DCS: james baldwin
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” — James Baldwin (1924 – 1987)
Archive of posts filed under the celebrity category.
inktober52: stranded
“Stranded in the Jungle” was a novelty pop song written by Ernestine Smith and The Jay Hawks tenor James Johnson. The song, a playful comparison between life in the jungle and life in the big city, was recorded and released by The Jay Hawks in 1956. Just a few weeks later, The Cadets, a former …
DCS: eric campbell
Eric Campbell was performing in local theater in Scotland when he was recruited by entertainment impresario Fred Karno. Karno was a slapstick comedian in his own right and is credited with popularizing the “pie-in-the-face” gag. Karno had assembled a roster of entertainers, including Charles Chaplin and Chaplin’s understudy Arthur Jefferson, later known by the stage …
DCS: fred willard
Fred Willard played the clueless fool the way a virtuoso plays the violin. He passed away in May 2020 at the age of 86.
inktober52: bubbles
Norma Zimmer wanted to become a violinist, but her father, a violin teacher, told her that her hands were too small to properly handle the instrument. Disappointed, she perused a career as a vocalist instead. While singing in her local Idaho church choir, Norma was approached by a visiting guest singer to travel to California …
DCS: julie bennett
A native of Hollywood, Julie Bennett found work as a character actress in radio and on television including bit parts on The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, Adventures of Superman, and Dragnet. She found her true calling, however, as a voice actress, a career she worked at for over fifty years. Julie was an in-demand voice …
DCS: little richard
In 1947, Sister Rosetta Tharpe heard 14 year-old Richard Penniman playing piano and singing her songs at the Macon Georgia City Auditorium. She asked the young man if he’d like to open the show for her. And that’s how Little Richard’s career began… with a little help from an unsung hero. He never won a …
DCS: millie small
Twelve-year old Millie Small won the Vere Johns (the Jamaican Ted Mack) talent contest in her native Jamaica. She recorded a few songs that became hits on Jamaican radio. These songs made their way to Chris Blackwell, noted hitmaker and founder of Island Records, one of England’s biggest independent labels. Blackwell brought Millie to London …
inktober52: train
Casey Jones, a respected engineer with the Memphis-based Illinois Central Railroad, was a risk taker. His trains were often on-schedule, though his methods to keep that schedule were questionable. A number of citations for various rules infractions were issued to Casey and he totaled suspensions for well over one hundred days, but none of those …
DCS: joseph melville see jr.
Melville See Jr. graduated from Princeton University and headed to University of Arizona to take graduate courses in anthropology. In June 1962, he married photographer and fellow student Linda Eastman, an art major whose mother was killed in a plane crash just a few months earlier. By the end of the year, the couple became …