I was a KISS fan for a few months when I was in 10th grade. I was one of the first people to wear a KISS t-shirt in my high-school. It was a big plastic-like iron-on decal of KISS’s debut album cover that I selected from a wall of designs on display at a local …
In 1961, 22-year old college dropout Calisto Tanzi opened a small pasteurization plant in Parma, Italy. As time went on, the business, Parmalat, grew and grew, branching out from dairy products to include bakery items, juices and other beverages. The company began trading on the Milan Stock Exchange as its expansion continued, mostly by acquisition. …
Poor Sal Mineo. After a couple of film roles (including one for which he beat out another up-and-coming actor named Clint Eastwood), Sal Mineo was cast as “John ‘Plato’ Crawford” in Rebel Without a Cause alongside James Dean and Natalie Wood. The film earned Sal an Academy Award nomination and made him a household name, …
Alma Rubens rose to stardom after her role opposite Douglas Fairbanks in the 1916 film The Half-Breed. She made a run of pictures for Triangle Studios before signing with William Randolph Hearst’s Cosmopolitan Productions. Hearst had his publicity team tout Alma as a direct descendant of Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens. (She was not.) …
Philip Taylor Kramer joined psychedelic rock group Iron Butterfly in 1974, playing bass on two albums and touring for a few years. After the band’s breakup, he played with founding member Ron Bushy in several off-shoot projects. Leaving his music career behind, Taylor earned a degree in aerospace engineering. He worked on the MX missile …
Born the daughter of an engineer and executive with the Royal Dutch Shell Company, Blanca Rosa Henrietta Stella Welter Vorhauer became fluent in eight languages, a result of her family’s frequent relocations around the world. With original aspirations to enter the field of medicine, a chance meeting with screen idol Errol Flynn changed her mind. …
As a teenager, Ray Nelson was an avid science fiction fan and budding writer in the genre. After graduation from high school, Ray attended the University of Chicago, where he majored in theology. Post college, he spent four years in Paris, where he rubbed elbows with such iconic and influential writers as William S. Burroughs, …
Baroness Daisy von Freyberg zu Eisenberg was born to an impoverished, yet aristocratic German family in the early 1900s. Using the stage name “Daisy D’Ora,” she pursued an acting career. She changed her name to avoid embarrassment to her family. Although they lacked wealth, they still had their pride. At the time, a career in …
From his humble beginnings as an in-hose songwriter getting paid fifty dollars a week, Bern Berns elevated himself to one of the most prolific songwriters and producers you never heard of. In 1960, Bert Berns took a job with a music publishing company. In 1961, the Jarmels recorded “A Little Bit of Soap,” one of …
Born in Cambodia in 1977, Bun Hay Mean and his family fled the communist Khmer Rouge regime and settled in France. As a teenager, he wrote sketches and performed stand-up comedy in small cafés in Bordeaux. He also enrolled in improvisation classes to further enhance his skills. Bun Hay Mean moved to Paris and, while …
