1.
Ed McBain
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Ed McBain is one of the pen names of an American author and screenwriter. Born Salvatore Albert Lombino, he adopted the name Evan Hunter in 1952. While successful and well known as Evan Hunter, he was better known as Ed McBain. He also used the pen names John Abbott, Curt Cannon, Hunt Collins, Ezra Hannon and his 87th Precinct novels have become staples of the police procedural genre. Salvatore Lombino was born and raised in New York City and he lived in East Harlem until age 12, when his family moved to the Bronx. He attended Olinville Junior High School, then Evander Childs High School, later, he was admitted as an art student at Cooper Union. Lombino served in the Navy in World War II and wrote short stories while serving aboard a destroyer in the Pacific. However, none of these stories was published until after he had established himself as an author in the 1950s. After the war, Lombino returned to New York and attended Hunter College, where he majored in English and psychology, with minors in dramatics and education and he published a weekly column in the Hunter College newspaper as S. A. Lombino. In 1981, Lombino was inducted into the Hunter College Hall of Fame, while looking to start a career as a writer, Lombino took a variety of jobs, including 17 days as a teacher at Bronx Vocational High School in September 1950. This experience would form the basis for his novel Blackboard Jungle. In 1951, Lombino took a job as an editor for the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, working with authors such as Poul Anderson. Clarke, Lester del Rey, Richard S. Prather, and P. G. Wodehouse and he made his first professional short story sale that same year, a science-fiction tale titled Welcome, Martians. Soon after his initial sale, Lombino sold stories under the pen names Evan Hunter, the name Evan Hunter is generally believed to have been derived from two schools he attended, Evander Childs High School and Hunter College, although the author himself would never confirm that. Lombino legally changed his name to Evan Hunter in May 1952, thereafter, he used the name Evan Hunter both personally and professionally. As Evan Hunter, he gained notice with his novel Blackboard Jungle dealing with juvenile crime, the film adaptation followed in 1955. During this era, Hunter also wrote a great deal of genre fiction and he was advised by his agents that publishing too much fiction under the Hunter byline, or publishing any crime fiction as Evan Hunter, might weaken his literary reputation. Consequently, during the 1950s Hunter used the pseudonyms Curt Cannon, Hunt Collins, Ed McBain, his best known pseudonym, was first used with Cop Hater, the first novel in the 87th Precinct crime series
2.
Burt Reynolds
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Burton Leon Burt Reynolds is an American actor, director and producer. He has starred in films, such as Deliverance, The Longest Yard, Smokey. Reynolds is the son of Fern H. and Burton Milo Reynolds and he has English, Scottish, Scots-Irish and Dutch ancestry, and is also said to have Cherokee roots. In his 2014 book, But Enough About Me, Reynolds said his mother had Italian ancestry, during his career, Reynolds often claimed to have been born in Waycross, Georgia, but confirmed in 2015 that he was born in Lansing, Michigan. He was born on February 11,1936, and in his autobiography stated that Lansing is where his family lived when his father was drafted into the United States Army. Reynolds, his mother and sister joined his father at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, when Reynolds father was sent to Europe, the family moved to Lake City, Michigan, where his mother had been raised. In 1946, the moved to Riviera Beach, Florida. His father became Chief of Police of Riviera Beach, which is adjacent to the north of West Palm Beach, during 10th grade at Palm Beach High School, Reynolds was named First Team All State and All Southern as a fullback, and received multiple scholarship offers. After graduating from Palm Beach High in West Palm Beach, he attended Florida State University on a football scholarship, while at Florida State, Reynolds became roommates with now notable college football broadcaster and analyst Lee Corso, and also became a brother of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. Ending his university career, Reynolds became a police officer. To keep up with his studies, he began taking classes at Palm Beach Junior College in neighboring Lake Worth, in his first term at PBJC, Reynolds was in an English class taught by Watson B. Duncan III. Duncan pushed Reynolds into trying out for a play he was producing and he cast Reynolds in the lead role based on having heard Reynolds read Shakespeare in class, leading to Reynolds winning the 1956 Florida State Drama Award for his performance. In his autobiography, Reynolds refers to Duncan as his mentor, the Florida State Drama Award included a scholarship to the Hyde Park Playhouse, a summer stock theater, in Hyde Park, New York. Reynolds saw the opportunity as an alternative to more physically-demanding summer jobs. While working there, Reynolds met Joanne Woodward, who helped him find an agent, after his Broadway debut Look, Weve Come Through, he received favorable reviews for his performance and went on tour with the cast, driving the bus and appearing on stage. After the tour, Reynolds returned to New York and enrolled in acting classes and his classmates included Frank Gifford, Carol Lawrence, Red Buttons, and Jan Murray. After the play closed, the director, John Forsythe, arranged an audition with Joshua Logan for Reynolds. Reynolds was told that he could not be in the film because he looked too much like Marlon Brando, Logan advised Reynolds to go to Hollywood, but Reynolds did not feel confident enough to do so
3.
Jack Weston
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Jack Weston was an American film, stage and television actor. Weston, a Cleveland, Ohio native, usually played comic roles in such as Cactus Flower. Weston had countless character roles in films such as The Cincinnati Kid. On television he made appearances such as murderer Fred Calvert in the 1958 Perry Mason episode. In 1981, Weston appeared on Broadway in Woody Allens comedy The Floating Light Bulb, other stage appearances included Bells are Ringing in 1956, The Ritz in 1975, Neil Simons California Suite and One Night Stand in 1980. Weston co-starred in Alan Aldas 1981 film The Four Seasons, Weston served in the United States Army during World War II. Weston married twice, first to actress Marge Redmond and they occasionally appeared together, an example being a 1963 episode of The Twilight Zone titled The Bard. His second marriage was to Laurie Gilkes and lasted until his death from lymphoma on April 3,1996 and he was 71 years old and also survived by his stepdaughter, Amy. The other co-stars were Stubby Kaye, Rose Marie and Raymond Bailey, the next season, 1961–62, he starred in the short-lived sitcom The Hathaways, in which he and Peggy Cass adopted a trio of chimpanzees. N. C. L. E. The Carol Burnett Show, All in the Family and The George Burns, Jack Weston at the TCM Movie Database Jack Weston at the Internet Broadway Database
4.
Tom Skerritt
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Thomas Roy Tom Skerritt is an American actor who has appeared in more than forty films and more than two hundred television episodes since 1962. He is known for his roles in MASH, Alien, Top Gun, A River Runs Through It, Up in Smoke, Skerritt has earned several awards and nominations, including a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1993 for Picket Fences. Skerritt was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Helen, a homemaker, and Roy Skerritt and he is the youngest of three children. A1951 graduate of Detroits Mackenzie High School, Skerritt attended Wayne State University, Skerritt served a tour of duty in the United States Air Force. Skerritt made his debut in War Hunt, produced by Terry Sanders. In 1988, he starred with Nancy Allen and Lara Flynn Boyle in Poltergeist III, in 1989, he played the role of Thomas Drummond Drum Eatenton in Steel Magnolias, it was a highly acclaimed movie. In 1992, he appeared in the critically acclaimed Robert Redford-directed film A River Runs Through It, Skerritt guest-starred in the television series The Real McCoys, as a letter carrier in the episode Aunt Win Steps In. In another Death Valley Days episode, A Sense of Justice, he played a young Roy Bean in San Diego, California,1850, with his older brother, Joshua Bean, played by Tris Coffin. He also appeared in the ABC series, Twelve OClock High, five episodes, Gunsmoke, also five episodes) and he then appeared in CBSs Picket Fences, in the role of Sheriff Jimmy Brock, for which he won an Emmy Award. More recently, he has starred in Homeland Security and The Grid and he portrayed the deceased William Walker on Brothers and Sisters, having appeared in the pilot as well as in several flashbacks scenes. This was his time playing the husband of Sally Field. He played the role of Ezekiel on ABC Familys Fallen miniseries and he also appeared as the guide on the showcase website for Microsofts Windows Vista operating system. He lent his voice in the video game Gun, where he voices as Clay Allison and he guest-starred in seasons three and four of Leverage as Nate Fords father. In February 2012, Skerritt played the role in Pacific Northwest Ballets production of Don Quixote. In 2014, Skerritt was reunited with ex-Picket Fences co-star, Lauren Holly, Skerritt is a co-founder of TheFilmSchool, in which he is also an instructor. Since 1988, he has divided his life between his Lake Washington home in suburban Seattle, Washington, and a second home on Lopez Island in the San Juan Islands. Skerritts first wife, Charlotte, is the mother of Skerritts three older children and his second wife, Sue, operates a Seattle bed and breakfast. She and Skerritt had one child Colin, Skerritt has an adopted daughter with his current wife Julie Tokahashi
5.
Yul Brynner
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Yul Brynner was a Russian-born Swiss film and stage actor. Brynner was best known for his portrayal of King Mongkut of Siam in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I and he played the role 4,625 times on stage. He also starred as Ramesses II in the 1956 Cecil B, deMille blockbuster The Ten Commandments, and played General Bounine in the 1956 film Anastasia, and the gunman Chris Adams in The Magnificent Seven. Brynner was noted for his voice and for his shaved head. Earlier, he was a model and television director, and later a photographer, Yul Brynner was born Yuliy Borisovich Briner July 11,1920 in Vladivostok, Far Eastern Republic. He enjoyed telling tall tales and exaggerating his background and early life for the press, claiming that he was born Taidje Khan of part-Mongol parentage, in reality of Swiss-German and Russian ancestry, he was born at home in a four-story residence at 15 Aleutskaya Street, Vladivostok. He had a sister, Vera. He occasionally referred to himself as Julius Briner, Jules Bryner or Youl Bryner, the 1989 biography by his son, Rock Brynner, clarified some of these issues. Brynners paternal grandmother, Natalya Yosifovna Kurkutova, was a native of Irkutsk, Brynners mother, Marousia Dimitrievna, came from the Russian intelligentsia and studied to be an actress and singer. Brynner felt a personal connection to the Romani people, in 1977, Brynner was named honorary president of the International Romani Union. Boris Briners work required extensive travel, and in 1923, he fell in love with an actress, Katya Kornukova, at the Moscow Art Theatre, and soon after abandoned his family. Yuls mother took his sister, Vera, and him to Harbin, China. In 1932, fearing a war between China and Japan, she took them to Paris, Brynner played his guitar in Russian nightclubs in Paris, sometimes accompanying his sister, playing Russian and Roma songs. He trained as an acrobat and worked in a French circus troupe for five years. In 1938, his mother was diagnosed with leukemia, and they moved back to Harbin. In 1940, speaking little English, he and his mother immigrated to the United States aboard the President Cleveland, arriving in New York City on October 25,1940, where his sister already lived. Vera, a singer, starred in The Consul on Broadway in 1950 and appeared at The Metropolitan Opera as Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus and she later taught voice in New York. During World War II, Brynner worked as a French-speaking radio announcer and commentator for the US Office of War Information, at the same time, he studied acting in Connecticut with the Russian teacher Michael Chekhov
6.
Raquel Welch
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Raquel Welch is an American actress and singer. She first won attention for her role in Fantastic Voyage, after which she won a contract with 20th Century Fox and they lent her contract to a British studio, for whom she made One Million Years B. C. She had only three lines in the film, yet images of her in the bikini which she wore became best-selling posters that turned her into a celebrity sex symbol. She later starred in films including Bedazzled, Bandolero. She made several television variety specials, in late 2008, she became a spokeswoman for Foster Grants reading glasses campaign, created by Ferrara and Company. Welchs unique persona on film made her into an icon of the 1960s and 1970s and she carved out a place in movie history portraying strong female characters and breaking the mold of the submissive sex symbol. In 1995, Welch was chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in Film History, Playboy ranked Welch No.3 on their 100 Sexiest Stars of the Twentieth Century list. In 2011, Mens Health ranked her No.2 in its Hottest Women of All Time list, Welch was born as Jo-Raquel Tejada on September 5,1940, in Chicago, Illinois. Her father, Armando Carlos Tejada Urquizo, was an engineer from La Paz, Bolivia, born to Agustin Tejada and Raquel Urquizo. She has a younger brother James Jim Stanford and younger sister Gayle Carole, the family moved from Illinois to San Diego, California when Raquel was two years old. Welch attended the Pacific Beach Presbyterian Church every Sunday with her mother, as a young girl, Raquel wanted to perform. She studied ballet from age seven to seventeen but gave it up after her instructor told her that she didnt have the right figure, at age 14, she won a beauty title as Miss Photogenic, Miss Contour. While attending La Jolla High School she won the title of Miss Fairest of the Fair at the San Diego County Fair and her parents divorced when she finished her school years. Welch graduated from school in 1958 and a year later, after becoming pregnant, married her high school sweetheart. They had two children, Damon and Latanne Welch, but they separated in 1962 and divorced in 1964 and she married producer Patrick Curtis in 1966 and divorced him in 1972. In 1980, she began a 10-year marriage to André Weinfeld, Welch wed Richard Palmer in 1999 but then separated from him in 2008 and later divorced. Welch has stated that she does not intend to marry again, seeking an acting career, Welch won a scholarship in drama, took classes at San Diego State College and won several parts in local theater productions. In 1959, she played the role in The Ramona Pageant, a yearly outdoor play at Hemet, California
7.
Dave Grusin
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Robert David Dave Grusin is an American composer, arranger, producer, and pianist. He has composed scores for feature films and television, and has won numerous awards for his soundtrack and record work, including an Academy Award. He has had a recording career as an artist, arranger, producer. He is the co-founder of GRP Records, born in Littleton, Colorado, he studied music at the University of Colorado at Boulder and was awarded his degree in 1956. He produced his first single, Subways Are for Sleeping, in 1962, other scores followed, including Winning, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, The Midnight Man, and Three Days of the Condor. In the late 1970s, he started GRP Records with his business partner, Larry Rosen and he was the composer for The Graduate, On Golden Pond, Tootsie and The Goonies. In 1988, he won the Oscar for best original score for The Milagro Beanfield War, from 2000 through 2011, Grusin concentrated on composing classical and jazz compositions, touring and recording with collaborators, including guitarist Lee Ritenour. Their album Harlequin won a Grammy Award in 1985 and their classical crossover albums, Two Worlds and Amparo, were nominated for Grammys. Grusin was born in Littleton, Colorado, the son of Rosabelle, a pianist, and Henri Grusin, an alumnus of the University of Colorado at Boulder, College of Music, he was awarded his bachelors degree in 1956. Among his teachers there were Cecil Effinger and Wayne Scott, longtime pianist, arranger, Grusin has a filmography of about 100 titles. He also received a Best Original Song nomination for It Might Be You from the film Tootsie, six of the fourteen cuts on the soundtrack from The Graduate are his. Other film scores he has composed include Where Were You When the Lights Went Out, Three Days of the Condor, The Goonies, Tequila Sunrise, Hope Floats, Random Hearts, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and The Firm. In addition, he composed the original opening fanfare for film studio TriStar Pictures. Elsewhere, and, for Televisa in Mexico, Tres Generaciones and he also composed music for individual episodes of each of those shows. His other TV credits include The Wild Wild West, The Girl from U. N. C. L. E. and Columbo, Prescription and he also did the theme song for One Life to Live from 1984–1992. Since its beginning in 1984, the Minneapolis-St. Paul regional weekly news, Grusin assisted in 1966 as musical director and arranger also for two years the Catarina Valente TV show and lived longer times in Amsterdam. About 35 Grusin CD titles are available including soundtracks, originals, collections, and homages to jazz greats George Gershwin, Duke Ellington. Recently he has turned his attention to his own compositions, as in much of his career, these defy easy classification
8.
Jacques Marquette
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Father Jacques Marquette S. J. sometimes known as Père Marquette or James Marquette, was a French Jesuit missionary who founded Michigans first European settlement, Sault Ste. Marie, and later founded St. Ignace, Michigan, in 1673 Father Marquette and Louis Jolliet were the first Europeans to explore and map the northern portion of the Mississippi River. Jacques Marquette was born at Laon, France, on June 1,1637, after he worked and taught in France for several years, the Jesuits assigned him to New France in 1666 as a missionary to the indigenous peoples of the Americas. He showed great proficiency in learning the languages, especially Huron. In 1668 Father Marquette was moved by his superiors to missions farther up the St. Lawrence River in the western Great Lakes region and he helped found missions at Sault Ste. Marie in present-day Michigan in 1668, St. Ignace in 1671, at La Pointe he encountered members of the Illinois tribes, who told him about the important trading route of the Mississippi River. They invited him to teach their people, whose settlements were mostly farther south, leave was granted, and in 1673, Marquette joined the expedition of Louis Jolliet, a French-Canadian explorer. They departed from St. Ignace on May 17, with two canoes and five voyageurs of French-Indian ancestry and they followed Lake Michigan to Green Bay and up the Fox River, nearly to its headwaters. From there, they were told to portage their canoes a distance of less than two miles through marsh and oak plains to the Wisconsin River. Many years later, at point the town of Portage, Wisconsin was built. From the portage, they ventured forth, and on June 17, they entered the Mississippi near present-day Prairie du Chien, the Joliet-Marquette expedition traveled to within 435 miles of the Gulf of Mexico but turned back at the mouth of the Arkansas River. By this point they had encountered natives carrying European trinkets. They followed the Mississippi back to the mouth of the Illinois River and they reached Lake Michigan near the site of modern-day Chicago, by way of the Chicago Portage. In September Marquette stopped at the mission of St. Francis Xavier, located in present-day Green Bay, Wisconsin, Marquette and his party returned to the Illinois Territory in late 1674, becoming the first Europeans to winter in what would become the city of Chicago. As welcomed guests of the Illinois Confederation, the explorers were feasted en route, in the spring of 1675, Marquette traveled westward and celebrated a public mass at the Grand Village of the Illinois near Starved Rock. A bout of dysentery which he had contracted during the Mississippi expedition sapped his health, on the return trip to St. Ignace, he died at age 37 near the modern town of Ludington, Michigan. Marquette Transportation Company, a company using a silhouette of the Pere in his canoe as their emblem. Other types of memorials were erected, including those at his birthplace in Laon, France, the Legler Branch of the Chicago Public Library displays Wilderness, Winter River Scene, a restored mural by Midwestern artist R. Fayerweather Babcock
