Henry Hancock (April 11, 1822 - January 9, 1883) was a Harvard trained lawyer and a land surveyor working in California in the 1850s. He was the owner of Rancho La Brea, which included the La Brea Tar Pits.

Henry Hancock was born in Bath, New Hampshire, a son of Thomas Hancock and his wife Lucy (Smith) Hancock, and grandson of Henry Hancock and Abigail (Cotton) Hancock. He was of English ancestry, his grandfather having emigrated from Somerset in the 18th century.

Hancock entered the Norwich Military Academy, then studied law at Harvard University. Graduating in 1846, he went St. Louis, Missouri, where he became a surveyor. During the Mexican–American War, he was quartermaster of the 1st Regiment Missouri Mounted Volunteers under Colonel Alexander William Doniphan. At the war's end, he returned home to New Hampshire but soon decided to go west.

Hancock sailed from Boston to San Francisco. He arrived in California in September, 1849 and opened a law office. He then tried his hand at gold mining on American River, but in 1850 moved to Los Angeles.

Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American pianist, keyboardist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's Second Great Quintet, Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound. He was one of the first jazz musicians to embrace music synthesizers and funk music (characterized by syncopated drum beats). Hancock's music is often melodic and accessible; he has had many songs "cross over" and achieved success among pop audiences. His music embraces elements of funk and soul while adopting freer stylistic elements from jazz. In his jazz improvisation, he possesses a unique creative blend of jazz, blues, and modern classical music, with harmonic stylings much like the styles of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.

Hancock's best-known solo works include "Cantaloupe Island", "Watermelon Man" (later performed by dozens of musicians, including bandleader Mongo Santamaría), "Maiden Voyage", "Chameleon", and the singles "I Thought It Was You" and "Rockit". His 2007 tribute album River: The Joni Letters won the 2008 Grammy Award for Album of the Year, only the second jazz album ever to win the award after Getz/Gilberto in 1965.

Hunter Foster (born June 25, 1969) is an American musical theatre actor/singer, librettist and playwright.

Foster was born in Lumberton, North Carolina, but raised in Augusta, Georgia and Troy, Michigan. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Theatre Studies from the University of Michigan in 1992. After graduation he moved to New York City.

After touring in several shows and playing on Broadway, he was cast in his breakthrough role, that of "Bobby Strong" in Urinetown, for which he received nominations for an Outer Critics Circle Award and a Lucille Lortel Award. In 2003, Foster starred as "Seymour" in the Broadway revival of Little Shop of Horrors, for which he received his first Tony Award nomination.

Foster also appeared as Leo Bloom in The Producers on Broadway, Ensign Pulver in Mister Roberts at the Kennedy Center, and Ben in Modern Orthodox off-Broadway. He also starred as Molina in Kiss of the Spider Woman at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia.

Foster wrote the libretto for an off-Broadway 2002 musical based on the motion picture Summer of '42. He is writing an adaptation of the film Bonnie and Clyde with Urinetown co-star, Rick Crom. Foster was one of the writers for Rosie O'Donnell's 2008 NBC series Rosie Live!, which was cancelled after the first episode.

Enrico Nicola "Henry" Mancini (April 16, 1924 – June 14, 1994) was an American composer, conductor and arranger, best remembered for his film and television scores. He won a record number of Grammy Awards (20), plus a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in 1995. His best-known works include the jazz-idiom theme to The Pink Panther film series ("The Pink Panther Theme"), the Peter Gunn Theme from the television series, and back-to-back Academy Awards for the songs "Moon River" from the Blake Edwards film Breakfast at Tiffany's and "Days of Wine and Roses" from Edwards' film Days of Wine and Roses. He also composed the score of famous films such as Charade, The Great Race, Wait Until Dark or Silver Streak.

Mancini was born in the Little Italy neighborhood of Cleveland, and grew up near Pittsburgh, in the steel town of West Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. His parents emigrated from the Abruzzo region of Italy. Mancini's father, Quinto, (born March 13, 1893, Scanno, Italy) was a steelworker, who made his only child begin piccolo lessons at the age of eight. When Mancini was 12 years old, he began piano lessons. Quinto and Henry played flute together in the Aliquippa Italian immigrant band, "Sons of Italy". After graduating from Aliquippa High School in 1942, Mancini attended the renowned Juilliard School of Music in New York. In 1943, after roughly one year at Juilliard, his studies were interrupted when he was drafted into the United States Army. In 1945, he participated in the liberation of a concentration camp in southern Germany.