Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III was born in Santiago, Cuba to the city’s youngest mayor. After the 1933 Cuban Revolution led by Fulgencio Batista, Desi’s grandfather, a wealthy executive with the Bacardi Rum Company, was jailed and his assets confiscated. He was released six months later and the Arnaz family fled to Miami. …
“Are there any requests?” “Yes, how about ‘the refrain from singing’?” Florence Foster took music lessons and expressed an interest in singing opera. Her father refused to subsidize his daughter’s dream, so she ran off at the age of 22 and eloped with physician Frank Thornton Jenkins. The marriage lasted seven years, ending in divorce in …
As far as Dr. Carl Tanzler was concerned, Elena Hoyos stepped out of a dream… and he never wanted that dream to end. Ever. In 1930, Elena Hoyos was brought into Marine Hospital in Key West, Florida by her mother. Dr. Tanzler was immediately struck by her beauty – her dark hair, her dark eyes. …
Born to a Secret Service officer who had protected President Woodrow Wilson, Whitney Blake attended sixteen different schools as she traveled the country with her family. An appearance in an amateur stage production led to a role in the 1957 film My Gun is Quick, a big-screen version on Mickey Spillane’s gritty Mike Hammer mystery. …
“A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.” — Mark Twain
Olive Borden (a distant relative of Lizzie Borden) knew she could make it. As a teenager, she persuaded her mother to move from their native Richmond, Virginia to Hollywood, where she knew she could be a star. The family made ends meet by running a candy store until Olive’s star took off. And soon it …
John List was faced with a dilemma. He had lost his job as an accountant. He was months behind on the mortgage payments for his nineteen-room mansion in Westfield, New Jersey. Burdened with heavy financial debt and accumulating bills, he could either force his family to accept government-sanctioned welfare or he could send them to …
“Listen, you pointy-eared bastard — the blasted dilithium crystals can’t regenerate! Now, hand me that bottle of Johnnie Walker Black… I need some energy!”
Bea Benaderet worked and worked and worked. Early in her career, Bea appeared on countless popular radio shows in various character roles – telephone operators, landladies, sales clerks and most often “the neighbor.” Her keen knack for vocal inflection and dialects allowed her to portray several characters in one show, unbeknown to the radio audience. …
Stephani Germanotta has a secret. In 2007, young Stephani, a budding singer, was introduced to another singer named Lina Morgana by Sony Records producer Rob Fusari. Stephani and Lina began collaborating on songs, eventually penning nearly two dozen compositions. Lina, with her dark hair and exotic good looks, was the obvious choice for performing them. …
