This post and/or page contains affiliate links, at no additional cost
to you I am compensated only if you purchase after clicking on the links.
to you I am compensated only if you purchase after clicking on the links.
|
Disclaimer Notice: To each cherished visitor, ClassicShoppes.us and The Unique Galleria2, has made every reasonable effort to re-record the individual "Profile" information found on this page as accurate as is possible and in no way accepts responsibility for any distortions whatsoever e. g., misspellings, misprints, omissions, grammatical or punctuation errors, exaggerations, erroneous reference information. It does not matter if any such suspect inaccuracies are intentional or unintentional.
Primary reference source: Wikipedia.org Latest revision: June 19, 2014, 3:00AM; retroactive from September 11, 2012, to perpetuity. |
|
This post and/or page contains affiliate links,
at no additional cost to you I am compensated only if you purchase after clicking on the links. |
|
"Jorge Mario Bergoglio (17 December 1936-21 April 2025) is the 266th and current pope of the Catholic Church, elected on 13 March 2013. As such, he is both head of the Church and Sovereign of the Vatican City State. A native of Buenos Aires, Argentina, he was ordained as a priest in 1969. In 1998 he became the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, and in 2001 a cardinal. Following the resignation of his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, on 28 February 2013, the conclave elected Bergoglio, who chose the papal name Franciscus in honour of Saint Francis of Assisi. He is the first Jesuit pope, the first from the Americas, and the first from the Southern Hemisphere. Francis is the first non-European pope in 1,282 years, since Syrian St. Gregory III. Francis speaks Spanish, Latin, Italian, German, French, and English. Bergoglio has close ties to the Jewish community of Argentina, and attended Jewish Rosh Hashanah services in 2007 at a synagogue in Buenos Aires. The Catholic Zenit News Agency reported that Bergoglio told the Jewish congregation during his visit that he went to the synagogue to examine his heart, "like a pilgrim, together with you, my elder brothers." Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born in Buenos Aires, one of the five children of Mario José Bergoglio, a railway worker born in Portacomaro in Italy's Piedmont region, and his wife Regina María Sivori, a housewife born in Buenos Aires to a family of northern Italian origin. Bergoglio supported the San Lorenzo de Almagro football club since his childhood. As a 12-year-old he had a girlfriend, Amalia, who has said that Bergoglio asked for her hand in marriage. He graduated from the technical secondary school Escuelas Técnicas No. 27, Hipólito Yrigoyen with the qualification of chemical technician. According to some sources, he earned a masters' degree in chemistry from the University of Buenos Aires. At the age of 21, he decided to become a priest and began his religious studies and was eventually ordained in 1969. Bergoglio was elected pope on 13 March 2013, the second day of the 2013 papal conclave, taking the papal name Francis. Francis was elected on the fifth ballot of the conclave. The Habemus Papam was delivered by Cardinal protodeacon Jean-Louis Tauran. Francis's last public appearance was at St. Peter's Square in Vatican City on Easter Sunday, 20 April 2025, where he gave his final Easter address and called for a ceasefire in Gaza. He died at 07:35 local time on Easter Monday, 21 April 2025, aged 88, in his residence in Domus Sanctae Marthae. His death, announced by Cardinal Kevin Farrell on the Vatican's TV channel and in a video statement, was caused by a cerebral stroke, which led to a coma and irreversible cardiac arrest."
Source: Wikipedia.org | Saturday, May 10, 2025, 11:15PM CDT This post and/or page contains affiliate links,
at no additional cost to you I am compensated only if you purchase after clicking on the links.  "Find a Grave Memorial ID 175763060"
"Barbara Hale (April 18, 1922-January 26, 2017) is an American actress best known for her role as legal secretary Della Street on more than 270 episodes of the long running Perry Mason television series. She reprised the role in 30 Perry Mason movies for television. Barbara Hale was born in DeKalb, Illinois, to Luther Ezra Hale, a landscape gardener, and his wife, Wilma Colvin. She is of Scots-Irish ancestry. Hale graduated in 1940 from Rockford High School in Rockford, Illinois, then attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, planning to become an artist. Her performing career began in Chicago when she started modeling to pay for her education. Hale's family included a sister, Juanita, for whom Hale's younger daughter was named. Hale moved to Hollywood in 1943, and made her first screen appearances playing small parts. Her first role was in Gildersleeve's Bad Day. She was under contract to RKO Radio Pictures through the late 1940s. Hale's flourishing movie career more or less ended when Hale accepted her best known role as legal secretary Della Street in the television series Perry Mason starring Raymond Burr as the titular character. The show ran from 1957 to 1966, and she reprised the role in 30 Perry Mason television films. She co-starred with Joel McCrea in a 1957 western, The Oklahoman, but there were few leading roles thereafter. Hale did have a featured role in the 1970 ensemble film Airport, playing the wife of a jetliner pilot. Hale's career became inextricably linked with that of Perry Mason co-star Burr, including her 1971 guest-starring role on his next series, Ironside, in an episode titled "Murder Impromptu," followed by their 1980s and early '90s TV movies together. Her last onscreen appearance to date came in a TV biographical documentary about Burr that aired in 2000. Barbara Hale also is remembered as a spokesperson for Amana, makers of Radarange microwave ovens, memorably intoning, "If it doesn't say Amana, it's not a Radarange." In 1945 during the filming of West of the Pecos, Hale met actor Bill Williams. They married June 22, 1946, and became the parents of two daughters, Jodi and Juanita, and a son, actor William Katt. Katt played detective Paul Drake, Jr., with her in several made-for-television Perry Mason movies. She also guest-starred as the mother of Ralph Hinkley (played by Katt) in a 1982 episode of The Greatest American Hero, and appeared as his mother in the movie Big Wednesday. Bill Williams died of cancer in 1992, after 46 years of marriage. Hale herself is a cancer survivor, and a grandmother. She is a follower of the Bahá'í Faith. Hale was recognized as a Star of Television (with a marker at 1628 Vine Street) on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on February 8, 1960. She won the Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Dramatic Series in 1959 and was nominated for the Emmy for Outstanding Performance in a Supporting Role by an Actor or Actress in a Series in 1961. She was presented one of the Golden Boot Awards in 2001 for her contributions to western cinema. Hale died at her home in Sherman Oaks, California, on January 26, 2017, of complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; she was 94 years old."
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 81”
"Jack Benny (February 14, 1894–December 26, 1974) born Benjamin Kubelsky, was an American comedian, vaudevillian, radio, television and film actor, and violinist. Recognized as a leading American entertainer of the 20th century, Benny portrayed his character as a miser, playing his violin badly. In character, he would claim to be 39 years of age, regardless of his actual age. Benny was known for comic timing and the ability to create laughter with a pregnant pause or a single expression, such as his signature exasperated "Well!" His radio and television programs, popular from the 1930s to the 1970s, were a major influence on the sitcom genre. Benny was born in Chicago, Illinois and grew up in nearby Waukegan, Illinois. He was the son of Meyer Kubelsky and Emma Sachs Kubelsky. His parents were Jewish. Meyer was a saloon owner, and later a haberdasher, who had immigrated to America from Poland. Emma had emigrated from Lithuania. Benny began studying violin, an instrument that became his trademark, at the age of six, his parents hoping for him to become a professional violinist. He loved the instrument, but hated practice. He was a dreamer and poor at his studies, and was ultimately expelled from high school. He did poorly in business school later, and at attempts to join his father's business. At age 17, he began playing the violin in local vaudeville theaters for $7.50 a week. Benny had been a minor vaudeville performer before becoming 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 among the most highly rated programs during its run. Benny was notable for employing a small group of writers, most of whom stayed with him for many years. This was in contrast to successful radio or television comedians, such as Bob Hope, who would change writers frequently. The actual longest laugh known to collectors of The Jack Benny Program lasted in excess of 32 seconds. According to Benny, the huge laugh resulted from the long buildup, and the audience's knowledge that Benny, with his pompous persona, would have to break into the conversation at some point. 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. Benny went into a coma at home on December 22, 1974. While in a coma, he was visited by close friends including George Burns, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Carson and John Rowles. He died on December 26, 1974 at age 80. At the funeral George Burns, Benny's best friend for more than fifty years, attempted to deliver a eulogy but broke down shortly after he began and was unable to continue. Bob Hope also delivered a eulogy in which he stated, "For a man who was the undisputed master of comedy timing, you would have to say this is the only time when Jack Benny's timing was all wrong. He left us much too soon." Jack Benny has one star each on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for TV, film, and radio. Benny was added into The Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame, and the National Radio Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1988. Jack Benny was inducted as a Laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the Order of Lincoln (the State’s highest honor) by the Governor of Illinois in 1972 in the area of The Performing Arts. Jack Benny Middle School in Waukegan, Illinois, is named after the famous comedian. Its motto matches his famous statement as "Home of the '39ers." A statue of Jack Benny with his violin now stands on Genesee Street in downtown Waukegan."
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 6806324”
"Ernestine Wade (August 7, 1906–April 15, 1983) was an American actress who is best known for playing the role of Sapphire Stevens on the radio and television program Amos 'n Andy. Born in Jackson, Mississippi, Wade was trained as a singer and organist. Her family had a strong connection to the theater. Her mother, Hazel Wade, worked in vaudeville as a performer, while her maternal grandmother, Mrs. Johnson, worked for the Lincoln Theater in Baltimore, Maryland. Ernestine grew up in Los Angeles and started her acting career at age four. She enjoyed the highest level of prominence on Amos 'n Andy by playing the shrewish, demanding and manipulative wife of George “Kingfish” Stevens. Wade, Johnny Lee, and Lillian Randolph were the only cast members of the radio version of Amos 'n Andy to star in the television version. Ernestine began playing Sapphire Stevens in 1939, but originally came to the Amos 'n' Andy radio show in the role of Valada Green, a lady who believed she had married Andy. At her home, she had framed signed photos from the members of the Amos 'n' Andy television show cast. Tim Moore, her TV husband, wrote the following on his, "My Best Wishes To My Darling Battle ax From The Kingfish Tim Moore." She believed that the roles she and her colleagues played made it possible for African American actors who came later to be cast in a wider variety of roles. She also considered the early typecast roles, where women were most often cast as maids, not to be damaging, seeing them in the sense of someone being either given the role of the hero or the part of the villain. In later years, she continued as an actress, doing more voice work for radio and cartoons. After Amos 'n' Andy, Wade did voice work in television and radio commercials. Ernestine also did office work and played the organ. Ernestine Wade is buried in Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. Since she had no headstone, the West Adams Heritage Association marked her grave with a plaque."
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 8286578”
"John Eldredge (August 30, 1904–September 23, 1961) was an American actor from San Francisco. He was the younger brother of character actor George Eldredge (1898–1977). Born August 30, 1904, John Eldredge was the son of a clergyman who made a specialty of dramatics at university. When he confessed to his father that he wanted to be an actor, his father grinned and said, "That's all right son so long as you are a good one." He began his theatrical career in repertory and then in comic opera and later played small parts in New York City till he made a hit on Broadway and it was a role opposite Lillian Gish that won him a Warners film contract. Eldredge's Broadway credits include Three-Cornered Moon, The Good Fairy, Katerina, The Cherry Orchard and The Would-be Gentleman. He also played various villains e. g., "Walter Canby" in the "Adventures of Superman" (1953–1958). In 1954–1955, [E]ldredge played Harry Archer, father of the title character, in the CBS Television situation comedy Meet Corliss Archer. He died September 23, 1961 of a heart attack at Laguna Beach, California, United States."
Source: Wikipedia.org | FindAGrave.com | Saturday, July 14, 2018, 10:55AM |
"Nicole Scherzinger," born "Nicole Prescovia Elikolani Valiente" on Thursday, June 29, 1978, is an American recording artist and television personality. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, she enrolled in performing arts schools and performed in singing and dancing competitions as a child before becoming the lead singer and front-woman of The Pussycat Dolls, one of the world's best-selling girl groups of all time, in the 2000s. As of 2012, Scherzinger has sold 50 million records worldwide. In 2009, Billboard ranked her, along with the Pussycat Dolls, as one of the most successful musical acts of the 2000s. Scherzinger was born Nicole Prescovia Elikolani Valiente in Honolulu, Hawaii, into a staunchly Roman Catholic family. Her father, Alfonso Valiente, is of Filipino descent, and her mother, Rosemary Elikolani, is of half-Hawaiian and half-Russian descent. Her mother was eighteen at the time of Scherzinger's birth and lived in an inner city neighborhood. Scherzinger's parents separated when she was still a baby. When she was six years old, her maternal family moved to Louisville, Kentucky, with her sister, Keala, and her German American stepfather, Gary Scherzinger. She took her stepfather's surname after he adopted her. She first attended Bowen Elementary, and later attended Meyzeek Middle School as an adolescent. Scherzinger thanks her mother for all the support she gave her to become what she is today. Scherzinger began performing in Louisville, attending the Youth Performing Arts School at duPont Manual High School, and performing with Actors Theatre of Louisville. As a teenager, Scherzinger was the first runner-up at the 1996 Kentucky State Fair's Coca-Cola Talent Classic contest. According to Scherzinger, she said that a lot of people recognizes her from being a member from the Pussycat Dolls, which she said is "amazing" but wants people to recognize her for her own music and the Pussycat Dolls do not fulfill her musical desires. When asked what she intended to achieve with her solo career she commented "Some people only have their glasses half full, but there was never a limit to mine." In one interview she spoke of her role with the Pussycat Dolls stating that it was a "challenge fronting the group" but that "every girl has something different to bring and add to the success." Scherzinger said "It caught my eye because I’d played Velma Kelly in [Fosse's] Chicago in college." As a former member of the Pussycat Dolls, Scherzinger is the most recognizable. Scherzinger revealed she hopes her former bandmates are not jealous of her."
 "Find a Grave Memorial ID 314"
"Albert Einstein (14 March 1879–18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist. He developed the general theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics. Einstein's work is also known for its influence on the philosophy of science. Einstein is best known in popular culture 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," in particular his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect, a pivotal step in the evolution of quantum theory. He was visiting the United States when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933 and, being Jewish, did not go back to Germany, where he had been a professor at the Berlin Academy of Sciences. He settled in the U. S., becoming an American citizen in 1940. On the eve of World War II, he endorsed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt alerting him to the potential development of "extremely powerful bombs of a new type" and recommending that the U. S. begin similar research. This eventually led to what would become the Manhattan Project. Einstein supported defending the Allied forces, but largely denounced the idea of using the newly discovered nuclear fission as a weapon. Later, with the British philosopher Bertrand Russell, Einstein signed the Russell–Einstein Manifesto, which highlighted the danger of nuclear weapons. Einstein was affiliated with the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, until his death in 1955. Einstein was a passionate, committed anti-racist and joined National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Princeton, where he campaigned for the civil rights of African Americans. He considered racism America's "worst disease," seeing it as "handed down from one generation to the next." As part of his involvement, he corresponded with civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois and was prepared to testify on his behalf during his trial in 1951. When Einstein offered to be a character witness for Du Bois, the judge decided to drop the case. In 1946 Einstein visited Lincoln University in Pennsylvania where he was awarded an honorary degree. Lincoln was the first university in the United States to grant college degrees to blacks, including Langston Hughes and Thurgood Marshall. To its students, Einstein gave a speech about racism in America, adding, "I do not intend to be quiet about it." A resident of Princeton recalls that Einstein had once paid the college tuition for a black student, and black physicist Sylvester James Gates states that Einstein had been one of his early science heroes, later finding out about Einstein's support for civil rights. On 17 April 1955, Albert Einstein experienced internal bleeding caused by the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm, which had previously been reinforced surgically by Rudolph Nissen in 1948. He took the draft of a speech he was preparing for a television appearance commemorating the State of Israel's seventh anniversary with him to the hospital, but he did not live long enough to complete it. Einstein refused surgery, saying: "I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly." He died in Princeton Hospital early the next morning at the age of 76, having continued to work until near the end. During the autopsy, the pathologist of Princeton Hospital, Thomas Stoltz Harvey, removed Einstein's brain for preservation without the permission of his family, in the hope that the neuroscience of the future would be able to discover what made Einstein so intelligent. Einstein's remains were cremated and his ashes were scattered at an undisclosed location. In his lecture at Einstein's memorial, nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer summarized his impression of him as a person: "He was almost wholly without sophistication and wholly without worldliness. There was always with him a wonderful purity at once childlike and profoundly stubborn."
"Janelle Monae Robinson (born December 1, 1985) is an American R&B and soul musician, composer and record producer signed to Bad Boy Records and Atlantic Records. Monáe was born in Kansas City, Kansas, where she spent her early life; Monáe has stated that the fictional character of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz has been one of her musical influences. She has told reporters that she has dreamed of being a singer and a performer since she was very young. Monáe has gained a signature clothing style of wearing a tuxedo wardrobe and she said on the matter to Honey Magazine "I bathe in it, I swim in it, and I could be buried in it. A tux is such a standard uniform, it’s so classy and it’s a lifestyle I enjoy. The tux keeps me balanced. I look at myself as a canvas. I don’t want to cloud myself with too many colors or I’ll go crazy. It’s an experiment I’m doing. I think I want to be in the Guinness Book of World Records." In Monáe's concerts she has been noted to hand out her Ten Droid Commandments which encourages her fans to be individuals.The Telegraph also commented on her image as an artist saying "Sitting in a grey, airless record company office, this slight, stiff young woman delivers her speech in slow, deliberate tones, utterly expressionless. Dressed in her trademark starched shirt and tuxedo, hair immaculately coiffed, Monáe’s face is an opaque mask of perfection: all silken smooth skin, button nose and glassy brown eyes." She has described her tuxedos as being a uniform for her career and she has stated that she wears them when she is working. "I feel like I have a responsibility to my community and other young girls to help redefine what it looks like to be a woman. I don't believe in men's wear or women's wear, I just like what I like. And I think we should just be respected for being an individual.... I've been in Vogue, now, and different publications, which is cool, because I think that it just shows a different perspective of how women can dress."
—Monáe, on her image and artistic freedom  “Find a Grave Memorial ID 7716821”
"Leslie Townes Hope (May 29, 1903–July 27, 2003) was an American comedian, vaudevillian, actor, singer, dancer, athlete, and author. With a career spanning nearly 80 years, Hope appeared in over 70 films and shorts, including a series of "Road" movies also starring Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour. In addition to hosting the Academy Awards 19 times, he appeared in many stage productions and television roles and was the author of fourteen books. The song "Thanks for the Memory" is widely regarded as Hope's signature tune. Born in London, England, Hope arrived in America with his family at the age of four and grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. He began his career in show business in the early 1920s, initially on stage, and began appearing on the radio and in films in 1934. He was praised for his comedy timing, specializing in one-liners and rapid-fire delivery of jokes—which were often self-deprecating, with Hope building himself up and then tearing himself down. Celebrated for his long career performing United Service Organizations shows to entertain active service American military personnel—he made 57 tours for the USO between 1941 and 1991—Hope was declared an honorary veteran of the United States Armed Forces in 1997 by act of the U.S. Congress. Hope was born in Eltham, London the fifth of seven sons. His English father, William Henry Hope, was a stonemason from Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, and his Welsh mother, Avis Townes was a light opera singer from Barry who later worked as a cleaner. They married in April 1891 and lived at 12 Greenwood Street, Barry, before moving to Whitehall and then St George, both in Bristol. In 1908, the family emigrated to the United States aboard the SS Philadelphia and passed through Ellis Island on March 30, 1908, before moving to Cleveland, Ohio. From age 12, Hope earned pocket money by busking, singing, dancing, and performing comedy. For his service to his country through the USO, he was awarded the Sylvanus Thayer Award by the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1968. A 1997 act of Congress signed by President Bill Clinton named Hope an "Honorary Veteran." He remarked, "I've been given many awards in my lifetime—but to be numbered among the men and women I admire most—is the greatest honor I have ever received." Hope was praised for his comedy timing, specializing in one-liners and rapid-fire delivery of jokes. His style of delivery of self-deprecating jokes, first building himself up and then tearing himself down, was unique. Hope had a reputation as a womanizer and continued to see other women in spite of his marriage. In 1998, a prepared obituary by the Associated Press was inadvertently released, prompting Hope's death to be announced in the U.S. House of Representatives. Hope remained in good health until old age, though he became slightly frail. In June 2000, he spent nearly a week in a California hospital after being hospitalized for gastrointestinal bleeding. In August 2001, he spent close to two weeks in the hospital recovering from pneumonia. Graves of Bob and Dolores Hope, on the grounds of the Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana. On the morning of July 27, 2003, two months after his 100th birthday, Hope died of pneumonia at his home in Toluca Lake, California. His grandson, Zach Hope, told Soledad O'Brien that when asked on his deathbed where he wanted to be buried, Hope had told his wife, "Surprise me." He was interred in the Bob Hope Memorial Garden at San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Los Angeles, joined in 2011 by wife Dolores, when she died four months after her 102nd birthday."
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 6268549”
"Spencer Williams, sometimes billed as Spencer Williams Jr. (July 14, 1893–December 13, 1969) was an American actor and filmmaker. He was best known for playing Andy in the Amos 'n Andy television show and for directing the 1941 race film The Blood of Jesus. Williams was a pioneer African American film producer and director. Williams was born in Vidalia, Louisiana, where the family lived on Magnolia Street. As a youngster, he attended Wards Academy in Natchez, Mississippi. He moved to New York City when he was a teenager and secured work as call boy for the theatrical impresario Oscar Hammerstein. During this period, he received mentoring as a comedian from the African American vaudeville star Bert Williams. Williams began his studies at the University of Minnesota, taking some time out to serve his country. Williams served in the U. S. Army during World War I, where he rose to the rank of sergeant. During the course of his time in service, Williams traveled the world, serving as General Pershing's bugler while in Mexico before he was promoted to camp sergeant major. In 1917, Williams was sent to France to do intelligence work there. After World War I, Williams continued his military career; he was part of a unit whose job was to create war plans for the Southwestern United States, in case they might ever be needed. By 1931, Williams and a partner had founded their own movie and newsreel company called the Lincoln Talking Pictures Company. The company was self-financed. Williams, who had experience in sound technology, built the equipment, including a sound truck, for his new venture. Prior to his involvement with Amos 'n' Andy, Williams was immensely popular among the African American audiences. U. S. radio comedians Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, who cast Williams as Andy, were able to claim that they were the ones who found Williams and gave him the chance to be seen in the limelight because he was virtually unknown amongst the white audience. Amos 'n Andy was the first U. S. television program with an all-black cast, running for 78 episodes on CBS from 1951 to 1953. However, the program created considerable controversy with the NAACP going to federal court to achieve an injunction to halt its premiere. Williams died of a kidney ailment on December 13, 1969, at the Sawtelle Veterans Administration Hospital in Los Angeles, California. He was survived by his wife, Eula. At the time of his death, news coverage focused solely on his work as a television actor, since few white film-goers knew of his race films. The New York Times obituary for Williams cited Amos 'n Andy but made no mention of his work as a film director. A World War I veteran, he is buried at Los Angeles National Cemetery. When friends and family from Vidalia, Louisiana were interviewed for a local newspaper article in 2001, he was remembered as a happy person, who was always singing or whistling and telling jokes. His younger cousins also recalled his generosity with them for "candy money," just as he was seen on television as Andy, he always had his cigar. On March 31, 2010, the State of Louisiana voted to honor Williams and musician Will Haney, also from Vidalia, in a celebration on May 22 of that year."
|
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 483”
"Conrad Nicholson Hilton (December 25, 1887–January 3, 1979) was an American hotelier and the founder of the Hilton Hotels chain. Conrad Hilton was born in San Antonio, New Mexico. His father, Augustus Halvorsen Hilton, was an immigrant from Norway and his Catholic mother, Mary Genevieve was an American of German descent from Iowa. Hilton had seven siblings; Felice A. Hilton, Eva C. Hilton, Carl H. Hilton, Julian Hilton (died in infancy), Rosemary J. Hilton, August H. Hilton and Helen A. Hilton. The Hilton name comes from the farm Hilton in Kløfta, Norway, where Conrad's father was born. In his early twenties, Hilton was a Republican representative in the first New Mexico Legislature, when the state was newly formed. He served two years in the U. S. Army during World War I. His father was killed in a car accident while he was serving in the Army in France. The most enduring influence to shape Hilton's philanthropic philosophy beyond that of his parents was the Roman Catholic Church and his sisters. He credited his mother with guiding him to prayer and the church whenever he was troubled or dismayed—from the boyhood loss of a beloved pony to severe financial losses during the Great Depression. His mother continually told him that prayer was the best investment he would ever make. As a young boy, Hilton developed entrepreneurial skills working at his father's general store in Socorro County, New Mexico. It was with the intention of buying a bank that he arrived in Texas at the height of the oil boom. He bought his first hotel instead, the 40-room Mobley Hotel in Cisco, Texas, in 1919, when a bank purchase fell through. The hotel did such brisk business that rooms changed hands as often as three times a day, and the dining room was converted into additional rooms to meet the demand. He went on to buy and build hotels throughout Texas. During the Great Depression, Hilton was nearly forced into bankruptcy and lost several of his hotels. During the 1950s and 1960s, Hilton Hotels' worldwide expansion facilitated both American tourism and overseas business by American corporations. It was the world's first international hotel chain, at the same time establishing a certain worldwide standard for hotel accommodations. In 1966, Hilton was succeeded as president by his son Barron and was elected chairman of the board. In 1925, Hilton married Mary Adelaide Barron. They had three children; Conrad Nicholson Hilton Jr., William Barron Hilton and Eric Michael Hilton, before divorcing in 1934. Hilton married actress Zsa Zsa Gabor. They had one child, Constance Francesca Hilton, before divorcing in 1947. Gabor wrote in her 1991 autobiography One Lifetime is Not Enough that she only became pregnant by Hilton after he raped her during their marriage. Their daughter Constance died on January 5, 2015, at age 67, from a stroke. In 1976, Hilton married Mary Frances Kelly. Their marriage lasted until his death in 1979. Mary Hilton died in 2006, at the age of 90. On January 3, 1979, Hilton died of natural causes at the age of 91. He is interred at Calvary Hill Cemetery, a Catholic cemetery in Dallas, Texas. He left $500,000 to his two surviving siblings, $100,000 to his daughter Francesca, and $10,000 to each of his nieces and nephews. The bulk of his estate was left to the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, which he established in 1944. His son, Barron Hilton, who spent much of his career helping build the Hilton Hotels Corporation, contested the will, despite being left the company as acting President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman of the Board of Directors. A settlement was reached and, as a result, Barron Hilton received 4 million shares of the hotel enterprise, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation received 3.5 million shares, and the remaining 6 million shares were placed in the W. Barron Hilton Charitable Remainder Unitrust. Upon Barron Hilton's death, Unitrust assets will be transferred to the Hilton Foundation, of which Barron sits on the Board of Directors as Chairman. On December 25, 2007, Barron Hilton announced that he would leave about 97% of his fortune estimated at $2.36 billion to a charitable unitrust which would eventually be merged with the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. By leaving his estate to the Foundation, Barron not only donated the fortune he had amassed on his own, but also returned to the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation the Hilton family fortune amassed by his father, which otherwise would have gone to the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation 30 years prior, had Barron not contested his father's will."
"Richard Howard Hilton (born August 17, 1955) is an American businessman. He is the chairman and co-founder of Hilton & Hyland, a real estate brokerage firm based in Beverly Hills, California, that specializes in homes and estates in Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills, Bel-Air, Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Hollywood Hills, as well as estates from Santa Barbara to San Diego. Hilton was born in Los Angeles, California, the sixth of eight children of Marilyn June Hawley and Barron Hilton, whose father was Hilton Hotel founder Conrad Hilton. In 1978, he graduated from the University of Denver with a degree in hotel and restaurant management. His brothers and sisters are, William Barron Hilton Jr., Hawley Anne Hilton, Stephen Michael Hilton, David Alan Hilton, Sharon Constance Hilton, Daniel Kevin Hilton, and Ronald Jeffrey Hilton. Hilton joined the New York office of Eastdil Secured, a real estate investment banking firm. He specialized in securing participation of institutional investors and pension funds in various transactions. In 1984, he formed Hilton Realty Investment to handle commercial real estate. He obtained his broker license on 29 November 1985. Hilton and Jeffrey Hyland were issued a corporation license for their real estate firm Hilton & Hyland on 26 July 1993. Among their developments are Brentwood Country Estates. Hilton has also been an executive producer on several of the television series featuring his famous daughters. Hilton married Kathy Avanzino on November 24, 1979. They have four children, Paris Hilton, Nicholai Hilton, Barron Hilton II, and Conrad Hughes Hilton III. They live in Bel Air, Los Angeles. Hilton has one grandchild, a daughter named Lily Grace Victoria Rothschild, who was born to their daughter Nicky and her husband James Rothschild in 2016."
|
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 203167636”
"William Barron Hilton (October 23, 1927-September 19, 2019) was an American business magnate, socialite, and hotel heir. As son and successor of hotel pioneer Conrad Hilton, he has created a record in business and philanthropy that mirrored the success of his famous father. He is the retired chairman, president and chief executive officer of Hilton Hotels Corporation, and chairman emeritus of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. Hilton was also a founding partner of the American Football League and the original owner of the San Diego Chargers. Hilton was born in Dallas, Texas, the son of Mary Adelaide and Conrad Nicholson Hilton, founder of Hilton Hotels. Hilton grew up with three siblings, Conrad Nicholson Hilton, Jr., Eric Michael Hilton, and Constance Francesca Hilton. His father was of half Norwegian and half German descent, and his mother was from Kentucky. He served in the Navy during World War II as a photographer. As a child, Hilton was fascinated by aviation, and learned to fly when he was 17. After his wartime discharge, he attended the University of Southern California Aeronautical School, where he earned his twin-engine rating at age 19. Before joining his father in the hotel industry, Barron Hilton honed his business skills in a variety of entrepreneurial ventures. He acquired the Los Angeles-area distributorship of Vita-Pakt Citrus Products, co-founded MacDonald Oil Company, and founded Air Finance Corporation, one of the nation's first aircraft leasing businesses. In 1954, Barron was elected vice president of Hilton Hotels, running the company's franchise operations and creating the Carte Blanche credit card as a service to the company's customers. Hilton also served as AFL president in 1965, and helped forge the merger between the AFL and the NFL, announced in 1966, that created the Super Bowl. In all, the Chargers won five divisional titles, and one AFL Championship, during Hilton's six years at the helm of the club. In 1966, directors of Hilton Hotels Corporation asked Hilton to succeed his father as president and chief executive officer of the company, provided that he drop his football responsibilities. He sold his majority interest in the team for $10 million—a record for any professional sports franchise at the time—after an initial investment in a franchise fee of just $25,000. In 1979, Barron Hilton's father, Conrad Hilton, died at age 91. He left 13.5 million shares of Hilton Hotels Corporation stock—97 percent of his estate—to the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, a humanitarian charity which he had established in 1944. In his will, Conrad also gave Barron the right to purchase those shares in order to maintain family control of the company, but the foundation challenged the option in probate court. It took an entire decade to resolve the issue. Hilton's right to exercise his option was upheld in an appeals court ruling in March 1988, giving him voting power over roughly 34 percent of the company's outstanding shares. Conrad's bequest of stock was worth $160 million when he died in 1979. In 2012, Hilton was also inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame in San Diego, and was hailed as the "patron saint of sport aviation." In 1947, Barron Hilton married Marilyn June Hawley; they remained married until she died in 2004. They had eight children: William Barron Hilton, Jr., Hawley Anne Hilton, Stephen Michael Hilton, David Alan Hilton, Sharon Constance Hilton, Richard Howard Hilton, Daniel Kevin Hilton, and Ronald Jeffrey Hilton. Their oldest, William Barron Hilton, Jr., was born in 1948 and their youngest, Ronald Jeffrey Hilton, was born in 1963. Barron Hilton has 15 grandchildren, including Paris Hilton and Nicky Hilton Rothschild; both of them are Richard Hilton's daughter."
"Paris Whitney Hilton (born February 17, 1981) is an American heiress, socialite, television personality, businesswoman, fashion designer, entrepreneur, model, actress, producer, author and singer. She is the great-granddaughter of Conrad Hilton, the founder of Hilton Hotels. Born in New York City and raised in both California and New York, Hilton began a modeling career as a teenager when she signed with Donald Trump's modeling agency, T Management. Hilton was born in New York City, New York. Her mother, Kathy Hilton (Kathleen Elizabeth Avanzino) is a socialite and former actress, and her father, Richard Howard Hilton, is a businessman. She is the oldest of four children, she has one sister, Nicholai Olivia Hilton and two brothers, Barron Nicholas Hilton II and Conrad Hughes Hilton III. Her paternal great-grandfather was Conrad Hilton, who founded the Hilton Hotels. She is of Norwegian, German, Italian, English, and Irish ancestry. Ms. Hilton's fragrances alone have reportedly earned $1.5 billion. Currently, there are 42 Paris Hilton Stores worldwide and her brand includes perfumes, handbags, watches, footwear, among other products. Hilton earns over $10 million a year from her products sales and as of 2005 she was paid $300,000 for appearances in clubs and events. Her net worth is estimated to be $100 million as of 2012. She was raised Roman Catholic and still attends Mass."
|
"Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll (born February 2, 1977) is a Colombian singer songwriter, dancer, record producer, choreographer and model who emerged in the music scene of Colombia and Latin America in the early 1990s. Born and raised in Barranquilla, Shakira began performing in school, demonstrating her vocal ability with rock and roll, Latin and Arabic influences with her own original twist on belly dancing. Shakira is a native Spanish speaker who speaks fluent English and Portuguese, as well as some Italian, French, and Catalan. Shakira was born on February 2, 1977 in Barranquilla, Colombia. She is the only child of Nidia Ripoll and William Mebarak Chadid. Her paternal grandparents emigrated from Lebanon to New York City, where her father was born. From her mother Nidia Ripoll she has Spanish (Catalan and Castilian) and Italian descent. She has eight older half-siblings from her father's previous marriage. Shakira spent much of her youth in Barranquilla, a city located in northern Colombia. Shakira wrote her first poem, titled "La Rosa De Cristal" ("The Crystal Rose") when she was only four years old. As she was growing up, she was fascinated watching her father writing stories on a typewriter, and asked for one as a Christmas gift. She got her wish at age seven and continued writing poetry. These poems eventually evolved into songs. At the age of two, an older half-brother was killed in a motorcycle accident and at the age of eight, Shakira wrote her first song, titled "Tus gafas oscuras" ("Your dark glasses") which was inspired by her father, who for years wore dark glasses to hide his grief."
|
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 1893”
"William DeWolf Hopper, Jr. (January 26, 1915–March 6, 1970) was an American stage, film, and television actor. The only child of actress and Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper, he appeared in predominantly minor roles in more than 80 feature films in the 1930s and 1940s. After serving in the United States Navy during World War II he left acting, but in the mid-1950s he was persuaded by director William A. Wellman to resume his film career. He became best known for his work in television, as private detective Paul Drake in the long-running CBS series, Perry Mason. William DeWolf Hopper, Jr., was born January 26, 1915, in New York City. He was the only child of noted actor, singer, comedian and theatrical producer DeWolf Hopper and his fifth wife, actress Hedda Hopper. He had one older half-brother, John A. Hopper, from his father's second marriage in the 1880s. Hopper made his film debut as a baby in his father's 1916 silent movie Sunshine Dad. His mother divorced his father in 1922 and moved to Hollywood with their son. Hedda Hopper became one of America's best-known gossip columnists, with nearly 30 million readers in newspapers nationwide. Hopper served with the United States Navy during World War II, as a volunteer with the Office of Strategic Services and as a member of the newly created Underwater Demolition Team. He received a Bronze Star and several other medals during operations in the Pacific. For eight years after the war, Hopper became involved in business and sold cars in Hollywood. He combined car sales and acting when opportunities came up during the advent of television. "I didn't even think about acting much until a friend, director Bill Wellman, asked me to do a part in The High and the Mighty," Hopper recalled. In 1940 Hopper married actress Jane Kies, sister of Margaret Lindsay, whose professional name was Jane Gilbert. They had worked together on the 1939 film, Invisible Stripes. They had one daughter, Joan, born in 1947. On February 1, 1966, Hopper announced the death of his mother, actress and celebrated Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper, from pleuropneumonia. Hopper entered Desert Hospital in Palm Springs, California, on February 14, 1970, after suffering a stroke. He died of pneumonia three weeks later, on March 6, at age 55. Survived by his second wife, Jan, he was buried in Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, California."
|
 "Find a Grave Memorial ID 50"
"Lucille Desiree Ball (August 6, 1911–April 26, 1989) was an American comedienne, model, film and television actress and studio executive. She was star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life with Lucy, and was one of the most popular and influential stars in the United States during her lifetime. Ball had one of Hollywood's longest careers, especially on television. Her film career spanned the 1930s and 1940s, and she became a television star during the 1950s. She continued making films in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1962, Ball became the first woman to run a major television studio, Desilu, which produced many successful and popular television series. Ball was born to Henry Durrell Ball and Desiree Evelyn Hunt in Jamestown, New York. Although Lucy was born in Jamestown, New York, she sometimes claimed that she was born in Butte, Montana. Shortly before her father's death her family moved to Anaconda, Montana at age 3 where her father passed away, and then to Wyandotte, Michigan. Her family was Baptist, and her ancestry includes Scottish, French, Irish, and English. Some of her genealogy leads to the earliest settlers in the colonies, including Edmund Rice, an early immigrant to Massachusetts Bay Colony. Her father, a telephone lineman for Bell Telephone Company was frequently transferred because of his occupation, and within three years of her birth, Lucille had moved many times, from Jamestown to Anaconda, and then to Trenton. While DeDe Ball was pregnant with her second child, Frederick, Henry Ball contracted typhoid fever and died in February 1915. Ball recalled little from the day her father died, only fleeting memories of a picture falling and a bird getting trapped in the house. From that day forward, she suffered from ornithophobia. After her father died, Ball and her brother Fred Henry Ball were raised by her mother and grandparents in Celoron, New York a summer resort village on Lake Chautauqua just west of Jamestown. Her grandfather, Fred Hunt, was an eccentric who also enjoyed the theater. He frequently took the family to vaudeville shows and encouraged young Lucy to take part in both her own and school plays.[citation needed] Four years after the death of her father, Ball’s mother DeDe remarried. On April 18, 1989, Ball was at her home in Beverly Hills when she complained of chest pains. An ambulance was called and she was rushed to the emergency room of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She was diagnosed with dissecting aortic aneurysm and underwent heart surgery for nearly eight hours, receiving an aorta from a 27-year old man who had died in a motorcycle accident. The surgery was successful, and Ball began recovering very quickly, even walking around her room with little assistance. She received a flurry of get-well wishes from Hollywood, and across the street from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the Hard Rock Café erected a sign reading "Hard Rock Loves Lucy." On April 26, shortly after dawn, Ball awoke with severe back pains and soon lost consciousness. All attempts to revive her proved unsuccessful, and she died at approximately 05:47 PDT. Doctors determined that the 77-year old comedienne had succumbed to a second aortic rupture, this time in the abdominal area, and that it was unrelated to her surgery the previous week. Her ashes were initially interred in Forest Lawn–Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, but in 2002 her children moved her remains to the family plot at Lakeview Cemetery in Jamestown, New York, where Ball's parents, brother, and grandparents are buried."
 "Find a Grave Memorial ID 2419"
"Amos Muzyad Yakhoob Kairouz (January 6, 1912–February 6, 1991) was an American nightclub comedian and television and film actor and producer, whose career spanned five decades. Thomas was best known for starring in the television sitcom Make Room for Daddy also known as The Danny Thomas Show. He was also the founder of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. He is the father of Marlo Thomas, Terre Thomas, and Tony Thomas. One of nine children, Thomas was born in Deerfield, Michigan, to Charles Yakhoob Kairouz and his wife Margaret Taouk on January 6, 1912. His parents were Maronite Catholic immigrants from Lebanon. Thomas was raised in Toledo, Ohio, attending St. Francis de Sales Church, Woodward High School and finally The University of Toledo, where he was a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity. Thomas was confirmed in the Catholic Church by the bishop of Toledo, Samuel Stritch. Stritch, a native of Tennessee, was a lifelong spiritual advisor for Thomas, and urged him to financially support the St. Jude Hospital in Memphis. He married Rose Marie Cassaniti in 1936, a week after his 24th birthday. A devout Maronite Catholic, Thomas was named a Knight Commander of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre by Pope Paul VI in recognition of his services to the church and the community. He was a member of the Good Shepherd Parish and the Catholic Motion Picture Guild in Beverly Hills, California. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan presented Thomas with a Congressional Gold Medal honoring him for his work with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Thomas was one of the original owners of the Miami Dolphins, along with Joe Robbie, but he sold his ownership share soon after the purchase. He was an avid golfer, claimed a ten golf handicap, and competed with Sam Snead in a charity event. Two PGA Tour tournaments bore his name: the Danny Thomas-Diplomat Classic in south Florida in 1969 and the Danny Thomas Memphis Classic from 1970 to 1984. He was also the first non-Jewish member of the Hillcrest Country Club in Los Angeles. Thomas died on February 6, 1991, of heart failure at age 79. He had filmed a commercial for St. Jude Hospital a few days before his death, which aired posthumously. He is interred in a mausoleum on the grounds of the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. Cassaniti, his wife of 55 years, was interred with him on the grounds of the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis after her death in July 2000. Thomas was a posthumous recipient of the 2004 Bob Hope Humanitarian Award. On February 16, 2012, the United States Postal Service issued a first class forever stamp honoring Thomas as an entertainer and humanitarian. The Danny Thomas Forever Stamp features an oil-on-panel painting depicting a smiling, tuxedo-clad Thomas in the foreground and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in the background. Tim O’Brien created the artwork for the Danny Thomas Forever Stamp, which was designed by Greg Breeding. William J. Glicker served as art director."
 "Find a Grave Memorial ID 655"
"Loretta Mary Aiken (March 19, 1897 or May 19, 1899–May 23, 1975) [a/k/a "Jackie "Moms" Mabley"] born Loretta Mary Aiken, was an American standup comedian. A veteran of the Chitlin' circuit of African-American vaudeville, she later appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show and the The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Mabley was born in Brevard, North Carolina in 1897 to James Aiken and Mary Smith, who married on May 21, 1891, in Transylvania County, North Carolina. She was one of a family of 16 children. Her father owned and operated several businesses, while her mother kept house and took in boarders. Her father, a volunteer fireman, died when a fire engine exploded when Loretta was eleven. In 1910, her mother took over their primary business, a general store. She was run over by a truck while coming home from church on Christmas Day. By age 14, Mabley had been raped twice and had two children who were given up for adoption. At age 14, Mabley ran away to Cleveland, Ohio, joining a traveling vaudeville show, where she sang and entertained. Mabley was billed as "The Funniest Woman in the World." She tackled topics too edgy for many other comics of the time, including racism. One of her regular themes was a romantic interest in handsome young men rather than old "washed-up geezers," and she got away with it courtesy of her stage persona, where she appeared as a toothless, bedraggled woman in a house dress and floppy hat. She also added the occasional satirical song to her jokes, and her cover version of "Abraham, Martin and John" hit #35 on the Hot 100 on 19 July 1969. At 75 years old, Moms Mabley became the oldest person ever to have a US Top 40 hit. Mabley had six children: Bonnie, Christine, Charles, and Yvonne Ailey, and two given up for adoption when she was a teenager. She died from heart failure in White Plains, New York on May 23, 1975. She is interred at Ferncliff Cemetery, Hartsdale, New York."
Source: Wikipedia.org | FindAGrave.com | Two different, noteworthy periods of birth are found recorded on the Late Ms. "Loretta Mary Aiken." Revised Sunday, October 30, 2016, 9:13PM  "Find a Grave Memorial ID 607"
"Arthur Stanley Jefferson (born 16 June 1890–23 February 1965) was an English comic actor, writer and film director, most famous as Laurel of Laurel and Hardy–Hardy being Oliver Hardy. Laurel began his career in the British music hall, from where he took a number of his standard comic devices: the bowler hat, the deep comic gravity, and the nonsensical understatement. He was a member of "Fred Karno's Army," where he was Charlie Chaplin's understudy. The two arrived in the US on the same ship from Britain with the Karno troupe. Laurel went into films in the United States, with his acting career stretching between 1917 and 1951, and from "silents" to "talkies." It included a starring role in the film The Music Box which won an Academy Award. Arthur Stanley Jefferson was born in his grandparents' house on 16 June 1890 at 3 Argyle Street, Ulverston, Lancashire England. He had two brothers and a sister. His parents, Arthur and Margaret Jefferson, were both active in the theater and always very busy. In his early years, the boy spent much time living with his grandmother Sarah Metcalfe. He attended school at King James I Grammar School, Bishop Auckland, County Durham and the King's School, Tynemouth. He moved with his parents to Glasgow, Scotland, where he completed his education at Rutherglen Academy. His father managed Glasgow's Metropole Theater, where Laurel began work. His boyhood hero was Dan Leno, one of the greatest British music hall comedians. At the age of 16, with a natural affinity for the theater, Laurel gave his first professional performance on stage at the Panopticon in Glasgow. On 7 August 1957, Oliver Hardy died. Laurel was too ill to attend his funeral and said, "Babe would understand." People who knew Laurel said he was devastated by Hardy's death and never fully recovered from it. He refused to perform on stage, or act in another film without his good friend. But, he continued to socialise with his fans. Laurel was described by his fans as a very nice man, with a sense of humour that will never be forgotten. Laurel had a complex marital history. He had four wives and married one of them a second time after their divorce. In 1935, Laurel divorced Lois and married Virginia Ruth Rogers. In 1938, he divorced Virginia and married Vera Ivanova Shuvalova. By 1941, he had divorced Vera and re-married Virginia. In 1946, he divorced Virginia and married Ida Kitaeva Raphael, whom he did not divorce. Laurel was a heavy smoker until suddenly quitting around 1960. In January 1965, he underwent a series of x-rays for an infection on the roof of his mouth. He died on 23 February 1965, aged 74, four days after suffering a heart attack on 19 February. Just minutes away from death, Laurel told his nurse he would not mind going skiing right at that very moment. Somewhat taken aback, the nurse replied that she was not aware that he was a skier. "I'm not," said Laurel, "I'd rather be doing that than this!" A few minutes later the nurse looked in on him again and found that he had died quietly in his armchair."
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 182558460”
"Richard Claxton Gregory (October 12, 1932-August 19, 2017) is an American comedian, social activist, social critic, writer, and entrepreneur. Gregory is an influential American comic who has used his performance skills to convey to both white and black audiences his political message on civil rights. His social satire helped change the way European-Americans perceived African-American comedians since he first performed in public. As a poor student who excelled at running, Gregory was aided by teachers at Sumner High School, among them Warren St. James. Gregory earned a track scholarship to Southern Illinois University Carbondale. There he set school records as a half-miler and miler. His college career was interrupted for two years in 1954 when he was drafted into the U. S. Army. The army was where he got his start in comedy, entering and winning several Army talent shows at the urging of his commanding officer, who had taken notice of Gregory's penchant for joking. In 1956, Gregory briefly returned to SIU after his discharge, but dropped out because he felt that the university "didn't want me to study, they wanted me to run." After completing military service, Gregory performed as a comedian in small, primarily black-patronized nightclubs while working for the United States Postal Service during the daytime. In 1961, while working at the Black-owned Roberts Show Bar in Chicago, he was hired by Hugh Hefner to work at the Chicago Playboy Club after Hefner heard him perform the following material before a largely white audience: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I understand there are a good many Southerners in the room tonight. I know the South very well. I spent twenty years there one night. Last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant and this white waitress came up to me and said, "We don't serve colored people here." I said, "That's all right. I don't eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken." Then these three white boys came up to me and said, "Boy, we're giving you fair warning. Anything you do to that chicken, we're gonna do to you." So I put down my knife and fork, I picked up that chicken and I kissed it. Then I said, "Line up, boys!" Gregory attended and spoke at the funeral of James Brown on December 30, 2006, in Augusta, Georgia. Gregory met his wife Lillian Smith at an African-American club; they married in 1959. They have ten children, including one who died at birth: Michele, Lynne, Pamela, Paula, Stephanie, Gregory, Christian, Miss, Ayanna, and Yohance. In 1973 the Gregorys moved to Plymouth, Massachusetts. Gregory unsuccessfully ran for President of the United States in 1968 as a write-in candidate of the Freedom and Peace Party, which had broken off from the Peace and Freedom Party. He garnered 47,097 votes (including one from Hunter S. Thompson) with fellow activist Mark Lane as his running mate in some states, David Frost in others, and Dr. Benjamin Spock in Virginia and Pennsylvania garnering more than the party he had left. At a Civil Rights rally marking the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, Gregory criticized the United States, calling it "the most dishonest, ungodly, unspiritual nation that ever existed in the history of the planet. As we talk now, America is 5 percent of the world's population and consumes 96 percent of the world's hard drugs." Gregory's activism continued into the 21st Century. In response to published allegations that the Central Intelligence Agency had supplied cocaine to predominantly African American areas in Los Angeles, thus spurring the crack epidemic, Gregory protested at CIA headquarters and was arrested. In 1992 he began a program called "Campaign for Human Dignity" to fight crime in St. Louis neighborhoods. In 1984 he founded Health Enterprises, Inc., a company that distributed weight loss products. In 1985 Gregory introduced the "Slim-Safe Bahamian Diet," a powdered diet mix. Dick Gregory died at a hospital in Washington, D. C. on August 19, 2017 at the age of 84."
"Brooke Christa Shields (born May 31, 1965) is an American actress, model and former child star. Shields, initially a child model, gained critical acclaim for her leading role in Louis Malle's wildly controversial film Pretty Baby in which she played a child prostitute in New Orleans at the turn of the 20th century. The role garnered Shields widespread notoriety, and she continued to model into her late teenage years and starred in several dramas in the 1980s, including The Blue Lagoon and Franco Zeffirelli's Endless Love. In 1983, Shields abandoned her career as a model to attend Princeton University, where she graduated with a bachelor's degree in French literature. In the 1990s, Shields returned to acting, appearing in minor roles in films, and starred in the titular role of the sitcom Suddenly Susan, which ran for four seasons between 1996 and 2000. Most recently, Shields has made appearances in other television shows, including That '70s Show and Lipstick Jungle. Brooke Christa Shields was born in New York City to Frank and Teri Schmon Shields. Through her father's side, she has Italian, French, Irish, and English roots, along with high social position and relations to nobility. According to a research by William Addams Reitwiesner published in 1995, Brooke Shields has ancestral links with a number of noble families from Italy, in particular from Genoa and Rome. Shields' mother was of German, English, Scots-Irish, and Welsh descent. Shields was raised in the Roman Catholic faith. When her mother Teri first announced that she was pregnant, her father Frank's family paid her a sum to terminate the pregnancy. Instead, Teri took the money, but gave birth to their daughter Brooke regardless. Frank married Teri, but they were divorced when Brooke was five months old. She has two stepbrothers and three half-sisters. When Shields was five days old, her mother openly stated she wanted her to be active in show business: "She's the most beautiful child and I'm going to help her with her career." She attended the New Lincoln School until eighth grade. Shields graduated from The Dwight-Englewood School in Englewood, New Jersey, in 1983. She moved to a dorm at Princeton University to pursue her bachelor's degree in French literature, where she graduated in 1987. At Princeton, she spoke openly about her sexuality and virginity. Shields was a member of the Princeton Triangle Club and the Cap and Gown Club. Her autobiography, On Your Own, was published in 1985. In the June 2009 issue of Health magazine, Shields related that she lost her virginity at age 22. She said it would have occurred earlier had she had a better self-image."
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 189957796”
"Norman Eugene Walker, known as Clint Walker (May 30, 1927-May 21, 2018) is a retired American actor. He is perhaps best known for his cowboy role as "Cheyenne Bodie" in the ABC/Warner Brothers western television series, Cheyenne. Walker was born in Hartford in Madison County, southwestern Illinois, the son of Gladys Huldah and Paul Arnold Walker. His mother was Czech. He left school to work at a factory and on a river boat, then joined the United States Merchant Marine at the age of seventeen in the last months of World War II. After leaving the Merchant Marine, he labored at odd jobs in Brownwood, Texas, Long Beach, California, and Las Vegas, Nevada, where he worked as a doorman at the Sands Hotel. He was also employed as a sheet metal worker and a nightclub bouncer. In Los Angeles, he was hired by Cecil B. DeMille to appear in The Ten Commandments. A friend in the film industry helped get him a few bit parts that brought him to the attention of Warner Bros., which was developing a western style television series. Walker's good looks and imposing physique (he stood 6 feet, 6 inches tall with a 48-inch chest and a 32-inch waist helped him land an audition where he won the lead role in the TV series Cheyenne. Billed as "Clint" Walker, he was cast as Cheyenne Bodie, a roaming cowboy hero in the post-American Civil War era. While the series regularly capitalized on Walker's rugged frame with frequent bare-chested scenes, it was well written and acted. It proved hugely popular for eight seasons. Walker's pleasant baritone singing voice was also occasionally utilized on the series and led Warner Brothers to produce an album of Walker doing traditional songs and ballads. Clint Walker has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1505 Vine Street, near its intersection with Sunset Boulevard. In 2004, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Walker has been married to: Verna Garver, married 1948, divorced 1968, they had one daughter, Valerie; Giselle Hennesy, married 1974, died 1994; Susan Cavallari, married 1997. Walker's twin sister, Neoma L. "Lucy" Westbrook died November 11, 2000, at her residence in Hartford, Illinois, aged 73. Walker currently lives in Grass Valley in Nevada County in eastern California."
|
"Jennifer Kate Hudson (born September 12, 1981) is an American recording artist, actress and spokesperson. She came to prominence in 2004 as a finalist on the third season of American Idol, coming in seventh place. Jennifer Hudson was born on September 12, 1981, in Chicago, Illinois. She is the third and youngest child of Darnell Donnerson and Samuel Simpson. She was raised as a Baptist in Englewood and attended Dunbar Vocational High School, from which she graduated in 1999. In late 2008, after Hudson's mother, brother and nephew were killed in a shooting, Hudson stepped out of the limelight for three months. William Balfour, 27, the estranged husband of Hudson's sister Julia, was charged with three counts of first degree murder, one count of home invasion and was denied bail. In May 2012 he was convicted on all seven counts against him, including possession of a stolen vehicle. In July 2012 he was sentenced to three life sentences without the possibility of parole; served one after another, followed by an additional 120 years for his other convictions. He is incarcerated in Stateville Correctional Center near Joliet, Illinois. Hudson's family announced creation of The Hudson-King Foundation for Families of Slain Victims, in honor of the three victims."
"Warren Edward Buffett (born August 30, 1930) is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is widely considered the most successful investor of the 20th century. Buffett is the primary shareholder, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people. He was ranked as the world's wealthiest person in 2008 and as the third wealthiest person in 2011. In 2012, American magazine Time named Buffett one of the most influential people in the world. Buffett is called the "Wizard of Omaha," "Oracle of Omaha," or the "Sage of Omaha" and is noted for his adherence to the value investing philosophy and for his personal frugality despite his immense wealth. Buffett is also a notable philanthropist, having pledged to give away 99 percent of his fortune to philanthropic causes, primarily via the Gates Foundation. On April 11, 2012, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, for which he completed treatment in September 2012. Buffett was born in 1930 in Omaha, Nebraska, the second of three children and only son of U. S. Representative Howard Buffett, a fierce critic of the interventionist New Deal domestic and foreign policy, and his wife Leila Stahl. Buffett began his education at Rose Hill Elementary School in Omaha. In 1942, his father was elected to the first of four terms in the United States Congress, and after moving with his family to Washington, D. C., Warren finished elementary school, attended Alice Deal Junior High School, and graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1947, where his senior yearbook picture reads: "likes math; a future stockbroker." In 2008 he was ranked by Forbes as the richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of approximately US$62 billion. In 2009, after donating billions of dollars to charity, Buffett was ranked as the second richest man in the United States with a net worth of US$37 billion with only Bill Gates ranked higher than Buffett. His net worth is up to $47 billion as of March 2010. During the RJR Nabisco, Inc. hostile takeover fight in 1987, Buffett was quoted as telling John Gutfreund: I'll tell you why I like the cigarette business. It costs a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It's addictive. And there's fantastic brand loyalty. Buffett, quoted in Barbarians at the Gate, The Fall of RJR Nabisco Speaking at Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s 1994 annual meeting, Buffett said investments in tobacco are: fraught with questions that relate to societal attitudes and those of the present administration. I would not like to have a significant percentage of my net worth invested in tobacco businesses. The economy of the business may be fine, but that doesn't mean it has a bright future. Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting."
 "Find a Grave Memorial ID 6637577"
"Harry Roscoe Moore (9 December 1887–13 December 1958) was a celebrated American vaudevillian and comic actor of the first half of the 20th century. He gained his greatest recognition in the starring role of George "Kingfish" Stevens in the CBS television series Amos 'n' Andy. He proudly stated, "I've made it a point never to tell a joke on stage that I couldn't tell in front of my mother." Moore was born Harry Roscoe Moore in Rock Island, Illinois, one of 13 children of Harry and Cynthia Moore. His father was a night watchman at a brewery. Tim Moore dropped out of grammar school to work at odd jobs in town and even danced for pennies in the streets with his friend, Romeo Washburn. In 1898, Moore and Washburn went into vaudeville in an act called "Cora Miskel and Her Gold Dust Twins." It was booked by agents and travelled through the United States and even Great Britain. By 1904, the act had performed with the Barnum & Bailey Circus. As Moore and Washburn grew older, the act became less effective and Miss Miskel sent them back to their parents in Rock Island. Shortly after this, Moore joined the medicine show of "Doctor Mick," a charlatan who sold a quack remedy called "Puritia." Doctor Mick travelled through the Midwestern states, with songs and dances provided by Moore and four Kickapoo Indians. The young man also worked in a carnival sideshow and gave guided tours as a "native" tour guide in Hawaii. Moore left Doctor Mick, first to become a stableboy and later a jockey. He also tried his hand as a boxer. Having made $141,000 with his fists, in 1921 Moore and his wife returned to performing full-time in vaudeville. In 1951, Moore was recommended by his old vaudeville friend, Flournoy Miller, for the role of George "Kingfish" Stevens, a role which was voiced on radio by white actor Freeman Gosden. He was called out of retirement by the Columbia Broadcasting System to star in a new television adaptation of Amos 'n' Andy. As the radio series had developed in prior years, the scheming but henpecked Kingfish had become the central focus of most of the plots. In the television version, Moore played the character more broadly, with louder and more forceful delivery and a distinctive Georgia drawl, exaggerated for comic effect. Moore's Kingfish dominated the calmer and soft-spoken "Amos 'n' Andy" characters. Early in his career, Moore had developed a "con-man" routine he used for many years while in vaudeville; re-working some aspects of his old act produced the television character Kingfish. Moore was very popular in the show and for the first time in his career became a national celebrity as well as the first African American to win stardom on television. When leaving a train in Albuquerque to buy some Native American pottery, the proprietor recognized him immediately, saying, "You, you Kingfish." This was the first time it happened in Moore's 52 years in show business. The show aired on prime-time TV from June 1951 to June 1953. Although quite popular, the series was eventually canceled due to complaints about ethnic stereotyping. Shortly after the television show left the air, there were plans to turn it into a vaudeville act in August 1953, with Moore, Williams, and Childress playing the same characters. It is not known if this was ever realized. After the series was canceled, it was shown in syndication until 1966 when increasing condemnation and pressure from the NAACP persuaded the show's owners (CBS, which still owns the copyrights) to withdraw it from further exhibition. It was resurrected in the early days of home videotape through public domain video dealers who had acquired episodes from collectors of used 16mm TV prints, although the copyright was never in the public domain. Illegally produced copies continue to be sold over the internet. The series itself would not be seen on a regular basis again until independent network Rejoice TV began re-airing episodes in 2012. Moore died at age 71 on 13 December 1958 of pulmonary tuberculosis in Los Angeles, California, four days after his birthday. There was no money to pay for his hospital care or for his funeral, Moore having received his final $65.00 residual payment from Amos 'n' Andy in January 1958. At one time, Moore had made $700 per week. After a large funeral at Mt. Sinai Baptist Church, he was buried at Rosedale Cemetery. 10,000 fans and mourners passed his open coffin; attendees included Freeman F. Gosden, Charles Correll, Spencer Williams, Jr., Alvin Childress, Ernestine Wade, Amanda Randolph, Johnny Lee, Lillian Randolph, Sammy Davis, Jr., Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Andy Razaf, Roy Glenn, Mantan Moreland, Earl Grant. Sammy Davis, Jr. later related that Frank Sinatra organized the effort to pay Tim Moore's funeral expenses. Moore's grave remained unmarked from the time of his burial until 1983; fellow comedians Redd Foxx and George Kirby raised funds for a headstone. There is now one marking the graves of Moore and his wife, Vivian, who died in 1988."
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 221835237”
"Cicely Louise Tyson (December 19, 1924-January 28, 2021) is an American actress. Tyson was born and raised in the Manhattan neighborhood of Harlem, the daughter of Theodosia, a domestic, and William Tyson, who worked as a carpenter, a painter, or any other jobs he could find. Her parents were immigrants from the island of Nevis of the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis in the West Indies. Her father arrived in New York City at age 21 and was processed at Ellis Island on August 4, 1919. Tyson was discovered or found by a photographer for Ebony magazine and became a popular fashion model. Her first credited film role was in Carib Gold in 1956, but she went on to do television such as the celebrated series East Side/West Side and the soap opera The Guiding Light. The Cicely Tyson School of Performing and Fine Arts, a magnet school in East Orange, New Jersey, was renamed in her honor. She plays an active part in supporting the school, which serves one of New Jersey's most underprivileged African American communities. Tyson married legendary jazz trumpeter Miles Davis on November 26, 1981. The ceremony was conducted by Atlanta mayor Andrew Young at the home of actor Bill Cosby. Tyson and Davis divorced in 1988. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority. On May 17, 2009, Tyson received an honorary degree from Morehouse College, an all-male college. In 2010, she was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP."
 "Find a Grave Memorial ID 11274565"
"Luther Ronzoni Vandross (April 20, 1951–July 1, 2005) was an American singer songwriter and record producer. During his career, Vandross sold over 25 million records worldwide and received eight Grammy Awards including Best Male R&B Vocal Performance four different times. He won four Grammy Awards in 2004 including the Grammy Award for Song of the Year for a song recorded not long before his death, "Dance with My Father." Luther Ronzoni Vandross was born on April 20, 1951 at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, New York City, United States. He was the fourth child and second son of Mary Ida Vandross and Luther Vandross, Sr. Vandross was raised on Manhattan's Lower East Side in the NYCHA Alfred E. Smith Houses public housing development and began playing the piano at age three. He grew up in a musical family that moved to the Bronx when he was thirteen. His sister, Patricia Vandross, sang with the vocal group The Crests, which had a number two hit in 1958/59 with "16 Candles," although she left the group before the song was recorded. Vandross' father died of diabetes when Vandross was eight years old. In high school, Vandross performed in a group, Shades of Jade, that once played at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. He was also a member of a theater workshop, "Listen My Brother," which released the singles "Only Love Can Make a Better World" and "Listen My Brother." He also appeared in the second and fifth episodes of Sesame Street in November 1969. Vandross attended Western Michigan University for a year before dropping out to continue pursuing a career in music. His next hit credit was on an album by Roberta Flack in 1972. Vandross founded the first-ever Patti LaBelle fan club. Vandross was a baritone who possessed a three-octave vocal range with four notes and one semitone. His vocal range spanned from B1 to F#5. Vandross was commonly referred to as "The Velvet Voice" in reference to his exceptional vocal talent, and was sometimes called "The Best Voice of a Generation." Vandross suffered from diabetes and hypertension, both of which may have been brought on by family genetics as well as lifestyle and nutrition. He had just finished the final vocals for the album Dance With My Father on which he collaborated with pop rock artist Richard Marx, when on April 16, 2003 he suffered a severe stroke at his home in New York City. The stroke left him in a coma for nearly two months, during which time he also had to fight both meningitis and pneumonia. The stroke also left Vandross with noticeable difficulty speaking and singing, as well as confinement to a wheelchair. Vandross appeared briefly on videotape at the 2004 Grammy Awards to accept his Song of the Year Award for "Dance With My Father." In addition to thanking his fans for their support throughout his ordeal and recovery, he said, "When I say goodbye it's never for long, because I believe in the power of love." Following an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, he was never seen in public again. Vandross died on July 1, 2005 at John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Edison, New Jersey at the age of 54. His apparent cause of death was a heart attack. After two days of viewing at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel, his funeral was held at Riverside Church in New York City on July 8, 2005. Vandross is interred at George Washington Memorial Park in Paramus, New Jersey. Much of Vandross' estate was left to friends and his godson Mark West. Vandross never married, had no children, and his three older siblings died before him. He was survived by his mother, Mary Ida, who died in 2008."
"Onika Tanya Maraj (born December 8, 1982) better known by her stage name Nicki Minaj is an American rapper, singer, songwriter and actress. Her rapping is distinctive for its fast flow, use of alter egos and accents, notably British cockney. Her outlandish and colorful costumes, wigs and clothing have given her recognition as a fashion icon. In April 2013, Minaj became the most-charted female rapper in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, with over 44 appearances. Onika Tanya Maraj was born in Saint James, Trinidad and Tobago on December 8, 1982, to Carol and Robert Maraj. She is of mixed Indian and Afro-Trinidadian ancestry, and has three siblings. Minaj's mother held numerous jobs, including jobs as accounting clerk, foreign exchange teller and gospel singer. Her father worked for American Express, suffered from alcohol and drug addictions, and once attempted to kill her mother by setting their house on fire. Until she was five years old, Minaj lived with her grandmother in Saint James, and was occasionally visited by her mother. She and her mother later moved to the Queens borough of New York City. Minaj stated that her upbringing lacked discipline and caused her to "seek out and practice self-discipline." Minaj attended P. S. 045 Clarence Witherspoon School during her elementary years, and later attended Elizabeth Blackwell Middle School 210, where she played the clarinet. She then graduated from LaGuardia High School, which specializes in music and the visual and performing arts. Minaj participated in the drama program and initially planned to sing at LaGuardia, but lost her voice on the day of the audition. Minaj has described how in her high school life she was distracted from her academics by “acting and boys." Minaj wanted to become an actress, and in 2001, she was cast in the Off-Broadway play, "In Case You Forget." After her acting career failed to take off, Minaj worked at Red Lobster in the Bronx at the age of 19 as a waitress. Minaj was later fired from Red Lobster because of her discourteousness to customers. She stated she had been fired from "at least fifteen jobs" for similar antics. Other jobs Minaj held were as administrative assistant, work in customer service, and an office manager position at an unknown business located on Wall Street. Minaj is the first and only female rapper to be featured on Forbes's Hip Hop Cash Kings list. She made her first appearance on the list in 2011, having earned $US $6.5 million from May 2010 to May 2011. In 2012, she ranked at No. 8 on the list, having earned US $15.5 million from May 2011 to May 2012. Minaj further rose on the list in 2013, ranking at No. 4, being behind P Diddy, Jay-Z, and Dr. Dre, with total earnings of US $29 million, from June 2012 to June 2013. In the aftermath of the catastrophic Hurricane Sandy, Minaj donated $15,000 to the Food Bank For New York City and held a turkey drive at her alma mater, P. S. 45 in New York. Minaj is a Christian. She stated that after her father went to rehab and started attending church, "he got saved and started changing his life." In July 2011, Minaj's cousin Nicholas Telemaque was murdered near his home in Brooklyn, New York City. Minaj referenced Telemaque in the song "Champion" through the lyrics, "Cause they killed my little cousin, Nicholas/ But my memory's only happy images." Critics have noted Minaj's use of various sexual identities within her music, with some implying that she is bisexual. However, she has said that she does not date or have sex with women, but added in an interview with Out magazine, "I don't date men either." In an interview with Vibe she commented, "I just embrace all people of all lifestyles and I don't tell them they are bad people. But I feel like people always wanna define me and I don't wanna be defined."
 "Find a Grave Memorial ID 95"
"Wilfred Bailey Everett Bixby III (January 22, 1934-November 21, 1993) was an American film and television actor, director, and frequent game show panelist. His career spanned more than three decades, including appearances on stage, in films and on television series. He is known for his roles as Tim O'Hara on the CBS sitcom My Favorite Martian, Tom Corbett on the ABC comedy-drama series The Courtship of Eddie's Father, stage illusionist Anthony Blake in the NBC crime drama series The Magician, but is perhaps best known for his role as scientist Dr. David Banner on the CBS sci-fi drama series The Incredible Hulk. An only child, Bixby was born a fourth-generation Californian of English descent, in San Francisco, California. His father, Wilfred Everett Bixby II, was a store clerk and his mother, Jane MacFarland Bixby, was a senior manager at I. Magnin & Co. In 1942, When Bixby was eight years old, his father enlisted in the Navy during World War II and traveled to the South Pacific. While in the seventh grade, Bixby attended Grace Cathedral and sang in the church's choir. In one notable incident, he shot the bishop using a slingshot during one service and was kicked out of the choir. In 1946, his mother encouraged him to take ballroom dance lessons and from there he started dancing all around the city. While dancing, he attended Lowell High School where he perfected his oratory and dramatic skills as a member of the Lowell Forensic Society. Though he received average grades, he also competed in high school speech tournaments regionally. After graduation from high school in 1952, against his parents' wishes, he majored in drama at San Francisco City College, where he was a classmate to Lee Meriwether, another young actress who was later to win the title of Miss America as Miss California 1954. Bixby and Meriwether would later work together on an episode of Barnaby Jones. Later, he attended the University of California, Berkeley, his parents' alma mater. Just four credits short of earning a degree, Bixby dropped out of college and was drafted into the Marines. He then moved to Hollywood, California, where he had a string of odd jobs that included bellhop and lifeguard. He organized shows at a resort in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. In 1959, he was hired to work as a model and to do commercial work for General Motors and Chrysler. Bixby took the role of young reporter Tim O'Hara in the 1963 CBS sitcom, My Favorite Martian, in which he co-starred with Ray Walston. But by 1966, high production costs forced the series to come to an end after 107 episodes. After the cancellation of Martian, Bixby starred in four movies: Ride Beyond Vengeance, Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding!, and two of Elvis Presley's movies, Clambake, and Speedway. Bixby's father died of a heart attack in 1971, a month before Bill's first wedding. His ashes were scattered in the Pacific off the coast of the island of Maui. Bixby was married three times. On March 1, 1981, Bixby's six-year-old son Christopher died suddenly of a rare throat infection. His ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean, near Maui, like his grandfather's. In 1989, he met Laura Michaels, who had worked on the set of one of his Hulk movies. The couple married a year later in Hawaii. In early 1991, Bixby was diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent treatment. He was divorced in the same year. Bixby's cancer recurred and was diagnosed as terminal. On November 21, 1993, six days after his final assignment on Blossom, he died of complications in Century City, California. He was 59 years old. His ashes are at Kliban's Maui estate."
|
 "Find a Grave Memorial ID 4606"
"Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. (April 2, 1939–April 1, 1984) was an American singer, songwriter and musician. Following a period in Europe as a tax exile in the early 1980s, Gaye released the 1982 Grammy Award-winning hit "Sexual Healing" and the Midnight Love album. Since his death in 1984, Gaye has been posthumously honored by many institutions, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Marvin was born in Washington, D.C., to minister Marvin Gay, Sr., and domestic worker Alberta Gay Cooper. He first grew up in a house located at 1617 First Street SW, only a few blocks from the Anacostia River. The First Street neighborhood was nicknamed "Simple City" owing to its being "half-city, half country." When Marvin was in his teens, the family relocated to the Deanwood section of north eastern D.C. Marvin was the second eldest of Marvin Gay, Sr.'s children and the third overall of six. He had two sisters: Jeanne and Zeola, and three brothers: Michael Cooper, Frankie Gaye and Antwaun Gay. Michael Cooper was from his mother's previous relationship while Antwaun was born as a result of his father's extramarital affairs. Marvin began singing in church at age four and was accompanied by his father on piano. Marvin and his family were part of a Pentecostal church sect known as the House of God. The House of God took its teachings from Hebrew Pentecostalism, advocated strict conduct, and adhered to both the Old and New Testaments. Gaye developed a love of singing at an early age and was encouraged to pursue a professional music career after a performance at a school play. His home life consisted of "brutal whippings" at the hands of his father, who struck him for any shortcoming. The younger Marvin described living under his father's house as similar to "living with a king, a very peculiar, changeable, cruel and all powerful king." He further stated that had his mother not encouraged his singing, he would have been a child suicide case. His sister later explained that Marvin was beaten often, from age seven well into his teenage years. Gaye encompassed a three-octave vocal range. At around 11:38 am on April 1, 1984, as Marvin was seated on his bed talking to his mother, Gaye's father shot at Marvin twice. The first shot, which entered the right side of Gaye's chest, was fatal, having perforated his vital organs. Gaye was taken to the emergency room of the California Hospital Medical Center and was pronounced dead on arrival at 1:01 pm. Gaye died a day before turning 45. The gun with which Marvin Gaye, Sr. shot his son was given to him by Marvin as a Christmas present. Following his funeral, Marvin was cremated with part of his ashes spread near the Pacific Ocean. Gaye did not leave behind a will or an insurance policy at the time of his death. Marvin's fans have held vigils for the singer at the final residence to celebrate the day of his birth. Marvin was the father of three children, Marvin III, Nona and Frankie, and the grandfather of three boys, Marvin IV, Nolan and Dylan. At the time of his death, he was survived by his three children, parents and five siblings. "
"Anita Denise Baker (born January 26, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter. Starting her career in the late-1970s with the funk band Chapter 8, Baker eventually released her first solo album, The Songstress, in 1983. In 1986, she rose to stardom following the release of her platinum-selling second album, Rapture, which included the Grammy-winning single "Sweet Love." To date, Baker has won eight Grammy Awards and has four platinum albums and two gold albums to her credit. Baker has an alto vocal style. Anita Baker was born on January 26, 1958 in Toledo, Ohio. When she was two, her mother abandoned her and Baker was raised by a foster family in Detroit, Michigan. When Baker was twelve, her foster parents died and her foster sister raised her afterwards. By the time Baker was sixteen, she began singing R&B at Detroit nightclubs. After one performance, she was discovered by bandleader David Washington, who gave her a card to audition for the funk band, Chapter 8. Baker married Walter Bridgeforth, Jr. on December 24, 1988. The couple separated in 2005 and finalized their divorce two years later. They have two sons, Walter Baker Bridgforth and Edward Carlton Bridgeforth. Baker currently lives in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Both children attended The Grosse Pointe Academy. Walter Bridgforth is now attending Berklee College of Music in Boston MA as a drumming principal."
 "Find a Grave Memorial ID 149827163"
"Bobbi Kristina Brown (March 4, 1993-July 26, 2015) is an American reality television and media personality, singer, and heiress. She is the daughter of singers Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston. Following her mother's death on February 11, 2012, Brown was named as the sole beneficiary of her mother's estate. Bobbi Kristina Brown was born on March 4, 1993, in Livingston, New Jersey. Brown's family includes maternal grandmother Cissy Houston of The Drinkard Singers. Her mother's cousins are Dee Dee Warwick; Dionne Warwick, mother of Damon Elliott; and Leontyne Price. Her uncle is Gary Garland, her mother's half-brother. Through her father, Brown has four half-siblings: Landon, LaPrincia, Robert Jr., and Cassius. Her godmother is CeCe Winans. In June 2015, Bobby Brown arranged to have his daughter flown to Chicago to be seen by specialists, only to be told that nothing could be done. Bobbi Kristina was flown back to Atlanta, and moved to Peachtree Christian Hospice in Duluth, Georgia, on June 24. Her aunt Pat Houston said, "Despite the great medical care at numerous facilities, Bobbi Kristina Brown's condition has continued to deteriorate." Brown died in hospice care on July 26, 2015, at the age of 22. A statement released by the family thanked "everyone for their tremendous amount of love and support during these last few months." On January 31, 2015, Gordon and a friend found Brown face down in a bathtub in her Georgia home. Gordon began CPR until emergency medical services personnel arrived. According to a police spokeswoman, Brown was alive and breathing after being transported to North Fulton Hospital in Roswell, Georgia. She further stated they found no evidence to indicate the incident was caused by drugs or alcohol. Doctors placed Brown in a medically induced coma after determining her brain function was "significantly diminished" and her family was told any meaningful recovery would be "a miracle." In April 2014, Marion Houston—Whitney's sister-in-law—was granted a one-year restraining order against Gordon after claiming he had sent threatening photographs and messages."
 "Find a Grave Memorial ID 9104631"
"Maggie Lena Walker (July 15, 1864–December 15, 1934) was an African American teacher and businesswoman. Walker was the first female bank president of any race to charter a bank in the United States. As a leader, she achieved successes with the vision to make tangible improvements in the way of life for African Americans and women. Disabled by paralysis and limited to a wheelchair later in life, Walker also became an example for people with disabilities. Walker's restored and furnished home in the historic Jackson Ward neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia has been designated a National Historic Site, operated by the National Park Service. According to biographical material she supplied, Walker was born as Maggie Lena Mitchell in Richmond, Virginia, to Eccles Cuthbert and Elizabeth Draper Mitchell two years and two months after the end of the American Civil War. Census information, as well as a diary passage saying that she was four years old on her mother's wedding in May 1868, with William Mitchell, set the date back to 1864 or 1865. Her mother was a former slave and an assistant cook in the Church Hill mansion of Elizabeth Van Lew, who had been a spy in the Confederate capital city of Richmond for the Union during the War, and was later postmistress for Richmond. Her father was a butler and writer. The Mitchell family moved to their own home on College Alley off of Broad Street nearby Miss Van Lew's home where Maggie and her brother Johnnie were raised. The house was near the First African Baptist Church which, like many black churches at the time, was an economic, political, and social center for the local black community. After the untimely death of William Mitchell, Maggie's mother supported her family by working as a laundress. Young Maggie attended the newly formed Richmond Public Schools and helped her mother by delivering the clean clothes. She taught grade school for three years until 1886, when she married Armstead Walker Jr., a brick contractor. Her husband earned a good living, and she was able to leave teaching to take care of her family and her work with the Independent Order of St. Luke. Maggie and Armstead Walker Jr. had sons, Russell and Melvin, and purchased a home in 1904. In 1902, she published a newspaper for the organization, "The St. Luke Herald." Shortly after, she chartered the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank. Mrs. Walker served as the bank's first president, which earned her the recognition of being the first black woman to charter a bank in the United States. Later she agreed to serve as chairman of the board of directors when the bank merged with two other Richmond banks to become The Consolidated Bank and Trust Company, which grew to serve generations of Richmonders as an African American owned institution. Tragedy struck in 1915 when her husband was accidentally killed, leaving Mrs. Walker to manage a large household. Her work and investments kept the family comfortably situated. When her sons married they brought their wives to 110 1/2 East Leigh Street, her home in Richmond's Jackson Ward district, the center of Richmond's African-American business and social life around the start of the 20th century. Walker received an honorary master's degree from Virginia Union University in 1923, and was inducted into the Junior Achievement U. S. Business Hall of Fame in 2002. In Maggie's honor Richmond Public Schools built a large brick high school adjacent to Virginia Union University. Maggie L. Walker High School was one of two schools in the area for black students, during the period of racial segregation in schools. The other was Armstrong High School. After generations of students spent their high-school years there, it was totally refurbished in the late 20th century to become the regional Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies. The National Park Service operates the Maggie L. Walker Historical Site at the former Jackson Ward home. In 1978 the house was designated a National Historic Site and was opened as a museum in 1985. The site states that it "commemorates the life of a progressive and talented African American woman. She achieved success in the world of business and finance as the first black woman in the United States to charter and serve as president of a bank, despite the many adversities. The site includes a visitor center detailing her life and the Jackson Ward community in which she lived and worked and her residence of thirty years. The house is restored to its 1930's appearance with original Walker family pieces."
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 174497164”
"Carrie Frances Fisher (October 21, 1956–December 27, 2016) was an American actress, writer, producer, and humorist. She was the daughter of singer Eddie Fisher and actress Debbie Reynolds. Fisher was known for playing Princess Leia in the Star Wars film series. Her other film roles included Shampoo, The Blues Brothers, Hannah and Her Sisters, The 'Burbs, and When Harry Met Sally. Fisher was also known for her semi-autobiographical novels, including Postcards from the Edge and the screenplay for the film of the same name, as well as her autobiographical one-woman play and its nonfiction book, Wishful Drinking, based on the show. She additionally served as a script doctor, working on other writers' screenplays. In later years, she earned praise for speaking publicly about her experiences with bipolar disorder and drug addiction. Fisher died at the age of 60 on December 27, 2016, four days after going into cardiac arrest near the end of a transatlantic flight from London to Los Angeles. The following day, Fisher's mother died in a Los Angeles hospital at the age of 84; she had been assisting in the preparations for Fisher's funeral. Fisher was born in Beverly Hills, California, the daughter of singer Eddie Fisher and actress Debbie Reynolds. Her paternal grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants. Her mother was raised a Nazarene, and is of English and Scots-Irish ancestry. When Fisher was two, her parents divorced after her father left Reynolds for her mother's close friend, actress Elizabeth Taylor, the widow of her father's best friend Mike Todd. The following year, her mother married Harry Karl, owner of a shoe-store chain, who secretly spent Reynolds' life savings. At the time of her death, Fisher was survived by her daughter, her mother Debbie Reynolds, her brother Todd Fisher and their half-sisters Joely Fisher and Tricia Leigh Fisher along with her beloved dog Gary. Reynolds died the following day after being rushed to the hospital from her son's house, where they were meeting to plan Fisher's funeral. Todd Fisher told ABC News, "The only good thing about this is that my mom wanted to be with my sister."
 "Find a Grave Memorial ID 197207585"
"Katherine Marie Helmond (July 5, 1929-February 23, 2019) was an American film, theater and television actress and director. In her five decades of television acting, she is known for playing Emily Dickinson on Meeting of Minds, but is best known for her starring role as the ditzy matriarch, Jessica Tate, on the ABC prime time soap opera sitcom, Soap, her co-starring role as feisty mother, Mona Robinson on Who's the Boss?, opposite Tony Danza's character. She also played more mothers, Doris Sherman on Coach, and Lois Whelan on Everybody Loves Raymond. She has also appeared as a guest on several talk and variety shows. After her stage debut in As You Like It, she began working in New York in 1955. She later ran a summer theatre in the Catskills for three seasons and taught acting in university theatre programs. She made her television debut in 1962, but would not achieve fame until the 1970s. She also acted on stage, earning a Tony nomination for her performance on Broadway in Eugene O'Neill's The Great God Brown. Other Broadway productions include Private Lives, Don Juan and Mixed Emotions. After her stage debut in As You Like It, she began working in New York in 1955. She later ran a summer theatre in the Catskills for three seasons and taught acting in university theatre programs. She made her television debut in 1962, but would not achieve fame until the 1970s. She also acted on stage, earning a Tony nomination for her performance on Broadway in Eugene O'Neill's The Great God Brown. Other Broadway productions include Private Lives, Don Juan and Mixed Emotions. Helmond appeared in such feature films as Family Plot and Brazil, playing the mother of Jonathan Pryce's character. In 1983, she studied at the American Film Institute's Directing Workshop, and went on to direct four episodes of the television series Benson, as well as one episode of Who's the Boss? She picked up Emmy nominations for her role as Mona Robinson in Who's the Boss, and as Lois Whelan in Everybody Loves Raymond. She has continued working, receiving acclaim for her stage performance in Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues. Helmond was born on July 5, 1929 in Galveston, Texas, the only child of Joseph P. and Thelma Malone Helmond. She was raised by her mother and grandmother, both devout Roman Catholics. She attended a Catholic primary school and appeared in numerous school plays. In 1957, Helmond married George N. Martin. After their divorce she married her second husband, David Christian and the couple have been together since 1962. She has no children. They have owned homes in Los Angeles, New York City, Long Island and London. She and her husband have a history as students of Zen. Helmond died on February 23, 2019 from complications of Alzheimer's disease at her home in Los Angeles, aged 89. Her death was announced a week later."
"Jayne Kennedy Overton (born October 27, 1951) is an American television personality, actress, model, corporate spokeswoman, producer, writer, public speaker, philanthropist, beauty pageant titleholder and sports broadcaster. Kennedy won a 1982 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture award for her performance as Julie Winters in the 1981 film Body and Soul co-starring alongside her then–husband Leon Isaac Kennedy. Kennedy won the NAACP Theater Award for Best Producer along with her current husband Bill Overton for their production of the highly acclaimed stage musical, The Journey of the African American. Kennedy is also an Emmy Award winner for her coverage of the Rose Parade and was nominated for an Emmy for her coverage of the news feature on soldiers on the DMZ in South Korea for NBC’s Speak Up America in 1980. Ebony Magazine announced ["Kennedy"] as "One of the 20 Greatest Sex Symbols of the 20th Century," and in the 1980s, Coca Cola USA named Jayne Kennedy "The Most Admired Black Woman in America." Born Jayne Harrison in Washington, D. C., to machinist Herbert Harrison and his wife, Virginia, Kennedy attended Wickliffe High School in Wickliffe, Ohio. She represented Wickliffe High School at the American Legion’s Girls State mock-government program and was elected as a senator to the American Legion’s Girls Nation program in Washington D. C. where she won the office of Vice President of the United States and was sworn into office by then VP Spiro T. Agnew. While still in high school, Kennedy was crowned Miss Ohio USA in 1970, she was the first African American woman to win the title and was one of the 12 semi–finalists in the 1970 Miss Universe pageant. It was rare for an African American woman at that time to be in the contest. A year after high school, she met Leon Isaac Kennedy, who was a DJ and a struggling actor/writer. They married in 1970. Motown singer/songwriter Smokey Robinson served as best man at their wedding, they later divorced in 1982. In 1985, Kennedy married actor Bill Overton. They have four children, his daughter Cheyenne and their three daughters Savannah Re, Kopper Joi and Zaire Ollyea."
"Demi Gene Guynes (born November 11, 1962) professionally known as Demi Moore, is an American actress, former songwriter, and model. Moore dropped out of high school at age 16 to pursue an acting career and appeared in the men's magazine Oui in 1981. After making her film debut later that year, she appeared on the soap opera General Hospital and subsequently gained recognition for her work in Blame It on Rio and St. Elmo's Fire. Her first film to become both a critical and commercial hit was About Last Night, which established her as a Hollywood star. In 1990, Moore starred in Ghost, the highest-grossing film of that year, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination. She had a string of additional box-office successes in the early 1990s, including A Few Good Men, Indecent Proposal and Disclosure. In 1996, Moore became the highest paid actress in film history when she was paid a then unprecedented fee of $12.5 million to star in Striptease, a film that was a high-profile disappointment. Her next major role, G. I. Jane, for which she famously shaved her head, was followed by a lengthy break and significant downturn in Moore's career, although she has remained a subject of substantial media interest during the years since. Moore was born on November 11, 1962, in Roswell, New Mexico. Her biological father, Air Force airman Charles Harmon, Sr., left her mother, Virginia King after a two-month marriage, before Moore was born. When Moore was three months old, her mother married Dan Guynes, a newspaper advertising salesman who frequently changed jobs; as a result, the family moved many times. Moore said in 1991, "My dad was Dan Guynes. He raised me. There is a man who would be considered my biological father who I don't really have a relationship with." Moore learned of him at age 13, when she found her mother and stepfather's marriage certificate and inquired about the circumstances since "I saw my parents were married in February 1963. I was born in '62." Dan Guynes committed suicide in October 1980 at age 37, two years after he separated from Moore's mother. Charles Harmon appeared on Inside Edition in 1995, making an appeal to see his grandchildren. Virginia Guynes had a long record of arrests for crimes, including drunk driving and arson. Moore broke off contact with her in 1990, when Guynes walked away from a rehab stay Moore had paid for at the Hazelden Foundation in Minnesota. Guynes posed nude for the magazine High Society in 1993, where she spoofed Moore's Vanity Fair pregnancy and bodypaint covers and parodied her love scene from the film Ghost. Moore and Guynes briefly reconciled shortly before Guynes died of cancer in July 1998 at age 54. Moore was cross-eyed as a child. This was ultimately corrected by two operations. She also suffered from kidney dysfunction. At age 15, Moore moved to West Hollywood, California, where her mother worked for a magazine-distribution company. Moore attended Fairfax High School there, and recalled, "I moved out of my family's house when I was 16 and left high school in my junior year." She signed with the Elite Modeling Agency and went to Europe to work as a pin-up girl, then enrolled in drama classes after being inspired by her next-door neighbor, 17-year-old German actress Nastassja Kinski. In August 1979, three months before her 17th birthday, Moore met musician Freddy Moore who was married and at the time leader of the band Boy, at the Los Angeles nightclub The Troubadour. They lived in an apartment in West Hollywood. Moore famously shaved her head to play a Navy SEAL recruit in Ridley Scott's G. I. Jane. The film was a moderate box-office success, but its domestic gross was only slightly more than it cost to make. During the film's production, it was reported that Moore had ordered studio chiefs to charter two planes for her entourage and her, which reinforced her negative reputation for being a diva—she had previously turned down the Sandra Bullock role in While You Were Sleeping because the studio refused to meet her salary demands, and was dubbed "Gimme Moore" by the media. Moore was an investor in the Planet Hollywood chain of theme restaurants, along with Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and former husband Bruce Willis. She was an executive producer of all three films in the Austin Powers franchise, as well as the interview series The Conversation for the Lifetime network. On February 8, 1980, at the age of 17, she married singer Freddy Moore, 12 years her senior and recently divorced from his first wife, Lucy. During their marriage, Demi began using Freddy's surname as her stage name. She filed for divorce in September 1984; it was finalized on August 7, 1985. Next, Moore was engaged to actor Emilio Estevez. The pair planned to marry in December 1986, but called off the engagement. On November 21, 1987, Moore married her second husband, actor Bruce Willis. She and Willis have three daughters together, Rumer, Scout and Tallulah. They announced their separation on June 24, 1998, and filed for divorce on October 18, 2000. Moore had a longstanding relationship with martial arts instructor Oliver Whitcomb, whom she dated from 1999 to 2002. In 2003, Moore began dating actor Ashton Kutcher, who is 16 years younger. They married on September 24, 2005. The wedding was attended by about 150 close friends and family of the couple, including Willis. In November 2011, after months of media speculation about the state of the couple's marriage, Moore announced her decision to end her marriage to Kutcher. After over a year of separation, Kutcher filed for divorce from Moore on December 21, 2012, in Los Angeles Superior Court, citing irreconcilable differences. Moore filed her response papers in March 2013, requesting spousal support and payment of legal fees from Kutcher. On November 27, 2013, their divorce was finalized."
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 52895953”
"Arthur Gordon Linkletter (born Arthur Gordon Kelly, or Gordon Arthur Kelley (sources differ), July 17, 1912–May 26, 2010) was a Canadian-born American radio and television personality. He was the host of House Party, which ran on CBS radio and television for 25 years, and People Are Funny, on NBC radio and TV for 19 years. He became a naturalized United States citizen in 1942. One of Linkletter's lasting legacies are the many light hearted interview segments with children which appeared regularly on his daytime House Party program entitled Kids Say the Darndest Things. A best selling series of books soon followed which contained the humorous comments made on-air by these children. Linkletter was born Arthur Gordon Kelly in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. In his autobiography, "Confessions of a Happy Man," he revealed that he had no contact with his natural parents or his sister or two brothers since he was abandoned when only a few weeks old. He was adopted by Mary Metzler and Fulton John Linkletter, an evangelical preacher. When he was five, his family moved to San Diego, California, where he graduated from San Diego High School at age 16. During the early years of the Great Depression, he rode trains around the country doing odd jobs and meeting a wide variety of people. In 1934, he earned a bachelor's degree in teaching from San Diego State Teachers College where he was a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. While attending San Diego State, he played for the basketball team and was a member of the swimming team. He had previously planned to attend Springfield College, but did not, for financial reasons. In 1935 he met Lois Foerster. They were married at Grace Lutheran Church in San Diego, November 28, 1935. Their marriage lasted until Linkletter's death, 74 1/2 years later. A registered Republican who campaigned for his old friend Ronald Reagan for President of the United States, Linkletter became a political organizer and a spokesman for the United Seniors Association, now known as USA Next, an alternative to the AARP. As part of this role, Linkletter was active in campaigning for more stringent restrictions on elderly motorists. He was also a member of the President's Council on Service and Civic Participation which ended in November 2008. In 1978, he wrote the foreword to the bestselling self-help book Release Your Brakes! by James W. Newman, in which he wrote, "I believe none of us should ever stop growing, learning, changing, and being curious about what's going to happen next. None of us is perfect, so we should be eager to learn more and try to be more effective persons in every part of our lives." In 2005, at the age of 93, he opened the Happiest Homecoming on Earth celebrations for the 50th anniversary of Disneyland. Half a century earlier, he had been the commentator on the opening day celebrations in 1955. For this, he was named a Disney Legend. Linkletter invested wisely, enabling his considerable philanthropy. A member of Pepperdine University's Board of Regents, Linkletter was also a long-term trustee at Springfield College, where he donated funds to build the swimming center named in his honor, the Art Linkletter Natatorium. Linkletter received a lifetime achievement Daytime Emmy award in 2003. He was inducted into the National Speakers Association Speaker Hall of Fame. He also received honorary degrees from several universities, including his alma mater, San Diego State University; Pepperdine University; and the University of Prince Edward Island. For his contribution to television, he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located on 1560 Vine Street. Linkletter had one of the longest marriages of any well-known person in America, at nearly 75 years. He married Lois Foerster on November 25, 1935, and they had five children: Arthur Jack, Dawn, Robert, Sharon and Diane. Lois Foerster Linkletter died at the age of 95 on October 11, 2011. Art and Lois Linkletter outlived three of their five children. On October 4, 1969, 20-year-old Diane died after jumping out of her sixth-floor kitchen window. Linkletter claimed that her death was drug related because she was on, or having a flashback from, an LSD trip (toxicology tests later determined there were no drugs in Diane's system at the time of her death). After Diane's death, Linkletter spoke out against drugs to prevent children from straying into a drug habit. His record, "We Love You, Call Collect," recorded before her death, featured a discussion about permissiveness in modern society, along with a rebuttal by Diane, titled "Dear Mom and Dad." The record won a 1970 Grammy Award for the "Best Spoken Word Recording." Art and Lois' son Robert Linkletter died in an automobile accident on September 12, 1980. Another son, Arthur, died from lymphoma in 2007. In early 2008, Linkletter suffered a mild stroke. He died on May 26, 2010 at age 97 at his home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California. After his death, Phyllis Diller stated, "In a couple of months Art Linkletter would have been 98 years old, a full life of fun and goodness, an orphan who made it to the top. What a guy." He was survived by his wife, Lois and daughters Dawn Griffin and Sharon Linkletter as well as seven grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren."
Source: Wikipedia.org, Saturday, April 21, 2018, 11:00AM  "Find a Grave Memorial ID 6125607"
"John Arthur Johnson (March 31, 1878–June 10, 1946), nicknamed the Galveston Giant, was an American boxer who, at the height of the Jim Crow era, became the first African American world heavyweight boxing champion. Among the period's most dominant champions, Johnson remains a boxing legend, with his 1910 fight against James J. Jeffries dubbed the "fight of the century." According to filmmaker Ken Burns, "for more than thirteen years, Jack Johnson was the most famous and the most notorious African American on Earth." Transcending boxing, he became part of the culture and the history of racism in America. In 1912, Johnson opened a successful and luxurious "black and tan" restaurant and nightclub, which in part was run by his wife, a white woman. Major newspapers of the time soon claimed that Johnson was attacked by the government only after he became famous as a black man married to a white woman, and was linked to other white women. Johnson was arrested on charges of violating the Mann Act forbidding one to transport a woman across state lines for "immoral purposes," a racially motivated charge that embroiled him in controversy for his relationships, including marriages, with white women. There were also allegations of domestic violence. Sentenced to a year in prison, Johnson fled the country and fought boxing matches abroad for seven years until 1920 when he served his sentence at the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth. Johnson was posthumously pardoned by President Donald Trump in May 2018, 105 years after his conviction. Johnson continued taking paying fights for many years, and operated several other businesses, including lucrative endorsement deals. Johnson died in a car crash on June 10, 1946, at the age of 68. He is buried at Graceland Cemetery in Chicago. Johnson was born the third child of nine, and the first son, of Henry and Tina Johnson, two former slaves who worked blue collar jobs as a janitor and a dishwasher. His father Henry served as a civilian teamster of the Union's 38th Colored Infantry. Jack once said his father was the "most perfect physical specimen that he had ever seen," although his father was only 5 ft 5 in and left with an atrophied right leg from his service in the war. Growing up in Galveston, Texas, Johnson attended five years of school. Like all of his siblings, Jack was expected to work. Although Johnson grew up in the South, he said that segregation was not an issue in the somewhat secluded city of Galveston, as everyone living in Galveston's 12th Ward was poor and went through the same struggles. Johnson remembers growing up with a "gang" of white boys, in which he never felt victimized or excluded. Remembering his childhood, Johnson said: "As I grew up, the white boys were my friends and my pals. I ate with them, played with them and slept at their homes. Their mothers gave me cookies, and I ate at their tables. No one ever taught me that white men were superior to me." Johnson was a frail young boy. After Johnson quit school, he began a job working at the local docks. He made several other attempts at working other jobs around town until one day he made his way to Dallas, finding work at the race track exercising horses. Jack stuck with this job until he found a new apprenticeship for a carriage painter by the name of Walter Lewis. Lewis enjoyed watching friends spar, and Johnson began to learn how to box. Johnson later claimed that it was thanks to Lewis that he became a boxer. Johnson engaged in various relationships including three documented marriages. All of his wives were white. At the height of his career, Johnson was excoriated by the press for his flashy lifestyle and for having married white women. According to Johnson's 1927 autobiography, he married Mary Austin, a black woman from Galveston, Texas. No record exists of this marriage. During a three-month tour of Australia in 1907, Johnson had a brief affair with Alma "Lola" Toy, a white woman from Sydney. Johnson confirmed to an American journalist that he intended to marry Toy. When The Referee printed Johnson's plans to marry Toy, it caused controversy in Sydney. Toy demanded a retraction and later won a libel lawsuit from the newspaper. After returning from Australia, Johnson said that "the heartaches which Mary Austin and Clara Kerr caused me led me to forswear colored women and to determine that my lot henceforth would be cast only with white women." Johnson met Etta Terry Duryea, a Brooklyn socialite and former wife of Clarence Duryea, at a car race in 1909. In 1910, Johnson hired a private investigator to follow Duryea after suspecting she was having an affair with his chauffeur. On Christmas day, Johnson confronted Duryea and beat her so badly she was hospitalized. They reconciled and were married in January 1911. Prone to depression, her condition worsened because of Johnson's abuse and infidelity. She committed suicide in September 1912, shooting herself. On December 4, 1912, Johnson married Lucille Cameron. Cameron divorced him in 1924 because of infidelity. There have been recurring proposals to grant Johnson a posthumous presidential pardon. A bill requesting President George W. Bush to pardon Johnson in 2008 passed the House, but failed to pass in the Senate. In April 2009, Senator John McCain, along with Representative Peter King, filmmaker Ken Burns and Johnson's great-niece, Linda Haywood, requested a presidential pardon for Johnson from President Barack Obama. In July of that year, Congress passed a resolution calling on President Obama to issue a pardon. In 2016, another petition for Johnson's pardon was issued by McCain, King, Senator Harry Reid and Congressman Gregory Meeks to President Obama, marking the 70th anniversary since the boxer's death. This time citing a provision of the Every Student Succeeds Act, signed by the president in December 2015, in which Congress expressed that this boxing great should receive a posthumous pardon, and a vote by the United States Commission on Civil Rights passed unanimously a week earlier in June 2016 to "right this century-old wrong." Mike Tyson, Harry Reid and John McCain lent their support to the campaign, starting a Change.org petition asking President Obama to posthumously pardon the world's first African-American boxing champion of his racially motivated 1913 felony conviction. In April 2018, President Donald Trump announced that he was considering a full pardon of Johnson after speaking with actor Sylvester Stallone. Trump pardoned Johnson on May 24 of that year. On June 10, 1946, Johnson died in a car crash on U. S. Highway 1 near Franklinton, North Carolina a small town near Raleigh, after racing angrily from a diner that refused to serve him. He was taken to the closest black hospital, Saint Agnes Hospital in Raleigh. He was 68 years old at the time of his death. He was buried next to Etta Duryea Johnson at Graceland Cemetery in Chicago. His grave was initially unmarked, but a stone that bears only the name "Johnson" now stands above the plots of Jack, Etta, and Irene Pineau."
Source: Wikipedia.org | Sunday, June 10, 2018, 6:15PM CDT  "Find a Grave Memorial ID 17971091"
"Peter Whitney, born Peter King Engle (May 24, 1916–March 30, 1972) was an American actor in film and television. Whitney was born in Long Branch, New Jersey. Tall and heavy set, he played brutish villains in many Hollywood films in the 1940s and 1950s. Whitney was often a supporting character actor credited at least in the top ten actors appearing in several Hollywood classic feature films, such as Destination Tokyo, Action in the North Atlantic, Mr. Skeffington, Murder, He Says, The Big Heat, In the Heat of the Night, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, and others before becoming well known for his work in television. From the late 1950s, Whitney played character roles in many television series, including nine appearances on ABC's The Rifleman. One of his roles in The Rifleman was "Mail Order Groom" an episode in which he portrays John Jupiter, a man of great physical strength who must exert patience while he is harassed by two townsmen, played by John Anderson and Sandy Kenyon, who had quarreled with Whitney's intended spinster bride, Isabel Dent, played by Alice Backes. In 1960, in "The Longest Rope," the season premiere episode of the ABC/WB western series Cheyenne, Whitney was cast as the cruel, corrupt and entrenched Sheriff Hugo Parma of the community of High Point, where series protagonist Cheyenne Bodie (Clint Walker) had lived for a time in his early teens. In that episode's storyline, Bodie returns for a sentimental visit to High Point, only to find himself a successful but reluctant write-in candidate for sheriff against Parma. Donald May and Merry Anders also guest-starred in the episode as young adults from Bodie's past in High Point. Whitney made three guest appearances on the CBS courtroom drama series Perry Mason. In 1961 he performed as the character Roger Gates in "The Case of the Pathetic Patient," in 1962, as prison escapee Stefan "Big Steve" Jahn chek in "The Case of the Stand-in Sister," and in 1965, as Captain Otto Varnum in "The Case of the Wrongful Writ." Peter Whitney's final role on television was that of a grave robber in writer Rod Serling's series Night Gallery, in a 1972 episode segment titled "Deliveries in the Rear." Whitney died of a heart attack at the age of 55 in Santa Barbara, California. He was buried at Pierce Brothers Valley Oaks Memorial Park in Westlake Village, California."
Source: Wikipedia.org | The Riflema's episode entitled "Heller" | Original air date February 23, 1960, replayed on Friday, October 5, 2018, MeTV 2:30PM-3:00PM CDT |
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 28378567”
"Marvin Pentz Gay Sr. (October 1, 1914–October 10, 1998) was an American minister of the House of God. He was the father of American recording artist Marvin Gaye and became famous after shooting and killing him on April 1, 1984 following an argument at their Los Angeles home. Marvin Gay Sr. was born the first of 15 children to George and Mamie Gay on October 1, 1914 on a farm along Catnip Hill Pike in Jessamine County, Kentucky and was raised in Lexington. He had a troubled childhood, where his physically abusive father would often beat his mother and five siblings. According to Gay's wife, Alberta, Gay's family life consisted of constant violence involving domestic abuse and shootings. "Gays against Gays", she told author David Ritz. When Gay Sr. was still a child, he and his mother joined the Pentecostal church sect, the House of God. Gay moved to Washington, D.C. in his late teens to pursue a career as a minister of a House of God church there. While in Washington, Gay Sr. met his future wife, Alberta Cooper, whom he would marry on July 2, 1935. The couple bought a small house in southern Washington at 1617 First Street, which was only a few blocks away from the Anacostia River. The street would be nicknamed "Simple City" for its being "half-city, half-country." Alberta already had a son named Michael, but believing he couldn't raise another man's son, Gay Sr. sent Michael to live with his sister-in-law Pearl, one of Alberta's sisters. Two years after marrying, they had their first child, a daughter they named Jeanne. On April 2, 1939, their first son, Marvin Jr. was born. Son Frances and daughter Zeola followed shortly afterwards. In 1970, Gay would later father a son named Antwaun Carey with another woman as a result of one of his extramarital affairs. In October 1983, after months in D.C., Gaye returned to the West Adams home located at Gramercy Place. Gay Sr. often told his daughter Jeanne that if Marvin ever touched him, he'd "kill him." On Christmas Day 1983, Marvin, for reasons not entirely clear, gave his father an unregistered .38 Smith & Wesson caliber pistol to protect him from intruders and murderers, after Marvin, heavily addicted to cocaine, felt someone was seriously plotting to kill him. Gaye also had the guns because he felt "protected." On March 31, 1984, Gay Sr. was angry because he could not locate a missing insurance policy document and he accused Alberta of misplacing the letter. Marvin awoke from his drug-induced stupor and commanded Gay Sr. to leave Alberta alone; however, neither father nor son physically attacked each other that night. Around 12:30 pm PST on April 1, 1984, Gay Sr. began arguing with Alberta again over the missing insurance letter. After Gay Sr. was heard yelling from downstairs, his son, dressed in his maroon robe, shouted downstairs if he wanted to talk to his mother to do it in person. When Gay Sr. initially refused, Marvin threatened him to not enter his room, according to interviews from Alberta Gay, the only other witness to the shooting. When Gay Sr. did enter, his son, angry, despondent, and high on drugs, shoved his father into the hallway, then hit him. The fight continued in Gaye's bedroom where Marvin reportedly struck his father and kicked and punched him severely. Alberta successfully separated the men and convinced Marvin to leave the room. At approximately 12:38 p.m., minutes after returning to his bedroom, Gay Sr. came back to the bedroom with the .38 pistol and shot his son. The bullet penetrated Marvin's vital organs, including his heart. Gay Sr. then walked forward and shot him a second time in the shoulder at point-blank range. According to his daughter-in-law, Irene, Gay Sr. hid the gun in his bedroom pillow, and she later retrieved it for the police. Gay then went outside and sat on the front porch and awaited his arrest, which came after discovering Marvin's body and confirmation that Gay had shot his son. Marvin Gaye Jr.'s body was later taken to California Hospital Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 1:01 pm PST. During his first police interview, Gay Sr. stated that he didn't mean to kill his son, but that he had been scared that he would be hurt and only shot him in self-defense. When the police asked him if he loved his son, Gay Sr. softly told them, "let's say I didn't dislike him." When the police later told Gay Sr. that his son had died from his shots, he reportedly sobbed and wept uncontrollably before he was taken to prison and was promptly charged with first-degree murder for his son's death. Following this, Gay Sr. was given a six-year suspended sentence and five years' probation for the shooting. During this time, Alberta Gay had filed for divorce after 49 years of marriage. Gay Sr. eventually returned briefly to the Gramercy Place residence, but health issues forced him to move to a nursing home, first in Inglewood around 1986, and in the final years of his life, to a nursing home in Culver City, California, where he died of pneumonia on October 10, 1998, nine days after his 84th birthday."
 "Find a Grave Memorial ID 84839013"
"Whitney Elizabeth Houston (August 9, 1963–February 11, 2012) was an American recording artist, singer, actress, producer, and model. In 2009, the Guinness World Records cited her as the most awarded female act of all time. Houston was one of the world's best-selling music artists, having sold over 200 million records worldwide. She released six studio albums, one holiday album and three movie soundtrack albums, all of which have diamond, multi-platinum, platinum or gold certification. Houston's crossover appeal on the popular music charts, as well as her prominence on MTV, starting with her video for "How Will I Know," influenced several African American women artists who follow in her footsteps. Houston is the only artist to chart seven consecutive No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hits. She is the second artist behind Elton John and the only woman to have two number-one Billboard 200 Album awards on the Billboard magazine year-end charts. Houston's 1985 debut album Whitney Houston became the best-selling debut album by a woman at the time of its release. Houston's first acting role was as the star of the feature film The Bodyguard. The film's original soundtrack won the 1994 Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Its lead single "I Will Always Love You," became the best-selling single by a woman in music history. On February 11, 2012, Houston was found dead in her guest room at The Beverly Hilton, in Beverly Hills, California. The official coroner's report showed that she had accidentally drowned in the bathtub, with heart disease and cocaine use listed as contributing factors. News of her death coincided with the 2012 Grammy Awards and featured prominently in American and international media. Whitney Houston was born in what was then a middle-income neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey, the second child of Army serviceman and entertainment executive John Russell Houston, Jr. and gospel singer Cissy Houston. She had two older brothers, Gary Garland, who was also a singer, and Michael Houston. She was of African American, Native American, and Dutch descent. Her mother, along with cousins Dionne Warwick and Dee Dee Warwick, godmother Darlene Love and honorary aunt Aretha Franklin were all notable figures in the gospel, rhythm and blues, pop, and soul genres. She met her honorary aunt at age 8, or 9, when her mother took her to a recording studio. Houston was raised a Baptist, but was also exposed to the Pentecostal church. After the 1967 Newark riots, the family moved to a middle-class area in East Orange, New Jersey, when she was four. At the age of 11, Houston started performing as a soloist in the junior gospel choir at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, where she also learned to play the piano. Her first solo performance in the church was "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah."
"Samson?"
"According to the biblical account, Samson was given supernatural strength by God in order to combat his enemies and perform heroic feats such as killing a lion, slaying an entire army with only the jawbone of an ass, and destroying a pagan temple. Samson had two vulnerabilities, however: his attraction to untrustworthy women and his hair, without which he was powerless. These vulnerabilities ultimately proved fatal for him. Samson is believed by Jews and Christians to have been buried in Tel Tzora in Israel overlooking the Sorek valley. There reside two large gravestones of Samson and his father Manoah. Nearby stands Manoah’s altar. It is located between the cities of Zorah and Eshtaol. Samson's activity takes place during a time when God was punishing the Israelites, by giving them "into the hand of the Philistines. "The Angel of the Lord appears to Manoah, an Israelite from the tribe of Dan, in the city of Zorah, and to his wife, who had been unable to conceive. The Angel of the Lord proclaims that the couple will soon have a son who will begin to deliver the Israelites from the Philistines. The wife believed the Angel of the Lord, but her husband wasn't present, at first, and wanted the heavenly messenger to return, asking that he himself could also receive instruction about the child who was going to be born. When he becomes a young adult, Samson leaves the hills of his people to see the cities of the Philistines. While there, Samson falls in love with a Philistine woman from Timnah whom he decides to marry, overcoming the objections of his parents who do not know that "it is of the Lord." The intended marriage is actually part of God's plan to strike at the Philistines. On the way to ask for the woman's hand in marriage, Samson is attacked by an Asiatic Lion and simply grabs it and rips it apart, as the spirit of God moves upon him, divinely empowering him. This so profoundly affects Samson that he just keeps it to himself as a secret. Later, Samson goes to Gaza, where he stays at a harlot's house. His enemies wait at the gate of the city to ambush him, but he rips the gate up and carries it to "the hill that is in front of Hebron." He then falls in love with a woman, Delilah, at the Brook of Sorek. The Philistines approach Delilah and induce her (with 1100 silver coins each) to try to find the secret of Samson's strength. Samson, not wanting to reveal the secret, teases her, telling her that he will lose his strength should he be bound with fresh bowstrings. She does so while he sleeps, but when he wakes up he snaps the strings. She persists, and he tells her he can be bound with new ropes. She ties him up with new ropes while he sleeps, and he snaps them, too. She asks again, and he says he can be bound if his locks are woven together. She weaves them together, but he undoes them when he wakes. Eventually Samson tells Delilah that he will lose his strength with the loss of his hair. Delilah calls for a servant to shave Samson's seven locks. Since that breaks the Nazirite oath, God leaves him, and Samson is captured by the Philistines, who blind him. After being blinded, Samson is brought to Gaza, imprisoned, and put to work grinding grain?"
Source: Wikipedia.org | Saturday, August 27, 2016, 2:00PM  “Find a Grave Memorial ID 1311”
"Garrett Augustus Morgan, Sr. (March 4, 1877–July 27, 1963) was an American inventor and community leader. He worked on the development of a chemical for hair-straightening. He was the subject of a newspaper expose in Cleveland, Ohio, for a heroic rescue in 1916 of workers trapped within a water intake tunnel, 50 ft beneath Lake Erie. He performed his rescue using a hood fashioned to protect his eyes from smoke and featuring a series of air tubes that hung near the ground to draw clean air beneath the rising smoke. By using this simple principle of heat, it allowed Morgan to lengthen his ability to endure the inhospitable conditions of a smoke-filled room. Morgan is also credited as the first African American in Cleveland to own an automobile. Morgan was born in Claysville, an African American community outside of Paris, Kentucky, to Sydney Morgan, a son and former slave of Confederate Colonel John H. Morgan and Eliza Reed, also a former slave who was half Native American and daughter of Reverend Garrett Reed. He had at least one sibling, a brother Frank, who assisted in the 1916 Lake Erie tunnel rescue. Possessing only a seventh grade education, Morgan moved at the age of 16 to Cincinnati, Ohio, in search of employment. Most of his teenage years were spent working as a handyman for a Cincinnati landowner. Like many American children growing up in the turn of the century, Morgan had to quit school at a young age in order to work full-time. Morgan was privileged enough to hire a tutor and continue his studies while working in Cincinnati. In 1895, he moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where he began repairing sewing machines for a clothing manufacturer. Much like fellow inventor Henry Ford who became curious about cars after working as a young man in a factory that built engines, this experience with repairing sewing machines was the impetus for Morgan's interest in how things work. His first invention, developed during this period, was a belt fastener for sewing machines. Throughout this period of time, before his first patent in 1912, he was slowly building his reputation in Cleveland for his skill at fixing things. In 1907 Morgan, who had nearly a decade of experience with sewing machines, finally opened up his own sewing machine and shoe repair shop. It was the first of several businesses he would own. In 1908, Morgan became more conscious of his heritage and helped found the Cleveland Association of Colored Men. In 1909, he and his wife Mary Anne expanded their business ventures by opening a shop called Morgan's Cut Rate Ladies Clothing Store. The shop had 32 employees, and made coats, suits, dresses, and other clothing. Morgan experimented with a liquid that gave sewing machine needles a high polish that prevented the needle from scorching fabric as it sewed. In 1905, Morgan accidentally discovered that the liquid could also straighten hair. He made the liquid into a cream and launched the G. A. Morgan Hair Refining Company to market it. He also made a black hair oil dye and invented a curved-tooth comb for hair straightening in 1910. Garrett Morgan invented a safety hood smoke protection device after seeing firefighters struggling from the smoke they encountered in the line of duty. His device used a wet sponge to filter out smoke and cool the air. It also took advantage of the way smoke and fumes tend to rise to higher positions while leaving a layer of more breathable air below, by using an air intake tube that dangled near the floor. The safety hood used a series of tubes to draw clean air off the lowest level the tubes could extend to. Smoke, being hotter than the air around it, rises, and by drawing air from the ground, the Safety Hood provided the user with a way to perform emergency respiration. He filed for a patent on the device in 1912, and founded a company called the National Safety Device Company in 1914 to market it. He was able to sell his invention around the country, sometimes using the tactic of having a hired white actor take credit rather than revealing himself as its inventor. His safety hood device was simple and effective, whereas the other devices in use at the time were generally difficult to put on, excessively complex, unreliable, or ineffective. It was patented and awarded a gold medal two years later by the International Association of Fire Chiefs. Morgan's safety hood was used to save many lives during the period of its use. By World War I, his breathing device was refined to carry its own air supply, making it a gas mask which, by 1917, was standard equipment in the United States Army. In the Cleveland, Ohio area, the Garrett A. Morgan Cleveland School of Science and the Garret A. Morgan Water Treatment Plant have been named in his honor. An elementary school in Chicago was also named after him. An elementary school bearing his name is scheduled to open fall of 2016 in Lexington, Kentucky. In Prince George's County, Maryland, there is a street named Garrett A. Morgan Boulevard [bearing] his name. Morgan was included in the 2002 book 100 Greatest African Americans by Molefi Kete Asante."
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 31922089”
"Odetta Holmes (December 31, 1930–December 2, 2008), known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, lyricist, and a civil and human rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement." Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals. An important figure in the American folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, she influenced many of the key figures of the folk-revival of that time, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mavis Staples, and Janis Joplin. Time magazine included her recording of "Take This Hammer" on its list of the 100 Greatest Popular Songs, stating that "Rosa Parks was her No. 1 fan, and Martin Luther King Jr. called her the queen of American folk music." Odetta was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on December 31, 1930. Growing up during the Great Depression, she moved from the Deep South to live with her stepfather Zadock Felious. She grew up in Los Angeles, where she attended Belmont High School. She then studied music at Los Angeles City College while employed as a domestic worker. She had operatic training from the age of 13. Her mother hoped she would follow Marian Anderson, but Odetta doubted a large black girl would ever perform at the Metropolitan Opera. Her first professional experience was in musical theater in 1944, as an ensemble member for four years with the Hollywood Turnabout Puppet Theatre, working alongside Elsa Lanchester. In 1949, she joined the national touring company of the musical Finian's Rainbow. In November 2008, Odetta's health began to decline and she began receiving treatment at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. She had hoped to perform at Barack Obama's inauguration on January 20, 2009, but she died of heart disease on December 2, 2008, in New York City. On March 23, 2020, an article of Odetta was published on the Ukrainian Wikipedia, becoming the site's millionth article."
Source: Wikipedia.org | Saturday, April 18, 2020 | 11:30 PM CDT  "Find a Grave Memorial ID 174613427"
"Mary Frances Reynolds (April 1, 1932–December 28, 2016) was an American actress, singer, businesswoman, film historian, and humanitarian. She was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer for her portrayal of Helen Kane in the 1950 film Three Little Words, and her breakout role was her first leading role, as Kathy Selden in Singin' in the Rain. Other successes include The Affairs of Dobie Gillis, Susan Slept Here, Bundle of Joy, The Catered Affair, and Tammy and the Bachelor, in which her performance of the song "Tammy" reached number one on the Billboard music charts. In 1959, she released her first pop music album, titled Debbie. Mary Frances Reynolds was born on April 1, 1932, in El Paso, Texas, to Maxene Harman and Raymond Francis Reynolds, a carpenter for the Southern Pacific Railroad. She was of Scottish-Irish and English ancestry and was raised in a strict Nazarene church. She had a brother two years her senior. Reynolds was a Girl Scout, once saying that she wanted to die as the world's oldest living Girl Scout. Her father was a ditch digger and her mother took in laundry for income, while they lived in a shack on Magnolia Street, in El Paso. "We may have been poor," she said, "but we always had something to eat, even if Dad had to go out on the desert and shoot jackrabbits." One of the advantages of having been poor is that you learn to appreciate good fortune and the value of a dollar, and poverty holds no fear for you because you know you've gone through it and you can do it again...But we were always a happy family and a religious one. And I'm trying to inculcate in my children the same sense of values, the same tone that my mother gave to me. Her family moved to Burbank, California, in 1939. While a sixteen-year old high school student, she won the Miss Burbank beauty contest in 1948. Soon after, she had a contract with Warner Bros and acquired the nickname "Debbie" via Jack L. Warner. Reynolds was married three times. Her first marriage was to singer Eddie Fisher in 1955. They became the parents of Carrie and Todd Fisher. The couple divorced in 1959 when Fisher had an affair with Elizabeth Taylor shortly after the death of Taylor's husband Mike Todd; Taylor and Reynolds were good friends at the time. The Eddie Fisher–Elizabeth Taylor affair caused a serious public scandal, which led to the cancellation of Eddie Fisher's television show. In 2011, Reynolds was on The Oprah Winfrey Show just weeks before Elizabeth Taylor's death. She explained that she and Taylor happened to be traveling at the same time on the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth some time in the late 1960s or early 1970s when they reconciled. Reynolds sent a note to Taylor's room, and Taylor sent a note in reply asking to have dinner with Reynolds and end their feud. As Reynolds described it, "we had a wonderful evening with a lot of laughs." On December 23, 2016, Reynolds's daughter, actress and writer Carrie Fisher, suffered a medical emergency on a transatlantic flight from London to Los Angeles, and died on December 27 at the age of 60. The following day Reynolds was hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, after suffering a "severe stroke", according to son Todd Fisher. On December 28, 2016, Reynolds was hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center following a medical emergency, which her son Todd Fisher later described as a "severe stroke."She died that afternoon, one day after the death of her daughter Carrie Fisher."
 "Find a Grave Memorial ID 1460"
"Selena Quintanilla-Pérez (April 16, 1971–March 31, 1995) known by the mononym Selena, was an American singer, songwriter, spokesperson, actress, and fashion designer. Called the Queen of Tejano music, her contributions to music and fashion made her one of the most celebrated Mexican American entertainers of the late 20th century. Billboard magazine named her the "top Latin artist of the '90s," the "best selling Latin artist of the decade." She is often called the "Mexican American equivalent" of Madonna for her clothing choices, by media outlets. She also ranks among the most influential Latin artists of all-time and is credited for catapulting a music genre into mainstream. The youngest child of the Quintanilla family, she debuted on the music scene in 1980 as a member of the band Selena y Los Dinos, which also included her elder siblings A. B. Quintanilla and Suzette Quintanilla. Selena began recording professionally in 1982. In the 1980s, she was often criticized and was refused bookings at venues across Texas for performing Tejano music—a male-dominated music genre. However, her popularity grew after she won the Tejano Music Award for Female Vocalist of the Year in 1986, which she won nine consecutive times. Selena Quintanilla was born on April 16, 1971, in Lake Jackson, Texas. She had Cherokee ancestry and was the youngest child of Marcella Ofelia Quintanilla and Abraham Quintanilla, Jr., a former Mexican American musician. Selena was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. Quintanilla, Jr. noticed her musical abilities when she was six years old. He told People magazine, "Her timing, her pitch were perfect, I could see it from day one." In 1980 in Lake Jackson, Quintanilla, Jr. opened his first Tex-Mex restaurant, where Selena and her siblings Abraham III and Suzette Quintanilla would often perform. The following year, the restaurant was forced to close after a recession caused by the 1980s oil glut. The family declared bankruptcy and were evicted from their home. They settled in Corpus Christi, Texas; Quintanilla, Jr. became manager of the newly formed band Selena y Los Dinos and began promoting it. They needed money and played on street corners, at weddings, at quinceañeras, and at fairs. As her popularity as a singer grew, the demands of Selena's performance and travel schedule began to interfere with her education. Her father took her out of school when she was in the eighth grade. Her teacher Marilyn Greer disapproved of Selena's musical career. She threatened to report Quintanilla, Jr. to the Texas Board of Education, believing the conditions to which Selena was exposed were inappropriate for a girl her age. Quintanilla, Jr. told Greer to "mind her business." Other teachers expressed their concerns when they noticed how tired Selena appeared when she arrived at school. At seventeen, Selena earned a high school diploma from the American School of Correspondence in Chicago, and was also accepted at Louisiana State University. She enrolled at Pacific Western University, taking up business administration as her major subject."
"Jessica Rose James Decker a/k/a Jessie James Decker (born April 12, 1988) is an American country pop singer-songwriter and reality television personality. At age 15, after auditioning for and being rejected by most of the country labels in Nashville, Tennessee, James began working on refining her craft with Carla Wallace of Big Yellow Dog Music. One of her songs attracted the attention of Mercury Records which offered her a recording contract. She released her debut album, Jessie James, in 2009. A few years later in 2013, she starred with her husband Eric Decker, a wide receiver in the National Football League, in the E! reality show Eric & Jessie: Game On, which stopped airing in April 2014, but returned in September 2017. On April 18, 2014, James released an EP through iTunes with 19 Recordings entitled Comin' Home. On her new label Epic she released a 5-track EP Gold on February 17, 2017 & released a surprise live EP on June 9, 2017 titled Blackbird Sessions. On October 13, 2017 she released her second full-length album and first for Epic Records, Southern Girl City Lights. James was born "Jessica Rose James" on April 12, 1988, in Vicenza, Italy. She is from a military family, as her father served in the U. S. Air Force. As a result, she lived in many areas: Germany, Iowa, Kentucky, Texas, and Louisiana. James has two younger siblings, Sydney Rae Bass and John James. She began singing at the age of two and won her first talent contest in Baker, Louisiana, at the age of nine singing "I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart." By then, she had already been writing songs on a plastic guitar and had performed at Sea World and in Warner Robins in 2000. At age fifteen, she made weekly trips to Nashville to hone her songwriting skills. At seventeen, James was introduced to Carla Wallace of independent label Big Yellow Dog Music, who helped her with her songwriting and singing. One of her songs, "Gypsy Girl," written with two writers from Yellow Dog had been pitched to American Idol contestant and winner, Carrie Underwood. Underwood put it on hold for her record, but nonetheless the song made it into the hands of record executive David Massey, who brought her to the attention of L. A. Reid. She auditioned for Reid singing her song "My Cowboy," produced by John Rich. James soon inked a contract with Mercury Records. Even though she originally thought that she would be producing a country record, James was later told to record a pop album by record executives. She described herself in an interview as "a country girl at heart," having grown up listening to the genre and preferring it to pop. James co-wrote the majority of the songs on her debut album. The album is of a country pop fusion genre, revealing her taste for not only country music, but pop and soul music as well. The beat for "Blue Jeans" was a recording of James stepping, this talent stems from her time on the step team at her school. Initially, she faced opposition for her soul music-inspired vocal runs when trying to get signed in Nashville. She has listed Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, Bobbie Gentry, Janis Joplin, Shelby Lynne, and Shania Twain as her musical influences. Initially, she also stated that she wanted a career similar to those of Gentry and Twain, who were signed to pop labels but found crossover success in both country and pop music. James was romantically linked to former NFL running back Reggie Bush in 2010. On June 22, 2013, Jessie married Eric Decker, an NFL wide receiver who at the time played for the Denver Broncos. In September 2013, it was announced that the couple was expecting their first child together. She gave birth to their daughter Vivianne Rose on March 18, 2014 in Colorado. On September 3, 2015, James gave birth to their second child, Eric Thomas Decker II. James announced on October 9, 2017 that they are expecting a third child, another boy, due in late in March 2018."
Source: Wikipedia.org | Monday, March 5, 2018 | Decker's Official Website on Wednesday, February 13, 2019  “Find a Grave Memorial ID 188025042”
"Stephen William Hawking (8 January 1942–14 March 2018) was an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author, and director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge. His scientific works included a collaboration with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularity theorems in the framework of general relativity and the theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation. Hawking was the first to set out a theory of cosmology explained by a union of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. He was a vigorous supporter of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Hawking was a fellow of the Royal Society, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. In 2002, Hawking was ranked number 25 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. He was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge between 1979 and 2009 and achieved commercial success with works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general. His book A Brief History of Time appeared on the British Sunday Times best-seller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks. Hawking had a rare early-onset slow-progressing form of motor neurone disease also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis "ALS" that gradually paralyzed him over the decades. Even after the loss of his speech, he was still able to communicate through a speech-generating device, initially through use of a hand-held switch, and eventually by using a single cheek muscle. He died on 14 March 2018 at the age of 76. Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 in Oxford to Frank and Isobel Eileen Hawking Walker. Hawking's mother was born into a family of doctors in Glasgow, Scotland. His wealthy paternal great-grandfather, from Yorkshire, had over-extended himself buying farm land and then gone bankrupt in the great agricultural depression during the early 20th century. His paternal great-grandmother saved the family from financial ruin by opening a school in their home. Despite their families' financial constraints, both parents attended the University of Oxford, where Frank read medicine and Isobel read Philosophy, Politics and Economics. Isobel worked as a secretary for a medical research institute, and Frank was a medical researcher. Hawking had two younger sisters, Philippa and Mary, and an adopted brother, Edward Frank David. In 1950, when Hawking's father became head of the division of parasitology at the National Institute for Medical Research, the family moved to St Albans, Hertfordshire. In St Albans, the family was considered highly intelligent and somewhat eccentric; meals were often spent with each person silently reading a book. They lived a frugal existence in a large, cluttered, and poorly maintained house and traveled in a converted London taxicab. During one of Hawking's father's frequent absences working in Africa, the rest of the family spent four months in Majorca visiting his mother's friend Beryl and her husband, the poet Robert Graves. Hawking began his schooling at the Byron House School in Highgate, London. He later blamed its "progressive methods" for his failure to learn to read while at the school. In St Albans, the eight-year-old Hawking attended St Albans High School for Girls for a few months. At that time, younger boys could attend one of the houses. Although known at school as "Einstein," Hawking was not initially successful academically. With time, he began to show considerable aptitude for scientific subjects and, inspired by Tahta, decided to read mathematics at university. Hawking's father advised him to study medicine, concerned that there were few jobs for mathematics graduates. He also wanted his son to attend University College, Oxford, his own alma mater. As it was not possible to read mathematics there at the time, Hawking decided to study physics and chemistry. Despite his headmaster's advice to wait until the next year, Hawking was awarded a scholarship after taking the examinations in March 1959. When Hawking was a graduate student at Cambridge, his relationship with Jane Wilde, a friend of his sister whom he had met shortly before his late 1963 diagnosis with motor neurone disease, continued to develop. The couple became engaged in October 1964. Hawking later said that the engagement gave him "something to live for" and the two were married on 14 July 1965. During their first years of marriage, Jane lived in London during the week as she completed her degree, and they travelled to the United States several times for conferences and physics-related visits. The couple had difficulty finding housing that was within Hawking's walking distance to the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. Jane began a PhD programme, and a son, Robert, was born in May 1967. A daughter, Lucy, was born in 1970. A third child, Timothy, was born in April 1979. Hawking rarely discussed his illness and physical challenges, even–in a precedent set during their courtship–with Jane. His disabilities meant that the responsibilities of home and family rested firmly on his wife's increasingly overwhelmed shoulders, leaving him more time to think about physics. Upon his appointment in 1974 to a year-long position at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, Jane proposed that a graduate or post-doctoral student live with them and help with his care. Hawking accepted, and Bernard Carr travelled with them as the first of many students who fulfilled this role. The family spent a generally happy and stimulating year in Pasadena. Hawking returned to Cambridge in 1975 to a new home and a new job, as reader. Don Page, with whom Hawking had begun a close friendship at Caltech, arrived to work as the live-in graduate student assistant. With Page's help and that of a secretary, Jane's responsibilities were reduced so she could return to her thesis and her new interest in singing. By December 1977, Jane had met organist Jonathan Hellyer Jones when singing in a church choir. Hellyer Jones became close to the Hawking family, and by the mid-1980s, he and Jane had developed romantic feelings for each other. According to Jane, her husband was accepting of the situation, stating "he would not object so long as I continued to love him." Jane and Hellyer Jones determined not to break up the family, and their relationship remained platonic for a long period. By the 1980s, Hawking's marriage had been strained for many years. Jane felt overwhelmed by the intrusion into their family life of the required nurses and assistants. The impact of his celebrity was challenging for colleagues and family members, while the prospect of living up to a worldwide fairytale image was daunting for the couple. Hawking's views of religion also contrasted with her strong Christian faith and resulted in tension. In the late 1980s, Hawking had grown close to one of his nurses, Elaine Mason, to the dismay of some colleagues, caregivers, and family members, who were disturbed by her strength of personality and protectiveness. Hawking told Jane that he was leaving her for Mason, and departed the family home in February 1990. After his divorce from Jane in 1995, Hawking married Mason in September, declaring, "It's wonderful, I have married the woman I love." In 2006, Hawking and Mason quietly divorced, and Hawking resumed closer relationships with Jane, his children, and his grandchildren. Reflecting this happier period, a revised version of Jane's book called Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen appeared in 2007, and was made into a film, The Theory of Everything, in 2014. Hawking had a rare early-onset slow-progressing form of motor neurone disease also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis "ALS" that gradually paralysed him over the decades. Hawking had experienced increasing clumsiness during his final year at Oxford, including a fall on some stairs and difficulties when rowing. The problems worsened, and his speech became slightly slurred and his family noticed the changes when he returned home for Christmas, and medical investigations were begun. The diagnosis of motor neurone disease came when Hawking was 21, in 1963. At the time, doctors gave him a life expectancy of two years. Hawking died in his home in Cambridge, England, early in the morning of 14 March 2018, at the age of 76. His family stated that he "died peacefully." He was eulogised by figures in science, entertainment, politics, and other areas. The Gonville and Caius College flag flew at half-mast and a book of condolences was signed by students and visitors. A tribute was made to Hawking in the closing speech by IPC President Andrew Parsons at the closing ceremony of the 2018 Paralympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Hawking's final broadcast interview, about the detection of gravitational waves resulting from the collision of two neutron stars, occurred in October 2017. His final words to the world appear posthumously, in April 2018, in the form of a Smithsonian TV Channel documentary entitled, Leaving Earth: Or How to Colonize a Planet. Hawking was born on the 300th anniversary of Galileo's death and died on the 139th anniversary of Einstein's birth. His private funeral took place at 2 pm on the afternoon of 31 March 2018, at Great St Mary's Church, Cambridge. Guests at the funeral included Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones. Following his cremation, his ashes will be interred in Westminster Abbey on 15 June 2018 during a Thanksgiving service. His ashes will be interred in the Abbey's nave, next to the grave of Sir Isaac Newton and near that of Charles Darwin. He directed at least fifteen years before his death that the Bekenstein–Hawking entropy equation be his epitaph. Hawking was an atheist and believed that "the universe is governed by the laws of science." He stated: "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works." In 2008, Hawking stated, "The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws." In an interview published in The Guardian, Hawking regarded "the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail" and the concept of an afterlife as a "fairy story for people afraid of the dark.""
Source: Wikipedia.org | Wednesday, May 2, 2018, 12:00AM  “Find a Grave Memorial ID 1675”
"Thurgood Marshall, born Thoroughgood Marshall (July 2, 1908–January 24, 1993) was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, serving from October 1967 until October 1991. Marshall was the Court's 96th justice and its first African-American justice. Marshall was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on July 2, 1908. He was the great-grandson of a slave who was born in the modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo; his grandfather was also a slave. His original name was Thoroughgood, but he shortened it to Thurgood in second grade because he disliked spelling it. His father, William Marshall, who was a railroad porter, and his mother Norma, a teacher, instilled in him an appreciation for the Constitution of the United States and the rule of law. Marshall was married twice. He married Vivian "Buster" Burey in 1929. After her death in February 1955, Marshall married Cecilia Suyat in December of that year. They were married until he died in 1993, having two sons together."
Source: Wikipedia.org | Updated Thursday, October 1, 2020, 5:27 PM CDT |
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 12650257”
"Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor III (December 1, 1940–December 10, 2005) was an American comedian, actor, film director, social critic, satirist, writer, and MC. Pryor was known for uncompromising examinations of racism and topical contemporary issues, which employed colorful vulgarities and profanity, as well as racial epithets. He reached a broad audience with his trenchant observations and storytelling style. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential stand-up comedians of all time: Jerry Seinfeld called Pryor "The Picasso of our profession," and Bob Newhart has called Pryor "the seminal comedian of the last 50 years." This legacy can be attributed, in part, to the unusual degree of intimacy Pryor brought to bear on his comedy. As Bill Cosby reportedly once said, "Richard Pryor drew the line between comedy and tragedy as thin as one could possibly paint it. Born on December 1, 1940 in Peoria, Illinois, Pryor grew up in his grandmother's brothel, where his mother, Gertrude L. Thomas practiced prostitution. His father, LeRoy "Buck Carter" Pryor was a former boxer and hustler. After his alcoholic mother abandoned him when he was 10, Pryor was raised primarily by his grandmother Marie Carter, a tall, violent woman who would beat him for any of his eccentricities. Pryor was one of four children raised in his grandmother's brothel and was sexually abused at age 7. He was expelled from school at the age of 14. His first professional performance was playing drums at a night club. Pryor served in the U. S. Army from 1958 to 1960, but spent virtually the entire stint in an army prison. According to a 1999 profile about Pryor in The New Yorker, Pryor was incarcerated for an incident that occurred while stationed in Germany. Angered that a white soldier was overly amused at the racially charged sections of Douglas Sirk's movie Imitation of Life Pryor and some other black soldiers beat and stabbed him, though not fatally. During this time, Pryor's girlfriend gave birth to a girl named Renee. In 1960, he married Patricia Price, and they had one child together, Richard Jr. They divorced in 1961. Pryor was a Freemason in a lodge in Peoria, Illinois. He was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1986. In 1990, Pryor suffered a second and more severe heart attack and underwent triple heart bypass surgery. On June 9, 1980, during the making of the film Bustin' Loose, Pryor set himself on fire after freebasing cocaine and drinking 151-proof rum. While on fire, he ran down Parthenia Street from his Los Angeles, California, home, until being subdued by police. He was taken to a hospital, where he was treated for burns covering more than half of his body. Pryor spent six weeks in recovery at the Herpolscheimer Burn Center at Sherman Oaks Hospital. His daughter, Rain, stated that Pryor poured high-proof rum over his body and set himself ablaze in a bout of drug-induced psychosis. Later, in an on-camera interview, Pryor commented, "I tried to commit suicide. Next question. On December 10, 2005, Pryor suffered a heart attack in Los Angeles. He was taken to a local hospital after his wife's attempts to resuscitate him failed. He was pronounced dead at 7:58 a.m. PST. He was 65 years old. His widow Jennifer was quoted as saying, "At the end, there was a smile on his face." He was cremated, and his ashes were given to his family."
|
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 417”
"Lyon Himan Green, (February 12, 1915–September 11, 1987) better known by the stage name Lorne Greene, was a Canadian actor and musician. His television roles include Ben Cartwright on the western Bonanza, and Commander Adama in the science fiction television series Battlestar Galacticaand Galactica 1980. He also worked on the Canadian television nature documentary series Lorne Greene's New Wilderness, and in television commercials. Greene was born in Ottawa, Ontario on February 12, 1915, to Russian Jewish immigrants, Daniel, a shoemaker, and Dora Green Grinovsky. He was called "Chaim" by his mother, and his name is shown as "Hyman" on his school report cards. In his biography, the author, his daughter Linda Greene Bennett, stated that it was not known when he began using "Lorne," nor when he added an "e" to Green. Greene was the drama instructor at Camp Arowhon, a summer camp in Algonquin Park, Ontario, Canada, where he developed his talents. Greene began acting while attending Queen's University in Kingston, where he also acquired a knack for broadcasting with the Radio Workshop of the university's Drama Guild on the campus radio station CFRC. He gave up on a career in chemical engineering and, upon graduation, found a job as a radio broadcaster for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. During World War II Green served as a Flying Officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Greene was assigned as the principal newsreader on the CBC National News. The CBC gave him the nickname "The Voice of Canada," however, his role in delivering distressing war news in sonorous tones with his deep, resonant voice following Canada's entry into World War II in 1939 caused many listeners to call him "The Voice of Doom," particularly since he was delegated the assignment of reading the dreaded list of soldiers killed in the war. During his radio days, Greene invented a stopwatch that ran backwards. It helped radio announcers gauge how much time was left, while speaking. He also narrated documentary films, such as the National Film Board of Canada's Fighting Norway. In 1957 Greene played the prosecutor in Peyton Place. Greene was married twice, first to Rita Hands of Toronto, divorced. Some reports list the start of their marriage as 1940. They had two children, twins born in 1945, Belinda Susan Bennet Greene and Charles Greene. His second wife was Nancy Deale [until Greene's death] with whom he had one child, Gillian Dania Greene, born January 6, 1968 in Los Angeles, California. Greene underwent surgery for prostate cancer in 1985. Greene died on September 11, 1987 at age 72 of complications from pneumonia, following ulcer surgery, in Santa Monica, California. He was interred at Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City. He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada on October 28, 1969, "For services to the Performing Arts and to the community." He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree by his alma mater, Queen's University, in 1971. Greene was the 1987 recipient of the Earle Grey Award for Lifetime Achievement at the Canadian Gemini Awards. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1559 N. Vine Street. In May 2006, Greene became one of the first four entertainers to ever be honored by Canada Post by being featured on a 51c postage stamp. In February 1985, Greene was the Krewe of Bacchus King of Mardi Gras."
|
"Mariah Carey (born March 27, 1970) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Born and raised on Long Island, New York, Carey came to prominence after releasing her self-titled debut studio album Mariah Carey in 1990; it went multiplatinum and spawned four consecutive number one singles on the U. S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. Under the guidance of Columbia Records executive and later husband Tommy Mottola, she continued booking success with follow up albums Emotions Music Box and Merry Christmas Carey was established as Columbia's highest-selling act. Daydream made music history when its second single "One Sweet Day," a duet with Boyz II Men, spent a record sixteen weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100, and remains the longest-running number-one song in U. S. chart history. During the recording of the album, Carey began to deviate from her R&B and pop beginnings and slowly traversed into hip hop. This musical change became evident with the release of Butterfly at which time Carey had separated from Mottola. Carey left Columbia in 2000, and signed a $100 million recording contract with Virgin Records. Before the release of her film Glitter she suffered a physical and emotional breakdown and was hospitalized for severe exhaustion. Following the film's poor reception, she was bought out of her recording contract for $50 million, which led to a decline in her career. Throughout her career, Carey has sold more than 200 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. In 1998, she was honored as the world's best-selling recording artist of the 1990s at the World Music Awards. Carey was also named the best-selling female artist of the millennium in 2000. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, she is the third-best-selling female artist in the United States, with 63.5 million certified albums. Mariah Carey was born on March 27, 1969 or 1970 on Long Island, in Huntington, New York. Her father, Alfred Roy, was of African American and Venezuelan descent, while her mother, Patricia Hickey is of White Irish descent. The last name Carey was adopted by her Venezuelan grandfather, Francisco Núñez, after emigrating to New York. Patricia was an occasional opera singer and vocal coach before she met Alfred in 1960. As he began earning a living as an aeronautical engineer, the couple wed later that year, and moved into a small suburb in New York. After their elopement, Patricia's family disowned her due to her marrying a black man. Carey later explained that growing up, she felt a notion of neglect from her maternal family, a mark that affected her greatly. During the years between the births of Carey's older sister Alison and herself, the Carey family struggled within the community due to their ethnicity. Carey began dating Mottola while recording Music Box, and married him on June 5, 1993. After the release of Daydream and the success that followed, Carey began focusing on her personal life, which was a constant struggle at the time. Carey's relationship with Mottola began to deteriorate, due to their growing creative differences in terms of her albums, as well as his controlling nature. The couple divorced in 1998. Carey met actor and comedian Nick Cannon while they shot her music video for her song "Bye Bye" on an island off the coast of Antigua. On April 30, 2008, Carey married Cannon in The Bahamas. 35 weeks into her pregnancy, she gave birth to their fraternal twins, Monroe and Moroccan, on April 30, 2011. In August 2014, Cannon confirmed after much speculation that he and Carey had separated a few months earlier. Mariah Carey is a Christian."
"Willard Carroll Smith, Jr. (born September 25, 1968) is an American actor, producer, rapper, and songwriter. He has enjoyed success in television, film, and music. In April 2007, Newsweek called him "the most powerful actor in Hollywood." Smith has been nominated for four Golden Globe Awards, two Academy Awards, and has won four Grammy Awards. He is the only actor to have eight consecutive films gross over $100 million in the domestic box office, and 11 consecutive films gross over $150 million internationally and the only one to have eight consecutive films in which he starred open at the number one spot in the domestic box office tally. Will Smith is ranked as the most bankable star worldwide by Forbes. As of 2014, 17 of the 21 films in which he has had leading roles have accumulated worldwide gross earnings of over $100 million each, five taking in over $500 million each in global box office receipts. More so, as of 2014, his films have grossed $6.6 billion in global box office. Smith was born in West Philadelphia, the son of Caroline Bright, a Philadelphia school board administrator and Willard Carroll Smith, Sr., a refrigeration engineer. He grew up in West Philadelphia's Wynnefield neighborhood, and was raised Baptist. He has three siblings, sister Pamela, who is four years older, and twins Harry and Ellen, who are three years younger. Smith attended Our Lady of Lourdes, a private Catholic elementary school in Philadelphia. His parents separated when he was 13, but did not actually divorce until around 2000. Smith attended Overbrook High School. Though widely reported, it is untrue that Smith turned down a scholarship to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; he never applied to the school, although he was admitted to a "pre-engineering program" there. According to Smith, "My mother, who worked for the School Board of Philadelphia, had a friend who was the admissions officer at MIT. I had pretty high SAT scores and they needed black kids, so I probably could have gotten in. But I had no intention of going to college. Smith married Sheree Zampino in 1992. They had one son, Willard Carroll "Trey" Smith III on November 11, 1992, and divorced in 1995. Trey appeared in his father's music video for the 1998 single "Just the Two of Us." He also acted in two episodes of the sitcom All of Us, and has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and on the David Blaine: Real or Magic TV special. Smith married actress Jada Koren Pinkett in 1997. Together they have two children: Jaden Christopher Syre Smith his co-star in The Pursuit of Happyness and After Earth, and Willow Camille Reign Smith who appeared as his daughter in I Am Legend. Smith and his brother Harry own Treyball Development Inc., a Beverly Hills-based company named after Trey. Smith and his family reside in Los Angeles, California. Smith was consistently listed in Fortune Magazine's "Richest 40" list of the forty wealthiest Americans under the age of 40. Smith was raised in a Baptist household and went to a Catholic school, but he no longer identifies himself as religious. Though he is not a Scientologist and has denied rumors claiming him as a member of the Church of Scientology, he has spoken favorably about it, saying "I just think a lot of the ideas in Scientology are brilliant and revolutionary and non-religious." Smith gave $1.3 million to charities in 2007, of which $450,000 went to two Christian ministries, and $122,500 went to three Scientology organizations; the remaining beneficiaries included "a Los Angeles mosque, other Christian-based schools and churches, the Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Center in Israel." Smith and his wife have also founded a private elementary school in Calabasas, California, the New Village Leadership Academy. Federal tax filing showed that Will Smith donated $1.2 million to the school in 2010. In 2012, Smith came out in support of legalizing same-sex marriage."
 "Find a Grave Memorial ID 2845"
"Alphonse Gabriel Capone (January 17, 1899–January 25, 1947) was an American gangster who attained fame during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the Chicago Outfit. His seven-year reign as crime boss ended when he was 33 years old. Alphonse Gabriel Capone was born in the borough of Brooklyn in New York on January 17, 1899. His parents were Italian immigrants. His father was a barber and his mother was a seamstress, both born in Angri, a town in the Province of Salerno. The Capone family immigrated to the United States, first immigrating from Italy to Fiume, Austria-Hungary in 1893, traveling on a ship to the U. S., and finally settling at 95 Navy Street, in the Navy Yard section of downtown Brooklyn. Gabriele Capone worked at a nearby barber shop at 29 Park Avenue. When Al was 11, the Capone family moved to 38 Garfield Place in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Capone showed promise as a student, but had trouble with the rules at his strict parochial Catholic school. He dropped out of school at the age of 14, after being expelled for hitting a female teacher in the face. He worked at odd jobs around Brooklyn, including a candy store and a bowling alley. During this time, Capone was influenced by gangster Johnny Torrio, whom he came to regard as a mentor. Capone initially became involved with small-time gangs that included the Junior Forty Thieves and the Bowery Boys. He then joined the Brooklyn Rippers, and then the powerful Five Points Gang based in Lower Manhattan. During this time, he was employed and mentored by fellow racketeer Frankie Yale, a bartender in a Coney Island dance hall and saloon called the Harvard Inn. Capone inadvertently insulted a woman while working the door at a Brooklyn night club and was slashed by her brother Frank Gallucio. The wounds led to the nickname that Capone loathed, "Scarface." Yale insisted that Capone apologize to Gallucio, and later Capone hired him as a bodyguard. When photographed, Capone hid the scarred left side of his face, saying that the injuries were war wounds. Capone was called "Snorky," a term for a sharp dresser, by his closest friends. Capone married Mae Josephine Coughlin on December 30, 1918 at age 19. She was Irish Catholic and, earlier that month, had given birth to their son Albert Francis "Sonny" Capone. Capone was under the age of 21, so his parents had to consent to the marriage in writing. Capone was arrested by FBI agents on March 27, 1929 as he left a Chicago courtroom after testifying to a grand jury investigating violations of federal prohibition laws, on charges of having committed contempt of court by feigning illness to avoid an earlier appearance. In May 1929, Capone was sentenced to a prison term in Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary, having been convicted within 16 hours of being arrested for carrying a gun during a trip there. A week after he was released, in March 1930, Capone was listed as the number one "Public Enemy" on the unofficial Chicago Crime Commission's widely publicized list. Capone was sent to Atlanta U. S. Penitentiary in May 1932, aged 33. Upon his arrival at Atlanta, the 250-pound Capone was officially diagnosed with syphilis and gonorrhea. He was also suffering from withdrawal symptoms from cocaine addiction, use of which had perforated his septum. Capone was competent at his prison job of stitching soles on shoes for eight hours a day, but his letters were barely coherent. He was seen as a weak personality, and so out of his depth dealing with bullying fellow inmates that his cellmate, seasoned convict Red Rudinsky, feared that Capone would have a breakdown. Rudinsky was formerly a small time criminal associated with the Capone gang, and found himself becoming a protector for Capone. The conspicuous protection of Rudinsky and other prisoners drew accusations from less friendly inmates, and fueled suspicion that Capone was receiving special treatment. No solid evidence ever emerged, but it formed part of the rationale for moving Capone to the recently opened Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary off the coast of San Francisco. At Alcatraz, Capone's decline became increasingly evident as neurosyphilis progressively eroded his mental faculties. He spent the last year of his sentence in the prison hospital, confused and disoriented. Capone completed his term in Alcatraz on January 6, 1939, and was transferred to the Federal Correctional Institution at Terminal Island in California to serve out his sentence for contempt of court. He was paroled on November 16, 1939. After Capone was released from prison, he was referred to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for the treatment of paresis. Hopkins refused to admit him based solely on his reputation, but Union Memorial Hospital took him in. Capone was grateful for the compassionate care that he received, and donated two Japanese weeping cherry trees to Union Memorial Hospital in 1939. A very sickly Capone left Baltimore on March 20, 1940, after a few weeks inpatient and a few weeks outpatient, for Palm Island, Florida. In 1946, his physician and a Baltimore psychiatrist performed examinations and concluded that Capone had the mental capability of a 12-year-old child. Capone spent the last years of his life at his mansion in Palm Island, Florida. On January 21, 1947, Capone had a stroke. He regained consciousness and started to improve but contracted pneumonia. He suffered a fatal cardiac arrest the next day. On January 25, 1947, Al Capone died in his home, surrounded by his family; he was buried at Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois. Capone is one of the most notorious American gangsters of the 20th century and has been the subject of numerous articles, books, and films. His personality and character have been used in fiction as a model for crime lords and criminal masterminds ever since his death. The stereotypical image of a mobster wearing a blue pinstriped suit and tilted fedora is based on photos of Capone. His accent, mannerisms, facial construction, physical stature, and parodies of his name have been used for numerous gangsters in comics, movies, music, and literature."
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 285192062”
"Terry Gene Bollea (August 11, 1953–July 24, 2025), better known by his ring name Hulk Hogan, was an American professional wrestler. He was best known for his work with WWE and World Championship Wrestling. Known for his flamboyance and massive physique, and his trademark blond horseshoe moustache and bandanas, Hogan was widely regarded as the most recognized wrestling star worldwide, the most popular wrestler of the 1980s and one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time. Hogan suffered numerous health problems, particularly with his back, since retiring as a wrestler following the years of heavy weight-training and jolting as a wrestler. After the procedures failed to cure his back problems, Hogan underwent traditional spinal fusion surgery in December 2010, which enabled him to return to his professional activities. In addition, the Laser Spine Institute used his name on their advertisements, which Hogan claimed was without his permission. In January 2013, Hogan filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against the Laser Spine Institute for $50 million, citing that the medical firm persuaded him to undergo a half-dozen "unnecessary and ineffective" spinal operations that worsened his back problems. He claimed that the six procedures he underwent over a period of 19 months only gave him short-term relief. Hogan died of cardiac arrest at his home in Clearwater, Florida, on July 24, 2025, at the age of 71. Emergency personnel responded to the scene, and he was transported from the residence by ambulance. His death came a month after he underwent major spinal fusion surgery, although his wife Sky denied reports that it was part of a more serious health-related issue."
Source: Wikipedia.org | Thursday, July 24, 2025, 11:59 PM CDT  “Find a Grave Memorial ID 7862236”
"Ida Bell Wells-Barnett (July 16, 1862–March 25, 1931) more commonly known as Ida B. Wells, was an African American journalist, newspaper editor, suffragist, sociologist, feminist Georgist and, an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909. Born into slavery in Mississippi, as an adult she documented lynching in the United States in the 1890s, showing that it was often used as a way to control or punish blacks who competed with whites, rather than being based on criminal acts by blacks, as was usually claimed by whites. She was active in women's rights and the women's suffrage movement, establishing several notable women's organizations. Wells was a skilled and persuasive rhetorician and traveled internationally on lecture tours. Ida Bell Wells was born into slavery in Holly Springs, Mississippi, in 1862, several months before United States President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves in Confederate-held territory. Her enslaved parents were James Wells and Elizabeth Warrenton Wells, both held by Spires Bolling, an architect. She was one of eight children. The family resided at Bolling's house, now named the Bolling-Gatewood House, where Lizzie Wells was a cook. Ida's father was a master at carpentry; after the Civil War he was a "race man" who worked for the advancement of blacks. He was very interested in politics and became a member of the Loyal League. He attended Shaw University in Holly Springs but he dropped out to help his family. He also attended public speeches and campaigned for local black candidates but never ran for office himself. A religious woman, Elizabeth Wells was very strict with her children. Both of Ida's parents were active in the Republican Party during the Reconstruction. Ida attended Shaw like her father, but she was expelled for rebellious behavior after confronting the college president. While visiting her grandmother in the Mississippi Valley in 1878, Ida, then aged 16, received word that Holly Springs had suffered a yellow fever epidemic. Both of her parents and her infant brother Stanley died during that event, leaving her and her five other siblings orphaned. The murder of her friends drove Wells to research and document lynchings and their causes. She began investigative journalism by looking at the charges given for the murders, which officially started her anti-lynching campaign. She spoke on the issue at various black women's clubs, and raised more than $500 to investigate lynchings and publish her results. Wells found that blacks were lynched for such social control reasons as failing to pay debts, not appearing to give way to whites, competing with whites economically, and being drunk in public. She found little basis for the frequent claim that blacks were lynched because they had sexually abused or attacked white women, which was the alibi that partly accounted for white America's collective acceptance or silence on lynching, as well as its acceptance by many in the educated African American community; before the lynching of her three friends, Wells had held in this belief, and concluded that "although lynching was contrary to law and order it was the terrible crime of rape that led to the lynching; and that perhaps the mob was justified in taking life." She published her findings in a pamphlet entitled "Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases." She wrote an article that suggested that, unlike the myth that white women were sexually at risk of attacks by black men, most liaisons between black men and white women were consensual. Wells kept track of her life through diaries; in them, she admits a few personal things. Before she was married, Wells admitted that she would only date men in whom she had "little romantic interest," because she did not want romance to be the center of the relationship. She wanted it to be more about how she and her partner interacted mentally rather than physically. Wells also admitted to personal flaws, acknowledging that she was very quick to criticize and use harsh words towards someone. Because she logged all of her purchases, her diaries also revealed that she bought items which she really couldn't afford. In 1895, Wells married her attorney Ferdinand Barnett. She was one of the first married American women to keep her own last name as well as taking her husband's. The couple had four children: Charles, Herman, Ida, and Alfreda. In her autobiography, A Divided Duty, Wells described the difficulty she had splitting her time between her family and her work. She continued to work after the birth of her first child, traveling and bringing the infant Charles with her. Although she tried to balance her world, she could not be as active in her work. Susan B. Anthony said she seemed "distracted." After having her second child, Wells stepped out of her touring and public life for a time, as she could no longer balance her job with her family."
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 2194”
"Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill (30 November 1874–24 January 1965) was a British statesman who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a non-academic historian, a writer and an artist. He won 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 family of the Dukes of Marlborough, a branch of the Spencer family. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a charismatic politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer; his mother, Jennie Jerome, was an American socialite. As a young army officer, he saw action in British India, the Anglo–Sudan War, and the Second Boer War. He gained fame as a war correspondent and wrote books about his campaigns. Churchill's earliest exposure to education occurred in Dublin, where a governess tried teaching him reading, writing, and arithmetic. With limited contact with his parents, Churchill became very close to his nanny, 'Mrs' Elizabeth Ann Everest, whom he called 'Old Woom.' She served as his confidante, nurse, and mother substitute. The two spent many happy hours playing in Phoenix Park. Independent and rebellious by nature, Churchill generally had a poor academic record in school. He was educated at three independent schools. When young Winston started attending Harrow School, he was listed under the S's as Spencer Churchill. At that time Winston was a stocky boy with red hair who talked with a stutter and a lisp. Winston did so well in mathematics in his Harrow entrance exam that he was put in the top division for that subject. In his first year at Harrow he was recognized as being the best in his division for history. Winston entered the school, however, as the boy with the lowest grades in the lowest class, and he remained in that position. Winston never even made it into the upper school because he would not study the classics. Though he did poorly in his schoolwork, he grew to love the English language. He hated Harrow. His mother rarely visited him, and he wrote letters begging her either to come to the school or to allow him to come home. His relationship with his father was distant; he once remarked that they barely spoke to one another. His father died on 24 January 1895, aged 45, leaving Churchill with the conviction that he too would die young and so should be quick about making his mark on the world. Churchill was an accomplished artist and took great pleasure in painting, especially after his resignation as First Lord of the Admiralty in 1915. He found a haven in art to overcome the spells of depression which he suffered throughout his life. Churchill's funeral plan had been initiated in 1953, after he suffered a major stroke, under the name Operation Hope Not. The purpose was to commemorate Churchill "on a scale befitting his position in history," as the Queen declared. The funeral was the largest state funeral in world history up to that time, with representatives from 112 nations; only China did not send an emissary. In Europe 350 million people, including 25 million in Britain, watched the funeral on television, and only Ireland did not broadcast it live. By decree of the Queen, his body lay in state in Westminster Hall for three days and a state funeral service was held at St Paul's Cathedral on 30 January 1965. One of the largest assemblages of statesmen in the world was gathered for the service. Unusually, the Queen attended the funeral because Churchill was the first commoner since William Gladstone to lie-in-State. As Churchill's lead-lined coffin passed up the River Thames from Tower Pier to Festival Pier on the MV Havengore, dockers lowered their crane jibs in a salute. [Churchill is credited with saying] "diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions."
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 140788264”
"Donna Douglas (September 26, 1932–January 1, 2015) was an American actress and singer, known for her role as Elly May Clampett in CBS's The Beverly Hillbillies (1962–1971). Following her acting career, Douglas became a real estate agent, Gospel singer, inspirational speaker and author of books for children and adults. Douglas was born "Doris lone Smith" in the community of Pride, East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana on September 26, 1932. The younger of two children, she was the only daughter of Emmett Ratcliff Smith, Sr. and his wife, Elma Robinson. Her birth name is listed both as Dorothy Smith and Doris Smith in various articles. Douglas attended St. Gerard Catholic High School, where she played softball and basketball and was a member of the school's first graduating class. Douglas was named "Miss Baton Rouge" and "Miss New Orleans" in 1957. Douglas moved to New York City to pursue a career in show business and started as an illustration model for toothpaste advertisements. She was featured as the "Letters Girl" on NBC's The Perry Como Show in 1957 and as the "Billboard Girl" on NBC's The Steve Allen Show in 1959. These and other television appearances led New York photographers and newspaper reporters to award her the "Miss By-line" crown, which she wore on CBS's The Ed Sullivan Show. Hal B. Wallis saw the Sullivan episode and cast her in the role of Marjorie Burke in the movie drama Career starring Anthony Franciosa, Dean Martin and Shirley MacLaine. This was followed by a bit part in the musical comedy Li'l Abner and the role of a secretary in the comedy/romance Lover Come Back starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day. She made numerous television appearances in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including The Twilight Zone episode "The Eye of the Beholder." She played Barbara Simmons in four 1961 episodes of the CBS detective series Checkmate. Her other credits included in U. S. Marshal, Tightrope, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Bachelor Father, Adam-12 and Route 66. Douglas also appeared in Thriller, season 1, episode 16, "The Hungry Glass." Although Douglas was an active actress in the 1960s, she was still relatively unknown when selected from among 500 young actresses to work alongside veteran actor and dancer Buddy Ebsen on The Beverly Hillbillies. This series ran for nine consecutive seasons, beginning in 1962 and ending in 1971. Continually typecast as a result of her Hillbillies role, Douglas decided to focus on her career as a gospel singer. On June 10, 1993, Douglas and her partner Curt Wilson in Associated Artists Entertainment, Inc., filed a $200 million lawsuit against Disney, Whoopi Goldberg, Bette Midler, their production companies, and Creative Artists Agency claiming that Sister Act was plagiarized from a book, A Nun in the Closet, owned by the partners. Douglas and Wilson claimed that in 1985 they had developed a screenplay from the book. The lawsuit claimed that there were more than 100 similarities and plagiarisms between the movie and the book/screenplay owned by Douglas and Wilson. The lawsuit claimed that the developed screenplay had been submitted to Disney, Goldberg, and Midler three times during 1987 and 1988. In 1994, Douglas and Wilson declined a $1 million offer to settle the case. The judge found in favor of Walt Disney Pictures and the other defendants. Wilson stated at the time, "They would have had to copy our stuff verbatim for us to prevail." On May 4, 2011, Douglas filed a federal lawsuit claiming that Mattel and CBS Consumer Products used her name and likeness for a Barbie doll in the Classic TV Collection without her authorization. The suit alleged that packaging for the "Elly May" Barbie doll featured a photo of her portraying the character. Douglas maintained she never endorsed the doll nor gave Mattel permission to use her name to promote its sale. On December 27, 2011, Douglas settled her suit against CBS Consumer Products and Mattel, in which she had been seeking at least $75,000. In the lawsuit, Douglas claimed that CBS and Mattel needed her approval to design the doll, while CBS and Mattel maintained that they didn't need her consent or approval because the network holds exclusive rights to the character. Details of the settlement were confidential; both sides claimed to be content with the outcome. Douglas received her real estate license after The Beverly Hillbillies finished production. She did not work in that field long, however, as she remained in show business and found other projects. Douglas married her first husband, Roland Bourgeois, Jr., in 1949, with whom she had her only child, Danny Bourgeois, in 1954. The couple divorced that same year. She married Robert M. Leeds, director of The Beverly Hillbillies, in 1971; they divorced in 1980. Douglas remained a close friend of Buddy Ebsen for 32 years. In a 2011 interview with The Lincoln Times-News, she described Ebsen as "a wonderful man, very much like my own father, a quiet, reserved, and caring person." In 2003, Douglas' mother, Elma Smith, and Buddy Ebsen died. Douglas and Baer visited Ebsen in the hospital, and following his death both delivered a eulogy at his funeral. In addition to her frequent traveling for celebrity appearances and speeches, Douglas enjoyed gardening, spending time with friends, family and answering her fan mail. Douglas died at Baton Rouge General Hospital, aged 82, on January 1, 2015, from pancreatic cancer. Her interment was in East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana's Bluff Creek Cemetery."
"Louis Wade Sullivan (born November 3, 1933) is an active health policy leader, minority health advocate, author, physician, and educator. He served as the Secretary of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services during President George H. W. Bush's Administration and was Founding Dean of the Morehouse School of Medicine. He was born in Atlanta, Georgia, although his parents moved to rural Blakely, Georgia, shortly after he was born. His father was a mortician and his mother a teacher. His parents sent him, and his brother Walter, to live with friends in Atlanta during the school year where there were better public schools. By age 5, with inspiration from his family physician and encouragement from teachers and parents, Sullivan had decided he would pursue a career in healthcare. In 1950, Sullivan graduated from Atlanta's Booker T. Washington high school as Class Salutatorian. He then enrolled at Morehouse College and graduated magna cum laude in 1954, before earning his medical degree, cum laude, from Boston University School of Medicine in 1958. His postgraduate training included internship and residency in internal medicine at New York Hospital–Cornell Medical Center, a clinical fellowship in pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a research fellowship in hematology at the Thorndike Memorial Laboratory of Harvard Medical School, Boston City Hospital. He is certified in internal medicine and hematology, holds a mastership from the American College of Physicians and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Omega Alpha academic honor societies. Sullivan was an instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School from 1963–64 and an assistant professor of medicine at Seton Hall College of Medicine from 1964–66. In 1966, he became co-director of hematology at Boston University Medical Center and, a year later, founded the Boston University Hematology Service at Boston City Hospital. Sullivan remained at Boston University until 1975, holding positions as assistant professor of medicine, associate professor of medicine, and professor of medicine. In his teaching, he specialized in "sickle-cell anemia and blood disorders related to vitamin deficiencies." He married E. Ginger Williamson, an attorney, on September 30, 1955. They have three children."
 "Find a Grave Memorial ID 82132369"
"Kim Jong-il (16 February 1941/1942–17 December 2011) was the supreme leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea commonly referred to as North Korea, from 1994 to 2011. By the early 1980s Kim had become the heir apparent for the leadership of the country and assumed important posts in the party and army organs. He succeeded his father and founder of the DPRK, Kim Il-sung, following the elder Kim's death in 1994. Kim Jong-il was the General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea, Chairman of the National Defence Commission of North Korea, and the Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army, the fourth-largest standing army in the world. Kim's leadership is thought to have been even more authoritarian than his father's. During Kim's regime, the country suffered from famine, partially due to economic mismanagement, and had a poor human rights record. Kim involved his country in state terrorism and strengthened the role of the military by his Songun, or "military-first," politics. Kim's rule also saw tentative economic reforms, including the opening of the Kaesong Industrial Park in 2003. There is no official information available about Kim Jong-il's marital history, but he is believed to have been officially married once and to have had three mistresses. He had three known sons: Kim Jong-nam, Kim Jong-chul, Kim Jong-un. His two known daughters are Kim Sul-song and Kim Yo-jong. Kim's first mistress, Song Hye-rim, was a star of North Korean films. She was already married to another man and with a child when they met; Kim is reported to have forced her husband to divorce her. This relationship, started in 1970, was not officially recognized. They had one son, Kim Jong-nam was the eldest son of the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. From roughly 1994 to 2001, he was considered to be the heir apparent to his father and the next leader of North Korea. Following a much-publicized botched attempt to enter Japan using a fake passport and visit Tokyo Disneyland in May 2001, he was thought to have fallen out of favor with his father. From at least 2003 onwards, Kim Jong-nam lived in exile outside North Korea. His younger paternal half-brother Kim Jong-un was named heir apparent in September 2010. In exile, Kim became known as an occasional critic of his family's regime and an advocate for reform. Kim Jong-nam died in Malaysia in February 2017, under suspicious circumstances. On 14 February 2017, South Korean media reported that Kim was assassinated at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia by two unidentified women, speculated to be North Korean agents. As the individual in question was traveling in Malaysia under the pseudonym "Kim Chol," Malaysian officials have not formally confirmed that Kim Jong-nam was the man killed; however, the South Korean government has said it is certain Kim Jong-nam was the deceased. Malaysian police confirmed Kim died while being transferred from the airport to a hospital, but said the cause was not yet known. Malaysian government officials have claimed that North Korean officials in the country objected to any form of autopsy being conducted on Kim's body. Initial reporting mentioned some form of poisoned spray or needles being used. Malaysian police official Fadzil Ahmat told The Star that Kim had alerted a receptionist, saying "someone had grabbed him from behind and splashed a liquid on his face," also telling BERNAMA that "a woman covered [his] face with a cloth laced with a liquid." The South Korean National Intelligence Service believes that Kim was poisoned at the airport, as well as various unnamed agencies of the U. S. government. If confirmed, it would be the most high-profile death linked to North Korea since Jang Sung-taek was executed in 2013. The South Korean newspaper The Chosun Ilbo reported that Kim Jong-nam had two wives, at least one mistress, and several children. His first wife, Shin Jong-hui lives at a home called Dragon Villa on the northern outskirts of Beijing. His second wife, Lee Hye-kyong & their son Han-sol and their daughter Sol-hui lives in a modest 12-story apartment building in Macau; Jong-nam's mistress, former Air China flight attendant Chen Jia-Xi also lives in Macau. Jong-nam is known to have fathered at least six children by several women. He was known to be a playboy and for living a lavish lifestyle. Jong-nam was often given attention by the media for his gambling and extravagant spending. Kim Jong-nam was survived by six children from three different women."
|
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 17378984”
"Jane Matilda Bolin (April 11, 1908–January 8, 2007) was the first African American woman to graduate from Yale Law School, the first to join the New York City Bar Association, and the first to join the New York City Law Department. She became the first black woman to serve as a judge in the United States when she was sworn into the bench of the New York City Domestic Relations Court in 1939. Jane Matilda Bolin was born on April 11, 1908 in the suburb of Poughkeepsie, New York. She was the youngest of four children. Her father was Gaius C. Bolin, a lawyer and the first African American to attend Williams College and her mother was a white, British Woman named Matilda Ingram Emery who died when Bolin was 8 years old. Jane Bolin adored her father and she always knew she wanted to be a lawyer as her father but, her childhood was completely destroyed when she saw all the horrible articles and pictures of the extrajudicial hanging of black southerners she saw in The Crisis, the leading black magazine of the day. Bolin attended a high school in Poughkeepsie, and was one of two black students in her class at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. Most of the white students ignored her, and she lived off campus with the other black students. A careers adviser at Wellesley College tried to discourage her from applying to Yale Law School due to her race and gender. She graduated in 1928 in the top 20 in her class, and joined Yale Law School where she was the only black student, and one of only three women. She became the first African-American woman to receive a law degree from Yale in 1931 and passed the New York state bar examination in 1932. She practiced with her father in Poughkeepsie for a short period, and then with her first husband, Ralph E. Mizelle. She ran unsuccessfully for the New York State Assembly as the Republican candidate in the seventeenth district in 1936. She then joined New York City's legal department, serving as Assistant Corporation Counsel. The mayor of New York City, Fiorello La Guardia, appointed 31-year-old Bolin as a judge of the Domestic Relations Court on July 22, 1939, at the New York World's Fair. She remained a judge of the court, renamed the Family Court in 1962, for 40 years, with her appointment being renewed three times, until she was required to retire aged 70. She worked to encourage racially integrated child services, ensuring that probation officers were assigned without regard to race or religion, and publicly funded childcare agencies accepted children without regard to ethnic background. Bolin was an activist for children's rights and education. She served on the boards of the NAACP, the Child Welfare League, and the National Urban League. She received honorary degrees from Tuskeegee Institute, Williams College, Hampton University, Western College for Women and Morgan State University. After she retired in 1979, Bolin volunteered as a reading instructor in New York City public school for two years and served on the New York State Board of Regents, reviewing disciplinary cases. After a life of groundbreaking achievements, Jane Bolin died on Monday, January 8, 2007, at the age of 98 in Long Island, Queen, New York. Her death was announced by her son, Yorke B. Mizelle. She is survived by her son, Yorke Mizelle."
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 519”
"Rock Hudson, born Roy Harold Scherer, Jr. (November 17, 1925–October 2, 1985) was an American actor. Hudson is generally known for his turns as a leading man in the 1950s and 1960s. He achieved stardom with dramatic roles in films such as Magnificent Obsession and Giant, and found continued success with a string of romantic comedies co-starring Doris Day. Hudson began a second career in television through the 1970s and 80s, starring in the popular mystery series McMillan & Wife and the soap opera Dynasty. Hudson was voted Star of the Year, Favorite Leading Man, and similar titles by numerous film magazines. He completed nearly 70 films and starred in several television productions during a career that spanned over four decades. Hudson died in 1985, becoming the first major celebrity to die from an AIDS-related illness. Hudson was born in Winnetka, Illinois, the only child of telephone operator Katherine Wood and auto mechanic [Roy Harold Scherer, Sr.] who abandoned the family during the depths of the Great Depression. His mother remarried and his stepfather, Wallace "Wally" Fitzgerald, adopted him and changed his surname to Fitzgerald. Hudson's years at New Trier High School were unremarkable, although he sang in the school's glee club and was remembered as a shy boy who delivered newspapers, ran errands, and worked as a golf caddy. After graduating from high school during World War II he trained at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station, and with orders to report to Aviation Repair and Overhaul Unit 2 then located on Samar, Philippines, as an aircraft mechanic he departed San Francisco aboard the troop transport Lew Wallace. In 1946, after returning to San Francisco aboard an aircraft carrier, Hudson moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career and applied to the University of Southern California's dramatics program, but he was rejected due to poor grades. He worked as a truck driver for some time, longing to be an actor but with no success in breaking into the movies. After he sent talent scout Henry Willson a picture of himself in 1947, Willson took Hudson on as a client and changed his name to Rock Hudson, although Hudson later admitted he hated the name. Hudson made his acting debut with a small part in the 1948 Warner Bros. film Fighter Squadron, and took 38 takes to successfully deliver his only line in the film. Hudson was further coached in acting, singing, dancing, fencing, and horseback riding at Universal International, and he began to be featured in film magazines where he was promoted. While his career developed, Hudson and his agent Henry Willson kept the actor's personal life out of the headlines. In 1955,Confidential magazine threatened to publish an exposé about Hudson's secret homosexual life. Willson stalled this by disclosing information about two of his other clients. According to some colleagues, Hudson's homosexuality was well known in Hollywood throughout his career, and former co-stars Elizabeth Taylor and Susan Saint James claimed that they knew of his homosexual activity, as did Carol Burnett. Soon after the Confidential incident, Hudson married Willson's secretary Phyllis Gates. Gates later wrote that she dated Hudson for several months, lived with him for two months before his surprise marriage proposal, and married Hudson out of love and not to prevent an exposé of Hudson's sexual past. Press coverage of the wedding quoted Hudson as saying: "When I count my blessings, my marriage tops the list." Gates filed for divorce after three years in April 1958, citing mental cruelty. Hudson did not contest the divorce and Gates received alimony of $250 a week for 10 years. Unknown to the public, Hudson had been diagnosed with HIV on June 5, 1984. During most of 1984 and 1985, Hudson kept his illness a secret while continuing to work and at the same time travel to France and other countries seeking a cure, or at least treatment to slow the progress of the disease. On July 16, 1985, Hudson joined his old friend Doris Day for a press conference announcing the launch of her new TV cable show Doris Day's Best Friends in which Hudson was videotaped visiting Day's ranch in Carmel, California, a few days earlier. His gaunt appearance and almost incoherent speech pattern was so shocking that the reunion was broadcast repeatedly over national news shows that night and for days to come. On October 2, 1985, Hudson died in his sleep from AIDS-related complications at his home in Beverly Hills. Hudson requested that no funeral be held. His body was cremated hours after his death. Following Hudson's death, Marc Christian, Hudson's former lover, sued his estate on grounds of "intentional infliction of emotional distress." Christian claimed that Hudson continued having sex with him until February 1985, more than eight months after Hudson knew that he had HIV. Although he repeatedly tested negative for HIV, Christian claimed that he suffered from "severe emotional distress" after learning from a newscast that Hudson had died of AIDS. Christian also sued Hudson's personal secretary, Mark Miller, for $10 million because Miller allegedly lied to him about Hudson's illness. In 1989, a jury awarded Christian $21.75 million in damages, later reduced to $5.5 million. Christian died of "pulmonary problems" caused by years of heavy smoking in June 2009."
 "Find a Grave Memorial ID 311"
"Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp (March 19, 1848–January 13, 1929) was an American gambler, Pima County, Arizona, Deputy Sheriff, and Deputy Town Marshal in Tombstone, Arizona, who took part in the Gunfight at the O. K. Corral, during which lawmen killed three outlaw Cowboys. He is often regarded as the central figure in the shootout in Tombstone, although his brother Virgil was Tombstone City Marshal and Deputy U. S. Marshal that day, and had far more experience as a sheriff, constable, marshal, and soldier in combat. Earp lived a restless life. He was at different times in his life a constable, city policeman, county sheriff, Deputy U. S. Sheriff, teamster, buffalo hunter, bouncer, saloon-keeper, gambler, brothel owner, pimp, miner, and boxing referee. Earp spent his early life in Iowa. His first wife Urilla Sutherland Earp died while pregnant, less than a year after they married. Within the next two years Earp was arrested, sued twice, escaped from jail, then was arrested three more times for "keeping and being found in a house of ill-fame." Wyatt was born on March 19, 1848 to Nicholas Porter Earp and his second wife, Virginia Ann Cooksey. He was named after his father's commanding officer in the Mexican-American War, Captain Wyatt Berry Stapp, of the 2nd Company Illinois Mounted Volunteers. Some evidence supports Wyatt Earp's birthplace as 406 South 3rd Street in Monmouth, Illinois, though the street address is disputed by Monmouth College professor and historian William Urban. Monmouth is in Warren County in western Illinois. Wyatt had an elder half-brother from his father's first marriage, Newton, and a half-sister Mariah Ann, who died at the age of ten months. In spring 1868, the Earps moved east again to Lamar, Missouri, where Wyatt's father Nicholas became the local constable. Wyatt rejoined the family the next year. Nicholas resigned as constable on November 17, 1869 to become the justice of the peace, and Wyatt was appointed constable in his place. On November 26, in return for his appointment, Earp filed a bond of $1,000. His sureties for this bond were his father, Nicholas Porter Earp; his paternal uncle, Jonathan Douglas Earp and James Maupin."
"Regina King (born January 15, 1971) is an American film and television actress and director. She played Brenda Jenkins on the NBC sitcom 227 and had a supporting role in the feature film Jerry Maguire. King in her later career became widely known for her leading roles in two Peabody award-winning television shows, The Boondocks, on which she voiced Huey and Riley Freeman, and Southland on which she portrayed Detective Lydia Adams. The latter role earned her two nominations for the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2012 and 2013. In 2015, King began starring in the ABC anthology series American Crime, for which she won her first Primetime Emmy Award. She is also known for her recurring role Janine Davis on The Big Bang Theory as well as 24, and starring in the films Ray, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, Poetic Justice, Friday, A Thin Line Between Love and Hate, Enemy of the State, Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde, and A Cinderella Story. King was born in Los Angeles, California, and grew up in View Park-Windsor Hills, the elder daughter of Gloria, a special education teacher, and Thomas King, an electrician. The two divorced in 1979. Her younger sister is actress Reina King. King attended Westchester High School and the University of Southern California. King began her acting career in 1985 playing the role of Brenda Jenkins on the television series 227, a role she played until the show ended in 1990. She went on to appear in the John Singleton films Boyz n the Hood, Poetic Justice and Higher Learning. In 1995, she was featured in the hit comedy film Friday. In 1996, she starred in the Martin Lawrence dark comedy-romance A Thin Line Between Love and Hate as Mia. Later in 1996 she gained fame starring in the blockbuster romantic comedy film Jerry Maguire as Marcee Tidwell, the wife of Cuba Gooding, Jr.'s character. King most recently joined the cast of ABC's John Ridley-penned ensemble drama American Crime as a devout member of the Nation of Islam and sister to a drug addict accused of murder. Her performance was overwhelmingly praised by television critics. In September 2015, she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or a Movie."
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 472”
"Patrick Henry (May 29, 1736–June 6, 1799) was an American attorney, planter and politician who became known as an orator during the movement for independence in Virginia. A Founding Father, he served as the first and sixth post-colonial Governor of Virginia, from 1776 to 1779 and from 1784 to 1786. Henry led the opposition to the Stamp Act 1765 and is remembered for his "Give me liberty, or give me death!" speech. Along with Samuel Adams and Thomas Paine, he is regarded as one of the most influential champions of Republicanism and an enthusiastic promoter of the American Revolution and its fight for independence. After the Revolution, Henry was a leader of the anti-federalists in Virginia. He opposed the United States Constitution, fearing that it endangered the rights of the States as well as the freedoms of individuals; he helped gain adoption of the Bill of Rights. However, by 1798 he supported President John Adams and the Federalists. He denounced passage of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions as he feared the social unrest and widespread executions that had followed the increasing radicalism of the French Revolution. After he married, Henry began acquiring extensive land holdings. By 1779, along with his cousin and her husband, Henry owned a 10,000-acre plantation known as Leatherwood. He is also recorded having purchased up to 78 slaves. In 1794, he and his wife retired to Red Hill Plantation, comprising 520 acres in Charlotte County, which was also a functioning tobacco plantation. Henry was born at Studley, the family farm, in Hanover County, Virginia, on May 29, 1736. His father was John Henry, an immigrant from Aberdeenshire, Scotland, who had attended King's College, before emigrating to the Colony of Virginia in the 1720s. Settling in Hanover County, in about 1732 John Henry married Sarah Winston Syme, a wealthy widow from a prominent Hanover County family of English ancestry. Patrick Henry was once thought to have been of humble origins, but he was born into the middle ranks of the Virginia landed gentry. Henry attended local schools for a few years, and then was tutored by his father. He tried to start in business but was not successful. In 1754 Henry married Sarah Shelton, reportedly in the parlor of her family house, Rural Plains. As a wedding gift, her father gave the couple six slaves and the 300-acre Pine Slash Farm near Mechanicsville. With his marriage, he became a slaveholder and landowner. Henry worked with his slaves on the land because it was a small property; it was exhausted from tobacco cultivation and he could not gain profitable yields. After the main house burned, the couple moved for a short time with their two children into the 20 by 60 foot Honeymoon Cottage, a one-story building with attic. They later moved to the Hanover Tavern, owned by Sarah's father. They sold Pine Slash Plantation in 1764, after Henry started working as a lawyer. The Henrys had six children together, one of whom married a brother of poet Thomas Campbell. In 1771 the family moved to Scotchtown Plantation, also in Hanover County. Sarah became mentally ill and died there in 1775. On October 25, 1777, 41-year-old Henry married his second wife, 22-year-old Dorothea Dandridge. The next year they moved to Williamsburg after his election as governor and stayed through his two terms. They had eleven children together. In 1779 they moved to the 10,000-acre Leatherwood Plantation, which he bought with his cousin and her husband in Henry County, Virginia. In 1784, Henry was elected again for a one-year term by the legislature as governor of Virginia, and re-elected twice more, serving until 1786. He declined to attend the Constitutional Convention of 1787, saying that he "smelt a rat in Philadelphia, tending toward the monarchy." An ardent supporter of state rights, Henry was an outspoken critic of the United States Constitution. He worried that the untested office of the presidency could devolve into a monarchy and became a leading opponent of James Madison."
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 1888”
"Lady Diana Frances Spencer (1 July 1961–31 August 1997) was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, who is the eldest child and heir apparent of Queen Elizabeth II. Diana was born into a family of British nobility with royal ancestry and was the fourth child and third daughter of John Spencer, Viscount Althorp, and the Honourable Frances Roche. She grew up in Park House, situated on the Sandringham estate, and was educated in England and Switzerland. In 1975, after her father inherited the title of Earl Spencer, she became known as Lady Diana Spencer. She came to prominence in February 1981 when her engagement to Prince Charles was announced. Her wedding to the Prince of Wales was held at St Paul's Cathedral on 29 July 1981 and reached a global television audience of over 750 million people. During her marriage, Diana bore the titles Princess of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall, Duchess of Rothesay, and Countess of Chester. The marriage produced two sons, the princes William and Harry, who were then respectively second and third in the line of succession to the British throne. Diana remained the object of worldwide media scrutiny during and after her marriage, which ended in divorce on 28 August 1996. Media attention and public mourning were extensive after her death in a car crash in Paris on 31 August 1997 and subsequent televised funeral. Diana was born on 1 July 1961, in Park House, Sandringham, Norfolk. She was the fourth of five children of John Spencer, Viscount Althorp and his first wife, Frances Roche. The Spencer family has been closely allied with the British Royal Family for several generations. Both of Diana's grandmothers had served as ladies-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. The Spencers were hoping for a boy to carry on the family line, and no name was chosen for a week, until they settled on Diana Frances, after her mother and Diana Russell, Duchess of Bedford, her distant relative who was also known as "Lady Diana Spencer" before marriage and was a prospective Princess of Wales. On 30 August 1961, Diana was baptised at St. Mary Magdalene Church, Sandringham, with wealthy commoners as godparents. Diana had three siblings: Sarah, Jane, and Charles. Her infant brother, John, died shortly after his birth one year before Diana was born. Diana was seven years old when her parents divorced. Her mother later had an affair with Peter Shand Kydd and married him in 1969. Diana lived with her mother in London during her parents' separation in 1967, but during that year's Christmas holidays, Lord Althorp refused to let Diana return to London with Lady Althorp. Shortly afterwards he won custody of Diana with support from his former mother-in-law, Ruth Roche, Baroness Fermoy. In 1972, Lord Althorp began a relationship with Raine, Countess of Dartmouth, the only daughter of Alexander McCorquodale and Dame Barbara Cartland. They married at Caxton Hall, London in 1976. Diana became known as Lady Diana after her father later inherited the title of Earl Spencer in 1975, at which point her father moved the entire family from Park House to Althorp, the Spencer seat in Northampton. Diana was first educated under the supervision of her governess, Gertrude Allen. She began her formal education at Silfield Private School in Gayton, Norfolk, and moved to Riddlesworth Hall School, an all-girls boarding school near Diss, when she was nine. She joined her sisters at West Heath Girls' School in Sevenoaks, Kent, in 1973. She did not shine academically, failing her O-levels twice. Her outstanding community spirit was recognized with an award from West Heath. She left West Heath when she was sixteen. Her brother Charles recalls her as being quite shy up until that time. She showed a talent for music as an accomplished pianist. Diana also excelled in swimming and diving, and studied ballet and tap dance. Within five years of her marriage, the couple's incompatibility and age difference (almost 13 years), as well as Diana's concern about Charles's relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles, became visible and damaging to their marriage. During the early 1990s, the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales fell apart, an event at first suppressed, then sensationalized, by the world media. Both the Princess and Prince spoke to the press through friends, each blaming the other for the marriage's demise. On 31 August 1997, Diana was fatally injured in a car crash in the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris, which also caused the deaths of her companion Dodi Fayed and the driver, Henri Paul, acting security manager of the Hôtel Ritz Paris. The funeral saw the British television audience peak at 32.10 million, one of the United Kingdom's highest viewing figures ever, while millions more watched the event around the world."
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 88215913”
"Myron Leon Wallace (May 9, 1918–April 7, 2012) was an American journalist, game show host, actor and media personality. He interviewed a wide range of prominent newsmakers during his sixty-year career. He was one of the original correspondents for CBS' 60 Minutes, which debuted in 1968. Wallace retired as a regular full-time correspondent in 2006, but still appeared occasionally on the series until 2008. Wallace, whose family's surname was originally Wallik, was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, to Russian Jewish immigrant parents, Frank and Zina Sharfman Wallace. His father was a grocer and insurance broker. Wallace attended Brookline High School, graduating in 1935. He graduated from the University of Michigan four years later with a Bachelor of Arts. While a college student he was a reporter for the Michigan Daily and belonged to the Alpha Gamma Chapter of the Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity. Wallace appeared as a guest on the popular radio quiz show Information Please on February 7, 1939, when he was in his last year at the University of Michigan. His first radio job was as newscaster and continuity writer for WOOD Radio in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This lasted until 1940, when he moved to WXYZ Radio in Detroit, Michigan, as an announcer. He then became a freelance radio worker in Chicago, Illinois. Wallace enlisted in the United States Navy in 1943 and served as a communications officer during World War II on the USS Anthedon, a submarine tender. He saw no combat, but traveled to Hawaii, Australia, and Subic Bay in the Philippines, then patrolling the South China Sea, the Philippine Sea and south of Japan. Wallace returned to Chicago after being discharged in 1946. n the late 1940s, Wallace was a staff announcer for the CBS radio network. In 1949, Wallace began to move to the new medium of television. In that year, he starred under the name Myron Wallace in a short-lived police drama, Stand By for Crime. In 1959, Louis Lomax told Wallace about the Nation of Islam. Lomax and Wallace produced a five-part documentary about the organization, The Hate That Hate Produced, which aired during the week of July 13, 1959. The program was the first time most white people heard about the Nation, its leader, Elijah Muhammad, and its charismatic spokesman, Malcolm X. By the early 1960s, Wallace's primary income came from commercials for Parliament cigarettes, touting their "man's mildness." He had a contract with Philip Morris to pitch their cigarettes as a result of their original sponsorship of The Mike Wallace Interview. In 1967, Wallace anchored the documentary CBS Reports: The Homosexuals. "The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous," Wallace said in the piece. "He is not interested or capable of a lasting relationship like that of a heterosexual marriage. His sex life, his love life, consists of a series of one-chance encounters at the clubs and bars he inhabits. And even on the streets of the city—the pick-up, the one night stand, these are characteristics of the homosexual relationship." His career as the lead reporter on 60 Minutes led to some run-ins with the people interviewed. While interviewing Louis Farrakhan, Wallace alleged that Nigeria is the most corrupt country in the world. Farrakhan immediately shot back, declaring "Nigeria didn't bomb Hiroshima or slaughter millions of Indians!" "Can you think of a more corrupt country?" asked Wallace. "I am living in one," said Farrakhan. Wallace had two children with his first wife, Norma Kaphan. Wallace's younger son, Chris, is also a journalist. His elder son, Peter, died at age 19 in a mountain-climbing accident in Greece in 1962. From 1949 to 1954, Wallace was married to Buff Cobb, born Patrizia Cobb Chapman, an actress and step-daughter to Gladys Swarthout. Wallace's professional honors included 21 Emmy Awards, among them a report just weeks before the September 11 attacks for an investigation on the former Soviet Union's smallpox program and concerns about terrorism. He also won three Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, three George Foster Peabody Awards, a Robert E. Sherwood Award, a Distinguished Achievement Award from the University of Southern California School of Journalism and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award in the international broadcast category. In September 2003, Wallace received a Lifetime Achievement Emmy, his 20th. Most recently, on October 13, 2007, Wallace was awarded the University of Illinois Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism. Wallace died at his residence in New Canaan, Connecticut, from natural causes, on April 7, 2012, a month and two days before his 94th birthday. The night after his death, Morley Safer announced his death on 60 Minutes. On April 15, 2012, a full episode of 60 Minutes aired which was dedicated to remembering his life."
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 1254”
"Harold Eugene Roach Sr. (January 14, 1892–November 2, 1992) was an American film and television producer, director, and actor from the 1910s to the 1990s, best known today for producing the Laurel and Hardy and Our Gang film comedy series. Hal Roach was born in Elmira, New York, the grandson of Irish immigrants. A presentation by the great American humorist Mark Twain impressed Roach as a young grade school student. After an adventurous youth that took him to Alaska, Hal Roach arrived in Hollywood, California, in 1912 and began working as an extra in silent films. Upon coming into an inheritance, he began producing short film comedies in 1915 with his friend Harold Lloyd, who portrayed a character known as Lonesome Luke. Hal Roach, Sr. was called to active military duty in the Signal Corps in June 1942, at age 50, and the studio output he oversaw in uniform was converted from entertainment featurettes to military training films. The studios were leased to the U. S. Army Air Forces, and the First Motion Picture Unit made 400 training, morale and propaganda films at "Fort Roach." Members of the unit included Ronald W. Reagan and Alan Ladd. After the war the government returned the studio to Roach, with millions of dollars of improvements. In 1946, Hal Roach resumed motion picture production, with former Harold Lloyd co-star Bebe Daniels as an associate producer. Roach was the first Hollywood producer to go to an all-color production schedule, making four streamliners in Cinecolor, although the increased production costs did not result in increased revenue. In 1948, with his studio deeply in debt, Roach re-established his studio for television production, with Hal Roach Jr., producing series such as The Stu Erwin Show, Steve Donovan, Western Marshal, Racket Squad, The Public Defender, The Gale Storm Show, Rocky Jones, Space Ranger and My Little Margie, and independent producers leasing the facilities for such programs as Amos 'n' Andy, The Life of Riley and The Abbott and Costello Show. By 1951, the studio was producing 1,500 hours of television programs a year, nearly three times Hollywood's annual output of feature movies. Recognizing the value of his film library, the visionary Roach began in 1943 licensing revivals of his sound-era productions for theatrical and home-movie distribution. Roach's films were also early arrivals on television. His Laurel and Hardy comedies were a smashing success in television syndication, as were the Our Gang comedies originally produced from 1927-1938, for which in 1949 Roach had bought back the rights from MGM and rebranded for television as "The Little Rascals." He thus became one of the first significant film producers to venture into television. In 1955, Roach sold his interests in the production company to his son, Hal Roach Jr., and retired from active production. Unfortunately, the younger Roach lacked much of his father's business acumen and soon lost the studio to creditors. It was finally shut down in 1961. For two more decades, Roach Sr. occasionally worked as a consultant on projects related to his past work. Extremely vigorous into an advanced age, Roach contemplated a comedy comeback at 96. In 1984, 92-year-old Roach was presented with an honorary Academy Award. Former Our Gang members Jackie Cooper and George "Spanky" McFarland made the presentation to a flattered Roach, with McFarland thanking the producer for hiring him 53 years prior. Gang member Ernie Morrison was amongst the crowd and started the standing ovation for Hal Roach. Hal Roach died in his home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, from pneumonia, on November 2, 1992, at the age of 100 years. He had married twice, and had six children, eight grandchildren, and a number of great-grandchildren. Roach outlived three of his children by more than 20 years: Hal Jr. (died in 1972), Margaret (died in 1964), and Elizabeth (died in 1946). He also outlived many of the children who starred in his films. Roach is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, New York, where he grew up."
Source: Wikipedia.org | FindAGrave.com | Monday, July 23, 2018, 12:00AM 
"Kim Jong-un (born 8 January 1984 or 5 July 1984) is the Chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea and supreme leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea commonly referred to as North Korea. Kim is the third and youngest son of Kim Jong-il and his consort Ko Yong-hui. Little is known for certain about Kim Jong-un. Before taking power, Kim had barely been seen in public, and many of the activities of both Kim and his government remain shrouded in secrecy. Even details such as what year he was born, and whether he did indeed attend a Western school under a pseudonym, are difficult to confirm with certainty. Kim was officially declared the supreme leader following the state funeral of his father on 28 December 2011. Kim holds the titles of Chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea, Chairman of the Central Military Commission, Chairman of the National Defence Commission, Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army and presidium member of the Politburo of the Workers' Party of Korea. Kim was promoted to the rank of Marshal of North Korea in the Korean People's Army on 18 July 2012, consolidating his position as the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces and is often referred to as Marshal Kim Jong-un or "the Marshal" by state media. Kim obtained two degrees, one in physics at Kim Il-sung University, and another as an Army officer at the Kim Il-sung Military University. On 9 March 2014, Kim Jong-un was elected unopposed to the Supreme People's Assembly. At 32 or 33 years of age, Kim is the first North Korean leader born after the country's founding. Kim was named the World's 46th Most Powerful Person by the Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People in 2013. According to reports first published in Japanese newspapers, he went to school in Switzerland near Bern. First reports claimed he attended the private English-language International School in Gümligen under the name "Chol-pak" or "Pak-chol" from 1993 to 1998. He was described as shy, a good student who got along well with his classmates and was a basketball fan. He was chaperoned by an older student, who was thought to be his bodyguard. On 17 December 2011, Kim Jong-il died. Despite the elder Kim's plans, it was not immediately clear after his death whether Jong-un would in fact take full power, and what his exact role in a new government would be. On 25 July 2012 North Korean state media reported for the first time that Kim Jong-un is married to Ri Sol-ju. Ri, who appears to be in her early 20s, had been accompanying Kim Jong-un to public appearances for several weeks prior to the announcement. The BBC, quoting an analyst who spoke to The Korea Times of South Korea, reported that Kim Jong-il had hastily arranged his son's marriage after suffering a stroke in 2008. According to some sources, the two married in 2009 and Ri gave birth to a daughter in 2010. Kim Jong-un has one half-sister and an older full-brother. He also has a younger full-sister, Kim Yo-jong, who was believed to have been born in 1987. She sometimes accompanies him and is said to be instrumental in creating his public image and organising public events for him. A Washington Post article states that he has an aunt and uncle who defected to the United States. In March 2013, former National Basketball Association basketball player Dennis Rodman visited Kim Jong-un in North Korea and on his return reported that Ri had given birth to a daughter named Ju-ae in 2012."
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 188061271”
"Thomas Milton Benson (July 12, 1927–March 15, 2018) was an American businessman, philanthropist and sports franchise owner. He was the owner of the New Orleans Saints of the National Football League from 1985 to 2018 and New Orleans Pelicans of the National Basketball Association from 2012 to 2018. Benson was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, to Thomas Benson, Sr. and Carmen Benson. He served in the U. S. Navy and then graduated with an accounting degree at Loyola University New Orleans in 1948. After school he worked as a car salesman at Cathey Chevrolet in New Orleans. In 1956, he moved to San Antonio to try and revive a poorly performing dealership; he was granted a 25 percent interest in the dealership for his efforts. In 1962, he became full owner of Tom Benson Chevrolet. He was the owner of several automobile dealerships in the Greater New Orleans and San Antonio areas. Benson became wealthy by investing profits from his automobile dealerships in local banks. He eventually purchased several small Southern banks and formed Benson Financial, which he sold to Norwest Corporation in 1996. Benson purchased the Saints from John Mecom in 1985 after he learned from Governor Edwin W. Edwards that the team was on the verge of being sold to parties interested in moving the team to Jacksonville, Florida. Ownership of the team was officially transferred to him on May 31, 1985. Shortly after acquiring the Saints, Benson gained a reputation as one of the more popular and colorful owners in the league. He hired general manager Jim Finks and head coach Jim Mora, who led the Saints to their first winning season and playoff appearance. Benson's popularity later declined, however, after numerous attempts to persuade the state of Louisiana to construct a new stadium for the Saints to replace the aging Superdome, suggesting that he might move the team elsewhere if said stadium were not built. His popularity hit an all-time low in late 2005 after it appeared he was trying to move the team to San Antonio after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans. He later stated that the Saints would return to New Orleans for the 2006 season, which they did. The team's fortunes improved dramatically in the years after their return, including a 31–17 defeat of the Indianapolis Colts on February 7, 2010 to win Super Bowl XLIV, and Benson recovered much of his popularity as well. On July 18, 2008, the Benson-led Louisiana Media Company consummated their purchase of WVUE-DT, the Fox affiliate for the New Orleans area and by virtue of their affiliation, the major carrier of Saints games as part of the NFL on Fox contract. Since the sale, the station has also become the de facto home of the Saints, including coach's shows and preseason games. Benson was well known for doing the "Benson Boogie" after Saints home victories. Benson, in true New Orleans fashion, would second line dance down the field of the Superdome in the closing minutes of the game while carrying an umbrella decorated in black and gold. Benson spent his final years in the exclusive Audubon Place neighborhood in New Orleans. His brother, Larry Benson, has also been in sports ownership and owned the San Antonio Riders of the World League. Benson was married three times. His first wife was Shirley Landry who is deceased. In 2003, his second wife, Grace Marie Trudeau Benson died of Parkinson's disease. In October 2004, he married Gayle Marie LaJaunie. Tom Benson and his first wife Shirley adopted three children: Robert Carter Benson, Renee Benson, and Jeanne Marie Benson. Renee Benson has two adult children, Rita LeBlanc and Ryan LeBlanc. Rita Benson LeBlanc was Saints owner and executive vice president until Tom Benson fired her, her brother Ryan and her mother Renee, and wrote them out of his will. She, along with her mother Renee and brother Ryan LeBlanc, then sued Tom Benson claiming he is incompetent, and for control of his companies. Benson's only living child, as of January 2015, is Renee. Benson was hospitalized on February 16, 2018, with the flu. He died on March 15, 2018, at Ochsner Medical Center in Jefferson, Louisiana, at age 90."
Source: Wikipedia.org | Saturday, March 31, 2018, 9:00PM CDT |
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 9357563”
"Willis Ben Bouchey (May 24, 1907–September 27, 1977) was an American character actor who appeared in almost 150 films and television shows. He was born in Vernon, Michigan, but reared by his mother and stepfather in Washington State. Bouchey may be best known for his movie appearances in The Horse Soldiers, The Long Gray Line, Sergeant Rutledge, Two Rode Together, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Big Heat, Pickup on South Street, No Name on the Bullet, and Suddenly. He also made uncredited appearances in From Here to Eternity, How the West Was Won, Them!, Executive Suite, and A Star is Born, and appears briefly in Frank Capra's cameo-filled comedy Pocketful of Miracles. Bouchey projected a sober, dignified demeanor that served him well in character roles. He was a member of Jack Webb's Dragnet stock company, billed variously as "Willis Bouchey," "William Bouchey," or "Bill Bouchey." He appeared as a sheep trader in the title 1958 episode "Cash Robertson" of the NBC children's western series, Buckskin. In 1960 to 1961, he was cast twice in the ABC sitcom, Harrigan and Son, starring Pat O'Brien and Roger Perry, and four times in the role of Springer in the CBS sitcom, Pete and Gladys. He guest starred on CBS's Dennis the Menace and played a judge in 23 episodes of that same network's Perry Mason, "one of the more frequent judges on the bench" in that program. Also on CBS, on Rod Sterling's Willis Bouchey appeared as Dr. Samuel Thorne in the episode The Mask which premiered March 20th, 1964. Also in 1964, he appeared on "Petticoat Junction." He was Dr. John Rhone in the episode "Kate Flat on Her Back." He also worked again with Perry Mason title star Raymond Burr in an episode of NBC's Ironside. He made guest appearances on Sheriff of Cochise, Crossroads, Richard Diamond, Private Detective, Johnny Ringo, Stoney Burke, Going My Way, The Dakotas, Hazel, and The Andy Griffith Show. On ABC's Colt .45 television series, Bouchey played Lew Wallace, the governor of New Mexico Territory, in the episode "Amnesty." Wallace offered a pardon to the bandit Billy the Kid, played on Colt .45 by Robert Conrad. Throughout his career, Bouchey worked in twelve different productions for director John Ford and was one of the more frequently-used members of Ford's stock company. In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance he delivered the line, "Nothing's too good for the man who shot Liberty Valance."
|
 “Find a Grave Memorial ID 8008481”
"William Scott Elam, known as Jack Elam (November 13, 1920–October 20, 2003) was an American film and television actor best known for his numerous roles as villains in Western films and, later in his career, comedies (sometimes spoofing his villainous image). His most distinguishing physical quality was his lazy left eye. Before his career in acting, he took several jobs in finance and served two years in the United States Navy during World War II. Elam played in 73 movies and made an appearance in 41 television series. His best known works consist of Once Upon a Time in the West, High Noon and the television program The Twilight Zone. Jack Elam died in 2003 of congestive heart failure, leaving behind two daughters and one son. Elam was born in Miami in Gila County in south central Arizona, to Millard Elam and Alice Amelia Kirby. His mother died in 1922 when Jack was two years old. By 1930, he was living with his father, older sister Mildred, and their stepmother, Flossie Varney Elam. He grew up picking cotton and lost the sight in his left eye during a boyhood accident when he was stabbed with a pencil at a Boy Scout meeting. He was a student at both Miami High School in Gila County and Phoenix Union High School in Maricopa County, graduating from there in the late 1930s. Elam attended Santa Monica Junior College in California. After that, he worked as a bookkeeper at the Bank of America in Los Angeles and as an auditor for the Standard Oil Company. In World War II, he served two years in the United States Navy and subsequently became an independent accountant in Hollywood; one of his clients was movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn. At one time, he was the manager of the Bel Air Hotel in Los Angeles. Elam made multiple guest-star appearances in many popular Western television series in the 1950s and 1960s, including Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, Lawman, Bonanza, Cheyenne, Have Gun Will Travel, Zorro, The Lone Ranger, The Rebel, F Troop, and Rawhide. In 1961, he played a slightly crazed character on The Twilight Zone episode "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" In 1994, Elam was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. He was married twice, first to Jean Elam from 1937 to her death in 1961 and second, Margaret Jennison from 1961 until his death in 2003. Elam had two daughters, Jeri Elam and Jacqueline Elam, and a son, Scott Elam. Elam died in Ashland, Oregon, of congestive heart failure, a month before he would have turned 83."
|
ClassicShoppes.us
~Where Class & Distinction Meets~
~Where Class & Distinction Meets~
