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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.
  
  wn.com/Chicago
• 
  San Diego
  San Diego /ˌsæn diːˈeɪɡoʊ/ is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round climate, natural deep-water harbor, extensive beaches, long association with the U.S. Navy, and recent emergence as a healthcare and biotechnology enclave. The population was 1,301,617 at the 2010 census.
  Historically home to the Kumeyaay people, San Diego was the first site visited by Europeans on what is now the West Coast of the United States. Upon landing in San Diego Bay in 1542, Juan Cabrillo claimed the entire area for Spain, forming the basis for the settlement of Alta California 200 years later. The Presidio and Mission of San Diego, founded in 1769, were the first European settlement in what is now California. In 1821, San Diego became part of newly independent Mexico, and in 1850, became part of the United States following the Mexican-American War and the admission of California to the union.
  
  wn.com/San_Diego

• Akio Kashiwagi
  Akio Kashiwagi (柏木昭男, Kashiwagi Akio^?) a.k.a. "The Warrior"(c.1938 - January 3, 1992) was a wealthy Tokyo-based real estate investor who was famous for the large amounts of money he wagered at Las Vegas and Atlantic City casinos.
  Kashiwagi owned a home and office in Tokyo, out of which he ran his business, Kashiwagi Shoji Co. He stated he was the sole principal of this real estate and investment business. He claimed an income of a hundred million dollars a year and a billion dollars in assets, but his finances were so secretive that a credit review for casino officials declared his profession only as "Business".
  Kashiwagi regularly played baccarat for large sums, betting 100,000 or 200,000 dollars a hand on the game, for hours at a time. He got into a legal wrangle with Donald Trump's Atlantic City casino in 1990 over a deal in which Kashiwagi was to bet $12 million. Kashiwagi left the casino with two million dollars in chips, having lost ten million. He claimed the casino had failed to hold up its end of the deal.
  
  wn.com/Akio_Kashiwagi
• Allen Dorfman
  Allen Dorfman (1923, Detroit, Michigan – 1983 Chicago, Illinois) was an American attorney, and a leading official of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT). He was a close associate of longtime IBT President Jimmy Hoffa. Dorfman was convicted on several felony counts, and was violently murdered in 1983.
  Allen Dorfman was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1923 to a working-class family and attended Marshall High School in Chicago, Illinois. He enlisted in the US Marines and won a Silver Star at the battle of Iwo Jima. He attended the University of Illinois and taught physical education there. He was the stepson of Paul "Red" Dorfman, who was head of the Chicago Waste Handler's Union and a kingpin in the Chicago Outfit.
  
  wn.com/Allen_Dorfman
• Anthony Spilotro
  Anthony "The Ant" Spilotro (May 19, 1938 – June 14, 1986) was an Italian-American mobster and enforcer for the Chicago Outfit in Las Vegas, Nevada during the 1970s and 1980s. His job was to protect and oversee the Outfit's illegal casino profits (the "skim"). Spilotro replaced Outfit member Marshall Caifano in Las Vegas.
  Born Anthony John Spilotro (pronounced spil-oh-tro according to William Roemer when he asked John Spilotro how Pasquale, Sr. pronounced it), he was nicknamed "Tony the Ant" by the media after FBI agent William F. Roemer, Jr. referred to Spilotro as "that little pissant". Since the media couldn't use "pissant", they shortened it to the "Ant". Ant is also short for Anthony. He was also called Tough Tony.
  The fourth of six children, Spilotro was born and raised in Chicago. He attended Burbank Elementary School, and entered Steinmetz High School in 1953. His parents, Pasquale Spilotro, Sr. (who emigrated from Triggiano, in the Italian province of Bari, from the southeastern region of Puglia, and arrived at Ellis Island in 1914) and Antoinette Spilotro, ran Patsy's Restaurant. When Pasquale, Sr. arrived in America, however, he had no money, education, or particular skill. Unlike most Italian immigrants who settled in "The Patch," (Near West Side, located around Taylor Street and Halsted Street, a mile from The Loop), the Spilotros lived at 2152 North Melvina Avenue. Mobsters such as Salvatore "Sam" Giancana, Jackie "The Lackey" Cerone, Gus Alex and Francesco Nitti ("Frank The Enforcer") regularly dined at Patsy's, which was on the west side at Grand Avenue and Ogden Avenue, using its parking lot for mob meetings. In 1954, Patsy, Sr. suffered a fatal aneurysm and died at age 45.
  
  wn.com/Anthony_Spilotro
• Barbara De Fina
  Barbara De Fina is an American film producer.
  Among her well known films are GoodFellas, Casino, The Color of Money, Kundun, The Last Temptation of Christ and The Grifters. Many of the films De Fina has produced have been directed by Martin Scorsese, to whom she was married from 1985 to 1991.
  Barbara De Fina also produced Michael Jackson's music video Bad with Quincy Jones.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Barbara_De_Fina
• Bill Allison
  For the 19th-century baseball player, see Bill Allison (baseball)
  William "Bill" Allison is a former casino owner and actor. Allison has appeared in many cameo roles, such as Ocean's Eleven as an old guard, but his acting experience started when he was hired as a consultant for the production of Martin Scorsese's 1995 film, Casino, due to his casino experiences. In Casino, Allison played the Latter-day Saint (Mormon) Bagman, John Nance, who was based on Jay Vandermark.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Bill_Allison
• 
  Brenda Lee
  Brenda Mae Tarpley (born December 11, 1944), known as Brenda Lee, is an American performer who sang rockabilly, pop and country music, and had 37 US chart hits during the 1960s, a number surpassed only by Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Ray Charles and Connie Francis. She is best known for her 1960 hit "I'm Sorry", and 1958's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree", a US holiday standard for more than 50 years.
  At 4 ft 9 inches tall, she received the nickname Little Miss Dynamite in 1957 after recording the song "Dynamite"; and was one of the earliest pop stars to have a major contemporary international following.
  Lee's popularity faded in the late 1960s as her voice matured, but she continued a successful recording career by returning to her roots as a country singer with a string of hits through the 1970s and 1980s. She is a member of the Rock and Roll, Country Music, Rockabilly and Hit Parade Halls of Fame. Lee currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
  Lee was born Brenda Mae Tarpley in the charity ward of Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. She weighed 4 pounds 11 ounces at birth. She attended grade schools wherever her father found work, primarily in the corridor between Atlanta and Augusta. Her family was poor, living hand-to-mouth; she shared a bed with her two siblings in a series of three-room houses without running water. Life centered on her parents finding work, their extended family, and the Baptist Church, where she sang solos every Sunday.
  
  wn.com/Brenda_Lee
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  Dean Martin
  Dean Martin (born Dino Paul Crocetti; June 7, 1917 – December 25, 1995) was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?". Nicknamed the "King of Cool", he was one of the members of the "Rat Pack" and a major star in four areas of show business: concert stage/night clubs, recordings, motion pictures, and television.
  Martin was born in Steubenville, Ohio, to Italian parents, Gaetano and Angela Crocetti (née Barra). His father was from Montesilvano, Pescara, Abruzzo, Italy, and his mother was an Italian of part Neapolitan and part Sicilian ancestry. Martin was the younger of two sons. His brother was named Bill. Martin spoke only Italian until he started school. He attended Grant Elementary School in Steubenville, and took up the drums as a hobby as a teenager. He was the target of much ridicule for his broken English and ultimately dropped out of Steubenville High School in the 10th grade because he thought that he was smarter than his teachers. He delivered bootleg liquor, served as a speakeasy croupier, was a blackjack dealer, worked in a steel mill and boxed as welterweight. He grew up a neighbor to Jimmy the Greek.
  
  wn.com/Dean_Martin
• 
  Dick Smothers
  Richard Remick "Dick" Smothers (born November 20, 1939) is an American actor, comedian, composer and musician. He is best known for being half of the musical comedy team the Smothers Brothers, with his older brother Tom.
  Smothers was born in New York City, the son of Ruth (née Remick), a homemaker; and Thomas B. Smothers, an army officer who died a POW in April 1945. After moving to Southern California, Dick attended Verdugo Hills High School in Tujunga, California, and graduated from Redondo Union High School in Redondo Beach, California, and later attended San José State University then called San José State College. At SJSC, Smothers participated as a distance runner for the track team (coached by Lloyd (Bud) Winter).
  The Smothers Brothers have appeared on numerous television shows over the past three decades, including two shows of their own: The Smothers Brothers Show, a sit-com from 1965 to 1966; and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, a variety show in 1967. Without Tom, he also appeared in the 1995 Martin Scorsese-directed film Casino in an uncharacteristically serious role as a dishonest Nevada State Senator.
  
  wn.com/Dick_Smothers
• Dinah Washington
  Dinah Washington, born Ruth Lee Jones (August 29, 1924 – December 14, 1963), was an American blues, R&B and jazz singer. She has been cited as "the most popular black female recording artist of the '50s", and called "The Queen of the Blues". She is a 1986 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.
  Ruth Jones was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States, and moved to Chicago as a child. Dinah became deeply involved in gospel and played piano for the choir in St. Luke's Baptist Church while she was still in elementary school. She sang gospel music in church and played piano, directing her church choir in her teens and being a member of the Sallie Martin Gospel Singers. She sang lead with the first female gospel singers formed by Ms Martin, who was co-founder of the Gospel Singers Convention. Jones' involvement with the gospel choir occurred after she won an amateur contest at Chicago's Regal Theater where she sang "I Can't Face the Music".^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Dinah_Washington
• 
  Don Rickles
  Donald Jay "Don" Rickles (born May 8, 1926) is an American stand-up comedian and actor. A frequent guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Rickles has acted in comedic and dramatic roles, but is best known as an insult comic.
  Rickles was born in the New York City borough of Queens to Max Rickles, who had emigrated in 1902 with his parents Joseph and Frances Rickles from Kaunas, Lithuania (then in the Russian Empire), and Etta (Feldman) Rickles, born in New York to immigrant parents from the Austrian Empire. His family was Jewish and spoke Yiddish at home. Rickles grew up in the Jackson Heights area.
  After graduating from Newtown High School, Rickles enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served during World War II on the USS Cyrene as a seaman first class. He was honorably discharged in 1946. Two years later, he studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and then played bit parts on television. Frustrated by a lack of acting work, Rickles began doing stand-up comedy. He became known as an insult comedian by responding to his hecklers. The audience enjoyed these insults more than his prepared material, and he incorporated them into his act. When he began his career in the early 1950s he started calling ill-mannered members of the audience a "hockey puck". His style was similar to an older insult comic, "Mr. Warmth" Jack E. Leonard, though Rickles denies that Leonard influenced his style.
  
  wn.com/Don_Rickles
• Eddie Harris
  Eddie Harris (October 20, 1934 – November 5, 1996) was an American jazz musician, best known for playing tenor saxophone and for introducing the electrically amplified saxophone. He was also fluent on the electric piano and organ. His best-known compositions are "Freedom Jazz Dance", recorded and popularized by Miles Davis in the 1960s and "Listen Here".
  Harris was born and grew up in Chicago. His father was originally from Cuba, and his mother from New Orleans. Like other successful Chicago musicians, such as Nat King Cole, Dinah Washington, Clifford Jordan, Johnny Griffin, Gene Ammons, Julian Priester, and Bo Diddley (among others), young Eddie Harris studied music under Walter Dyett at DuSable High School. He later studied music at Roosevelt University, by which time he was proficient on piano, vibraphone, and tenor saxophone. While in college, he performed professionally with Gene Ammons.
  After college, he was drafted into the United States Army and while serving in Europe, he was accepted into the 7th Army Band, which also included Don Ellis, Leo Wright, and Cedar Walton.
  
  wn.com/Eddie_Harris
• Frank Cullotta
  Frank Cullota also known as "The Las Vegas boss" was an enforcer for the Chicago Outfit and was a good friend of notorious mobster Tony Spilotro.
  He was born Frank Cullota on April 19, 1938 in Chicago, Illinois. He entered Steinmetz High School in 1953. He began his decades-long criminal career as a teenager, graduating from petty theft to burglary, armed robbery, arson and murder. While growing up he had an argument with another boy over a dispute over who could sell newspapers on a certain street, the boy's name was Anthony Spilotro. The two then became friends and criminal allies when they found out their fathers worked together. Spilotro went on to become a made man and feared enforcer of the Chicago Outfit. Cullotta's father died on 1947 in a car crash during a high speed police pursuit.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Frank_Cullotta
• Frank Rosenthal
  Frank Lawrence "Lefty" Rosenthal (June 12, 1929 – October 13, 2008) was a professional sports bettor, former Las Vegas casino executive and organized crime associate. The film Casino is based on his career in Las Vegas.
  Rosenthal was born in Chicago, Illinois, growing up in the city's West Side. As a youth, Rosenthal learned sports betting in the bleachers of Wrigley Field, and would often skip classes to attend Chicago sporting events. By the mid 1950s, he was working with the Chicago Outfit. Chosen for his gambling ability, Rosenthal ran the biggest illegal bookmaking office in the US on behalf of the Mafia. Based in Cicero, Illinois under the guise of the Cicero Home Improvement company, the Outfit and Rosenthal bought "contracts" from sports bribers to fix sporting events. After being indicted as a co-conspirator on multiple sports bribery charges, Rosenthal moved the operation to North Bay Village in Miami to avoid attention.
  By 1961 Rosenthal had acquired a national reputation as a sports bettor, oddsmaker and handicapper and was frequently seen in the company of prominent Chicago Outfit members Jackie Cerone and Fiore Buccieri while living in Miami. At this time Rosenthal was issued with a subpoena to appear before Senator McClellan's subcommittee on Gambling and Organized Crime, accused of match fixing. He invoked the Fifth Amendment 37 times and was never charged. Due to this he was barred from racing establishments in Florida. Despite his frequent arrests for illegal gambling and bookmaking, Rosenthal was convicted only once, pleading no contest in 1963, for allegedly bribing New York University player Ray Paprocky to shave points for a college basketball game in North Carolina. Rosenthal was also a suspect in multiple business and car bombings in the greater Miami area during the 1960s. It was at this time the FBI opened an ongoing case file on Rosenthal which amassed to 300 pages. Once again to escape police attention, Rosenthal moved to Las Vegas in 1968.
  
  wn.com/Frank_Rosenthal
• Frank Vincent
  Frank Vincent Gattuso (born August 4, 1939), known professionally as Frank Vincent, is an American actor, musician, author and entrepreneur. He is a favorite performer of director Martin Scorsese, having played important roles in three of Scorsese's most acclaimed films: Raging Bull (1980), Goodfellas (1990) and Casino (1995). He has also lent his voice talents to video games. He played the New York Boss Phil Leotardo in the HBO series The Sopranos.
  Vincent, an Italian American, was born in North Adams, Massachusetts. His father, Frank Vincent Gattuso, Sr., was at one time an iron worker. but in later life a businessman. Vincent has two brothers: Nick and Jimmy, and a half sister, Fran Fernandez. His father was one of six children Lucy/Lucille (Lucia), Phillip (Filippo), Tony (Antonio), Frank, James [Jimmy] and Cecilia [Ceil]). All the boys were born in North Adams, Massachusetts and the girls in New York to Italian immigrants Nicolò Gattuso and Francesca Di Peri. He is of Sicilian (paternal grandfather) and Neapolitan descent.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Frank_Vincent
• 
  Frankie Avalon
  Frankie Avalon (born September 18, 1939) is an American actor, singer, playwright, and former teen idol.
  By the time he was 12, Avalon was on U.S. television playing his trumpet. As a teenager he played with Bobby Rydell in Rocco and the Saints. In 1959, "Venus" (5 weeks #1) and "Why" went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100. "Why" was the last #1 of the 1950s. Avalon had 31 charted U.S. Billboard singles from 1958 to late 1962, including "Just Ask Your Heart" (U.S. #7), "I'll Wait For You" (U.S. #15), "Bobby Sox to Stockings" (U.S. #8), and "A Boy Without a Girl" (U.S. #10). Most of his hits were written and/or produced by Bob Marcucci, head of Chancellor Records.
  Teamed frequently with Annette Funicello, Avalon starred in a number of popular "beach" comedy movies during the 1960s. The wholesome and romantic coupling of "Frankie and Annette" in summer movies such as Beach Party and Beach Blanket Bingo became iconic figures in American films during that era.
  Avalon also had straight dramatic parts in the John Wayne historical western film The Alamo, as well as the science-fiction story Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961) with Barbara Eden.
  
  wn.com/Frankie_Avalon
• 
  Georg Solti
  Sir Georg Solti, KBE,  /ˈdʒɔrdʒ ˈʃɒlti/ (21 October 1912 – 5 September 1997) was an orchestral and operatic conductor, best known for his appearances with opera companies in Munich, Frankfurt and London, and as a long-serving music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Born in Hungary, he studied in Budapest with Béla Bartók, Leo Weiner and Ernő Dohnányi. In the 1930s, he was a répétiteur at the Hungarian State Opera and worked at the Salzburg Festival for Arturo Toscanini. His career was interrupted by the rise of the Nazis, and because he was a Jew he fled the increasingly restrictive anti-semitic laws in 1938. After conducting a season of Russian ballet in London at the Royal Opera House he found refuge in Switzerland, where he remained during the Second World War. Not permitted to conduct there, he earned a living as a pianist.
  After the war Solti was appointed musical director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich from 1946. In 1952 he moved to the Frankfurt Opera, where he remained in charge for nine years. He took German citizenship in 1953. In 1961 he became musical director of the Covent Garden Opera Company in London. During his ten-year tenure, he introduced changes that saw standards raised to the highest international levels. Under his musical directorship the status of the company was recognised with the grant of the title "the Royal Opera". He became a British subject in 1972.
  
  wn.com/Georg_Solti
• 
  Georges Delerue
  Georges Delerue (12 March 1925 – 20 March 1992) was a French composer who composed over 350 scores for cinema and television. Delerue won numerous important film music awards, including an Academy Award for A Little Romance (1980), three César Awards (1979, 1980, 1981), two ASCAP Awards (1988, 1990), and one Gemini Award for Sword of Gideon (1987). He was also nominated for four additional Academy Awards for Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), The Day of the Dolphin (1973), Julia (1977), and Agnes of God (1985), four additional César Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and one Genie Award for Black Robe (1991).
  The French newspaper Le Figaro named him "the Mozart of cinema." Delerue was the first composer to win three consecutive César Awards for Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (1979), Love on the Run (1980), and The Last Metro (1981). Georges Delerue was named Commander of Arts and Letters, one of France's highest honours.
  Georges Delerue was born 12 March 1925 in Roubaix, France to Georges Delerue and Marie Lhoest. He was raised in a musical household; his grandfather lead an amateur chorale group and his mother sang and played piano at family gatherings. By the age of fourteen he was playing clarinet at the local music conservatory. In 1940 he was forced to abandon his studies at the Turgot Institute in order to work at a factory to help support his family. He continued playing clarinet with local bands, eventually transitioning to piano under the instruction of Madame Picavet-Bacquart. He studied Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, and Grieg, and was particularly inspired by Richard Strauss. Following a long convalescence after being diagnosed with scoliosis, Georges decided to become a composer.
  
  wn.com/Georges_Delerue
• Harry Nilsson
  Harry Edward Nilsson III (June 15, 1941 – January 15, 1994) was an American singer-songwriter who achieved the peak of his commercial success in the early 1970s. On all but his earliest recordings he is credited as Nilsson. He is known for the hit singles "Everybody's Talkin'" (1969), "Without You" (1971), and "Coconut" (1972). Nilsson's career is also notable for the fact that he was one of the few major pop-rock recording artists of his era to achieve significant commercial success without ever performing major public concerts or undertaking regular tours.
  He was awarded Grammys for two of his recordings; best male contemporary vocal in 1969 for "Everybody's Talkin'", the theme song to the Academy Award-winning movie Midnight Cowboy, and best male pop vocal in 1972 for "Without You."
  Nilsson was born in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, New York, in 1941. His paternal grandparents were Swedish circus performers and dancers, especially known for their "aerial ballet" (which is the title of one of Nilsson's albums). His father, Harry Edward Nilsson, Jr., abandoned the family when young Harry was three. An autobiographical reference to this is found in the opening to Nilsson's song "1941":
  
  wn.com/Harry_Nilsson
• 
  Harry Reid
  Harry Mason Reid (born December 2, 1939) is the senior United States Senator from Nevada, serving since 1987. A member of the Democratic Party, he has been the Senate Majority Leader since January 2007, having previously served as Minority Leader and Minority and Majority Whip.
  Previously, Reid was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Nevada's 1st congressional district, and served in Nevada local and state government as city attorney of Henderson, a state legislator, the 25th Lieutenant Governor, and chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission.
  As Senate Majority Leader and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Harry Reid has achieved a more senior elected position in the United States government than any Mormon in history.
  Reid was born in Searchlight, Nevada, the third of the four sons of Inez Orena (née Jaynes), a laundress, and Harry Vincent Reid, a miner. His paternal grandmother was an English immigrant from Darlston, Staffordshire. Reid's boyhood home had no indoor toilet, hot water or telephone. Searchlight had no high school, so Reid boarded with relatives 40 miles away in Henderson, Nevada to attend Basic High School where he played football, and was an amateur boxer. While at Basic High he met future Nevada governor Mike O'Callaghan, who was a teacher there. Reid attended Southern Utah University and graduated from Utah State University where he double majored in political science and history. Reid also minored in economics from the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business. He then went to George Washington University Law School earning a J.D. while working for the United States Capitol Police.
  
  wn.com/Harry_Reid
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  Hoagy Carmichael
  Howard Hoagland "Hoagy" Carmichael (November 22, 1899 – December 27, 1981) was an American composer, pianist, singer, actor, and bandleader. He is best known for composing the music for "Stardust", "Georgia On My Mind", "The Nearness of You", and "Heart and Soul", four of the most-recorded American songs of all time.
  Alec Wilder, in his study of the American popular song, concluded that Hoagy Carmichael was the "most talented, inventive, sophisticated and jazz-oriented" of the hundreds of writers composing pop songs in the first half of the 20th century.
  
  wn.com/Hoagy_Carmichael
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  James Woods
  James Howard Woods (born April 18, 1947) is an American film, stage and television actor. Woods is known for starring in critically acclaimed films such as Once Upon a Time in America, Salvador, Nixon, Ghosts of Mississippi, The Last Day of Summer, Casino, and in the television legal drama Shark. He has won three Emmy Awards, and has gained two Academy Award nominations. He is also well known for appearing several times in the comedy animated series Family Guy, as well as the voice of Hades in Disney's Hercules.
  Woods was born in Vernal, Utah. His father, Gail Peyton Woods, was an army intelligence officer who died in 1960 following routine surgery. His mother, Martha A. (née Smith), operated a pre-school after her husband's death and later married Thomas E. Dixon. Woods grew up in Warwick, Rhode Island, where he attended Pilgrim High School.
  Woods chose to pursue his undergraduate studies at MIT, where he majored in political science (though he originally planned on a career as an eye surgeon). While at MIT, Woods pledged to Theta Delta Chi Fraternity. He was also an active member of the student theatre group "Dramashop" where he both acted in and directed a number of plays. He dropped out of MIT 1969 before his graduation in order to pursue a career in acting. Woods has said that he became an actor because of the father of actor Ben Affleck, Tim Affleck, who was a stage manager at the Theatre Company of Boston while Woods was a student there.
  
  wn.com/James_Woods
• Joe Bob Briggs
  John Irving Bloom (born January 27, 1953), who uses the pseudonym Joe Bob Briggs, is a syndicated American film critic, writer and comic performer.
  Bloom was born in Dallas, Texas, the son of Thelma Louise (née Berry) and Rudolph Lewis Bloom. He was raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, and attended Vanderbilt University on a sports-writing scholarship. He began his writing career at Texas Monthly and Dallas Times Herald. While a movie reviewer at the Herald, he created the humorous persona of "Joe Bob Briggs" to review "exploitation" movies.
  Briggs's acting persona is that of an unapologetic and unrefined redneck and male chauvinist with an avowed love of the drive-in theatre. He specializes in humorous but appreciative reviews of b-movies and cult films, which he calls drive-in movies (as distinguished from "indoor bullstuff"). In addition to his usual parody of urbane, high-brow movie criticism, his columns characteristically include colorful tales of woman-troubles and high-spirited brushes with the law, tales which inevitably conclude with his rush to catch a movie at a local drive-in, usually with female companionship. The reviews typically end with a brief rating of the "high points" of the movie in question, including the types of action (represented by nouns naming objects used in fight scenes suffixed with -fu), the number of bodies, number of female breasts bared, the notional number of pints of blood spilled, and for appropriately untoward movies a "vomit meter". A typical such concluding paragraph would be, "No dead bodies. One hundred seventeen breasts. Multiple aardvarking. Lap dancing. Cage dancing. Convenience-store dancing. Blindfold aardvarking. Blind-MAN aardvarking. Lesbo Fu. Pool cue-fu. Drive-In Academy Award nominations for Tane McClure. Joe Bob says check it out." "Aardvarking" is Brigg's euphemism for sexual intercourse.
  
  wn.com/Joe_Bob_Briggs
• 
  Joe Pesci
  Joseph Frank "Joe" Pesci (/ˈpɛʃi/PESH-ee; born February 9, 1943) is an American actor, comedian, and musician. He is known for playing a variety of different roles, from violent mobsters to comedic leads to quirky sidekicks. Pesci has starred in a number of high profile films including Goodfellas, Casino, Raging Bull, Once Upon a Time in America, My Cousin Vinny, JFK, Home Alone, and the Lethal Weapon series. He took a six year hiatus from acting between 1999 and 2005 before returning for a cameo in The Good Shepherd (2006).
  In 1990, Pesci won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as the psychotic mobster Tommy DeVito in Goodfellas, ten years after receiving a nomination in the same category for Raging Bull.
  Pesci was born in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Mary, who worked part-time as a barber, and Angelo Pesci, a forklift driver for General Motors and bartender. Pesci was raised in Belleville, New Jersey and attended Belleville High School. By the time Pesci was five years old, he was appearing in plays in New York. A few years later, at age ten, he was a regular on a television variety show called Startime Kids, which also featured Connie Francis. He started out working as a barber in the 1960s, following in his mother's footsteps.
  
  wn.com/Joe_Pesci
• Joseph Aiuppa
  Joseph John Aiuppa (pronounced, "I-U-PA") (December 1, 1907 – February 22, 1997), also known as "Doves," "Mourning Doves," "O'Brien," or "Joey Doves," was a Chicago mobster who became a leader of the Chicago Outfit.
  Joseph Aiuppa was born in Melrose Park, Illinois, the eldest son of Simone Aiuppa (1883-1934) and Rosalia (1886-1968), Sicilian immigrants from Lascari, Province of Palermo, Sicily.
  During the 1920s, former boxer, Aiuppa rose through the ranks of the Outfit, beginning as a driver for higher ranking Outfit leaders such as Tony Accardo before graduating to operating several gambling establishments in Cicero, Illinois. These clubs included bookmaking establishments and underground casinos with secret entrances. In the early 1930s, Aiuppa managed Taylor & Company, ostensibly a furniture manufacturer though in actuality a front for the manufacture of illegal slot machines.
  In a move reminiscent of Al Capone's infamous conviction for tax evasion, Aiuppa was convicted in 1966 for the unlawful possession and transportation of mourning doves across state lines. Under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 it is illegal to possess more than 24 doves per person outside of hunting season; however, in September 1962, as part of Robert Kennedy's crackdown on the Chicago Outfit, FBI agents in Kansas searching Aiuppa's car discovered 563 frozen doves. Following a series of appeals, Aiuppa was eventually sentenced in August 1966, and received a 3-month jail sentence and a $1000 fine.
  
  wn.com/Joseph_Aiuppa
• Joseph Rigano
  Joseph Rigano born 1933 is an Italian-American character actor.
  He often plays stereotypical mobsters in films such as Casino, Analyze This and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. He is often recognized for his hoarse, wheezy voice.
  Rigano is a regular cast member on Vincent Pastore's The Wiseguy Show on Sirius Satellite Radio's Raw Dog 104. He is sometimes credited as Joe Rigano.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Joseph_Rigano
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  Kevin Pollak
  Kevin Elliot Pollak (born October 30, 1957) is an American actor, impressionist, game show host, and comedian. He started performing stand-up comedy at the age of 10 and touring professionally at the age of 20. In 1988, Pollak landed a role in George Lucas’ Willow, directed by Ron Howard, and began his acting career.
  Pollak was born in San Francisco, the eldest son of Elaine Harlow and Robert "Bobby" Pollak. He has one younger sister and one younger brother. He has since moved to and currently resides in San Francisco. His parents live in Chicago, his sister lives in Reno, Nevada and his brother resides with his family in Boston. He attended high school at Pioneer High School in San Jose.
  As an actor, Pollak's most notable roles are usually playing the best friend or confidant characters to the leading men, as he did in Ricochet (1991), A Few Good Men (1992), End of Days (1999) and The Wedding Planner (2001). However, Pollak has also played a wide variety of parts; he played a criminal in The Usual Suspects (1995) and a gangster in The Whole Nine Yards (2000). He also briefly hosted Celebrity Poker Showdown in its first season. His most substantial role to date was in Deterrence (1999), in which he played the main character: a Vice President who must take over for a deceased President and deal with a nuclear crisis.
  
  wn.com/Kevin_Pollak
• Lee Dorsey
  Lee Dorsey (December 24, 1924 – December 2, 1986) was an African American pop/R&B singer during the 1960s. Much of his work was produced by Allen Toussaint with instrumental backing provided by the Meters.
  Born Irving Lee Dorsey in New Orleans, Louisiana, Dorsey moved to Portland, Oregon when he was ten years old. He served in the United States Navy and began a career in prizefighting. Boxing as a light heavyweight in Portland in the early 1950s, he fought under the name "Kid Chocolate" and was quite successful.
  Dorsey met songwriter/producer Allen Toussaint at a party in the early 1960s, and was signed to the Fury record label. The song that launched his career was inspired by a group of children chanting nursery rhymes - "Ya Ya" went to number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1961. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. He recorded other songs for Fury before the label folded, and Dorsey went back to his car repair business.
  Toussaint later came back on the Amy label and began to work with Dorsey once again. From 1965 to 1969 Dorsey put seven songs in the Hot 100, the most successful of which was "Working in the Coal Mine" in 1966. It was to be his second and last Top Ten song. In 1970 Dorsey and Toussaint collaborated on an album entitled Yes We Can; the title song was Dorsey's last entry in the singles chart. It was later a hit for the Pointer Sisters under the title, "Yes We Can Can".
  
  wn.com/Lee_Dorsey
• Les McCann
  Les McCann (born September 23, 1935, Lexington, Kentucky) is an American soul jazz piano player and vocalist whose biggest successes came as a crossover artist into R&B and soul.
  Les McCann's main career began in the early 1960s when he recorded with his trio for Pacific Jazz Records.
  In 1969, Atlantic Records released Swiss Movement, a recording of McCann with regular collaborator and saxophonist Eddie Harris and guest trumpeter Benny Bailey at that year's Montreux Jazz Festival. The album contained the song "Compared To What," and both the album and the single were huge Billboard pop chart successes. "Compared To What" featured political criticism of the Vietnam War. The song was not actually written by McCann; fellow Atlantic composer/artist Eugene McDaniels (A Hundred Pounds of Clay) wrote it years earlier. "Compared To What" was initially recorded and released by soul vocalist Roberta Flack. Her version appeared as the opening track on her debut recording, First Take (1969).
  After the success of Swiss Movement, McCann — primarily a piano player — began to emphasize his rough-hewn vocals more. He became an innovator in the soul jazz style, merging jazz with funk, soul and world rhythms; much of his early 1970s music prefigures the great Stevie Wonder albums of the decade. He was among the first jazz musicians to include electric piano, clavinet, and synthesizer in his music.
  
  wn.com/Les_McCann
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  Les Paul
  Lester William Polsfuss (June 9, 1915 – August 13, 2009)—known as Les Paul—was an American jazz and country guitarist, songwriter and inventor. He was the inventor of the solid-body electric guitar which made the sound of rock and roll possible. He is credited with many recording innovations. Although he was not the first to use the technique, his early experiments with overdubbing (also known as sound on sound),delay effects such as tape delay, phasing effects and multitrack recording were among the first to attract widespread attention.
  His innovative talents extended into his playing style, including licks, trills, chording sequences, fretting techniques and timing, which set him apart from his contemporaries and inspired many guitarists of the present day. He recorded with his wife Mary Ford in the 1950s, and they sold millions of records.
  Among his many honors, Paul is one of a handful of artists with a permanent, stand-alone exhibit in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He is prominently named by the music museum on its website as an "architect" and a "key inductee" along with Sam Phillips and Alan Freed.
  
  wn.com/Les_Paul
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  Little Richard
  Richard Wayne Penniman (born December 5, 1932), known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, recording artist, and actor, considered key in the transition from rhythm and blues to rock and roll in the mid-1950s. He was also the first artist to put the funk in the rock and roll beat and contributed significantly to the early development of soul music. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website entry on Penniman states that:
  He claims to be "the architect of rock and roll", and history would seem to bear out Little Richard’s boast. More than any other performer – save, perhaps, Elvis Presley, Little Richard blew the lid off the Fifties, laying the foundation for rock and roll with his explosive music and charismatic persona. On record, he made spine-tingling rock and roll. His frantically charged piano playing and raspy, shouted vocals on such classics as "Tutti Frutti", "Long Tall Sally" and "Good Golly, Miss Molly" defined the dynamic sound of rock and roll.
  
  wn.com/Little_Richard
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  Louis Prima
  Louis Prima (December 7, 1910 – August 24, 1978) was an American singer, actor, songwriter, and trumpeter. Prima rode the musical trends of his time, starting with his seven-piece New Orleans style jazz band in the 1920s, then successively leading a swing combo in the 1930s, a big band in the 1940s, a Vegas lounge act in the 1950s, and a pop-rock band in the 1960s. In each of his musical endeavors, he incorporated his exuberant personality into his act.^{[citation needed]}
  Prima was from a musical family in New Orleans. His father, Anthony Prima, was the son of Leonardo Di Prima (the original family name was Di Prima), a Sicilian immigrant from Salaparuta, while his mother, Angelina Caravella, had immigrated from Ustica as a baby.
  Louis Prima was the second child of Angelina Caravella and Anthony Prima. His older brother, Leon, was born in 1907. He had two younger sisters Elizabeth and Marguerite. Marguerite passed away when she was only three years old. Leon, Louis, and Elizabeth were all baptized at St. Ann's Parish. They lived in a house at 1812 St. Peter Street in New Orleans, which was mainly populated by Italians, Arabs, Jews and African Americans.
  
  wn.com/Louis_Prima
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  Martin Scorsese
  Martin Charles Scorsese ( /skɔrˈsɛsɛ/; born November 17, 1942) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation. He is a recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award for his contributions to the cinema, and has won Academy Award, Palme d'Or, Emmys, Golden Globes, BAFTAs, and DGA Awards.
  Scorsese's body of work addresses such themes as Italian American identity, Roman Catholic concepts of guilt and redemption,machismo, modern crime, and violence. Scorsese is hailed as one of the most significant and influential filmmakers of all time, directing landmark films such as Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), and Goodfellas (1990) – all of which he collaborated on with actor and close friend Robert De Niro. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for The Departed (2006), having been nominated a previous five times.
  
  wn.com/Martin_Scorsese
• Mary Ford
  Mary Ford (July 7, 1924–September 30, 1977), born Iris Colleen Summers, was an American vocalist and guitarist, comprising half of the husband-and-wife musical team Les Paul and Mary Ford. Between 1950 and 1954, the couple had 16 top-ten hits, including "How High the Moon" and Vaya con Dios", which were number one hits on the Billboard charts. In 1951 alone they sold six million records. With Paul, Ford became one of the early practitioners of multi-tracking.
  Mary Ford was born Iris Colleen Summers in El Monte, California, the second daughter of Marshall McKinley Summers (born February 13, 1896 in Ridgway, Illinois; died August 5, 1981 in Los Angeles, California), a Nazarene minister, who later became a painting contractor, and his wife, Dorothy May White Summers (born April 5, 1897 in Missouri; died February 22, 1988 in South El Monte, California), and was the sister of Byron Fletcher Summers (born December 25, 1918 in Missouri; died April 2, 1994), Esther Eva Summers Wootten (born 1922 in Los Angeles, California), and Bruce Wendell Summers (born February 22, 1929 in California; died November 15, 2007). Ford came from a musical family, and her parents left Missouri, traveling cross-country while singing gospel music and preaching at revival meetings across the United States. They eventually settled in Southern California, where they were heard over KPPC-AM, Pasadena's first Christian radio station. Her sisters and brothers were all musicians; Esther, Carol, Fletcher, jazz organist Bruce and film composer Bob Summers.
  
  wn.com/Mary_Ford
• Michael Spilotro
  Michael Peter "Micky" Spilotro (September 12, 1944 - June 14, 1986) was the brother of Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro and was an associate of the Chicago La Cosa Nostra organized crime organization referred to as "The Outfit".
  
  wn.com/Michael_Spilotro
• Morris Shenker
  Morris A. Shenker (1907–1989) was an American lawyer best known for his connections to labor leader Jimmy Hoffa and Teamster funding of Las Vegas in the 1960s.
  Shenker was a Russian Jewish immigrant who arrived in St. Louis in 1922 with limited English. He was educated at Washington University in St. Louis, and set up law practice in 1932. Shenker built a reputation as a successful defense lawyer, raised money for the Democratic Party and for Israel, and co-founded the Dismas House charity in St. Louis.
  Shenker first came to national attention during the Kefauver Hearings in the early 1950s, in which he represented a number of underworld figures. From 1962 Shenker represented Jimmy Hoffa, and in 1966 became Hoffa's chief counsel.
  In 1970 a year-long Life Magazine investigative report accused him, as head of the St. Louis Commission on Crime and Law Enforcement, along with the city's mayor Alfonso J. Cervantes, of both having "personal ties to the underworld". The magazine alleged that Shenker controlled the massive $700 million Teamsters Union Pension Fund and its investments, most notably in Las Vegas but also in San Diego (through developer Louis Lesser), New York, Kansas City, and elsewhere. Shenker himself assumed part ownership of the Dunes Hotel and Casino for a few years.
  
  wn.com/Morris_Shenker
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  Muddy Waters
  McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913 – April 30, 1983), known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues". He was a major inspiration for the British blues explosion in the 1960s, and was ranked No. 17 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
  Although in his later years Muddy usually said that he was born in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, in 1915, he was actually born at Jug's Corner in neighboring Issaquena County, Mississippi, in 1913. Recent research has uncovered documentation showing that in the 1930s and 1940s he reported his birth year as 1913 on both his marriage license and musicians' union card. A 1955 interview in the Chicago Defender is the earliest claim of 1915 as his year of birth, which he continued to use in interviews from that point onward. The 1920 census lists him as five years old as of March 6, 1920, suggesting that his birth year may have been 1914. The Social Security Death Index, relying on the Social Security card application submitted after his move to Chicago in the mid 1940s, lists him as being born April 4, 1915. Muddy's gravestone lists his birth year as 1915.
  
  wn.com/Muddy_Waters
• Nicholas Civella
  Nicholas Civella (March 19, 1912 - March 12, 1983) was a Kansas City, Missouri mobster who became a prominent leader of the Kansas City crime family.
  Giuseppe Nicoli Civella was the son of Italian immigrants in Kansas City. He was the younger brother of mobster Carl "Cork" Civella and the uncle of mobster Anthony Civella. Nicholas Civella began his criminal career as a teenager in the Italian "Northeast" neighborhood of Kansas City. Civella's first arrest was at age 10, after which he dropped out of school. Before he reached age 20, Civella had been arrested for auto theft, illegal gambling, robbery, and vagrancy.
  In 1932, Civella spent two months in prison for bootlegging. In 1934 Civella married Katherine, his wife for almost fifty years. He had no children of his own. In the early 1940s, Civella became a Democratic Party precinct worker on the North Side of Kansas City and became friends with Kansas City crime boss, Charles Binaggio.
  By the 1950s, Civella dominated criminal activity in Kansas City. In 1950, he was identified as a figure in the organized crime society during the U.S. Senate Kefauver hearings. Although Kansas City remained a satellite of the larger Chicago Outfit criminal organization, Civella attended the ill-fated 1957 Apalachin Meeting of mob bosses in Apalachin, New York. Civella's involvement with organized crime led to the Nevada Gaming Commission listing Civella as one of the first entries in the Black Book, prohibiting him from entering casinos in Nevada. Later, due to his acquaintance with Teamsters president Roy Lee Williams, Civella played an important role in controlling the Central States Pension Fund of the Teamsters Union and in the skimming of casino gambling profits in Las Vegas, Nevada.
  
  wn.com/Nicholas_Civella
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  Nicholas Pileggi
  Nicholas Pileggi (born February 22, 1933) is an Italian-American author and screenwriter.
  Pileggi was born and raised in New York City, New York.
  Pileggi began his career as a journalist and had a profound interest in the Mafia. He is best known for writing the book Wiseguy, which he adapted into the movie Goodfellas, and for writing the book and screenplay Casino. The movie versions of both were co-written and directed by Martin Scorsese. Pileggi also wrote the screenplay for the 1996 film City Hall. He served as an executive producer of the 2007 film American Gangster, directed by Ridley Scott.
  He is also the author of the book Blye: Private Eye.
  Pileggi married Nora Ephron in 1987.
  
  wn.com/Nicholas_Pileggi
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  Nobu Matsuhisa
  Nobuyuki "Nobu" Matsuhisa (松久 信幸 Matsuhisa Nobuyuki; born March 10, 1949) is a celebrity chef and restaurateur known for his fusion cuisine blending traditional Japanese dishes with South American (Peruvian) ingredients. His signature dish is black cod in miso.
  Nobu was born in Saitama, Japan. When he was just seven years old, his father died in a traffic accident and he and his two older brothers were raised by his mother. After graduating from high school, he worked at the restaurant Matsue Sushi in Shinjuku, Tokyo for seven years, and was invited by a regular customer who was a Peruvian entrepreneur of Japanese descent to open a Japanese restaurant in Peru. In 1973 at age 24, he moved to Peru (Lima) and opened a restaurant with the same name of Matsuei in partnership with his sponsor. Nobu was unable to find many of the ingredients he took for granted in Japan and had to improvise, and it was here that he developed his unique style of cuisine that incorporated Southern American ingredients into Japanese dishes.
  
  wn.com/Nobu_Matsuhisa
• Oscar Goodman
  Oscar Baylin Goodman (born July 26, 1939) is an American lawyer and politician. He was the mayor of Las Vegas, Nevada from 1999 to 2011. Mayor Goodman is an Independent and a former member of the Democratic Party.
  Goodman was born and raised in Philadelphia, graduating from Haverford College and receiving his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He and his wife Carolyn have four children.
  During his career as a defense attorney he represented defendants accused of being some of the leading organized crime figures in Las Vegas, such as Meyer Lansky, Nicky Scarfo, Herbert "Fat Herbie" Blitzstein, Phil Leonetti, former Stardust Casino boss Frank 'Lefty' Rosenthal, and Jamiel "Jimmy" Chagra, a 1970s drug trafficker who was acquitted of ordering the murder of Federal Judge John H. Wood, Jr. His most notorious client was reputed Chicago mobster Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro, who was known to have a short and violent temper. In the semi-factual 1995 movie Casino, the character of Nicky Santoro was based on Spilotro and was portrayed by actor Joe Pesci. Goodman had a cameo appearance in the film as himself while defending "Ace Rothstein", which was a character closely based on Lefty Rosenthal and played by Robert DeNiro. Goodman also represented former San Diego Mayor Roger Hedgecock, who was convicted of accepting illegal campaign contributions and eventually forced to resign. Hedgecock was later cleared of all charges on appeal.
  
  wn.com/Oscar_Goodman
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  Otis Redding
  Otis Ray Redding, Jr. (September 9, 1941 – December 10, 1967) was an American soul singer-songwriter, record producer, arranger, and talent scout. He is considered one of the major figures in soul music and rhythm and blues (R&B), and one of the greatest singers in popular music. His open-throated singing was an influence on other soul singers of the 1960s, and he helped to craft the lean and powerful style of R&B that formed the basis of the Stax Sound. After appearing at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, he wrote and recorded "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay", which became a number-one record on both the pop and R&B charts after his death in a plane crash.
  Redding was born and raised in the American state of Georgia. At age 15, he left school to support his family by working with Little Richard's backing band, The Upsetters, and by playing talent shows for prize money. In 1958, he joined Johnny Jenkins's band, The Pinetoppers, and toured the Southern United States while serving as driver and musician. An unscheduled appearance on a session led to a turning point in his career. He signed a contract with Stax Records and released his debut album, Pain in My Heart, in 1964. This album produced his first Stax single, "These Arms of Mine".
  
  wn.com/Otis_Redding
• Pasquale Cajano
  Pasquale Cajano (born Pasquale Cagiano; August 19, 1921 – October 24, 2000) was an Italian-American film actor. After two uncredited cameo appearances in The Age of Innocence and Where Evil Lies, his friend Martin Scorsese cast him in the 1995 crime drama Casino as Chicago Outfit boss Remo Gaggi, a character inspired by the real-life Joseph Aiuppa.
  After Casino, Cajano went on with small roles in certain films, like Big Night, Sleepers, and The Impostors (another uncredited role). Cajano was then cast alongside his Casino co-star Robert De Niro in the hit comedy Analyze This. Pasquale Cajano was also a well known Italian radio personality for many years on the Italian Communications Network radio (www.icnradio.com).
  On October 24, 2000, Cajano died due to prostate cancer at age 79.
  Survived by his sister Madeline Scarcelli,Daughter Maria Minasso Son Vincent Cajano grandchildren Vincent Cajano Jr,Amanda Cajano, Michael Minasso and Carissa Cajano great grand children Bridgette Cajano and Vincent Cajano III
  
  wn.com/Pasquale_Cajano
• Philip Suriano
  Philip Suriano (born 1948) is an American actor, probably best known for playing the doomed Dominick Santoro in Martin Scorsese's Casino, based on real-life mobster Michael Spilotro. In Casino, he and his brother Nicky (Joe Pesci) are buried alive at a cornfield in Indiana after suffering a severe beatening by baseball bats.
  Besides Casino, Suriano has had small roles in other films, such as Goodfellas, Jane Austen's Mafia!, and Ocean's Eleven.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Philip_Suriano
• Raging Bull
  Raging Bull is a 1980 American biographical sports drama film directed by Martin Scorsese, and adapted by Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin from Jake LaMotta's memoir Raging Bull: My Story. It stars Robert De Niro as Jake LaMotta, a middleweight boxer whose sadomasochistic rage, sexual jealousy, and animalistic appetite destroyed his relationship with his wife and family. Also featured in the film are Joe Pesci as Joey, La Motta's well-intentioned brother and manager who tries to help Jake battle his inner demons; and Cathy Moriarty as his abused wife. The film features supporting roles from Nicholas Colasanto, Theresa Saldana, and Frank Vincent.
  Scorsese was initially reluctant to develop the project, though he eventually came to relate to La Motta's story. Schrader re-wrote Martin's first screenplay, and Scorsese and De Niro together made uncredited contributions thereafter. Pesci was an unknown actor prior to the film, as was Moriarty, who was suggested for her role by Pesci. During principal photography, each of the boxing scenes was choreographed for a specific visual style and De Niro gained approximately 60 pounds (27 kg) to portray La Motta in his early post-boxing years. Scorsese was exacting in the process of editing and mixing the film, expecting it to be his last major feature.
  
  wn.com/Raging_Bull
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  Ramsey Lewis
  Ramsey Emmanuel Lewis, Jr. (born May 27, 1935) is an American jazz composer, pianist and radio personality. Ramsey Lewis has recorded over 80 albums and has received seven gold records and three Grammy Awards so far in his career.
  Ramsey Lewis was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Ramsey Lewis, Sr. and Pauline Lewis. Lewis began taking piano lessons at the age of four. At 15 he joined his first jazz band, The Cleffs. The seven-piece group provided Lewis his first involvement with jazz; he would later join Cleffs drummer Isaac "Redd" Holt and bassist Eldee Young to form the Ramsey Lewis Trio. Lewis is a graduate of DePaul University.
  The trio started as primarily a jazz unit and released their first album, Ramsey Lewis And The Gentlemen of Swing, in 1956. Following their 1965 hit "The In Crowd" (the single reached #5 on the pop charts, and the album #2) they concentrated more on pop material. Young and Holt left in 1966 to form Young-Holt Unlimited and were replaced by Cleveland Eaton and Maurice White. White left to form Earth, Wind & Fire was replaced by Morris Jennings in 1970. Later, Frankie Donaldson and Bill Dickens replaced Jennings and Eaton; Felton Crews also appeared on many 1980's releases.
  
  wn.com/Ramsey_Lewis
• Richard Riehle
  Richard Riehle (born May 12, 1948) is an American actor.
  Riehle was born in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, the son of Mary Margaret (née Walsh), a nurse, and Herbert John Riehle (1921–61), an assistant postmaster. He attended the University of Notre Dame.
  His television credits include Quantum Leap, Roseanne, Murder, She Wrote, L.A. Law, Ally McBeal, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Chicago Hope, Diagnosis: Murder, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Grounded for Life, The West Wing, ER, Married to the Kellys, Boston Legal, Big Stan and The Young and the Restless. Riehle has also guest-starred on three of the five Star Trek television series.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Richard_Riehle
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  Robbie Robertson
  Robbie Robertson, (born Jaime Royal Robertson, July 5, 1943)OC; is a Canadian singer-songwriter, and guitarist. He is best known for his membership as the guitarist and primary songwriter within The Band. He was ranked 59th in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.The Band has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. As a songwriter Robertson is responsible for such classics as "The Weight", "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", "Up On Cripple Creek", "Broken Arrow" and "Somewhere Down the Crazy River", and has been inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.
  Robertson was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada to a Jewish father and a Mohawk mother. He had his earliest exposure to music at Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation, where he spent summers with his mother's family.
  By 1958, Robertson was performing in various groups around Toronto, including Little Caesar and the Consuls, Robbie and the Robots, and Thumper and the Trambones. By 1959 he had met singer Ronnie Hawkins, who led a band called The Hawks. In 1960 Hawkins recorded two early Robertson songs, "Hey Boba Lu" and "Someone Like You" on his Mr. Dynamo LP. Robertson then took over lead guitar with The Hawks and toured often, before splitting from Hawkins in 1963. Robertson's skill on his instrument continued to increase, leading Howard Sounes to write, "By twenty-two, he was a guitar virtuoso."
  
  wn.com/Robbie_Robertson
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  Robert De Niro
  Robert De Niro (pronounced /dəˈnɪəroʊ/; born August 17, 1943) is an American actor, director and producer. His first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973. In 1974, he played the young Vito Corleone in The Godfather Part II, a role that won him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
  His critically acclaimed, longtime collaborations with Martin Scorsese began with 1973's Mean Streets, and earned De Niro an Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Jake LaMotta in the 1980 film Raging Bull. He was also nominated for an Academy Award for his roles in Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976) and Cape Fear (1991). In addition, he received nominations for his acting in Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter (1978) and Penny Marshall's Awakenings (1990). Also in 1990, his portrayal as Jimmy Conway in Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas earned him a BAFTA nomination.
  He has earned four nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy: New York, New York (1977), Midnight Run (1988), Analyze This (1999) and Meet the Parents (2000). De Niro directed A Bronx Tale (1993) and The Good Shepherd (2006). He has received accolades for his esteemed career, including the AFI Life Achievement Award and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award.
  
  wn.com/Robert_De_Niro
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  Robert de Niro
  Robert De Niro (pronounced /dəˈnɪəroʊ/; born August 17, 1943) is an American actor, director and producer. His first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973. In 1974, he played the young Vito Corleone in The Godfather Part II, a role that won him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
  His critically acclaimed, longtime collaborations with Martin Scorsese began with 1973's Mean Streets, and earned De Niro an Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Jake LaMotta in the 1980 film Raging Bull. He was also nominated for an Academy Award for his roles in Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976) and Cape Fear (1991). In addition, he received nominations for his acting in Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter (1978) and Penny Marshall's Awakenings (1990). Also in 1990, his portrayal as Jimmy Conway in Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas earned him a BAFTA nomination.
  He has earned four nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy: New York, New York (1977), Midnight Run (1988), Analyze This (1999) and Meet the Parents (2000). De Niro directed A Bronx Tale (1993) and The Good Shepherd (2006). He has received accolades for his esteemed career, including the AFI Life Achievement Award and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award.
  
  wn.com/Robert_de_Niro
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  Sharon Stone
  Sharon Vonne Stone (born March 10, 1958) is an American actress, film producer, and former fashion model. She achieved international recognition for her role in the erotic thriller Basic Instinct. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama for her performance in Casino.
  Stone was born in Meadville, Pennsylvania. The second of four children, she is the daughter of Dorothy (née Lawson), an accountant and homemaker, and Joseph William Stone II, a tool and die manufacturer and factory worker. Stone graduated in 1975 from Saegertown High School in Saegertown, Pennsylvania.
  Stone won the title of Miss Crawford County in Meadville, and was a candidate for Miss Pennsylvania. One of the pageant judges said she should quit school and move to New York City to become a fashion model. In 1977, Stone left Meadville, moving in with an aunt in New Jersey. Within four days of her arrival in New Jersey, she was signed by Ford Modeling Agency in New York.
  
  wn.com/Sharon_Stone
• Thelma Schoonmaker
  Thelma Schoonmaker (born 3 January 1940) is an American film editor who has worked with director Martin Scorsese for over forty years. She has edited all of Scorsese's films since Raging Bull. Schoonmaker has received seven Academy Award nominations for best editing, and has won three times (for Raging Bull, The Aviator, and The Departed).
  Schoonmaker was married to director Michael Powell from 19 May 1984 until his death in 1990. Since his death, Schoonmaker has been dedicated to preserving the films and honoring the legacy of her husband, who directed many classic films, including The Red Shoes. She was introduced to Michael Powell by Martin Scorsese and London based film producer Frixos Constantine.
  Schoonmaker's father Bertram was employed as a clerical worker by the Standard Oil Company and worked abroad. She was born in Algiers, Algeria to American expatriates and raised in various countries, including on the Dutch-Caribbean island of Aruba.
  Schoonmaker did not live in the United States until she was a teenager in 1955, and was initially alienated and dumbfounded by American culture. Schoonmaker was interested in a career in international diplomacy and began attending Cornell University in 1957, where she studied political science and the Russian language. (She attended classes taught by Vladimir Nabokov.) When she graduated from Cornell in 1961, she began taking State Department tests in order to apply for positions in the U.S. government. Being politically inclined and opinionated, Schoonmaker expressed distaste for the South African policy of apartheid, a stance which did not sit well with those administering the State Department tests. In reaction to this experience, Schoonmaker switched gears and began taking a course in primitive art.
  
  wn.com/Thelma_Schoonmaker
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  Timi Yuro
  Rosemary Timothy Yuro, professionally known as Timi Yuro (August 4, 1940 – March 30, 2004), was an American soul and R&B singer-songwriter. She is considered to be one of the first blue-eyed soul stylists of the rock era.
  According to her record label, Liberty Records, Yuro moved with her family to Los Angeles. There, she sang in her parents' Italian restaurant and in local clubs before catching the eye and ear of record executives. Signed to Liberty, she had a U.S. Billboard No. 4 single in 1961 with "Hurt", an R&B ballad that had been an early success for Roy Hamilton. On "Hurt" and on her Billboard No. 12 follow-up in 1962, "What's a Matter Baby (Is It Hurting You?)", Yuro showed an emotional but elegant vocal style that owed a debt to Dinah Washington and other black jazz singers. Many listeners in the early 1960s thought Yuro was black. She opened for Frank Sinatra on his 1961 tour of Australia.
  In 1963, Liberty released Make the World Go Away, an album of country and blues standards. The singer at her vocal peak, this recording includes the hit title song (later a bigger hit for Eddy Arnold, with whom the song is usually associated), a version of Willie Nelson's "Permanently Lonely", and two different blues takes of "I'm Movin' On". Yuro was also known for soulful reworkings of popular American standards, such as "Let Me Call You Sweetheart", "Smile", and "I Apologize".
  
  wn.com/Timi_Yuro
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  Tony Bennett
  Anthony Dominick Benedetto, better known as Tony Bennett (born August 3, 1926), is an American singer of popular music, standards, show tunes, and jazz. Bennett is also a serious and accomplished painter, having created works — under the name Benedetto — that are on permanent public display in several institutions. He is the founder of Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in New York City.
  Raised in New York City, Bennett began singing at an early age. He fought in the final stages of World War II as an infantryman with the U.S. Army in the European Theatre. Afterwards, he developed his singing technique, signed with Columbia Records, and had his first number one popular song with "Because of You" in 1951. Several top hits such as "Rags to Riches" followed in the early 1950s. Bennett then further refined his approach to encompass jazz singing. He reached an artistic peak in the late 1950s with albums such as The Beat of My Heart and Basie Swings, Bennett Sings. In 1962, Bennett recorded his signature song, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco". His career and his personal life then suffered an extended downturn during the height of the rock music era.
  
  wn.com/Tony_Bennett
• Vinny Vella
  Vinny Vella (born October 3, 1950) is an actor and part-time comedian.
  Vella was born Vincet in New York City. His father raced at to win enough money to buy a scale for the pushcart he sold fish from, then earning enough to open a fish store.
  He is probably best known for the role of "Artie Piscano" in Martin Scorsese's Casino. He was the subject of a 67-minute documentary called "Hey, Vinny", completed in 2000 by director John Huba.
  He also played Jimmy Petrille on the HBO show The Sopranos.
  In New York City, he hosts a public-access television cable TV show on MNN, the Vinny Vella show
  He is married to the former Margaret Ann Hernandez; they have one son, Vincent Louis Vellacerra, Jr.
  Vella was at one time the "Mayor of Elizabeth Street".
  In 2007, he opened his own pizzeria in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York.
  In June 2008, Vella was involved in controversy around a lottery ticket according to some sources threatened to sue over it.
  
  wn.com/Vinny_Vella

Casino (1995)

Actors

• Robert De Niro
• Joe Pesci
• Sharon Stone
• James Woods
• Don Rickles
• Alan King
• Kevin Pollak
• L Q Jones
• Dick Smothers
• Frankie Avalon
• Steve Allen
• Jayne Meadows
• Jerry Vale
• John Bloom
• Frank Vincent

Director

• Martin Scorsese

• Prey
• Crap Game
• Drunk
• Crying Onto Baize
• Stranger
• Beyond That Door