The differences between genres of music has intrigued me for some time. And as different as they seem, these four performers from different eras have something in common. Tommy Dorsey was a giant in the big band era. His orchestra included, at one time or another, trumpeters Doc Severinsen, and Charlie Shavers, drummers Buddy Rich, …
Rasmus Karl Therkelsen Gottlieb was born in 1886 in central Copenhagen, Denmark. As a teenager, he apprenticed as a machinist. He married and had two children, but with the outbreak of World War I, he entered the military. In 1916, after his discharge from military service, he headed to America alone, hoping to send for …
The illustrationfriday.com challenge word this week is “foggy”. Let me start off by stating that although this story ultimately ends with THIS, it is not the same type of celebrity story found elsewhere on this blog. Mel Tormé was most famous for his beautifully mellow voice, but he accomplished so much in his career. He …
By the time she was six, Anissa (pronounced “ah-NEESE-ah”) Jones was hawking cereal in her first television commercial. A couple of years later, in 1966, Anissa’s acting talents caught the attention of two television producers who were preparing a new television sitcom called Family Affair. They felt Anissa would be perfect in the role of …
Herve Villechaize was born in 1943 in Paris. A malfunction in his endocrine system would leave Herve at a full-grown height of just under 4 feet tall. Herve eventually studied painting and photography at the famed Beaux-Arts Museum in Paris. At the age of 18 he became the youngest artist to ever have his work …
The Monday Artday challenge word this week is “anarchy”. Outside the 1968 Democratic Convention, Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman announced that their candidate for president would be a pig named Pigasus. Jerry Rubin was a left-wing social activist (read: radical). In 1967, Rubin and some others founded the Youth International Party (The Yippies), an anti-authoritarian …
If you are 25 years old or younger, you probably don’t know Carol Wayne. Even if you were around during the height of Carol’s popularity, she is most likely forgotten to you now. Carol Wayne was a former professional ice skater and Las Vegas showgirl whose “dumb blonde” persona gave her tremendous, but brief, fame …
Jerzy Kosinski walked a fine, sometimes blurred, line between bullshitter and storyteller. Kosinski was born Josek Lewinkopf in Poland in 1933. As a child during World War II, he avoided the Nazis by using a false identity. He lived with a Roman Catholic Polish family in eastern Poland under the name, Jerzy Kosinski, an assumed name given to …
The challenge word on Monday Artday this week (at my suggestion) is “money”. On February 26, 1981, in Philadelphia, a twenty-eight year-old, meth-addicted, unemployed longshoreman named Joey Coyle had his life changed forever. Joey and two of his friends were on their way to buy drugs. They were driving behind a Purolator Armored Services truck that …
Mary Bickford Dunn was born in 1898 in Ontario, Canada. After her father died, she moved to Los Angeles with her mother and sister. While working as a secretary, the attractive Marie applied for and landed an acting job at the Hollywood studio owned by Mack Sennett. Sennett dubbed her “the exotic French girl,” and …
