Karen Bach had just finished studying communications and business when she married a DJ from her native Lyon, France. At her husband’s insistence, she began appearing in adult films in an effort to help alleviate the couple’s debts. Using the name “Karen Lancaume” (a play on the renowned French cosmetic company), she made over 40 …
A heart ailment forced 53 year-old Barney Doyle into an early retirement. A life long New York Giants fan, he would now be able to attend more games. On Independence Day 1950, Barney went to an early Mass, had a quick breakfast and picked up a friend’s son, Otto Flaig, to make good on a …
Karyn Kupcinet, the daughter of popular Chicago columnist Irv Kupcinet, was a young and aspiring actress. She was given access to producers thorough her father’s connections. Using the name “Tammy Windsor”, she landed a small role in the campy Roger Corman original Little Shop of Horrors. In 1961, she was offered a small role in …
He would have you believe that he landed on this planet from some far off galaxy, but in reality, Klaus Nomi was born in Germany (on planet Earth) in 1944. In his youth, he worked as an usher at the Deutsche Oper in West Berlin where he’d entertain the other ushers and the maintenance staff …
Character actor Joseph Kearns began his career in the heyday of radio in the unlikely role of a pipe organ player. He soon was performing regularly on radio programs like I Married Joan, December Bride, Burns and Allen, Sam Spade and many others. He was the mysterious announcer “The Man in Black” on the radio …
Dorothy Dell aspired to fame from the time she was a child. She won a “Beautiful Baby” contest in her native Hattiesburg, Mississippi at one year old and continued to enter and win others throughout her childhood. In high school in Louisiana, she made friends with Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton, another aspiring actress. The pair became known …
After meeting while filming the Sid and Marty Krofft special Fol-de-Rol in 1972, tap dancer Lorene Yarnell married mime Robert Shields in a flamboyant, but silent ceremony in San Francisco’s Union Square. Soon, the duo were cast as regular performers on The Mac Davis Show and later, The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. They performed …
After her husband passed away at the age of 31, desperate and destitute Angela Raubal took her three children and sought refuge with her half-brother. Angela became his housekeeper and he allowed her family to move into his home in the Bavarian Alps in Obersalzberg, Germany. Angela’s half-brother took an unnatural affection to Angela’s youngest …
Thuy Trang was born in Vietnam around the time Communist forces overtook Saigon. Fearing for his life, Thuy’s father, a soldier in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam fighting against the North Vietnam army, fled to Hong Kong with his family after the Communist victory. The family was interred in a detention camp in …
On Memorial Day 1931, 24 year-old driver Billy Arnold was the defending champion of the Indianapolis 500. Having competed in the annual event two previous times, Billy won the 1930 race after leading all but first two laps, the most ever by a winner. On lap 162 of the 1931 Indianapolis 500, leader Billy Arnold …
