaster at ABS-CBN however after taking part in a Tide TV ad in mid-1995 she was suspended from the network as newscasters of ABS-CBN are prohibited to endorse a product. This led to her exile to GMA Network, joining Jay Sonza. She currently co-anchors GMA Network's evening newscast, 24 Oras with Mike Enriquez. She is also the host of the now-defunct weekly drama anthology Magpakailanman and a co-host for Mel and Joey with comedian-TV host-writer Joey de Leon, which has been cancelled after seven years, with its last airing on July 10, 2011 to give way to a planned talent show that would compete with other rival networks.
Off camera, she is the mother of Wency Cornejo, a musician best known as the lead vocalist of the now-defunct Philippine rock band After Image (active in the 90s). She is also involved in philanthropic work as the Executive Vice President of the GMA Kapuso Foundation, the network's socio-civic arm.
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Meles Zenawi
Meles Zenawi Asres (Ge'ez: መለስ ዜናዊ አስረስ Mäläs Zenawi Äsräs; born 8 May 1955) has been the Prime Minister of Ethiopia since 1995. He was President of Ethiopia from 1991 to 1995. Since 1985, he has been chairman of the Tigrayan Peoples' Liberation Front (TPLF), and he is head of the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).
Meles was born in Adwa, Tigray in Northern Ethiopia, to an Ethiopian father from Adwa, Ethiopia, and a mother from Adi Quala, Eritrea. He graduated from the General Wingate high school in Addis Ababa, then studied medicine at Addis Ababa University (at the time known as Haile Selassie University) for two years before interrupting his studies in 1975 to join the TPLF. While a member of the TPLF, he founded the Marxist-Leninist League of Tigray. His first name at birth was "Legesse" (thus Legesse Zenawi, Ge'ez: ለገሰ ዜናዊ legesse zēnāwī) but he is better known by his nom de guerre Meles. He later changed his first name to "Meles" in honor of a University student and a revolutionary radical who was executed by the previous government in 1975.
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Melody Anderson
Melody Anderson (born December 3, 1955) is a Canadian American social worker and public speaker specializing in the impact of addiction on families. She is also known as an actress, with her most high-profile role being Dale Arden in the 1980 adaptation of Flash Gordon. Born in Edmonton, Alberta, Anderson started off as a performer and entertainer. She made her debut at age five on a radio show. While doing singing, she also trained as an actress, leading to roles in films and television during the 1970s and 1980s.
Her first national exposure came as a "sweathog" in an episode of Welcome Back, Kotter in 1977. She made numerous guest appearances on television in the 1980s, in series such as Archie Bunker's Place, Battlestar Galactica, Dallas, T. J. Hooker, the pilot episode of The A-Team, and The Fall Guy. She had recurring roles on St. Elsewhere and Jake and the Fatman. She was a cast member of Manimal, and All My Children in the 1990s.
In 1983, Anderson also played the title role in a made-for-TV film called Policewoman Centerfold, in which her character, a divorced police officer, is fired after posing nude for a men's magazine (based loosely on the true story of Springfield, Ohio patrolwoman Barbara Schantz, who was subsequently fired from her job after posing nude in Playboy magazine in the early 1980s). She also starred in the 1986 made for television movie, Beverly Hills Madam. She starred as Edie Adams in the TV film Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter, opposite Jeff Goldblum as Ernie Kovacs. She also played the role of Marylin Monroe in 1993 in Marilyn & Bobby: Her Final Affair , where she shine all her beauty. Her last television appearance was a 1995 guest appearance in the short-lived CBS revival of Burke's Law.
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Michael Beschloss
Michael Richard Beschloss (born November 30, 1955) is an American historian. A specialist in the United States presidency, he is the author of nine books.
Beschloss was born in Chicago, grew up in Flossmoor, Illinois, and was educated at Eaglebrook School, Andover, Williams College and Harvard University. He majored in political science, working under James MacGregor Burns at Williams, from which he graduated with Highest Honors, and earned an MBA at Harvard Business School, with the original intention of writing history while serving as a foundation executive.
Beschloss has been a frequent commentator on the PBS NewsHour and is the NBC News Presidential Historian. He is a trustee of the White House Historical Association and the National Archives Foundation and he also sits on the boards of the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs and the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. He was formerly a trustee of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation (Monticello), the Urban Institute and the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. He also sits on the advisory board to the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and is a former member of the President's Commission on White House Fellowships. He has served as a historian at the Smithsonian Institution, a Senior Associate Member at St. Antony's College (University of Oxford), a Visiting Scholar at the Harvard University Russian Research Center, a Senior Fellow of the Annenberg Foundation and a Montgomery Fellow and Dorsett Fellow at Dartmouth College.
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Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan (born February 6, 1955)[citation needed] is an American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. A 2006 New York Times book review describes him as a "liberal foodie intellectual."
Pollan was born on Long Island, New York to author and financial consultant Stephen Pollan and columnist Corky Pollan. Pollan received a B.A. in English from Bennington College in 1977 and an M.A. in English from Columbia University in 1981.
In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Pollan describes four basic ways that human societies have obtained food: the current industrial system, the big organic operation, the local self-sufficient farm, and the hunter-gatherer. Pollan follows each of these processes—from a group of plants photosynthesizing calories through a series of intermediate stages, ultimately into a meal. Along the way, he suggests that there is a fundamental tension between the logic of nature and the logic of human industry, that the way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world, and that industrial eating obscures crucially important ecological relationships and connections. On December 10, 2006 The New York Times named The Omnivore's Dilemma one of the five best nonfiction books of the year. On May 8, 2007, the James Beard Foundation named The Omnivore's Dilemma its 2007 winner for the best food writing. It was the book of focus for the University of Pennsylvania's Reading Project in 2007, and the book of choice for Washington State University's Common Reading Program in 2009-10. An excerpt of the book was published in Mother Jones.
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Michael Rooker
Michael Rooker (born April 6, 1955) is an American actor. He currently stars as Merle Dixon in the AMC television series The Walking Dead based on the comic book series of the same name.
Rooker, who has eight brothers and sisters, was born in Jasper, Alabama and studied at the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago, where he moved with his mother and siblings at the age of thirteen, after his parents divorced.
He made his film debut in 1986 playing the title role in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, a film based on the confessions of serial killer Henry Lee Lucas. He has since appeared in numerous films over the years including Mississippi Burning, Sea of Love, Days of Thunder, JFK, Cliffhanger,Tombstone,Mallrats, Rosewood, The 6th Day and Jumper. He has also guest starred in the TV series Stargate SG-1 and Crime Story.
In 2010, he starred in James Felix McKenney's horror film Hypothermia, which was co-produced by Larry Fessenden and set in New York. In June 2010 he revealed via Twitter that he was to appear in the AMC television series The Walking Dead. In the series, he portrays Merle Dixon, one of the survivors of a zombie apocalypse.
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Michel Platini
Michel François Platini (born 21 June 1955) is a former French football player and manager, and the president of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) since 2007.
During his professional footballing career, Platini played for the clubs Nancy, Saint-Étienne, and Juventus, and was a member of the French national team that won the 1984 European Championship, a tournament in which he was the top goalscorer and voted the best player. He also participated in the 1978, 1982 and 1986 World Cups, reaching the semi-finals in the latter two. Platini, Alain Giresse, Luis Fernández and Jean Tigana together made up the "carré magique" (French for "magic square"), the group of midfield players that formed the heart of the French national team throughout the 1980s.
Considered one of the best passers in football history as well as one the best free kick specialists and finishers, he holds the record for most goals (9) scored in European Championship final tournaments despite only appearing in the 1984 edition. Despite being a midfielder, he held the national team top scorer record until striker Thierry Henry surpassed the 41 goals mark in 2007.
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Michele Pillar
Michele Diane Pillar (born July 26, 1955 in Long Beach, California) is a three-time Grammy-nominated Christian singer, songwriter and occasional actress. Despite recording only a handful of studio albums, her music has made a lasting influence in contemporary Christian music (CCM).
(Married Steve Pillar in 1979.) In 1987, aged 32, she married the jazz guitarist and composer Larry Carlton. She has worked with such leading figures in her field of music as Phil Keaggy and Erick Nelson, beginning in 1979. The attention of legendary Christian singer Billy Ray Hearn led her to sign a contract in 1981 with Sparrow Records, where she released three albums, before taking a hiatus from solo work in 1984. Her 1991 studio album Love Makes All the Difference was her return to recording as a solo artist after working on her husband's music and a variety of other projects.
Pillar's album Reign On Me and her project with Erick Nelson, The Misfit, are now considered classics of the CCM genre. The Misfit has recently been re-issued on compact disc. Outside of her solo work, she teamed up with Steve Camp on the song "Love's Not a Feeling" (from Camp's 1983 album, Fire and Ice). She also appeared with Camp on the charity single "Do Something Now" in 1985, and also served as the background vocalist for Camp's 1987 album, After God's Own Heart.
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Michelle Yim
Michelle Yim Wai-ling (Chinese: 嚴惠玲; born September 2, 1955), also known by her Chinese stage name Mai Suet (Chinese: 米雪), is a Hong Kong actress. She graduated from St Rose of Lima College and Shaw Brothers' Training School.
In 1975, Yim joined Commercial Television (CTV), and began her journey onto the television circles. In 1976, Yim acted in Legend of the Condor Heroes, a Wuxia TV series adaptation of Louis Cha's novel of the same title. For the first time, Yim took up the role as a female lead, portraying the character Wong Yung. This drama not only shot her into the limelight, but also created the first one million ratings in the television history. At that point she was named the "first and ever Wong Yung".[citation needed] She has since been awarded the Top Ten Artiste Award several times.
With the closure of CTV in 1978, Yim became a contract-free actress, and many companies were trying hard to sign her up.[citation needed] One of the companies, Television Broadcasts (TVB) managed to invite her to guest-star in one of the period drama, The Twins, which later become one of her best works.
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Mick Mars
Mick Mars (born Robert Alan Deal, May 4, 1951) is the lead guitarist for American heavy metal band Mötley Crüe.
After his family relocated from Indiana to California, Robert Deal dropped out of high school and began playing guitar in a series of unsuccessful blues based rock bands throughout the seventies, taking on menial day jobs to make ends meet. After nearly a decade of frustration with the California music scene, Deal reinvented himself, changing his stage name to Mick Mars and dyeing his hair jet black, hoping for a fresh start. In April 1981 he put a want ad in the Los Angeles The Recycler newspaper, describing himself as "a loud, rude and aggressive guitar player". Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee contacted him and after hearing him play decided he would be their guitarist. Upon Tommy's prodding, they persuaded a former high school friend of Tommy's and local rock and roll singer/frontman, Vince Neil, to join. It was Mick's suggestion that the band be called Mötley Crüe, a name that had stuck in his head from his days as a member of a band called White Horse. The bassist walked into the room and called them "... Well this is a motley-looking crew."
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Miguel Ferrer
Miguel José Ferrer (born February 7, 1955) is an American actor and voice actor who is often cast as a villain. His notable roles include Bob Morton, a supporting character in RoboCop (1987), the short-tempered FBI agent Albert Rosenfield in Twin Peaks, and Dr. Garret Macy on Crossing Jordan. His voice acting in Mulan (1998), as the villain Hun leader Shan Yu, is also especially memorable.
Ferrer was born in Santa Monica, California, the oldest of five children of Puerto Rican Academy Award-winner José Ferrer and American singer Rosemary Clooney. Ferrer's siblings are Maria, Gabriel, Monsita, and Rafael, also an actor. Ferrer was raised in Hollywood, and as a teenager his interests shifted toward music. Ferrer played the drums on Keith Moon's Two Sides of the Moon. Jenerators band mate Bill Mumy ("Will Robinson" on the television classic Lost In Space and later Lennier on the TV series Babylon 5) cast him as a drummer in his first television role, in the series Sunshine. He only took the role because Mumy talked him into it.
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Mihaela Mitrache
Mihaela Mitrache (aka Mihaela Mitraki; July 8, 1955, Bucharest - February 18, 2008) was a Romanian movie and theatre actress. She graduated from Bucharest Movie and Theatre Institute in 1978, where she was a student in actor Marin Moraru's class.
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Mike Huckabee
Michael Dale "Mike" Huckabee (born August 24, 1955) is an American politician who served as the 44th Governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007. He was a candidate in the 2008 United States Republican presidential primaries, finishing second in delegate count and third in both popular vote and number of states won (behind both John McCain and Mitt Romney). He won the Iowa Republican caucuses. Huckabee exited the race as McCain became the presumptive Republican nominee after winning the delegate-rich winner-take-all states of Florida, California, and New York.
Huckabee is the author of several best selling books, an ordained Southern Baptistminister, musician and a public speaker. He is also an ABC Radio political commentator. He and his wife, Janet, have been married for over 37 years and have three grown children: John Mark, David, and Sarah. Janet Huckabee was an unsuccessful candidate for Arkansas Secretary of State in 2002.
Huckabee currently hosts the Fox News Channel talk show Huckabee. Starting April 2, 2012 he will host The Mike Huckabee Show from noon until 3 pm weekdays for Cumulus Media Networks.
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Mizuho Fukushima
Mizuho Fukushima (福島 瑞穂, Fukushima Mizuho?, born 24 December 1955 in Miyazaki Prefecture) is a Japanese politician. She has been a member of the House of Councillors since 1998, was re-elected in 2004 and 2010, and is the current chair of the Social Democratic Party of Japan, a position she has held since 2003.
Fukushima was also Minister of State for Consumer Affairs and Food Safety, Social Affairs, and Gender Equality in Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's cabinet (16 September 2009- 28 May 2010); the SDP was the junior partner in the DPJ-led government coalition. However, in May 2010 disagreements over the issue of the Marine Corps Air Station Futenma led to the sacking of Fukushima from the cabinet on Friday May 28, and the SDP subsequently voted to leave the ruling coalition.
Fukushima's Social Democratic Party has an anti-nuclear platform, and she has been referred to as a prominent anti-nuclear activist. For three decades, she was at the forefront of an often futile fight against the utilities that operated Japan's nuclear reactors, the corporations that built them and the bureaucrats who enabled them. That situation changed with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in March 2011.
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Mo Yan
Mo Yan (Chinese: 莫言; pinyin: Mò Yán) (born February 17, 1955) is a modern Chinese author, described as "one of the most famous, oft-banned and widely pirated of all Chinese writers". He is known in the West for two of his novels which were the basis of the film Red Sorghum. He has been referred to as the Chinese answer to Franz Kafka or Joseph Heller. He is currently represented by the Hong Kong based Peony Literary Agency
His works have been translated into more than a dozen languages, including English, German, French and Norwegian.
Mo Yan was born in the Shandong province to a family of farmers. He left school during the Cultural Revolution to work in a factory that produced oil. He joined the People's Liberation Army at age twenty, and began writing while he was still a soldier, in 1981. Three years later, he was given a teaching position at the Department of Literature in the Army's Cultural Academy.
"Mo Yan", meaning "don't speak" in Chinese, is a pen name. His real name is Guan Moye (simplified Chinese: 管谟业; traditional Chinese: 管謨業; pinyin: Guǎn Móyè). In a public speech delivered in Open University of Hong Kong (broadcasted in ATV International, 2008-12-28 11:00), he said this pen name was chosen when he wrote his first novel. He was well known since he was small to be a frank person in speech, which was not quite welcomed in Mainland China. Therefore, he chose this pen name to remind himself not to speak too much.
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Moses Malone
Moses Eugene Malone (born March 23, 1955 in Petersburg, Virginia) is a retired American Hall of Fame basketball player who starred in both the American Basketball Association and the National Basketball Association. A three-time NBA MVP and one of the NBA's 50 greatest players, Malone was the most successful prep-to-pro player of his era, going straight from Petersburg High to a 21-year career in professional basketball. By the time Malone retired after 19 seasons in the NBA he was the last former ABA player active and held numerous distinctions in both leagues, including a championship ring and NBA finals trophy won with the 1983 Philadelphia 76ers.
Right after graduating from Petersburg High School, Malone signed a letter of intent to play for the University of Maryland. However, Malone was drafted by the ABA's Utah Stars in 1974 and became one of the first basketball players to jump straight from high school into the professional leagues.
Malone began his professional career with the Utah Stars. He later played for the ABA's Spirits of St. Louis. In two seasons in the ABA, Malone averaged 17.2 points and 12.9 rebounds per game. Malone's ABA career ended with the ABA–NBA merger in June 1976, when Malone moved to the NBA.
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Natalya Petrusyova
Natalya Anatolyevna Petrusyova (Russian: Ната́лья Анато́льевна Петрусёва) (born 2 September 1955 in Moscow, Russian SFSR) is a former speed skater.
Natalya Petrusyova trained at Burevestnik. Competing for the Soviet Union, Petrusyova was a very successful skater – once Olympic Champion (on the 1,000 m), twice World Allround Champion, once World Sprint Champion, twice European Allround Champion, three times Soviet Allround Champion, twice Soviet Sprint Champion, and ten-time world record holder.
Petrusyova was awarded the Order of Friendship of Peoples in 1980. After her speed skating career had ended, Petrusyova became the senior speed skating coach at the Committee for Physical Culture and Sports in Moscow. At the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, she was the senior coach of the Russian speed skating team.
An overview of medals won by Petrusyova at important championships she participated in, listing the years in which she won each:
Over the course of her career, Petrusyova skated ten world records:
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Ngo Dinh Diem
Ngô Đình Diệm ( listen; 3 January 1901 – 2 November 1963) was the first president of South Vietnam (1955–1963). In the wake of the French withdrawal from Indochina as a result of the 1954 Geneva Accords, Diệm led the effort to create the Republic of Vietnam. Accruing considerable U.S. support due to his staunch anti-Communism, he achieved victory in a 1955 plebiscite that was widely considered fraudulent. A Roman Catholic, Diệm pursued biased and religiously oppressive policies against the Republic's Montagnard natives and its Buddhist majority, epitomized in Malcolm Browne's Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of the self-immolation of Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức in 1963.
Amid religious protests that garnered worldwide attention, Diệm lost the backing of his U.S. patrons and was assassinated, along with his brother, Ngô Đình Nhu by Nguyễn Văn Nhung, the aide of ARVN General Dương Văn Minh on 2 November 1963, during a coup d'état that deposed his government.
Diệm was born in Huế, the original capital of the Vietnamese Nguyễn Dynasty. His family originated in the central Vietnamese village of Phú Cẩm. Portuguese missionaries had converted his family to Roman Catholicism in the 17th century, so Diệm was given a saint's name at birth, following the custom of the Catholic Church. His full name was Jean Baptiste Ngô Đình Diệm. He would often claim that he had descended from a blue-blooded family of mandarins who were so revered that people believed that it was a great honour and good luck to be buried alongside his ancestors. Most historians dismiss this as false and believe that his family were of low rank until his father passed the imperial examinations.[citation needed]
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Nicolas de Staël
Nicolas de Staël (January 5, 1914, Saint Petersburg – March 16, 1955, Antibes) (French nationality, of Russian origin) was a painter known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting. He also worked with collage, illustration and textiles.
Nocolas de Staël was born Николай Владимирович Шталь фон Гольштейн in the family of a Russian Lieutenant General, Baron Vladimir Stael von Holstein, (a member of the Staël von Holstein family, and the last Commandant of the Peter and Paul Fortress) and his second wife, Lubov Vladimirovna Berednikova (his first wife was Olga Sakhanskaya). De Staël's family was forced to emigrate to Poland in 1919 because of the Russian Revolution; both his father and stepmother died in Poland and the orphaned Nicolas de Staël was sent with his older sister Marina to Brussels to live with a Russian family (1922).
He eventually studied art at the Brussels Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts (1932). In the 1930s, he travelled throughout Europe, lived in Paris (1934) and in Morocco (1936) (where he first met his companion Jeannine Guillou, also a painter and who would appear in some of his paintings from 1941–1942) and Algeria. In 1936 he had his first exhibition of Byzantine style icons and watercolors at the Galerie Dietrich et Cie, Brussels. He joined the French Foreign Legion in 1939 and was demobilized in 1941. Sometime in 1940 he met one of his future dealers Jeanne Bucher.
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Nicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Sarkozy (pronounced [ni.kɔ.la saʁ.kɔ.zi] ( listen), born Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa; 28 January 1955) is a French politician who served as the 23rd President of the French Republic from 16 May 2007 until 15 May 2012.
Before his presidency, he was leader of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). Under Jacques Chirac's presidency he served as Minister of the Interior in Jean-Pierre Raffarin's (UMP) first two governments (from May 2002 to March 2004), then was appointed Minister of Finances in Raffarin's last government (March 2004 to May 2005) and again Minister of the Interior in Dominique de Villepin's government (2005–2007).
Sarkozy was also president of the General council of the Hauts-de-Seine department from 2004 to 2007 and mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, one of the wealthiest communes of France from 1983 to 2002. He was Minister of the Budget in the government of Édouard Balladur (RPR, predecessor of the UMP) during François Mitterrand's last term.
In foreign affairs, he promised a strengthening of the entente cordiale with the United Kingdom and closer cooperation with the United States. During his term, he faced the late-2000s financial crisis (followed by the recession and the debt crisis caused by it) and the Arab Spring (especially in Tunisia, Libya, and Syria). He also married Italian-French singer-songwriter Carla Bruni on 2 February 2008 at the Élysée Palace in Paris.
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Nina Hagen
Catharina "Nina" Hagen (born 11 March 1955) is a German singer and occasional actress.
Nina Hagen was born in the former East Berlin, East Germany, the daughter of Hans Hagen (also known as Hans Oliva-Hagen), a scriptwriter, and Eva-Maria Hagen (née Buchholz), an actress and singer. Her paternal grandfather died in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp (one of Nina's great-grandparents was Jewish). Her parents divorced when she was two years old, and growing up she saw her father infrequently. At age four, she began to study ballet, and was considered an opera prodigy by the time she was nine.
When Hagen was 11, her mother married Wolf Biermann, an anti-establishment singer-songwriter. Biermann's political views later influenced young Hagen.
Hagen left school at age sixteen, and went to Poland, where she began her career. After that, she returned to Germany and joined the cover band Fritzens Dampferband (Fritzen's Steamboat Band, together with Achim Mentzel and others). She added songs by Janis Joplin and Tina Turner to the "allowable" set lists during shows.
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Olga Korbut
Olga Valentinovna Korbut (Belarusian: Вольга Валянцінаўна Корбут, Volha Valancinaŭna Korbut; Russian: Ольга Валентиновна Корбут) (b. May 16, 1955 in Hrodna), also known as the "Sparrow from Minsk", is a Belarusian, Soviet-born gymnast who won four gold medals and two silver medals at the Summer Olympics, in which she competed in 1972 and 1976 for the USSR team.
Korbut, who started training at age 8, entered a Belarusian sports school headed by coach Renald Knysh at age 11. There, Korbut's first trainer was Elena Volchetskaya (an Olympian), but she was moved to Knysh's group a year later. With him, she learned a difficult backward somersault on the balance beam.She debuted this at a competition in the USSR in 1969. Also, in 1969, Olga completed a backflip-to-catch on the uneven bars. This was the first backward release move ever performed by a woman on bars.
She ended fifth at her first competition in the 1969 USSR championships. The next year, she won a gold medal in the vault. Due to illness and injury, she was unable to compete in many of the tournaments prior to the 1972 Olympics.
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Ona Munson
Ona Munson (June 16, 1903 – February 11, 1955) was an American actress perhaps best known for her portrayal of prostitute Belle Watling in Gone with the Wind (1939).
Munson was born Owena Wolcott in Portland, Oregon. She first came to fame on Broadway as the singing and dancing ingenue in the original production of No, No, Nanette. From this, Munson had a very successful stage and radio career in 1930s in New York. She introduced the song "You're the Cream in My Coffee" in the 1927 Broadway musical Hold Everything.
Her first starring role was in a Warner Brothers talkie called Going Wild (1930). Originally this film was intended as musical but all the numbers were removed prior to release due to the public's distaste for musicals which had virtually saturated the cinema in 1929-1930. Munson appeared the next year in a musical comedy called Hot Heiress in which she sings several songs along with her co-star Ben Lyon. She also starred in Broadminded (1931) and Five Star Final (1931). She briefly retired from the screen, only to return in 1938.
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Ornella Muti
Ornella Muti (born 9 March 1955) is an Italian actress.
She was born in Rome as Francesca Romana Rivelli, to a Neapolitan father and Estonian mother. Her maternal grandparents immigrated from Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), Russia, to Estonia. She has an older sister, Claudia (born 1951).
Muti modeled as a teenager and made her film debut in 1970 in La moglie più bella (aka The Most Beautiful Wife).
She has primarily worked in Italian films but she made her British film debut as Princess Aura in Flash Gordon in 1980. American movies she appeared in include Oscar (1991) and Once Upon a Crime (1992). She is mostly known to the French for appearing in a TV commercial of Giovanni Panzani pasta.
Muti was voted "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World" in 1994 by a worldwide poll of readers of the magazine Class.
In 2008, Ornella Muti introduced her own line of jewellery. She opened new shops in Paris, Milan, Rome, Riga, Moscow and Almaty.
She insured her breasts for $350,000.
Muti has been married twice, to Alessio Orano (her fellow actor in the film "The Most Beautiful Wife", 1975–1981), and Federico Facchinetti (1988–1996).
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Parviz Parastui
Parviz Parastui (also spelt Parviz Parastooee, Persian: پرویز پرستویی , born 24 June 1955) is an Iranian actor and singer.
Parviz Parastui had worked in judicature before he became an actor. He began his career by starring in the film Diar-e Asheghan. Following Diar-e Asheghan, Parastui began a long lasting career in films.
After starring in films such as Pishtazan-e Fath, Hunting, etc., Parviz Parastui acted as Sadeq Meshkini, a comedy role in the highly acclaimed yet controversial movie Leily is with Me directed by Kamal Tabrizi. The war film Leily Is with Me brought a new perspective to the Iran–Iraq War which up to then was viewed as taboo material. The movie tells the comical story of a war-fearing employee of Iranian Television Broadcasting unknowingly advancing straight to enemy lines, while actually trying to flee the war when he is assigned to accompany a director to a city close to enemy lines to film a documentary piece. Since then, Parastui has expanded his presence as a comedy film actor by starring in other revolutionary comedy films.
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Pattillo Higgins
Pattillo Higgins (December 5, 1863-June 5, 1955) was a businessman as well as a self-taught geologist. He earned the nickname the "Prophet of Spindletop" for his endeavors in the oil business, which accrued a fortune for many. He partnered to form the Gladys City Oil Gas and Manufacturing Company and later, established the Higgins Standard Oil Company.
Pattillo Higgins was born to Roberto James and Sarah (Raye) Higgins on December 5, 1863, in Sabine Pass, Texas. His family moved to Beaumont when he was at six years old. He attended school until he reached the fourth grade, after which he apprenticed as a gunsmith under his father’s direction. In his youth, he was a violent troublemaker, pulling pranks and harassing African Americans. When he was seventeen, he pulled a prank on a black Baptist church that got the attention of a sheriff deputy. The deputy fired a warning shot over Higgins' head, after which Higgins fired back and delivered what would later turn out to be a fatal hit. The wounded deputy managed to fire again, striking Higgins lower left arm. Higgins' arm would later become severely infected, requiring amputation from the elbow down. Higgins was put on trial for the murder of the deputy, but he would be found not guilty by a jury that perceived his act as self-defense. After his acquittal, he worked as a logger along the Texas-Louisiana border, apparently unhindered by his lack of an arm. It was in 1885 that he attended a Baptist revival meeting where he made the decision to become a Christian. Realizing that the lumber camps were not the ideal place to maintain a good morality, he decided to return to Beaumont, Texas to establish himself as a businessman.
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Paul Claudel
Paul Claudel (6 August 1868 – 23 February 1955) was a French poet, dramatist and diplomat, and the younger brother of the sculptor Camille Claudel. He was most famous for his verse dramas, which often convey his devout Catholicism.
He was born in Villeneuve-sur-Fère (Aisne), into a family of farmers and government officials. His father, Louis-Prosper, dealt in mortgages and bank transactions. His mother, the former Louise Cerveaux, came from a Champagne family of Catholic farmers and priests. Having spent his first years in Champagne, he studied at the lycée of Bar-le-Duc and at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in 1881, when his parents moved to Paris. An unbeliever in his teenage years, he experienced a sudden conversion at the age of eighteen on Christmas Day 1886 while listening to a choir sing Vespers in the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris: "In an instant, my heart was touched, and I believed." He would remain a strong Catholic for the rest of his life. He studied at the Paris Institute of Political Studies (better known as Sciences Po).
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Pedro Brieger
Pedro Brieger (b. 5 November 1955, Buenos Aires, Argentina) is an Argentine journalist and sociologist who holds the Chair of Sociology in Middle East in the University of Buenos Aires. He worked in differents newspapers like Clarín, El Cronista, La Nación, Página/12, Perfil and Miami Herald; and magazines like Noticias, Tres Puntos, Revista Veintitrés and Le Monde diplomatique.
In August 2006 he reported that Canal Siete, the channel where his program was being broadcasted, had received pressure from the Israeli ambassador Rafael Eldad, because of its coverage about the military conflict in Middle East. Although the diplomatic denied these statements, the Union Press Workers of Buenos Aires issued a statement where they expressed solidarity with Brieger, considering "unacceptable the expressions of the Ambassador Eldad".
In August 2009 he received the Martín Fierro Award as the best male journalistic labour on TV, during 2008. In May 2010 he received again the same prize.
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Penn Jillette
Penn Fraser Jillette (born March 5, 1955) is an American illusionist, comedian, musician, and best-selling author known for his work with fellow magician Teller in the team Penn & Teller, and advocacy of atheism, scientific skepticism, libertarianism and free market capitalism.
Jillette was born in Greenfield, Massachusetts. His mother, Valda R. Jillette (née Parks) (November 8, 1909 – January 1, 2000), was a secretary, and his father, Samuel H. Jillette (March 14, 1912 – February 14, 1999), worked at Greenfield's Franklin County Jail. Jillette became disenchanted with traditional illusionist acts that presented the craft as authentic magic, such as The Amazing Kreskin on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. At age eighteen, he saw a show by illusionist James Randi, and became enamored of his approach to magic that openly acknowledged deception as entertainment rather than a mysterious supernatural power. Jillette regularly acknowledges Randi as the one person on the planet he loves the most besides members of his family.
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Pete Sessions
Peter Anderson Sessions (born March 22, 1955) is a politician from the state of Texas. He is a Republican, and currently represents the 32nd congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. He is the current Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee
Sessions was born in Waco, Texas, and grew up there and in the suburbs of Washington, DC. His father is William S. Sessions, the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He graduated from Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas in 1978. Sessions then worked for Southwestern Bell for 16 years. He rose to the rank of district manager for marketing in Dallas, supervising 435 employees and managing a $16 million budget. He also worked at Bell Communications Research (AKA Bellcore, currently named Telcordia Technologies) in New Jersey.
He is an Eagle Scout with four generations of Boy Scouts in his family, and recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America, as well as a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity. As a Congressman, Sessions has sponsored legislation to raise money for the Boy Scouts. At the 2007 National Convention, Sessions was presented with the Pi Kappa Alpha Distinguished Alumni Award.
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Peter Gallagher
Peter Killian Gallagher (born August 19, 1955) is an American actor, musician, and writer. Since 1980, Gallagher has played roles in numerous Hollywood films. He starred as Sandy Cohen in the television drama series The O.C. from 2003 to 2007. He currently appears in a recurring role on the USA Network drama Covert Affairs, as CIA Clandestine Services Director Arthur Campbell.
Gallagher was born in New York City, New York. His mother, Mary Ann (née O'Shea), was a bacteriologist, and his father, Thomas Francis Gallagher II, was an advertising executive. He is of Irish Catholic background and was raised in Armonk, New York. Gallagher graduated from Tufts University, where he had been active in theater, appearing in such shows as Stephen Sondheim's Company and singing with the all-male a cappella group the Beelzebubs.
Gallagher's debut movie performance was as one of the co-stars in the 1980 movie, The Idolmaker.
Gallagher appeared on Broadway with Glenn Close in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing, but first achieved fame for his role in Steven Soderbergh's Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989). He also starred as Sky Masterson in the 1992 Broadway Revival of Guys and Dolls.
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Peter Scolari
Peter Scolari (born September 12, 1955) is an American television, film and stage actor best known for his roles in the television shows Newhart, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show, and Bosom Buddies.
He co-starred in the 1984 comedy The Rosebud Beach Hotel and played the "Lonely Boy" in The Polar Express.
Scolari has appeared on Broadway in Sly Fox and Hairspray, and Off Broadway in Old Man Joseph and His Family, The Exonerated, In the Wings, The Music Man, and White's Lies.
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Phil Simms
Phillip Martin "Phil" Simms (born November 3, 1954) is a former American football quarterback, and currently a television sportscaster for the CBS network. After a standout career at Morehead State University, Simms was drafted in the first round by the New York Giants of the National Football League (NFL) with the number seven selection overall in the 1979 NFL Draft. Simms played his entire professional career with the Giants and was named Most Valuable Player (MVP) of Super Bowl XXI, after he led the Giants to a 39–20 victory over the Denver Broncos and set the record for highest completion percentage in a super bowl, going 22 for 25. He also was named to the Pro Bowl for his performances in the 1985 and 1993 seasons.
He finished his career with 33,462 passing yards and has since gone on to a career broadcaster of NFL games—first as an analyst for ESPN, then as a in-game color commentator with NBC, and currently with CBS. He is the father of former NFL quarterback and current New England Patriots assistant coach Chris Simms and New York Jets quarterback Matt Simms.
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Philip Loeb
Philip Loeb (March 28, 1891 – September 1, 1955), was an American stage, film, and television actor. He was blacklisted under McCarthyism and committed suicide in response.
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Loeb first performed in a high school production of Lady Gregory's The Workhouse Ward. He served in the Army, then worked as stage manager of The Green Goddess. His stage career gained strength in the early 1920s when he became associated with the newly-formed Theatre Guild in New York City. He worked in a number of plays throughout the decade. His stage work lessened in the 1930s, while he worked with Actors Equity Association. (It is his work with Equity that is thought to have prompted the charges of Communist leanings.)
In 1948, Loeb portrayed the role of Jake Goldberg on Broadway in Gertrude Berg's play Me and Molly which was based on Berg's long running radio show The Goldbergs. After the play, he reprised the role on the television adaptation of The Goldbergs on CBS. Loeb became a viewer favorite as the sometimes exasperated but always loving husband Jake to Berg's sometimes meddlesome but always bighearted Molly Goldberg, and it looked as though he would become a television fixture.
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Philip Oakey
Philip Oakey (born 2 October 1955) is an English composer, singer, songwriter and producer.
He is best known as the lead singer, lead songwriter, frontman and co-founder of the famous English synthpop band The Human League. Aside from the Human League, he has had an extensive solo music career and collaborated with numerous other artists and producers. He is also an occasional DJ.
Oakey was one of the most visually distinctive music artists of the early 1980s. His synthesiser composition and song writing helped make his band The Human League one of the highest profile pop bands of the early 1980s. At the height of their success The Human League released the triple platinum album Dare and Oakey co-wrote and sang the multi million selling single “Don't You Want Me”, which was a number one single in both the U.S and UK, where it remains the 25th highest selling single of all time.[citation needed] Oakey has been a key figure in the music business and has been lead singer of The Human League for over 30 years, with whom he has sold more than 20 million records worldwide. He continues recording and performing internationally to this day.
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Philippe Troussier
Philippe Troussier (born on March 21, 1955 in Paris) is a former French football player and now a manager.
Troussier is known as the "White Witch Doctor" for his success with African club teams such as Asec Abidjan of the Côte d'Ivoire and the national teams of Nigeria, South Africa and Burkina Faso. Troussier is also known as a coach for his time spent with the Japanese national team.
Troussier coached Japanese national team from 1998 to 2002, winning the 2000 Asian Cup, placing second at the 2001 Confederations Cup and made the round of 16 at the 2002 World Cup. He also coached the Japanese team at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney to a fifth-place finish and 1999 FIFA World Youth Championship runner-up.
He was the head coach of the Moroccan national team, having taken over after the country's failure to qualify for the 2006 World Cup. However, he was fired after only two months in charge by the Moroccan FA due to a difference in opinion.
In March 2008 he returned to Japan to manage FC Ryuku a Japanese 3rd division team before he was replaced by compatriot Jean Paul Rabier.
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Polly Draper
Polly Carey Draper (born June 15, 1955) is an American actress, writer, producer, and director. Draper received a Emmy Award nomination, New York Magazine's Best Broadway Actress award, and two Writers Guild of America (WGA) Award nominations, winning one WGA. She also won awards at the Giffoni Film Festival and Hamptons International Film Festival. Draper speaks in a "trademark throaty voice".
Draper began her acting career appearing in countless off-Broadway productions, including a role in Split in 1980. She later gained recognition for her role on the ABC prime-time television drama Thirtysomething, which broadcast from 1987–91 and earned her an Emmy nomination. Draper was cast opposite John Ritter in the TV movie adaption of Danielle Steel's Heartbeat in 1993. Her starring role in Four Dogs and a Bone in 1993 won her a New York Magazine award. Draper's first screenwriting was with The Tic Code (1998), an independent drama film she starred alongside Gregory Hines, and the latter securing her a Bronze Gryphon award for Best Actress at the Giffoni Film Festival. Her television cameos include an appearance in the USA comedy series Monk and the NBC crime series Law & Order: Criminal Intent, both in 2003. She also starred in her playwright Getting Into Heaven (2003) at The Flea Theater. Draper was critically acclaimed for writing her directing debut The Naked Brothers Band: The Movie (2005), which earned her the Audience Award for Family Feature Film at the Hamptons International Film Festival. By early 2007 it became the pilot to the Nickelodeon musical comedy series The Naked Brothers Band which she created, produced, directed, and obtained a WGA for Children's Script: Long Form or Special. In 2011, Draper wrote and starred in an episode of the Current TV science fiction series Bar Karma.
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Polykarp Kusch
Polykarp Kusch (January 26, 1911 – March 20, 1993) was a German-American physicist. In 1955 he was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics with Willis Eugene Lamb for his accurate determination that the magnetic moment of the electron was greater than its theoretical value, thus leading to reconsideration of—and innovations in—quantum electrodynamics.
He received his bachelor's degree in physics in 1931 from Case Western Reserve University. From the University of Illinois, he received his master's degree in 1933 and his Ph.D. in 1936. He spent much of his career as a professor at Columbia University in New York City, and served as the university's provost for several years before departing for the newly-created University of Texas at Dallas. During his tenure at Columbia, he was the doctoral supervisor for Gordon Gould, the inventor of the laser.
A residential dormitory for undergraduate students at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio on the South Campus is named after Dr. Kusch. The building is named Kusch House. It is located on Carlton Road in Cleveland Heights.
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Priscilla Barnes
Priscilla Barnes (born December 7, 1955) is an American actress known for her role as nurse Terri Alden on the American television sitcom Three's Company, having been made the permanent replacement for Suzanne Somers. Barnes subsequently made appearances in films such as A Vacation in Hell, the James Bond thriller Licence to Kill, the Kevin Smith comedy Mallrats and the horror film The Devil's Rejects.
Barnes was born December 7, 1955 in Fort Dix, New Jersey, the third of four children of a father who was a major in the United States Air Force. Her mother was a housewife. Barnes's childhood was marked by a series of moves across various military bases in the United States before her family settled in Lancaster, California. After graduating from Antelope Valley High School at age 17, she relocated to San Diego, working as a waitress and a dancer.
Barnes' first break came when Bob Hope saw her in a local fashion show and invited her to join his troupe for a 1973 performance at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. She subsequently moved to Los Angeles to attempt a career in show business in earnest. Her second break came at 19 when she met Peter Falk at Pips. Six months later he gave her a one-line part in an episode of Columbo, which led to a series of bit parts in films like The Seniors (1978) and Delta Fox (1979).
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Ran Ito
Ran Ito (伊藤 蘭, Ito Ran?, born 13 January 1955 in Kichijoji, Musashino, Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese actress and previous member of the 1970's legendary idol group Candies. As the leading member of Candies, Ran Ito was in charge of the solo of most hit songs. She is married to Mizutani Yutaka, a famous actor in Japan. She won the award for best supporting actress at the 2nd Yokohama Film Festival for Disciples of Hippocrates.
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Ray Buttigieg
Ray Buttigieg (born May 1, 1955 in Gozo, Malta) is a poet and musician.
He attended Qala primary school, then the Lyceum in Victoria, Gozo. He then moved to the United States and continued his studies in New York, where he settled permanently. By the age of 20 he had several poems published in anthologies in London and New York City.
Best known for Pastorale (1978), Poeticus I & II (1986) and (1992), and the very first book he ever wrote in his late teens Wizard's Spider Mystic Glider (1989) which are written in a classical style; he received criticism when he later introduced a more modern style in his experiments and improvisational poetry. In the last few years he returned to his earlier style in works like The Wisdom of Stones (2002), Remnants from the Book of Time (2002), and The Procession (1999). Although for the last 25 years Buttigieg has been writing only in English and very little in his native Maltese, his subject matter still includes a great deal of influence from his native Malta.
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Ray Kroc
Raymond Albert "Ray" Kroc (October 5, 1902 – January 14, 1984) was an American businessman who joined McDonald's in 1954 and built it into the most successful fast food operation in the world. Kroc was included in Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century, and amassed a fortune during his lifetime. He owned the San Diego Padres baseball team from 1974 until his death in 1984.Similar to another fast-food giant, KFC founder Harlan Sanders, Kroc's success came late in life when he was past his 50th birthday.
Kroc was born to parents of Czech origin in Oak Park, near Chicago, on October 5, 1902. His father originated from the village Břasy near Plzeň, Bohemia (now the Czech Republic). He grew up and spent most of his life in Oak Park, Illinois. During the First World War he lied about his age and became a Red Cross ambulance driver at 15. During the war, Kroc served in the same regiment as Walt Disney. Between the end of the war and the early 1950s he tried his hand at a number of trades including paper cup salesman, pianist, jazz musician, band member and radio DJ at Oak Park radio station WGES. At one time, Ray worked for room and board at one of Ray Dambaugh's restaurants in the midwest to learn the restaurant business. Years later, he returned the favor by coming to Ray Dambaugh's funeral in Evans City, Pennsylvania to pay his respects. He eventually became a multi-mixer milkshake machine salesman, traveling across the country
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Ray Ozzie
Raymond "Ray" Ozzie (born November 20, 1955) is an American software industry entrepreneur who held the positions of Chief Technical Officer and Chief Software Architect at Microsoft between 2005 and 2010. Before Microsoft, he was best known for his role in creating Lotus Notes.
He grew up in Chicago, Illinois, later moving to Park Ridge, Illinois and graduating from Maine South High School in 1973 where he learned to program on a GE-400 mainframe and did technical work on school theater productions.
He received his bachelor's degree in computer science in 1979 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he worked on the PLATO system, and began his working career at Data General Corporation where he worked for Jonathan Sachs. After leaving Data General, Ozzie worked at Software Arts for Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston, the creators of VisiCalc, on that product and TK Solver. Shortly thereafter, he was recruited by Sachs and Mitch Kapor to work for Lotus Development to develop what became Lotus Symphony. Ozzie left Lotus Development in 1984 and founded Iris Associates to create the product later sold by Lotus as Lotus Notes. Iris Associates was acquired by Lotus in 1994, and Lotus itself was acquired by IBM in 1995.
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Raymond Benson
Raymond Benson (born September 6, 1955) is an American author best known for being the official author of the adult James Bond novels from 1997 to 2003. Benson was born in Midland, Texas and graduated from Permian High School in Odessa in 1973. In primary school Benson took an interest in the piano which would later in his life develop into an interest in composing music (mostly for theatrical productions). Benson also took part in drama at school and became the vice president of his high school's drama department, an interest that he would later pursue by directing stage productions in New York City after attending and receiving a degree in Drama Production—Directing from the University of Texas at Austin. Other hobbies include film history and criticism, writing, and designing computer games.
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Reba McEntire
Reba Nell McEntire (born March 28, 1955) is an American country music artist and actress. She began her career in the music industry as a high school student singing in the Kiowa High School band, on local radio shows with her siblings, and at rodeos. As a solo act, she was invited to perform at a rodeo in Oklahoma City, which caught the attention of country artist Red Steagall. He brought her to Nashville, Tennessee, where she eventually signed a contract with Mercury Records in 1975. She released her first solo album in 1977 and released five additional studio albums under the label until 1983.
Signing with MCA Nashville Records, McEntire took creative control over her second MCA album, My Kind of Country (1984), which had a more traditional country sound and produced two number one singles: "How Blue" and "Somebody Should Leave". The album brought her breakthrough success, bringing her a series of successful albums and number one singles in the 1980s and 1990s. McEntire has since released 26 studio albums, acquired 35 number one singles, and 28 albums have been certified gold, platinum or multi-platinum in sales by the Recording Industry Association of America.
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Renzo Rosso
Renzo Rosso (born 15 September 1955 Brugine, Padova, North East Italy) is an Italian fashion entrepreneur. Referred to as the "Jeans Genius" by Suzy Menkes, he is the founder and President of fashion brand Diesel . Rosso is also the founder of OTB (Only the Brave), the holding group for iconic brands like Diesel, Maison Martin Margiela, Viktor & Rolf, and Staff International (who manufactures and distributes DSquared2, Just Cavalli, Vivienne Westwood, and Marc Jacobs Men) and the founder of its not-for-profit organization, the Only The Brave Foundation. Rosso is also the President of the Red Circle investment group; the Diesel Farm in Marostica, Veneto; the Pelican hotel in Miami; and Bassano Virtus 55 S.T., the professional soccer club of his hometown Bassano del Grappa, Veneto.
Rosso was born in the village of Brugine in the Northeastern Italian region of Veneto. His parents were farmers and he grew up under simple conditions, regularly helping his father after school. Having seen the laborious life required for a farmer, Rosso aspired to do something different from his parents and in 1970 began studying industrial Textile Manufacturing at the Marconi Technical Institute in Padua. There, he produced, at the age of 15, his first self-designed garment, a pair of low-waist bell-bottomed jeans using his mother's Singer sewing machine. He kept experimenting with different jeans models and would give each pair to friends or sell them at school for about 3500 lire (equivalent of 1,80 Euro in current prices). In 1973 he began studying Economics at the University of Venice, where in addition to helping his father on the farm, he also financed his studies by working as a mechanic and as a carpenter.
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Rich Mullins
Richard Wayne "Rich" Mullins (October 21, 1955 – September 19, 1997) was an American contemporary Christian music singer and songwriter born in Richmond, Indiana. He had two sisters and two brothers.
Mullins was best known for his worship songs "Awesome God" and "Sometimes by Step", both of which have been embraced as modern classics by many Christians. Some of his albums were also considered among Christian music's best, including Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth (1988), The World As Best As I Remember It, Volume One (1991) and A Liturgy, A Legacy, & A Ragamuffin Band (1993). His music has been covered by many artists, including Caedmon's Call, Five Iron Frenzy, Amy Grant, Carolyn Arends, Jars of Clay, Michael W. Smith, John Tesh, Chris Rice, Rebecca St. James, Hillsong United and Third Day.
Rich Mullins is also remembered for his devotion to the Christian faith. He was heavily influenced by St. Francis of Assisi (1181–1226). In 1997, he composed a musical called Canticle of the Plains, a retelling of the life of St. Francis set in the Old West.
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Richard Burmer
Richard Steven Burmer (September 19, 1955 – September 9, 2006) was an American composer, engineer, sound designer and musician. His work with electronic music combined with musical styles and instruments from around the world has formed his own unique and distinct sound.
Richard was born September 19, 1955 in Owosso, Michigan, the son of Henry Stanley Burmer and Theresa (Suchozenka) Burmer. As a youth growing up in Michigan, he was introduced to the music of India, the Middle East, contemporary orchestral composers, and electronic music. He found a wide palette of musical textures with synthesizers, and the original sampler, the Mellotron. Influences also came from The Moody Blues, King Crimson, and Pink Floyd. He graduated from Corunna High School.
After spending time in college studying music theory and composition, Richard moved to Los Angeles where he became a sound designer for E-mu Systems in Santa Cruz and engineer/synth programmer for EFX systems in Burbank.
Richard Burmer died of heart disease on Saturday, September 9, 2006 in Saginaw, Michigan at the age of 50 years. A 2007 Hearts of Space radio show episode entitled "Across the View" (Program #794) was dedicated to his memory.
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Richard Hieb
Richard James Hieb (born September 21, 1955 in Jamestown, North Dakota) is a former NASA astronaut and a veteran of three space shuttle missions. He was a mission specialist on STS-39 and STS-49, and was a payload commander on STS-65. He is currently a the Vice-President of Lockheed Martin Civil Programs under Integrated Systems and Ground Support in Houston, Texas.
Hieb's family originates from Russia and is of German descent. His mother was a long time elementary school teacher at Lincoln Elementary in Jamestown, North Dakota.
Mr. Hieb received a bachelor of arts degree in math and physics from Northwest Nazarene College in 1977. He went on to graduate from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1979 with a master of science degree in aerospace engineering, and came directly to NASA to work in crew procedures development and crew activity planning. He worked in the Mission Control Center on the ascent team for STS-1, and during rendezvous phases on numerous subsequent flights. He has an extensive background in on-orbit procedures development, particularly in rendezvous and proximity operations.
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Richard Hilton
Richard Howard "Rick" Hilton (born August 17, 1955) is an American entrepreneur and hotelier. He is the Chairman and co-founder of Hilton & Hyland, a real estate brokerages firm based in Beverly Hills that specializes in homes and estates in Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills, Bel-Air, Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, Malibu, and Hollywood Hills, as well as estates from Santa Barbara to San Diego. He is a son of Barron Hilton and grandson of Conrad Hilton, founder of Hilton Hotels. He is also the father of Paris Hilton and Nicky Hilton.
Hilton was born in Los Angeles, California, the sixth of eight children of Marilyn June (née Hawley) and Barron Hilton, whose father was Hilton Hotel founder Conrad Hilton. In 1978, Rick graduated from the University of Denver with a degree in hotel and restaurant management. His brothers and sisters are: William Barron Hilton, Jr. (born 1948); Hawley Anne Hilton (born 1949); Stephen Michael Hilton (born 1950); David Alan Hilton (born 1952); Sharon Constance Hilton (born 1953); Daniel Kevin Hilton (born 1962); and Ronald Jeffrey Hilton (born 1963).
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Robert Ellis Orrall
Robert Ellis Orrall (born May 4, 1955 in Winthrop, Massachusetts) is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. Signed to RCA Records in 1980, Orrall debuted that year with the album "Fixation". His first Top 40 single was "I Couldn't Say No", a duet with Carlene Carter. By 1990, Orrall had found success as a songwriter, having penned Number One singles for Shenandoah and Clay Walker. He returned to RCA in 1991 and charted the singles "Boom! It Was Over" and "A Little Bit of Her Love", from his first country music album, Flying Colors. Orrall then joined frequent songwriting partner Curtis Wright in the CMA-nominated duo Orrall & Wright, recording one more album and charting two singles. They split up in 1994, however, and Orrall returned to his solo career, writing singles for Reba McEntire, Taylor Swift, and Lindsay Lohan, as well as producing records for Swift, be your own PET, and Love and Theft. He also performs and records as an indie rock musician in the band Monkey Bowl.
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Robert Kabbas
Robert Kabbas (born 15 March 1955 in Alexandria, Egypt) is a retired weightlifter from Australia, who won the silver medal in the Lightheavyweight (82.5 kg) category at the 1984 Summer Olympics.
Kabbas has been one of the most successful weightlifters to represent Australia at the Commonwealth Games. He went to three Olympic Games: Montreal 1976, Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles in 1984. He was the first of only two Australian weightlifters to compete at three Olympics. The LA Olympics were one of the highlights of Kabbas’ career as he lifted a personal best of 342.5 kg and set a Commonwealth record.
Winning medals at three Commonwealth Games: Edmonton 1978 (Gold Medal), Brisbane 1982 (Gold Medal) and Edinburgh 1986 (Silver Medal), he was also the best weightlifter across all weight classes at Edmonton. Kabbas remains in the sport, still coaching and developing athletes.
Kabbas became president of the Australian weightlifting federation in October 2007.
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Robert Riskin
Robert Riskin (March 30, 1897 – September 20, 1955) was an American screenwriter and playwright, best known for his collaborations with director-producer Frank Capra.
Riskin began his career as a playwright, writing for many local New York City playhouses. Two of his plays, Bless You, Sister and Many a Slip, managed to have successful runs on Broadway. He moved to Hollywood in 1931 after Columbia Pictures bought the screen rights to several of his plays. His first collaboration with director Frank Capra came in 1931 with the Barbara Stanwyck vehicle The Miracle Woman.
Although Riskin wrote a number of other films for Columbia, it was his string of hit ventures with Capra that brought him acclaim. Riskin received Academy Award nominations for his screenplays for the Capra films Lady for a Day (1933), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), You Can't Take It with You (1938), and Here Comes the Groom (1951). He was awarded the Oscar for his much-lauded screenplay for 1934's It Happened One Night.
By 1941, when Capra directed Riskin's Meet John Doe, the screenwriter had tired of Capra's knack for taking credit for Riskin's work. After several confrontations with the director while working on Meet John Doe, Riskin never willingly collaborated with Capra again. (According to Hollywood legend, he brandished a blank page in Capra's face and challenged: "Put the famous Capra touch on that!") In 1945, Riskin wrote the story for The Thin Man Goes Home and had an uncredited collaboration on the 1946 film noir classic The Strange Love of Martha Ivers. The following year, he wrote and produced the minor James Stewart hit Magic Town. Directed by William Wellman, Magic Town has a similar flavor and tone to Riskin's Capra-directed films.
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Robin Yount
Robin R. Yount ( /ˈjɒnt/; nicknamed,"The Kid", and "Rockin' Robin", born September 16, 1955) is an American former Major League Baseball shortstop and center fielder. He spent his entire 20-year baseball career with the Milwaukee Brewers (1974–1993). In 1999, Yount was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.
Yount was born in Danville, Illinois. During his youth, his family moved to southern California, where he attended William Howard Taft High School in Woodland Hills.
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Rodolfo Graziani
Rodolfo Graziani, 1st Marquis of Neghelli (August 11, 1882 – January 11, 1955), was an officer in the Italian Regio Esercito (Royal Army) who led military expeditions in Africa before and during World War II.
Rodolfo Graziani was born in Filettino in the province of Frosinone. In 1903, he decided to pursue a military career. He served in World War I and became the youngest Colonnello (Colonel) in the Regio Esercito.
In the 1920s, Graziani commanded the Italian forces in Libya. He was responsible for suppressing the Senussi rebellion. During this so-called "pacification", he was responsible for the construction of several concentration camps and labor camps, where thousands Libyan prisoners died, some killed directly by hanging, like Omar Mukhtar, or bullets, but most indirectly by starvation or disease. His deeds earned him the nickname "the Butcher of Fezzan" among the Arabs, but was called by the Italians the Pacifier of Libya (Pacificatore della Libia).
From 1926-1930, Graziani was the Vice Governor of Italian Cyrenaica in Libya. In 1930, he became Governor of Cyrenaica and held this position until 1934, when it was determined that he was needed elsewhere. In 1935, Graziani was made the Governor of Italian Somaliland.
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Roland Emmerich
Roland Emmerich (German: [ˈʁoːlant ˈɛməʁɪç]) (born November 10, 1955) is a German film director, screenwriter, and producer. His films, most of which are Hollywood productions filmed in English, have grossed more than $3 billion worldwide, more than those of any other European directors. His films have grossed just over $1 billion in the United States, making him the country's 14th-highest grossing director of all time. He began his work in the film industry by directing the film The Noah's Ark Principle as part of his university thesis and also co-founded Centropolis Entertainment in 1985 with his sister. He is a collector of art and an active campaigner for the lesbian and gay community, himself being openly gay. He is also a campaigner for an awareness of global warming and equal rights.
Emmerich has directed many successful films such as Stargate (1994), Independence Day (1996), The Patriot (2000), The Day After Tomorrow (2004) and 2012 (2009). Although many of his films have been successful in the box office, his films usually have the tendency of being panned by critics such as Universal Soldier (1992), Godzilla (1998) and 10,000 BC (2008) .
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Rosanne Cash
Rosanne Cash (born May 24, 1955) is an American singer-songwriter and author. She is the eldest daughter of country music icon Johnny Cash and his first wife, Vivian Liberto Cash Distin.
Although Cash is often classified as a country artist, her music draws on many genres, including folk, pop, rock and blues. In the 1980s, she had a string of chart-topping singles, which crossed musical genres and landed on both C&W and Top 100 charts, the most commercially successful being her 1981 breakthrough hit "Seven Year Ache", which topped the U.S. country singles charts and reached the Top 30 on the U.S. pop singles charts. In 1990, Cash released Interiors, a spare, introspective album which signaled a break from her pop country past. The following year Cash ended her marriage and moved from Nashville to New York City, where she continues to write, record and perform. Since 1991 she has released five albums, written two books and edited a collection of short stories. Her fiction and essays have been published in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Oxford-American, New York Magazine, and various other periodicals and collections.
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Rowan Atkinson
Rowan Sebastian Atkinson (born 6 January 1955) is a British actor, comedian, and screenwriter. He is most famous for his work on the satirical sketch comedy show Not The Nine O'Clock News, and the sitcoms Blackadder, Mr. Bean and The Thin Blue Line. He has been listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest actors in British comedy, and amongst the top 50 comedians ever in a 2005 poll of fellow comedians. He has also had cinematic success with his performances in the Mr. Bean movie adaptations Bean and Mr. Bean's Holiday and in Johnny English and its sequel Johnny English Reborn. He also starred in the film Never Say Never Again (a spy film based on the James Bond novel Thunderball) in 1983.
Atkinson, the youngest of four brothers, was born in Consett, County Durham, England. His parents were Eric Atkinson, a farmer and company director, and Ella May (née Bainbridge), who married on 29 June 1945. His three older brothers were Paul, who died as an infant, Rodney, a Eurosceptic economist who narrowly lost the United Kingdom Independence Party leadership election in 2000, and Rupert. Atkinson was brought up Anglican, and was educated at Durham Choristers School, St. Bees School, and Newcastle University. In 1975, he continued for the degree of MSc in Electrical Engineering at The Queen's College, Oxford, the same college his father matriculated at in 1935, which made Atkinson an Honorary Fellow in 2006. First achieving notice at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1976, while at Oxford, he also acted and performed early sketches for the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), the Oxford Revue and the Experimental Theatre Club (ETC), meeting writer Richard Curtis and composer Howard Goodall, with whom he would continue to collaborate during his career.
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Rumiko Ukai
Rumiko Ukai (鵜飼 るみ子, Ukai Rumiko?, born May 24, 1955) is a Japanese voice actress best known for voicing Frau Bow in the original Mobile Suit Gundam. She is a member of 81 Produce.
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Ruth Ellis
Ruth Ellis (9 October 1926 – 13 July 1955), née Neilson, was the last woman to be executed in the United Kingdom. She was convicted of the murder of her lover, David Blakely, and hanged at Holloway Prison, London, by Albert Pierrepoint.
Ellis was born in the Welsh seaside town of Rhyl, the third of six children. During her childhood her family moved to Basingstoke. Her mother, Elisaberta (Bertha) Cothals, was a Belgian refugee; her father, Arthur Hornby, was a cellist from Manchester who spent much of his time playing on Atlantic cruise liners. Arthur changed his surname to Neilson after the birth of Ruth's elder sister Muriel.
Ellis attended Fairfields Senior Girls' School in Basingstoke, leaving when she was 14 to work as a waitress. Shortly afterwards, in 1941 at the height of the Blitz, the Neilsons moved to London. In 1944, 17-year-old Ruth became pregnant by a married Canadian soldier and gave birth to a son, Clare Andrea Neilson, known as "Andy". The father sent money for about a year, then stopped. The child eventually went to live with Ellis's mother.
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Sandra Bernhard
Sandra Bernhard (born June 6, 1955) is an American comedian, singer, actress and author. She first gained attention in the late 1970s with her stand-up comedy in which she often bitterly critiques celebrity culture and political figures. Bernhard is number 97 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 greatest standups of all time.
Bernhard has often addressed her childhood in interviews and within the context of her stand-up comedy. She was born in Flint, Michigan, the daughter of Jeanette and Jerome Bernhard. She has three older brothers. Her family moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, when she was 10.
Of her Jewish family, Bernhard stated in her show Without You I'm Nothing: "My father was a proctologist and my mother was an abstract artist, so that's how I view the world." In the documentary program Girls Who Do: Comedy, she discusses being a funny teenager. After graduating from Saguaro High School in Scottsdale, Arizona, she went to live on a kibbutz in Israel. She moved to Los Angeles at the age of 19. During that time she made ends meet working as a manicurist in a high-end salon.
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Sandy Allen
Sandra Elaine "Sandy" Allen (June 18, 1955 – August 13, 2008) was a U.S. woman recognized as the tallest woman during her life according to Guinness World Records. She was 7ft.7 in. in height.
Allen wrote a book titled Cast A Giant Shadow, and appeared in the Guinness Book of World Records since 1976. Although over the years other women have taken over the title, Allen had held it for the last sixteen years of her life. Her abnormal height was due to a tumor in her pituitary gland that caused it to release growth hormone uncontrollably. At the age of twenty-two years, she underwent surgery for the condition. Lacking this procedure, Allen would have continued to grow and suffer further medical problems associated with gigantism.
She appeared in the Academy Award-winning Italian film Il Casanova di Federico Fellini, in a TV movie called Side Show, and in a Canadian/American documentary film called Being Different. The New Zealand band Split Enz immortalized her in a song, "Hello Sandy Allen," released on their 1982 album Time and Tide. Allen never married and was reported to have never had a serious boyfriend.
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Sanma Akashiya
Sanma Akashiya (明石家 さんま, Akashiya Sanma?, born July 1, 1955 in Kushimoto, Wakayama, Japan) is a Japanese TV comedian and actor simply known as Sanma. His real name is Takafumi Sugimoto (杉本 高文, Sugimoto Takafumi?).[citation needed] His talent agency is Yoshimoto Corporation.
Together with Beat Takeshi and Tamori, Sanma is said to be one of the "Big Three" tarento of Japan.[by whom?] Sanma's nickname is Owarai Kaiju (お笑い怪獣, Comedy Monster?). He is known for his ability to endlessly carry a conversation. His protruding front teeth are often ridiculed even by himself.
Akashiya was once married to actress Shinobu Ōtake. Their daughter, Imalu, is an actress, model, and singer.[citation needed]
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Sebastian Barry
Sebastian Barry (born 5 July 1955) is an Irish playwright, novelist and poet. He is noted for his dense literary writing style and is considered one of Ireland's finest writers.
Barry's literary career began in poetry before he began writing plays and novels. In recent years his fiction writing has surpassed his work in the theatre in terms of success, having once been considered a playwright who wrote occasional novels.
He has twice been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for his novels A Long Long Way (2005) and The Secret Scripture (2008), the latter of which won the 2008 Costa Book of the Year and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. His 2011 novel On Canaan's Side was longlisted for the Booker.
Barry was born in Dublin. He is the son of the late Irish actress Joan O'Hara. He attended Catholic University School and Trinity College, Dublin, where he edited Icarus.
His academic posts have included Honorary Fellow in Writing at the University of Iowa (1984), Villanova University (2006) and Writer Fellow at Trinity College, Dublin (1995–1996). Barry started his literary career with the novel Macker's Garden in 1982. This was followed by several books of poetry and a further novel The Engine of Owl-Light in 1987 before his career as a playwright began with his first play produced in the Abbey theater, Boss Grady's Boys in 1988.
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Sergei Shepelev
Sergei Mikhailovich Shepelev (born October 13, 1955 in Nizhny Tagil, Soviet Union) is a retired ice hockey player who played in the Soviet Hockey League. He played left wing for HC Spartak Moscow. Internationally, he was a member of the USSR national ice hockey team that won the 1981 Canada Cup and the gold medal at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. He was named to the 1981 Canada Cup All-Star Team. He was inducted into the Russian and Soviet Hockey Hall of Fame in 1981.
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Sergey Khlebnikov
Sergey Anatolevich Khlebnikov (Russian: Сергей Анатольевич Хлебников, August 27, 1955 – June 12, 1999) was a Russian speed skater who competed for the Soviet Union in the 1980 and the 1984 Winter Olympics.
He was born in Sortavala and died in Moscow by drowning in the Mitinskoe pond; "an oak of a man," the Western press described him as a "tank" and a typical product of communism.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Khlebnikov was one of the perennial favorites in the sprint events, battling often with fellow Soviet sprinter Yevgeny Kulikov, Japanese Springer Akira Kuroiwa, and American all-rounder Eric Heiden. Throughout his career, his biggest rival, even his "archrival," was Canadian skater Gaétan Boucher.
Khlebnikov's first medal as a sprinter came in 1981, when he finished second in the world sprint championship in Grenoble, after Boucher fell in the 500 meters. He won his only world sprint championship in Alkmaar in 1982. The next year, in Helsinki, a fall in the 500 meter race meant he lost the crown to Akira Kuroiwa. In 1984, he finished second in the world sprint championship in Trondheim after leading on the first day, but the next year, his career as the strongest Soviet sprinter was over, Igor Zhelezovski ("Igor the Terrible") having become world sprint champion in 1985.
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Shemp Howard
Shemp Howard (March 11, 1895 – November 22, 1955) was an American actor and comedian best known as a part of The Three Stooges comedy team. Born Samuel Horwitz, he was called "Shemp" because "Sam" came out that way in his mother's thick Litvak accent. He was an older brother of both Moe Howard and Curly Howard as well as the "third stooge" in the early years of the act. He would rejoin the trio in May 1946 after Curly suffered a stroke.
Shemp was born in Manhattan, New York. He was the third of the five Horwitz brothers and of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry.
Moe Howard entered show business as a youngster, on stage and in films. Eventually, he and older brother Shemp tried their hands as minstrel-show-style "blackface" comedians with an act they called "Howard and Howard—A Study In Black", and even worked for a rival vaudeville circuit at the same time by appearing without makeup. By the 1920s Moe had teamed in a roughhouse act with boyhood friend-turned-vaudeville star Ted Healy. One day Moe spotted his brother Shemp in the audience, and yelled at him from the stage. Quick-witted Shemp yelled right back, and walked onto the stage. From then on, Shemp was part of the act, usually known as "Ted Healy and His Stooges". On stage, Healy would sing and tell jokes while his three noisy stooges would get in his way. Healy would retaliate with physical and verbal abuse. Healy's original stooges were the Howard brothers and Larry Fine. Shemp played a bumbling fireman in the Stooges' first film, Soup to Nuts, the only film in which he plays one of Healy's gang.
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Shinbo Nomura
Shinbo Nomura (のむら しんぼ, Nomura Shinbo?, born Shin Nomura (野村 伸, Nomura Shin?); 24 September 1955 in Minamikayabe, now part of Hakodate, Hokkaido) is a Japanese manga artist. He is best known as the author of the yonkoma manga Tsurupika Hagemaru (つるピカハゲ丸?, lit. "Little Baldy Hagemaru"), which was adapted as a 58-episode anime television series and for which he received the 1988 Shogakukan Manga Award for children's manga. He also later created a manga adaption of Ratchet & Clank.
He began his career as an assistant to Kenshi Hirokane.
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Shoko Asahara
Shoko Asahara (麻原 彰晃, Asahara Shōkō?), born Chizuo Matsumoto (松本 智津夫, Matsumoto Chizuo?) on March 2, 1955, is a founder of the Japanese new religious group Aum Shinrikyo. He was convicted of masterminding the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway and several other crimes, for which he was sentenced to death.
Shoko Asahara was born into a large, poor family of tatami mat makers in Japan's Kumamoto Prefecture. Afflicted at birth with infantile glaucoma, he went blind at a young age in his left eye and is only partially sighted in his right. As a child, Asahara was enrolled in a school for the blind. Asahara graduated in 1977 and turned to the study of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine, which are traditional careers for the blind in Japan, and married in 1978. In 1981, Asahara was convicted of practicing pharmacy without a license and fined 200,000 yen.
Asahara's religious quest reportedly started at this time, while he was working to support his family. He dedicated his free time to the study of various religious concepts, starting with Chinese astrology and Taoism. Later, Asahara practiced esoteric yoga and Buddhism.
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Simon Rattle
Sir Simon Denis Rattle, CBE (born 19 January 1955) is an English conductor. He rose to international prominence as conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and since 2002 has been principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic (BPO).
Rattle was born in Liverpool, the son of Pauline Lila Violet (Greening) and Denis Guttridge Rattle, a Commander in the Royal Navy. He was educated at Liverpool College. Although Rattle studied piano and violin, his early work with orchestras was as a percussionist. He entered the Royal Academy of Music, University of London in 1971. There, his teachers included John Carewe. In 1974, his graduation year, Rattle won the John Player Conductor Competition. After organising and conducting a performance of Mahler's Second Symphony whilst still at the Academy, he was talent-spotted by the music agent Martin Campbell-White, of Harold Holt Ltd. (now Askonas Holt Ltd.), who has since managed Rattle's career. He spent the academic year 1980/81 at St Anne's College, Oxford studying English Language and Literature. He had been attracted to the college by the reputation of Dorothy Bednarowska, Fellow and Tutor in English. He was elected an Honorary Fellow of St Anne's in 1991. He was admitted to the degree of Doctor of Music honoris causa of the University of Oxford in 1999.
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Simon Yam
Simon Yam Tat-Wah, born 19 March 1955, is a Hong Kong actor and film producer.
The son of a former police officer of Shangdong heritage, his father was a Hong Kong Royal Police ship captain who was murdered by his colleague.[citation needed]
Yam's career began as a male supermodel, before he turned to acting in the mid 1970s. He then signed with TVB, starring and co-starring in a number of TV series prior to "apply his trades" in the movies in 1987. His elder brother is retired Deputy Commissioner of Hong Kong Police Yam Tak-Wing.
In 1989, he starred in the Japanese-Hong Kong co-production of Bloodfight. This was the first of its kind in which English was spoken throughout the entire film. In 1992, Yam gained critical acclaim for his role as the maniacal Judge in Full Contact, where he faced off in a bloody battle against Chow Yun-fat. In 1993, he starred as "Dhalsim" in Future Cops, Wong Jing's Hong Kong parody of Street Fighter. In 1996, Simon began his role as Chiang Tin-Sung, the leader of the Hung Hing triads in the first 3 installments of Young and Dangerous.
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Stanley Price
Stanley Price (December 31, 1892 – July 13, 1955) was an American film supporting actor who appeared in over 200 films between 1922 and 1956. He was born in Kansas, United States.
Price was an actor whose artistic career spanned four different decades, from silents through talkies to the advent of color. He debuted in the silent movie Your Best Friend (William Nigh, 1922), sharing starring duties with Vera Gordon and Harry Benham. After that, he became a familiar figure, wearing either cowboy rustler outfits or gangster nice suits, particularly in the cliffhanger serials of the 1930s through the early 1950s.
Usually, he served as the assistant or second-in-command for the brains heavy. He usually wore workmanlike duds, did the physical labor, and often had more brawn than morality. Thus, Price went from one chapter to the next trying desperately to kill the hero with fists, knives, guns, bombs or whatever else happened to be handy at the time. Nevertheless, he was another of these loyal henchmen who always seemed to break down and turn into a gutless weasel and outright coward when confronted by the hero.
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Stephen Walt
Stephen Martin Walt (born July 2, 1955) is a professor of international affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Among his most prominent works are Origins of Alliances and Revolution and War. He coauthored The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy with John Mearsheimer.
In 1983, he received a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. He did his undergraduate studies at Stanford University. Walt developed the 'Balance of Threat' Theory, which defined threats in terms of aggregate power, geographic proximity, offensive power, and aggressive intentions. More recently Walt has attracted attention for co-authoring and publishing with John Mearsheimer an article, which was subsequently published as a book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, a New York Times Best Seller. Walt is an influential scholar in international relations, generally associated with defensive realism. Jonathan Chait of The New Republic has called Walt an "ultra-Nixonian realist."
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Steve Camp
Steven J. Camp (born April 13, 1955) is a prominent American Dove Award and Grammy Award-nominated contemporary Christian music artist with an adult contemporary pop sound. He was very popular in the 1980s and early 1990s, where he has sold more than a million albums, who also has written or co-written 21 number one singles, since his debut, as a solo artist, in 1978. Today his popularity now continues mostly in his Christian writing addressing current trends and matters of Reformed Theology. He started Audience One Ministries, and his blog covering Christian music, biblical study, reformation, and revival.
He is well known for his strong views that Christian musicians are called to make direct, uncompromising music that confronts the world with the message of the Scriptures. Following Martin Luther's 95 theses, on Reformation Day (October 31), 1998 he sent out his own 107 theses calling for a reformation in contemporary Christian music.
Born in Wheaton, Illinois, Camp was raised by Christian parents; by 5 years of age he confessed faith in Jesus. This greatly influenced his desire to serve God through his teenage years. As a young Christian, he created a close bond with legendary Christian singer/songwriter Larry Norman, who gave him advice concerning his own singing and songwriting. In addition, he met the late Keith Green, who encouraged him to make a stronger commitment to Jesus and at the same time his own ministry. Camp was divorced from his wife prior to 2002. He remarried on June 19, 2009. He is unrelated to Jeremy Camp.
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Steve Earle
For the drummer Steve Earle, see Afghan Whigs
Stephen Fain "Steve" Earle ( /ˈɜrl/; born January 17, 1955) is an American singer-songwriter known for his rock, folk and Texas Country as well as his political views. He is also a producer, author, a political activist, and an actor, and has written and directed a play.
Earle was born on January 17, 1955, at Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia. He is the eldest son of Jack Earle, an air traffic controller, and Barbara Earle. Although he was born in Virginia where his father was stationed in the military, the family returned to Texas before Earle's second birthday. His ancestry is Irish Catholic on his mother's side and Scots-Irish on his father's side. They moved often during his childhood, primarily within Texas, but spent several of his formative years in and around San Antonio, Texas including East Terrell Hills, Converse, and Schertz. He dropped out of school in the 9th grade to move to Houston and learn more about the music business. Earle released his first album, Guitar Town, in 1986. His sister, Stacey Earle, is also a musician, having toured with her brother in the 1990s and sung on the song "When I Fall" on Earle's 2000 album, Transcendental Blues.
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Steve Jobs
Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs (/ˈdʒɒbz/; February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, designer and inventor. He is best known as the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc. Through Apple, he was widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution and for his influential career in the computer and consumer electronics fields. Jobs also co-founded and served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company in 2006, when Disney acquired Pixar.
In the late 1970s, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak engineered one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series. Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of Xerox PARC's mouse-driven graphical user interface, which led to the creation of the Apple Lisa and, one year later, the Macintosh. During this period he also led efforts that would begin the desktop publishing revolution, notably through the introduction of the LaserWriter and the associated PageMaker software.
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Steven Brust
Steven Karl Zoltán Brust (born November 23, 1955) is an American fantasy and science fiction author of Hungarian descent. He was a member of the writers' group The Scribblies, which included Emma Bull, Pamela Dean, Will Shetterly, Nate Bucklin, Kara Dalkey, and Patricia Wrede; he also belongs to the Pre-Joycean Fellowship.
He is best known for his novels about the assassin Vlad Taltos. His novels have been translated into German, Russian, Polish, Dutch, Czech, French, Spanish, Hebrew and Bulgarian. Most of his short stories are set in shared universes. These include Emma Bull's and Will Shetterly's Liavek, Robert Asprin's Thieves' World, Neil Gaiman's Sandman and Terri Windling's Borderland Series.
There are two series set in the world of Dragaera, namely The Khaavren Romances and The Vlad Taltos novels. They are set in different periods in the world, but some characters are common to both series.
There are currently 13 novels in the series (19 are planned).
Chronological order of novels:
Omnibus volumes:
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Steven Culp
Steven Bradford Culp (born December 3, 1955) is an American film and television actor. His best known roles include Rex Van de Kamp on ABC's Desperate Housewives and Clayton Webb on JAG.
Culp was born in La Jolla, San Diego, California to a naval officer father. During his childhood, his parents divorced and his mother, Ohio-born Mary Ann Joseph, re-married John Raymond Grabinsky. Culp attended First Colonial High School in Virginia. He graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1978 with a major in English literature and also studied at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. He earned an MFA from Brandeis University in 1981.
Culp can be seen in one of his earliest roles as Robert Campbell in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993). He plays a reporter looking into the Jason murders. Culp is known for his recurring roles as CIA Agent Clayton Webb on JAG (1997–2004) and Major Hayes on Star Trek: Enterprise (2003–2004). He had the unusual misfortune to have both of those characters killed off in the same week, in the shows' season finales (though Webb turned up very much alive in the subsequent season premiere of JAG). During the year 2004, Steven became the first actor to appear as a recurring character in four television series simultaneously: The West Wing, Star Trek: Enterprise, JAG and ER.
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Stéphane Dion
Stéphane Maurice Dion,PC, MP (born September 28, 1955) is a Canadian politician who has been the Member of Parliament for the riding of Saint-Laurent–Cartierville in Montreal since 1996. He was the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and the Leader of the Opposition in the Canadian House of Commons from 2006 to 2008. Dion resigned as Liberal leader after the party's defeat in the 2008 general election, but remained in Parliament and was re-elected in his riding in the 2011 election.
Dion is a former academic who served as a cabinet minister under Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin and, as such, is a Member of the Privy Council.
Dion was born in Quebec City, Quebec, the second of five children. His mother, Denyse (née Kormann), was a real-estate agent born in Paris, France, and his father, Léon Dion, was a Quebec academic. Dion was raised in a modest home on Liegeois Boulevard in the Sillery, Quebec, today part of Quebec City. While growing up, he remembers being taunted for his family's secularism in a society which was then predominantly Catholic.
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Suguru Egawa
Suguru Egawa (江川 卓, Egawa Suguru?, born May 25, 1955 in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture) is a Japanese former pitcher and now a baseball analyst.
Egawa entered Sakushin Gakuin High School. In his high school career, he recorded two perfect games of nine no-hitters of 20 shutouts of 30 complete games in 44 games. He closed out his high school career with an earned run average of 0.41, which was quite higher than Daisuke Matsuzaka (1.12) and Masahiro Tanaka (1.31). In the spring of 1973, he set a still-standing record of 60 strikeouts in National High School Baseball Invitational Tournament. He was nicknamed "The Monster", which Matsuzaka was also nicknamed later. However, he was different from Matsuzaka in not having strong teammates. His team had never won the championship at the Koshien Stadium.
Egawa repeatedly attempted to join Yomiuri Giants, but failed every time. On November 21, 1978, he forcedly signed with Yomiuri Giants, but other baseball teams protested against the contract. Because there was no reverse-draft, his act was regarded as unfair by the other Japanese professional baseball teams. After many controversies, he officially entered Yomiuri Giants.
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Sun Myung Moon
Sun Myung Moon (Korean 문선명; born Mun Yong-myeong; 25 February 1920) is a South Korean billionaire, author, power broker, media mogul, peace activist, religious leader and founder of the Unification Church. The church has five to seven million members worldwide and often garners media attention for the blessing ceremony, a mass wedding or marriage rededication ceremony that can feature sometimes thousands of participants. The church's portfolio of global interests has become a multi-billion-dollar empire. The holdings include the UPI, The Washington Times, and the Tongil Group, a one of the largest South Korean business group or chaebol with business interests world-wide. The church is the largest owner of U.S. sushi restaurants and in the Kodiak region of Alaska, it is the area's largest employer. The church owns the only automobile manufacturing plant in North Korea, Pyeonghwa Motors, and is the second largest exporter of Korean goods. Three of Moon's NGOs, Universal Peace Federation, Women's Federation for World Peace and Service for Peace, are in consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
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Susie Essman
Susan "Susie" Essman (born May 31, 1955) is an American stand-up comedian, actress, writer, television producer, and voice artist. She is best known for her role as Susie Greene on the HBO television sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm. She is also well known for her portrayal of "Mittens" in Bolt.
Essman was born in 1955 and was raised in the middle-class New York City suburb of Mount Vernon. Her father, Leonard Essman, was an internist; he died in 2001. Her mother, Zora, taught Russian at Sarah Lawrence College. Essman is Jewish. She received her bachelor's degree from SUNY Purchase College.
Essman has been traveling and appearing at clubs throughout the country for more than two decades. Her first half-hour special appeared on Comedy Central in 1992; as much of her comedy draws from her ethnic background, she has been featured in such documentaries as, "Heroes of Jewish Comedy" and "A History of Jewish Comedy".
On October 15, 2004, she performed at the Friars Club roast of Donald Trump, in which she lampooned the tycoon with lines like "Donald, did you enjoy your meal? I heard your hair ordered the salmon" and "I'm so not your type. I'm smart, my boobs are real and I speak English." Essman made her UK standup debut at the Corn Exchange at the Newbury Comedy Festival in July 2007. While in England, she appeared on the British television show 8 Out of 10 Cats.
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Tanya Roberts
Victoria Leigh Blum (born October 15, 1955), professionally recognized as Tanya Roberts, is an American actress best known for her role as Julie Rogers on the fifth and final season of Charlie's Angels (1980–1981) and as Midge Pinciotti on That '70s Show (1998–2001).
She later headlined the films: The Beastmaster, A View to a Kill, and Sheena. Roberts was groomed as a Hollywood sex symbol during the early 1980s.
Blum was born in The Bronx of Irish and Jewish descent. Her father was an ink pen salesman. Her parents divorced when she was a teenager. She lived with her mother in Toronto for several years, where she started formulating a photo portfolio and laying plans for a career. At age 15, she abandoned her studies to marry and lived for a while hitch-hiking across the United States, until her mother-in-law annulled the union.
She returned to New York City and became a fashion and cover model. After meeting a psychology student, Barry Roberts (while waiting in line for a movie), she proposed to him in a subway station and they were soon married. While Barry pursued a career as a screenwriter, she began to study at the Actors Studio with Lee Strasberg and Uta Hagen under the name Tanya Roberts.
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Teresa De Sio
Teresa De Sio (born November 3, 1955) is an Italian folk singer-songwriter and the sister of the actress Giuliana De Sio.
She was born in Naples and lived in Cava de' Tirreni, the originary town of her family. In 1976 she started her career as singer with Eugenio Bennato and the "Musicanova", a group which centered in Neapolitan folk music.
In 1980 she launched her first album as single artist (Sulla terra sulla luna) and in 1982 she gained a national success in Italy with the album Teresa De Sio, sung in neapolitan which sold over 500,000 copies. Also in 1983 she sold, with the album Tre, over 500,000 copies; writing in this period her most famous songs: Voglia 'e turnà, Aumm aumm, 'E pazzielle, Terra 'e nisciuno and Ario'.
In the albums Africana (1985) and Sindarella suite (1988) she had the collaboration of Brian Eno and in the 1990s she started writing texts regarding social issues. For her album Un libero cercare (1995) she had also the collaboration of Fabrizio De André and Fiorella Mannoia.
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Theda Bara
Theda Bara ( /ˈθiːdə ˈbærə/THEE-də BAR-ə; July 29, 1885 – April 7, 1955), born Theodosia Burr Goodman, was an American silent film actress – one of the most popular of her era, and one of cinema's earliest sex symbols. Her femme fatale roles earned her the nickname "The Vamp" (short for vampire).
Theodosia Burr Goodman was born in the Avondale section of Cincinnati, Ohio. Her father was Bernard Goodman (1853–1936), a prosperous Jewish tailor born in Poland. Her mother, Pauline Louise de Coppett (1861–1957), was born in Switzerland. Bernard and Pauline married in 1882.
Theda's siblings were a boy, Marque (1888–1954) and a girl, Esther (1897–1965), who also became a film actress as Lori Bara and married Francis W. Getty of London in 1920.
The origin of Bara's stage name is disputed; The Guinness Book of Movie Facts and Feats says it came from director Frank Powell, who learned Theda had a relative named Barranger. In promoting the 1917 film "Cleopatra", Fox Studio publicists noted that the name was an anagram of "Arab death", and her press agents claimed inaccurately that she was "the daughter of an Arab sheik and a French woman, born in the Sahara."
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Theodor Innitzer
Theodor Innitzer (25 December 1875 – 9 October 1955) was Archbishop of Vienna and a cardinal in the Latin Rite branch of the Catholic Church.
Innitzer was born in Nové Zvolání, Vejprty, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary. He was the son of a factory worker and, after completing the minimum mandatory school, became an apprentice in a textile factory. The dean of his home parish supported the young Theodor, which allowed him to attend a gymnasium (1890–1892 Communal-Gymnasium, 1892–1898 Staatsgymnasium in Kadaň).
Innitzer's role in early 20th century Austrian history remains disputed, because of his involvement in politics. This assessment stems from his cooperation with the Austro-fascist government of Engelbert Dollfuß and Kurt Schuschnigg from 1934 to 1938, which based many of its economic and social policies on the teachings of the Catholic Church. He and the other Austrian Catholic bishops signed a declaration endorsing the Anschluss, set up by Gauleiter Josef Bürckel, and signed by Innitzer with “Heil Hitler!”. Without the bishops' consent the Nazi regime disseminated this statement throughout the German Reich. Upon hearing of this act, Pope Pius XI ordered Cardinal Innitzer to sign a clarification, which was then published in L'Osservatore Romano.
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Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann (6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual. His analysis and critique of the European and German soul used modernized German and Biblical stories, as well as the ideas of Goethe, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer. His older brother was the radical writer Heinrich Mann, and three of his six children, Erika Mann, Klaus Mann and Golo Mann, also became important German writers. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Mann fled to Switzerland. When World War II broke out in 1939, he emigrated to the United States, from where he returned to Switzerland in 1952. Thomas Mann is one of the best-known exponents of the so-called Exilliteratur.
Mann was born Paul Thomas Mann in Lübeck, Germany, and was the second son of Thomas Johann Heinrich Mann (a senator and a grain merchant), and his wife Júlia da Silva Bruhns (a Brazilian of partial German ancestry who emigrated to Germany when seven years old). His mother was Roman Catholic, but Mann was baptised into his father's Lutheran faith. Mann's father died in 1891, and his trading firm was liquidated. The family subsequently moved to Munich. Mann attended the science division of a Lübeck Gymnasium (school), then spent time at the Ludwig Maximillians University of Munich and Technical University of Munich where, in preparation for a journalism career, he studied history, economics, art history and literature.
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Tim Bray
Timothy William Bray (born June 21, 1955) is a Canadian software developer and entrepreneur. He co-founded Open Text Corporation and Antarctica Systems. Bray was Director of Web Technologies at Sun Microsystems from early 2004 to early 2010. Since then he has served as a Developer Advocate at Google, focusing on Android.
Bray was born on June 21, 1955 in Alberta, Canada. He grew up in Beirut, Lebanon and graduated in 1981 with a Bachelor of Science (double major in Mathematics and Computer Science) from the University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario. Tim described his switch of focus from Math to Computer Science this way: "In math I’d worked like a dog for my Cs, but in CS I worked much less for As—and learned that you got paid well for doing it."
In June 2009, he received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from the University of Guelph.
Fresh out of university, Bray joined Digital Equipment Corporation in Toronto as a software specialist. In 1983, Bray left DEC for Microtel Pacific Research. He joined the New Oxford English Dictionary project at the University of Waterloo in 1987 as its manager. It was during this time Bray worked with SGML, a technology that would later become central to both Open Text Corporation and his XML and Atom standardization work.
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Tim Richmond
Tim Richmond (June 7, 1955 - August 13, 1989) was an American race car driver from Ashland, Ohio. He competed in IndyCar racing before transferring to NASCAR's Winston Cup Series (now Sprint Cup Series). Richmond was one of the first drivers to change from open wheel racing to NASCAR stock cars full-time, which has since become an industry trend. He won the 1980 Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year award and had 13 victories during eight NASCAR seasons.
Richmond achieved his top NASCAR season in 1986 when he finished third in points. He won seven races that season, more than any other driver on the tour. When he missed the season-opening Daytona 500 in February 1987, media reported that he had pneumonia. The infection most likely resulted from his compromised immune system, which was weakened by AIDS. The disease drastically shortened his life. Despite the state of his health, Richmond competed in eight races in 1987, winning two events and one pole position before his final race in August of that year. He attempted a comeback in 1988 before NASCAR banned him for testing positive for a banned substance; after NASCAR insisted on access to his entire medical record before reinstating him, Richmond withdrew from racing. NASCAR later stated their original test was inaccurate.
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Timmy Mallett
Timmy Mallett (born on 18 October 1955, Marple, UK) is a TV presenter and broadcaster in the UK. He achieved cult status on BBC Radio Oxford and Manchester's Piccadilly Radio and later on TV-am. Mallett is most notable for his striking visual style, involving loud shirts, colourful glasses and the giant pink foam mallet, labelled Mallett's Mallet as well as his 'utterly brilliant!' and 'blaaah!' catchphrases.
Mallett attended Rosehill Primary School (Marple), Earnseat Prep School (Arnside) and then Hyde Grammar School (now Hyde Clarendon College).
His media career started while he was a student at the University of Warwick where he worked on the student radio station, Radio Warwick. After graduating with a degree in History, he started work straight after his graduation day at BBC Radio Oxford. He later moved to, Centre Radio (now Leicester Sound) as the station's launch presenter, Radio Luxembourg and Manchester's Piccadilly Radio where his energetic style won him many fans and Sony Awards. The programme he hosted at Piccadilly was Timmy on the Tranny, a popular weekday evening show that ran from 8pm-11pm and took its name from Mallett's show on Radio Oxford. Among Timmy's team of helpers were Chris Evans known as 'Nobby Nolevel', Andy Bird who played the pirate radio character 'Radio Diggle', Karen Walsh was the original 'Aunty Boney kneecaps', Brian Cox made jingles, friends Sally Mais and Anna Laurie were the cleaners, and many others were regulars on the programme. This led to Mallett presenting the Manchester-based BBC2 youth music show Oxford Road Show for a year in 1984. In March 1985 he also stood in for David Jensen on the Network Chart, at the time broadcast to most if not all British commercial radio stations.
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Timothy Laurence
Vice Admiral Sir Timothy James Hamilton Laurence KCVO CB ADC(P) (born 1 March 1955), usually known as Tim Laurence, is a senior British naval officer and the second husband of HRH The Princess Royal, the only daughter of HM The Queen. Laurence was Equerry to The Queen, 1986-1989.
Timothy James Hamilton Laurence was born in Camberwell, South London, the son of Commander Guy Stewart Laurence (also salesman for a marine engine manufacturer) and Barbara Alison Laurence, née Symons.
Laurence was first educated at The New Beacon Preparatory School and then at Sevenoaks School, Kent, and University College, University of Durham, on a Naval Scholarship, where he received a Bachelor of Science upper 2nd class honours degree in geography. At university, he edited the student newspaper, Palatinate, and was captain of his college cricket team.
He was made a midshipman on 1 January 1973, and acting sub-lieutenant on 1 January 1975. Upon leaving Durham he completed his initial training at the Britannia Royal Naval College Dartmouth, and was posted to HMS Aurora, a Plymouth-based frigate. He was promoted to Lieutenant 10 months early, on 1 March 1977.
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Tom Bergeron
Tom Bergeron (born May 6, 1955) is an American television personality and game show host, best known as the host of the ABC reality series Dancing with the Stars (2005–present) and host of America's Funniest Home Videos (2001–present). He was also host of Hollywood Squares (1998–2004) and a fill-in host for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. He is a Daytime Emmy winner.
Bergeron was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts. His first job in broadcasting was as a disc jockey at local radio station WHAV, in his home town of Haverhill, Massachusetts. He became a popular radio DJ in the Seacoast area of New Hampshire in the early 1980s on Portsmouth's WHEB, where he played comedy records along with music and offbeat interviews. His popularity led to additional TV and radio auditions.
One of his first jobs on television was as host of a local game show, Granite State Challenge, on New Hampshire Public Television (produced at NHPTV flagship station WENH-TV). He moved to the Boston market in February 1982, joining WBZ-TV as a general on-air personality. His early roles at the station included being a contributor on Evening Magazine (1982–87), and hosting brief informational and show preview segments known as 4 Today, every 30 minutes during WBZ's daytime lineup (1983–87). In 1984, he landed the hosting spot on Lottery Live, the nightly drawings of the Massachusetts State Lottery games. By January 1987, while still working in these roles, Bergeron added People Are Talking to his duties. He replaced outgoing host Buzz Luttrell on the early afternoon talk show, where he gained even more popularity. While Ron Cantera took over as host of 4 Today (until its cancellation in 1988), Bergeron remained lottery host until drawings moved to WNEV-TV in September 1987.
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Tom Powers
Tom Powers (July 7, 1890 – November 7, 1955) was an American stage and film actor. He was born in Owensboro, Kentucky, USA and died in Hollywood, California, of heart disease.
Powers spent many years as a Broadway star in musical comedies and dramas, and had previously appeared in over 70 silent films from 1911 to 1917 opposite such actors as Florence Turner, Harry T. Morey, Clara Kimball Young, Alma Taylor and John Bunny. He soon devoted himself to the stage, first as a musical comedy star, then as a dynamic actor in such productions as Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude (1927), in which he created the role of 'Charles Marsden'. Powers enjoyed a successful career on Broadway as a playwright, actor and director; active there from 1916, until his Hollywood acting return in 1944.
Powers did not become a full-time movie actor until Billy Wilder invited him to play the murder victim in the 1944 film noir classic Double Indemnity. For the next dozen years or so, Powers appeared in over 80 film and television roles, usually playing middle-aged business men, military or police officers.
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Tommy Emmanuel
William Thomas "Tommy" Emmanuel AM (born 31 May 1955) is an Australian guitarist and occasional singer, best known for his complex fingerstyle technique, energetic performances and the use of percussive effects on the guitar. In the May 2008 and 2010 issues of Guitar Player Magazine, he was named as "Best Acoustic Guitarist" in their readers' poll. In June 2010 Emmanuel was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM).
Emmanuel was born in Australia in 1955. He received his first guitar in 1959 at age four, being taught by his mother to accompany her playing lap steel guitar. At the age of 7 he heard Chet Atkins on the radio. He vividly remembers this moment and says it greatly inspired him.
By the age of 6, in 1961, he was a working professional musician. Recognizing the musical talents of Tommy and his brother Phil, their father created a family band, sold the family home and took his family on the road. With the family living in two station wagons, much of Emmanuel’s childhood was spent touring Australia with his family, playing rhythm guitar, and rarely going to school. The family found it difficult living on the road; they were poor but never hungry, never settling in one place. His father would often drive ahead, organize interviews, advertising and finding the local music shop where they'd have an impromptu concert the next day. Eventually the New South Wales Department of Education insisted that the Emmanuel children needed to go to school regularly.
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Tommy Kramer
Thomas Francis Kramer (born March 7, 1955 in San Antonio, Texas) is an American former professional football player who was a quarterback in the NFL from 1977 to 1990. He played collegiately at Rice University and was selected by the Minnesota Vikings in the first round (27th overall) of the 1977 NFL Draft after being named MVP of the 1977 Senior Bowl. He was inducted with the 2012 class into the College Football Hall of Fame.
Kramer played his high school football at Robert E. Lee High School in San Antonio. He guided the Volunteers to a state title in 1971 and then to the state semi-finals in 1972. The state championship game in 1971 was the first high school game played in the new Texas Stadium (Dallas Cowboys) in Irving, Texas. Kramer guided the Lee Volunteers to a 28-27 victory which has been hailed by some as the best high school game ever played in Texas. Kramer's high school teammates included Pat Rockett (played major league baseball for the Atlanta Braves), and Richard Osborne (played for the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles).
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Toninho Cerezo
Toninho Cerezo, real name Antônio Carlos Cerezo, (born 21 April 1955 in Belo Horizonte) is a former football (soccer) player from Brazil. He is currently unemployed.
He played as a defensive midfielder with Atlético Mineiro, A.S. Roma, Sampdoria, São Paulo Futebol Clube and the Brazilian national team. He was known for his tireless style of play.
He won the Brazilian Golden Ball trophy in 1977 and again in 1980 and the Brazilian Silver Ball trophy in 1976.
Cerezo won five times the Coppa Italia (Italian Cup). In 1991 he won both the Italian Serie A championship and the Coppa Italia with U.C. Sampdoria.
With São Paulo FC he was the two-times winner of the Intercontinental Cup and Copa Libertadores.
Cerezo was the best player of the Intercontinental Cup final in 1993.
In 1998, he retired as a player, and, after doing some studies and probations in Italy, he returned to Brazil, and start a career as a manager at Vitória, reaching the semifinals of the Brazilian Série A. He also led Japanese powerhouse Kashima Antlers in J. League for six years. He won five major titles in Japan, two league championships, one Emperor's Cup and two league cups.
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Tony Miles
Anthony John Miles (born 23 April 1955 in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England; died 12 November 2001 in Harborne, Birmingham) was an English chess Grandmaster.
Miles was born in Edgbaston, a suburb of Birmingham. He learned the game of chess early in life and made good progress nationally, taking the titles of British under-14 Champion and under-21 Champion in 1968 and 1971, respectively.
In 1973, Miles won the silver medal at the World Junior Chess Championship at Teesside, his first important event against international competition. Both he and compatriot Michael Stean defeated the tournament winner Alexander Beliavsky, but were unable to match the Soviet player's ruthlessness in dispatching lesser opponents. Miles went on to win this prestigious title the following year in Manila, while an undergraduate of the University of Sheffield.
Taking the decision to pursue the game professionally, Miles did not complete his studies, but in 1975, was awarded an MA by the University for his chess achievements.
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Tracy Hickman
Tracy Raye Hickman (born November 26, 1955, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States) is a best-selling fantasy author, best known for his work on Dragonlance as a game designer and co-author with Margaret Weis, while he worked for TSR. He married Laura Curtis in 1977, and together they have four children.
Tracy Hickman was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on November 26, 1955, where he grew up. He graduated from Provo High School in 1974, where his major interests were in drama, music, and Air Force JROTC. In 1975, Hickman began two years of service as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His initial posting was for six months in Hawaii before his visa was approved, and he moved on to Indonesia. There, he served as a missionary in Surabaya, Djakarta, and the mountain city of Bandung before leaving in 1977.
Hickman returned to marry his high school sweetheart, Laura Curtis, in 1977, within four months of his return to the United States. They are the parents of four children: Angel, Curtis, Tasha, and Jarod.Laura Hickman was the inspiration for Lauranlanthalasa (Laurana) Kanan.
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Trixie Friganza
Trixie Friganza (November 29, 1870 – February 27, 1955), born Delia O’Callaghan, began her career as an operetta soubrette, working her way from the chorus to starring in musical comedies to having her own feature act on the vaudeville circuit.
She transitioned to film in the early 1920s mostly playing small characters that were quirky and comedic and retired from the stage in 1940 due to health concerns. She spent her last years teaching drama to young women in a convent school and when she died she left everything to the convent. She became a highly sought after comic actress after the success of The Chaperons (played "Aramanthe Dedincourt") and is best known for her stage roles of Caroline Vokes (or Vokins?) in The Orchid, Mrs. Radcliffe in The Sweetest Girl in Paris, for multiple roles in The Passing Show of 1912, and of course her unforgettable run as a vaudeville headliner. During the height of her career, she used her fame to promote social, civic, and political issues of importance, such as self-love and the Suffragist movement.
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Valdis Zatlers
Valdis Zatlers (born 22 March 1955) is a Latvian politician and former physician who served as the seventh president of Latvia from 2007 to 2011. He won the Latvian presidential election of 31 May 2007. He became President of Latvia on 8 July 2007 and left office on 7 July 2011 after failing to win reelection for a second term.
Valdis Zatlers is an orthopedic surgeon, who graduated from the Institute of Medicine in Riga in 1979. After studies he worked at Riga Hospital No. 2 and became chief of its traumatology unit in 1985. He was the director of the Latvian Traumatology and Orthopaedics Hospital from 1994 and chief of its board from 1998, he left these offices on 5 July 2007.
Zatlers participated in the cleanup operations after the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear plant. On 27 April 2007, he received the Order of the Three Stars (Trīs Zvaigžņu Ordenis) of the 4th rank for his contributions in care for health of the patients and promotion of orthopedics in Latvia.
Valdis Zatlers was a board member of the Popular Front of Latvia in 1988–1989. On 22 May 2007, the ruling parliamentary coalition of the Latvian Saeima officially nominated Zatlers as its presidential candidate. Zatlers himself was not a member of any political party, but had signed the manifesto of the People's Party when the party was founded in 1998.
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Vincent du Vigneaud
Vincent du Vigneaud (May 18, 1901 – December 11, 1978) was an American biochemist. He won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1955 for the isolation, structural identification, and total synthesis of the cyclic peptide, oxytocin.
du Vigneaud was graduated from Schurz High School in 1918. He began studying chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was influenced by lectures of Carl Shipp Marvel. After receiving his M.S. in 1924 he joined DuPont.
He married Zella Zon Ford on June 12, 1924. Restarting his academic career in 1925, he joined the group of John R. Murlin at the University of Rochester for his Ph.D thesis. He was graduated in 1927 with his work, The Sulfur in Insulin.
After several post-doctoral positions with John Jacob Abel at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, Max Bergmann at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Leather Research in Dresden, and others, he became professor at the University of Illinois.
He next went to George Washington University Medical School in Washington, D.C. in 1932 and to Cornell Medical College in New York City in 1938, where he stayed until his emeritation in 1967. Following that retirement, he held a position at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
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Vinod Khosla
Vinod Khosla (born 28 January 1955) is an Indian-born American businessman and venture capitalist. Khosla was one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems, where he served as its first CEO and Chairman in the early 1980s. In 1986, he became a general partner of the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, where he remained through the early 2000s. In 2004 Khosla formed his own firm, Khosla Ventures, which focused on venture investments in various technology sectors, most notably clean technology.
He is a strong supporter of clean technology and said "If it doesn't scale, it doesn't matter. Most of what we talk about today—hybrid, biodiesel, ethanol, solar photovoltaics, geothermal—I believe are irrelevant to the scale of the problem."
Khosla's father was an officer in the Indian Army and was posted at New Delhi,India. He read about the founding of Intel in Electronic Engineering Times at the age of fourteen and this inspired him to pursue technology as a career.
Khosla went on to receive degrees from the IIT Delhi, India (Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering), Carnegie Mellon University (Masters in Biomedical Engineering), and Stanford Graduate School of Business (MBA).
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Vivien Savage
Vivien Savage (born on January 2, 1955) is a French singer-songwriter who reached popularity in the 1980s. He remains famous for its 1986 single "La P'tite Lady", which was a top twenty hit on the SNEP singles chart. His other singles were unsuccessful, failing the chart and therefore Savage can be considered as one-hit wonder. He was also occasional actor, portraying Riton in José Pinheiro's 1988 film "Ne réveillez pas un flic qui dort". From 2006, he also participated in the concert tour RFM Party 80, composed of many artists of the 1980s.
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Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (Russian: Влади́мир Влади́мирович Набо́ков, pronounced [vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr nɐˈbokəf] ( listen); 22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1899c – 2 July 1977) was a multilingual Russian novelist, poet and short story writer. Nabokov's first nine novels were in Russian. He then rose to international prominence as a writer of English prose. He also made serious contributions as a lepidopterist and chess composer.
Nabokov's Lolita (1955) is frequently cited as among his most important novels and is his most widely known, exhibiting the love of intricate word play and synesthetic detail that characterised all his works. The novel was ranked at No. 4 in the list of the Modern Library 100 Best Novels.Pale Fire (1962) was ranked at No. 53 on the same list. His memoir, Speak, Memory, was listed No. 8 on the Modern Library nonfiction list.
Nabokov was born on 22 April 1899 (10 April 1899 Old-Style), in Saint Petersburg,b to a wealthy and prominent Saint Petersburg family of the minor nobility. He was the eldest of five children of liberal lawyer, statesman, and journalist Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov and his wife, Elena Ivanovna née Rukavishnikova. His cousins included the composer Nicolas Nabokov. He spent his childhood and youth in St. Petersburg and at the country estate Vyra near Siverskaya, south of the city.
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Vladimir Sorokin
Vladimir Georgievich Sorokin (Russian: Владимир Георгиевич Сорокин) (born 7 August 1955 in Bykovo, Moscow Oblast) is a contemporary postmodern Russian writer and dramatist, one of the most popular in modern Russian literature.
Sorokin was born on 7 August 1955 in Bykovo, Moscow Oblast near Moscow. In 1972 he made his literary debut with a publication in the newspaper Za Kadry Neftyanikov (Russian: За кадры нефтяников, lit. For the petroleum industry manager). He studied at the Gubkin Institute of Oil and Gas in Moscow and graduated in 1977 as an engineer.
After graduation he worked for one year for the magazine Change (Russian: Смена), before he had to leave due to his refusal to become a member of the Komsomol.
Throughout the 1970s, Sorokin participated in a number of art exhibitions and designed and illustrated nearly 50 books. Sorokin’s development as a writer took place amidst painters and writers of the Moscow underground scene of the 1980s. In 1985, six of Sorokin’s stories appeared in the Paris magazine A-Ya. In the same year, French publisher Syntaxe published his novel Ochered' (The Queue).
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Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and he spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance company in Hartford, Connecticut.
His best-known poems include "Valley Candle", "Anecdote of the Jar", "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock", "The Emperor of Ice-Cream", "The Idea of Order at Key West", "Sunday Morning", "The Snow Man", and "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird", all appear in his Collected Poems, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1955.
The son of a prosperous lawyer, Stevens attended Harvard as a non-degree special student, after which he moved to New York City and briefly worked as a journalist. He then attended New York Law School, graduating in 1903. On a trip back to Reading in 1904 Stevens met Elsie Viola Kachel (1886–1963, aka Elsie Moll), a young woman who had worked as a saleswoman, milliner, and stenographer. After a long courtship, he married her in 1909 over the objections of his parents, who considered her lower-class. As The New York Times reported in an article in 2009, "Nobody from his family attended the wedding, and Stevens never again visited or spoke to his parents during his father’s lifetime". A daughter, Holly, was born in 1924. She later edited her father's letters and a collection of his poems.
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Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966) was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O. Disney, he was co-founder of Walt Disney Productions, which later became one of the best-known motion picture producers in the world. The corporation is now known as The Walt Disney Company and had an annual revenue of approximately US$36 billion in the 2010 financial year.
Disney is particularly noted as a film producer and a popular showman, as well as an innovator in animation and theme park design. He and his staff created some of the world's most well-known fictional characters including Mickey Mouse, for whom Disney himself provided the original voice. During his lifetime he received four honorary Academy Awards and won 22 Academy Awards from a total of 59 nominations, including a record four in one year, giving him more awards and nominations than any other individual in history. Disney also won seven Emmy Awards and gave his name to the Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort theme parks in the U.S., as well as the international resorts Tokyo Disney Resort, Disneyland Paris, and Hong Kong Disneyland.
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Walter Hampden
Walter Hampden is the artist name of Walter Hampden Dougherty (June 30, 1879 in Brooklyn – June 11, 1955 in Los Angeles) was a U.S. actor and theatre manager. He was the younger brother of the American painter Paul Dougherty (1877-1947).
He went to England for apprenticeship for six years. Later, he played Hamlet, Henry V and Cyrano de Bergerac on Broadway. In 1925, he became manager of the Colonial Theatre on Broadway, which was renamed Hampden's Theatre from 1925 to 1931 . He became noted for his Shakespearean roles as well as for Cyrano, which he played in several productions between 1923 and 1936. Hampden's last stage role was as Danforth in the original Broadway production of Arthur Miller's The Crucible.
John Garrett Underhill produced the first English-language version of The Bonds of Interest (Los intereses creados) by Jacinto Benavente, with Walter Hampden, in 1929.
Hampden appeared in a few silent films, but did not really begin his film career in earnest until 1939, when he played the good Archbishop of Paris (Frollo's brother) in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, starring Charles Laughton as Quasimodo. This was Hampden's first sound film ; he was sixty at the time he made it. Several other roles followed—Jarvis Langdon in the 1944 film The Adventures of Mark Twain among them, but all were supporting character roles, not the lead roles that Hampden played onstage. He had a small, but notable role as the long-winded dinner speaker in the first scene of All About Eve (1950), and played the father of Humphrey Bogart and William Holden in Billy Wilder's 1954 comedy Sabrina. These last two films are arguably the ones that Hampden is most well known to modern audiences for. He also played long-bearded patriarchs in biblical epics like The Silver Chalice (1954) and The Prodigal (1955). (In The Silver Chalice, he was Joseph of Arimathea.)
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Wendee Lee
Wendee Lee (born February 20, 1960) is an American voice actress. While she has done voice work for many video games as well as several episodes in the Power Rangers franchise, she is particularly prolific in the dubbing of anime. As of April 2009, with 223 credits to her name, she has more credits in this medium than any other English voice-over actor. According to her interview on the Magic Knight Rayearth DVDs, she started doing voices at school, and got in trouble for it.
Lee is also experienced in ADR directing. Currently, both she and Kirk Thornton are directing the ADR process for Bleach. Her noted roles include Faye Valentine on Cowboy Bebop, Takeru "T.K." Takaishi on Digimon Adventure, Haruhi Suzumiya on The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Konata Izumi on Lucky ☆ Star.
Leading roles in Bold
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Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg ( /ˈhwʊpi/, born Caryn Elaine Johnson; November 13, 1955) is an American comedienne, actress, singer-songwriter, political activist, author and talk show host.
Goldberg made her film debut in The Color Purple (1985) playing Celie, a mistreated black woman in the Deep South. She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won her first Golden Globe Award for her role in the film. In 1990, she starred as Oda Mae Brown, a psychic helping a slain man (Patrick Swayze) find his killer in the blockbuster film Ghost. This performance won her a second Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Notable later films include Sister Act and Sister Act 2, The Lion King, Made in America, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Girl, Interrupted and Rat Race. She is also acclaimed for her roles as the bartender Guinan in Star Trek: The Next Generation and as Terry Doolittle in Jumpin' Jack Flash. More recently, she had performed the voice of Stretch in Toy Story 3 and made an appearance in Glee as Carmen Tibideaux.
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Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe (born July 22, 1955) is an American film, stage, and voice actor, and a founding member of the experimental theatre company The Wooster Group. He has had roles in a wide range of films, including Platoon, Affliction, Off Limits, Streets of Fire, To Live and Die in L.A., Born on the Fourth of July, The English Patient, The Last Temptation of Christ, Mississippi Burning, "The Life Aquatic" The Boondock Saints, Spider-Man, and The Aviator, and voice roles in Fantastic Mr. Fox and Finding Nemo.
Dafoe has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor twice. The first was for his role in Platoon in 1986 and the second time for his performance in Shadow of the Vampire in 2000.
Dafoe was born William J. Dafoe in Appleton, Wisconsin. One of seven children of Muriel Isabel (née Sprissler) and Dr. William Alfred Dafoe, he recalled in 2009, "My five sisters raised me because my father was a surgeon, my mother was a nurse and they worked together, so I didn't see either of them much." In high school, he acquired the nickname Willem. His ancestry includes Irish, Scottish, German, and Canadian.
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William Stratton
William Grant Stratton (February 26, 1914 – March 2, 2001), known as "Billy the Kid", was the 32nd Governor of the U.S. state of Illinois from 1953 to 1961, succeeding Adlai Stevenson II in that office. He was born on 26 February 1914 in Ingleside in Lake County, Illinois, the son of William J. Stratton, an Illinois politician, and Zula Van Wormer Stratton, he served two non-consecutive terms as an at-large Congressman from Illinois, elected in 1940 and 1946. He was elected Illinois State Treasurer in 1944 and 1950. He won the Republican nomination for governor in 1952, then defeated Lt. Governor Sherwood Dixon to become the youngest governor in America at that time.
In 1960, Governor Stratton ran for an unprecedented third-consecutive term but was defeated by Otto Kerner, Jr.
He was acquitted of charges of tax evasion in 1965.
In 1968 he ran in the Republican primary for Governor of Illinois and was defeated by Richard B. Ogilvie.
In retirement, Stratton resided in Chicago.
At the time of his death, he was a member of the Illinois Civil Service Commission. He died at the Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Illinois on March 2, 2001, aged 87. Among his pall bearers were his successors as Governor, James R. Thompson, Jim Edgar, and George H. Ryan.
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Willie Miller
William Ferguson Miller, MBE (born 2 May 1955 in Glasgow) is a former professional football player who made a club record 558 league appearances for Aberdeen. He is currently the club's Director of Football. Sir Alex Ferguson described Miller as "the best penalty box defender in the world".
Miller signed for Aberdeen in 1972 at the age of seventeen and was made captain four years later by manager Ally McLeod. His central defensive partnership with Alex McLeish was integral to Aberdeen's success in the 1980s, as they won all the major domestic honours and the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1983. He retired from playing in 1990 due to an injury picked up whilst playing for Scotland. In 2003, Willie Miller was voted the greatest Aberdeen player of all time in a poll to mark the club's centenary.
Miller won 65 international caps for Scotland and scored one goal. He was an inaugural inductee to the Scottish Football Hall of Fame, in 2004.
In 2010, Miller was chosen as one of the eleven members of Scotland's Greatest Team, by viewers of the Scottish Television documentary series, which soughts the fans' opinion on the greatest ever Scotland players. Viewers also chose Alex McLeish as his central defence partner.
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Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, PC, DL, FRS, Hon. RA (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British Conservative politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. Widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century, he served as Prime Minister twice (1940–45 and 1951–55). A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a historian, a writer, and an artist. He is the only British prime minister to have received the Nobel Prize in Literature, and was the first person to be made an Honorary Citizen of the United States.
Churchill was born into the aristocratic family of the Dukes of Marlborough. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a charismatic politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer; his mother, Jenny Jerome, was an American socialite. As a young army officer, he saw action in British India, the Sudan, and the Second Boer War. He gained fame as a war correspondent and wrote books about his campaigns.
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Xu Bing
Xu Bing (Chinese: 徐冰 b. 1955) is a Chinese-born artist, resident in the United States since 1990. He currently resides in Beijing, where he serves as the vice-president of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. He is most known for his printmaking skills and installations pieces, as well as his creative artistic use of language, words, and text and how they have affected our understanding of the world.
Born in Chongqing in 1955, Xu grew up in Beijing. In 1975, near the end of the Cultural Revolution, he was relocated to the countryside for two years. Returning to Beijing in 1977, he enrolled at the Central Academy of Fine Arts(CAFA) where he joined the printmaking department, receiving his Masters in Fine Art in 1987. After the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989 his recent work came under scrutiny from the government and received harsh criticism for what was perceived as a critique of the Chinese government. Due to the political pressure and artistic restrictions of the post-Tiananmen period in China, Xu Bing, like many of his contemporaries, moved to the United States in 1990, where he resided until his appointment as vice-president of the Beijing CAFA in 2008.
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Yasukazu Hamada
Yasukazu Hamada (浜田 靖一, Hamada Yasukazu?, born October 21, 1955) is a Japanese politician of the Liberal Democratic Party, a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature). A native of Futtsu, Chiba and graduate of Senshu University he was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time in 1993.
In the Cabinet of Prime Minister Taro Aso, appointed on 24 September 2008, Hamada was appointed as Minister of Defense. This was Hamada's first Cabinet position.
Media related to Yasukazu Hamada at Wikimedia Commons
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Yevgeny Tarle
Yevgeny Viktorovich Tarle (Russian: Евгений Викторович Та́рле) (27 October [O.S. 8 November] 1874 in Kiev – 6 January 1955 in Moscow) was a Soviet historian and academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is known for his books about Napoleon's invasion of Russia and on the Crimean War, and many other works. Yevgeny Tarle was one of the founders of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, Russia's diplomatic university.
Tarle was a historian who lived and worked both under Tsarist and Soviet Regimes. He witnessed the whole period in which Stalin remained in power as the “General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee”. The Stalinist era was remarkable with exceedingly strict ideological pressure on scholarly research in the Soviet Union in science, together with art, literature, education, and all other domains of human culture. Thus, it was inevitable for historians to face that pressure while doing their scholarly works. The secrecy of the regime made the historical study of the Soviet Union, especially Stalin and his era difficult. In the Stalin era the Party’s total control of archives, journals, publishing houses, historians’ appointments, and so on meant that scholarship was entirely subordinate to its whims and dictates. “History was the handmaiden of ideology and politics. The leader and his intimates could manipulate the historical record as it suited them in their struggle to gain and maintain power.” When the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917, Tarle was a successful historian at the University of Saint Petersburg.
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Ylla
Ylla (pronounced "eela") was the pseudonym of Camilla Koffler (16 August 1911–30 March 1955), a Hungarian photographer who specialized in animal photography. At the time of her death she "was generally considered the most proficient animal photographer in the world."
Koffler was born in Vienna, Austria, to a Romanian father and Serb mother, both Hungarian nationals. At age eight, she was placed in a German boarding school in Budapest, Hungary. In 1925, the teenage Koffler joined her mother in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, where she studied sculpture with Italian sculptor Petar Palavacini at the Academy of Fine Arts; discovering that her given name Camilla stood for "camel" in Serb, she changed it to "Ylla."
In 1929, Ylla received a commission for a bas-relief sculpture for a Belgrade movie theater. By 1931, she had moved to Paris, France, where she studied sculpture at the Académie Colarossi and worked as photo retoucher and assistant to photographer Ergy Landau.
In 1932, Ylla began photographing animals, exhibited her work at Galerie de La Pléiade, and opened a studio to photograph pets. In 1933, she was introduced to Charles Rado of the Rapho Guillumette agency.
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Yoko Gushiken
Yoko Gushiken (具志堅 用高, Gushiken Yōkō?, born June 26, 1955 in Okinawa, Japan) was a Ryukyuan professional boxer from 1974-1981. His professional record is 23-1 and he held the title of WBA Light Flyweight champion 1976-1981.
Gushiken was known for having strong stamina, allowing him to pressure opponents into mistakes after many rounds. His southpaw stance allowed him to take advantage of many mistakes, usually by throwing unexpected combinations of punches instead of waiting for counterpunch opportunities.
His popularity centered in mainland Japan, where he was known by the nickname Fierce Eagle and crowds were normally sold out. He quickly rose through the amateur ranks and won All-Japan in high school.
After that, he went pro and fought for the WBA Light Flyweight crown after just nine professional fights. He defeated Juan Antonio Guzmán, a well-seasoned pro, by knockout in the seventh round. He held the championship for over four years. In thirteen defenses, he won eight by knockout.
Panamanian Jaime Rios nearly defeated Gushiken in 1977 and 1978, but lost after wilting in the last rounds of each match. Other defeats of note were against future champions Alfonso Lopez and Rafael Pedroza. As with Rios, they lost after many rounds of being worn down by Gushiken.
wn.com/Yoko_Gushiken -
Yukihiko Tsutsumi
Yukihiko Tsutsumi (堤幸彦, Tsutsumi Yukihiko?, born November 3, 1955 in Nagoya) is a Japanese television and film director. He began directing commercials and music promotion videos as an employee of Nihon Television. After spending time abroad, he returned and started his own production company, Crescendo, from which he works independently. His first television drama on Nihon Television was called Kora! Tonnezuru and ran from 1985 to 1989.
wn.com/Yukihiko_Tsutsumi -
Yves Tanguy
Raymond Georges Yves Tanguy (January 5, 1900 – January 15, 1955), known as Yves Tanguy, was a French surrealist painter.
Tanguy was born in Paris, France, the son of a retired navy captain. His parents were both of Breton origin. After his father's death in 1908, his mother moved back to her native Locronan, Finistère, and he ended up spending much of his youth living with various relatives.
In 1918, Yves Tanguy briefly joined the merchant navy before being drafted into the Army, where he befriended Jacques Prévert. At the end of his military service in 1922, he returned to Paris, where he worked various odd jobs. By chance, he stumbled upon a painting by Giorgio de Chirico and was so deeply impressed he resolved to become a painter himself in spite of his complete lack of formal training.
Tanguy had a habit of being completely absorbed by the current painting he was working on. This way of creating artwork may have been due to his very small studio which only had enough room for one wet piece.
wn.com/Yves_Tanguy -
Yūko Tanaka
Yūko Tanaka (田中 裕子, Tanaka Yūko?, born April 29, 1955) is a Japanese actress. Her supporting role in the 1981 film Eijanaika won her several awards including Best Supporting Actress at the 1983 Yokohama Film Festival. Tanaka became popular after appearing in the serial drama Oshin (1983–84). She was the Japanese voice of "Lady Eboshi" in Princess Mononoke (1997), and was given the Best Actress prize at the 2006 Yokohama Film Festival. She also won the award for best actress at the 30th Hochi Film Award for Hibi and The Milkwoman. She is married to Japanese pop icon Kenji Sawada, former lead singer of the Tigers.
wn.com/Yūko_Tanaka -
Zbigniew Preisner
Zbigniew Preisner (Polish pronunciation: [ˈzbiɡɲɛf ˈpɾajsnɛɾ]; born 20 May 1955 in Bielsko-Biała as Zbigniew Antoni Kowalski) is a Polish film score composer, best known for his work with film director Krzysztof Kieślowski.
Zbigniew Preisner studied history and philosophy in Kraków. Never having received formal music lessons, he taught himself music by listening and transcribing parts from records. His compositional style represents a distinctively spare form of tonal neo-Romanticism. Paganini and Jean Sibelius are acknowledged influences.
Preisner is best known for the music composed for the films directed by fellow Pole Krzysztof Kieślowski. His Song for the Unification of Europe, based on the Greek text of 1 Corinthians 13, is attributed to a character in Kieślowski's Three Colors: Blue and plays a dominating role in the story. His music for Three Colors: Red includes a setting of Polish and French versions of a poem by Wisława Szymborska, a Polish Nobel Prize-winning poet.
After working with Kieślowski on Three Colors: Blue, Preisner was hired by the producer Francis Ford Coppola to write the score for The Secret Garden, directed by Polish director Agnieszka Holland. Although Preisner is most closely associated with Kieślowski, he has collaborated with several other directors, winning a César in 1996 for his work on Jean Becker's Élisa. He has won a number of other awards, including another César in 1994 for Three Colors: Red, and the Silver Bear from the 47th Berlin International Film Festival 1997 for The Island on Bird Street.
wn.com/Zbigniew_Preisner -
Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai (pinyin: Zhōu Ēnlái; Wade-Giles: Chou En-lai; IPA: [tʂóʊ ə́nlǎɪ]; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, serving from October 1949 until his death in January 1976. Zhou served under Mao Zedong and was instrumental in consolidating the control of the Communist Party's rise to power, forming foreign policy, and developing the Chinese economy.
A skilled and able diplomat, Zhou served as the Chinese foreign minister from 1949 to 1958. Advocating peaceful coexistence with the West after the stalemated Korean War, he participated in the 1954 Geneva Conference and helped orchestrate Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China. He helped devise policies regarding the bitter disputes with the U.S., Taiwan, the Soviet Union (after 1960), India and Vietnam. Zhou is best known as the long-time top aide to Mao Zedong, specializing in foreign policy. Their contrasting personalities made them an effective team, according to Henry Kissinger, the American diplomat who had extensive dealings with both men:
wn.com/Zhou_Enlai -
Željka Antunović
Željka Antunović (pronounced [ʒɛ̂ːʎka antǔːnɔʋit͡ɕ]) (born September 15, 1955) is a Croatian centre-left politician and the deputy president of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), the largest opposition party in Croatia.
Antunović was born in Virovitica, Croatia, then SFR Yugoslavia. She entered the political scene in 1990 when she joined the Social Democrats of Croatia (SDH), a centre-left party - formed after establishment of democracy across Yugoslavia - and originally a major rival of the SDP, who had in turn recently succeeded the League of Communists of Croatia. However, following disastrous results of the SDH in parliamentary elections, the party accepted the SDP's offer of unification, which occurred in 1994. Antunović, together with Antun Vujić, gradually rose through the ranks of SDP.
Antunović has served as a member of Croatian Parliament from 1995 to 1999, and from 2003 onwards. At the party conference in 2000, she was elected as a deputy president of SDP. Between 2000 and 2003, she served as a deputy Prime Minister in Ivica Račan's government; and from 2002 to 2003, she served as Minister of Defense.
wn.com/Željka_Antunović
The time was 1955 a meal was 40 cents
A Cadillac was the car to drive and Ike was president
Revivals set whole towns ablaze while mom, the dad and kids
Were Holy Ghost electrified by wild evangelists
But nothing could compare
Or none took you quite as high
As being at the tent and hearing people testify
(they'd say)
I want to give honor unto God, bishops, pastors, elders, praise God I'm in my right mind too
I woke up determined to go 100% with Jesus 'cause 99 1/2 just won't do
I ask the saints please pray I'll be the one God's callin' for in these last and evil days
He's been better to me than I've been to myself and I give God all the praise!
Once all this had ended up to the microphone
Stepped the man of God himself, strong, alone and prone
With a furnace in his eyes and no time left to play
This human locomotive right there began to say
CHORUS
I believe in a God that sets the captives free
I believe in the blood that flows from Calvary
Does anyone love Jesus, does anyone hate sin?
Does anyone believe that Christ is coming back again?
But what God wants me to ask you, what He needs to know most
Are you saved, sanctified and filled with the Holy Ghost?
I'm so glad that the Lord saved me
I'm so glad that the Lord saved me
Oral Roberts, William Branham, Jack Coe and Billy Graham
Healed body, soul and spirit as they thundered 'cross the land
While Howdy Doody held the nation captive on TV
The power of God was on these men to set those captives free.
But nothing could compare
Or none took you quite as high
As being at the tent and hearing people testify
(and they'd say)
I want to give honor unto God, mothers, missionaries, saints, and all my friends
I thank the Lord I've been saved all day livin' free and separated from sin
I've got life, health, strength, wouldn't take nothin' for my journey pray the Lord keep me strong
Woke up with my mind stayed on Jesus and I've been praising Him all day long
Once all this had ended up to the microphone
Stepped the man of God himself, strong, alone and prone
With a furnace in his eyes, and no time left to play,
This human locomotive right there began to say
CHORUS
I'm so glad that the Lord saved me
I'm so glad that the Lord saved me
If it had not been for Jesus,
Where would I be?
I'm so glad that the Lord saved me.
I'm so glad that the Lord saved me
I'm so glad that the Lord saved me
Well, if it had not been for Jesus,
Where would I be?
I'm so glad that the Lord saved me
He saved me, He saved me, He saved me, He saved me
Well, if it had not been for Jesus,
Where would I be?
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1955 Disneyland Opening Day [Complete ABC Broadcast]
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 73:01
- Updated: 23 Jan 2013
Disneyland Park is a theme park located in Anaheim, California, owned and operated by the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts division of the Walt Disney Company. Known as Disneyland when it opened on July 18, 1955, and still colloquially known by that name, it is the only theme park to be designed...
http://wn.com/1955_Disneyland_Opening_Day_Complete_ABC_Broadcast_
Disneyland Park is a theme park located in Anaheim, California, owned and operated by the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts division of the Walt Disney Company. Known as Disneyland when it opened on July 18, 1955, and still colloquially known by that name, it is the only theme park to be designed...
Chuck Berry - Maybellene 1955
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:42
- Updated: 23 Jan 2013
First Rock and roll song in the world
http://wn.com/Chuck_Berry_Maybellene_1955
First Rock and roll song in the world
- published: 28 Apr 2009
- views: 383281
- author: ChuckBerryFanClub
1955 Le Mans Cras
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:23
- Updated: 22 Jan 2013
The worst accident in motor racing history happened at the 1955 running of the 24 hours of Le Mans. A collision between a Mercedes and an Austin-Healy sent the Mercedes' engine, hood and steering assembly in to the crowd. Nearly 80 spectators died instantly.
http://wn.com/1955_Le_Mans_Cras
The worst accident in motor racing history happened at the 1955 running of the 24 hours of Le Mans. A collision between a Mercedes and an Austin-Healy sent the Mercedes' engine, hood and steering assembly in to the crowd. Nearly 80 spectators died instantly.
- published: 24 Jan 2007
- views: 1097436
- author: ancientpelican
1955 Chevy drag race crash
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:44
- Updated: 23 Jan 2013
1955 Chevy drag race crash. Driver ejected from the car.
http://wn.com/1955_Chevy_drag_race_crash
1955 Chevy drag race crash. Driver ejected from the car.
- published: 09 May 2007
- views: 420255
- author: 55crash
Jack Benny vs. Groucho 1955
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:59
- Updated: 23 Jan 2013
On his TV show, Jack Benny plays a contestant on Groucho's "You Bet Your Life" Program. That's Irene Tedrow in between the two masters. This is just a treasure I have to share.
http://wn.com/Jack_Benny_vs_Groucho_1955
On his TV show, Jack Benny plays a contestant on Groucho's "You Bet Your Life" Program. That's Irene Tedrow in between the two masters. This is just a treasure I have to share.
- published: 11 Apr 2007
- views: 854793
- author: Gary Peterson
Marty McFly - Johnny B Goode 1955
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:57
- Updated: 23 Jan 2013
Back to the Future 1. Marty McFly singing Johnny B Goode. This IS McFly related :P
http://wn.com/Marty_McFly_Johnny_B_Goode_1955
Back to the Future 1. Marty McFly singing Johnny B Goode. This IS McFly related :P
- published: 28 Oct 2011
- views: 676313
- author: Vicky Falcon
Rode Safely Victor Horsman Liverpool 1955
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 27:22
- Updated: 18 Jan 2013
A motorcycle road safety from 1955, made by the Liverpool Motorcycle dealership Victor Horsmans. It is filmed in and around The Wirral and Liverpool City Centre. The film features various riders such as Nobby Clark (not sure if this was Mike Hailwoods mechanic) Bill Quinn, Eric Wilson, Keith Walker and Ken Morris who all seem to be local Merseyside riders, well known in the TT ISDT etc. I have tried to spot local area's seen in the film and so far I can recognise Parkgate, Heswall, New Brighton, Birkenhead, Castle St, The Tunnel Entrance and the road coming back from The Ponderosa in Wales. If you recognise any other locations please feel free to add a note ie Gayton Roundabout approach A540 towards Heswall 26:53. Any history about the featured riders would also be most welcomed. Finally, thanks to Eddy Q for supplying the donor DVD.
http://wn.com/Rode_Safely_Victor_Horsman_Liverpool_1955
A motorcycle road safety from 1955, made by the Liverpool Motorcycle dealership Victor Horsmans. It is filmed in and around The Wirral and Liverpool City Centre. The film features various riders such as Nobby Clark (not sure if this was Mike Hailwoods mechanic) Bill Quinn, Eric Wilson, Keith Walker and Ken Morris who all seem to be local Merseyside riders, well known in the TT ISDT etc. I have tried to spot local area's seen in the film and so far I can recognise Parkgate, Heswall, New Brighton, Birkenhead, Castle St, The Tunnel Entrance and the road coming back from The Ponderosa in Wales. If you recognise any other locations please feel free to add a note ie Gayton Roundabout approach A540 towards Heswall 26:53. Any history about the featured riders would also be most welcomed. Finally, thanks to Eddy Q for supplying the donor DVD.
- published: 24 Jul 2011
- views: 35488
- author: stephencd1
ANIMAL FARM (1955) - Full Movie - Captioned
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 73:10
- Updated: 23 Jan 2013
Public domain classic animated version of George Orwell's novel about a successful farmyard revolution by the animals versus the farmer which goes horribly wrong when corrupt pigs hijack it for their personal gain, paralleling the growth of a totalitarian dictatorship.
http://wn.com/ANIMAL_FARM_1955_Full_Movie_Captioned
Public domain classic animated version of George Orwell's novel about a successful farmyard revolution by the animals versus the farmer which goes horribly wrong when corrupt pigs hijack it for their personal gain, paralleling the growth of a totalitarian dictatorship.
- published: 02 Aug 2011
- views: 172879
- author: dcmpnad
Rare Guitar Video: Andreas Segovia - Wisdom 1955
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:47
- Updated: 15 Jan 2013
From 1955, an Encyclapaedia Britannica Filim. Andreas Segovia interviewed by Jack Pfeiffer.
http://wn.com/Rare_Guitar_Video_Andreas_Segovia_Wisdom_1955
From 1955, an Encyclapaedia Britannica Filim. Andreas Segovia interviewed by Jack Pfeiffer.
- published: 06 Mar 2010
- views: 34001
- author: RareGuitarVC
Rhythm & Blues Revue (1955) full movie
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 71:26
- Updated: 23 Jan 2013
www.bojazz.com bjazz.unblog.fr Rhythm and Blues Revue (1955) by Joseph Kohn, Ben Frye, and Studio Films Inc. (public domain). Musical variety show filmed at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, New York City, featuring a cast of popular African-American performers: Willie Bryant, Freddie Robinson, Lionel Hampton, Faye Adams, Bill Bailey, Herb Jeffries, Freddy & Flo, Amos Milburn, The Larks, Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie, Joe Turner, Delta Rhythm Boys, Martha Davis, Little Buck, Nat King Cole, Mantan Moreland & Nipsy Russell, Cab Calloway, Ruth Brown, Paul Williams Band. Bill Bailey appears at 11:22. He was the first person to be recorded doing the Moonwalk (at 12:53), although he referred to it as the "Backslide", in the film Cabin In the Sky (1943)
http://wn.com/Rhythm_Blues_Revue_1955_full_movie
www.bojazz.com bjazz.unblog.fr Rhythm and Blues Revue (1955) by Joseph Kohn, Ben Frye, and Studio Films Inc. (public domain). Musical variety show filmed at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, New York City, featuring a cast of popular African-American performers: Willie Bryant, Freddie Robinson, Lionel Hampton, Faye Adams, Bill Bailey, Herb Jeffries, Freddy & Flo, Amos Milburn, The Larks, Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie, Joe Turner, Delta Rhythm Boys, Martha Davis, Little Buck, Nat King Cole, Mantan Moreland & Nipsy Russell, Cab Calloway, Ruth Brown, Paul Williams Band. Bill Bailey appears at 11:22. He was the first person to be recorded doing the Moonwalk (at 12:53), although he referred to it as the "Backslide", in the film Cabin In the Sky (1943)
- published: 03 Apr 2011
- views: 195389
- author: bessjazz
CTC, Cyclists Special, 1955: Out for a cushy ride
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 16:03
- Updated: 19 Jan 2013
From London to Rugby by train; Warwickshire by bicycle, May 1955. This British Transport Films 15-minute short is snapshot of a different England. CTC members go on group rides via a 'cyclists' special' train.
http://wn.com/CTC,_Cyclists_Special,_1955_Out_for_a_cushy_ride
From London to Rugby by train; Warwickshire by bicycle, May 1955. This British Transport Films 15-minute short is snapshot of a different England. CTC members go on group rides via a 'cyclists' special' train.
- published: 12 Jul 2007
- views: 32993
- author: carltonreid
Fred Astaire--What's My Line
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:01
- Updated: 23 Jan 2013
Fred Astaire as the mystery guest on WML. Episode originally aired on 03 April 1955.
http://wn.com/Fred_Astaire--What's_My_Line
Fred Astaire as the mystery guest on WML. Episode originally aired on 03 April 1955.
- published: 20 Jul 2008
- views: 161193
- author: crepehanger47
Glenn Gould Goldberg Variations 1955 & 1981: 0 - Aria
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:05
- Updated: 16 Jan 2013
A comparison of Gould's 1955 and 1981 recordings of the Goldberg Variations Aria, and commentary on the two recordings by Gould and Tim Page. The next part (comparison of Var 1) is up here: www.youtube.com
http://wn.com/Glenn_Gould_Goldberg_Variations_1955_1981_0_Aria
A comparison of Gould's 1955 and 1981 recordings of the Goldberg Variations Aria, and commentary on the two recordings by Gould and Tim Page. The next part (comparison of Var 1) is up here: www.youtube.com
- published: 16 Jun 2008
- views: 55519
- author: p0lyph0ny
The Cadillacs - Speedoo (1955)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:19
- Updated: 23 Jan 2013
(Bom-bom-bom-bom) (Ba-ba-do-do-do) (Bom-bom-bom) (Ba-ba-do-do-do) (Bom-bom-bom) (Ba-ba-do-do-do) (Bom-bom-bom) (Ba-ba-do-do-do) Well now, they often call me Speedo But my real name is Mr. Earl Umm-hm
http://wn.com/The_Cadillacs_Speedoo_1955
(Bom-bom-bom-bom) (Ba-ba-do-do-do) (Bom-bom-bom) (Ba-ba-do-do-do) (Bom-bom-bom) (Ba-ba-do-do-do) (Bom-bom-bom) (Ba-ba-do-do-do) Well now, they often call me Speedo But my real name is Mr. Earl Umm-hm
- published: 18 Jul 2011
- views: 150643
- author: GNRSlashLover
World Press Photos of the Year (1955-2008)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:55
- Updated: 17 Jan 2013
This video is a collaboration of the World Press Photos of the Year. It contains 50 photographs as no awards were given in 1959, 1961, or 1970. Some pictures are accompanied with videos of the event taking place. Below is the list of photos including the year, photographer, nationality of the photographer, and a description of the photo. First song: Tell Them That Shes Not Scared by: Envy on the Coast Second song: Forever by: Edguy (This song was not my first choice for the video, I thought it was a bit too metaly, but it was good with the time, and the chorus fits amazingly well with the Tiananmen Square video footage). I do not own any materials in this video. This includes the pictures, video clips, and audio. All materials are the copyrighted properties of their respected owners.
http://wn.com/World_Press_Photos_of_the_Year_1955-2008
This video is a collaboration of the World Press Photos of the Year. It contains 50 photographs as no awards were given in 1959, 1961, or 1970. Some pictures are accompanied with videos of the event taking place. Below is the list of photos including the year, photographer, nationality of the photographer, and a description of the photo. First song: Tell Them That Shes Not Scared by: Envy on the Coast Second song: Forever by: Edguy (This song was not my first choice for the video, I thought it was a bit too metaly, but it was good with the time, and the chorus fits amazingly well with the Tiananmen Square video footage). I do not own any materials in this video. This includes the pictures, video clips, and audio. All materials are the copyrighted properties of their respected owners.
- published: 11 Mar 2009
- views: 161463
- author: crankworx42
Operation Cue (1955)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 15:11
- Updated: 21 Jan 2013
Operation Cue 1955 Vintage Atomic Bomb Movie
http://wn.com/Operation_Cue_1955
Operation Cue 1955 Vintage Atomic Bomb Movie
- published: 03 Sep 2009
- views: 36897
- author: nuclearvault
Lady And The Tramp (1955)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 76:24
- Updated: 23 Jan 2013
I DO NOT OWN THIS VIDEO!
http://wn.com/Lady_And_The_Tramp_1955
The goldberg variations (1/5) (1955) complete by Glenn Gould
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 10:13
- Updated: 21 Jan 2013
Variations 1-11
http://wn.com/The_goldberg_variations_1_5_1955_complete_by_Glenn_Gould
President Eisenhower's Secret Meeting with ETs in 1955 - Art Campbell with Manuel Kirklin
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 55:05
- Updated: 22 Jan 2013
Art Campbell Brings with him to this years X-Conference an astounding story backed up with witness testimony. Manuel Kirklin, was an Air Force Medic and high altitude chamber specialist stationed at Holloman AFB in 1955. Kirklin details several eye witness reports of President Eisenhower at Holloman on or about February 11th, 1955 in Ike's third year of his first term. After Ike's arrival at Holloman, two UFOs flew over the flight line; one landed near Iks's plane, Columbine III, and Ike went aboard. What was intriguing about the incident was that the President snuck away from thirty or so reporters while on a bird hunting expedition near Thomasville, GA during high international tension over Formosa (Taiwan). Campbell's investigation includes information through guards assigned to the president, the complete flight records and two additional independent witnesses who give LIVE video taped testimony. This story and the trail of investigation that followed provide compelling proof that President Eisenhower did indeed met with beings from another planet at Holloman AFB in 1955. The X-Conference is pleased to welcome UFO Researchers Art Campbell and Manuel Kirklin The X-Conference is produced by X-PPAC (Extraterrestrial Phenomena Political Action Committee) and The Paradigm Research Group, who's mission is to educate Congress, the Press and the Public about the Government imposed "Truth Embargo" and to bring about formal acknowledgment by the US Government of an ...
http://wn.com/President_Eisenhower's_Secret_Meeting_with_ETs_in_1955_Art_Campbell_with_Manuel_Kirklin
Art Campbell Brings with him to this years X-Conference an astounding story backed up with witness testimony. Manuel Kirklin, was an Air Force Medic and high altitude chamber specialist stationed at Holloman AFB in 1955. Kirklin details several eye witness reports of President Eisenhower at Holloman on or about February 11th, 1955 in Ike's third year of his first term. After Ike's arrival at Holloman, two UFOs flew over the flight line; one landed near Iks's plane, Columbine III, and Ike went aboard. What was intriguing about the incident was that the President snuck away from thirty or so reporters while on a bird hunting expedition near Thomasville, GA during high international tension over Formosa (Taiwan). Campbell's investigation includes information through guards assigned to the president, the complete flight records and two additional independent witnesses who give LIVE video taped testimony. This story and the trail of investigation that followed provide compelling proof that President Eisenhower did indeed met with beings from another planet at Holloman AFB in 1955. The X-Conference is pleased to welcome UFO Researchers Art Campbell and Manuel Kirklin The X-Conference is produced by X-PPAC (Extraterrestrial Phenomena Political Action Committee) and The Paradigm Research Group, who's mission is to educate Congress, the Press and the Public about the Government imposed "Truth Embargo" and to bring about formal acknowledgment by the US Government of an ...
- published: 29 Nov 2010
- views: 73821
- author: UFOTVstudios
A Word to the Wives (1955)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 13:29
- Updated: 20 Jan 2013
Like us on Facebook! www.facebook.com How two women trick a husband into buying a new kitchen. Svelte, perfect-looking Jane Peters and her equally svelte, perfect-looking friend are sipping coffee in their Paris original housedresses in the unnamed friend's modern kitchen. "I'm so proud of it it's almost indecent!" Jane's friend proclaims, wiggling one of her perfectly-shaped nails. She suggests that Jane go shopping with her on a spur-of-the-moment "small spree" (to buy more stunning housedresses, no doubt), but Jane sadly refuses. "I haven't got a dream kitchen to make things easier," she sighs. "Mine's strictly the nightmare-type." Jane's friend is shocked, arching her perfectly-shaped eyebrows, shaking her perfectly-coiffed hair, and turning the corners of her perfectly-shaped lips down into a pout. Why doesn't Jane's husband move her out of that "older house" of theirs and into a freshly-built new one?, she asks, one with a modern kitchen that offers "freedom from uneccesary drudgery to go shopping when the urge takes you"? He certainly should, they agree, and the two women concoct a "plot" to make it happen. Jane has to visit her sick mother in Cleveland; she'll be gone for a couple of days. "Don't get TOO far ahead in your housework," Jane's friend winks. "Oh, no!" Jane replies. "I COULDN'T...." Now we cut to George Peters as he struggles in Jane's kitchen. George -- brilliantly played by Darren McGavin -- is a slack-jawed mouth-breather who prefers to communicate ...
http://wn.com/A_Word_to_the_Wives_1955
Like us on Facebook! www.facebook.com How two women trick a husband into buying a new kitchen. Svelte, perfect-looking Jane Peters and her equally svelte, perfect-looking friend are sipping coffee in their Paris original housedresses in the unnamed friend's modern kitchen. "I'm so proud of it it's almost indecent!" Jane's friend proclaims, wiggling one of her perfectly-shaped nails. She suggests that Jane go shopping with her on a spur-of-the-moment "small spree" (to buy more stunning housedresses, no doubt), but Jane sadly refuses. "I haven't got a dream kitchen to make things easier," she sighs. "Mine's strictly the nightmare-type." Jane's friend is shocked, arching her perfectly-shaped eyebrows, shaking her perfectly-coiffed hair, and turning the corners of her perfectly-shaped lips down into a pout. Why doesn't Jane's husband move her out of that "older house" of theirs and into a freshly-built new one?, she asks, one with a modern kitchen that offers "freedom from uneccesary drudgery to go shopping when the urge takes you"? He certainly should, they agree, and the two women concoct a "plot" to make it happen. Jane has to visit her sick mother in Cleveland; she'll be gone for a couple of days. "Don't get TOO far ahead in your housework," Jane's friend winks. "Oh, no!" Jane replies. "I COULDN'T...." Now we cut to George Peters as he struggles in Jane's kitchen. George -- brilliantly played by Darren McGavin -- is a slack-jawed mouth-breather who prefers to communicate ...
- published: 13 Aug 2010
- views: 41492
- author: shaggylocks
Snowdrift at Bleath Gill (1955)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:35
- Updated: 23 Jan 2013
A freight train travelling between Kirkby Stephen and Barnard Castle has become snowbound in the Westmorland Hills in this short documentary, one of the most popular British Transport Films. The Motive Power, Operating and Engineering Departments go to work with snowploughs to reach the trrapped train. The team eventually dig clear and thaw out the moving parts, and finally rescue the train - four days after becoming stranded. Snowdrift at Bleath Gill is included on the 2-disc BFI DVD The British Transport Films Collection Volume 1 - On and Off the Rails - amzn.to All titles on the BFI Films channel are preserved in the vast collections of the BFI National Archive. To find out more about the Archive visit www.bfi.org.uk
http://wn.com/Snowdrift_at_Bleath_Gill_1955
A freight train travelling between Kirkby Stephen and Barnard Castle has become snowbound in the Westmorland Hills in this short documentary, one of the most popular British Transport Films. The Motive Power, Operating and Engineering Departments go to work with snowploughs to reach the trrapped train. The team eventually dig clear and thaw out the moving parts, and finally rescue the train - four days after becoming stranded. Snowdrift at Bleath Gill is included on the 2-disc BFI DVD The British Transport Films Collection Volume 1 - On and Off the Rails - amzn.to All titles on the BFI Films channel are preserved in the vast collections of the BFI National Archive. To find out more about the Archive visit www.bfi.org.uk
- published: 30 Nov 2012
- views: 12906
- author: BFIfilms
Fallout 1955 (Full 15 min Cold War Documentary)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 14:13
- Updated: 23 Jan 2013
A rather eerie and unsettling cartoon/live action Public Service Film produced by the Civil Defense Department trying to education the good citizens of the USA on what to do after a full fledged Nuclear Exchange. Nostalgic and disturbing at the same time this period piece gives you and idea on what life was like in Eisenhower's America.
http://wn.com/Fallout_1955_Full_15_min_Cold_War_Documentary
A rather eerie and unsettling cartoon/live action Public Service Film produced by the Civil Defense Department trying to education the good citizens of the USA on what to do after a full fledged Nuclear Exchange. Nostalgic and disturbing at the same time this period piece gives you and idea on what life was like in Eisenhower's America.
- published: 03 Feb 2011
- views: 76624
- author: ThoughtTraveler
Day the World Ended (1955) 01 of 08
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 10:07
- Updated: 16 Jan 2013
The sole survivors of a global nuclear holocaust find themselves fighting each other and an unknown force that threatens their already imperiled existence. • Part 02: www.youtube.com
http://wn.com/Day_the_World_Ended_1955_01_of_08
The sole survivors of a global nuclear holocaust find themselves fighting each other and an unknown force that threatens their already imperiled existence. • Part 02: www.youtube.com
- published: 09 Jul 2008
- views: 48625
- author: RagnarokRetroStyle
photo: AP / Anis Belghoul
22 Jan 2013
Article by WN.com Correspondent Dallas Darling. When then-Vice President Dick Cheney stated. "If there's a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al-Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response. It's not about our analysis...it's about our response,"(1) it was clearly evident that the "war on terror" had been lost ... And when Zacarias Moussaoui shouted. "America you lost ... 11....(size: 9.1Kb)
photo: AP / Echorouk Elyaoumi
21 Jan 2013
Algerian security forces on Sunday made grisly discoveries of dozens of bodies at a sprawling natural gas facility, a day after a violent showdown put an end to an international hostage crisis. But as Algeria tallied up the losses, a debate was emerging about whether the militant group linked to al-Qaida that seized the plant had been intent on a massacre or whether it had simply been after money ... ....(size: 2.9Kb)
photo: AP / Patric Schneider
23 Jan 2013
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Three people were wounded, one critically, on Tuesday when gunfire erupted during an altercation between two people on a community college campus near Houston, police said, the latest in a series of shootings on U.S. college and school campuses. Two people "of interest" in the Lone Star College shooting were detained for questioning, including one with a student identification, according to authorities....(size: 3.7Kb)
photo: UN / JC McIlwaine
23 Jan 2013
United Nations - On Tuesday the UN Security Council unanimously condemned North Korea's December rocket launch and expanded existing UN sanctions, eliciting a vow from Pyongyang to boost the North's military and nuclear capabilities. While the resolution approved by the 15-nation council does not impose new sanctions on Pyongyang, diplomats said Beijing's support for it was a significant diplomatic blow to Pyongyang ... Blacklisted ... >. > ... >....(size: 27.5Kb)
photo: WN / Imran Nissar
23 Jan 2013
NEW DELHI ' An Indian government panel recommended on Wednesday the strict enforcement of sexual assault laws, a commitment for speedy rape trials and changes to the country’s antiquated penal code to protect women in the wake of a fatal gang rape in New Delhi last month ... The suggestions included banning a traumatic vaginal exam of rape victims to ending political interference in sex crime cases ... Verma, who headed the panel ... . ....(size: 5.1Kb)
The Washington Post
24 Jan 2013
She had congestive heart failure ... Loading... She settled in the Washington area in 1955 ... Richard Sr., whom she married in 1955, died in 1989 ... ....(size: 1.3Kb)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
24 Jan 2013
The painting is called "Interior" and is by Henri Le Sidaner ... Education writer Eleanor Chute. echute@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1955 ... ....(size: 0.7Kb)
Star Tribune
24 Jan 2013
Go ahead. Put an entire country's Olympic medal hopes on Ashley Wagner's shoulders. Ask that she singlehandedly return the American women to glory in a sport they once ruled. She can take it. Since winning her first title at the U.S ... But I am closer." ... territory. Americans won seven Olympic titles from 1956 to 2002 and 25 world titles from 1955 to 2006 ... crowns ... ....(size: 1.9Kb)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
24 Jan 2013
As required by state law because of an overall increased in property values, both the Pittsburgh Public Schools has voted to reduce property tax millage rates by about 30 percent for calendar 2013. Pittsburgh Public Schools Wednesday night unanimously approved reducing the property tax millage rate from 13.92 mills to 9.65 mills, which is about a 30 percent reduction ... echute@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1955 ... ....(size: 2.1Kb)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
24 Jan 2013
Pittsburgh Public Schools board member Regina Holley Wednesday tonight successfully persuaded her colleagues to get up-to-date estimates of how much it would cost to renovate the former Pittsburgh Schenley High School in Oakland. The resolution came as the district is in the process of reviewing four bids to purchase and reuse the school, which closed in 2008 ... 27 ... Ms ... Ms ... Ms ... Ms ... Mr ... Mr ... ... Ms ... 15. Mr ... echute@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1955 ... ....(size: 2.5Kb)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
24 Jan 2013
The board of Pittsburgh Public Schools has rejected a request from Propel Schools to open a K-8 charter school in Hazelwood. The vote was 4-4, with one member, Floyd McCrea abstaining. Members Theresa Colaizzi, Sherry Hazuda, Bill Isler and Sharene Shealey voted in favor. Members Mark Brentley Sr., Jean Fink, Regina Holley and Thomas Sumpter were opposed ... Mr ... Ms ... Ms ... Ms ... Education writer Eleanor Chute. echute@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1955....(size: 2.6Kb)
Yahoo Daily News
24 Jan 2013
Five students with financial need who demonstrate high achievement in Academics, Music, Arts, Leadership/Community Service, and/or Athletics will be awarded a full four-year scholarship ... Awardees of the scholarship will be notified by March 31, 2013 ... Highland Hall Waldorf School, located in Northridge, CA and founded in 1955, exemplifies the rich educational traditions of the Waldorf School movement ... Rebecca Varon Remstein ... ....(size: 2.8Kb)
StreetInsider
24 Jan 2013
Tweet. VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwire) -- 01/23/13 -- Just a few more days to get tickets for the BC Chapter of the American Marketing Association (BCAMA) Breakfast Speaker Series on January 31, 2013. We are featuring four of Vancouver's powerhouses in advertising to share their insight into key trends for 2013 ... The BC Chapter of the American Marketing Association has been this province's leading marketing source since 1955....(size: 3.4Kb)
Foreign Policy
24 Jan 2013
In Latin American politics, dying can be a shrewd career move. Just look at Simón Bolívar. During his lifetime his actual political accomplishments were decidedly mixed; his efforts to build a united South American republic ultimately gave way to disunion, dictatorship, and personal despair ... ... President of Argentina from 1946 until 1955 (and again, briefly, in the early 1970s), Perón remains a powerful political force even today ... ....(size: 4.0Kb)
The Charlotte Observer
24 Jan 2013
PHILADELPHIA Ramon Galloway went the length of the court for the winning basket with 2.7 seconds left to send La Salle to a 54-53 victory over No. 9 Butler on Wednesday night ... There was some confusion after Galloway's basket and fans were ordered off the court ... Not so fast ... 12 ... La Salle was once like Butler back when Tom Gola, a three-time All-America, led the program to consecutive trips to the NCAA championship game in 1954 and 1955 ... ....(size: 3.6Kb)
The Washington Post
24 Jan 2013
PHILADELPHIA — Ramon Galloway went the length of the court for the winning basket with 2.7 seconds left to send La Salle to a 54-53 victory over No. 9 Butler on Wednesday night ... There was some confusion after Galloway’s basket and fans were ordered off the court ... 12 ... La Salle was once like Butler back when Tom Gola, a three-time All-America, led the program to consecutive trips to the NCAA championship game in 1954 and 1955 ... ....(size: 4.3Kb)
Yahoo Daily News
24 Jan 2013
The presentations are among more than 800 technical talks scheduled during IS&T;/SPIE Electronic Imaging next month in Northern California ... Eighteen educational courses are also available, on fundamental and current topics such as digital imaging systems, image processing, analysis, displays ... SPIE is the international society for optics and photonics, a not-for-profit organization founded in 1955 to advance light-based technologies ... ....(size: 5.3Kb)
noodls
24 Jan 2013
(Source. Florida Museum of Natural History). January 23rd, 2013. GAINESVILLE, Fla. - Researchers have discovered the great white shark, one of the most feared ocean predators, can occasionally become prey for the mysterious cookiecutter shark, a lone predator one-tenth its size ... Photo by J. Lambus Photography ... Photo by John Soward ... -30-. Writer ... Media Contact ... Source. Source. Yannis Papastamatiou, ypapastamatiou@flmnh.ufl.edu, 352-273-1955....(size: 7.1Kb)
This article is about the year 1955.
| Millennium: | 2nd millennium |
|---|---|
| Centuries: | 19th century – 20th century – 21st century |
| Decades: | 1920s 1930s 1940s – 1950s – 1960s 1970s 1980s |
| Years: | 1952 1953 1954 – 1955 – 1956 1957 1958 |
| 1955 by topic: |
| Subject |
| By country |
| Leaders |
| Birth and death categories |
| Establishments and disestablishments categories |
| Works and introductions categories |
| Gregorian calendar | 1955 MCMLV |
| Ab urbe condita | 2708 |
| Armenian calendar | 1404 ԹՎ ՌՆԴ |
| Assyrian calendar | 6705 |
| Bahá'í calendar | 111–112 |
| Bengali calendar | 1362 |
| Berber calendar | 2905 |
| British Regnal year | 3 Eliz. 2 – 4 Eliz. 2 |
| Buddhist calendar | 2499 |
| Burmese calendar | 1317 |
| Byzantine calendar | 7463–7464 |
| Chinese calendar | 甲午年十二月初八日 (4591/4651-12-8) — to —
乙未年十一月十八日(4592/4652-11-18) |
| Coptic calendar | 1671–1672 |
| Ethiopian calendar | 1947–1948 |
| Hebrew calendar | 5715–5716 |
| Hindu calendars | |
| - Vikram Samvat | 2011–2012 |
| - Shaka Samvat | 1877–1878 |
| - Kali Yuga | 5056–5057 |
| Holocene calendar | 11955 |
| Iranian calendar | 1333–1334 |
| Islamic calendar | 1374–1375 |
| Japanese calendar | Shōwa 30 (昭和30年) |
| Julian calendar | Gregorian minus 13 days |
| Korean calendar | 4288 |
| Minguo calendar | ROC 44 民國44年 |
| Thai solar calendar | 2498 |
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: 1955 |
Year 1955 (MCMLV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar.
Events[link]
January[link]
- January 2 – José Antonio Remón Cantera, president of Panama, is assassinated at a race track in Panama City.
- January 3 – José Ramón Guizado becomes president of Panama.
- January 7 – Marian Anderson is the first African American singer to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
- January 18–January 20 – Battle of Yijiangshan Islands: The Chinese Communist People's Liberation Army seizes the islands from the Republic of China (Taiwan).
- January 19 – The game Scrabble debuts.
- January 22 – The Pentagon announces a plan to develop ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) armed with nuclear weapons.
- January 23 – Sutton Coldfield rail crash kills 17 near Birmingham, England.
- January 25 – Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union announces the end of the war between the USSR and Germany, which began during World War II in 1941.
- January 28 – United States Congress authorizes President Dwight D. Eisenhower to use force to protect Formosa from the People's Republic of China.
February[link]
- February 1 – Ray Kroc opens a McDonald's fast food restaurant (the company's 9th since it was founded in 1940), but Kroc later takes over the company and oversees its worldwide expansion.
- February 4 – Pact of Mutual Cooperation "Baghdad Pact" signed.
- February 10 – Seventh Fleet of the United States Navy helps the Republic of China evacuate Chinese Nationalist army and residents from the Tachen Islands to Taiwan.
- February 12 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends the first U.S. advisors to South Vietnam.
- February 16 – Nearly 100 die in a fire at a home for the elderly in Yokohama, Japan.
- February 19 – Southeast Asia Treaty Organization established.
- February 22 – In Chicago's Democratic primary, Mayor Martin H. Kennelly loses to the head of the Cook County Democratic Party, Richard J. Daley, 364,839 to 264,77.
March[link]
- March 2 – Claudette Colvin (a fifteen year old African American girl) refuses to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, to a white woman after the driver demands it. She is carried off the bus backwards whilst being kicked and handcuffed and harassed on the way to the police station.
- March 5 – WBBJ-TV signs on the air in the Jackson, Tennessee, with WDXI as its initial call-letters, to expanded American commercial television in mostly-rural areas.
- March 7 – The Broadway musical version of Peter Pan, which had opened in 1954 starring Mary Martin, is presented on television for the first time by NBC-TV with its original cast, as an installment of Producers' Showcase. It is also the first time that a stage musical is presented in its entirety on TV almost exactly as it was performed on stage. This program gains the largest viewership of a TV special up to this time, and it becomes one of the first great TV family musical classics.
- March 17 – The Richard Riot occurs in Montreal.
- March 19 – KXTV of Stockton, California, signs on the air in the United States, being the 100th commercial television station in this country.
- March 20 – Evan Hunter's movie adaptation of the novel Blackboard Jungle premieres in the United States, featuring the famous single, Rock Around the Clock, by Bill Haley and His Comets. Teenagers jump from their seats to dance to the song.
April[link]
- April 1 – EOKA A starts a revolution British rule in Cyprus (taken over from the Ottoman Empire in 1878 and a Crown Colony since 1925).
- April 5
- Winston Churchill resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
- Richard J. Daley defeats Robert Merrian to become Mayor of Chicago by a vote of 708,222 to 581,555.
- April 6 – Anthony Eden becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
- April 11 – The Taiwanese Kuomintang put a time-bomb on the airplane Kashmir Princess, killing 16 but failing to assassinate the People's Republic of China leader, Zhou Enlai.
- April 12 – The Salk polio vaccine, having passed large-scale trials earlier in the United States, receives full approval by the FDA.
- April 14 – The Detroit Red Wings win the Stanley Cup for the 7th time in franchise history. Detroit wouldn't win the Cup again until 1997.
- April 15 – Middle East Treaty Organization (MENTO).
- April 16 – Burma-Japanese peace treaty, signed in Rangoon on November 5, 1954, comes into effect, formally ending a state of war between the two countries that had not existed for a long time.
- April 17 – Imre Nagy, the communist Premier of Hungary, is ousted for being too moderate.
- April 18–April 24 – Asian-African Conference held in Indonesia.
May[link]
- May 1 – Warsaw Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance signed (Warsaw Treaty Organization) (effective June 6).
- May 5 – West Germany becomes a sovereign country recognized by important Western foreign countries, such as France, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States.
- May 6 – WEU charter effective.
- May 9 – West Germany joins the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
- May 10 – Mark David Chapman, the man who, in 1980, shot and brutally killed former Beatle John Lennon, is born.
- May 11 – Japanese National Railways' ferry Shiun Maru sinks after collision with sister ship Uko Maru in thick fog off Takamatsu, Shikoku, in the Seto Inland Sea of Japan; 166 passengers (many children) and two crew are killed. This event is influential in plans to construct the Akashi-Kaikyō Bridge (built 1986-98).
- May 12– New York's Third Avenue Elevated runs its last train between Chathem Square in Manhattan and East 149th Street in the Bronx, thus ending elevated train service in Manhattan.
- May 14 – Eight Communist Bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, sign a mutual defence treaty in Warsaw, Poland, that is called the Warsaw Pact.
- May 15 – Austrian State Treaty, which restores Austria's national sovereignty, is concluded between the four occupying powers following World War II (the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and France) and Austria, setting it up as a neutral country.
- May 25 – Joe Brown and George Band are the first to attain the summit of Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas, as part of a British team led by Charles Evans.
June[link]
- June 7 – The TV quiz program The $64,000 Question premieres on CBS-TV in the United States, with Hal March as the host.
- June 11 – Le Mans disaster: eighty-three people are killed and at least 100 are injured after two race cars collide in the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans.
- June 13 – Mir Mine, the first diamond mine in the Soviet Union, is discovered.
- June 16 – Lady and the Tramp, the Walt Disney company's 15th animated film, premieres in Chicago, Illinois.
July[link]
- July 7 – The New Zealand Special Air Service is formed.
- July 13 – Ruth Ellis (born 1926) is hanged for murder in London, becoming the last woman ever to be executed in the United Kingdom.
- July 17 – The American Broadcasting Company broadcasts a sneak preview of Disneyland in Anaheim, California.
- July 18
- Disneyland opens to the public in Anaheim, California.
- The first nuclear-generated electrical power is sold commercially, partially powering the town of Arco, Idaho.
- The Illinois Governor, William Stratton, signs the "Loyalty Oath Act", passed by the State Legislature, which mandates all public employees take a loyalty oath to Illinois and the United States, or lose their jobs.
- The first Geneva Summit meeting between the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France begins. It ends on July 23.
- July 27 – El Al Flight 402 from Vienna, Austria to Tel Aviv-Yafo via Istanbul is shot down over Bulgaria. All 58 passengers and crewmen aboard the Lockheed Constellation airplane are killed.
- July 28 – The first Interlingua Congress in Tours, France, leading to foundation of the Union Mundial pro Interlingua.
August[link]
- August 19 – Hurricane Diane hits the northeastern United States, killing over 200 people, and causing over $1.0 billion in damage.
- August 20 – Hundreds of people are killed in anti-French rioting in Morocco and Algeria.
- August 22 – Eleven schoolchildren are killed when their school bus is hit by a freight train in Spring City, Tennessee.
- August 25 – The last Soviet Army occupation forces leave Austria.
- August 27 – First edition of the Guinness Book of Records is published, in London.
September[link]
- September 2 – Under the guidance of Dr Humphry Osmond, Christopher Mayhew ingests 400 mg of mescaline hydrochloride and allows himself to be filmed as part of a Panorama special for BBC TV that was never broadcast.
- September 6 – Istanbul Pogrom: Istanbul's Greek minority is the target of a government-sponsored pogrom.
- September 10 – The long-running program Gunsmoke debuts on the CBS-TV network.
- September 14 – Pope Pius XII elevates many of the Apostolic Vicariates in Africa to Metropolitan Archdioceses
- September 15 – Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita is published in Paris by Olympia Press.
- September 19–September 21 – The President of Argentina, Juan Peron, is ousted in a military coup.
- September 19 – Hurricane Hilda kills about 200 people in Mexico.
- September 22 – Independent Commercial Television (ITV) begins broadcasting in the United Kingdom.
- September 23 – Alec Guinness meets the actor James Dean. Guinness supposedly has a premonition of Dean's death.
- September 24 – Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States suffers a coronary thrombosis while on vacation in Denver, Colorado.
- September 30 – Actor James Dean is killed when his automobile collides with another car at a highway junction near Cholame, California. Dean is just 24 years old.
October[link]
- October 2 – Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV program debuts on the NBC-TV network in the United States.
- October 3 – The Mickey Mouse Club TV program debuts on the ABC-TV network in the United States.
- October 4
- The Reverend Sun Myung Moon is released from prison in Seoul, South Korea.
- The Brooklyn Dodgers finally win the World Series, defeating the New York Yankees 2–0 in Game 7 of the 1955 baseball playoff.
- October 5 – Disneyland Hotel opens to the public in Anaheim, California.
- October 11 – 70-mm film for projection is introduced with the theatrical release of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical film, Oklahoma!
- October 14 – ODECA secretariat inaugurated.
- October 20
- The first footage of Elvis Presley is filmed as part of a film short about the Cleveland, Ohio, disc jockey Bill Randle.
- Cardiff is announced as the capital city of the principality of Wales, within the United Kingdom.
- October 26
- After the last Allied troops have left the country and following the provisions of the Austrian Independence Treaty, Austria declares its permanent neutrality.
- Ngo Dinh Diem proclaims Vietnam to be a republic with himself as its President and forms the Army of the Republic of Vietnam.
- October 29 – Soviet battleship Novorossiysk explodes at moorings in Sevastopol Bay, killing 608, the Soviet Union's worst naval disaster.
November[link]
- November 1 – The Vietnam War begins between the South Vietnam Army and the North Vietnam Army in which the latter is allied with the Viet Cong.
- A time bomb explodes in the cargo hold of United Airlines Flight 629, a Douglas DC-6B airliner flying above Longmont, Colorado, killing all 39 passengers and 5 crew members on board.
- November 3 – The five-and-one-half-mile long Rimutaka Railroad tunnel opens in New Zealand.
- November 5 – Racial segregation is outlawed on trains and buses in Interstate Commerce in the United States.
- November 19 – C. Northcote Parkinson first propounds 'Parkinson's Law', in The Economist.
- November 20 – Bo Diddley makes his television debut on Ed Sullivan's Toast Of The Town show for the CBS-TV network.
- November 26 – The British Governor of Cyprus declares a State of Emergency on the island.
December[link]
- December 5
- The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merge to become the AFL-CIO.
- The Montgomery Improvement Association is formed in Montgomery, Alabama, by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and other Black ministers to coordinate a Black people's boycott of all city buses.
- December 9 – Adnan Menderes of DP forms the new government of Turkey (22nd government)
- December 14
- The Tappan Zee Bridge in New York opens to traffic.
- Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Laos, Libya, Nepal, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and Sri Lanka join the United Nations simultaneously, after several years of moratorium on admitting new members that began during the Korean War.
- December 22 – American cytogeneticist Joe Hin Tjio discovers the correct number of human chromosomes, forty-six.
- December 31 – General Motors Corporation becomes the first American corporation to make a profit of over one billion dollars in one year.
Date unknown[link]
- Strömsund Bridge in Sweden is completed, being the first significant cable-stayed bridge of the modern era.[1]
World population[link]
- World population: 2,755,823,000
- Africa: 246,746,000
- Asia: 1,541,947,000
- Europe: 575,184,000
- South America: 190,797,000
- North America: 186,884,000
- Oceania: 14,265,000
Births[link]
January[link]
- January 1
- Mario Andreacchio, Australian film director
- Mary Beard, British classicist
- January 2 – Vivien Savage, French singer
- January 6 – Rowan Atkinson, English comedian and actor
- January 9 – J. K. Simmons, American actor
- January 13
- Ran Ito, Japanese actress
- Paul Kelly, Australian musician
- Jay McInerney, American writer
- January 17
- Steve Earle, American musician
- Mami Koyama, Japanese voice actress
- January 18 – Kevin Costner, American actor, producer and director
- January 19 – Sir Simon Rattle, English conductor
- January 20
- Joe Doherty, Provisional Irish Republican Army member
- Hiromi Ota, Japanese singer
- January 21 – Jeff Koons, American artist
- January 22 – Keiko Takahashi, Japanese actress
- January 26
- Edward Van Halen, Dutch-born American rock musician (Van Halen)
- Björn Andrésen, Swedish actor (Death in Venice)
- January 27
- John G. Roberts, Chief Justice of the United States
- Alexander Stuart, British author
- January 28
- Vinod Khosla, venture capitalist
- Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France
- George Tokoro, Japanese TV personality and singer-songwriter
- January 29
- Eddie Jordan, American basketball player and head coach
- Femi Pedro, Lagos State, Nigeria
February[link]
- February 2 – Leszek Engelking, Polish poet, writer and translator
- February 3 – Kirsty Wark, Scottish television presenter
- February 6 – Michael Pollan, American journalist
- February 7 – Miguel Ferrer, American actor
- February 8
- John Grisham, American novelist
- Xu Bing, Chinese artist
- February 9
- Charles Shaughnessy, English actor
- Jerry Beck, American animation historian
- February 10
- Chris Adams, British professional wrestler and judoka (d. 2001)
- Greg Norman, Australian golfer
- February 12 – Ai Satō, Japanese voice actress
- February 13 – Akiko Yano, Japanese singer-songwriter
- February 15 – Christopher McDonald, American actor
- February 17 – Mo Yan, Chinese writer
- February 19 – Jeff Daniels, American actor
- February 21 – Kelsey Grammer, American actor and comedian
- February 23
- Howard Jones, English musician
- Flip Saunders, American basketball coach
- February 24
- Alain Prost, French race car driver
- Steve Jobs, American computer pioneer (d. 2011)
March[link]
- March 1 – Sir Timothy Laurence, second husband of Anne, Princess Royal
- March 2
- Shoko Asahara, Japanese cult leader (Aum Shinrikyo)
- Jay Osmond, American pop singer
- March 3 – Kent Derricott, Canadian TV personality in Japan
- March 4 – Dominique Pinon, French actor
- March 5
- Penn Jillette, American magician and comedian
- Julien Dray, French politician
- March 6 – Alberta Watson, Canadian actress
- March 7 – Tommy Kramer, American football player
- March 8
- Don Ashby, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 1981)
- Joellyn Auklandus, American writer
- March 9
- Ornella Muti, Italian actress
- Franco Uncini, Italian motorcycle racer
- March 10 – Youssra, Egyptian actress and singer
- March 11 – Nina Hagen, German pop singer
- March 13
- Bruno Conti, Italian football player
- Glenne Headly, American actress of film, stage and television
- March 15
- Robert Kabbas, Australian weightlifter
- Dee Snider, American rock singer (Twisted Sister)
- March 16
- Jiro Watanabe, Japanese boxer
- Bruno Barreto, Brazilian film director
- March 17 – Gary Sinise, American actor, producer and director
- March 18
- Guillermo Dávila, Venezuelan actor and singer
- Dwayne Murphy, American baseball player
- March 19
- Bruce Willis, American actor
- Simon Yam, Hong Kong actor
- March 20 – Mariya Takeuchi, Japanese singer-songwriter
- March 21 – Philippe Troussier, French football coach
- March 22
- Pete Sessions, American politician
- Valdis Zatlers, president of Latvia
- Lena Olin, Swedish actress
- March 23 – Moses Malone, American basketball player
- March 26 – Danny Arndt, Canadian ice hockey player
- March 28
- John Alderdice, Irish politician
- Reba McEntire, American country singer and actress
- March 29
- Earl Campbell, American football player
- Brendan Gleeson, Irish actor
- Marina Sirtis, English actress (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
- March 31 – Angus Young, Australian rock guitarist (AC/DC)
April[link]
- April 3 – Mick Mars, American rock guitarist (Motley Crue)
- April 5
- Janice Long, British radio disc jockey
- Akira Toriyama, Japanese manga artist
- April 6
- Michael Rooker, American actor
- Janet Ellis, British children's TV presenter
- April 7
- Grace Hightower, American philanthropist, actress and singer
- Werner Stocker, German actor (d. 1993)
- Gregg Jarrett, American lawyer turned journalist
- Akira Nishino, Japanese soccer player and manager
- April 8
- Kane Hodder, American actor
- Barbara Kingsolver, American fiction writer
- April 9 – Kate Heyhoe, American food writer
- April 11 – Kevin Brady, American politician
- April 13
- Steve Camp, American Christian musician
- Hideki Saijo, Japanese singer and actor
- April 15 – Dodi Al-Fayed, Egyptian businessman (d. 1997)
- April 16 – Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg
- April 18 – Bobby Castillo, American baseball player
- April 21
- Ebiet G Ade, Indonesian singer and songwriter
- Toninho Cerezo, Brazilian footballer and coach
- April 23
- Judy Davis, Australian actress
- Fumi Hirano, Japanese voice actress and essayist
- Tony Miles, English chess player (d. 2001)
- April 24 – John de Mol, Dutch media tycoon
- April 25
- John Nunn, English chess player and mathematician
- Parviz Parastui, Iranian actor
- April 26 – Chen Daoming, Chinese actor
- April 27 – Eric Schmidt, American software engineer and businessman
- April 28 – Eddie Jobson, English musician
- April 29
- Wendee Lee, American voice actress
- Kate Mulgrew, American actress
- Yūko Tanaka, Japanese actress
May[link]
- May 1 – Ray Buttigieg, Maltese composer and poet
- May 2
- Willie Miller, Scottish footballer
- Donatella Versace, Italian designer
- Dave Winer, American software pioneer
- May 3 – David Hookes, Australian cricketer (d. 2004)
- May 4
- Avram Grant, Israeli football manager
- Robert Ellis Orrall, American singer
- May 6 – Tom Bergeron, American television host
- May 8 – Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of Ethiopia
- May 9 – Anne Sofie von Otter, Swedish mezzo-soprano
- May 10
- Chris Berman, American sports broadcaster (ABC Sports)
- Mark David Chapman, American murderer of John Lennon
- May 16
- Olga Korbut, Russian gymnast
- Jack Morris, American baseball player
- Hazel O'Connor, English singer-songwriter and actress
- Debra Winger, American actress
- May 17 – Bill Paxton, American actor
- May 18 – Chow Yun-fat, Hong Kong actor
- May 19
- James Gosling, Canadian software engineer
- Mark Staff Brandl, American and Swiss artist and art historian
- Th. Emil Homerin, American scholar of religion
- May 20
- Diego Abatantuono, Italian actor
- Zbigniew Preisner, Polish film composer
- May 22
- Chalmers "Spanky" Alford, American jazz guitarist (d. 2008)
- Dale Winton, English radio DJ and television presenter
- May 24
- Rosanne Cash, American entertainer
- Rumiko Ukai, Japanese voice actress
- May 25
- Suguru Egawa, Japanese baseball player
- Connie Sellecca, American actress
- May 26
- Doris Dörrie, German actress and screenplay writer
- Masaharu Morimoto, Japanese chef
- May 30
- Colm Tóibín. Irish novelist
- Nakamura Kanzaburō XVIII, Japanese Kabuki actor
- May 31
- Susie Essman, American actress
- Tommy Emmanuel, Australian guitarist
June[link]
- June 1 – Chiyonofuji Mitsugu, Japanese sumo wrestler (58th Yokozuna grand champion)
- June 2 – Dana Carvey, American actor and comedian
- June 5 – Fernando Borrego Linares, Cuban singer and songwriter (aka Polo Montañez)
- June 6
- Sandra Bernhard, American comedian, actress, author and singer
- Chris Nyman, American baseball player
- June 7 – Tim Richmond, American race car driver (d. 1989)
- June 8
- Tim Berners-Lee, English inventor of the World Wide Web
- Griffin Dunne, American actor and director
- June 10
- Floyd Bannister, American baseball player
- Andrew Stevens, American actor, producer and director
- June 11 – Yuri Sedykh, Ukrainian hammer thrower
- June 14
- Kim Lankford, American actress, businesswoman, and horse wrangler
- Paul O'Grady, English talk show host and comedian
- June 15 – Polly Draper, American actress, screenwriter, playwright, producer and director
- June 16 – Laurie Metcalf, American actress
- June 18 – Sandy Allen, American, world's tallest woman (d. 2008)
- June 20 – Tor Norretranders, Danish author
- June 21
- Aloysius Amwano, Nauruan politician
- Jean-Pierre Mader, French singer-songwriter
- Leigh McCloskey, American actor (Dallas)
- Michel Platini, French football player
- Tim Bray, Canadian computer programmer
- June 22 – Glenn Danzig, American rock singer (The Misfits, Samhain, Danzig)
- June 23 – Alan J. Gow, British motorsport executive
- June 24 – Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, Indian head of Siddha Yoga
- June 26 – Yoko Gushiken, Japanese boxer
- June 27 – Isabelle Adjani, French actress
- June 30 – David Alan Grier, American actor and comedian
July[link]
- July 1
- Sanma Akashiya, Japanese comedian and actor
- Lisa Scottoline, American novelist
- July 2 – Stephen Walt, American political scientist
- July 3
- Matt Keough, American baseball player
- John Cramer, American game show announcer
- July 5
- Sebastian Barry, Irish playwright, novelist, and poet.
- Henry Lee Summer, American singer
- July 8 – Mihaela Mitrache, Romanian actress
- July 9
- Fred Norris, American radio personality
- Jimmy Smits, American actor
- July 11 – Balaji Sadasivan, Singaporean politician and neurosurgeon
- July 18 – Bernd Fasching, Austrian painter and sculptor
- July 21
- Howie Epstein, American musician and producer (d. 2003)
- Marcelo Bielsa, Argentine football player and manager
- July 22
- Willem Dafoe, American actor
- Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistani politician
- July 26 – Michele Pillar, American Christian musician
- July 27 – Allan Border, Australian cricketer
- July 31 – Jakie Quartz, French singer
August[link]
- August 2 – Caleb Carr, American writer
- August 4
- Gerrie Coetzee, South African boxer
- Billy Bob Thornton, American actor, director and screenwriter
- August 6
- Ron Davis, American baseball player
- Gordon J. Brand, English golfer
- August 7 – Vladimir Sorokin, Russian writer
- August 8 – Diddú (Sigrún Hjálmtýsdóttir), Icelandic soprano and songwriter
- August 9 – Doug Williams, American football quarterback
- August 10 – Mel Tiangco, Television host and newscasters 24 Oras
- August 13 – Daryl, American magician
- August 14 – Gillian Taylforth, English actress
- August 17 – Richard Hilton, American businessman
- August 19
- Peter Gallagher, American actor
- Terry Harper, American baseball player
- August 20 – Agnes Chan, Hong Kong born TV personality in Japan
- August 22 – Chiranjeevi, Indian actor
- August 24 – Mike Huckabee, American politician, former Governor and 2008 Presidential candidate
- August 27
- Laura Fygi, Dutch singer
- Sergey Khlebnikov, Soviet speed skater (d. 1999)
- August 30 – Mayumi Muroyama, Japanese manga artist
- August 31
- Olek Krupa, Polish actor
- Edwin Moses, American athlete
September[link]
- September 1
- Billy Blanks, American martial artist, inventor of the Tae Bo
- Bruce Foxton, English musician
- September 2
- Robert Duncan, American astrophysicist
- Natalya Petrusyova, Soviet speed skater
- Michelle Yim, Hong Kong actress
- September 4 – Hiroshi Izawa, Japanese actor
- September 6 – Raymond Benson, American author
- September 7 – Efim Zelmanov, Russian mathematician
- September 9 – John Kricfalusi, Canadian cartoonist
- September 12 – Peter Scolari, American actor and comedian
- September 15
- Željka Antunović, Croatian politician
- Renzo Rosso, Italian clothing designer
- September 16 – Robin Yount, American baseball player
- September 17 – Charles Martinet, American voice-actor
- September 19 – Richard Burmer, American composer, sound designer, and musician (d. 2006)
- September 21 – Richard Hieb, American astronaut
- September 24 – Shinbo Nomura, Japanese manga artist
- September 25 – Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, German football player
- September 28 – Stéphane Dion, Canadian politician
October[link]
- October 2 – Philip Oakey, English rock musician (The Human League)
- October 5
- Jean-Jacques Lafon, French singer-songwriter
- Caroline Loeb, French singer and actress
- October 7 – Yo-Yo Ma, French-born Chinese cellist
- October 13 – Sergei Shepelev, Russian ice hockey player
- October 15
- Kulbir Bhaura, British field hockey player
- James B. Aguayo-Martel, physician, surgeon, scientist, inventor
- Tanya Roberts, American actress (Charlie's Angels)
- October 18
- Hiromi Go, Japanese singer
- Timmy Mallett, British television presenter
- October 19 – LaSalle Ishii, Japanese TV personality
- October 21
- Yasukazu Hamada, Japanese politician
- Rich Mullins, American Christian musician (d. 1997)
- October 24 – Karen Austin, American actress
- October 25 – Glynis Barber, English Actor
- October 28
- Bill Gates, American software entrepreneur
- Indra Nooyi, Indian CEO
- October 29
- Kevin DuBrow, American musician (d. 2007)
- Etsuko Shihomi, Japanese actress
- Roger O'Donnell, English musician
- October 30 – Jeremy Black, British historian
- October 31 – Eduardo V. Manalo, 3rd Executive Minister (Tagapamahalang Pangkalahatan) of the Iglesia ni Cristo (Church of Christ)
November[link]
- November 2 – Chris Burnett, American saxophone player, composer, veteran of US military jazz bands and band leader
- November 3
- Phil Simms, American football player
- Yukihiko Tsutsumi, Japanese film director
- Teresa De Sio, Italian singer-songwriter
- November 4 – Moulana Ghousavi Shah, Author, (Secretary General: The Conference of World Religions)
- November 4 – Matti Vanhanen, Prime Minister of Finland
- November 5
- Pedro Brieger, Argentine journalist and sociologist.
- Kris Jenner, American TV personality
- Karan Thapar, Indian journalist, political analyst & commentator
- November 6 – Maria Shriver, American journalist, First Lady of California
- November 7 – Detlef Ultsch, German judo athlete
- November 9 – Karen Dotrice, English actress
- November 10 – Roland Emmerich, German film director
- November 11 – Jigme Singye Wangchuk, King of Bhutan
- November 13 – Whoopi Goldberg, American actress and comedienne
- November 14 – Koichi Nakano, Japanese bicycle racer
- November 19 – Dianne de Leeuw, Dutch figure skater
- November 20 – Ray Ozzie, American computer programmer
- November 21 – Kyle Gann, American composer and music critic
- November 22 – George Alagiah, British newsreader, journalist and television news presenter
- November 23 – Steven Brust, American author
- November 24 – Ian Botham, British cricketer
- November 25 – Bruno Tonioli, Film, music video & theater choreographer
- November 26 – Tracy Hickman, American Author
- November 27 – Bill Nye, American science presenter and public television host
- November 28 – Alessandro Altobelli, Italian football player
- November 29 – Howie Mandel, Canadian actor and game show host
- November 30
- Kevin Conroy, American voice actor
- Billy Idol, English rock singer
- Gordon Liu, Chinese actor
- Michael Beschloss, American historian
December[link]
- December 3
- Melody Anderson, Canadian actress and social worker
- Steven Culp, American actor
- December 4 – Maurizio Bianchi, Italian musician
- December 7 – Priscilla Barnes, American actress
- December 8 – Ian Greig, English cricketer
- December 9 – Asashio Tarō IV, Japanese sumo wrestler
- December 12 – Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, Greek politician and businesswoman
- December 16 – Chiharu Matsuyama, Japanese singer-songwriter
- December 17 – Brad Davis, American basketball player
- December 16 – Rob Levin, American founder of the freenode IRC network (d. 2006)
- December 21 – Jane Kaczmarek, American actress
- December 23
- Keith Comstock, American baseball player
- Carol Ann Duffy, British poet
- December 24
- Mizuho Fukushima, Japanese politician
- Clarence Gilyard, American actor and college professor
- December 27 – Barbara Olson, American television commentator (d. 2001)
- December 31 – Jim Tracy, American baseball player
Date unknown[link]
- Gish Jen, American writer
- Mark Marderosian, American artist
Deaths[link]
January–February[link]
- January 1 – Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar, Indian scientist (b. 1894)
- January 2 – Jose Antonio Remon, President of Panama (assassinated) (b. 1908)
- January 6 – Yevgeny Tarle, Soviet historian (b. 1874)
- January 11 – Rodolfo Graziani, Italian General (b. 1882)
- January 15 – Yves Tanguy, French painter (b. 1900)
- January 18 – August Duesenberg, German-born American automobile manufacturer (b. 1879)
- January 21 – Archie Hahn, American athlete (b. 1880)
- January 24 – Ira Hayes, U.S. Marine (b. 1923)
- January 29 – Hans Hedtoft, Prime Minister of Denmark (b. 1903)
- January 31 – John Mott, American YMCA leader, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1865)
- February 11 – Ona Munson, American actress (b. 1903)
- February 12
- Thomas J. Moore, Irish-American film actor (b. 1883)
- S.Z. Sakall, Hungarian actor (b. 1883)
- February 23 – Paul Claudel, French poet, dramatist, and diplomat (b. 1868)
- February 27 – Trixie Friganza, American actress (b. 1870)
March–April[link]
- March 8 – William C. deMille, American screenwriter and director (b. 1878)
- March 9 – Matthew Henson, American explorer (b. 1866)
- March 11 – Sir Alexander Fleming, Scottish scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1881)
- March 12 – Charlie Parker, American saxophonist (b. 1920)
- March 16 – Nicolas de Staël, Russian painter (b. 1914)
- March 23 – Artur da Silva Bernardes, President of Brazil (b. 1875)
- March 30 – Ylla, Hungarian photographer (b. 1911) (jeep accident)
- April 13 – Theda Bara, American film actress (b. 1885)
- April 18 – Albert Einstein, German-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1879)
- April 25 – Constance Collier, stage & screen actress (b. 1878)
May–June[link]
- May 4 – Georges Enescu, Romanian composer (b. 1881)
- May 10
- Tommy Burns, American boxer (b. 1881)
- John Radecki, Australian stained glass artist (b. 1865)
- May 11 – Gilbert Jessop, English cricketer (b. 1874)
- May 14
- Charles Pelot Summerall, American general (b. 1867)
- Anwar Wagdi, Egyptian actor and filmmaker (b. 1904)
- May 16 – James Agee, American writer (b. 1909)
- May 18 – Mary McLeod Bethune, American educator (b. 1875)
- May 22 – Richard "Skeets" Gallagher, American actor (b. 1891)
- May 26 – Alberto Ascari, Italian race car driver (b. 1918)
- May 30 – Bill Vukovich, American race car driver (b. 1918)
- June 5
- Pattillo Higgins, American oil pioneer and businessman (b. 1863)
- Herbert Stanley, Governor of Northern Rhodesia, Ceylon and Southern Rhodesia (b. 1872)
- June 11 – Walter Hampden, American actor (b. 1879)
- June 17 – Carlyle Blackwell, American actor (b. 1884)
- June 19 – Adrienne Monnier, French poet (b. 1892)
- June 26 – Engelbert Zaschka, German helicopter pioneer (b. 1895)
July–August[link]
- July 3 – Beatrice Chase, British writer (b. 1874)
- July 13 – Stanley Price, American film and television actor (b. 1892)
- July 23 – Cordell Hull, United States Secretary of State, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1871)
- July 20 – Calouste Gulbenkian, Armenian businessman and philanthropist (b. 1869)
- July 31 – Robert Francis, American actor (b. 1930)
- August 2 – Wallace Stevens, American poet (b. 1879)
- August 5 – Carmen Miranda, Portuguese singer and actress (b. 1909)
- August 8 – Grace Hartman, American actress (b. 1907)
- August 12
- Thomas Mann, German writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1875)
- James B. Sumner, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1887)
- August 13 – Florence Easton, English opera soprano (b. 1882)
- August 17 – Fernand Léger, French painter and sculptor (b. 1881)
- August 28 – Emmett Till, American murder victim (b. 1941)
September–October[link]
- September 1 – Philip Loeb, American actor (b. 1891)
- September 20 – Robert Riskin, American screenwriter (b. 1897)
- September 23 – Martha Norelius, American Olympic swimmer (b. 1908)
- September 24 – Ib Schønberg, Danish actor (b. 1902)
- September 30
- Michael Chekov, Russian actor and writer (b. 1891)
- James Dean, American actor (b. 1931)
- October 1 – Charles Christie, American film studio owner (b. 1880)
- October 8 – Iry LeJeune, Cajun musician (b. 1928)
- October 9
- Theodor Innitzer, Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna (b. 1875)
- Alice Joyce, American actress (b. 1890)
- October 18 – José Ortega y Gasset, Spanish philosopher (b. 1883)
- October 19 – John Hodiak, American actor (b. 1914)
- October 31 – William Woodward, Jr., American banker and horse breeder, shot to death by his wife (b. 1920)
November–December[link]
- November 1 – Dale Carnegie, American writer and lecturer (b. 1888)
- November 4 – Cy Young, American baseball player (b. 1867)
- November 5 – Maurice Utrillo, French artist (b. 1882)
- November 7 – Tom Powers, American actor (b. 1890)
- November 11 – Jerry Ross, American lyricist and composer (b. 1926)
- November 12 – Alfréd Hajós, Hungarian swimmer (b. 1878)
- November 14 – Robert E. Sherwood, American playwright (b. 1896)
- November 15 – Lloyd Bacon, American actor and director (b. 1889)
- November 22 – Shemp Howard, American actor and comedian (The Three Stooges) (b. 1895)
- November 27 – Arthur Honegger, French-born Swiss composer (b. 1892)
- December 1 – Chief Thundercloud, American character actor (b. 1899)
- December 6
- George Platt Lynes, American photographer (b. 1907)
- Honus Wagner, American baseball player (b. 1874)
- December 13 – Egas Moniz, Portuguese neurologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1874)
- December 21 – Garegin Nzhdeh, Armenian statesman (b. 1886)
- December 25
- Elizabeth Harrison, daughter of President Benjamin Harrison and Mary Dimmick Harrison (b. 1897)
- Thomas J. Preston, Jr., professor of Archeology at Princeton University; he married Frances Cleveland, widow of President Grover Cleveland (b. 1862)
- December 27 – Alfred Francis Blakeney Carpenter, English soldier (b. 1881)
Nobel Prizes[link]
- Physics – Willis Eugene Lamb, Polykarp Kusch
- Chemistry – Vincent du Vigneaud
- Physiology or Medicine- Axel Hugo Theodor Theorell
- Literature – Halldór Kiljan Laxness
- Peace – not awarded
References[link]
- ^ "Strömsund Bridge (1955)". Structurae. http://en.structurae.de/structures/data/index.cfm?ID=s0000070. Retrieved 2010-10-02.
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This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1955
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
| Chuck Berry | |
|---|---|
 Berry in Örebro, Sweden, on July 18, 2007 |
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Charles Edward Anderson Berry |
| Born | (1926-10-18) October 18, 1926 (age 85) St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. |
| Genres | Rock and roll, blues, rhythm and blues |
| Occupations | Musician, songwriter |
| Instruments | Guitar, vocals |
| Years active | 1955–present |
| Labels | Chess, Mercury, Atco |
| Website | www.chuckberry.com |
| Notable instruments | |
| Gibson ES-355 | |
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry (born October 18, 1926) is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958), Chuck Berry refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, with lyrics focusing on teen life and consumerism and utilizing guitar solos and showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music.[1]
Born into a middle class family in St. Louis, Missouri, Berry had an interest in music from an early age and gave his first public performance at Sumner High School. While still a high school student he served a prison sentence for armed robbery between 1944 and 1947. On his release, Berry settled into married life and worked at an automobile assembly plant. By early 1953, influenced by the guitar riffs and showmanship techniques of blues player T-Bone Walker, he was performing in the evenings with the Johnnie Johnson Trio.[2] His break came when he traveled to Chicago in May 1955, and met Muddy Waters, who suggested he contact Leonard Chess of Chess Records. With Chess he recorded "Maybellene"—Berry's adaptation of the country song "Ida Red"—which sold over a million copies, reaching No. 1 on Billboard's Rhythm and Blues chart. By the end of the 1950s, Berry was an established star with several hit records and film appearances to his name as well as a lucrative touring career. He had also established his own St. Louis-based nightclub, called Berry's Club Bandstand. But in January 1962, Berry was sentenced to three years in prison for offenses under the Mann Act—he had transported a 14-year-old girl across state lines.[2][3][4]
After his release in 1963, Berry had several more hits, including "No Particular Place to Go", "You Never Can Tell", and "Nadine", but these did not achieve the same success, or lasting impact, of his 1950s songs, and by the 1970s he was more in demand as a nostalgic live performer, playing his past hits with local backup bands of variable quality.[2] His insistence on being paid cash led to a jail sentence in 1979—four months and community service for tax evasion.
Berry was among the first musicians to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on its opening in 1986, with the comment that he "laid the groundwork for not only a rock and roll sound but a rock and roll stance."[5] Berry is included in several Rolling Stone "Greatest of All Time" lists, including being ranked fifth on their 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.[6] The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll included three of Chuck Berry's songs: "Johnny B. Goode", "Maybellene", and "Rock and Roll Music".[7] Today – at the age of 85 – Berry continues to play live.
Early life and apprenticeship with Johnnie Johnson (1926–54)[link]
Born in St. Louis, Missouri,[8] Berry was the fourth child in a family of six. He grew up in the north St. Louis neighborhood known as "The Ville," an area where many middle class St. Louis people lived at the time. His father, Henry, was a contractor and deacon of a nearby Baptist church, his mother Martha a certified public school principal. His middle class upbringing allowed him to pursue his interest in music from an early age and he gave his first public performance in 1941 while still at Sumner High School.[9] Just three years later, in 1944, while still at Sumner High School, he was arrested and convicted of armed robbery after robbing three shops in Kansas City and then stealing a car at gunpoint with some friends.[10][11] Berry's own account in his autobiography is that his car broke down and he then flagged down a passing car and stole it at gunpoint with a non-functional pistol.[12][13] Berry was sent to the Intermediate Reformatory for Young Men at Algoa, near Jefferson City, Missouri,[8] where he formed a singing quartet and did some boxing.[10]
After his release from prison on his 21st birthday in 1947, Berry married Themetta "Toddy" Suggs on October 28, 1948, who gave birth to Darlin Ingrid Berry on October 3, 1950.[14] Berry supported his family doing a number of jobs in St. Louis: working briefly as a factory worker at two automobile assembly plants, as well as being janitor for the apartment building where he and his wife lived. Afterwards he trained as a beautician at the Poro College of Cosmetology, founded by Annie Turnbo Malone.[15] He was doing well enough by 1950 to buy a "small three room brick cottage with a bath" in Whittier Street,[16] which is now listed as the Chuck Berry House on the National Register of Historic Places.[17]
By the early 1950s, Berry was working with local bands in the clubs of St. Louis as an extra source of income.[16] He had been playing the blues since his teens, and he borrowed both guitar riffs and showmanship techniques from blues player T-Bone Walker,[18] as well as taking guitar lessons from his friend Ira Harris that laid the foundation for his guitar style.[19] By early 1953 Berry was performing with Johnnie Johnson's trio, starting a long-time collaboration with the pianist.[20] Although the band played mostly blues and ballads, the most popular music among whites in the area was country. Berry wrote, "Curiosity provoked me to lay a lot of our country stuff on our predominantly black audience and some of our black audience began whispering 'who is that black hillbilly at the Cosmo?' After they laughed at me a few times they began requesting the hillbilly stuff and enjoyed dancing to it."[8]
Berry's calculated showmanship, along with mixing country tunes with R&B tunes, and singing in the style of Nat "King" Cole to the music of Muddy Waters, brought in a wider audience, particularly affluent white people.[2][21]
Signing with Chess: "Maybellene" to "Come On" (1955–62)[link]
In May 1955, Berry traveled to Chicago where he met Waters, who suggested he contact Leonard Chess of Chess Records. Berry thought his blues material would be of most interest to Chess, but to his surprise it was an old country and western recording by Bob Wills, entitled "Ida Red" that got Chess's attention. Chess had seen the rhythm and blues market shrink and was looking to move beyond it, and he thought Berry might be the artist for that purpose. So on May 21, 1955 Berry recorded an adaptation of "Ida Red"—"Maybellene"—which featured Johnnie Johnson on piano, Jerome Green (from Bo Diddley's band) on the maracas, Jasper Thomas on the drums and Willie Dixon on the bass. "Maybellene" sold over a million copies, reaching No. 1 on Billboard's Rhythm and Blues chart and No. 5 on the September 10, 1955 Billboard Best Sellers in Stores chart.[8][22]
At the end of June 1956, his song "Roll Over Beethoven" reached No. 29 on the Billboard Top 100 chart, and Berry toured as one of the "Top Acts of '56". He and Carl Perkins became friends. Perkins said that "I knew when I first heard Chuck that he'd been affected by country music. I respected his writing; his records were very, very great." As they toured, Perkins discovered that Berry not only liked country music, but knew about as many songs as he did. Jimmie Rodgers was one of his favorites. "Chuck knew every Blue Yodel and most of Bill Monroe's songs as well," Perkins remembered. "He told me about how he was raised very poor, very tough. He had a hard life. He was a good guy. I really liked him."[23]
In late 1957, Berry took part in Alan Freed's "Biggest Show of Stars for 1957" United States tour with the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, and others.[24] He also guest starred on ABC's The Guy Mitchell Show, having sung his hit song "Rock 'n' Roll Music". The hits continued from 1957 to 1959, with Berry scoring over a dozen chart singles during this period, including the top 10 US hits "School Days", "Rock and Roll Music", "Sweet Little Sixteen", and "Johnny B. Goode". He appeared in two early rock and roll movies. The first was Rock Rock Rock, released in 1956. He is shown singing "You Can't Catch Me." He had a speaking role as himself in the 1959 film Go, Johnny, Go! along with Alan Freed, and was also shown performing his songs "Johnny B. Goode," "Memphis, Tennessee," and "Little Queenie." His performance of "Sweet Little Sixteen" at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958 is captured in the motion picture Jazz on a Summer's Day.[25]
By the end of the 1950s, Berry was an established star with several hit records and film appearances to his name, as well as a lucrative touring career. He had established a racially integrated St. Louis-based nightclub, called Berry's Club Bandstand, and was investing in real estate.[26] But in December 1959, Berry was arrested under the Mann Act after an allegation that he had sex with a 14-year-old Apache waitress whom he had transported over state lines to work as a hat check girl at his club.[27] After an initial two-week trial in March 1960, Berry was convicted, fined $5,000, and sentenced to five years in prison.[28] Berry's appeal that the judge's comments and attitude were racist and prejudiced the jury against him was upheld,[3][29] and a second trial was heard in May and June 1961,[30] which resulted in Berry being given a three-year prison sentence.[12] After another appeal failed, Berry served one and one half years in prison from February 1962 to October 1963.[12] Berry had continued recording and performing during the trials, though his output had slowed down as his popularity declined; his final single released before being imprisoned was "Come On".[31]
"Nadine" and move to Mercury (1963–69)[link]
When Berry was released from prison in 1963, he was able to return to recording and performing due to the British invasion acts of the 1960s—most notably The Beatles and The Rolling Stones—having kept up an interest in his music by releasing cover versions of his songs;[32][33] along with other bands reworking his songs, such as the Beach Boys basing their 1963 hit "Surfin' USA" on Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen".[34] In 1964–65 Berry released eight singles, including three, "No Particular Place to Go" (a reworking of "School Day"),[35] "You Never Can Tell", and "Nadine,"[36] which achieved commercial success, reaching the top 20 of the Billboard 100. Between 1966 and 1969 Berry released five albums on the Mercury label, including his first live album Live at Fillmore Auditorium in which he was backed by the Steve Miller Band.[37][38]
While this was not a successful period for studio work,[39] Berry was still a top concert draw. In May 1964, he did a successful tour of the UK,[35] though when he returned in January 1965 his behavior was erratic and moody, and his touring style of using unrehearsed local backing bands and a strict non-negotiable contract was earning him a reputation as a difficult yet unexciting performer.[40] He also played at large events in North America, such as the Schaefer Music Festival in New York City's Central Park in July 1969, and the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival festival in October.[41]
Back to Chess: "My Ding-a-Ling" to White House concert (1970–79)[link]
Berry helped give life to a subculture... Even "My Ding-a-Ling", a fourth-grade wee-wee joke that used to mortify true believers at college concerts, permitted a lot of twelve-year-olds new insight into the moribund concept of "dirty" when it hit the airwaves...
Robert Christgau[42]
Berry returned to Chess from 1970 to 1973. There were no hit singles from the 1970 album Back Home, then in 1972 Chess released a live recording of "My Ding-a-Ling", a novelty song which Berry had recorded in a different version on his 1968 LP From St. Louie to Frisco as "My Tambourine".[43] The track became Berry's only No. 1 single. A live recording of "Reelin' And Rockin'" was also issued as a follow-up single that same year and would prove to be Berry's final top-40 hit in both the US and the UK. Both singles were featured on the part-live/part-studio album The London Chuck Berry Sessions which was one of a series of London Sessions albums which included other Chess mainstay artists Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. Berry's second tenure with Chess ended with the 1975 album Chuck Berry, after which he did not make a studio record until 1979's Rock It for Atco Records, his last studio album to date.[44]
In the 1970s Berry toured on the basis of his earlier successes. He was on the road for many years, carrying only his Gibson guitar, confident that he could hire a band that already knew his music no matter where he went. Allmusic has said that in this period his "live performances became increasingly erratic, [...] working with terrible backup bands and turning in sloppy, out-of-tune performances" which "tarnished his reputation with younger fans and oldtimers" alike.[45] Among the many bandleaders performing a backup role with Chuck Berry were Bruce Springsteen and Steve Miller when each was just starting his career. Springsteen related in the video Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll that Berry did not even give the band a set list and just expected the musicians to follow his lead after each guitar intro. Berry neither spoke to nor thanked the band after the show. Nevertheless, Springsteen backed Berry again when he appeared at the concert for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. At the request of Jimmy Carter, Chuck Berry performed at the White House on June 1, 1979.[38]
Berry's type of touring style, traveling the "oldies" circuit in the 1970s (where he was often paid in cash by local promoters) added ammunition to the Internal Revenue Service's accusations that Berry was a chronic income tax evader. Facing criminal sanction for the third time, Berry pleaded guilty to tax evasion and was sentenced to four months in prison and 1,000 hours of community service—doing benefit concerts—in 1979.[46]
Still on the road (1980–present)[link]
Berry continued to play 70 to 100 one-nighters per year in the 1980s, still traveling solo and requiring a local band to back him at each stop. In 1986, Taylor Hackford made a documentary film, Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll, of a celebration concert for Berry's sixtieth birthday, organised by Keith Richards, in which Berry reveals his bitterness at the fame and financial success that Richards achieved on the back of Berry's songs.[47] Eric Clapton, Etta James, Julian Lennon, Robert Cray and Linda Ronstadt, among others, appeared with Berry on stage and film. During the concert, Berry played a Gibson ES-355, the luxury version of the ES-335 that he favored on his 1970s tours. Richards played a black Fender Telecaster Custom, Cray a Fender Stratocaster and Clapton a Gibson ES 350T, the same guitar Berry used on his early recordings.[48]
In the late 1980s, Berry bought a restaurant in Wentzville, Missouri, called The Southern Air,[49] and in 1990 he was sued by several women who claimed that he had installed a video camera in the ladies' bathroom. Berry claimed that he had the camera installed to catch red-handed a worker who was suspected of stealing from the restaurant. Though his guilt was never proven in court, Berry opted for a class action settlement with 59 women. Berry's biographer, Bruce Pegg, estimated that it cost Berry over $1.2 million plus legal fees.[50] It was during this time that he began using Wayne T. Schoeneberg as his legal counsel. Reportedly, a police raid on his house did find videotapes of women using the restroom, and one of the women was a minor. Also found in the raid were 62 grams of marijuana. Felony drug and child-abuse charges were filed. In order to avoid the child-abuse charges, Berry agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor possession of marijuana. He was given a six-month suspended jail sentence, two years' unsupervised probation, and ordered to donate $5,000 to a local hospital.[51]
In November 2000, Berry again faced legal charges when he was sued by his former pianist Johnnie Johnson, who claimed that he co-wrote over 50 songs, including "No Particular Place to Go", "Sweet Little Sixteen" and "Roll Over Beethoven", that credit Berry alone. The case was dismissed when the judge ruled that too much time had passed since the songs were written.[52]
Currently, Berry usually performs one Wednesday each month at Blueberry Hill, a restaurant and bar located in the Delmar Loop neighborhood in St. Louis. In 2008, Berry toured Europe, with stops in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Ireland, Switzerland, Poland, and Spain. In mid-2008, he played at Virgin Festival in Baltimore, MD.[53] He presently lives in Ladue, Missouri, approximately 10 miles west of St. Louis.[54] During a New Year's Day 2011 concert in Chicago, Berry, suffering from exhaustion, passed out and had to be helped off stage.[55]
Legacy[link]
While no individual can be said to have invented rock and roll, Chuck Berry comes the closest of any single figure to being the one who put all the essential pieces together. It was his particular genius to graft country & western guitar licks onto a rhythm & blues chassis in his very first single, "Maybellene."
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame[56]
A pioneer of rock music, Berry was a significant influence on the development of both the music and the attitude associated with the rock music lifestyle. With songs such as "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958), Chuck Berry refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, with lyrics successfully aimed to appeal to the early teenage market by using graphic and humorous descriptions of teen dances, fast cars, high-school life, and consumer culture,[2] and utilizing guitar solos and showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music.[1] His records are a rich storehouse of the essential lyrical, showmanship and musical components of rock and roll; and, in addition to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, a large number of significant popular-music performers have recorded Berry's songs.[2] Though not technically accomplished, his guitar style is distinctive – he incorporated electronic effects to mimic the sound of bottleneck blues guitarists, and drew on the influence of guitar players such as Charlie Christian and T-Bone Walker[2] to produce a clear and exciting sound that many later guitar musicians would acknowledge as a major influence in their own style.[51] In the film Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll Eric Clapton states 'If you wanna play rock and roll – or any upbeat number – and you wanted to take a guitar ride you would end up playing like Chuck...because there is very little other choice. There's not a lot of other ways to play rock and roll other than the way Chuck plays it; he's really laid the law down..." In 1992 Keith Richards told Best of Guitar Player "Chuck was my man. He was the one who made me say 'I want to play guitar, Jesus Christ!'...Suddenly I knew what I wanted to do." Berry's showmanship has been influential on other rock guitar players,[57] particularly his one-legged hop routine,[58] and the "duck walk",[59] which he first used as a child when he walked "stooping with full-bended knees, but with my back and head vertical" under a table to retrieve a ball and his family found it entertaining; he used it when "performing in New York for the first time and some journalist branded it the duck walk."[60][61]
The rock critic Robert Christgau considers him "the greatest of the rock and rollers,"[62] while John Lennon said that "if you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry'."[63] Ted Nugent said "If you don't know every Chuck Berry lick, you can't play rock guitar."[64] Among the honors he has received, have been the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1984,[65] the Kennedy Center Honors in 2000,[66] and being named seventh on Time magazine's 2009 list of the 10 best electric guitar players of all-time.[67] On May 14, 2002, Chuck Berry was honored as one of the first BMI Icons at the 50th annual BMI Pop Awards. He was presented the award along with BMI affiliates Bo Diddley and Little Richard.[68]
Berry is included in several Rolling Stone "Greatest of All Time" lists. In September 2003, the magazine named him number 6 in their list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".[69] This was followed in November of the same year by his compilation album The Great Twenty-Eight being ranked 21st in the Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[70] The following year, in March 2004, Berry was ranked fifth out of "The Immortals – The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time".[6] In December 2004, six of his songs were included in the "Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", namely "Johnny B. Goode" (# 7), "Maybellene" (# 18), "Roll Over Beethoven" (# 97), "Rock and Roll Music" (#128), "Sweet Little Sixteen" (# 272) and "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" (# 374).[71] In June 2008, his song "Johnny B. Goode" ranked first place in the "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time".[72]
A statue 8 feet (2.4 m) tall of Berry, funded by donations, has been erected along the St. Louis Walk of Fame. The dedication ceremony attended by Berry was held on July 29, 2011.[73]
Discography[link]
Main article: Chuck Berry discography
References[link]
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- ^ a b c d e f g "Chuck Berry – Britannica Online Encyclopedia". library.eb.co.uk. http://library.eb.co.uk/eb/article-9078885#cite. Retrieved February 21, 2010.
- ^ a b "295 F.2d 192". ftp.resource.org. http://ftp.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/295/295.F2d.192.16752_1.html. Retrieved June 4, 2010.
- ^ Bruce Pegg, Brown Eyed Handsome Man: The Life and Hard Times of Chuck Berry, pp 119 – 227. Routledge, 2005. ISBN 0-415-93751-5. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jWO4gdorYBwC&pg=PA121&dq=chuck+berry+Mann+Act&as_brr=3&client=firefox-a&cd=1#v=onepage&q=chuck%20berry%20Mann%20Act&f=false. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
- ^ "Chuck Berry". The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. http://www.rockhall.com/inductee/chuck-berry.
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- ^ The 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll[dead link]
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- ^ Weinraub, Bernard (February 23, 2003). "Sweet Tunes, Fast Beats and a Hard Edge". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950CEEDD113DF930A15751C0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=3. Retrieved December 11, 2007. "A significant moment in his early life was a musical performance in 1941 at Sumner High School, which had a middle-class black student body."
- ^ a b Weinraub, Bernard (February 23, 2003). "Sweet Tunes, Fast Beats and a Hard Edge - Series". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/23/us/sweet-tunes-fast-beats-and-a-hard-edge.html?pagewanted=4. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
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- ^ Pegg, Bruce (2002). Brown Eyed Handsome Man: The Life and Hard Times of Chuck Berry. New York: Routledge. pp. 20–22. ISBN 978-0-415-93748-1.
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- ^ Go, Cat, Go! by Carl Perkins and David McGee 1996 pages 215,216 Hyperion Press ISBN 0-7868-6073-1
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- ^ Higginbotham, Aloysius Leon (1998). Shades of Freedom: Racial Politics and Presumptions of the American Legal Process. Oxford University Press. p. 150. ISBN 978-0-19-512288-6.
- ^ Pegg, Bruce (2002). Brown-Eyed Handsome Man: The Life and Hard Times of Chuck Berry. Routledge. pp. 123–24, p. 129. ISBN 978-0-415-93748-1.
- ^ "Chuck Berry Collector's Guide – The Chess Era (1955–1966)". crlf.de. http://www.crlf.de/ChuckBerry/chessupto1966.html. Retrieved June 3, 2010.
- ^ Bruce Pegg, Brown Eyed Handsome Man: The Life and Hard Times of Chuck Berry, page 163. Routledge, 2005 ISBN 0415937515. http://books.google.com/books?id=jWO4gdorYBwC&pg=PA163&dq=%22Chuck+Berry%22++teenagers+in+Britain&as_brr=3&cd=2#v=onepage&q=%22Chuck%20Berry%22%20%20teenagers%20in%20Britain&f=false. Retrieved March 16, 2010.
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- ^ a b Bruce Pegg, Brown Eyed Handsome Man: The Life and Hard Times of Chuck Berry, page 168. Routledge, 2005, ISBN 0415937515. http://books.google.com/books?id=jWO4gdorYBwC&pg=PA168&dq=%22Chuck+Berry%22++nadine&as_brr=3&cd=4#v=onepage&q=%22Chuck%20Berry%22%20%20nadine&f=false. Retrieved March 16, 2010.
- ^ Bruce Pegg, Brown Eyed Handsome Man: The Life and Hard Times of Chuck Berry, page 262. Routledge, 2005, ISBN 0-415-93751-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=6zJlmPLVoVgC&pg=PA262&dq=%22Chuck+Berry%22++No+Particular+Place+To+Go&as_brr=3&cd=1#v=onepage&q=%22Chuck%20Berry%22%20%20No%20Particular%20Place%20To%20Go&f=false. Retrieved March 16, 2010.
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- ^ Bruce Pegg, Brown Eyed Handsome Man: The Life and Hard Times of Chuck Berry, pages 173–174. Routledge, 2005, ISBN 0415937515. http://books.google.com/books?id=jWO4gdorYBwC&pg=PA173&dq=%22Chuck+Berry%22++traveled+back+to+Great+Britain&as_brr=3&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false. Retrieved March 16, 2010.
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- ^ Christgau, Robert (1988). "Chuck Berry". In Anthony Decurtis and James Henke (Eds.). The RollingStone: The Definitive History of the Most Important Artists and Their Music. New York: Random House. pp. 60-66. ISBN [[Special:BookSources/0-679-37328-6|0-679-37328-6]].
- ^ Bruce Pegg. Brown Eyed Handsome Man. Routledge, 2005. p. 184. http://books.google.com/books?id=jWO4gdorYBwC&pg=PA184&dq=%22My+Tambourine%22++%22my+ding+a+ling%22&hl=en&ei=oWfSTZT3B4qV8QO2muXlCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22My%20Tambourine%22%20%20%22my%20ding%20a%20ling%22&f=false. Retrieved May 17, 2011.
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- ^ "Chuck Berry recovering at home from exhaustion after Chicago show". Chicago Tribune. January 1, 2011. http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/ct-live-0103-chuck-berry-review-20110102,0,7930886.story.
Chuck Berry felt ill on stage in Chicago 01.01.2011. YouTube. January 1, 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbawWMn0Q0U.
Chuck Berry after collapse in Chicago 01.01.2011 – on Stage explaining What Happened. YouTube. January 1, 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMl82G-Xamw. - ^ Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. "Chuck Berry Biography". rockhall.com. http://rockhall.com/inductees/chuck-berry/bio/. Retrieved 2 June 2010.
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- ^ Bob Gulla, Guitar Gods: The 25 Players Who Made Rock History, page 31. ABC-CLIO, 2008 ISBN 0313358060. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DL3I9qQWdeAC&pg=PA31&dq=chuck+berry+duck+walk&as_brr=3&client=firefox-a&cd=5#v=onepage&q=chuck%20berry%20duck%20walk&f=false. Retrieved February 17, 2010.
- ^ Berry, Chuck (1988). The Autobiography. New York: Fireside / Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-67159-6.
- ^ Chuck Berry biography at Thomson Gale
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- ^ Kitts, Jeff; Brad Tolinski (eds.) (2002). Guitar World Presents the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time!: From the Pages of Guitar World Magazine. Milwaukee, Wis.: Hal Leonard Corporation. p. 191. ISBN 0-634-04619-5. OCLC 50292711. http://books.google.com/books?id=Fg838EcECUwC&pg=PT196&lpg=PT196&dq=%22if+you+don't+know+every+chuck+berry+lick%22#v=onepage&f=false. Retrieved February 1, 2011.
- ^ "Lifetime Achievement Award". Grammy.com. http://www2.grammy.com/Recording_Academy/Awards/Lifetime_Awards/. Retrieved June 4, 2010.
- ^ "Kennedy Center: Biographical information for Chuck Berry". kennedy-center.org. http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/index.cfm?fuseaction=showIndividual&entity_id=3699&source_type=A. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
- ^ "Time Magazine Picks the 10 Best Electric Guitar Players". Fretbase.com. August 24, 2009. http://www.fretbase.com/blog/2009/08/time-magazine-picks-the-10-best-electric-guitar-players-including-yngwie/. Retrieved October 7, 2011.
- ^ "BMI ICON Awards Honor Three of Rock & Roll’s Founding Fathers". bmi.com. http://www.bmi.com/news/entry/233284. Retrieved October 2, 2010.
- ^ "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". Rolling Stone. Web.archive.org. May 5, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080505024015/http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/5937559/the_100_greatest_guitarists_of_all_time/. Retrieved October 7, 2011.
- ^ "The RS 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Rolling Stone. 2003. http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/5938174/the_rs_500_greatest_albums_of_all_time/. Retrieved October 7, 2011.
- ^ "The RS 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". Rolling Stone. classic-web.archive.org. http://classic-web.archive.org/web/20080622145429/www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/500songs. Retrieved May 17, 2011.
- ^ "The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time : Rolling Stone". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on June 5, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080605032031/http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/20947527/. Retrieved June 4, 2010.
- ^ Gillerman, Margaret (July 29, 2011). "Chuck Berry honored with statue, celebration July 29". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. http://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/article_93266f3e-b9f2-11e0-ae77-001a4bcf6878.html. Retrieved July 29, 2011.
External links[link]
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Book: Chuck Berry |
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| Persondata | |
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| Name | Berry, Chuck |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | |
| Date of birth | 1926-10-18 |
| Place of birth | St. Louis, Missouri |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
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This article, from "Characters" on down, is written like a personal reflection or essay rather than an encyclopedic description of the subject. Please help improve it by rewriting it in an encyclopedic style. (January 2010) |
| Jack Benny | |
|---|---|
 Jack Benny in 1958 |
|
| Birth name | Benjamin Kubelsky[1] |
| Born | (1894-02-14)February 14, 1894 Chicago, Illinois, United States |
| Died | December 26, 1974(1974-12-26) (aged 80) Beverly Hills, California United States |
| Show | The Jack Benny Program |
| Network | NBC, CBS |
| Style | Comedian |
| Country | United States |
Jack Benny (born Benjamin Kubelsky, February 14, 1894 – December 26, 1974) was an American comedian, vaudevillian, radio, television, and film actor, and also a notable violinist. Widely recognized as one of the leading American entertainers of the 20th century, Benny played the role of the comic penny-pinching miser, insisting on remaining 39 years old on stage despite his actual age, and often playing the violin badly.
Benny was known for his comic timing and his ability to get laughs with either a pregnant pause or a single expression, such as his signature exasperated "Well!" His radio and television programs, tremendously popular from the 1930s to the 1960s, were a foundational influence on the situation comedy genre. Dean Martin, on the celebrity roast for Johnny Carson in November 1973, introduced Benny as "the Satchel Paige of the world of comedy".
Contents |
Biography[link]
Early life[link]
Benny was born Benjamin Kubelsky on February 14, 1894, in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up in neighboring Waukegan, Illinois.[2] He was the son of Meyer Kubelsky and Emma Sachs Kubelsky. Meyer was a Jewish saloon owner, later to become a haberdasher, who had emigrated to America from Poland.[3][4][5][6][7] Emma had emigrated from Lithuania. Benny began studying the violin, an instrument that would become his trademark, when he was just six, with his parents' hopes that he would be a great classical violinist. He loved the violin, but hated practice. By age 14, he was playing in local dance bands as well as in his high school orchestra. Benny was a dreamer and a poor student and he was expelled from high school. He did equally badly in business school and at his father's trade. At age 17, he began playing the instrument in local vaudeville theaters for $7.50 a week.[8] He was joined by Ned Miller, a young composer and singer, on the vaudeville circuit.[9] They became life-long friends and Miller eventually joined the cast of The Jack Benny Program in the 1960s.
In 1911, Benny was playing in the same theater as the young Marx Brothers, whose mother Minnie was so enchanted with Benny's musicianship that she invited him to be their permanent accompanist. The plan was foiled by Benny's parents, who refused to let their son, then 17, go on the road, but it was the beginning of his long friendship with Zeppo Marx. Benny's future wife Mary Livingstone was a distant cousin of the Marx Brothers.
The following year, Benny formed a vaudeville musical duo with pianist Cora Salisbury, a buxom 45-year-old widow who needed a partner for her act. This provoked famous violinist Jan Kubelik, who thought that the young vaudeville entertainer with a similar name (Kubelsky) would damage his reputation. Under pressure from Kubelik's lawyer, Benjamin Kubelsky agreed to change his name to Ben K. Benny (sometimes spelled Bennie). When Salisbury left the act, Benny found a new pianist, Lyman Woods, and renamed the act "From Grand Opera to Ragtime". They worked together for five years and slowly added comedy elements to the show. They even reached the Palace Theater, the "Mecca of Vaudeville", but bombed. Benny left show business briefly in 1917 to join the U.S. Navy during World War I, and he often entertained the troops with his violin playing. One evening, his violin performance was booed by the troops, so with prompting from fellow sailor and actor Pat O'Brien, he ad-libbed his way out of the jam and left them laughing. He got more comedy spots in the revues and was a big hit, and earned himself a reputation as a comedian as well as a musician.
Shortly after the war, Benny started a one-man act, "Ben K. Benny: Fiddle Funology".[8] But then he heard from another lawyer, this time that of Ben Bernie, another patter-and-fiddle performer who also threatened to sue. So Benny adopted the common sailor's nickname Jack. By 1921, the fiddle became more of a prop and the low-key comedy took over.
Benny had several romantic encounters, including one with a dancer, Mary Kelly, whose devoutly Catholic family forced her to turn down Benny's proposal because he was Jewish. Benny was introduced to Mary Kelly by Gracie Allen. Some years after their split, Kelly resurfaced as a dowdy fat girl and Jack gave her a part in an act of three girls: one homely, one fat and one who couldn't sing. This lasted until, at Mary Livingstone's request, Mary Kelly was let go.
In 1922, Jack accompanied Zeppo Marx to a Passover seder where he met Sadye (Sadie) Marks, whom he married in 1927 after meeting again on a double-date. She was working in the hosiery section of the Hollywood Boulevard branch of the May Company and Benny would court her there.[8] Called on to fill in for the "dumb girl" part in one of Benny's routines, Sadie proved a natural comedienne and a big hit. Adopting Mary Livingstone as her stage name, Sadie became Benny's collaborator throughout most of his career. They later adopted a daughter, Joan.
In 1929, Benny's agent Sam Lyons convinced MGM's Irving Thalberg to catch Benny's act at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles. Benny was signed to a five-year contract and his first film role was in The Hollywood Revue of 1929. His next movie, Chasing Rainbows, was a flop and after several months, Benny was released from his contract and returned to Broadway in Earl Carroll's Vanities. At first dubious about the viability of radio, Benny was eager to break into the new medium. In 1932, after a four-week nightclub run, he was invited onto Ed Sullivan's radio program, uttering his first radio spiel "This is Jack Benny talking. There will be a slight pause while you say, 'Who cares?'..."[8]
Radio[link]
History[link]
Benny had been only a minor vaudeville performer, but he became a national figure with The Jack Benny Program, a weekly radio show that ran from 1932 to 1948 on NBC and from 1949 to 1955 on CBS. It was consistently among the most highly rated programs during most of that run.[10][11]
On April 6, 1932, the NBC Commercial Program Department arranged for an audition of Jack Benny for Ayer and its client Canada Dry, after which its head, Bertha Brainard made an assessment of this new comic: "We think Mr. Benny is excellent for radio, and while the audition was unassisted as far as orchestra was concerned, we believe he would make a great bet for an air program." With Canada Dry Ginger Ale as a sponsor, Benny came to radio on The Canada Dry Program, beginning May 2, 1932, on the NBC Blue Network and continuing there for six months until October 26, moving the show to CBS on October 30. With Ted Weems leading the band, Benny stayed on CBS until January 26, 1933. The commercial ran twice a week from 9:30 to 10:00, it ran for almost a year.[12]
Arriving at NBC on March 17, Benny did The Chevrolet Program until April 1, 1934. He continued with sponsor General Tire through the end of the season. In October, 1934, General Foods, the makers of Jell-O and Grape-Nuts, became the sponsor most identified with Jack, for the next ten years. American Tobacco's Lucky Strike was his longest-lasting radio sponsor, from October, 1944, through the end of his original radio series.
The show switched networks to CBS on January 2, 1949, as part of CBS president William S. Paley's notorious "raid" of NBC talent in 1948–49. There it stayed for the remainder of its radio run, which ended on May 22, 1955. CBS aired repeats of old radio episodes from 1956 to 1958 as The Best of Benny.
Characters[link]
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This article may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (December 2010) |
File:Jack Benny Cast.jpg
Jack Benny, Mary Livingstone, and Eddie Anderson (Rochester) in a group portrait.
Benny's comic persona changed in the course of his career. At some time he developed the tightwad/cheapskate persona.[13] This stage character was just about everything the actual Jack Benny was not: cheap, petty, vain, and self-congratulatory. His comic rendering of these traits became the linchpin to the Benny show's success. Benny set himself up as the comedic foil, allowing his supporting characters to draw laughs at the expense of his character's flaws. By allowing such a character to be seen as human and vulnerable, in an era where few male characters were allowed such obvious vulnerability, Benny made what might have been a despicable character into a lovable Everyman character. Benny said on several occasions: "I don't care who gets the laughs on my show, as long as the show is funny." Jack felt he got the credit or blame either way, not the actor saying the lines, so it had better be funny.
The supporting characters who amplified that vulnerability only too gladly included wife Mary Livingstone as his wisecracking and not especially deferential female friend (not quite his girlfriend, since Benny would often try to date movie stars like Barbara Stanwyck, and occasionally had stage girlfriends such as "Gladys Zybisco"); rotund announcer Don Wilson (who also served as announcer for Fanny Brice's hit, Baby Snooks); bandleader Phil Harris as a jive-talking, wine-and-women type whose repartee was rather risqué for its time; boy tenor Dennis Day, who was cast as a sheltered, naïve youth who still got the better of his boss as often as not (this character was originated by Kenny Baker who was replaced by Day); and Eddie Anderson as valet-chauffeur Rochester van Jones. Singer Larry Stevens was Dennis Day's replacement from 11-5-44 to 3-10-46 while Day was in the Navy.
Rochester was allowed to one-up his vain, skinflint boss. In more ways than one, with his mock-befuddled one-liners and his sharp retorts, he broke a comedic racial barrier. Unlike many black supporting characters of the time, Rochester was depicted and treated as a regular member of Benny's fictional household. Benny, in character, tended if anything to treat Rochester more like an equal partner than as a hired domestic, even though gags about Rochester's flimsy salary were a regular part of the show.
Rochester seemed to see right through his boss's vanities and knew how to prick them without overdoing it, often with his famous line "Oh, Boss, come now!" Benny deserves credit for allowing this character and the actor who played him (it is difficult, if not impossible, to picture any other performer giving Rochester what Anderson gave him) to transcend the era's racial stereotype and for not discouraging his near-equal popularity. A New Year's Eve episode, in particular, shows the love each performer had for the other, quietly toasting each other with champagne. That this attention to Rochester's race was no accident became clearer during World War II, when Benny would frequently pay tribute to the diversity of Americans who had been drafted into service.
After the war, once the depths of Nazi race hatred had been revealed, Benny made a conscious effort to remove the most stereotypical aspects of Rochester's character. In 1948, it became apparent to Benny how much the times had changed when a 1941 script for "The Jack Benny Program" was re-used for one week's show. The script included mention of several African-American stereotypes (i.e. a reference to Rochester carrying a razor), and prompted a number of listeners, who didn't know the script was an old one, to send in angry letters protesting the stereotypes. Thereafter, Benny insisted that his writers should make sure that no racial jokes or references should be heard on his show. Benny also often gave key guest-star appearances to African-American performers such as Louis Armstrong and The Ink Spots.
File:Jack Benny group photo.jpg
Group photograph of Eddie Anderson, Dennis Day, Phil Harris, Mary Livingstone, Jack Benny, Don Wilson, and Mel Blanc.
The rest of Benny's cast included character actors and comedians:
- Sheldon Leonard (later a hugely successful television producer and creator) as a tight-lipped racetrack tout
- Joseph Kearns (best remembered as cantankerous Mr. Wilson on the television version of Dennis the Menace) as Ed, the superannuated guard to Jack's money vault
- Verna Felton as Dennis Day's mother
- Frank Nelson, usually as an oily desk clerk or floorwalker, always greeting Benny with an eager Yeeeeeeesss?;
- singer/bandleader Bob Crosby (who succeeded Phil Harris in the early 1950s);
- Artie Auerbach as the Yiddish-accented Mr. Kitzel ("hoo, hoo, hoo!");
- Bea Benaderet, as Gertrude the switchboard operator;
- Mel Blanc, who provided several characters' voices, including the railroad station announcer who said, "Train leaving on track five for Anaheim, Azusa and Cu... camonga!". This running gag became so well known (including use in several Bugs Bunny cartoons (which Mel Blanc also voiced)) that it eventually led to a statue of Benny in Cucamonga. Blanc also was featured with Benny in the classic Si-Sy routine and on radio as the sound of Benny's Maxwell automobile. Blanc is perhaps best remembered as Benny's perpetually frustrated violin teacher, Professor LeBlanc, who was as likely to throw his own and Benny's instrument into the fireplace as he was to have a nervous breakdown before he was out the door.
Other musical contributions came starting in 1946 from the singing quartet the Sportsmen (members: Bill Days, Max Smith, Marty Sperzel and Gurney Bell) singing the middle Lucky Strike commercial. In the early days of the program, the supporting characters were often vaudevillian ethnic stereotypes whose humor was grounded in dialects. As the years went by, the humor of these figures became more character-based.
Benny's method of bringing a character into a skit, by announcing his name, also became a well-known Benny shtick: "Oh, Dennis ..." or "Oh, Rochester ..." typically answered by, "Yes, Mr. Benny (Boss)?"
Situations[link]
File:Bennystatue.jpg
This statue of Jack Benny in Rancho Cucamonga, located inside the Epicenter Stadium at Jack Benny Way and Rochester Avenue, commemorates the program's famed running gag: "Train leaving on track five for Anaheim, Azusa and Cu-ca-monga!"
The Jack Benny Program evolved from a variety show blending sketch comedy and musical interludes into the situation comedy form we know even now, crafting particular situations and scenarios from the fictionalization of Benny the radio star. Any situation from hosting a party to income tax time to a night on the town was good for a Benny show, and somehow the writers and star would find the right ways and places to insert musical interludes from Phil Harris and Dennis Day. With Day, invariably, it would be a brief sketch that ended with Benny ordering Day to sing the song he planned to do on that week's show.
One extremely popular scenario that became an annual tradition on The Jack Benny Program was the "Christmas Shopping" episode, in which Benny would head to a local department store. Each year, Benny would buy a ridiculously cheap Christmas gift for Don Wilson from a store clerk played by Mel Blanc. Benny would then have second (then third, and even fourth) thoughts about his gift choice, driving Blanc (or, in two other cases, his wife and his psychiatrist, as well) to hilarious insanity by exchanging the gift, pestering about the Christmas card or wrapping paper countless times throughout the episode: in many cases, the clerk would commit suicide, or attempt and fail to commit suicide ("Look what you done! You made me so nervous, I missed!") as a result.
In the 1946 Christmas episode, for example, Benny buys shoelaces for Don, and then is unable to make up his mind whether to give Wilson shoelaces with plastic tips or shoelaces with metal tips. After Benny exchanges the shoelaces repeatedly, Mel Blanc is heard screaming insanely, "Plastic tips! Metal tips! I can't stand it anymore!" A variation in 1948 concerned Benny buying an expensive wallet for Don, but repeatedly changing the greeting card inserted—prompting Blanc to shout: "I haven't run into anyone like you in 20 years! Oh, why did the governor have to give me that pardon!?" – until Benny realizes that he should have gotten Don a wallet for $1.98, whereupon the put-upon clerk immediately responds by committing suicide. Over the years, in these Christmas episodes, Benny bought and repeatedly exchanged cuff links, golf tees, a box of dates, a paint set (water colors or oils), and even a gopher trap.
In 1936, after a few years broadcasting from New York, Benny moved the show to Los Angeles, allowing him to bring in guests from among his show business friends — such as Frank Sinatra, James Stewart, Judy Garland, Barbara Stanwyck, Bing Crosby, Burns and Allen (George Burns was Benny's closest friend), and many others. Burns and Allen and Orson Welles guest hosted several episodes in March and April 1943 when Benny was seriously ill with pneumonia, while Ronald Colman and his wife Benita Hume appeared frequently in the 1940s as Benny's long-suffering neighbors.
On the broadcast of January 8, 1950, journalist Drew Pearson was the subject of a joke gone wrong. Announcer Don Wilson was to say he heard Jack bought a new suit on Drew Pearson, but said Pearson's name wrong; Don said "Drear Pewson". Later on in the show, comedic actor Frank Nelson was asked by Benny if he was the doorman. Changing the script (by suggestion of the writers), Nelson said, "Well who do you think I am ... Drear Pewson?" The audience laughed for almost 30 seconds.
Sponsors[link]
In the early days of radio (and in the early television era, often as not), the airtime was owned by the sponsor, and Benny made a point of incorporating the commercials into the body of the show. Sometimes the sponsors were the butt of jokes, though Benny did not deploy this device as frequently as his friend and "rival" Fred Allen did at the time, or as his cast member Phil Harris later did on his own successful radio sitcom. Nevertheless, for many years Benny insisted in contract negotiations that his writers pen the sponsor's commercial in the middle of the program (leaving the sponsor to provide the opening and closing spots) and the resulting ads were cleverly and wittily worked into the storyline of the show. For example, on one program, Don Wilson accidentally misread Lucky Strike's slogan ("Be happy, go Lucky") as "Be Lucky, go happy", prompting a story arc over several weeks that had Wilson unable to attend the show due to being severely traumatized by the error.
In fact, the radio show was generally not announced as The Jack Benny Program. Instead, the primary name of the show tied to the sponsor. Benny's first sponsor was Canada Dry Ginger Ale from 1932 to 1933. Benny's sponsors included Chevrolet from 1933 to 1934, General Tire in 1934, and Jell-O from 1934 to 1942. The Jell-O Program Starring Jack Benny was so successful in selling Jell-O, in fact, that General Foods could not manufacture it fast enough when sugar shortages arose in the early years of World War II, and the company had to stop advertising the popular dessert mix. General Foods switched the Benny program from Jell-O to Grape-Nuts from 1942 to 1944, and it became, naturally, The Grape Nuts Program Starring Jack Benny. Benny's longest-running sponsor, however, was the American Tobacco Company's Lucky Strike cigarettes, from 1944 to 1955, when the show was usually announced as The Lucky Strike Program starring Jack Benny.
Writers[link]
Benny was notable for employing a small group of writers, most of whom stayed with him for many years. This was very much in contrast to other successful radio or television comedians, such as Bob Hope, who would change writers frequently. Historical accounts (like those by longtime Benny writer Milt Josefsberg) indicate that Benny's role was essentially that of both head writer and director of his radio programs, though he was not credited in either capacity. In contrast to Fred Allen, who initially personally wrote all of his own radio scripts (and continued to extensively rewrite scripts produced in later years by a writing staff), Jack Benny was often described by his writers as a consummate comedy editor rather than a writer per se. He would often debate the precise wording of jokes, and always sought to ensure the preservation of the integrity of the show's characters above easy gags.[citation needed]
Jack Benny has a reputation for being a master of timing. Since his days at the radio, he often explored the limits of timing for comedic purposes, like pausing a disproportionate amount of time before answering a question.[13][14]
Theme music[link]
During his early radio shows, there was no recurring theme, the program instead opening each week with a different then-current popular song. Throughout the Jello and Grapenuts years, announcer Don Wilson would announce the name of the show, some of the cast, and then state "The orchestra opens the program with [name of song]." The orchestra number would continue softly as background for Don Wilson's opening commercial.
Starting in the Lucky Strike era, Benny adopted a medley of "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and "Love in Bloom" as his theme music, opening every show. "Love in Bloom" later became the theme of his television show as well. His radio shows often ended with the orchestra playing "Hooray for Hollywood". The TV show ended with one of two bouncy instrumentals written for the show by his musical arranger and conductor, Mahlon Merrick.
Benny would sometimes joke about the propriety of "Love in Bloom" as his theme song. On a segment often played in Tonight Show retrospectives, Benny talks with Johnny Carson about this. Benny says he has no objections to the song in and of itself, only as his theme. Proving his point, he begins reciting the lyrics slowly and deliberately: "Can it be the trees. That fill the breeze. With rare and magic perfume. Now what the hell has that got to do with me?"
"Your money or your life"[link]
In an episode that was broadcast March 28, 1948, Benny borrowed neighbor Ronald Colman's Oscar, and was returning home when he was accosted by a mugger (voiced by comedian Eddie Marr). After asking for a match to light a cigarette, the mugger demands, "Don't make a move, this is a stickup. Now, come on. Your money or your life." Benny paused, and the studio audience—knowing his skinflint character—laughed. The robber then repeated his demand: "Look, bud! I said your money or your life!" Benny snapped back, without a break, "I'm thinking it over!" This time, the audience laughed louder and longer than they had during the pause.
The punchline came to Benny staff writers John Tackaberry and Milt Josefsberg almost by accident. Writer George Balzer described the scene to author Jordan R. Young, for The Laugh Crafters, a 1999 book of interviews with veteran radio and television comedy writers:
- ... they had come to a point where they had the line, "Your money or your life." And that stopped them... Milt is pacing up and down, trying to get a follow... And he gets a little peeved at Tack, and he says, "For God's sakes, Tack, say something." Tack, maybe he was half asleep—in defense of himself, says, "I'm thinking it over." And Milt says, "Wait a minute. That's it." And that's the line that went in the script... By the way, that was not the biggest laugh that Jack ever got. It has the reputation of getting the biggest laugh. But that's not true.
The actual length of the laugh the joke got was five seconds when originally delivered and seven seconds when the gag was reprised on a follow-up show. In fact, the joke is probably not so memorable for the length of the laugh it provoked, but because it became the definitive "Jack Benny joke"—the joke that best illustrated Benny's "stingy man" persona. The punchline—"I'm thinking it over!"—simply would not have worked with any other comedian but Benny.
The actual longest laugh known to collectors of The Jack Benny Program lasted in excess of 32 seconds. The International Jack Benny Fan Club[15] reports that, at the close of the program broadcast on December 13, 1936, sponsored by Jell-O, guest Andy Devine says that it is the "last number of the eleventh program in the new Jelly series." The audience, who loved any sort of accidental flub in the live program, is still laughing after 32 seconds, at which point the network cut off the program to prevent it from running overtime.
According to Jack himself, Mary Livingstone got the biggest laugh he ever heard on the show, on the April 25, 1948 broadcast. The punchline was the result of the following exchange between Don Wilson and noted opera singer Dorothy Kirsten:
- Don Wilson: Oh, Miss Kirsten, I wanted to tell you that I saw you in "Madame Butterfly" Wednesday afternoon, and I thought your performance was simply magnificent.
- Dorothy Kirsten: Well, thanks, awfully. It's awfully nice and kind of you, Mr. Wilson. But, uh, who could help singing Puccini? It's so expressive. And particularly in the last act, starting with the allegro vivacissimo.
- Don Wilson: Well, now, that's being very modest, Miss Kirsten. But not every singer has the necessary bel canto and flexibility or range to cope with the high tessitura of the first act.
- Dorothy Kirsten: Thank you, Mr. Wilson. And don't you think that in the aria, "Un bel dì vedremo", that the strings played the con molto passione exceptionally fine and with great sostenuto?
- Jack Benny: Well, I thought—
- Mary Livingstone (to Jack): Oh, shut up!
According to Jack, the huge laugh resulted from the long buildup, and the audience's knowledge that Jack, with his pompous persona, would have to break into the conversation at some point.
A nearly identical exchange occurred over a year earlier, among renowned violinist Isaac Stern, actor Ronald Colman, Jack Benny, and Mary Livingstone. The quartet's back-and-forth, which centered on Stern's recent public performance of a Mendelssohn piece, was heard on an episode first broadcast on February 16, 1947. The resulting laughter lasted some 18 seconds, after which Jack retorted, "Mary, that's no way to talk to Mr. Stern."
Later in life, when performing as a stand-up comedian in Las Vegas, Jack had just begun to tell an old joke about the salesman, the farmer and the farmer's daughter: "So the salesman and the farmer's daughter come to the front door, and the farmer opens the door." At this point, Sammy Davis, Jr. walks onstage behind Jack, the audience screams, and Sammy proceeds to speak and sing and dance about 25 minutes or so, while Jack continues to stand at center stage, quietly watching the spectacle. When Davis finally walks offstage and the audience's applause dies down, Jack continues to watch Davis offstage for a few moments, then as the audience is finally quiet continues: "... So the farmer said—" And that's about as far as that joke got, because the audience laughed for minutes afterward.
The Benny-Allen "feud"[link]
In 1937 Benny began his famous radio "feud" with rival Fred Allen. Allen kicked the "feud" off on his own show, after child violinist Stewart Canin gave a performance credible enough that Allen wisecracked about "a certain alleged violinist" who should by comparison be ashamed of himself. Benny, who either listened to the Allen show or was told about the crack, answered in kind on his own show. And the two comedians were off and running.
For a decade, the two went at it back and forth, so convincingly that fans of either show could have been forgiven for believing they had become blood enemies. In fact, the two men were good friends and each other's greatest admirers. Benny and Allen often appeared on each other's show during the thick of the "feud"; numerous surviving episodes of both comedians' radio shows feature each other, in both acknowledged guest spots and occasional cameos. Benny in his eventual memoir (Sunday Nights at Seven) and Allen in his Treadmill to Oblivion later revealed that each comedian's writing staff often met together to plot future takes on the mock feud. If Allen zapped Benny with a satirisation of Benny's show ("The Pinch Penny Program"), Benny shot back with a parody of Allen's early favourite, Town Hall Tonight. Benny's parody? "Clown Hall Tonight." And their playful sniping ("Benny was born ignorant, and he's been losing ground ever since") was also advanced in the films Love Thy Neighbor and It's in the Bag!.
Perhaps the climax of the "feud" came during Fred Allen's parody of popular quiz-and-prize show Queen for a Day, which was barely a year old when Allen decided to have a crack at it on The Fred Allen Show—an episode that has survived for today's listeners to appreciate. Calling the sketch "King for a Day", Allen played the host and Benny a contestant who sneaked onto the show using the alias Myron Proudfoot. Benny answered the prize-winning question correctly and Allen crowned him "king" and showered him with a passel of almost meaningless prizes. Allen proudly announced, "Tomorrow night, in your ermine robe, you will be whisked by bicycle to Orange, New Jersey, where you will be the judge in a chicken-cleaning contest," to which Benny joyously declared, "I'm king for a day!" At this point a professional pressing-iron was wheeled on stage, to press Benny's suit properly. It didn't matter that Benny was still in the suit. Allen instructed his aides to remove Benny's suit, one item at a time, ending with his trousers, each garment's removal provoking louder laughter from the studio audience. As his trousers began to come off, Benny howled, "Allen, you haven't seen the end of me!" At once Allen shot back, "It won't be long now!"
The laughter was so loud and chaotic at the chain of events that the Allen show announcer, Kenny Delmar, was cut off the air while trying to read a final commercial and the show's credits. (Allen was notorious for running overtime often enough, largely thanks to his ad-libbing talent, and he overran the clock again this time.)
Benny was profoundly shaken by Allen's sudden death of a heart attack in 1956. In a statement released on the day after Allen's death, Benny said, "People have often asked me if Fred Allen and I were really friends in real life. My answer is always the same. You couldn't have such a long-running and successful feud as we did, without having a deep and sincere friendship at the heart of it."
The CBS talent raid[link]
On the advice of MCA's Lew Wasserman, Jack Benny formed a holding company, "Amusement Enterprises" (a tax break major entertainers usually enjoyed in those years), which allowed him to bundle his entire program and personnel into a single commodity. The company also gave Benny the opportunity to produce and package other radio programs (including his 1947 summer replacement series starring Jack Paar), and invest in other entertainment ventures, including the production of a 1949 feature film, The Lucky Stiff, starring Dorothy Lamour, and as a key financial backer of the 1948 Broadway version of Mister Roberts, starring Henry Fonda. While Benny was top of the proverbial heap on NBC, CBS czar William S. Paley cast a hungry eye upon the comedian. Paley apparently had good reason to believe Benny could be had. In the summer of 1948, he successfully negotiated a deal with Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, buying their holding company, which owned the Amos 'n' Andy radio show (and the rights to those characters), moving the entire "package" from NBC to CBS that fall: he then learned that NBC balked at buying a "Jack Benny" package deal when "Jack Benny" was not the star's real name. Paley reached out to Benny and offered him a deal that would allow that package-buy.
But Paley, according to CBS historian Robert Metz, also learned that Benny chafed under NBC's almost indifferent attitude toward the talent that attracted the listeners. NBC, under the leadership of David Sarnoff, seemed at the time to think that listeners were listening to NBC because of NBC itself. To Paley, according to Metz, that was foolish thinking at best: Paley believed listeners were listening because of the talent, not because of which platform hosted them. When Paley said as much to Benny, the comedian agreed. Because Paley took a personal interest in the Benny negotiations, as opposed to Sarnoff who had never met his top-rated star, Benny was convinced to make the jump. He convinced a number of his fellow NBC performers (notably Burns and Allen, Edgar Bergen, Red Skelton and Kate Smith) to join him.
To sweeten the deal for a very nervous sponsor, Paley also agreed to make up the difference to American Tobacco if Benny's Hooper rating (the radio version of today's Nielsen ratings) on CBS fell to a certain level below his best NBC Hooper rating. Benny's CBS debut on January 2, 1949 bested his top NBC rating by several points while also pumping up the ratings of the show that followed, Amos 'n' Andy. NBC, with its smash Sunday night lineup now broken up, offered lucrative new deals to two of those Sunday night hits, The Fred Allen Show and The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show. Benny's bandleader and his singing actress wife now starred in their own hit sitcom, meaning Harris was featured on shows for two different networks.
Benny and Sarnoff eventually met several years later and became good friends. Benny said that if he had had this kind of relationship with Sarnoff earlier, when he was Sarnoff's number-one radio star, he never would have left NBC.
Television[link]
Benny first appeared on television in a brief appearance on the inaugural broadcast of Los Angeles station KTTV (Channel 11) on January 1, 1949. KTTV was the Los Angeles CBS Television outlet at the time.[citation needed]
The television version of The Jack Benny Program ran from October 28, 1950 to 1965. Initially scheduled as a series of five "specials" during the 1950–1951 season, the show appeared every six weeks for the 1951–1952 season, every four weeks for the 1952–1953 season and every three weeks in 1953–1954. For the 1953–1954 season, half the episodes were live and half were filmed during the summer, to allow Benny to continue doing his radio show. From the fall of 1954 to 1960, it appeared every other week, and from 1960 to 1965 it was seen weekly.
In September 1954, CBS premiered Chrysler's Shower of Stars co-hosted by Jack Benny and William Lundigan. It enjoyed a successful run from 1954 until 1958. Both television shows often overlapped the radio show. In fact, the radio show alluded frequently to its television counterparts. Often as not, Benny would sign off the radio show in such circumstances with the line "Well, good night, folks. I'll see you on television."
When Benny moved to television, audiences learned that his verbal talent was matched by his controlled repertory of dead-pan facial expressions and gesture. The program was similar to the radio show (several of the radio scripts were recycled for television, as was somewhat common with other radio shows that moved to television), but with the addition of visual gags. Lucky Strike was the sponsor. Benny did his opening and closing monologues before a live audience, which he regarded as essential to timing of the material. As in other TV comedy shows, canned laughter was sometimes added to "sweeten" the soundtrack, as when the studio audience missed some close-up comedy because of cameras or microphones in their way. The television viewers learned to live without Mary Livingstone, who was afflicted by a striking case of stage fright. Livingstone appeared rarely if at all on the television show (for the last few years of the radio show, she pre-recorded her lines and Jack and Mary's daughter, Joan, stood in for the live broadcast as the pre-recordings were played), and finally retired from show business permanently in 1958, as her friend Gracie Allen had done.
Benny's television program relied more on guest stars and less on his regulars than his radio program. In fact, the only radio cast members who appeared regularly on the television program as well were Don Wilson and Eddie Anderson. Day appeared sporadically, and Harris had left the radio program in 1952, although he did make a guest appearance on the television show (Bob Crosby, Phil's "replacement", frequently appeared on television through 1956). A frequent guest was the Canadian born singer-violinist Gisele Mackenzie.
Benny was able to attract guests who rarely, if ever, appeared on television. In 1953, both Marilyn Monroe and Humphrey Bogart made their television debuts on Benny's program.[16][17]
Canadian singer Gisele MacKenzie, who toured with Benny in the early 1950s, guest starred seven times on The Jack Benny Program. Benny was so impressed with MacKenzie's talents that he served as co-executive producer and guest starred on her 1957–1958 NBC variety show, The Gisele MacKenzie Show.[18]
In 1964, Walt Disney was a guest, primarily to promote his production of Mary Poppins. Benny persuaded Disney to give him over 100 free admission tickets to Disneyland for his friends, but later in the show Disney apparently sent his pet tiger after Benny as revenge, at which point Benny opened his umbrella and soared above the stage like Mary Poppins.[19]
In due course the ratings game finally got to Benny, too. CBS dropped the show in 1964, citing Benny's lack of appeal to the younger demographic the network began courting, and he went to NBC, his original network, in the fall, only to be out-rated by CBS's Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. The network dropped Benny at the end of the season. He continued to make occasional specials into the 1970s. His last television appearance was in 1974, on a The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast for Lucille Ball. The videotaped show was telecast just a few weeks after his death.
In his unpublished autobiography, I Always Had Shoes (portions of which were later incorporated by Jack's daughter, Joan, into her memoir of her parents, Sunday Nights at Seven), Benny said that he, not NBC, made the decision to end his TV series in 1965. He said that while the ratings were still very good (he cited a figure of some 18 million viewers per week, although he qualified that figure by saying he never believed the ratings services were doing anything more than guessing, no matter what they promised), advertisers were complaining that commercial time on his show was costing nearly twice as much as what they paid for most other shows, and he had grown tired of what was called the "rate race". Thus, after some three decades on radio and television in a weekly program, Jack Benny went out on top. In fairness, Benny himself shared Fred Allen's ambivalence about television, though not quite to Allen's extent. "By my second year in television, I saw that the camera was a man-eating monster...It gave a performer close-up exposure that, week after week, threatened his existence as an interesting entertainer."[8]
In a joint appearance with Phil Silvers on Dick Cavett's show, Benny recalled that he had advised Silvers not to appear on television. However, Silvers ignored Benny's advice and proceeded to win several Emmy awards as Sergeant Bilko on the popular series The Phil Silvers Show, while Benny claimed he never won any of the television honors.
Filmography[link]
Movies[link]
Benny also acted in movies, including the Academy Award-winning The Hollywood Revue of 1929, Broadway Melody of 1936 (as a benign nemesis for Eleanor Powell and Robert Taylor), George Washington Slept Here (1942), and notably, Charley's Aunt and To Be or Not to Be. He and Livingstone also appeared in Ed Sullivan's Mr. Broadway (1933) as themselves. Benny often parodied contemporary movies and movie genres on the radio program, and the 1940 film Buck Benny Rides Again features all the main radio characters in a funny Western parody adapted from program skits. The failure of one Benny vehicle, The Horn Blows at Midnight, became a running gag on his radio and television programs, although contemporary viewers may not find the film as disappointing as the jokes suggest.
Benny may have had an unbilled cameo role in Casablanca (claimed by a contemporary newspaper advertisement[20] and reportedly in the Casablanca press book[21]). When asked in his column "Movie Answer Man", critic Roger Ebert first replied, "It looks something like him. That's all I can say."[21] In response to a follow-up question in his next column, he stated, "I think you're right."[22]
Benny also was caricatured in several Warner Brothers cartoons including Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur (1939, as Casper the Caveman), I Love to Singa, Slap Happy Pappy, and Goofy Groceries (1936, 1940, and 1941 respectively, as Jack Bunny[23]), Malibu Beach Party (1940, as himself),[24] and The Mouse that Jack Built (1959). The last of these is probably the most memorable: Robert McKimson engaged Benny and his actual cast (Mary Livingstone, Eddie Anderson, and Don Wilson) to do the voices for the mouse versions of their characters, with Mel Blanc—the usual Warner Brothers cartoon voicemeister—reprising his old vocal turn as the always-aging Maxwell, always a phat-phat-bang! away from collapse. In the cartoon, Benny and Livingstone agree to spend their anniversary at the Kit-Kat Club, which they discover the hard way is inside the mouth of a live cat. Before the cat can devour the mice, Benny himself awakens from his dream, then shakes his head, smiles wryly, and mutters, "Imagine, me and Mary as little mice." Then, he glances toward the cat lying on a throw rug in a corner and sees his and Livingstone's cartoon alter egos scampering out of the cat's mouth. The cartoon ends with a classic Benny look of befuddlement. It was rumored that Benny requested that, in lieu of monetary compensation, he receive a copy of the finished film.
Running gags[link]
Benny teamed with Fred Allen for the best-remembered running gag in classic radio history, in terms of character dialogue. But Benny alone sustained a classic repertoire of running gags in his own right, including a skinflint radio and television persona; a perpetual listed age of 39; and ineptitude at violin playing, most frequently demonstrated by futile attempts to perform Rodolphe Kreutzer's Etude No. 2 in C major.
A skit heard numerous times on radio, and seen many times on television, had Mel Blanc as a Mexican in a sombrero and serape sitting on a bench. Jack Benny sits down and begins a conversation. To each question asked by Benny, Blanc replies Si. When Benny asks his name, Blanc replies Sy, which would prompt the exchange, Sy?, Si. And when Benny asks where Blanc is going, Blanc replies, "to see his sister", Sue (Sue?, Si.), who of course sews for a living (Sew?, Si.).
A running gag in Benny's private life concerned George Burns. To Benny's eternal frustration, he could never get Burns to laugh. Burns, on the other hand, could crack Benny up with the least effort. An example of this occurred at a party when Benny pulled out a match to light a cigar. Burns announced to all, "Jack Benny will now perform the famous match trick!" Benny had no idea what Burns was talking about, so he proceeded to light up. Burns observed, "Oh, a new ending!" and Benny collapsed in helpless laughter.
Benny even had a sound-based running gag of his own: his famous basement vault alarm, allegedly installed by Spike Jones, ringing off with a shattering cacophony of whistles, sirens, bells, and blasts, before ending invariably with the sound of a foghorn. The alarm rang off even when Benny opened his safe with the correct combination. The vault also featured a guard named Ed (voiced by Joseph Kearns) who had been on post down below before, apparently, the end of the Civil War, the end of the Revolutionary War, the founding of Los Angeles, on Jack's 38th birthday, and even the beginning of humanity. In one appearance, Ed asked Benny, "By the way, Mr. Benny...what's it like on the outside?" Benny responded, "...winter is nearly here, and the leaves are falling." Ed responded, "Hey, that must be exciting," to which Benny replied (in a stunningly risqué joke for the period), "Oh, no—people are wearing clothes now." In one episode of the Benny radio show, Ed the Guard actually agreed when Jack invited him to take a break and come back to the surface world, only to discover that modern conveniences and transportation, which hadn't been around the last time he'd been to the surface, terrorized and confused him. (Poor Ed thought a crosstown bus was "a red and yellow dragon".) Finally, Ed decides to return to his post fathoms below and stay there. The basement vault gag was also used in the cartoon The Mouse that Jack Built and an episode[25] of The Lucy Show.
A separate sound gag involved a song Benny had written, "When You Say I Beg Your Pardon, Then I'll Come Back to You". Its inane lyrics and insipid melody guaranteed that it would never be published or recorded, but Benny continued to try to con, extort, or otherwise inveigle some of his musical guests (including The Smothers Brothers and Peter, Paul and Mary) to perform it. None ever made it all the way through.
In keeping with his "stingy" schtick, on one of his television specials he remarked that, to his way of looking at things, a "special" is when the price of coffee is marked down.
The explanation usually given for the "stuck on 39" running joke is that he had celebrated his birthday on-air when he turned 39, and decided to do the same the following year, because "there's nothing funny about 40". Upon his death, having celebrated his 39th birthday 41 times, some newspapers continued the joke with headlines such as "Jack Benny Dies – At 39?"[citation needed]
Another popular running gag concerned the social habits of Benny's on-air orchestra, who were consistently portrayed as a bunch of drunken ne'er-do-wells. Led first by Phil Harris and later by Bob Crosby, the orchestra, and in particular band member Frank Remley, were jokingly portrayed as often being too drunk to play properly, using an overturned bass drum to play cards on just minutes before a show, and so enamored by liquor that the sight of a glass of milk would make them sick. Remley was portrayed in various unflattering situations, such as being thrown into a garbage can by a road sweeper who had found him passed out in the street at 4 am, and on a wanted poster at the Beverly Hills police station.
One Christmas program had Crosby agonizing over what to get Remley:
Benny: "Well, why don't you get him a cordial; like a bottle of Drambuie?" Crosby: "That's a nice thought, Jack, but Drambuie's an after-dinner drink." Benny: "So?" Crosby: "So Remley never quite makes it 'til after dinner."
Crosby also got consistent laughs by frequently joking about his more famous brother Bing's vast wealth.
The Maxwell[link]
Starting on the radio show, a running joke was that Benny drove a Maxwell automobile, a brand that went out of business in 1925. Benny's old car was so worn out that it would barely run, but the miserly Benny insisted he could get a few more miles out of it. When a sound effects man missed a cue for the automobile engine, Mel Blanc quickly improvised a vocal imitation of a sputtering car engine that was so funny it became a regular feature of the show. By 1943, Jack Benny's Maxwell had become such a well known aspect of popular culture that it was referenced in the Spike Jones record "The Sound Effects Man".
When the Jack Benny Program began appearing on television in 1950, a 1916 Maxwell Model 25 Tourer became one of the production's standard props. Benny's Maxwell later became a 1923 Tourer. In addition to on the program, Benny would often make public appearances in Maxwells. He appeared behind the wheel of one in the film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and drove a Maxwell onto the stage in one of his last television specials. Benny and his archaic auto were featured in a series of television and print ads for Texaco from the 1950s through the 1970s. A series of gags were built around the premise that Benny appreciated the value of "Sky Chief" brand gasoline in keeping his car running smoothly, but was too cheap to buy more than one gallon at a time.
Final years[link]
After his broadcasting career ended, Benny performed live as a stand up comedian and returned to films in 1963 with a cameo appearance in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Benny was preparing to star in the film version of Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys when his health failed. In fact, he prevailed upon his longtime best friend, George Burns, to take his place on a nightclub tour while preparing for the film. (Burns ultimately had to replace Benny in the film as well and went on to win an Academy Award for his performance).
Benny made one of his final television appearances in the fall of 1972 on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson when Carson celebrated his 10th anniversary. (An audio recording featuring highlights of Benny's appearance is featured on the album Here's Johnny: Magic Moments From The Tonight Show released in 1973.) During this appearance, he stated that he loved the violin so much, "if God came to me and said 'Jack, starting tomorrow I will make you one of the world's great violinists, but no more will you ever be able to tell a joke', I really believe that I would accept that." He also related something Isaac Stern once told him: "You know, Jack, when you walk out in front of a symphony orchestra in white tie and tails and your violin, you actually look like one of the world's great violinists. It's a damned shame you have to play!" Jokes aside, Benny was a serious, dedicated violinist who could play aside Stern and not embarrass himself.[26]
Death[link]
In October 1974, Benny canceled a performance in Dallas after suffering a dizzy spell, coupled with numbness in his arms. Despite a battery of tests, Benny's ailment could not be determined. When he complained of stomach pains in early December, a first test showed nothing, but a subsequent one showed he had inoperable pancreatic cancer. Choosing to spend his final days at home, he was visited by close friends including George Burns, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Carson and John Rowles. He died on December 26, 1974. George Burns, Benny's best friend for more than fifty years, attempted to deliver a eulogy. He broke down shortly after he began and was unable to continue. Bob Hope also delivered a eulogy in which he stated, "This is the only time Jack's timing was all wrong. He left us much too soon." Two days after his death, he was interred in a crypt at Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California. Benny's will arranged for flowers, specifically a single long-stemmed red rose, to be delivered to his widow, Mary Livingstone, every day for the rest of her life. Livingstone died nine years later on June 30, 1983.
In trying to explain his successful life, Benny summed it up by stating "Everything good that happened to me happened by accident. I was not filled with ambition nor fired by a drive toward a clear-cut goal. I never knew exactly where I was going."[8]
Upon his death, his family donated to UCLA his personal, professional, and business papers, as well as a collection of his television shows. The university established the Jack Benny Award in his honor in 1977 to recognize outstanding people in the field of comedy. Johnny Carson was the first award recipient.[27] Benny also donated a Stradivarius violin purchased in 1957 to the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.[28][29] Benny had commented, "If it isn't a $30,000 Strad, I'm out $120."[30]
Honors[link]
Jack Benny has one star each on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for TV, film, and radio.
Posthumous tributes[link]
When the price of a standard first-class U.S. postal stamp was increased to 39 cents in 2006, fans petitioned for a Jack Benny stamp to honor his stage persona's perpetual age. The U.S. Postal Service had issued a stamp depicting Jack Benny in 1991, as part of a booklet of stamps honoring comedians; however, the stamp was issued at the then-current rate of 29 cents.[31]
Jack Benny Middle School in Waukegan, Illinois, is named after the famous comedian. Its motto matches his famous statement as "Home of the '39ers".
See also[link]
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References[link]
- ^ Mikkelson, Barbara. "Posthumous Roses" Snopes.com; February 13, 2010
- ^ Benny, Joan; Benny, Jack (1996) Sunday Nights at Seven: The Jack Benny Story Warner Books p. 6 "There are a few things you should know in advance. In the first place, I was not born in Waukegan. I was born at the Mercy Hospital in Chicago..."
- ^ Jack Benny appearance on The Lawrence Welk Show, episode 1025: "Academy Awards" (1971)
- ^ Dunning, Jack. Tune in yesterday: the ultimate encyclopedia of old-time radio, 1925–1976. p. 315.
- ^ Benny, Mary Livingstone, Hilliard Marks, & Marcia Borie. Jack Benny New York: Doubleday, 1978. pp. 8–10
- ^ United States 1900 Census
- ^ The Jack Benny Times, September – December 2008, Volume XXIII Numbers 5–6, Page 9., The International Jack Benny Fan Club.
- ^ a b c d e f Jack Benny and Joan Benny, Sunday Nights At Seven: The Jack Benny Story, Warner Books, ISBN 0-446-51546-9, 1990, p. 11
- ^ Fein, Irving, Jack Benny: An Intimate Biography, Putnam, ISBN 978-0-671-80917-1, OCLC 3694842, 1976
- ^ Vintage Library.com
- ^ Garrett, Eddie (2005). I Saw Stars in the 40's and 50's. ISBN 1-4120-5838-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=TDbGVZj5qzgC&pg=PA26&dq=jack+benny+%22most+popular+radio+show%22&lr=&ei=VNdNSYTGKoiUzAS5z6G0CA. "In a short time, Benny became the most popular radio show in America in the 1930's and 1940's"
- ^ Hilmes, M. (1997). Radio voices American broadcasting, 1922–1952. Minnesota Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
- ^ a b Berger, Arthur Asa (2001) Jewish jesters: a study in American popular comedy p. 41
- ^ Norman R. Shapiro - (2009) Labiche & co: fourteen one-acts by a French comic master p. 475
- ^ "The Longest Laugh". Jackbenny.org. http://www.jackbenny.org/biography/other/longest_laugh.htm. Retrieved 2008-10-20.
- ^ McMahon, Ed & David Fisher. When Television Was Young: Live, Spontaneous, and In Living Black and White. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2007. p. 103.
- ^ Becker, Christine. It's the Pictures That Got Small: Hollywood Film Stars in 1950s Television. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 2008. p. 35.
- ^ Stanley, Alessandra. "Gisele MacKenzie Show". The New York Times. http://tv.nytimes.com/show/155939/Gisele-MacKenzie-Show/overview. Retrieved May 15, 2009.
- ^ video on youtube.com Jack ends TV episode as Mary Poppins
- ^ "Special Contest / Find Jack Benny in "Casablanca"". The Evening Independent. February 4, 1943. http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=950&dat=19430204&id=DRoOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=f30DAAAAIBAJ&pg=5078,4032886.
- ^ a b Roger Ebert (December 9, 2009). "Movie Answer Man". Chicago Sun-Times. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091209/ANSWERMAN/912099991. Retrieved January 8, 2010.
- ^ Roger Ebert (December 23, 2009). "Movie Answer Man". Chicago Sun-Times. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091223/ANSWERMAN/912239981. Retrieved January 8, 2010.
- ^ I Love to Singa. YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akAEIW3rmvQ#t=04m24s. Retrieved 2010-12-20.
- ^ Malibu Beach Party. 1940. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH6AWh64lOc.
- ^ Lucy Gets Jack Benny's Account (1967)
- ^ Violinists: Jack Benny and Isaac Stern and Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy (27th September 1961). "Carnegie Hall Salutes Jack Benny". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKGSU_ByWyM&t=04m27s. Retrieved 2010-11-18.
- ^ Brent Lang, Apatow to Receive Jack Benny Award, TheWrap.com, Map 19, 2010
- ^ http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=qKwwAAAAIBAJ&sjid=pPoDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5498,7923419&dq=benny+stradivarius+philharmonic&hl=en
- ^ Watkins, Nancy (February 13, 2005). "Now cut that out!". Chicago Tribune.
- ^ http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=7chOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=kEkDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4277,2931739&dq=benny+stradivarius&hl=en
- ^ Stamp Title: 29c Jack Benny. Comedians Issue 1991 Issue Year: 1991 Date of Issue: 29th August, 1991 Face Value: 29c Stanley Gibbons Catalogue No: 2607 Scott Catalogue No: 2564 Printer: The Bureau of Engraving and Printing Issue Copies: 139,995,600 Designer(s):Al Hirshfeld Theme(s):Cartoon/Animation Description:29c Jack Benny. Comedians Issue 1991
Further reading[link]
- The New York Times, April 16, 1953, p. 43, "Jack Benny plans more work on TV"
- The New York Times, March 16, 1960, p. 75, "Canned laughter: Comedians are crying on the inside about CBS rule that public know of its use"
- Jack Benny, Mary Livingstone Benny, Hilliard Marks with Marcia Borie, Doubleday & Company, 1978, 322 p.
- Sunday Nights at Seven: The Jack Benny Story, Jack Benny and Joan Benny, Warner Books, 1990, 302 p.
- CBS: Reflections in a Bloodshot Eye, by Robert Metz, New American Library, 1978.
- The Laugh Crafters: Comedy Writing in Radio and TV's Golden Age, by Jordan R. Young; Past Times Publishing, 1999. ISBN 0-940410-37-0
- Well! Reflections on the Life and Career of Jack Benny, edited by Michael Leannah, BearManor Media, 2007.
- Jack Benny v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 25 T.C. 197 (1955).
- Hilmes, M. (1997). Radio voices American broadcasting, 1922–1952. Minnesota Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Further reading[link]
- Benny, Jack; Benny, Joan. (1990) Sunday Nights at Seven: The Jack Benny Story. Warner Books.
- Josefsberg, Milt. (1977) The Jack Benny Show. New Rochelle: Arlington House. ISBN 0-87000-347-X
- Leannah, Michael, editor. (2007) Well! Reflections on the Life and Career of Jack Benny. BearManor Media. Contributing authors: Frank Bresee, Clair Schulz, Kay Linaker, Janine Marr, Pam Munter, Mark Higgins, B. J. Borsody, Charles A. Beckett, Jordan R. Young, Philip G. Harwood, Noell Wolfgram Evans, Jack Benny, Michael Leannah, Steve Newvine, Ron Sayles, Kathryn Fuller-Seeley, Marc Reed, Derek Tague, Michael J. Hayde, Steve Thompson, Michael Mildredson.
External links[link]
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Jack Benny |
- Audio
- Video
- Jack Benny Hour (1965 NBC hour-long special) is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
- Jack Benny at the Internet Movie Database
- Jack Benny at the Internet Broadway Database
- Jack Benny at TVGuide.com
- Jack Benny at AllRovi
- The Jack Benny Program at TV.com
- Jack Benny at the National Radio Hall of Fame
- Jack Benny Fred Allen Feud
- Jack Benny Audio History
- International Jack Benny Fan Club
- In-depth interview with Laura Leff, Founder and President of the International Jack Benny Fan Club (2011)
- Online audio and video of Jack Benny
- Copies of Jack Benny's Radio and TV scripts, with handwritten edits
- Free 2 minute download of Humphrey Bogart on the Jack Benny Show
- Jack Benny Middle School
- Jack Benny Center for the Cultural Arts
- "The Friars Club"
- Jack Benny papers at the University of Wyoming—American Heritage Center
- FBI file on Jack Benny
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Benny, Jack |
| Alternative names | Kubelsky, Benjamin |
| Short description | comedian, vaudeville performer, and radio, television, and film actor |
| Date of birth | February 14, 1894 |
| Place of birth | Chicago, Illinois |
| Date of death | December 26, 1974 |
| Place of death | Beverly Hills, California |
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| Martin Seamus "Marty" McFly[1] | |
|---|---|
| Back to the Future character | |
| File:Marty 1985.JPG Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly |
|
| Portrayed by | Michael J. Fox |
| Voiced by |
|
| Appeared in | Part I, Part II, Part III, The Animated Series, The Game |
| Information | |
| Occupation | Student |
| Original time | 1985 |
| Time traveler | Yes |
| Years visited | 1885, 1955, 1985A, 2015 |
Martin Seamus "Marty" McFly, Sr. is the protagonist in the Back to the Future film trilogy, and is portrayed by actor Michael J. Fox. Marty was also the protagonist in the animated series where he was voiced by David Kaufman. In the videogame by Telltale Games, he is voiced by AJ LoCascio.[2]
Eric Stoltz was originally cast as Marty McFly, but after five weeks of shooting scenes for the first film, director Robert Zemeckis and executive producer Steven Spielberg chose to re-cast the role to Fox.
Contents |
Biography[link]
Marty was born in Hill Valley, California in 1968[3] to a family of Irish descent. Little is known about Marty's life prior to the first Back to the Future film, except for the fact that he accidentally set his parents' living room rug on fire when he was 8 (which we know from a statement of Marty's to his future parents).[3]
In 1985, Marty plays lead guitar with his group The Pinheads[3] and likes listening to Huey Lewis and the News, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and Van Halen. He is also a talented skateboarder and proven to be an excellent shot with a gun, honed by endlessly playing shooting games such as Wild Gunman at his local 7-Eleven.[4][5]
Although Marty is often accident prone and sometimes thought to lack critical thinking skills, he is nevertheless brave in the face of danger and can be very resourceful and clever. He has shown some good and basic street fighting skills in the movies. He often throws punches in hand-to-hand confrontations. His major character flaw is his pride, which causes him to take unnecessary risks to show others that he is not chicken, as demonstrated throughout various points throughout the trilogy.[5] However, in the third film, when his ancestor Seamus McFly points out that Seamus's brother, Martin, was killed in an argument where someone questioned his bravery, Marty began to re-think his stance on what other people thought of him. This was highlighted when Marty refused to race Needles, despite Needles goading him into a race, thus avoiding the "automobile accident" involving the Rolls Royce, therefore changing his future for the better.
Family[link]
Marty is the youngest of three children from George and Lorraine McFly. He has a brother Dave and a sister Linda. His secondary entourage consists of girlfriend Jennifer Parker and best friend Emmett Brown, a scientist whom Marty and Jennifer call "Doc." There is an impression that Marty is embarrassed by his family and does not spend much time at home, preferring to hang out with Doc, Jennifer, or the guys in his band, The Pinheads.[3]
How exactly Marty and Doc met has never been explained, although a draft script for the first film states that, in 1983, Doc turned up at Marty's garage one day and offered him $50 a week, plus free beer and use of his record collection, to clean his garage.[6] This explanation is not accepted by most fans, as it contradicts the characterizations of Marty and Doc as seen in the finished film. Writers Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale say they once considered expanding on their relationship, but decided against it, reasoning that children and adolescents are often drawn to eccentric or mysterious neighbors.
By 2015, Marty has married his girlfriend Jennifer and they had twins, Martin "Marty" Jr. and Marlene, who were born on April 28, 1998 (both played by Michael J. Fox).[4] However, the events at the end of Back To The Future Part III, where Marty avoided the race with Needles, may affect the outcome of events as seen in Part II.
Aliases[link]
Marty has had many false names through the Back to the Future series. Some of which include; Calvin Klein, Darth Vader of the Planet Vulcan (Back to the Future),[3] Clint Eastwood (Back to the Future Part III),[5] and Sonny Crockett/Harry Callahan/Michael Corleone (2011 video game only). Including these aliases, Marty has also posed as his son, Martin McFly Jr.[4]
[edit] Back to the Future: The Animated Series
In the animated series, Marty and Jennifer study at Hill Valley College after graduating from Hill Valley High School. Marty spends a lot of time visiting the Brown house where Doc, Clara, and their sons now live. He continues to travel through time alongside Jennifer, Doc, and the rest of the Brown family on many of their adventures, in the process learning a lot about his family's ancestry and future.
The animated series says that Marty has not completely overcome his "chicken" problem established in the films. For instance, in the episode "Roman Holiday", Bifficus Antanneny taunts Marty into a chariot race by calling him "pullus," the Latin word for "chicken."
An episode set in 2091 ("Solar Sailors") establishes that Marty's music becomes famous to Elvis-like proportions, as there are Marty impersonators mimicking his act on stage. His great-granddaughter Marta remarks, "If only my great-grandfather was still alive to see that his music continues on..."
Legacy[link]
In 2008, Marty McFly was selected by Empire magazine as the 39th greatest movie character of all time.[7]
The British band McFly was named after Marty McFly because the vocalist Tom Fletcher is a fan of the Back to the Future trilogy.[8]
Relient K wrote a song about Marty McFly called "Hello McFly" on their eponymous first album.
New Found Glory did a song based on Marty McFly called "Back To The Future" under their side-project International Superheroes of Hardcore[9]
Canadian skate punk band "Darryl's Grocery Bag" wrote a song about the character entitled "Marty", which was released on the 1998 compilation "Wet Feet", put out by the independent Canadian label "Meter Records". [10] The song starts out with a voice snippet of Biff Tannen from the first "Back To The Future" movie.
In an episode of Fringe, a billboard in a parallel universe in 1985 displays the title "Back to the Future" though it also lists Eric Stoltz in the lead role as Marty McFly.
References[link]
- ^ Telltale, Incorporated. Back to the Future: The Game - Episode 3: Citizen Brown. (March 28, 2011)
- ^ Back To The Future Episode 1: It's About Time Video Game, Exclusive Behind The Scenes Part II: Hey McFly! Gametrailers
- ^ a b c d e Back to the Future (DVD). 1985.
- ^ a b c Back to the Future Part II. 1989.
- ^ a b c Back to the Future Part III. 1990.
- ^ The "Back to the Future" Universe - kristensheley.com
- ^ "Empire's The 100 Greatest Movie Characters". Empire Magazine. http://www.empireonline.com/100-greatest-movie-characters/default.asp?c=39. Retrieved 2010-05-21.
- ^ "McFly - Harry chats to ilikemusic.com". ilikemusic.com. September 2004. http://www.ilikemusic.com/interviews/-684/7. Retrieved 2007-11-23.
- ^ Lyrics of "Back To The Future" by ISHC
- ^ "Wet Feet" compilation album track list
External links[link]
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Glenn Gould
Glenn Herbert Gould[fn 1][fn 2] (September 25, 1932 – October 4, 1982) was a Canadian pianist who became one of the best-known and most celebrated classical pianists of the 20th century. He was particularly renowned as an interpreter of the keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach. His playing was distinguished by remarkable technical proficiency and capacity to articulate the polyphonic texture of Bach’s music.
Gould rejected most of the standard Romantic piano literature and, after his adolescence, avoided Liszt, Schumann, and Chopin. Although his recordings were dominated by Bach, Gould's oeuvre was diverse, including works by Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Brahms, pre-Baroque composers such as Jan Sweelinck, and such 20th-century composers as Paul Hindemith and Arnold Schoenberg. Gould was well known for various eccentricities, from his unorthodox musical interpretations and mannerisms at the keyboard to aspects of his lifestyle and personal behavior. He stopped giving concerts at the age of 31 to concentrate on studio recording and other projects.
Gould was also known as a writer, composer, conductor, and broadcaster. He was a prolific contributor to musical journals, in which he discussed music theory and outlined his musical philosophy. His career as a composer was less distinguished. His output was minimal and many projects were left unfinished. There is evidence that, had he lived beyond 50, he intended to abandon the piano and devote the remainder of his career to conducting and other projects. As a broadcaster, Gould was prolific. His output ranged from television and radio broadcasts of studio performances to musique concrète radio documentaries about life in the Canadian wilderness.
Contents |
Life[link]
Early life[link]
Glenn Herbert Gould was born at home in Toronto on September 25, 1932, to Russell Herbert ("Bert") Gold and Florence ("Flora") Emma Gold (née Grieg),[1] Presbyterians of Scottish and English ancestry.[2] His maternal grandfather was a cousin of Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg.[3][4] The family's surname was changed to Gould informally around 1939 in order to avoid being mistaken for Jewish, given the prevailing anti-Semitism of prewar Toronto and the Gold surname's Jewish association.[fn 3] Gould had no Jewish ancestry,[fn 4] though he sometimes made jokes on the subject, like "When people ask me if I'm Jewish, I always tell them that I was Jewish during the war."[5] Gould grew up in a home at 32 Southwood Drive, Toronto. His childhood home has been named a historic site by the City of Toronto.[6]
Gould's interest in music and his talent as a pianist became evident very early. Both his parents were musical, and his mother, especially, encouraged the infant Gould's early musical development. Before his birth, his mother planned for him to become a successful musician, and thus exposed him to music during her pregnancy.[9] As a baby, he reportedly hummed instead of crying and wiggled his fingers as if playing chords, leading his doctor to predict that he would "be either a physician or a pianist".[10] By the age of three, Gould's perfect pitch was noticed. He learned to read music before he could read words.[3][11][12] When presented with a piano, the young Gould was reported to strike single notes and listen to their long decay, a practice his father Bert noted was different from typical children.[11] Gould's interest in the piano proceeded side by side with an interest in composition. He would play his own little pieces for family, friends, and sometimes large gatherings, including, in 1938, a performance at the Emmanuel Presbyterian Church (a few blocks from the Gould house) of one of his own compositions.[13] At the age of six, he was taken for the first time to hear a live musical performance by a celebrated soloist. This left a tremendous impression. He later described the experience:
It was Hofmann. It was, I think, his last performance in Toronto, and it was a staggering impression. The only thing I can really remember is that, when I was being brought home in a car, I was in that wonderful state of half-awakeness in which you hear all sorts of incredible sounds going through your mind. They were all orchestral sounds, but I was playing them all, and suddenly I was Hofmann. I was enchanted.[3][14]
As a young child, Gould was taught piano by his mother. At the age of 10, he began attending The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. He studied music theory with Leo Smith, the organ with Frederick C. Silvester, and piano with Alberto Guerrero.[15] Around the same time, he injured his back as a result of a fall from a boat ramp on the shore of Lake Simcoe.[fn 5] This incident is almost certainly related to the adjustable-height chair his father made shortly thereafter. Gould's mother would urge the young Gould to sit up straight at the keyboard.[16] He used this chair for the rest of his life and took it with him almost everywhere.[3] This famous chair was designed so that Gould could sit very low at the keyboard. The chair allowed him to pull down on the keys rather than striking them from above, a central technical idea of his teacher at the Conservatory, Alberto Guerrero.[17]
Gould developed a technique that enabled him to choose a very fast tempo while retaining the separateness and clarity of each note.[18] His extremely low position at the instrument arguably permitted more control over the keyboard. Gould showed considerable technical skill in performing and recording a wide repertoire including virtuosic and romantic works, such as his own arrangement of Ravel's La valse and Liszt's transcriptions of Beethoven's fifth and sixth symphonies. Gould worked from a young age with his teacher Alberto Guerrero on a technique known as finger-tapping: a method of training the fingers to act more independently from the arm.[19]
Gould passed his final Conservatory examination in piano at the age of 12 (achieving the "highest marks of any candidate"), thus attaining "professional standing as a pianist" at that age.[20] One year later he passed the written theory exams, qualifying for an ATCM diploma.[fn 6][20]
Gould the pianist[link]
Gould claimed he almost never practiced on the piano, preferring to study music by reading it rather than playing it,[fn 7] another technique he had learned from Guerrero. His manual practicing focused on articulation, rather than basic facility. He may have spoken ironically about his practicing, but there is evidence that on occasion, he did practice quite hard, sometimes using his own drills and techniques.[fn 8]
He stated that he didn't understand the requirement of other pianists to continuously reinforce their relationship with the instrument by practicing many hours a day.[21] It seems that Gould was able to practice mentally without access to an instrument, and even took this so far as to prepare for a recording of Brahms piano works without ever playing them until a few weeks before the recording sessions. This is all the more staggering considering the absolute accuracy and phenomenal dexterity exhibited in his playing. Gould's large repertoire also demonstrated this natural mnemonic gift.
The piano, Gould said, "is not an instrument for which I have any great love as such... [but] I have played it all my life, and it is the best vehicle I have to express my ideas." In the case of Bach, Gould admitted, "[I] fixed the action in some of the instruments I play on—and the piano I use for all recordings is now so fixed—so that it is a shallower and more responsive action than the standard. It tends to have a mechanism which is rather like an automobile without power steering: you are in control and not it; it doesn't drive you, you drive it. This is the secret of doing Bach on the piano at all. You must have that immediacy of response, that control over fine definitions of things."[22]
Of significant influence upon the teenage Gould were Artur Schnabel,[fn 9] Rosalyn Tureck's recordings of Bach ("upright, with a sense of repose and positiveness"), and Leopold Stokowski.[23]
Gould was known for having a vivid imagination. Listeners regarded his interpretations as ranging from brilliantly creative to outright eccentric.[18] His piano playing had great clarity and erudition, particularly in contrapuntal passages,[18] and extraordinary control. He was a child prodigy[24] and in adulthood described as a musical phenomenon.[fn 10] As he played, he often swayed his torso in a clockwise motion.
Gould had a pronounced aversion to what he termed a "hedonistic" approach to the piano repertoire, performance, and music generally. For Gould, "hedonism" in this sense denoted a superficial theatricality, something to which he felt Mozart, for example, became increasingly susceptible later in his career.[25] He associated this drift towards hedonism with the emergence of a cult of showmanship and gratuitous virtuosity on the concert platform in the 19th century and later. The institution of the public concert, he felt, degenerated into the "blood sport" with which he struggled, and which he ultimately rejected.[26]
Performances[link]
In 1945, he gave his first public performance, playing the organ,[27] and the following year he made his first appearance with an orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, in a performance of the first movement of Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto.[28] His first solo recital followed in 1947,[29] and his first recital on radio was with the CBC in 1950.[30] This was the beginning of his long association with radio and recording. He founded the Festival Trio chamber group in 1953 with the cellist Isaac Mamott and the violinist Albert Pratz.
In 1957, Gould embarked on a tour of the Soviet Union, becoming the first North American to play there since World War II.[31] His concerts featured Bach, Beethoven, and the serial music of Schoenberg and Berg, which had been suppressed in the Soviet Union during the era of Socialist Realism. Gould made his Boston debut in 1958, playing for the Peabody Mason Concert Series.[32]
Gould was convinced that the institution of the public concert was not only an anachronism, but also a "force of evil", leading to his retirement from concert performance. He argued that public performance devolved into a sort of competition, with a non-empathetic audience (musically and otherwise) mostly attendant to the possibility of the performer erring or not meeting critical expectation. This doctrine he set forth, only half in jest, in "GPAADAK", the Gould Plan for the Abolition of Applause and Demonstrations of All Kinds.[33]
On April 10, 1964, Gould gave his last public performance, playing in Los Angeles, at the Wilshire Ebell Theater.[34] Among the pieces he performed that night were Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 30, selections from Bach's The Art of Fugue, and Paul Hindemith's Piano Sonata No. 3.[fn 11] Gould performed fewer than 200 concerts over the course of his career, of which fewer than 40 were overseas. For pianists such as Van Cliburn, 200 concerts would have amounted to about two years' touring.[35]
One of Gould's reasons for abandoning live performance was his aesthetic preference for the recording studio, where, in his words, he developed a "love affair with the microphone".[fn 12] There, he could control every aspect of the final musical "product" by selecting parts of various takes. He felt that he could realize a musical score more fully this way. Thus, the act of musical composition, to Gould, did not entirely end with the original score. The performer had to make creative choices. Gould felt strongly that there was little point in re-recording centuries-old pieces if the performer had no new perspective to bring to the work. For the rest of his life, Gould eschewed live performance, focusing instead on recording, writing, and broadcasting.
Technology[link]
The issue of "authenticity" in relation to an approach like Gould's has been a topic of great debate, although diminished by the end of the 20th century—a development that Gould seems to have anticipated. It asks whether a recording is less authentic or "direct" for having been highly refined by technical means in the studio. Gould likened his process to that of a film director—one does not perceive that a two-hour film was made in two hours—and implicitly asks why the act of listening to music should be any different. He went so far as to conduct an "experiment" with musicians, sound engineers, and laypeople in which they were to listen to a recording and determine where the splices occurred. Each group chose different points based on their relationship to music, but none successfully. While the conclusion was hardly scientific, Gould remarked, "The tape does lie, and nearly always gets away with it".[36]
In a lecture and essay titled "Forgery and Imitation in the Creative Process", one of Gould's most significant texts,[37] he makes explicit his views on authenticity and creativity. Gould asks why the epoch in which a work is received influences its reception as "art", postulating a sonata he composes that sounds so much like Haydn that it is received as such. If, instead, the same sonata had been attributed to a somewhat earlier or later composer, it becomes more or less interesting as a piece of music. Yet it is not the work that has changed but its relation within the accepted narrative of music history. Similarly, Gould notes the "pathetic duplicity" in the reception of high-quality forgeries by Hans van Meegeren of new paintings attributed to Dutch Golden Age master Vermeer, before and after the forgery was known.
Gould, therefore, prefers an ahistorical, or at least pre-Renaissance, view of art, minimizing the identity of the artist and the attendant historical context in evaluating the artwork: "What gives us the right to assume that in the work of art we must receive a direct communication with the historical attitudes of another period? ... moreover, what makes us assume that the situation of the man who wrote it accurately or faithfully reflects the situation of his time? ... What if the composer, as historian, is faulty?"[38]
Writings[link]
Gould said that if he had not been a musician, he would have been a writer. He expounded his criticism and philosophy of music and art in lectures, convocation speeches, periodicals, and radio and television documentaries for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Gould participated in many interviews, and had a predilection for scripting them to the extent that they may be seen as much as "works" as off-the-cuff discussions. His writing style was highly articulate but sometimes florid, indulgent, or rhetorical. This is especially evident in those works in which he attempts humour or irony, which he did often.[fn 13]
In these he praised certain composers and rejected what he deemed banal in music composition and its consumption by the public, and also gave insightful analyses of the music of Richard Strauss, Alban Berg and Anton Webern. Despite a certain affection for Dixieland jazz, Gould was mostly averse to popular music. He enjoyed a jazz concert with his friends as a youth, mentioned jazz in his writings, and once criticized The Beatles for "bad voice leading"[fn 14]—while praising Petula Clark and Barbra Streisand. He shared a mutual admiration with jazz pianist Bill Evans, who made his seminal record Conversations with Myself using Gould's celebrated Steinway CD 318 piano. Gould believed that "the piano is a contrapuntal instrument," and his whole approach to music was, in fact, centered in the Baroque. Much of the homophony that followed he felt belongs to a less serious and less spiritual period of art.
"The Last Puritan"[link]
A 1962 quote is often used to summarize Gould's perspective on art: "The justification of art is the internal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow, externalized, public manifestations. The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity."[39]
Gould referred to himself repeatedly as "the last puritan", a reference to philosopher George Santayana's novel of the same name. Weighing this statement against Gould's highly individualistic lifestyle and artistic vision leads to an apparent contradiction. He was progressive in many ways, promulgating the controversial atonal composers, and anticipating, through his deep involvement with the recording process, the vast changes that technology would have on the production and distribution of music. Mark Kingwell summarizes the paradox, never resolved by Gould nor his biographers:
He was progressive and anti-progressive at once, and likewise at once both a critic of the Zeitgeist and its most interesting expression. He was, in effect, stranded on a beachhead of his own thinking between past and future. That he was not able, by himself, to fashion a bridge between them is neither surprising, nor, in the end, disappointing. We should see this failure, rather, as an aspect of his genius. He both was and was not a man of his time.[40]
Eccentricities[link]
Gould was widely known for his unusual habits. He usually hummed while he played the piano, and his recording engineers had mixed results in how successfully they were able to exclude his voice from recordings. Gould claimed that his singing was subconscious and increased proportionately with the inability of the piano in question to realize the music as he intended. It is likely that this habit originated in Gould's having been taught by his mother to "sing everything that he played", as Kevin Bazzana puts it. This became "an unbreakable (and notorious) habit".[41] Some of Gould's recordings were severely criticised because of the background "vocalise". For example, a reviewer of his 1981 re-recording of the Goldberg Variations opined that many listeners would "find the groans and croons intolerable".[42] Gould was renowned for his peculiar body movements while playing and for his insistence on absolute control over every aspect of his playing environment. The temperature of the recording studio had to be exactly regulated. He invariably insisted that it be extremely warm. According to Friedrich, the air conditioning engineer had to work just as hard as the recording engineers.[43] The piano had to be set at a certain height and would be raised on wooden blocks if necessary.[44] A small rug would sometimes be required for his feet underneath the piano.[45] He had to sit fourteen inches above the floor and would play concerts only while sitting on the old chair his father had made. He continued to use this chair even when the seat was completely worn through.[46] His chair is so closely identified with him that it is shown in a place of honour in a glass case at the National Library of Canada.
Conductors responded diversely to Gould and his playing habits. George Szell, who led Gould in 1957 with the Cleveland Orchestra, remarked to his assistant, "That nut's a genius."[47] Leonard Bernstein said, "There is nobody quite like him, and I just love playing with him."[47] Ironically, Bernstein created a stir at the April 6, 1962 concert when, just before the New York Philharmonic was to perform the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor with Gould as soloist, he informed the audience that he was assuming no responsibility for what they were about to hear. He asked the audience: "In a concerto, who is the boss – the soloist or the conductor? (audience laughter). The answer is, of course, sometimes the one and sometimes the other, depending on the people involved."[48] Specifically, he was referring to their rehearsals with Gould's insistence that the entire first movement be played at half the indicated tempo. The speech was interpreted by Harold C. Schonberg, music critic for The New York Times, as an abdication of responsibility and an attack on Gould.[49] Plans for a studio recording of the performance came to nothing. The live radio broadcast (along with Bernstein's disclaimer) was subsequently released on CD.
Gould was averse to cold, and wore heavy clothing (including gloves), even in warm places. He was once arrested, presumably mistaken for a vagrant, while sitting on a park bench in Sarasota, Florida, dressed in his standard all-climate attire of coat(s), warm hat, and mittens.[50] He also disliked social functions. He hated being touched, and in later life he limited personal contact, relying on the telephone and letters for communication. On one visit to Steinway Hall in New York City in 1959, the chief piano technician at the time, William Hupfer, greeted Gould by giving him a slap on the back. Gould was shocked by this, and complained of aching, lack of coordination, and fatigue because of the incident. He went on to explore the possibility of litigation against Steinway & Sons if his apparent injuries were permanent.[51] He was known for cancelling performances at the last minute, which is why Bernstein's above-mentioned public disclaimer opens with, "Don't be frightened, Mr. Gould is here... will appear in a moment."
In his liner notes and broadcasts, Gould created more than two dozen alter egos for satirical, humorous, or didactic purposes, permitting him to write hostile reviews or incomprehensible commentaries on his own performances. Probably the best-known are the German musicologist "Karlheinz Klopweisser", the English conductor "Sir Nigel Twitt-Thornwaite", and the American critic "Theodore Slutz".[52] These facets of Gould, whether interpreted as neurosis or "play",[53] have provided ample material for psychobiography.
Fran's Restaurant in Toronto was a regular haunt of Gould's. A CBC profile noted, "sometime between two and three every morning, Gould would go to Fran's, a 24-hour diner a block away from his Toronto apartment, sit in the same booth, and order the same meal of scrambled eggs."[54]
It has been debated whether or not Gould was autistic, or, more accurately, if his mind fell within the autism spectrum.[6] The diagnosis was first suggested by psychiatrist Peter Ostwald, a friend of Gould's, in the 1997 book, Glenn Gould: The Ecstasy and Tragedy of Genius.[55] It has been disputed by, among others, Kevin Bazzana.[citation needed]
Relationships[link]
Gould lived a private life: Bruno Monsaingeon said of him, "No supreme pianist has ever given of his heart and mind so overwhelmingly while showing himself so sparingly."[56]
When Gould was in Los Angeles in 1956, he met Cornelia Foss and husband Lukas. Foss was an art instructor who had studied sculpture at the American Academy in Rome. Her husband worked for both the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Brooklyn Philharmonic. After several years, Gould and Foss became lovers.[57] Foss left her husband in 1967 for Gould, taking her two children with her to Toronto. She purchased a house near Gould's 110 St. Clair Avenue West apartment. In 2007, Cornelia Foss finally admitted that she and Gould had had a love affair lasting several years.[57] According to Foss, "There were a lot of misconceptions about Glenn, and it was partly because he was so very private. But I assure you, he was an extremely heterosexual man. Our relationship was, among other things, quite sexual." Their affair lasted until 1972, when she returned to her husband. As early as two weeks after leaving her husband, Foss noticed disturbing signs in Gould. She describes a serious paranoid episode:
"It lasted several hours, and then I knew he was not just neurotic – there was more to it. I thought to myself, 'Good grief, am I going to bring up my children in this environment?' But I stayed four and a half years." Foss did not discuss details, but others close to Gould said he was convinced someone was trying to poison him and that others were spying on him.[57]
Health[link]
Gould suffered many pains and ailments, though he was something of a hypochondriac[58][fn 15] (admitting it himself on at least one occasion), and his autopsy revealed few underlying problems in areas that often troubled him.[fn 16] Early in his life, Gould suffered a spine injury. His physicians prescribed, usually independently, an assortment of analgesics, anxiolytics, and other drugs. Some speculate that his extensive use of prescription medications throughout his career had a deleterious effect on his health.
He was highly concerned about his health throughout his life, worrying about everything from high blood pressure (which in his later years he recorded in diary form) to the safety of his hands. Gould rarely shook hands with anyone and usually wore gloves.[fn 17][fn 18]
Death[link]
On September 27, 1982, after experiencing a severe headache, Gould suffered a stroke that paralyzed the left side of his body. He was admitted to Toronto General Hospital and his condition rapidly deteriorated. By October 4, there was evidence of brain damage, and Gould's father decided that his son should be taken off life support.[59] He is buried next to his parents in Toronto's Mount Pleasant Cemetery (section 38, Row 1088, Plot 1050). The first few measures of the Goldberg Variations are carved on his marker. According to the Glenn Gould Foundation, the cemetery staff often handle requests to locate his gravesite.[60]
Recordings[link]
Main article: List of recordings by Glenn Gould
Studio[link]
 |
The C major prelude from the first book of the WTC.
Compare the 1970 version from the "Complete Piano Sonatas" set (played first) and the 1958 interpretation (second).
The only organ recordings Gould made were the first nine parts of Bach's The Art of Fugue.
Gould recorded several Handel suites and a few pieces from J.S. Bach's WTC on a Wittmayer harpsichord. The somewhat muffled sound of this 20th-century instrument is very different from modern recordings that are made using copies of old harpsichords.
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In creating music, Gould much preferred the control and intimacy provided by the recording studio. He disliked the concert hall, which he compared to a competitive sporting arena. After his final public performance in 1964, he devoted his career solely to the studio, recording albums and several radio documentaries. He was attracted to the technical aspects of recording, and considered the manipulation of tape to be another part of the creative process. Although Gould's recording studio producers have testified that 'he needed splicing, less than most performers',[61] Gould used the process to give him total artistic control over the recording process. He recounted his recording of the A minor fugue from Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier and how it was spliced together from two takes, with the fugue's expositions from one take and its episodes from another.[62]
Following his first recording (of Berg's Piano sonata, Op. 1, on the Canadian Hallmark label, c. 1952), the pianist's first breakthrough success, Bach: The Goldberg Variations, was recorded in 1955, at Columbia Records 30th Street Studios in New York City. Although there was initially some controversy at CBS as to whether this was the most appropriate piece to record, the finished product received phenomenal praise and was among the best-selling classical music albums of its time.[63] Gould became closely associated with the piece, playing it in full or in part at many of his recitals. Another version of the Goldberg Variations, recorded in 1981, would be among his last recordings, and one of only a few pieces he recorded twice in the studio. The 1981 recording was one of CBS Masterworks' first digital recordings. The first recording is highly energetic and often frenetic. The second, slower and more deliberate.[64][65] In the latter, Gould treats the aria and its 30 variations as one cohesive piece.[fn 19]
Gould revered Bach: "[he was] first and last an architect, a constructor of sound, and what makes him so inestimably valuable to us is that he was beyond a doubt the greatest architect of sound who ever lived".[66] He recorded most of Bach's other keyboard works, including the complete The Well-Tempered Clavier, Partitas, French Suites, English Suites, and keyboard concertos. For his only recording at the organ, he recorded about half of The Art of Fugue. He also recorded all five of Beethoven's piano concertos and 23 of the 32 piano sonatas.
Gould also recorded works by Brahms, Mozart, and many other prominent piano composers, though he was outspoken in his criticism of some of them. He was extremely critical of Frédéric Chopin. In a radio interview, when asked if he didn't find himself wanting to play Chopin, he replied: "No, I don't. I play it in a weak moment – maybe once a year or twice a year for myself. But it doesn't convince me." Although Gould recorded all of Mozart's sonatas and admitted enjoying the "actual playing" of them,[67] he claimed to dislike Mozart's later works, to the extent of arguing (perhaps facetiously) that Mozart died too late rather than too early.[68] He was fond of many lesser-known composers, such as Orlando Gibbons, whose Anthems he had heard as a teenager,[69] and for whose music he felt a "spiritual attachment".[70] He recorded a number of Gibbons's keyboard works and called him his favourite composer,[71][72] despite his better-known admiration for the technical mastery of Bach.[fn 20] He made recordings of piano music by Jean Sibelius (the Sonatines and Kyllikki), Georges Bizet (the Variations Chromatiques de Concert and the Premier nocturne), Richard Strauss (the Piano Sonata, the Five Pieces, and Enoch Arden with Claude Rains), and Paul Hindemith (the three piano sonatas and the sonatas for brass and piano). He also made recordings of the complete piano works Lieder by Arnold Schoenberg. The last thing Gould recorded as a session musician was Strauss: Piano Sonata, Op. 5. It was recorded between September 1 – 3, 1982[73] in New York City.
Collaborations[link]
The success of Gould's collaborations with other artists was to a degree dependent upon their receptiveness to his sometimes unconventional readings of the music. His television collaboration with Yehudi Menuhin in 1965, recording works by Bach, Beethoven and Schoenberg,Stegemann (1993b) was deemed a success because "... Menuhin was ready to embrace the new perspectives opened up by an unorthodox view ...".[74] In 1966, his collaboration with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, however, recording Richard Strauss's Ophelia Lieder, Op. 67, was deemed an "outright fiasco".[74] Schwarzkopf believed in "total fidelity" to the score, but she also objected to the thermal conditions in the recording studio: "The studio was incredibly overheated, which may be good for a pianist but not for a singer: a dry throat is the end as far as singing is concerned. But we persevered nonetheless. It wasn't easy for me. Gould began by improvising something Straussian—we thought he was simply warming up, but no, he continued to play like that throughout the actual recordings, as though Strauss's notes were just a pretext that allowed him to improvise freely...."[75]
Radio documentaries[link]
As the result of Gould's association with CBC Records, he made numerous television and radio programs for CBC Television and CBC Radio. Notable productions include his music-concrète Solitude Trilogy, which consists of The Idea of North, a meditation on Northern Canada and its people, The Latecomers about Newfoundland, and The Quiet in the Land, about Mennonites in Manitoba. All three use a radiophonic electronic-music technique that Gould called contrapuntal radio, in which several people are heard speaking at once—much like the voices in a fugue—manipulated through the use of tape. Gould's experience of driving across northern Ontario while listening to Top 40 radio in 1967 provided the inspiration for one of his most unusual CBC radio pieces, The Search for Petula Clark, a witty and eloquent dissertation on the recordings of the renowned British pop singer, who was then at the peak of her international success[76]
Arrangements and compositions[link]
Main article: List of compositions by Glenn Gould
Gould was not only a composer, but also a prolific arranger of orchestral repertoire for piano. His arrangements include his recorded Wagner and Ravel transcriptions, as well as the operas of Richard Strauss and the symphonies of Schubert and Bruckner,[3] which he played privately for pleasure.[fn 21]
As a teenager, Gould wrote chamber music and piano works in the style of the Second Viennese school of composition. His only significant work was the String Quartet, Op. 1, which he finished when he was in his 20s, and perhaps his cadenzas to Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1. Later works include the Lieberson Madrigal (SATB and piano), and So You Want to Write a Fugue? (SATB with piano or string quartet accompaniment). The majority of his work is published by Schott Music. The recording Glenn Gould: The Composer contains his original works.
The String Quartet Op. 1 (published in 1956 and recorded in 1960) had a mixed reception from critics. For example, the notices from the Christian Science Monitor and The Saturday Review were quite laudatory, while the response from the Montreal Star was less so.[77] There is little critical commentary on Gould's compositional work for the simple reason that there are few compositions. He did not proceed beyond Opus 1. Gould left many compositions unfinished.[78] He attributed his failure as a composer to his lack of a "personal voice".[79] See List of compositions by Glenn Gould for a complete list of works.
Conducting[link]
Towards the end of his life, Gould began conducting. He had earlier directed Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 and the cantata Widerstehe doch der Sünde from the harpsipiano (a piano with metal hammers to simulate a harpsichord's sound), and Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2 (the Urlicht section) in the 1960s. His last recording was as a conductor of Wagner's Siegfried Idyll in its original chamber music scoring. He intended to give up the piano at the age of 50, spending later years conducting, writing about music, and composing.[80]
Legacy and honours[link]
Gould is one of the most acclaimed 20th-century classical musicians. His unique pianistic method, insight into the architecture of compositions, and relatively free interpretation of scores created performances and recordings that were revelatory to many listeners while highly objectionable to others. Philosopher Mark Kingwell writes that "his influence is made inescapable. No performer after him can avoid the example he sets... Now, everyone must perform through him: he can be emulated or rejected, but he cannot be ignored."[81]
Gould left an extensive body of work beyond the keyboard. After his retirement from concert performance, he was increasingly interested in other media, including audio and film documentary and writing, through which he mused on aesthetics, composition, music history, and the effect of the electronic age on the consumption of media. (Gould grew up in Toronto at the same time that Canadian theorists Marshall McLuhan, Northrop Frye, and Harold Innis were making their mark on communications studies.)[82][83] Anthologies of his writing and letters have been published.[fn 22] Library and Archives Canada retains a significant portion of Gould's work called the The Glenn Gould Archive.
One of Gould's performances of the Prelude and Fugue in C major from Book II of The Well-Tempered Clavier was chosen for inclusion on the NASA Voyager Golden Record by a committee headed by Carl Sagan. The disc of recordings was placed on the spacecraft Voyager 1, which is now approaching interstellar space and is the farthest human-made object from Earth.[84]
Gould is a popular subject of biography and even critical analysis. Philosophers such as Giorgio Agamben and Mark Kingwell have interpreted Gould's life and ideas.[85] References to Gould and his work are plentiful in poetry, fiction, and the visual arts.[86] For example, François Girard's Genie Award winning 1993 film, Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould.
The Glenn Gould Studio at the Canadian Broadcasting Centre in Toronto was named after him.
Glenn Gould Foundation[link]
Main article: The Glenn Gould Foundation
In Toronto in 1983, The Glenn Gould Foundation was established to honour Gould and preserve his memory. The Foundation's mission "is to extend awareness of the legacy of Glenn Gould as an extraordinary musician, communicator, and Canadian, and to advance his visionary and innovative ideas into the future." Among other activities, the foundation awards the Glenn Gould Prize every three years[87] to "an individual who has earned international recognition as the result of a highly exceptional contribution to music and its communication, through the use of any communications technologies." The prize consists of $50,000 for an original work by a Canadian artist.
Glenn Gould School[link]
Main article: The Glenn Gould School
The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto decided to adopt the name The Glenn Gould School in 1997, after its most famous alumnus.[88]
Glenn Gould: The Sounds of Genius[link]
To commemorate what would have been Gould's 75th birthday, the Canadian Museum of Civilization held an exhibition titled Glenn Gould: The Sounds of Genius. The multimedia exhibit was held in conjunction with Library and Archives Canada.[89] The exhibition opened September 28, 2007[90] and looked at five aspects of Gould: "The person," "The musician," "The broadcast personality and producer," "The writer and theorist, composer and conductor," and "The Sounds of Genius".[91] Curator Sam Cronk said "The primary purpose of the exhibition is to remind Canadians of the many facets of Gould’s musical genius."[90] John F. Burns of the The New York Times reported, in an interview with Herbert Kallmann, that the exhibit will omit many of Gould's eccentricities in favour of highlighting Gould’s talent. Of the numerous documents, there are essays, scripts, and music scores. The scores on display were used for some of his most important recordings, marked only for breaks between takes.[58] Peter Goddard of the Toronto Star says that the exhibit will give patrons a feeling of what it was like at Gould's home: "The cramped space conveys a sense of what his St. Clair Ave. apartment might have felt like, with his piano at the very centre of things, along with his low piano chair made by his father."[92]
Awards[link]
Glenn Gould received many honours before and after his death, although he personally claimed to despise competition in music.
Juno Awards[link]
The Juno Awards are presented annually by the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Gould won three awards out of his six nominations. However he only personally received one Juno. In 1983, he was posthumously inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.[93]
| Year | Award | Nominated artist and work | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1979 | Best Classical Album of the Year | Himself and Roxolana Roslak for Hindemith: Das Marienleben | Won |
| 1981 | Best Classical Album of the Year | Himself for Bach Toccatas, Vol. 2 | Nominated |
| 1982 | Best Classical Album of the Year | Himself for Bach: Preludes. Fughettas & Fugues | Nominated |
| 1983 | Best Classical Album of the Year | Himself for Haydn: The Six Last Sonatas | Nominated |
| Himself for Bach: The Goldberg Variations | Won | ||
| 1984 | Best Classical Album of the Year | Himself for Brahms: Ballades Op. 10, Rhapsodies Op. 79 | Won |
Grammy Awards[link]
The Grammys are awarded annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Gould won four awards but personally only received one.[94] In 1983, he was honoured posthumously, being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for his 1955 recording (released in 1956) Bach: The Goldberg Variations.[95]
| Year | Award | Nominated artist and work | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1973 | Best Album Notes – Classical | Himself for Hindemith: Sonatas for Piano (Complete) |
Won |
| 1982 | Best Classical Album | Himself and Samuel H. Carter (producer) for Bach: The Goldberg Variations |
Won |
| Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra) |
Himself for Bach: The Goldberg Variations |
Won | |
| 1983 | Best Classical Performance – Instrumental Soloist or Soloists (without orchestra) |
Himself for Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Nos. 12 & 13 |
Won |
See also[link]
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- Glenn Gould Prize
- Music of Canada
- List of Canadian composers
- List of compositions by Glenn Gould
- List of recordings by Glenn Gould
References[link]
- Footnotes
- ^ Bazzana (2003, p. 27) states, "Gould's first name is frequently misspelled as "Glen" in documents (including official ones) dating back to the beginning of his life, and Gould himself used both spellings interchangeably throughout his life." Bazzana (2003, p. 24) further investigated the name-change records in Ontario's Office of the Registrar General and found only a record of his father Bert's name-change to Gould in 1979 (to be able to legally marry with that name); he concludes that the family's name-change was informal and "Gould was still legally 'Glenn Herbert Gold' when he died."
- ^ According to Bazzana (2003, p. 24), "[Gould's] birth certificate gave his name as 'Gold, Glenn Herbert.' The family name had always been Gold [...] All of the documents through 1938 that survive among Gould's papers give his surname as 'Gold,' but beginning at least as early as June 1939, the family name was almost always printed 'Gould' in newspapers, programs, and other sources; the last confirmed publication of 'Gold' is in the program for a church supper and concert on October 27, 1940. The whole family adopted the new surname."
- ^ Full circumstances of the name-change can be found in Bazzana (2003, pp. 24–26).
- ^ According to Bazzana (2003, p. 27), "At least as far back as the mid-eighteenth century, there were no Jews in this particular Gold lineage."
- ^ Friedrich (1990, p. 27) dates this incident on the basis of a discussion with Gould's father, who is cited by Friedrich as stating that it occurred "when the boy was about ten".
- ^ ATCM is Associate, Toronto Conservatory of Music. The Conservatory received it's royal charter in 1947 and became The Royal Conservatory of Music.
- ^ In their documentary film Glenn Gould: A Portrait (Till & Tovell 1985), Glenn Gould's father recalled that Glenn "would not come out [of his bedroom] until he memorized the whole music" [regarding one of Beethoven's piano concertos].
- ^ In outtakes of the Goldberg Variations, Gould describes his practising technique by composing a drill on Variation 11, remarking that he is "still sloppy" and with his usual humour that "a little practising is in order." He is also heard practising other parts of the Goldbergs.
- ^ Gould: "The piano was a means to an end for him, and the end was to approach Beethoven." See Tovell (1959) 07:40 minutes in.
- ^ During Gould's 1957 concert performances in Moscow, Vladimir Ashkenazy labelled him a phenomenon (Till & Tovell 1985).
- ^ Friedrich first states that Gould performed the Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 30 (Opus 109) Friedrich (1990, p. 108) but later states that he performed the Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 31 (Opus 110) Friedrich (1990, p. 354). Bazzana (2003, p. 229) cites Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 30 (Opus 109).
- ^ Originally published in Piano Quarterly in 1974. Reprinted and quoted in Kingwell (2009, p. 159) and Kieser (1993). See Album details at world catalogue.
- ^ These include his famous "self-interview", his book review of a biography written about him (in which he refers to himself in the third person)—not to mention the various appearances of his "alter egos" in print, radio, or TV, including an "extended and rather strained radio joke show", ("Critics Callout Corner" on the Silver Jubilee Album, 1980) which Kingwell (2009, p. 180) comments: "The humour is punishing... There can be no excuse for it, and the one clear lesson of the recording is that it could exist only because of the stature of its creator. Gould in effect called in twenty-five years of chits from Columbia when he got them to release this embarrassing piece of twaddle."
- ^ These comments can be found in essays in Gould (1987).
- ^ Bazzana (2003, pp. 352–368) In a section, quotes Gould: "They say I'm a hypochondriac, and, of course, I am."
- ^ Ostwald (1997, p. 329) specifies "No physical abnormalities were found in the kidneys, prostate, bones, joints, muscles, or other parts of the body that Glenn so often had complained about."
- ^ This is discussed and can be seen in the 1959 National Film Board of Canada documentary film On and Off the Record (Koenig & Kroitor 2004).
- ^ The claim that Gould "never shook hands" is exaggerated. Friedrich (1990, p. 267) quotes Timothy Findley: "Everybody said you never touched his hands, you never try to shake hands with him, but the first thing he did to me was to offer to shake hands. He offered me his hand in a very definite way, none of this tentative, 'don't-touch-me' stuff."
- ^ There are two other Gould recordings of the Goldberg Variations. One is a live recording from 1954 CBC Records (PSCD 2007); the other is live recorded in Moscow on May 7, 1957 and in Salzburg on August 25, 1959 (Sony SRCR 9500). It is part of the The Glenn Gould edition and has been re-released on CD on Sony Classical Records (SMK 52685).
- ^ Gould discusses this in the 1974 Bruno Monsaingeon film series Chemins de la Musique (Ways of the Music). His 24 part series features Gould in four of those parts: La Retraite (The Retreat), L'Alchimiste (The Alchemist), 1974, Partita No. 6 (Bach's Partia No 6).[1] The four parts on Gould were re-released in 2002 on DVD as Gould: the alchemist (Monsaingeon 2002).
- ^ The Schubert can be seen briefly in the film Hereafter (Monsaingeon 2006). The transcription of Bruckner's 8th symphony Gould alludes to in an article (Gould 1987) where he deprecates its "sheer ledger-line unplayability"; the Strauss opera playing can be seen in one of the Humphrey Burton conversations and is referred to by almost everyone who saw him play in private.
- ^ See Gould (1999) for an example.
- Citations
- ^ Bazzana (2003, p. 21)
- ^ Ostwald (1997, p. 35)
- ^ a b c d e Tovell, Vincent (December 4, 1959). Gould in conversation with his friend Vincent Tovell (excerpt): A 26-year-old Gould talks about his fame (CBC Radio. Radio Show: Project '60). CBC Radio 1. archives.cbc.ca. http://ms.radio-canada.ca/archives_new/2002/en/wma/gould19501204er1.wma. Retrieved December 25, 2011.
- ^ Bazzana (2003, p. 30)
- ^ Bazzana (2003, p. 24)
- ^ a b Bazzana, Kevin; Beckwith, John & Payzant, Geoffrey. "The Canadian Encyclopedia". Glenn Gould. Toronto: The Historica Dominion Institute. OCLC 71490162. http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com. Retrieved December 19, 2011.
- ^ Hafner 2009, p. 19 [2]
- ^ Jorgensen, Birgitte (2010). "The Dogs of Pianist Glen Gould". Modern Dog. http://www.moderndogmagazine.com/articles/dogs-pianist-glen-gould/280. Retrieved December, 24 2011.
- ^ Ostwald (1997, p. 39)
- ^ Ostwald (1997, p. 40)
- ^ a b Friedrich (1990, p. 15)
- ^ Ostwald (1997, pp. 44–45)
- ^ Ostwald (1997, p. 48)
- ^ Payzant (1978, p. 2)
- ^ Beckwith, John. "Alberto Guerrero". The Encyclopedia of Music in Canada. The Historica Dominion Institute. http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=U1ARTU0001464. Retrieved December 25, 2011.
- ^ Ostwald (1997, p. 73)
- ^ Ostwald (1997, p. 71)
- ^ a b c "Glenn Gould". soundbug.com. Misja.com. http://soundbug.com/artist/2127. Retrieved December 25, 2011.
- ^ Friedrich (1990, p. 31)
- ^ a b Bazzana (2003, p. 76)
- ^ Dubal (1985, pp. 180–183)
- ^ Stegemann (1993a, p. 15)
- ^ "Glenn Gould, Biography". sonymasterworks.com. Sony BMG Masterworks. Archived from the original on February 10, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080210175113/http://www.sonyclassical.com/artists/gould/bio.html. Retrieved March 12, 2009.
- ^ Host: Gordon Burwash (June 23, 1957). "Glenn Gould is a rising star » The Story". CBC Newsmagazine. .. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. CBC Television. http://archives.cbc.ca/arts_entertainment/music/clips/1670/. Retrieved December 25, 2011.
- ^ Friedrich (1990, p. 147)
- ^ Friedrich (1990, p. 100)
- ^ Friedrich (1990, p. 32)
- ^ Friedrich (1990, p. 35)
- ^ Friedrich (1990, p. 36)
- ^ Friedrich (1990, p. 38)
- ^ Bazzana (2003, p. 163)
- ^ Kelly, Kevin (March 22, 1958). "Glenn Gould at Jordan Hall". The Boston Globe. www.bostonglobe.com (The New York Times Company). ISSN 0743-1791. OCLC 66652431.
- ^ Gould (1987)
- ^ Bazzana (2003, p. 229)
- ^ Bazzana (2003, pp. 232–233)
- ^ Kingwell (2009, pp. 158–159)
- ^ Gould (1999, p. 205) Editor's introduction to the essay.
- ^ Gould (1999, p. 208)
- ^ Kingwell (2009, p. 194)
- ^ Kingwell (2009, p. 166)
- ^ Bazzana (2003, p. 47)
- ^ Greenfield, Layton & March (1988, p. 44)
- ^ Friedrich (1990, p. 50)
- ^ Ostwald (1997, p. 18)
- ^ Friedrich (1990, p. 51)
- ^ Ostwald (1997, pp. 304–306)
- ^ a b Bazzana (2003, p. 158)
- ^ Announcer: James Fassett, Guest: Leonard Bernstein (April 25, 1962). "Leonard Bernstein and Glenn Gould don't see eye to eye". CBC Radio Special. .. New York. CBC Radio. CBC Radio 1. http://archives.cbc.ca/on_this_day/04/25/. Retrieved December 23, 2011.
- ^ Schonberg, Harold C. (April 7, 1962). "Music: Inner Voices of Glenn Gould; Pianist Plays Them in Addition to Brahms Bernstein Speech Hits at the Interpretation (article abstract)". The New York Times. nytimes.com (Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr.): p. 17. ISSN 0362-4331. OCLC 1645522. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0F1FFC395D117B93C5A9178FD85F468685F9. Retrieved December 23, 2011.
- ^ Friedrich (1990, p. 62)
- ^ "Musician's Medical Maladies". ahsl.arizona.edu. Arizona Health Sciences Library. Archived from the original on December 30, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20071230140202/http://www.ahsl.arizona.edu/about/ahslexhibits/musicianmedicalmaladies/musicians.cfm. Retrieved March 12, 2009.
- ^ Stegemann (1993a, p. 14)
- ^ Kingwell 2009, pp. 125–128 On "play" chapter 11.
- ^ Interviewer: Hugh Thomson (July 15, 1958). "Glenn Gould: Variations on an Artist » Gould on his eccentricities » Did you know?". Assignment. .. Toronto. CBC Radio. CBC Radio 1. http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-68-320-1673/arts_entertainment/glenn_gould/. Retrieved March 12, 2009.
- ^ Ostwald (1997)
- ^ Bruno, Monsaingeon (1983). "Introduction to The Last Puritan". collectionscanada.gc.ca (Ottawa: Library and Archives Canada). http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/glenngould/028010-4020.15-e.html. Retrieved December 15, 2011.
- ^ a b c Clarkson, Michael (August 25, 2007). "The secret life of Glenn Gould". Toronto Star. www.thestar.com (Torstar Corporation). OCLC 679765547. http://www.thestar.com/article/249787. Retrieved May 29, 2009.
- ^ a b Burns, John F. (May 29, 1988). "OTTAWA; An Exhibition Of Glenn Gould Memorabilia Sheds A Little Light on A Musical Enigma". The New York Times. nytimes.com (Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr.). ISSN 0362-4331. OCLC 1645522. http://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/29/arts/ottawa-exhibition-glenn-gould-memorabilia-sheds-little-light-musical-enigma.html?scp=1&sq=An%20Exhibition%20Of%20Glenn%20Gould%20Memorabilia%20Sheds%20A%20Little%20Light%20on%20A%20Musical%20Enigma&st=cse. Retrieved December 18, 2011.
- ^ Ostwald (1997, pp. 325–328)
- ^ "Glenn Gould Toronto Walk". glenngould.ca. Glenn Gould Foundation. http://glenngould.ca/glenn-gould-toronto-walk/. Retrieved December 23, 2011.
- ^ Bazzana (2003, p. 263)
- ^ Gould, Glenn (1966). "The Prospects of Recording – Resources – The Glenn Gould Archive". collectionscanada.gc.ca (Ottawa: Library and Archives Canada). http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/glenngould/028010-4020.01-e.html#d. Retrieved December 8, 2010.
- ^ Ostwald (1997, p. 119)
- ^ "The Variations of Glenn Gould: Legendary, Eccentric Pianist Launched His Career by Playing Bach". www.npr.org. National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1967623. Retrieved December 24, 2011.
- ^ Tommasini, Anthony (September 1, 2002). "Two faces of a pianist who had many". The New York Times. nytimes.com (Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr.) 151: p. AR20. ISSN 0362-4331. OCLC 1645522. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/01/arts/music-recordings-two-faces-of-a-pianist-who-had-many.html?pagewanted=2&src=pm. Retrieved December 22, 2011.
- ^ In "Bach the Nonconformist"; Roberts (ed.), 100
- ^ "Of Mozart and Related Matters. Glenn Gould in Conversation with Bruno Monsaingeon". The Piano Quarterly. www.pianoandkeyboard.com (San Anselmo: The String Letter Press): p. 33. Fall 1976. ISSN 0031-9554. Reprinted in 1990. See also Ostwald (1997, p. 249)
- ^ Ostwald (1997, p. 249)
- ^ Ostwald (1997, p. 257)
- ^ Ostwald (1997, pp. 256–257)
- ^ "Variations on Gould". cbc.ca/radio2. CBC Radio 2. http://www.cbc.ca/radio2/feature-gouldLibrary.html. Retrieved December 24, 2011.
- ^ Friedrich (1990, p. 141)
- ^ "Glenn Gould » The CBC Legacy » Timeline of a Musical Genius". cbc.ca/gould. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. http://www.cbc.ca/gould/timeline/. Retrieved December 25, 2011.
- ^ a b Stegemann (1993b, p. 10)
- ^ Gould (1992, p. 12)
- ^ Announcer: Ken Haslam, Commentator: Glenn Gould (December 11, 1967). "Glenn Gould's fascination with Petula Clark (excerpt)". The Best of IDEAS. .. Toronto. 4:34 minutes in. CBC Radio. CBC Radio 1. http://archives.cbc.ca/arts_entertainment/music/clips/1708/. Retrieved December 17, 2011.
- ^ Friedrich (1990, pp. 165–166)
- ^ Friedrich (1990, p. 170)
- ^ Friedrich (1990, p. 172)
- ^ Friedrich (1990, p. 315)
- ^ Kingwell (2009, p. 59)
- ^ Kingwell (2009, p. xi) "Introduction" by John Ralston Saul
- ^ Kingwell (2009, pp. 34–35)
- ^ "Voyager – Music From Earth". voyager.jpl.nasa.gov. Jet Propulsion Laboratory. August 20, 1977. http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/music.html. Retrieved March 12, 2009.
- ^ Kingwell (2009, pp. 62 & 75)
- ^ Kingwell (2009, notes 3, 13, 18)
- ^ "Dr. José Antonio Abreu Awarded Coveted 2008 Glenn Gould Prize" (Press release). Aerial Communications Group. February 14, 2008. http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/377803/dr-jose-antonio-abreu-awarded-coveted-2008-glenn-gould-prize. Retrieved December 18, 2011.
- ^ "The Glenn Gould School » Key Facts and History". learning.rcmusic.ca. Royal Conservatory of Music. 1997. http://learning.rcmusic.ca/glenn-gould-school/about-glenn-gould-school/key-facts-and-history. Retrieved December 20, 2011.
- ^ "Glenn Gould: The Sounds of Genius » Credits". civilization.ca. Canadian Museum of Civilization. 2007. http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhibitions/cmc/gould/gould05e.shtml. Retrieved December 18, 2011.
- ^ a b Staff Report (May 15, 2007). "Home » KlassikNet: Classical Music » News » GLENN GOULD EXHIBITION SET TO OPEN THIS AUTUMN". culturekiosque.com. Euromedia Group. http://www.culturekiosque.com/klassik/news/glenn_gould.html. Retrieved December 18, 2011.
- ^ "Glenn Gould: The Sounds of Genius » The exhibition". civilization.ca. Canadian Museum of Civilization. 2007. http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhibitions/cmc/gould/gould01e.shtml. Retrieved December 18, 2011.
- ^ Goddard, Peter (February 16, 2008). "At the Galleries". Toronto Star. www.thestar.com (Torstar Corporation): Arts and Entertainment p. E05. OCLC 679765547.
- ^ "Juno Awards Database". junoawards.ca. Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. http://junoawards.ca/awards/artist-summary/?artist_name=Glenn+Gould&submit=Search. Retrieved December 18, 2011.
- ^ "Home Past » Winners Search". www.grammy.org. National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. http://www.grammy.com/nominees/search?artist=Glenn+Gould&title=&year=All&genre=All. Retrieved December 18, 2011.
- ^ "Home » The Recording Academy » The GRAMMY Awards » GRAMMY Hall Of Fame". www.grammy.org. National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. http://www.grammy.org/recording-academy/awards/hall-of-fame#g. Retrieved December 19, 2011.
- Bibliography
- Bazzana, Kevin (2003). Wondrous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. ISBN 978-0-7710-1101-6. OCLC 52286240. http://books.google.ca/books?id=Fj_c-WF9sBIC&lpg=PP5&dq=Wondrous%20Strange%3A%20The%20Life%20and%20Art%20of%20Glenn%20Gould&pg=PP5#v=onepage&q&f=true.
- Dubal, David (1985). The World of the Concert Pianist. London: Gollancz. ISBN 978-0-575-03654-3. OCLC 12112836. http://books.google.com/?id=Sn2FQgAACAAJ&dq=The+World+of+the+Concert+Pianist.
- Friedrich, Otto (1990) [Reprint. Originally published: New York: Random House, 1989]. Glenn Gould: A Life and Variations. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-0-679-73207-5. OCLC 21445409. http://books.google.com/?id=ZJoQAQAAMAAJ&q=Glenn+Gould:+A+Life+and+Variations&dq=Glenn+Gould:+A+Life+and+Variations.
- Gould, Glenn (1987). Page, Tim. ed. The Glenn Gould Reader. Boston: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-14852-2. OCLC 751249764. http://books.google.com/?id=r2qzQgAACAAJ&dq=0571148522.
- Greenfield, Edward; Layton, Robert & March, Ivan (1988). The New Penguin Guide to Compact Discs and Cassettes. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-046829-8. OCLC 18804114. http://books.google.ca/books?id=JSk_s3YqJbQC&dq=editions:z5HZMH8UU4UC.
- Hafner, Katie (2009). A Romance on Three Legs : Glenn Gould's Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. ISBN 978-0-7710-3762-7. OCLC 0771037627. http://books.google.ca/books?id=m25e7t4efpgC&lpg=PP1&dq=A%20Romance%20on%20Three%20Legs&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=true.
- Kingwell, Mark (2009). Extraordinary Canadians Glenn Gould. Toronto: Penguin Canada. ISBN 978-0-670-06850-0. OCLC 460273223. http://books.google.com/?id=Er3x5AALbMkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Glenn+Gould.+Extraordinary+Canadians#v=onepage&q=Glenn%20Gould.%20Extraordinary%20Canadians&f=false.
- Ostwald, Peter F. (1997). Glenn Gould: The Ecstasy and Tragedy of Genius. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-04077-7. OCLC 35586754. http://books.google.ca/books?id=V0YCotrV9NAC&lpg=PP1&dq=Glenn%20Gould%3A%20The%20Ecstasy%20and%20Tragedy%20of%20Genius&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=true.
- Payzant, Geoffrey (1978). Glenn Gould: Music & Mind. Toronto; London: Van Nostrand Reinhold. ISBN 0-442-29802-1. OCLC 16422990. http://books.google.ca/books?id=YPCcXr7tFVoC&lpg=PP1&dq=Glenn%20Gould%3A%20Music%20%26%20Mind&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=true.
- Multimedia sources
- Gould, Glenn (1992). The Glenn Gould Edition Richard Strauss: Ophelia-Lieder: Three Songs after Shakespeare, Op. 67; Enoch Arden: A Melodrama for Piano after Tennyson, Op.38; Piano Sonata, Op. 5; Five Piano Pieces, Op. 3 (Booklet). Glenn Gould & Claude Rains & Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. New York City: Sony Classical Records. ASIN B0000028O4. SM2K 52657. http://collectionscanada.gc.ca/ourl/res.php?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&url_tim=2011-12-27T08%3A15%3A46Z&url_ctx_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Actx&rft_dat=12663008&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fcollectionscanada.gc.ca%3Aamicus&lang=eng.
- Kieser, Karen (1993) (in English). Glenn Gould Bach: original CBC broadcasts (Booklet). Glenn Gould. Toronto: CBC Records. OCLC 609984589. PSCD 2005. Lay summary.
- Koenig, Wolf & Kroitor, Roman (2004). Glenn Gould: on and off the record (DVD release. Originally produced in 1959 for the television program Documentary '60). Montreal: National Film Board of Canada; Image Entertainment (Distributor). OCLC 130741039. UPC 014381206920. http://collectionscanada.gc.ca/ourl/res.php?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&url_tim=2011-12-23T05%3A52%3A07Z&url_ctx_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Actx&rft_dat=30899711&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fcollectionscanada.gc.ca%3Aamicus&lang=eng. Retrieved December 23, 2011. Lay summary.
- Monsaingeon, Bruno (2002) (in English (interviews), French (commentary). Sub-titles: German, English, French, Spanish). Glenn Gould: the alchemist (DVD re-release of the four parts featuring Gould. His 24 part 1974 series was titled Chemins de la Musique.). ORTF; EMI Classics (Distributor). OCLC 52719241. UPC 724349012899. http://collectionscanada.gc.ca/ourl/res.php?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&url_tim=2011-12-23T04%3A18%3A53Z&url_ctx_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Actx&rft_dat=28403434&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fcollectionscanada.gc.ca%3Aamicus&lang=eng. Retrieved December 23, 2011. Lay summary.
- Stegemann, Michael (1993a). Bach: Partitas BWV 825–830; Preludes and Fugues (Booklet). Glenn Gould. Sony Classical Records. OCLC 222101706. SM2K 52597.
- Till, Eric & Tovell, Vincent (1985). Evans, Wayne. ed. Glenn Gould: A Portrait (VHS Videotape released October 22, 1991). West Long Branch: CBC Enterprises; Kultur International Films (Distributor). OCLC 22897163. UPC 032031118836. http://collectionscanada.gc.ca/ourl/res.php?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&url_tim=2011-12-23T01%3A27%3A55Z&url_ctx_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Actx&rft_dat=23396582&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fcollectionscanada.gc.ca%3Aamicus&lang=eng. Retrieved December 23, 2011. Lay summary.
Further reading[link]
- Cott, Jonathan (2005). Conversations with Glenn Gould. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-11623-9. OCLC 475021622. http://books.google.ca/books?id=dKCdsOq3X4sC&lpg=PP1&dq=Glenn%20Gould%3A&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=true.
- Konieczny, Vladimir (2008). Glenn Gould: a musical force. Toronto: Dundurn Press. ISBN 978-1-55002-819-5. OCLC 471481579. http://books.google.ca/books?id=EL3ik0iCXjEC&lpg=PP1&dq=Glenn%20Gould%3A&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=true.
External links[link]
|
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Glenn Gould |
- Media related to Glenn Gould at Wikimedia Commons
- Glenn Gould Official website
- Glenn Gould recordings owned by Sony Music
- The Glenn Gould Foundation including the GlennGould Magazine
- The Glenn Gould Archive from Library and Archives Canada
- Glenn Gould: Variations on an Artist from the CBC Digital Archives
- Glenn Gould at Société Radio-Canada from the CBC French language Digital Archives
- Glenn Gould pictures and writings by film director Bruno Monsaingeon
- Glenn Gould collected news and commentary at The New York Times
- Works by or about Glenn Gould in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Video
- Bach & Friends: Glenn Gould (2010) from director Michael Lawrence
- Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould (2010) from co-directors Peter Raymont and Michèle Hozer
- Glenn Gould on Myspace
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Gould, Glenn Herbert |
| Alternative names | Gold, Glenn Herbert (legal); Gould, Glen |
| Short description | Canadian classical pianist |
| Date of birth | September 25, 1932 |
| Place of birth | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Date of death | October 4, 1982 |
| Place of death | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
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