Billy Tipton was a jazz pianist who performed to moderate success in the Spokane, Washington area in the late 1940s through the 60s. His small group, The Billy Tipton Trio, played regular gigs for years at many popular jazz venues in the Pacific Northwest. He recorded and released two albums of jazz standards for independent Tops Records, …
Jack Cassidy achieved early fame as musical performer on Broadway for over twenty years. He won the Best Featured Actor Tony Award in 1963 for his role in She Loves Me, a musical reworking of the play Parfumerie (which, itself, made been remade several times as Shop Around the Corner and, most recently, You’ve Got Mail). …
In 1949, Agnes Morra, a 15-year-old heroin addict, gave birth to a boy named Michael. Michael was given formula laced with an opiate derivative because he had become addicted to heroin in utero. Michael’s father, a career gangster, was deported to Italy. Agnes soon developed a relationship with a drug-addicted former boxer, who regularly beat …
“These people, dressed as they are, come from all over the United States to make deals here in the Marketplace of America. Let’s! Make! A Deal!” – Jay Stewart Jay Stewart broke into show business as a sax player, but landed a few announcing jobs after his graduation from college. Jay became the announcer on …
Nothing surprises me. Nothing. Everyday, I hear about things people do and things that happen to people and I’m not surprised. I hear and read news reports relating supposedly shocking events and I’m still not surprised. In 1983, beloved local Philadelphia weatherman Jim O’Brien died while skydiving. He jumped out of an airplane and, while …
Karen Greenlee worked as an embalming assistant at a Sacramento mortuary. She aspired to work in this field because of her life-long fascination with dead bodies. As a child, she visited and later broke into local funeral homes to observe and “interact” with the corpses. Her obsession turned into infatuation and then into …
I’ve done many drawings of Jesus. As a character and what he stands for, I love putting him in oddball situations. Some of my Jesus drawings have appeared on my blog (like Jesus as a children’s party entertainer, Jesus as a hockey goalie and Jesus as a skateboarder) and some have just remained in my sketchbook. …
Continue reading ‘From my sketchbook: jesus on his day off’ »
Roy Sullivan, a U.S. park ranger at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, was hit by lightning on seven different occasions between 1942 and 1977. He survived all of them. Roy was included in the Guinness World Records as the person struck by lightning more times than any other human being. In 1983, Roy died from …
I have chosen a very unusual career. Im an artist. For most of my life, Ive had to explain exactly what I do and its never been an easy task. Everyone knows what a policeman or an accountant does. My father was a butcher; even vegetarians knew what he did. But, being an artist is …
Ernie Kovacs’ influence can still be seen. Groundbreaking shows like Laugh-In, Monty Python, Saturday Night Live even Captain Kangaroo and Sesame Street owe a large debt to the pioneering techniques of this comedic wizard. From his humble beginnings as a disc jockey, Ernie landed his own early morning show on Philadelphia NBC-affiliate WPTZ (now …
