Eleanor Roosevelt

 

 

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

(October 11, 1884 – November 7, 1962) was an American politician, diplomat, and activist. She was the longest-serving First Lady of the United States, holding the post from March 1933 to April 1945 during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four terms in office, and served as United States Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from 1945 to 1952. President Harry S. Truman later called her the "First Lady of the World" in tribute to her human rights achievements.

Roosevelt was a member of the prominent American Roosevelt and Livingston families and a niece of President Theodore Roosevelt. She had an unhappy childhood, suffering the deaths of both parents and one of her brothers at a young age. At 15, she attended Allenwood Academy in London, and was deeply influenced by its feminist headmistress Marie Souvestre. Returning to the U.S., she married her fifth cousin once removed, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in 1905. The Roosevelts' marriage was complicated from the beginning by Franklin's controlling mother, Sara, and after discovering an affair of her husband's with Lucy Mercer in 1918, Roosevelt resolved to seek fulfillment in a public life of her own. She persuaded Franklin to stay in politics after he was stricken with debilitating polio in 1921, costing him the use of his legs, and began giving speeches and appearing at campaign events in his place. Following Franklin's election as Governor of New York in 1928, and throughout the remainder of Franklin's public career in government, she regularly made public appearances on his behalf, and as First Lady while her husband served as President, she significantly reshaped and redefined the role of that office during her own tenure and beyond, for future First Ladies.

Though widely respected in her later years, Roosevelt was a controversial First Lady for her outspokenness, particularly her stance on racial issues. She was the first presidential spouse to hold press conferences, write a syndicated newspaper column, and speak at a national convention. On a few occasions, she publicly disagreed with her husband's policies. She launched an experimental community at Arthurdale, West Virginia, for the families of unemployed miners, later widely regarded as a failure. She advocated for expanded roles for women in the workplace, the civil rights of African Americans and Asian Americans, and the rights of World War II refugees.

Following her husband's death, Roosevelt remained active in politics for the rest of her life. She pressed the United States to join and support the United Nations and became one of its first delegates. She served as the first chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights, and oversaw the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Later she chaired the John F. Kennedy administration's Presidential Commission on the Status of Women. By the time of her death, Roosevelt was regarded as "one of the most esteemed women in the world"; she was called "the object of almost universal respect" in her New York Times obituary.[5] In 1999, she was ranked ninth in the top ten of Gallup's List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century.

Source: Wikipedia

Jorge Garcia

Jorge Garcia.

(born April 28, 1973) is an American actor and comedian. He first came to public attention with his performance as Hector Lopez on the television show Becker, but probably more known later for his portrayal of Hugo "Hurley" Reyes in the television series Lost from 2004 to 2010. Garcia also performs as a stand-up comedian. He more recently starred in the FOX television series Alcatraz, as well as playing a minor character on ABC's Once Upon a Time. Currently he stars as Jerry Ortega on Hawaii Five-0. Most recently Jorge Garcia can be seen in the Netflix original movie Ridiculous 6.

Source: Wikipedia

Roy Clark

Country music artist Roy Clark playing guitar. Clark was a regular on the popular 1960s and 70s variety show Hee Haw. pencil sketch by www.gregjoens.com

Andy Griffith

Andy Samuel Griffith

(June 1, 1926 – July 3, 2012) was an American actor, television producer, Southern gospel singer, and writer. He was a Tony Award nominee for two roles, and gained prominence in the starring role in director Elia Kazan's film A Face in the Crowd (1957) before he became better known for his television roles, playing the lead character in the situation comedy, The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968), and in the legal drama, Matlock (1986–1995).

Source: Wikipedia

Kirk Douglas

Kirk Douglas

(born Issur Danielovitch; December 9, 1916) is an American actor, producer, director, and author.
After an impoverished childhood with immigrant parents and six sisters, he had his film debut in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck. Douglas soon developed into a leading box-office star throughout the 1950s and 1960s, known for serious dramas, including westerns and war movies. During a sixty-year acting career, he has appeared in over 90 movies, and in 1960 was responsible for helping to end the Hollywood blacklist.

In 1949, after a lead role as an unscrupulous boxing hero in Champion,
for which he was nominated as Best Actor, Douglas became a star.
His style of acting relied on expressing great concentration, realism,
and powerful emotions, and he subsequently gravitated toward roles requiring strong characters.

Among his early films were Young Man with a Horn, playing opposite Lauren Bacall (1950),
Billy Wilder's controversial Ace in the Hole (1951), and Detective Story (1951).
He received a second Oscar nomination for his dramatic role in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952),
where he played opposite Lana Turner. And his powerful acting as Vincent van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956)
is considered one of his finest roles. He is one of the last living actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

In 1955, he established Bryna Productions, which began producing films as varied
as Paths of Glory (1957) and Spartacus (1960). In those two films, he starred and
collaborated with then relatively unknown director, Stanley Kubrick. He produced
and starred in Lonely Are the Brave (1962), considered a cult classic,
and Seven Days in May (1964), opposite Burt Lancaster, with whom he made seven films.

In 1963, he starred in the Broadway play One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,
a story he purchased, which he later gave to his son Michael Douglas,
who turned it into an Oscar-winning film.

As an actor and philanthropist, Douglas has received three Academy Award nominations,
an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement, and the Medal of Freedom. As an author,
he has written ten novels and memoirs. Currently, he is No. 17 on the
American Film Institute's list of the greatest male screen legends of
classic Hollywood cinema, and the highest-ranked living person on the list.

After barely surviving a helicopter crash in 1991 and
then suffering a stroke in 1996, he has focused on renewing his
spiritual and religious life. He lives with producer
Anne Buydens, his wife of over 60 years.

Source: Wikipedia

Elvis

Elvis Aaron Presley

(January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977) was an American singer and actor. Regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century, he is often referred to as "the King of Rock and Roll", or simply, "the King".

Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi as a twinless twin, and when he was 13 years old, he and his family relocated to Memphis, Tennessee. His music career began there in 1954, when he recorded a song with producer Sam Phillips at Sun Records. Accompanied by guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, Presley was an early popularizer of rockabilly, an uptempo, backbeat-driven fusion of country music and rhythm and blues. RCA Victor acquired his contract in a deal arranged by Colonel Tom Parker, who managed the singer for more than two decades. Presley's first RCA single, "Heartbreak Hotel", was released in January 1956 and became a number-one hit in the United States. He was regarded as the leading figure of rock and roll after a series of successful network television appearances and chart-topping records. His energized interpretations of songs and sexually provocative performance style, combined with a singularly potent mix of influences across color lines that coincided with the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement, made him enormously popular—and controversial.

In November 1956, he made his film debut in Love Me Tender. In 1958, he was drafted into military service. He resumed his recording career two years later, producing some of his most commercially successful work before devoting much of the 1960s to making Hollywood films and their accompanying soundtrack albums, most of which were critically derided. In 1968, following a seven-year break from live performances, he returned to the stage in the acclaimed televised comeback special Elvis, which led to an extended Las Vegas concert residency and a string of highly profitable tours. In 1973, Presley was featured in the first globally broadcast concert via satellite, Aloha from Hawaii. Several years of prescription drug abuse severely damaged his health, and he died in 1977 at the age of 42.

Presley is one of the most celebrated and influential musicians of the 20th century. Commercially successful in many genres, including pop, blues and gospel, he is the best-selling solo artist in the history of recorded music, with estimated record sales of around 600 million units worldwide.He won three Grammys, also receiving the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at age 36, and has been inducted into multiple music halls of fame.

Source: Wikipedia

Robin Lord Taylor and Benjamin McKenzie