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 …
Fred Willard played the clueless fool the way a virtuoso plays the violin. He passed away in May 2020 at the age of 86.
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
22-year old Lena Nyman played 22-year old “Lena Nyman” in the controversial 1966 film I Am Curious (Yellow), as well as its companion piece I Am Curious (Blue). The film was held up by US Customs while an investigation was conducted to determine if it was to be classified as “pornography” under the current strict …
Catherine Hukill expressed an interest in acting as a teenager in her native Chicago. She performed a song-and-dance act with her cousin in several local productions. In the middle 1920s, she teamed up with Frank Faylen and toured the vaudeville circuit as “Faylen and Hughes,” where she played the role of the “dumb girl” to …
