1.
Chicago
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Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage
2.
Los Angeles
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Los Angeles, officially the City of Los Angeles and often known by its initials L. A. is the cultural, financial, and commercial center of Southern California. With a census-estimated 2015 population of 3,971,883, it is the second-most populous city in the United States, Los Angeles is also the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated county in the United States. The citys inhabitants are referred to as Angelenos, historically home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California. The city was founded on September 4,1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence, in 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thereby becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4,1850, the discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, delivering water from Eastern California, nicknamed the City of Angels, Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity, and sprawling metropolis. Los Angeles also has an economy in culture, media, fashion, science, sports, technology, education, medicine. A global city, it has been ranked 6th in the Global Cities Index, the city is home to renowned institutions covering a broad range of professional and cultural fields, and is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States. The Los Angeles combined statistical area has a gross metropolitan product of $831 billion, making it the third-largest in the world, after the Greater Tokyo and New York metropolitan areas. The city has hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 1932 and 1984 and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics and thus become the second city after London to have hosted the Games three times. The Los Angeles area also hosted the 1994 FIFA mens World Cup final match as well as the 1999 FIFA womens World Cup final match, the mens event was watched on television by over 700 million people worldwide. The Los Angeles coastal area was first settled by the Tongva, a Gabrielino settlement in the area was called iyáangẚ, meaning poison oak place. Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2,1769, in 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area. The Queen of the Angels is an honorific of the Virgin Mary, two-thirds of the settlers were mestizo or mulatto with a mixture of African, indigenous and European ancestry. The settlement remained a small town for decades, but by 1820. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street. New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, during Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles Alta Californias regional capital
3.
The Jack Benny Program
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The Jack Benny Program, starring Jack Benny, is a radio-TV comedy series that ran for more than three decades and is generally regarded as a high-water mark in 20th-century American comedy. Protagonist of the show, Benny is a comic, vain, penny-pinching miser, insisting on remaining 39 years old on stage despite his actual age, Eddie Anderson - Rochester Van Jones, Jacks valet and chauffeur. Early in the run, he often talked of gambling or going out with women. Later on, he complained about his lack of salary. Don generally opened the show and also did the commercial and he was the target of Jacks jokes, mostly about his weight. Dennis was always in his early 20s no matter how old he actually was and he was sweet but not very bright. When called upon, he could use a variety of accents. He usually sang a song about 10 minutes into the program, if the episode was a flashback to a previous time, a ruse would be used such as Dennis singing his song for Jack so he could hear it before the show. Although Sadie Marks, in life, was Jack Bennys wife, Mary Livingstone was a very sarcastic. Sometimes she was presented as a date, sometimes as a love interest and her role changed from plot to plot and she was never a steady girlfriend for Jack. In one episode, Fred Allen summarized Marys role as a girl to insult, Marks later legally changed her name to Mary Livingstone in response to the characters popularity. Her role on the program was reduced in the 1950s, a skirt-chasing, arrogant, hip-talking bandleader who constantly put Jack down. He referred to Mary as Livvy or Liv, and Jack as Jackson, an on-air joke explains this by saying, Its as close to jackass as I can get without being fired or getting into trouble with a censor. Spun off into The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show with his wife, Harris left the radio show in 1952 and his character did not make the transition to television. Mel Blanc - Carmichael the Polar Bear, Professor Pierre LeBlanc, Sy the Mexican, Polly, The Maxwell, an occasional running gag went along the lines of how the various characters Mel portrayed all looked alike. He was also the effects of Jacks barely functional Maxwell automobile—a role he played again in the Warner Brothers cartoon The Mouse that Jack Built. Another participating voice actor was Bert Gordon and he was always the person who waits on Jack wherever he was, from the railroad station, to the clerk in the store, to the doorman, to the waiter. Frank always delighted in aggravating Jack, as apparently, he was constantly aggravated by Jacks presence, sheldon Leonard - A racetrack tout who frequently offered unsolicited advice to Benny on a variety of non-racing-related subjects
4.
NBC
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The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcast television network that is the flagship property of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. The network is part of the Big Three television networks, founded in 1926 by the Radio Corporation of America, NBC is the oldest major broadcast network in the United States. Following the acquisition by GE, Bob Wright served as executive officer of NBC, remaining in that position until his retirement in 2007. In 2003, French media company Vivendi merged its entertainment assets with GE, Comcast purchased a controlling interest in the company in 2011, and acquired General Electrics remaining stake in 2013. Following the Comcast merger, Zucker left NBC Universal and was replaced as CEO by Comcast executive Steve Burke, during a period of early broadcast business consolidation, radio manufacturer Radio Corporation of America acquired New York City radio station WEAF from American Telephone & Telegraph. Westinghouse, a shareholder in RCA, had an outlet in Newark, New Jersey pioneer station WJZ. This station was transferred from Westinghouse to RCA in 1923, WEAF acted as a laboratory for AT&Ts manufacturing and supply outlet Western Electric, whose products included transmitters and antennas. The Bell System, AT&Ts telephone utility, was developing technologies to transmit voice- and music-grade audio over short and long distances, the 1922 creation of WEAF offered a research-and-development center for those activities. WEAF maintained a schedule of radio programs, including some of the first commercially sponsored programs. In an early example of chain or networking broadcasting, the station linked with Outlet Company-owned WJAR in Providence, Rhode Island, AT&T refused outside companies access to its high-quality phone lines. The early effort fared poorly, since the telegraph lines were susceptible to atmospheric. In 1925, AT&T decided that WEAF and its network were incompatible with the companys primary goal of providing a telephone service. AT&T offered to sell the station to RCA in a deal that included the right to lease AT&Ts phone lines for network transmission, the divisions ownership was split among RCA, its founding corporate parent General Electric and Westinghouse. NBC officially started broadcasting on November 15,1926, WEAF and WJZ, the flagships of the two earlier networks, were operated side-by-side for about a year as part of the new NBC. On April 5,1927, NBC expanded to the West Coast with the launch of the NBC Orange Network and this was followed by the debut of the NBC Gold Network, also known as the Pacific Gold Network, on October 18,1931. The Orange Network carried Red Network programming, and the Gold Network carried programming from the Blue Network, initially, the Orange Network recreated Eastern Red Network programming for West Coast stations at KPO in San Francisco. The Orange Network name was removed from use in 1936, at the same time, the Gold Network became part of the Blue Network. In the 1930s, NBC also developed a network for shortwave radio stations, in 1927, NBC moved its operations to 711 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, occupying the upper floors of a building designed by architect Floyd Brown
5.
The Hollywood Squares
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The Hollywood Squares is an American panel game show in which two contestants play tic-tac-toe to win cash and prizes. The show piloted on NBC in 1965, and the series debuted in 1966 on the same network. The board for the game is a 3 ×3 vertical stack of open-faced cubes, each occupied by a celebrity seated at a desk and facing the contestants. The stars are asked questions by the host, and the judge the truth of their answers to gain squares in the right pattern to win the game. The shows writers usually supplied the jokes, in addition, the stars were given the questions subjects and bluff answers prior to the show. The show was scripted in this sense, but the gameplay was not, in 2013, TV Guide ranked it at No.7 in its list of the 60 greatest game shows ever. Internationally, there are multiple versions under a variety of names, although there have been variations over the years in the rules of and the prizes in the game, certain aspects of the game have remained fairly consistent. Two contestants competed in match, one playing X and the other O. One of the contestants was usually a returning champion, taking turns, each contestant selected a square. The star was asked a question and gave an answer, which was preceded by a zinger. The contestants had the choice of agreeing with the answer or disagreeing if they thought the star was bluffing. On rare occasions, a star would not know the answer to a question. In such instances, the contestant would be offered the chance to answer the question, usually the contestants declined, in which case they incurred no penalty and the same star was asked another question. The objective was to complete a line across, vertically, or diagonally or to score as many squares as possible, correctly agreeing or disagreeing with a stars answer captured the square. If the contestant failed to agree or disagree correctly, the square went to his/her opponent, bert Parks hosted the 1965 pilot of Hollywood Squares. NBC acquired the rights to the show, which debuted on October 17,1966 with Peter Marshall as host, Hollywood Squares was the final addition to a short-lived game show powerhouse block on NBC, which for the next two years also included Concentration, Jeopardy. Lets Make a Deal, Match Game and others, during most of its daytime run, NBC broadcast The Hollywood Squares at 11,30 a. m. Central, it dominated the ratings until 1976, when it made the first of several time slot moves, the daytime show aired its 3536th and last episode on June 20,1980
6.
Austrian Empire
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The Austrian Empire was an empire in Central Europe created out of the realms of the Habsburgs by proclamation in 1804. It was an empire and one of Europes great powers. Geographically it was the second largest country in Europe after the Russian Empire and it was also the third most populous after Russia and France, as well as the largest and strongest country in the German Confederation. Proclaimed in response to the First French Empire, it overlapped with the Holy Roman Empire until the dissolution in 1806. The Ausgleich of 1867 elevated Hungarys status and it became a separate entity from the Empire entirely, joining with it in the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary. Changes shaping the nature of the Holy Roman Empire took place during conferences in Rastatt, on 24 March 1803, the Imperial Recess was declared, which reduced the number of ecclesiastical states from 81 to only 3 and the free imperial cities from 51 to 6. This measure was aimed at replacing the old constitution of the Holy Roman Empire, taking this significant change into consideration, the German Emperor Francis II created the title Emperor of Austria, for himself and his successors. In 1804 the Holy Roman Emperor Francis II, who was ruler of the lands of the Habsburg Monarchy, founded the Empire of Austria. In doing so he created a formal overarching structure for the Habsburg Monarchy, to safeguard his dynastys imperial status he adopted the additional hereditary title of Emperor of Austria. Hungarys affairs remained administered by its own institutions as they had been beforehand, thus under the new arrangements no Imperial institutions were involved in its internal government. The fall and dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire was accelerated by French intervention in the Empire in September 1805, on 20 October 1805, an Austrian army led by general Karl Mack von Leiberich was defeated by French armies near the town of Ulm. The French victory resulted in the capture of 20,000 Austrian soldiers, Napoleons army won another victory at Austerlitz on 2 December 1805. Francis was forced into negotiations with the French from 4 to 6 December 1805, the French victories encouraged rulers of certain imperial territories to assert their formal independence from the Empire. On 10 December 1805, the prince-elector Duke of Bavaria proclaimed himself King, finally, on 12 December, the Margrave of Baden was given the title of Grand Duke. In addition, each of these new countries signed a treaty with France, the Treaty of Pressburg between France and Austria, signed in Pressburg on 26 December, enlarged the territory of Napoleons German allies at the expense of defeated Austria. Certain Austrian holdings in Germany were passed to French allies—the King of Bavaria, the King of Württemberg, Austrian claims on those German states were renounced without exception. On 12 July 1806, the Confederation of the Rhine was established, comprising 16 sovereigns and this confederation, under French influence, put an end to the Holy Roman Empire. On 6 August 1806, even Francis recognized the new state of things and proclaimed the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, as he did not want Napoleon to succeed him
7.
Scotland
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Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and covers the northern third of the island of Great Britain. It shares a border with England to the south, and is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east. In addition to the mainland, the country is made up of more than 790 islands, including the Northern Isles, the Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the Early Middle Ages and continued to exist until 1707. By inheritance in 1603, James VI, King of Scots, became King of England and King of Ireland, Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain. The union also created a new Parliament of Great Britain, which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. Within Scotland, the monarchy of the United Kingdom has continued to use a variety of styles, titles, the legal system within Scotland has also remained separate from those of England and Wales and Northern Ireland, Scotland constitutes a distinct jurisdiction in both public and private law. Glasgow, Scotlands largest city, was one of the worlds leading industrial cities. Other major urban areas are Aberdeen and Dundee, Scottish waters consist of a large sector of the North Atlantic and the North Sea, containing the largest oil reserves in the European Union. This has given Aberdeen, the third-largest city in Scotland, the title of Europes oil capital, following a referendum in 1997, a Scottish Parliament was re-established, in the form of a devolved unicameral legislature comprising 129 members, having authority over many areas of domestic policy. Scotland is represented in the UK Parliament by 59 MPs and in the European Parliament by 6 MEPs, Scotland is also a member nation of the British–Irish Council, and the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Scotland comes from Scoti, the Latin name for the Gaels, the Late Latin word Scotia was initially used to refer to Ireland. By the 11th century at the latest, Scotia was being used to refer to Scotland north of the River Forth, alongside Albania or Albany, the use of the words Scots and Scotland to encompass all of what is now Scotland became common in the Late Middle Ages. Repeated glaciations, which covered the land mass of modern Scotland. It is believed the first post-glacial groups of hunter-gatherers arrived in Scotland around 12,800 years ago, the groups of settlers began building the first known permanent houses on Scottish soil around 9,500 years ago, and the first villages around 6,000 years ago. The well-preserved village of Skara Brae on the mainland of Orkney dates from this period and it contains the remains of an early Bronze Age ruler laid out on white quartz pebbles and birch bark. It was also discovered for the first time that early Bronze Age people placed flowers in their graves, in the winter of 1850, a severe storm hit Scotland, causing widespread damage and over 200 deaths. In the Bay of Skaill, the storm stripped the earth from a large irregular knoll, when the storm cleared, local villagers found the outline of a village, consisting of a number of small houses without roofs. William Watt of Skaill, the laird, began an amateur excavation of the site, but after uncovering four houses
8.
Roosevelt High School (Chicago, Illinois)
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Roosevelt High School is a public 4–year high school in the Albany Park neighborhood on the northwest side of Chicago, United States. The school is operated by the Chicago Public Schools district, roosevelt opened and began existence in 1922 as William G. Hibbard High School, but was moved into a new building and renamed in honor of the 26th president of the United States in 1927. Roosevelt competes in the Chicago Public League and is a member of the Illinois High School Association, the boys football team were public league champions in 1960–61 under the leadership of coach Al Klein. 1976 Section Champions 7-1 Captains Rick Stinson and Joe Fiorentino, George Baker, cartoonist Jerry Bresler, musician, composer, and orchestra conductor. He is a pioneer in the field of currency futures George Schmidt, former NFL defensive end Anita Pankratz - Miss Ilinois of 1971
9.
Country music
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Country music is a genre of United States popular music that originated in the southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from the genre of United States, such as folk music. Blues modes have been used throughout its recorded history. The term country music is used today to many styles and subgenres. In 2009 country music was the most listened to rush hour radio genre during the evening commute, immigrants to the Southern Appalachian Mountains of North America brought the music and instruments of Europe and Africa along with them for nearly 300 years. Country music was introduced to the world as a Southern phenomenon, Bristol, Tennessee, has been formally recognized by the U. S. Congress as the Birthplace of Country Music, based on the historic Bristol recording sessions of 1927. Since 2014, the city has been home to the Birthplace of Country Music Museum, historians have also noted the influence of the less-known Johnson City sessions of 1928 and 1929, and the Knoxville sessions of 1929 and 1930. Prior to these, pioneer settlers, in the Great Smoky Mountains region, had developed a musical heritage. The first generation emerged in the early 1920s, with Atlantas music scene playing a role in launching countrys earliest recording artists. Okeh Records began issuing hillbilly music records by Fiddlin John Carson as early as 1923, followed by Columbia Records in 1924, many hillbilly musicians, such as Cliff Carlisle, recorded blues songs throughout the 1920s. The most important was the Grand Ole Opry, aired starting in 1925 by WSM in Nashville, during the 1930s and 1940s, cowboy songs, or Western music, which had been recorded since the 1920s, were popularized by films made in Hollywood. Bob Wills was another musician from the Lower Great Plains who had become very popular as the leader of a hot string band. His mix of country and jazz, which started out as dance hall music, Wills was one of the first country musicians known to have added an electric guitar to his band, in 1938. Country musicians began recording boogie in 1939, shortly after it had played at Carnegie Hall. Gospel music remained a component of country music. It became known as honky tonk, and had its roots in Western swing and the music of Mexico. By the early 1950s a blend of Western swing, country boogie, rockabilly was most popular with country fans in the 1950s, and 1956 could be called the year of rockabilly in country music. Beginning in the mid-1950s, and reaching its peak during the early 1960s, the late 1960s in American music produced a unique blend as a result of traditionalist backlash within separate genres
10.
National Barn Dance
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National Barn Dance, broadcast by WLS-AM in Chicago, Illinois starting in 1924, was one of the first American country music radio programs and a direct precursor of the Grand Ole Opry. The program was received and thus widely imitated. National Barn Dance ended its broadcast in 1968, National Barn Dance was founded by Edgar L. Bill. To him goes the credit for arranging to have a program of down-home tunes broadcast from radio station WLS, having lived on a farm, he knew how people loved the familiar sound and informal spirit of old-fashioned barn dance music. The first broadcast was a sustaining program. An avalanche of telephone calls and letters indicated a demand from the public for this type of broadcast. It first aired on WLS on April 19,1924 and originated from the Eighth Street Theater starting in 1931, the show was picked up by NBC Radio in 1933. NBC expanded the coverage in 1942, adding it to the schedules of international shortwave stations. In 1946 it switched to the ABC Radio network and aired until 1952 on Saturday nights from 6,30 p. m. to midnight, other guests included Smiley Burnette, Eddie Peabody and Joe Kelly, best remembered today as the host and moderator of NBCs Quiz Kids. The announcer was Jack Holden and it was sponsored by Alka-Seltzer. ABC made two moves that led to National Barn Dances slow demise. The first was the cancellation of the network broadcast in 1952, after a few years, audiences finally began to wane, and the program ceased live performances after 1957. The show continued to air on WLS, however, until 1959 when ABC bought the station and changed the format to Top 40 rock and roll, the show moved to Chicagos WGN-AM until it finally left the air in 1968. Bardy William Bardy Byron Bouchard A fictionalized account of the origins, The National Barn Dance, was filmed by director Hugh Bennett from a screenplay by Hal Fimberg. The film starred Jean Heather, Charles Quigley, Robert Benchley, Mabel Paige and Charles Dingle, while Pat Buttram, paramount Pictures reportedly paid WLS $75,000 for the rights in 1943. ABC Barn Dance, a filmed TV series featuring some of the performers, was telecast on ABC from February 21–November 14,1949. Hosted by Jack Stillwell and Hal OHalloran, the 30-minute musical variety format presented a mix of music with country. In 1925, prior to network radio or syndication, Hay brought his Barn Dance concept to Nashville, the result was a show called the WSM Barn Dance
11.
WLS (AM)
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WLS is a commercial AM radio station licensed to Chicago, Illinois. WLS is a Class A station broadcasting on the frequency of 890 kHz with 50,000 watts of power using C-QUAM AM Stereo. The stations daytime groundwave service contour covers portions of five states while at night its signal routinely reaches 38 states via skywave. The stations programming is available to listeners in the Chicago metropolitan area with an HD Radio receiver via a simulcast on the HD2 subchannel of sister station WLS-FM. Despite different owners and affiliations,89 WLS, ABC owned-and-operated ABC7 Chicago, WLS has a talk radio format, with its weekday programming consisting of local hosts and nationally syndicated shows such as Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Red Eye Radio and First Light. Limbaugh is syndicated by Premiere Networks and the rest are from Westwood One, local hosts include Big John Howell and veteran Chicago radio personality Steve Dahl hosts afternoons. Weekends feature programs on money, real estate, auto repair, syndicated weekend shows include Kim Komando, Bob Brinker, John Batchelor, Ric Edelman and Larry Kudlow. WLS carried Notre Dame Fighting Irish football and basketball games through the 2015-16 season, since 2016, WLS has been the flagship station of the Chicago White Sox baseball team and the Chicago Bulls basketball team. In the 1920s, Sears, Roebuck and Company was a retail and mail order company. To get farmers and people in communities to buy radio sets from its catalogs, Sears bought time on radio stations. Just before the permanent station was ready, Sears began broadcasts on March 21,1924 as WBBX with noon programs using the WMAQ studios, Sears broadcast test transmissions from its own permanent studios on April 9,10 and 11,1924, using the call sign WES. On April 12,1924, the station commenced officially, using the call letters WLS, Sears originally operated its station at its Chicago headquarters on Chicagos West Side where the companys mail order business was located. Sears then moved the WLS studios into the Sherman House hotel in downtown Chicago, Sears opened the station in 1924 as a service to farmers and subsequently sold it to the Prairie Farmer magazine in 1928. The station moved to the Prairie Farmer Building on West Washington in Chicago, for a few months after ABCs 1960 purchase of it and the format change, the bright new sound that began in May 1960 was broadcast from the Prairie Farmer Building. WLS didnt make the move to downtown Michigan Avenues Stone Container Building, located at 360 North Michigan Avenue, thirty years later, it would move once more, to its present location at 190 North State in downtown Chicago. It was the scene of the National Barn Dance, which featured Gene Autry, Pat Buttram, and George Gobel, the station also experimented successfully in many forms of news broadcasting, including weather and crop reports. Its most famous news broadcast was the report of the Hindenburg disaster by Herbert Morrison. Morrison and engineer Charles Nehlsen had been sent to New Jersey by WLS to cover the arrival of the Hindenburg for delayed broadcast and their recordings aired the next day on May 7,1937, the first time that recordings of a news event were ever broadcast
12.
KMOX
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KMOX is an AM radio station broadcasting from St. Louis, Missouri. It is a 50, 000-watt clear channel station, which permits its nighttime signal to be heard in most of the central U. S. and into Mexico. KMOX operates as NewsRadio 1120 and refers to itself as The Voice of St. Louis, KMOX is affiliated with the CBS Radio Network and licensed to a CBS Corporation subsidiary, CBS Radio. KMOXs transmitter is located in Pontoon Beach, Illinois, the KMOX studio is located at 1220 Olive Street in the Park Pacific Building at Olive Street and Tucker Boulevard. CBS Radio also has studios and offices there for its two other St. Louis radio stations, KYKY and 102.5 KEZK-FM, for many years, KMOX broadcast using C-QUAM AM stereo, but stereo transmissions ended in the spring of 2000. The station now broadcasts an HD Radio signal, the Federal Communications Commission requires a digital license for HD broadcasting. KMOX, along with WSDZ, are responsible for the activation of the Greater St. Louis Emergency Alert System for hazardous weather, disaster declarations, KMOX was started in the early days of broadcasting by a group of businessmen incorporated as The Voice of St. Louis Inc. According to the official website, the KMOX call letters were assigned by the Federal Radio Commission. The stations owners had hoped to be assigned KVSL, for Voice of St. Louis, the owners also applied for KMO, but those call letters had been in use by KMO in Tacoma since 1922. KMOX signed on December 24,1925, the X was added because the starting date was Christmas Eve, or Xmas eve. Although a local legend states the call letters mean Kirkwood, Missouri On Xmas, in 1927, the station gave prominent coverage to the Charles Lindbergh flight across the Atlantic, in his plane, The Spirit of St. Louis. That same year, KMOX became one of the first 16 stations in the CBS network, two years later CBS bought KMOX, and began the process of getting approval to build a 50, 000-watt transmitter tower. When completed, it gave the station a signal that could be heard as far away as New Zealand. Its signal has been picked up in Scotland and South Africa, in 1933, KMOX covered the first post-Prohibition case of Budweiser beer leaving the Anheuser-Busch St. Louis brewery for the White House, a story carried nationally by CBS. During the 1930s and 1940s, KMOX was one of several St. Louis stations broadcasting Cardinals, KMOX lost broadcasting rights in 1948 when a new Cardinals radio network was formed by the team, but by the 1950s, it became the flagship station of that network. During the 1950s, the slogan was k-mocks, pronouncing the way the stations call letters are spelled. In 1955 Robert Hyland Jr became KMOXs general manager, a role he held for forty years. On February 29 of that year, Jack Buck hosted the first At Your Service program and that program, like the sports talk programs that soon followed, pioneered a format for radio heavily dependent on interviews, guest appearances, and calls from listeners
13.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
14.
United States Army Air Forces
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Each of these forces had a commanding general who reported directly to the Army Chief of Staff. S. Army to control its own installations and support personnel, the peak size of the AAF during the Second World War was over 2.4 million men and women in service and nearly 80,000 aircraft by 1944, and 783 domestic bases in December 1943. By V-E Day, the Army Air Forces had 1.25 million men stationed overseas, in its expansion and conduct of the war, the AAF became more than just an arm of the greater organization. By the end of World War II, the Army Air Forces had become virtually an independent service and this contrast between theory and fact is. fundamental to an understanding of the AAF. Gen. Billy Mitchell that led to his later court-martial, a strategy stressing precision bombing of industrial targets by heavily armed, long-range bombers emerged, formulated by the men who would become its leaders. Since 1920, control of units had resided with commanders of the corps areas. Both were created in 1933 when a conflict with Cuba seemed possible following a coup détat. Activation of GHQ Air Force represented a compromise between strategic airpower advocates and ground force commanders who demanded that the Air Corps mission remain tied to that of the land forces. GHQ Air Force organized combat groups administratively into a force of three wings deployed to the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts but was small in comparison to European air forces. Corps area commanders continued to control over airfields and administration of personnel. The expected activation of Army General Headquarters prompted Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall to request a study from Chief of the Air Corps Maj. Gen. Henry H. Arnold resulting on 5 October 1940 in a proposal for creation of an air staff, unification of the air arm under one commander, and equality with the ground and supply forces. Marshall implemented a compromise that the Air Corps found entirely inadequate, naming Arnold as acting Deputy Chief of Staff for Air but rejecting all organizational points of his proposal. GHQ Air Force instead was assigned to the control of Army General Headquarters, although the latter was a training and not an operational component, when it was activated in November 1940. A division of the GHQ Air Force into four air defense districts on 19 October 1940 was concurrent with the creation of air forces to defend Hawaii. The air districts were converted in March 1941 into numbered air forces with an organization of 54 groups. Marshall had come to the view that the air forces needed a simpler system, Arnold and Marshall agreed that the AAF would enjoy a general autonomy within the War Department until the end of the war, while its commanders would cease lobbying for independence. Marshall, a proponent of airpower, left understood that the Air Force would likely achieve its independence following the war
15.
Curtiss-Wright AT-9
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The AT-9 had a low-wing cantilever monoplane configuration, retractable landing gear and was powered by two Lycoming R-680-9 radial engines. Using the same design as the larger Cessna AT-17 Bobcat. The single CW-25 prototype acquired for evaluation had a welded steel-tube fuselage structure with the wings, fuselage, the first prototype Model 25 flew in 1941 and the production version entered service as the AT-9 in 1942. Named the Fledgling by Curtiss-Wright, it became known as the Jeep in the United States Army Air Forces. The prototype CW-25 had a steel tube fuselage and fabric-covered wings and tail units. Comedian George Gobel was a trainer at Army air bases in Oklahoma for both the AT-9 and B-26, a total of 491 AT-9s were built before production ended and a new production run of 300 of the generally similar AT-9A commenced. Because of its flying characteristics the AT-9 was not offered for sale to civilians after the war. CW-25 Prototype with fabric covered fuselage and tail surfaces AT-9 Production aircraft with stressed-skin covering, AT-9A AT-9 with Lycoming R-680-11 radial engines and revised hydraulic system,300 built before production ended in February 1943. United States United States Army Air Forces United States Air Force Two AT-9s survive today with one AT-9A on permanent display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio
16.
Altus, Oklahoma
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Altus is a city and county seat in Jackson County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 19,813 at the 2010 census, a loss of 7.7 percent compared to 21,454 at the 2000 census, Altus is home to Altus Air Force Base, the United States Air Force training base for C-17, KC-46 and KC-135 aircrews. It is also home to Western Oklahoma State College and Southwest Technology Center, the town that would later be named Altus was founded in 1886. The community was originally called Frazer, a settlement of about 50 people on Bitter Creek that served as a trading post on the Great Western Trail, cowboys driving herds northward often stopped to buy buttermilk from John McClearan. Thus, the town was known locally as Buttermilk Station, the Frazer post office opened February 18,1886. A flash flood nearly destroyed Frazer on June 4,1891, the residents moved to higher ground 2.5 miles east of the original site. W. R. Baucum suggested renaming the town Altus, a Latin word meaning high and this name stuck, although the town was also known as Leger from July 10,1901, to May 14,1904, The city has seen relatively steady growth since the beginning. The population doubled between the time of Oklahoma statehood and the 1910 census and even increased during the Great Depression, although Altus had been designated as the Jackson county seat at the time of statehood, an election was held in 1908 to determine the permanent seat. The two towns contending were Altus and Olustee, Altus won by a vote of 2,077 to 1,365. The county courthouse was there in 1910. An irrigation project in the 1940s and World War II led to growth in the town as the nearby air field was used to train military pilots. It was later purchased by the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad and since 1991 is operated by the Wichita, Tillman, in 1908, the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway built a line through Altus. Around the same time, the Altus, Wichita Falls and Hollis Railway constructed a line from Altus to the Oklahoma-Texas border, the railroads stimulated economic growth in the area and made Altus a regional agricultural center. By 1930, Altus had eight cotton gins, two cotton compresses, and eighteen wholesale businesses, Altus is located at 34°38′38″N 99°19′36″W. Altus is situated in what used to be Old Greer County, the city lies between the main channel and north fork of the Red River. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 17.0 square miles. Altus has a subtropical climate bordering upon a semi-arid climate. Summers are very hot to sweltering, though heavy rainfall does occur due to remains of Gulf of Mexico hurricanes moving inland
17.
Martin B-26 Marauder
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The Martin B-26 Marauder was a World War II twin-engined medium bomber built by the Glenn L. Martin Company from 1941 to 1945. First used in the Pacific Theater in early 1942, it was used in the Mediterranean Theater. After entering service with the US Army, the received the reputation of a Widowmaker due to the early models high accident rate during takeoffs. The Marauder had to be flown at exact airspeeds, particularly on final runway approach, the B-26 became a safer aircraft once crews were re-trained, and after aerodynamics modifications. After aerodynamic and design changes, the aircraft distinguished itself as the chief bombardment weapon on the Western Front according to a United States Army Air Forces dispatch from 1946, the Marauder ended World War II with the lowest loss rate of any USAAF bomber. A total of 5,288 were produced between February 1941 and March 1945,522 of these were flown by the Royal Air Force and the South African Air Force. By the time the United States Air Force was created as an independent service separate from the Army in 1947, the Douglas A-26 Invader then assumed the B-26 designation — before officially returning to the earlier A for Attack designation in May 1966. On 5 July 1939, the Glenn L. Martin Company submitted its design, produced by a led by Peyton M. Magruder, to meet the requirement. Martins design was evaluated as superior to the proposals and was awarded a contract for 201 aircraft. The B-26 went from concept to an operational bomber in approximately two years. Additional orders for a further 930 B-26s followed in September 1940, the B-26 was a shoulder-winged monoplane of all-metal construction, fitted with a tricycle landing gear. A gunner manned a turret armed with two.50 in machine guns, while an additional.30 in machine gun was fitted in the tail. The aircraft was powered by two Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp radial engines in nacelles slung under the wing, driving four-bladed propellers, the engines were manufactured at the Ford Dearborn Engine plant in Dearborn, Michigan, USA. The first B-26, with Martin test pilot William K, ken Ebel at the controls, flew on 25 November 1940 and was effectively the prototype. Deliveries to the US Army Air Corps began in February 1941 with the second aircraft, in March 1941, the Army Air Corps started Accelerated Service Testing of the B-26 at Patterson Field, Ohio. At least two of the earliest B-26s suffered hard landings and damage to the landing gear, engine mounts, propellers. The type was grounded briefly in April 1941 to investigate the landing difficulties, two causes were found, insufficient landing speed and improper weight distribution. The latter was due to the lack of a dorsal turret, some of the very earliest B-26s suffered collapses of the nose landing gear
18.
Frederick, Oklahoma
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Frederick is a city and county seat of Tillman County, Oklahoma, United States. Once titled The Friendly City, its charm and receptiveness leaves visitors feeling like locals, the population was 3,940 at the 2010 census. It is a community that primarily produces wheat, cotton. Frederick is home to three dairies, a 1400-acre industrial park, and Frederick Regional Airport, which includes restored World War II hangars which house the World War II Airborne Demonstration Team. Frederick was visited in April 1905 by then U. S. President Theodore Roosevelt while he was on a wolf hunt, originally established in 1901, the Frederick area was among the last of the Oklahoma Territory land to be opened to settlement. What is now Frederick used to be two towns, Gosnell and Hazel, both towns were established in 1901, when the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache reservation was opened to settlement. In 1902 the towns combined in order to take advantage of the Blackwell, Enid, the new town was named Frederick, after the son of a railroad executive. Gosnell received the depot, and the residents of Hazel moved north to the new town of Frederick. The post office moved from Gosnell to Frederick, most of the business district was destroyed by fires in 1904 and 1905. The buildings had been made of wood, and were replaced with brick. In 1907 the City of Frederick was incorporated, Oklahoma became a state, Frederick was named the seat of Tillman County, by 1915, Frederick had 15 miles of sidewalks and crossings, and 75 miles of wide, graded, rolled streets. The first paved streets were laid in 1918, the line was sold to the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad. The link to Frederick was abandoned in 1973, when Altus, the Frederick Army Air Field opened in 1941, training pilots to fly UC-78 light transport aircraft and B-25 bombers. In 1953, the base was turned over to the City of Frederick, in 1962 a flagpole was erected in Pioneer Park, fulfilling the agreement between Gosnell, Hazel and the railroad. Frederick is located at 34°23′25″N 99°0′58″W and it is at the junction of U. S. Highway 183 and State Highway 5. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 5.0 square miles. As of the census of 2000, there were 4,637 people,1,797 households, the population density was 935.3 people per square mile. There were 2,145 housing units at a density of 432.7 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 68. 04% White,11. 32% African American,2. 80% Native American,0. 43% Asian,0. 04% Pacific Islander,13. 85% from other races, and 3. 52% from two or more races
19.
Oklahoma
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Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central United States. Oklahoma is the 20th-most extensive and the 28th-most populous of the 50 United States, the states name is derived from the Choctaw words okla and humma, meaning red people. The name was settled upon statehood, Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory were merged, on November 16,1907, Oklahoma became the 46th state to enter the union. Its residents are known as Oklahomans, or informally Okies, and its capital, a major producer of natural gas, oil, and agricultural products, Oklahoma relies on an economic base of aviation, energy, telecommunications, and biotechnology. In 2007, it had one of the economies in the United States, ranking among the top states in per capita income growth. Oklahoma City and Tulsa serve as Oklahomas primary economic anchors, with nearly two-thirds of Oklahomans living within their metropolitan statistical areas. With small mountain ranges, prairie, mesas, and eastern forests, most of Oklahoma lies in the Great Plains, Cross Timbers, interior Highlands—a region especially prone to severe weather. The name Oklahoma comes from the Choctaw phrase okla humma, literally meaning red people, equivalent to the English word Indian, okla humma was a phrase in the Choctaw language used to describe Native American people as a whole. Oklahoma later became the de facto name for Oklahoma Territory, and it was approved in 1890. Oklahoma is the 20th-largest state in the United States, covering an area of 69,898 square miles and it is one of six states on the Frontier Strip and lies partly in the Great Plains near the geographical center of the 48 contiguous states. It is bounded on the east by Arkansas and Missouri, on the north by Kansas, on the northwest by Colorado, on the far west by New Mexico, much of its border with Texas lies along the Southern Oklahoma Aulacogen, a failed continental rift. The geologic figure defines the placement of the Red River, the Oklahoma panhandles Western edge is out of alignment with its Texas border. The Oklahoma/New Mexico border is actually 2.1 to 2.2 miles east of the Texas line, the border between Texas and New Mexico was set first as a result of a survey by Spain in 1819. It was then set along the 103rd Meridian, in the 1890s, when Oklahoma was formally surveyed using more accurate surveying equipment and techniques, it was discovered the Texas line was not set along the 103rd Meridian. Surveying techniques were not as accurate in 1819, and the actual 103rd Meridian was approximately 2.2 miles to the east and it was much easier to leave the mistake than for Texas to cede land to New Mexico to correct the surveying error. The placement of the Oklahoma/New Mexico border represents the true 103rd Meridian, cimarron County in Oklahomas panhandle is the only county in the United States that touches four other states, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado and Kansas. Its highest and lowest points follow this trend, with its highest peak, Black Mesa, at 4,973 feet above sea level, situated near its far northwest corner in the Oklahoma Panhandle. The states lowest point is on the Little River near its far southeastern boundary near the town of Idabel, Oklahoma, which dips to 289 feet above sea level
20.
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
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The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson is a talk show hosted by Johnny Carson under The Tonight Show franchise from October 1,1962 through May 22,1992. In 2002, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson was ranked No.12 on TV Guides 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time, particularly during the early years of Carsons tenure, his guests included politicians such as former U. S. Vice President Richard M. Nixon, former U. S. Attorney General Robert F. Psychologist Joyce Brothers was also one of Carsons most frequent guests. Carson strongly disliked prop comedy and generally refused to have such comics on his show, gallagher first appeared on The Tonight Show Dec.5,1975, when he demonstrated his prop, The Tonight Show Home Game, and Carson noted that it was his first appearance. Gallagher again appeared on May 9,1979, a show hosted by Carson, mort Sahl recalled, The producer crouches just off camera and holds up a card that says, Go to commercial. So Carson goes to a commercial and the team rushes up to his desk to discuss what had gone wrong. Actor Robert Blake once compared being interviewed by Carson to facing the death squad or Broadway on opening night, the publicity value of appearing on Tonight was so great, however, that most guests were willing to subject themselves to the risk. The shows announcer and Carsons sidekick was Ed McMahon, who from the very first show would introduce Carson with a drawn-out Heeeeeeeeeres Johnny. The catchphrase was heard nightly for 30 years, and ranked top of the TV Land poll of U. S. McMahon, who held the same role in Carsons ABC game show Who Do You Trust. For five years previously, would remain standing to the side as Carson did his monologue, laughing at his jokes, the two would usually interact in a comic spot for a short while before the first guest was introduced. McMahon stated in a 1978 profile of Carson in The New Yorker that the ‘Tonight Show’ is my staple diet, my meat and potatoes—I’m realistic enough to know that everything else stems from that. After a 1965 incident in which he ruined Carsons joke on the air McMahon was careful to, as he said and he wrote in his 1998 autobiography, My role on the show never was strictly defined. I did what had to be done when it had to be done, I was there when he needed me, and when he didnt I moved down the couch and kept quiet. I did the audience warm-up, I did commercials, for a brief period I co-hosted the first fifteen minutes of the show, and I performed in many sketches. On our thirteenth-anniversary show Johnny and I were talking at his desk and he said and he paused long enough for me to recognize my cue, so I asked, How long is it. Thats why youre here, he said, probably summing up my primary role on the show perfectly. I had to him, I had to help him get to the punch line. Many nights Id be listening to Johnny and in my mind Id reach the same ad lib just as he said it, Id have to bite my tongue not to say it out loud
21.
Tulsa, Oklahoma
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Tulsa /ˈtʌlsə/ is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. As of July 2015, the population was 403,505 and it is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with 981,005 residents in the MSA and 1,151,172 in the CSA. The city serves as the county seat of Tulsa County, the most densely populated county in Oklahoma, with urban development extending into Osage, Rogers, Tulsa was settled between 1828 and 1836 by the Lochapoka Band of Creek Native American tribe. For most of the 20th century, the city held the nickname Oil Capital of the World, once heavily dependent on the oil industry, Tulsa experienced economic downturn. Subsequent diversification efforts created a base in the energy, finance, aviation, telecommunications. The Tulsa Port of Catoosa, at the head of the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System, is the most inland port in the U. S. with access to international waterways. Two institutions of education within the city have sports teams at the NCAA Division I level, Oral Roberts University. It is situated on the Arkansas River at the foothills of the Ozark Mountains in northeast Oklahoma, the city has been called one of Americas most livable large cities by Partners for Livable Communities, Forbes, and Relocate America. FDi Magazine in 2009 ranked the city no.8 in the U. S. for cities of the future, in 2012, Tulsa was ranked among the top 50 best cities in the United States by BusinessWeek. People from Tulsa are called Tulsans, the area where Tulsa now exists was considered Indian Territory when it was first formally settled by the Lochapoka and Creek tribes in 1836. They established a settlement under the Creek Council Oak Tree at the present day intersection of Cheyenne Avenue. This area and this tree reminded Chief Tukabahchi and his group of trail of tear survivors of the bend in the river and their previous Creek Council Oak Tree back in the Talisi. They named their new settlement Tallasi, meaning old town in the Creek language, the area around Tulsa was also settled by members of the other so-called Five Civilized Tribes who had relocated to Oklahoma from the Southern United States. Most of modern Tulsa is located in the Creek Nation, with parts located in the Cherokee Nation, although Oklahoma was not yet a state during the Civil War, the Tulsa area did see its share of fighting. The Battle of Chusto-Talasah took place on the side of Tulsa. After the War, the tribes signed Reconstruction treaties with the government that in some cases required substantial land concessions. On January 18,1898, Tulsa was officially incorporated and elected its first mayor, Tulsa was a small town near the banks of the Arkansas River in 1901 when its first oil well, named Sue Bland No. Much of the oil was discovered on land whose mineral rights were owned by members of the Osage Nation under a system of headrights
22.
Milton Berle
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Milton Berle was an American comedian and actor. As the host of NBCs Texaco Star Theater, he was the first major American television star and was known to millions of viewers as Uncle Miltie and Mr. Television during TVs golden age. Milton Berle was born into a Jewish family in a five-story walkup at 68 W. 118th Street in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan and his given name was Mendel Berlinger. He chose Milton Berle as his name when he was 16. His father, Moses Berlinger, was a paint and varnish salesman and his mother, Sarah Glantz Berlinger, eventually became stagestruck and changed her name to Sandra Berle when Milton became famous. Berle entered show business at the age of five when he won a talent contest. He appeared as an actor in silent films, beginning with The Perils of Pauline, filmed in Fort Lee. The director told Berle that he would portray a boy who would be thrown from a moving train. In Milton Berle, An Autobiography, he explained, I was scared shitless, which is exactly what happened, except that at the crucial moment they threw a bundle of rags instead of me from the train. I bet there are a lot of comedians around today who are sorry about that. By Berles account, he continued to play roles in other films, Bunnys Little Brother, Tess of the Storm Country, Birthright, Loves Penalty, Divorce Coupons. In 1916, Berle enrolled in the Professional Childrens School, around 1920, at age 12, Berle made his stage debut in a revival of the musical comedy Florodora in Atlantic City, New Jersey, which later moved to Broadway. By the time he was 16, he was working as a Master of Ceremonies in Vaudeville, by the early 1930s he was a successful stand-up comedian, patterning himself after one of Vaudevilles top comics, Ted Healy. In 1933, he was hired by producer Jack White to star in the theatrical featurette Poppin the Cork, Berle also co-wrote the score for this film, which was released by Educational Pictures. Berle continued to dabble in songwriting, with Ben Oakland and Milton Drake, Berle wrote the title song for the RKO Radio Pictures release Lil Abner, an adaptation of Al Capps comic strip, featuring Buster Keaton as Lonesome Polecat. Berle wrote a Spike Jones B-side, Leave the Dishes in the Sink, in 1939, he was the host of Stop Me If Youve Heard This One with panelists spontaneously finishing jokes sent in by listeners. In the late 1940s, he canceled well-paying nightclub appearances to expand his radio career, three Ring Time, a comedy-variety show sponsored by Ballantine Ale, was followed by a 1943 program sponsored by Campbells Soups. The audience participation show Let Yourself Go could best be described as radio with studio audience members acting out long suppressed urges—often directed at host Berle
23.
Crew cut
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The hair on the sides and back of the head is usually tapered short, semi-short, or medium. A short crew cut is referred to as a butch, though with the exception of variant forms. A long crew cut can be referred to in the US as an ivy league crew cut or ivy league. Crew cuts, flattop crew cuts, butch cuts and ivy leagues can be referred to as buzz cuts, all are traditionally groomed with hair control wax, commonly referred to as butch wax. The crew cut, regardless of the applied to the hairstyle, was not limited to. In English, the cut and flat top crew cut were formerly known as the pompadour or short pompadour, as well as the brush cut. The style went by names in other languages, in French, coupé en brosse, in German, bürstenschnitt, in Russian. A short pompadour with a flat top was considered the standard while a somewhat curved appearance across the top was suggested for wider foreheads, almost concurrently, the first helmets began to appear. Crew cuts were popular in the 1920s and 1930s among college students, the style was often worn as a summer haircut for its cooling effect. Men inducted into the military in World War II received G. I. haircuts, crew cuts, as long hair became popular in the mid 1960s, the crew cut and its variants waned in popularity through the 1970s. The crew cut began to back in style in the late 1970s. Thicker hair that wants to stand upright is ideal for a crew cut, with an appropriate head shape. When designing a crew cut, a barber follows the sequence of other medium to short haircuts. When designing a new cut and the current style is not relatively short. Edging and siding together form a taper which usually is short, semi-short or medium, for a crew cut, some barbers perform edging and siding as one integrated process, regardless, the upper sides are initially boxed in and then cut to final form when designing the top. The hair on the top of the head can be styled clipper or shears over comb or free hand with a clipper. Free hand means the clipper blade or guard does not determine the cut hair length, the barber selects the most complementary final form for the top according to face shape, skull shape, frontal hairline, and facial features within parameters set by customer instructions. A crew cut with a longer top can be referred to in the US as an ivy league crew cut or ivy league
24.
Peggy King
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Peggy King is a jazz and pop vocalist and former TV personality. She got her start with the bands of Charlie Spivak, Ralph Flanagan, the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, The Perry Como Show, The Garry Moore Show, and The Jack Benny Show. In 1952 MGM signed her to a contract, which led to a cameo in Vincente Minnellis The Bad and the Beautiful. These last brought her to the attention of Mitch Miller at Columbia Records, Miller signed her to a long-term contract, under which she made two best-selling albums, Wish Upon on a Star and Girl Meets Boy, and a string of hit singles. She sang the Oscar-nominated song Count Your Blessings on the 1955 Academy Awards telecast and she sang in the 1955 cult comedy Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy and was featured as chief co-star on the poster. She portrayed the stewardess Janet Turner in the suspense thriller Zero Hour, later the basis for the disaster spoof, Airplane. Her more recent albums include Lazy Afternoon, Oh What a Memory We Made Tonight, in 2008 Sepia Records reissued the original cast album of Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates, adding sixteen of Kings classic Columbia recordings and four of Hunters. In Feb.2016, she released an all-new CD album, her first recording in 36 years, the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia inducted King into their Hall of Fame in 2010. In 2016, King continues to perform in nightclubs, theatres and at charitable and private events on a basis, with Music Director/Pianist Andrew Kahn. On February 8,1960, King became one of the first stars to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
25.
Jeff Donnell
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Jeff Donnell was an American film and television actress. Born Jean Marie Donnell, she grew up in South Windham, as a child, she adopted the nickname Jeff after the character in her favorite comic strip, Mutt and Jeff. To avoid gender confusion, she was billed as Jeff Donnell. Donnell graduated from Towson High School, Towson, Maryland, in 1938 and attended the Leland Powers School of Drama in Boston, later, she studied at the Yale School of Drama. She was signed to a contract by Columbia Pictures in 1942 and she later had roles in some RKO films. In 1966 she made five appearances on Dr. Kildare as Evelyn Driscoll, Jeff Donnell at the Internet Movie Database Jeff Donnell at Find a Grave Photos of Jeff Donnell 1940s various films by Ned Scott
26.
James Stewart
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James Maitland Stewart, also known as Jimmy Stewart, was an American actor and military officer who is among the most honored and popular stars in film history. A major Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player, Stewart was known for his distinctive drawl and down-to-earth persona, many of the films he starred in have become enduring classics. Stewart was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one in competition for The Philadelphia Story, in 1999, Stewart was named the third greatest male screen legend of the Golden Age of Hollywood by the American Film Institute, behind Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant. The American Film Institute has also named five of Stewarts films to its list of the 100 best American films ever made. Stewart was born on May 20,1908, in Indiana, Pennsylvania, the son of Elizabeth Ruth Jackson and Alexander Maitland Stewart, Stewart was mainly of Scottish ancestry and was raised as a Presbyterian. He was descended from veterans of the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the eldest of three children, he was expected to continue his fathers business, which had been in the family for three generations. His mother was an excellent pianist but his father discouraged Stewarts request for lessons, when his father accepted a gift of an accordion from a guest, young Stewart quickly learned to play the instrument, which became a fixture offstage during his acting career. As the family grew, music continued to be an important part of family life, Stewart attended Mercersburg Academy prep school, graduating in 1928. He was active in a variety of activities and he played on the football and track teams, was art editor of the KARUX yearbook, and a member of the choir club, glee club, and John Marshall Literary Society. Over the following two summers, he took a job as an assistant with a professional magician and he made his first appearance onstage at Mercersburg, as Buquet in the play The Wolves. A shy child, Stewart spent much of his time in the basement working on model airplanes, mechanical drawing. However, he abandoned visions of being a pilot when his father insisted that instead of the United States Naval Academy he attend Princeton University, Stewart enrolled at Princeton in 1928 as a member of the class of 1932. His acting and accordion talents at Princeton led him to be invited to the University Players, the company had been organized in 1928 and would run until 1932, with Joshua Logan, Bretaigne Windust and Charles Leatherbee as directors. Stewart performed in bit parts in the Players productions in Cape Cod during the summer of 1932, the troupe had previously included Henry Fonda and Margaret Sullavan. Stewart and Fonda became close friends over the summer of 1932 when they shared an apartment with Joshua Logan, the New Yorker commented, Mr. James Stewarts chauffeur. Comes on for three minutes and walks off to a round of spontaneous applause, the play was a moderate success, but times were hard. Many Broadway theaters had been converted to houses and the Depression was reaching bottom. From 1932 through 1934, Stewart later recalled, Id only worked three months, every play I got into folded
27.
Henry Fonda
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Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor with a career spanning more than five decades. Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor and he also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins. Throughout six decades in Hollywood, Fonda cultivated a strong, appealing screen image in such classics as The Ox-Bow Incident, Fonda was the patriarch of a family of famous actors, including daughter Jane Fonda, son Peter Fonda, granddaughter Bridget Fonda, and grandson Troy Garity. His family and close friends called him Hank, in 1999, he was named the sixth-Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute. Fondas ancestors from Genoa, Italy, migrated to the Netherlands in the 15th century, in 1642, a branch of the Fonda family immigrated to the Dutch colony of New Netherland on the East Coast of North America. They were among the first Dutch population to settle in what is now upstate New York, establishing the town of Fonda, by 1888, many of their descendants had relocated to Nebraska. Henry Fonda was born in Grand Island, Nebraska, to advertising-printing jobber William Brace Fonda, Fonda was brought up as a Christian Scientist, though he was baptized an Episcopalian at St. Stephens Episcopal Church in Grand Island. He said, My whole damn family was nice and they were a close family and highly supportive, especially in health matters, as they avoided doctors due to their religion. Despite having a background, he later became an agnostic. Fonda was a bashful, short boy who tended to avoid girls, except his sisters, and was a skater, swimmer. He worked part-time in his fathers print plant and imagined a career as a journalist. Later, he worked after school for the phone company, Fonda was active in the Boy Scouts of America, Teichmann reports that he reached the rank of Eagle Scout. When he was about 14, his father took him to observe the lynching of a black man accused of rape. This enraged the young Fonda and he kept a keen awareness of prejudice for the rest of his life, by his senior year in high school, Fonda had grown to more than six feet tall, but remained shy. He attended the University of Minnesota, where he majored in journalism and he took a job with the Retail Credit Company. He was fascinated by the stage, learning everything from set construction to stage production, Fonda decided to quit his job and go East in 1928 to seek his fortune. He arrived on Cape Cod and played a role at the Cape Playhouse in Dennis. A friend took him to Falmouth, MA where he joined and quickly became a member of the University Players
28.
Fred MacMurray
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MacMurray is well known for his role in the 1944 film noir Double Indemnity directed by Billy Wilder, in which he starred with Barbara Stanwyck. MacMurray was born in Kankakee, Illinois, the son of Maleta and Frederick MacMurray and his aunt was vaudeville performer and actress Fay Holderness. When MacMurray was two years old the family moved to Madison, Wisconsin, and later settled in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin and he briefly attended school in Quincy, Illinois. He earned a scholarship to attend Carroll College, in Waukesha. While there, MacMurray participated in local bands, playing the saxophone. He did not graduate from the school, in 1930, MacMurray recorded as a featured vocalist with the Gus Arnheim Orchestra on All I Want Is Just One Girl on the Victor label. And with George Olsen on Im In The Market For You, before signing to Paramount Pictures in 1934, he appeared on Broadway in Threes a Crowd and alongside Sydney Greenstreet and Bob Hope in Roberta. MacMurray worked with directors Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges and actors Barbara Stanwyck, Humphrey Bogart, Marlene Dietrich and, in seven films, Claudette Colbert, despite being typecast as a nice guy, MacMurray often said his best roles were when he was cast against type by Wilder. He is perhaps best known for his role as Walter Neff, sixteen years later, MacMurray played Jeff Sheldrake, a two-timing corporate executive in Wilders Oscar-winning comedy The Apartment, with Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon. In another turn in the not so nice category, MacMurray played the cynical, in 1958, he guest-starred in the premiere episode of NBCs Cimarron City western series, with George Montgomery and John Smith. MacMurrays career continued upward in 1959, when he was cast as the father in the popular Disney Studios comedy, from 1960 to 1972, he starred in My Three Sons, a long running, highly rated US TV series. Concurrent with My Three Sons, MacMurray stayed busy in films, starring as Professor Ned Brainard in Disneys The Absent-Minded Professor and in the sequel, using his star clout, MacMurray had a provision in his Sons contract that all his scenes be shot first. This freed him to pursue his work and golf hobby. Over the years, MacMurray became one of the wealthiest actors in the entertainment business, primarily from wise real estate investments, after the cancellation of My Three Sons in 1972, MacMurray made only a few more film appearances before retiring in 1978. In the 1970s, MacMurray appeared in commercials for the Greyhound Lines bus company, towards the end of the decade, he was also featured in a series of commercials for the Korean chisenbop math calculation program. He married Lillian Lamont on June 20,1936, and the couple adopted two children, Susan and Robert. After Lamont died of cancer on June 22,1953, he married actress June Haver the following year, he and they remained married until his death. In 1941 MacMurray purchased land in the Russian River Valley in Northern California and he spent time there when not making films, engaging in, among other things, the raising of prize-winning Aberdeen Angus cattle
29.
Tennessee Ernie Ford
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Ernest Jennings Ford, known professionally as Tennessee Ernie Ford, was an American recording artist and television host who enjoyed success in the country and Western, pop, and gospel musical genres. Noted for his rich voice and down-home humor, he is remembered for his hit recordings of The Shotgun Boogie. Born in Bristol, Tennessee to Maud and Clarence Thomas Ford, Ford began his radio career as an announcer at WOPI-AM in Bristol. In 1939, the young left the station to study classical singing at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music in Ohio. As First Lieutenant, he served in the United States Army Air Corps in World War II as the bombardier on a B-29 Superfortress flying missions over Japan and he was also a bombing instructor at George Air Force Base, located in Victorville, California. After the war, Ford worked at stations in San Bernardino and Pasadena. At KFXM in San Bernardino, Ford was hired as a radio announcer and he was assigned to host an early morning country music disc jockey program, Bar Nothin Ranch Time. To differentiate himself, he created the personality of Tennessee Ernie and he became popular in the area and was soon hired away by Pasadenas KXLA radio. At KXLA, Ford continued doing the show and also joined the cast of Cliffie Stones popular live KXLA country show Dinner Bell Roundup as a vocalist while still doing the early morning broadcast. Cliffie Stone, a talent scout for Capitol Records, brought him to the attention of the label. In 1949, while doing his morning show, he signed a contract with Capitol. He became a local TV star as the star of Stones popular Southern California Hometown Jamboree show, radiOzark produced 260 15-minute episodes of The Tennessee Ernie Show on transcription disks for national radio syndication. He released almost 50 country singles through the early 1950s, several of which made the charts, ill Never Be Free, a duet pairing Ford with Capitol Records pop singer Kay Starr, became a huge country and pop crossover hit in 1950. A duet with Ella Mae Morse, False Hearted Girl was a top seller for the Capitol Country and Hillbilly division, Ford eventually ended his KXLA morning show and in the early 1950s, moved on from Hometown Jamboree. He took over from band-leader Kay Kyser as host of the TV version of NBC quiz show Kollege of Musical Knowledge when it returned briefly in 1954 after a four-year hiatus. He became a name in the U. S. largely as a result of his portrayal in 1954 of the country bumpkin, Cousin Ernie on three episodes of I Love Lucy. In 1955, Ford recorded Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier with Farewell to the Mountains on side B. The songs authorship has been claimed by both Travis and George S. Davis, although Travis is recognized as the author on the recording itself, by BMI
30.
Emmy Award
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An Emmy Award, or simply Emmy, recognizes excellence in the television industry, and corresponds to the Academy Award, the Tony Award, and the Grammy Award. Because Emmy Awards are given in various sectors of the American television industry, Regional Emmy Awards are also presented throughout the country at various times through the year, recognizing excellence in local and statewide television. In addition, International Emmys are awarded for excellence in TV programming produced, each is responsible for administering a particular set of Emmy ceremonies. The Los Angeles-based Academy of Television Arts & Sciences established the Emmy Award as part of an image-building and public relations opportunity. The first Emmy Awards ceremony took place on January 25,1949, at the Hollywood Athletic Club, shirley Dinsdale has the distinction of receiving the very first Emmy Award for Most Outstanding Television Personality, during that first awards ceremony. In the 1950s, the ATAS expanded the Emmys into a national event, in 1955, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences was formed in New York City as a sister organization to serve members on the East Coast, and help to also supervise the Emmys. The NATAS also established regional chapters throughout the United States, with each one developing their own local Emmy awards show for local programming, the ATAS still however maintained its separate regional ceremony honoring local programming in the Los Angeles Area. Originally there was only one Emmy Awards ceremony held per year to honor shows nationally broadcast in the United States, in 1974, the first Daytime Emmy Awards ceremony was held to specifically honor achievement in national daytime programming. Other area-specific Emmy Awards ceremonies soon followed, also, the International Emmy Awards, honoring television programs produced and initially aired outside the U. S. was established in the early 1970s. Meanwhile, all Emmys awarded prior to the emergence of these separate, in 1977, due to various conflicts, the ATAS and the NATAS agreed to split ties. However, they agreed to share ownership of the Emmy statue and trademark. With the rise of television in the 1980s, cable programs first became eligible for the Primetime Emmys in 1988. The ATAS also began accepting original online-only web television programs in 2013, the Emmy statuette, depicting a winged woman holding an atom, was designed by television engineer Louis McManus, who used his wife as the model. The TV Academy rejected a total of forty-seven proposals before settling on McManus design in 1948. The statuette has become the symbol of the TV Academys goal of supporting and uplifting the art and science of television, The wings represent the muse of art. When deciding a name for the award, Academy founder Syd Cassyd originally suggested Ike, however, Ike was also the popular nickname of World War II hero and future U. S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and the Academy members wanted something unique. Finally, television engineer and the third president, Harry Lubcke, suggested the name Immy. After Immy was chosen, it was feminized to Emmy to match their female statuette
31.
Leave It to Beaver
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Leave It to Beaver is an American television sitcom about an inquisitive and often naïve boy, Theodore The Beaver Cleaver, and his adventures at home, in school, and around his suburban neighborhood. The show also starred Barbara Billingsley and Hugh Beaumont as Beavers parents, June and Ward Cleaver, the show has attained an iconic status in the United States, with the Cleavers exemplifying the idealized suburban family of the mid-20th century. The show was created by the writers Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher and these veterans of radio and early television found inspiration for the shows characters, plots and dialogue in the lives, experiences and conversations of their own children. Leave It to Beaver is one of the first primetime sitcom series written from a point of view. Like several television dramas and sitcoms of the late 1950s and early 1960s, in a typical episode, Beaver gets into some sort of boyish scrape, then faces his parents for reprimand and correction. Neither parent was omniscient, the series showed the parents debating their approach to child rearing. Leave It to Beaver ran for six full 39-week seasons, the series had its debut on CBS on October 4,1957. The following season, it moved to ABC, where it stayed until completing its run on June 20,1963, throughout the shows run, it was shot with a single camera on black-and-white 35mm film. The shows production companies included the comedian George Gobels Gomalco Productions and Kayro Productions with filming at Revue Studios/Republic Studios, the show was distributed by MCA TV. Contemporary commentators praised Leave It to Beaver, with Variety comparing Beaver to Mark Twains Tom Sawyer, much juvenile merchandise was released during the shows first run, including board games, novels, and comic books. The show has enjoyed a renaissance in popularity since the 1970s through off-network syndication, a reunion telemovie, in 1997, a movie version based on the original series was released to moderate acclaim. In October 2007, TV Land celebrated the shows 50th anniversary with a marathon, although the show never broke into the Nielsen ratings top 30 or won any awards, it placed on Time magazines unranked 2007 list of The 100 Best TV Shows of All-Time. According to Tony Dow, If any line got too much of a laugh and they didnt want a big laugh, they wanted chuckles. In 1957, the radio, film and television writers Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher developed a concept for a TV show about childhood and family life featuring a fictional suburban couple, working titles during the shows gestation period included Its a Small World and Wally and the Beaver. The pilot aired April 23,1957, as Its a Small World on the anthology series Heinz Studio 57, the stars of the pilot were Casey Adams and Paul Sullivan. They were replaced as production of the series neared, six months after the broadcast of the pilot, the series debuted on CBS on Friday October 4,1957, as Leave It to Beaver, with the episode third in production order, Beaver Gets Spelled. The intended premiere, Captain Jack, displayed a toilet tank, Captain Jack has claimed its place in television history as the first American TV show to display a toilet tank. In 1997, it was ranked number 42 in TV Guides 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time, remington Rand was a potential sponsor during the shows conception and counseled against the shows suggested title, Wally and the Beaver, believing viewers would think the show was a nature program
32.
Hoagy Carmichael
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Howard Hoagland Hoagy Carmichael was an American composer, pianist, singer, actor, and bandleader from Indiana. Carmichael composed several hundred songs, including fifty that achieved hit record status and he is best known for composing the music for Stardust, Georgia on My Mind, The Nearness of You, and Heart and Soul, four of the most-recorded American songs of all time. He also collaborated with lyricist Johnny Mercer on Skylark, Carmichaels Ole Buttermilk Sky was an Academy Award-nominee in 1946, In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening, with lyrics by Mercer, won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1951. Carmichael also appeared as an actor and musical performer in fourteen motion pictures. Born in Bloomington, Indiana, on November 22,1899, Hoaglund Howard Hoagie Carmichael was the first child and only son of Howard Clyde and his parents named him after a circus troupe called the Hoaglands that had stayed at the Carmichael house during his mothers pregnancy. Hoagy had two sisters, Georgia and Joanne. Because of Howards unstable job history, the family moved frequently, Hoagy spent most of his early years in Bloomington and in Indianapolis, Indiana. Carmichaels mother taught him to sing and play the piano at an early age, the Carmichael family moved to Indianapolis in 1916, but Hoagy returned to Bloomington in 1919 to complete high school. The piano was the focus of Carmichaels after-school life, for inspiration he would listen to ragtime pianists Hank Wells and Hube Hanna. At eighteen, the small, wiry, and pale Carmichael helped supplement his family’s meager income by working in jobs in construction, at a bicycle-chain factory. The bleak time was partly spelled by four-handed piano duets with his mother and by his friendship with DuValle, Carmichael earned his first money as a musician playing at a fraternity dance in 1918, marking the beginning of his musical career. The death of Carmichaels three-year-old sister in 1918 affected him deeply and he later wrote My sister Joanne—the victim of poverty. We couldn’t afford a doctor or good attention, and that’s when I vowed I would never be broke again in my lifetime. Joanne may have died from influenza, which had swept the world that year, Carmichael attended Indiana University in Bloomington, where he earned a bachelors degree in 1925 and a law degree in 1926. He was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity, and played the piano around Indiana and Ohio with his band, around 1922 Carmichael first met Leon Bix Beiderbecke, a cornetist and sometime pianist from Iowa. The two became friends and played music together, under Beiderbecke’s influence Carmichael began playing the cornet, but found that he didnt have the lips for the instrument and played it only briefly. He was also inspired by Beiderbeckes impressionistic and classical music ideas, the song became a jazz staple. Carmichaels other early compositions included Washboard Blues and Boneyard Shuffle
33.
Catchphrase
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A catchphrase is a phrase or expression recognized by its repeated utterance. Such phrases often originate in popular culture and in the arts, some become the de facto or literal trademark or signature of the person or character with whom they originated, and can be instrumental in the typecasting of a particular actor. People are doing it to feel good about themselves, to make others laugh, to make themselves laugh and he found that all of the participants in his study had used film quotes in conversation at one point or another. They overwhelmingly cited comedies, followed distantly by dramas and action adventure flicks, horror films, musicals and childrens films were hardly ever cited. List of catchphrases List of political catchphrases List of exclamations by Robin Category, Catchphrases Barba, Catchy Phrases, over 2000 Catchy Slogans Ideas, Powerful Copy Connectors, Catchy Phrases for Business Tag lines, Magnetic Blog Triggers. Catchphrase, Slogan and Cliché, the origins and meanings of our favourite expressions, a Dictionary of Catch Phrases, American and British, from the sixteenth century to the present day Lanham, Maryland, Scarborough House,1992. Planet Simpson, How a Cartoon Masterpiece Documented an Era and Defined a Generation
34.
Kathy Bates
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Kathleen Doyle Kathy Bates is an American actress. Bates began her career on the stage, and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Play in 1983 for her performance in night, Mother. She rose to prominence with her performance in Misery, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress. She won another Emmy Award in 2012 for her portrayal as the ghost of Charlie Harper on CBS comedy series Two and a Half Men, Bates was born in Memphis, Tennessee, the youngest of three daughters of homemaker Bertye Kathleen and mechanical engineer Langdon Doyle Bates. Her paternal grandfather was lawyer and author Finis L. Bates, One of her Irish great-great-grandfathers, who immigrated to New Orleans, Louisiana, served as President Andrew Jacksons doctor. She graduated early from White Station High School and from Southern Methodist University and she moved to New York City in 1970 to pursue an acting career. She was nominated for a Tony Award in 1983 for her role in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play night. The stage production ran for more than a year, mcNally specifically wrote the play for Bates and F. Murray Abraham, who had to drop out and was replaced by Kenneth Welsh. The play was filmed as Frankie and Johnny, starring Al Pacino. She succeeded Amy Irving in the Off-Broadway production of The Road to Mecca in 1988, Bates first feature film role was in the 1971 Miloš Forman comedy Taking Off, in which she sings an original song Even Horses Had Wings. Bates next feature was the Dustin Hoffman film Straight Time, in 1977, Bates made her Soap opera debut as Phyllis on NBCs soap opera The Doctors. From 1983 to 1984, she played prison inmate Belle Bodelle on All My Children and from 1984 to 1985, in 1990 she would appear again with Hoffman in Warren Beattys Dick Tracy as a stenographer. She appeared in films like The Morning After and Summer Heat and she then landed the role of obsessed fan Annie Wilkes, who holds her favorite author captive, in the 1990 thriller film Misery, based on the Stephen King novel. Bates received her first Academy Award nomination for that role, winning Best Actress, soon after, she starred with Jessica Tandy in the acclaimed 1991 movie Fried Green Tomatoes, based on the novel by comedic actress Fannie Flagg. In 1995 Bates played the character in Dolores Claiborne, a film adaptation of another Stephen King novel. In 1997 Bates played Molly Brown in James Camerons Titanic, based on the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic, the film went on to earn more than $1.8 billion in box-office receipts worldwide. For this performance, she received her second Academy Award nomination, in 2002 she received her third nomination, for About Schmidt. More recently, she and Terry Bradshaw played the parents of Matthew McConaugheys character in the 2006 film Failure to Launch, Bates was featured in an uncredited cameo in the miniseries of Stephen Kings The Stand
35.
Misery (film)
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The hobbling scene in the film was ranked #12 on Bravos 100 Scariest Movie Moments. Famed novelist Paul Sheldon is the author of a series of Regency romance novels featuring a character named Misery Chastain. Wanting to focus on more serious stories, he writes a manuscript for a new novel that he hopes will launch his post-Misery career. While traveling from Silver Creek, Colorado to his home in New York City, he is caught in a blizzard and his car goes off the road, Paul is rescued by a nurse named Annie Wilkes, who brings him to her remote home. When Paul regains consciousness he finds himself bedridden, with both his legs broken as well as a dislocated shoulder, Annie claims she is his number one fan and talks a lot about him and his novels. As a reward for saving him, Paul gives Annie his new manuscript, while feeding him, she is angered by the profanity in the new manuscript and spills soup on him but apologizes. She buys a copy of Pauls most recently published book, Miserys Child, however, when she discovers that Misery dies at the end of the book, she flies into a rage. She reveals that she lied about calling his agent and the authorities, Paul tries to escape from his room, but she has locked the door. The next morning, Annie forces Paul to burn his latest manuscript, when he is well enough to get out of bed, she insists he write a new novel titled Miserys Return, in which he brings the character back to life. Paul complies, believing Annie might kill him otherwise and he also tells her he will use Annies name in the book in appreciation of her nursing him back to health. When the first few chapters show continuity errors, Annie chides him angrily, one day, Paul sneaks out when Annie is away and begins stockpiling his painkillers. He tries poisoning Annie during dinner, but fails, Paul later finds a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about Annies past. He discovers that she was suspected and tried for the deaths of several infants, Annie had quoted lines from his Misery novels during her trial. Annie later drugs Paul and straps him to the bed, when he wakes, she tells him that she knows he has been out of his room and breaks his ankles with a sledgehammer to prevent him from escaping again. The local sheriff, Buster, is investigating Pauls disappearance, when a shopkeeper informs the sheriff he has sold Annie considerable quantities of typing paper, Buster pays Annie a visit. When he finds Paul drugged in the basement, Annie fatally shoots Buster and he agrees, on the condition that he must finish the novel in order to give Misery back to the world. He then conceals a can of fluid in his pocket. When the book is done, he reminds Annie it is his practice to have a single cigarette, after he gets them, Paul sets the manuscript on fire, giving him the chance to hit Annie over the head with the typewriter
36.
James Dean
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James Byron Dean was an American actor. The other two roles that defined his stardom were loner Cal Trask in East of Eden and surly ranch hand Jett Rink in Giant, Deans premature death in a car crash cemented his legendary status. He became the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, in 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him the 18th best male movie star of Golden Age Hollywood in AFIs 100 Years.100 Stars list. James Dean was born February 8,1931, at the Seven Gables apartment on the corner of 4th Street and McClure Street in Marion, Indiana and his parents were of mostly English ancestry, with smaller amounts of German, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh. Six years after his father had left farming to become a technician, Dean and his family moved to Santa Monica. He was enrolled at Brentwood Public School in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, the family spent several years there, and by all accounts, Dean was very close to his mother. According to Michael DeAngelis, she was the only capable of understanding him. In 1938, she was struck with acute stomach pain. She died of cancer when Dean was nine years old. Unable to care for his son, Deans father sent him to live with Deans aunt Ortense and her husband, Marcus Winslow, on a farm in Fairmount, Indiana, Deans father served in World War II and later remarried. According to Billy J. Harbin, Dean had a relationship with his pastor. Their alleged sexual relationship was suggested in the 1994 book Boulevard of Broken Dreams, The Life, Times, in 2011, it was reported that Dean once confided in Elizabeth Taylor that he was sexually abused by a minister approximately two years after his mothers death. Other reports on Deans life also suggest that he was sexually abused by DeWeerd as a child or had a sexual relationship with him as a late teenager. Deans overall performance in school was exceptional and he was a popular student and he played on the baseball and varsity basketball teams, studied drama, and competed in public speaking through the Indiana High School Forensic Association. After graduating from Fairmount High School in May 1949, Dean moved back to California with his dog, Max and he enrolled in Santa Monica College and majored in pre-law. He transferred to UCLA for one semester and changed his major to drama and he pledged the Sigma Nu fraternity but was never initiated. While at UCLA, Dean was picked from a group of 350 actors to portray Malcolm in Macbeth, at that time, he also began acting in James Whitmores workshop. In January 1951, he dropped out of UCLA to pursue a career as an actor
37.
Rebel Without a Cause
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Rebel Without a Cause is a 1955 American drama film about emotionally confused suburban, middle-class teenagers filmed in CinemaScope. Directed by Nicholas Ray, it offered both social commentary and an alternative to previous films depicting delinquents in urban slum environments, the film stars James Dean, Sal Mineo and Natalie Wood. The film was an attempt to portray the moral decay of American youth, critique parental style. The title was adopted from psychiatrist Robert M. Lindners 1944 book, Rebel Without a Cause, the film itself, however, does not reference Lindners book in any way. Warner Bros. released the film on October 27,1955 and this was the only film during Deans lifetime in which he received top billing. In 1990, Rebel Without a Cause was added to Library of Congresss National Film Registry as being deemed culturally, historically, behind the opening credits, the film opens on a suburban Los Angeles street with teenager Jim Stark drunkenly lying down on a sidewalk. He is arrested and taken to the division of the police station for plain drunkenness. At the station he meets John Plato Crawford, who was brought in for shooting a litter of puppies with his mothers gun, and Judy and his frustrations are made manifest to officer Ray Fremick when Jim is released to their custody. Plato comes from a broken family and his father abandoned them when he was a toddler, and his mother is often away from home, leaving Plato in the care of his housekeeper. Jim sets out for his first day at Dawson High School and again meets Judy waiting on the corner and offers her a ride. Seemingly unimpressed by Jim at first, she declines and sarcastically says, You know, I bet youre a real yo-yo, and then is picked up by her friends, arriving at school, Jim immediately gets in hot water for unknowingly stepping on the school insignia. While shunned by most of the student body, Jim befriends Plato, as he walks out, Buzz and his gang slash one of Jims tires and then begin taunting him by clucking and calling him chicken, which is sure to set him off. When Jim asks Judy, revealed to be the property of Buzz, why she hangs around with them, Buzz pushes Jim away from her, then out a switchblade. Having no knife, Jim refuses, so Buzz orders one of his gang to lend Jim his knife, but even then Jim still refuses. When Buzz again calls Jim chicken he goes off, and the two fighting, each one getting minor jabs on the other until Jim knocks Buzzs knife away. Buzz wants another shot at Jim, which he accepts but not with knives, Buzz suggests stealing a couple of cars to have a Chickie Run at Millertown Bluff, a high seaside cliff. Jim agrees to them that evening before the observatory security guard runs the gang off. After they leave, Jim asks Plato what a Chickie Run is, at home, before leaving for the chickie run, Jim ambiguously asks Frank for advice about defending ones honor in a risky, dangerous situation
38.
Perry Como
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Pierino Ronald Perry Como was an American singer and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century, he recorded exclusively for RCA Victor for 44 years after signing with the label in 1943, Mr. C. as he was nicknamed, sold millions of records for RCA and pioneered a musical variety television show. Como was seen weekly on television from 1949 to 1963, then continued hosting the Kraft Music Hall variety program monthly until 1967 and his television shows and seasonal specials were broadcast throughout the world. Also a popular recording artist, Perry Como released numerous hit records from the 1940s through the 1970s, Comos appeal spanned generations and he was universally respected for both his professional standards and the conduct in his personal life. Como was born in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania and he was the seventh of ten children and the first American-born child of Pietro Como and Lucia Travaglini, who both emigrated to the US in 1910 from the Abruzzese town of Palena, Italy. He did not begin speaking English until he entered school, since the Comos spoke Italian at home. The family had a second-hand organ his father had bought for $3, as soon as Como was able to toddle, he would head to the instrument, pump the bellows, and play music he had heard by ear. Pietro, a hand and an amateur baritone, had all his children attend music lessons even if he could barely afford them. He showed more talent in his teenage years as a trombone player in the towns brass band, playing guitar, singing at weddings. Como was a member of the Canonsburg Italian Band along with the father of singer Bobby Vinton, bandleader Stan Vinton, young Como started helping his family at age 10, working before and after school in Steve Fragapanes barber shop for 50¢ a week. By age 13, he had graduated to having his own chair in the Fragapane barber shop and it was also around this time that young Como lost his weeks wages in a dice game. Filled with shame, he locked himself in his room and did not come out until hunger got the better of him and he managed to tell his father what had happened to the money his family depended on. His father told him he was entitled to make a mistake, when Perry was 14, his father became unable to work because of a severe heart condition. Como and his brothers became the support of the household, despite his musical ability, Comos primary ambition was to become the best barber in Canonsburg. Practicing on his father, young Como mastered the skills well enough to have his own shop at age 14. One of Comos regular customers at the shop owned a Greek coffee house that included a barber shop area. Como had so much work after moving to the coffee house and his customers worked mainly at the nearby steel mills. They were well-paid, did not mind spending money on themselves, Perry did especially well when one of his customers would marry
39.
Norman Lear
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Norman Milton Lear is an American television writer and producer who produced such 1970s sitcoms as All in the Family, Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, The Jeffersons, Good Times, and Maude. As a political activist, he founded the advocacy organization People for the American Way in 1981 and has supported First Amendment rights, Lear was born in New Haven, Connecticut, the son of Enie/Jeanette and Hyman Herman Lear, a traveling salesman. He had a sister, Claire Lear Brown. Lear grew up in a Jewish home and had a Bar Mitzvah ceremony and his mother was born in Elizabethgrad in Kherson Gubernia in Ukraine, while his father was born in Connecticut, to Russian-born parents. When Lear was 9 years old, his father went to prison for selling fake bonds. Lear thought of his father as a rascal and said that the character of Archie Bunker was in inspired by his father. Lear graduated from Weaver High School in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1940 and subsequently attended Emerson College in Boston and he flew 52 combat missions, for which he was awarded the Air Medal with four Oak Leaf Clusters. Lear was discharged from the Army in 1945, after World War II, Lear had a career in public relations. The career choice was inspired by his Uncle Jack, My dad had a brother, Jack and he was a press agent so I wanted to be a press agent. Thats the only role model I had, so all I wanted was to grow up to be a guy who could flip a quarter to a nephew. Lear decided to move to California to restart his career in publicity and his first night in Los Angeles, Lear stumbled upon a production of George Bernard Shaws Major Barbara at a 90-seat theater in the round Circle Theater off Sunset Boulevard. One of the actors in the play was Sydney Chaplin, who was the son of actors Charlie Chaplin, Chaplin and Alan Mowbray and Dame Gladys Cooper sat in front of him, and after the show was over, Chaplin performed. Lear had a first cousin in Los Angeles, Elaine, who was married to a man named Ed Simmons, Simmons and Lear teamed up to sell home furnishings door-to-door for a company called The Gans Brothers and then sold family photos door-to-door, again with Simmons. Throughout the 1950s Lear partnered with Simmons, and they turned out comedy sketches for television appearances of Martin and Lewis, Rowan and Martin, in 1954 Lear was enlisted as a writer hoping to salvage the new Celeste Holm CBS sitcom, Honestly, Celeste. But the program was canceled after eight episodes, during this time, he became the producer of NBCs The Martha Raye Show, after Nat Hiken left as the series director. In 1959 Lear created his first television series starring Henry Fonda, starting out as a comedy writer, then a film director, Lear tried to sell a concept for a sitcom about a blue-collar American family to ABC. They rejected the show after two pilots were taped, after a third pilot was taped, CBS picked up the show, known as All in the Family. It premiered January 12,1971, to disappointing ratings, but it took home several Emmy Awards that year, the show did very well in summer reruns, and it flourished in the 1971–72 season, becoming the top-rated show on TV for the next five years
40.
Shirley MacLaine
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Shirley MacLaine is an American film, television and theater actress, singer, dancer, activist and author. She is known for her New Age beliefs, and has an interest in spirituality and she has written a series of autobiographical works that describe these beliefs, document her world travels, and describe her Hollywood career. She has also won five competitive Golden Globe Awards and received the Golden Globe Cecil B, deMille Award at the 1998 ceremony. Named after Shirley Temple, Shirley MacLean Beaty was born in Richmond, MacLaines younger brother is the actor, writer and director Warren Beatty, he changed the spelling of his surname when he became an actor. Their parents raised them as Baptists and her uncle was A. A. MacLeod, a Communist member of the Ontario legislature in the 1940s. MacLaine played baseball in a team, holding the record for most home runs which earned her the nickname Powerhouse. During the 1950s, the family resided in the Dominion Hills section of Arlington. As a toddler she had weak ankles and would fall over with the slightest misstep and this was the beginning of her interest in performing. Strongly motivated by ballet, she never missed a class, in classical romantic pieces like Romeo and Juliet and The Sleeping Beauty, she always played the boys roles due to being the tallest in the group and the absence of males in the class. Ultimately she decided against making a career of professional ballet because she had grown too tall and was unable to acquire perfect technique and she explained that she didnt have the ideal body type, lacking the requisite beautifully constructed feet of high arches, high insteps and a flexible ankle. Also slowly realizing ballets propensity to be too all-consuming, and ultimately limiting, she moved on to forms of dancing, acting. She attended Washington-Lee High School, where she was on the cheerleading squad, the summer before her senior year, she went to New York City to try acting on Broadway, and had some success. After she graduated, she returned and within a year became an understudy to actress Carol Haney in The Pajama Game, Haney broke her ankle, a few months after, with Haney still injured, film producer Hal B. Wallis saw MacLaines performance, and signed her to work for Paramount Pictures and she later sued Wallis over a contractual dispute, a suit that has been credited with ending the old-style studio star system of actor management. MacLaine made her debut in Alfred Hitchcocks The Trouble with Harry. This was quickly followed by her role in the Martin and Lewis film Artists, soon afterwards, she had a role in Around the World in 80 Days. This was followed by Hot Spell and a role in Some Came Running, for the latter film she gained her first Academy Award nomination. Her second Oscar nomination came two years later for The Apartment, starring with Jack Lemmon, the film won five Oscars, including Best Director for Billy Wilder
41.
Evelyn Rudie
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Evelyn Rudie is an American playwright, director, songwriter, film and television actress, and teacher. Since 1973, she has been the director of the Santa Monica Playhouse. As an award-winning costume designer, she uses the pseudonym Ashley Hayes, born in Los Angeles, California, Rudie became an overnight star, in 1956, with her performance in the title role in the episode Eloise on televisions Playhouse 90. It brought her acclaim, much press coverage, and an Emmy nomination at age six—the first time a child actress was so honored. She returned to Playhouse 90 the following year, portraying the young Perle Mesta in The Hostess with the Mostest, the television Eloise was an adaptation of the popular book by Kay Thompson, which owed much to the delicate line illustrations of Hilary Knight. The marketing of Eloise and the subsequent book sequels practically always featured the illustrations of Knight, during this period, she also was an actress on radio programs, including Suspense. Nine-year-old Evelyn Rudie appeared as a contestant on the October 29,1959, episode of the TV quiz program You Bet Your Life, miss Rudie danced a waltz with her fellow contestant and told a joke in the German language. After appearing uncredited in director George Sidneys Bye Bye Birdie, she focused on education and she graduated from Hollywood High with honors and then studied film production at UCLA. Over a 36-year span, she has more than 10,000 stage performances in 350 plays. Rudies star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is located at the corner of Hollywood and she previously had a brief marriage to actor Tim OKelly, whom she married in 1968. Evelyn Rudie on Suspense Evelyn Rudie at the Internet Movie Database Eloise on TV Santa Monica Playhouse, Evelyn Rudie
42.
Bob Feller
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Feller pitched from 1936 to 1941 and from 1945 to 1956, interrupted only by a four-year sojourn in the Navy. In a career spanning 570 games, Feller pitched 3,827 innings and posted a record of 266–162, with 279 complete games,44 shutouts. A prodigy who bypassed the minor leagues, Feller first played for the Indians at the age of 17 and his career was interrupted by four years of military service in World War II, during which time he served as Chief Petty Officer aboard the USS Alabama. Feller became the first pitcher to win 24 games in a season before the age of 21, during his career, he threw no-hitters in 1940,1946, and 1951. He helped the Indians win a World Series title in 1948 and an American League-record 111 wins, Feller led the American League in wins six times and in strikeouts seven times. In 1946, he recorded 348 strikeouts, a total not exceeded for 19 years, an eight-time All-Star, Feller was ranked 36th on Sporting Newss list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players and was named the publications greatest pitcher of his time. He was a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team in 1999, Baseball Hall of Fame member Ted Williams called Feller the fastest and best pitcher I ever saw during my career. Hall of Famer Stan Musial believed he was probably the greatest pitcher of our era and he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962 on his first ballot appearance, at the time only three players ever had a higher percentage of ballot votes. He was elected the inaugural President of the Major League Baseball Players Association, Feller died at the age of 92 in 2010. Feller was born and raised with his sister, Marguerite, in Van Meter and his father, William, ran the 360-acre family farm, and his mother, Lena, was a teacher and registered nurse. Feller played catch daily with his father and he had learned to throw a curveball by the time he was eight years old, and could throw a ball 270 feet when he was nine. To assist his son, Feller senior started growing wheat on his farm, originally the Fellers were Roman Catholics but converted to Methodism after Fellers father was reprimanded by their parish priest for letting him play on Sundays. Feller later suggested that his arm strength and ball speed during his league career came from his childhood work milking cows, picking corn. He recalled his childhood fondly, What kid wouldnt enjoy the life I led in Iowa, Baseball and farming, and I had the best of both worlds. The familys farm is on the National Register of Historic Places, Feller began to play American Legion Baseball in the nearby town of Adel at the age of 10, the following year, his father built a baseball diamond on the farm. The diamond was named Oak View Park and included a pitching mound, scoreboard, Feller and other players formed a team, the Oakviews, consisting of semi-pro and high school ballplayers. Feller played primarily as a shortstop or outfielder, and emulated Rogers Hornsbys batting stance, from the age of 15, he began to pitch for the Oakviews after a starting pitcher was injured, while doing so, Feller continued to play American Legion baseball. His catcher during this period was Nile Kinnick, who became a member of the College Football Hall of Fame
43.
Phyllis Avery
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Phyllis Avery was an American television and film actress. Avery was born in New York City to Evelyn and author Stephen Morehouse Avery and her father hailed from Webster Groves, Missouri, near St. Louis. She studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, as well as in California, Maryland, Avery made her Broadway debut in Orchids Preferred in 1937. Averys first motion picture role was as Marjorie in the 1951 film Queen for a Day based on the popular radio, in 1952, she played Tracy McAuliffe, the wife of the Charlton Heston character in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film Ruby Gentry. She also was in The Best Things in Life Are Free, the name McNutley was changed in the second season to McNulty. In the latter segment, Avery, again playing the role of a small-town schoolmarm, resents the arrival of the new pipe-smoking instructor from Great Britain and she appeared on the Charles Bronson ABC series, Man with a Camera as Miss Hollis in the 1958 episode Turntable. In 1959, she was Ann Macauley in Incident in No Mans Land of CBSs western Rawhide, from 1957 to 1959, she appeared in three different roles on the first David Janssen series, Richard Diamond, Private Detective. She played a schoolteacher in the 1957 episode The Teacher on the ABC western series, Broken Arrow, with John Lupton. In 1956, she appeared as Maggie Henderson in the film The Best Things in Life Are Free and that same year, she and Lew Ayres portrayed Peg and Clint Howard in The Unrelenting Sky, the fourth episode of Dick Powells Zane Grey Theater. Avery was cast as the supporting actress Shelley Hayes in Millionaire Jim Hayes and she played Leona Pickford Bartell in The Baby Sitter segment of ABCs The Rifleman, with Chuck Connors and directed by Sam Peckinpah. In the story line, Avery as Bartell works in a hall and asks Lucas McCain to care for her daughter in order to keep the child from the clutches of Averys bigoted husband. In 1958, Avery appeared as herself singing on NBCs variety show, The George Gobel Show, Avery made two guest appearances on Perry Mason. In 1958 she played the character, murderer Marion Shelby. In 1961 she played Mary Cromwell in The Case of the Brazen Bequest, from 1960 to 1962, Avery appeared as Anne Selby on the CBS soap opera The Clear Horizon, a story of American astronauts and their wives. On February 12,1963, Avery appeared in The Fugitives of NBCs Laramie western series, series character Slim Sherman is shot and left for dead while in the pursuit of robbers. With temperatures dropping rapidly, his ranch partner Jess Harper must find Slim quickly, Jess breaks from jail Joel Greevy, played by Jan Merlin, the young man who shot Slim, in order to get Greevy to reveal Slims whereabouts. Jess recaptures the Greevy and his partners, but Greevy is killed in the process, Avery plays Greevys older sister, Myra, who had been a surrogate mother to the young outlaw. During the 1970s, Avery guest starred in episodes of All in the Family, Maude, Charlies Angels and Baretta
44.
Maila Nurmi
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Maila Elizabeth Syrjäniemi, known professionally as Maila Nurmi, was a Finnish-American actress and television personality who created the campy 1950s character Vampira. The daughter of a Finnish immigrant, Nurmi was raised in Oregon, after several minor film roles, she found success in the Vampira character, televisions first horror host. Nurmi hosted her own series, The Vampira Show, from 1954-55 on KABC-TV, after the shows cancellation, she appeared in the Ed Wood cult film Plan 9 from Outer Space. She is also billed as Vampira in the 1959 movie, The Beat Generation where she plays a beatnik poet and she was portrayed by Lisa Marie in Tim Burtons 1994 film Ed Wood. Maila Nurmi was born Maila Elizabeth Syrjäniemi in 1922 to Onni Syrjäniemi, a Finnish immigrant, and Sophia and her place of birth is disputed, According to biographer W. Scott Poole in Vampira, Dark Goddess of Horror, Nurmi was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Public U. S. immigration records show her fathers immigration at Ellis Island in 1910, additionally, Dana Gould stated in a 2014 public interview that she had seen Nurmis birth certificate, which listed her birthplace as Gloucester, Masachussets. During her childhood, Nurmi relocated with her family from Massachusetts to Ashtabula, Ohio, before setting in Astoria, Oregon and her father worked as a lecturer and editor, and her mother also worked as a part-time journalist and translator to support the family. She graduated from Astoria High School in 1940, in 1940, Nurmi relocated to Los Angeles, California to pursue an acting career, and later in New York City. She modeled for Alberto Vargas, Bernard of Hollywood, and Man Ray, gaining a foothold in the industry with an uncredited role in Victor Savilles 1947 film. She was reportedly fired by Mae West from the cast of Wests Broadway play, Catherine Was Great, in 1944 because West feared she was being upstaged. On Broadway, she gained attention after appearing in the horror-themed midnight show Spook Scandals, in which she screamed, fainted, lay in a coffin. She also worked as a showgirl for the Earl Carroll Theatre, in the 1950s she supported herself mainly by posing for pin-up photos in mens magazines such as Famous Models, Gala and Glamorous Models. Before landing her role as Vampira, she was working as a girl in a cloakroom on Hollywoods Sunset Strip. He finally got her number from Rudi Gernreich, later the designer of the topless swimsuit. The name Vampira was the invention of Nurmis husband, Dean Riesner, Nurmis characterization was influenced by the Dragon Lady from the comic strip Terry and the Pirates and the evil queen from Disneys Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. On April 30,1954, KABC-TV aired a preview, Dig Me Later, Vampira, the Vampira Show premiered on the following night, May 1,1954. For the first four weeks, the show aired at midnight, ten months later, the series aired at 10,30 p. m. beginning March 5,1955. Each show opened with Vampira gliding down a dark corridor flooded with dry-ice fog, at the end of her trance-like walk, the camera zoomed in on her face as she let out a piercing scream
45.
Guitar
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The guitar is a musical instrument classified as a fretted string instrument with anywhere from four to 18 strings, usually having six. The sound is projected either acoustically, using a wooden or plastic and wood box, or through electrical amplifier. It is typically played by strumming or plucking the strings with the fingers, the guitar is a type of chordophone, traditionally constructed from wood and strung with either gut, nylon or steel strings and distinguished from other chordophones by its construction and tuning. There are three types of modern acoustic guitar, the classical guitar, the steel-string acoustic guitar, and the archtop guitar. The tone of a guitar is produced by the strings vibration, amplified by the hollow body of the guitar. The term finger-picking can also refer to a tradition of folk, blues, bluegrass. The acoustic bass guitar is an instrument that is one octave below a regular guitar. Early amplified guitars employed a body, but a solid wood body was eventually found more suitable during the 1960s and 1970s. As with acoustic guitars, there are a number of types of guitars, including hollowbody guitars, archtop guitars and solid-body guitars. The electric guitar has had a influence on popular culture. The guitar is used in a variety of musical genres worldwide. It is recognized as an instrument in genres such as blues, bluegrass, country, flamenco, folk, jazz, jota, mariachi, metal, punk, reggae, rock, soul. The term is used to refer to a number of chordophones that were developed and used across Europe, beginning in the 12th century and, later, in the Americas. The modern word guitar, and its antecedents, has applied to a wide variety of chordophones since classical times. Many influences are cited as antecedents to the modern guitar, at least two instruments called guitars were in use in Spain by 1200, the guitarra latina and the so-called guitarra morisca. The guitarra morisca had a back, wide fingerboard. The guitarra Latina had a sound hole and a narrower neck. By the 14th century the qualifiers moresca or morisca and latina had been dropped, and it had six courses, lute-like tuning in fourths and a guitar-like body, although early representations reveal an instrument with a sharply cut waist
46.
Smothers Brothers
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The Smothers Brothers are Thomas and Richard, American singers, musicians, and comedians. The brothers trademark double act was performing folk songs, which led to arguments between the siblings. Tommys signature line was, Mom always liked you best, tommy acted slow, and Dick, the straight man, acted superior. In the 1960s, the brothers appeared on television variety shows. Their own television variety show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, the brothers continued to work, both independently and as a team, on stage and television, and in films during subsequent decades. The brothers were born on Governors Island in New York Harbor, where their father, Thomas B. Smothers, Jr. a West Point graduate and U. S. Army officer, was stationed, Tom was born on February 2,1937, and Dick was born on November 20,1939. Major Smothers served in the 45th Infantry Regiment and died during World War II, while being transported from a Japanese prisoner of war camp in Fukuoka, Japan, to a POW camp in Mukden and they were raised by their mother in the Los Angeles area. They graduated from Redondo Union High School in Redondo Beach, California, after a brief time in a folk group called the Casual Quintet, the brothers made their first professional appearance as a duo in February 1959 at The Purple Onion in San Francisco. They were an act in clubs and released several successful top 40 albums for Mercury Records. Their first national appearance was on The Jack Paar Show on January 28,1961. The brothers appeared in a segment of the television series Burkes Law, in 1964 and their first television series was a situation comedy, The Smothers Brothers Show. Tom played an angel come back to earth to oversee his brother Dick and it did not do well in the ratings and had little of the music that was identified with the brothers. Tom would later say Four Star gave me ulcers, the show also introduced audiences to pop singer Jennifer Warnes, who was a regular on the series. The television premiere of Mason Williams hit record, Classical Gas, took place on the show, the series showcased new musical artists that other comedy-variety shows rarely gave airtime, due to the nature of their music or their political affiliations. The song was censored on Seegers first appearance but permitted on a later appearance, in 1968, the show broadcast in successive weeks music videos for The Beatles popular songs Hey Jude and Revolution. Before a rowdy crowd at the Los Angeles Forum, Jimi Hendrix dedicated I Dont Live Today to the Smothers Brothers, the piece would end with guitarist Pete Townshend grabbing Tommys guitar and smashing it. On the Smothers Brothers show that night a small amount of explosive was put into the cannon that Keith Moon kept in his bass drum
47.
Gibson L-5
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The Gibson L-5 guitar was first produced in 1922 by the Gibson Guitar Corporation, then of Kalamazoo, Michigan, under the direction of master luthier Lloyd Loar, and has been in production ever since. It was considered the guitar of the company during the big band era. It was originally offered as an instrument, with electric models not made available until the 1940s. Worldwide, the L-5 was the first guitar to feature f-holes, then as well as today, the construction of the L-5 is similar in construction, carving, bracing and tap-tuning, to building a cello. This guitar as well as the cello are similarly designed in order to amplify and project the acoustic vibration of strings throughout carved and tuned woods, from 1922 to 1934 the L-5 was produced with a 16 lower bout width. In 1934 the lower bout was increased to 17 - and this width is used today. Also released in 1934 was the one-inch larger 18 archtop guitar named the L5 Super which in a couple years was renamed the Super 400 and these two master-built acoustic guitars are Gibsons top-of-the-line carved wood and highly ornate archtop instruments. These guitars cannot be constructed quickly, nor can corners be cut, the time, skilled workmanship and materials used in these builds has been delivered non-stop for the past 90+ years. Today the standard model of the L-5 is a version designed for less feedback when amplified. From time to there are variations of the L-5 built. One fine example of an L-5 variation is the thin-bodied L-5 CT which has the same specifications except for body thickness. The CT model was first constructed for performer George Gobel, another variation of the L-5 is the Wes Montgomery Model. Wes Montgomery was a major guitarist highly associated with the L-5, the Wes Montgomery model has a single Classic 57 pickup in the neck position as well as an X-brace supporting the top - as per earlier braces in the acoustic version. These features Montgomery felt helped achieve the warm guitar voice for which he loved this guitar model, another variation of the L-5 is the 1955 Gibson ByrdLand model. The Byrdland guitar has a thin L-5-style body with a neck on older models. The L-5 has for generations been seen in the hands of many performers. Much of the RCA fifties recordings of Elvis Presley feature the sound of Scotty Moores L-5, Nashville session guitarist Hank Garland, who also recorded acclaimed jazz albums before his near-fatal automobile accident, frequently played an L-5. A little known fact - the L-5 is the guitar that Groucho Marx kept by his side throughout his private life, though not widely known, Marx played the guitar well
