Celebrity Names

[elvis]

Barbara Stanwyck

(July 16, 1907 – January 20, 1990) was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong, realistic screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra. After a short but notable career as a stage actress in the late 1920s, she made 85 films in 38 years in Hollywood, before turning to television.

Orphaned at the age of four and partially raised in foster homes, by 1944 Stanwyck had become the highest paid woman in the United States. She was nominated for the Academy Award four times, and won three Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe. She was the recipient of honorary lifetime awards from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1981, the American Film Institute in 1987, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Golden Globes, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the Screen Actors Guild. Stanwyck has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and is ranked as the 11th greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute.[1]

[marcus]

Sonja Henie

Sonja Henie (April 8, 1912 – October 12, 1969) was a Norwegian figure skater and film star. She was a three-time Olympic Champion (1928, 1932, 1936) in Ladies Singles, a ten-time World Champion (1927–1936) and a six-time European Champion (1931–1936). Henie won more Olympic and World titles than any other ladies figure skater. At the height of her acting career she was one of the highest paid stars in Hollywood. [1]

[elvis]

Harry Morgan

(born Harry Bratsberg, often spelled Harry Bratsburg;[6][7][8][9] April 10, 1915 – December 7, 2011) was a prolific American actor and director whose television and film career spanned six decades. Morgan's major roles included Pete Porter in both December Bride (1954–1959) and Pete and Gladys (1960–1962); Officer Bill Gannon on Dragnet (1967–1970); Amos Coogan on Hec Ramsey (1972–1974); and for his starring role as Colonel Sherman T. Potter in M*A*S*H (1975–1983) and AfterMASH (1983–1984). Morgan also appeared in more than 100 films.

[marcus]

Mary Archer

Dame Mary Doreen Archer, Lady Archer of Weston-super-Mare, DBE (née Weeden; born 22 December 1944) is a British scientist specialising in solar power conversion. She studied chemistry at St Anne's College, Oxford, and physical chemistry at Imperial College London, before becoming a Cambridge University lecturer. From 1988 to 2000 she was Chairwoman of the National Energy Foundation, which promotes renewable energy, and is now its president.[1] In 2002 she was appointed Chairwoman of Addenbrooke's NHS Trust, Cambridge. In 2002 she received the Melchett Medal on Realistic opportunities for renewables: innovative technology[2]
Mary Doreen Weeden became Mrs. Mary Archer when she married Jeffrey Archer in 1966. When he was granted a life peerage in 1992, she gained the title Lady Archer of Weston-super-Mare.

[elvis]

Al Jolson

(born Asa Yoelson) (May 26, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was an American singer, comedian, and actor of Jewish descent. In his heyday, he was dubbed "The World's Greatest Entertainer".[1]

His performing style was brash and extroverted, and he popularized a large number of songs that benefited from his "shamelessly sentimental, melodramatic approach".[2] Numerous well-known singers were influenced by his music, including Bing Crosby[3] Judy Garland, rock and country entertainer Jerry Lee Lewis, and Bob Dylan, who once referred to him as "somebody whose life I can feel".[4] Broadway critic Gilbert Seldes compared him to the Greek god Pan, claiming that Jolson represented "the concentration of our national health and gaiety."[5]

In the 1930s, he was America's most famous and highest-paid entertainer.[6] Between 1911 and 1928, Jolson had nine sell-out Winter Garden shows in a row, more than 80 hit records, and 16 national and international tours. Although he's best remembered today as the star of the first (full-length) talking movie, The Jazz Singer in 1927, he later starred in a series of successful musical films throughout the 1930s. After a period of inactivity, his stardom returned with the 1946 Oscar-winning biographical film The Jolson Story. Larry Parks played Jolson, with the songs dubbed in with Jolson’s real voice. A sequel, Jolson Sings Again, was released in 1949 and was nominated for three Academy Awards. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Jolson became the first star to entertain troops overseas during World War II, and again in 1950 became the first star to perform for GIs in Korea, doing 42 shows in 16 days. He died just weeks after returning to the U.S., partly owing to the physical exertion of performing. Defense Secretary George Marshall afterward awarded the Medal of Merit to Jolson's family.

According to the St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, "Jolson was to jazz, blues, and ragtime what Elvis Presley was to rock 'n' roll." Being the first popular singer to make a spectacular "event" out of singing a song, he became a “rock star” before the dawn of rock music. His specialty was performing on stage runways extending out into the audience. He would run up and down the runway and across the stage, "teasing, cajoling, and thrilling the audience," often stopping to sing to individual members; all the while the "perspiration would be pouring from his face, and the entire audience would get caught up in the ecstasy of his performance." According to music historian Larry Stempel, "No one had heard anything quite like it before on Broadway." Author Stephen Banfield agreed, writing that Jolson's style was "arguably the single most important factor in defining the modern musical...."[5]

He enjoyed performing in blackface makeup, a theatrical convention since the mid 19th century. With his unique and dynamic style of singing black music, such as jazz and blues, he was later credited with single-handedly introducing African-American music to white audiences.[1] As early as 1911 he became known for fighting against anti-black discrimination on Broadway. Jolson's well-known theatrics and his promotion of equality on Broadway helped pave the way for many black performers, playwrights, and songwriters, including Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, and Ethel Waters.

[marcus]

John Inman

Frederick John Inman (28 June 1935 – 8 March 2007) was an English actor and singer best known for his role as Mr. Humphries in Are You Being Served?, a British sitcom in the 1970s and 1980s. Inman was also well known in the United Kingdom as a pantomime dame.

[elvis]

Ice Cube

O'Shea Jackson (born June 15, 1969), better known by his stage name Ice Cube, is an American rapper, record producer, actor, screenwriter, film producer, and director. He began his career as a member of the hip-hop group C.I.A. and later joined N.W.A (Niggas With Attitudes). After leaving N.W.A in December 1989,[2] he built a successful solo career in music, and also as a writer, director, actor and producer in cinema. Additionally, he has served as one of the producers of the Showtime television series Barbershop and the TBS series Are We There Yet?, both of which are based upon films in which he portrayed the lead character.

[marcus]

Charlie Drake

Charlie Drake (19 June 1925 – 23 December 2006) was an English comedian, actor, writer and singer.
With his small stature (5' 1" tall), curly red hair and liking for slapstick he was a popular comedian with children in his early years, becoming nationally-known for his "Hello, my darlings" catchphrase.

[elvis]

Dale Evans

(born Lucille Wood Smith; October 31, 1912 – February 7, 2001) was an American writer, movie star, and singer-songwriter. She was the third wife of singing cowboy Roy Rogers.

[marcus]

Ernie Wise

Ernest Wiseman, OBE (27 November 1925 – 21 March 1999), known by his stage name Ernie Wise, was an English comedian, best known as one half of the comedy duo Morecambe and Wise, who became a national institution on British television, especially for their Christmas specials.

[elvis]

Walter Matthau

(October 1, 1920 – July 1, 2000) was an American actor best known for his role as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple and his frequent collaborations with Odd Couple star Jack Lemmon, as well as his role as Coach Buttermaker in the 1976 comedy The Bad News Bears. He won an Academy Award for his performance in the 1966 Billy Wilder film The Fortune Cookie.

[marcus]

Mary Malcolm

Mary Malcolm (15 March 1918 – 13 October 2010), as one of the first two regular female announcers on BBC Television after World War II, was a household name in the U.K. during the 1950s.


The granddaughter of Victorian socialite actress Lillie Langtry, who was the mistress of King Edward VII of England, Mary was brought up in Poltalloch, Argyll, Scotland. Until the age of 16, she attended the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle in South Kensington, London. She began her television career in 1948, having gained broadcasting experience on the radio during World War II. As more and more men were called up to fight, women became increasingly in demand to fill posts at the BBC. Mary Malcolm was taken on and worked for the Home Service as a continuity announcer from March 1942. With the relaunch of the BBC's television service after the war, she worked alongside Sylvia Peters and McDonald Hobley, with the trio averaging ten days' work a month each

[elvis]

Maria Callas,

Commendatore OMRI[1] (Greek: Μαρία Κάλλας; December 2, 1923 – September 16, 1977) was an American-born Greek soprano and one of the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century. Critics praised her bel canto technique, wide-ranging voice and dramatic gifts. Her repertoire ranged from classical opera seria to the bel canto operas of Donizetti, Bellini and Rossini; further, to the works of Verdi and Puccini; and, in her early career, to the music dramas of Wagner. Her musical and dramatic talents led to her being hailed as La Divina.

Born in New York City and raised by an overbearing mother, she received her musical education in Greece and established her career in Italy. Forced to deal with the exigencies of wartime poverty and with myopia that left her nearly blind onstage, she endured struggles and scandal over the course of her career. She turned herself from a heavy woman into a svelte and glamorous one after a mid-career weight loss, which might have contributed to her vocal decline and the premature end of her career. The press exulted in publicizing Callas's allegedly temperamental behaviour, her supposed rivalry with Renata Tebaldi and her love affair with Aristotle Onassis. Her dramatic life and personal tragedy have often overshadowed Callas the artist in the popular press. However, her artistic achievements were such that Leonard Bernstein called her "The Bible of opera";[2] and her influence was so enduring that, in 2006, Opera News wrote of her: "Nearly thirty years after her death, she's still the definition of the diva as artist—and still one of classical music's best-selling vocalists."[3]

[marcus]

Charles De Gaulle

Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle 22 November 1890 – 9 November 1970) was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969. A veteran of World War I, in the 1920s and 1930s, de Gaulle came to the fore as a proponent of mobile armoured divisions, which he considered would become central in modern warfare. During World War II, he earned the rank of brigadier general (retained throughout his life), leading one of the few successful armoured counter-attacks during the 1940 Battle of France in May in Montcornet, and then briefly served in the French government as France was falling. De Gaulle was the most senior French military officer to reject the June 1940 armistice to Nazi Germany right from the outset

[elvis]

George Burns

(January 20, 1896 – March 9, 1996), born Nathan Birnbaum, was an American comedian, actor, and writer.
He was one of the few entertainers whose career successfully spanned vaudeville, film, radio, and television. His arched eyebrow and cigar smoke punctuation became familiar trademarks for over three quarters of a century. Beginning at the age of 79, Burns' career was resurrected as an amiable, beloved and unusually active old comedian in the 1975 film "The Sunshine Boys," for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He continued to work until shortly before his death, in 1996, at the age of 100.

[marcus]

Bruce Willis

Walter Bruce Willis (born March 19, 1955), known professionally as Bruce Willis, is a German-born American actor, producer, and musician. His career began in television in the 1980s, most notably as David Addison in Moonlighting (1985–1989) and has continued both in television and film since, including comedic, dramatic, and action roles. He is well known for the role of John McClane in the Die Hard series, which were mostly critical and uniformly financial successes. He has also appeared in over sixty films, including box office successes like Pulp Fiction (1994), 12 Monkeys (1995), The Fifth Element (1997), Armageddon (1998), The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000), Sin City (2005), Looper (2012), Moonrise Kingdom (2012), and G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013).

[elvis]

Wynonna Ellen Judd

(pron.: /waɪˈnoʊnə/; born Christina Claire Ciminella on May 30, 1964) is an American country music singer. Her solo albums and singles are all credited to the singular name Wynonna. Wynonna first rose to fame in the 1980s alongside her mother, Naomi, in the country music duo The Judds. The duo released seven albums on Curb Records in addition to charting 26 singles, of which 14 were number one hits.

After The Judds disbanded in 1991, Wynonna began a solo career, also on Curb. In her solo career, she has released eight studio albums, a live album, and a compilation album in addition to charting more than 20 singles of her own. Her first three singles—"She Is His Only Need", "I Saw the Light" and "No One Else on Earth"—all reached number one on the U.S. country singles charts, as did 1996's "To Be Loved by You." Three of her albums are certified platinum or higher by the RIAA. Her most recent recording, Sing: Chapter 1, was released on February 3, 2009. Wynonna is most recognized for her musical work, although starting in the 2000s she has also pursued other interests, including acting and philanthropy.

[marcus]

John Humphrys

Desmond John Humphrys (born 17 August 1943) is a British author, journalist and presenter of radio and television, who has won many national broadcasting awards. From 1981 to 1987 he was the main presenter for the Nine O'Clock News, the flagship BBC news television programme and since 1987 he has been a presenter on the award-winning BBC Radio 4 programme, Today. He presents the programme with Justin Webb, James Naughtie, Evan Davies and Sarah Montague. He is also currently the host of the BBC Two television quiz show Mastermind.

[elvis]

Huey Lewis

(born Hugh Anthony Cregg III; July 5, 1950) is an American musician, songwriter, and actor.
Lewis sings lead and plays harmonica for his band, Huey Lewis and the News, in addition to writing or co-writing many of the band's songs. The band is perhaps best known for their third album, Sports, and their contribution to the soundtrack of the 1985 feature film Back to the Future. Lewis previously played with the band Clover from 1972 to 1979.

[marcus]

Leonard Rossiter

Leonard Rossiter (21 October 1926 – 5 October 1984) was an English actor, best known for his roles as Rupert Rigsby, in the British comedy television series and film Rising Damp (1974–80), and Reginald Perrin, in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976–79). These roles followed a long and distinguished career in the theatre.

[elvis]

Rio Gavin Ferdinand

(born 7 November 1978) is an English footballer. He plays at centre-back for Manchester United. He has earned a total of 81 caps for England, and has been a member of three FIFA World Cup squads

[marcus]

Frankie Howerd

Francis Alick "Frankie" Howerd OBE (6 March 1917, York – 19 April 1992)[1] was an English comedian and comic actor whose career, described by fellow comedian Barry Cryer as "a series of comebacks", spanned six decades.

[elvis]

Hulk Hogan

Terry Gene Bollea (born August 11, 1953), known by his ring name Hulk Hogan, is an American semi-retired professional wrestler, actor, television personality, entrepreneur, and musician signed to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), where he is the on-screen General Manager. Hogan enjoyed mainstream popularity in the 1980s and 90s as the all-American character Hulk Hogan in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE), and as Hollywood Hogan, the villainous nWo leader, in World Championship Wrestling (WCW). A regular pay-per-view headliner in both organizations, Hogan closed the respective premier annual events of the WWF and WCW, WrestleMania and Starrcade, on multiple occasions. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2005.

He is a 12-time world champion being a six-time WWF/E Champion, six-time WCW World Heavyweight Champion, and a former WWE World Tag Team Champion with Edge. He is the second longest combined reigning WWF Champion of all time (after Bruno Sammartino), the longest-reigning champion of the 1980s, and holds two of the ten longest title runs in WWF/E history, having held the title for 1,474 days from 1984-1988 (the fourth longest reign of all time) and 364 days from 1989 to 1990 (the 9th longest reign of all time). He is also the longest-reigning WCW World Heavyweight Champion of all time, with a 469 day reign from 1994-1995. Hogan won the Royal Rumble in 1990 and 1991, making him the first man to win two consecutive Royal Rumbles.

[marcus]

Harry Fowler

Henry James "Harry" Fowler, MBE (10 December 1926 – 4 January 2012) was an English actor in film and TV. Over a career lasting more than sixty years he made nearly 200 appearances on screen

[elvis]

Frankie Valli

(born Francesco Stephen Castelluccio; May 3, 1934) is an American popular singer, most famous as frontman of The Four Seasons beginning in 1960. He is well known for his unusually powerful falsetto voice.

Valli scored 29 Top 40 hits with The Four Seasons, one Top 40 hit under The Four Seasons' alias 'The Wonder Who?', and nine Top 40 hits as a solo artist. As a member of The Four Seasons, Valli's number one hits included "Sherry" (1962), "Big Girls Don't Cry" (1962), "Walk Like a Man" (1963), "Rag Doll" (1964) and "December 1963 (Oh, What A Night)" (1975). Valli's recording of the song "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" reached number two in 1967. "You're Ready Now", a Valli solo recording from 1966, became a surprise hit in Great Britain as part of the Northern soul scene and hit number eleven on the British pop charts in December 1970. As a solo artist, Valli scored number one hits with the songs "My Eyes Adored You" (1974) and "Grease" (1978).

Valli, Tommy DeVito, Nick Massi, and Bob Gaudio — the original members of The Four Seasons — were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990[1] and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1999.[2]

[marcus]

Vanessa Feltz

Vanessa Jane Feltz (born 21 February 1962) is an English television personality, broadcaster and journalist. She currently presents an early morning radio show on BBC Radio 2 and a mid morning phone-in show on BBC London 94.9. In January 2011, she started hosting The Vanessa Show on Channel 5. The series ended on 24 June. Feltz is a Freelance broadcaster.

[elvis]

Flavor Flav

William Jonathan Drayton, Jr. (born March 16, 1959), better known by his stage name Flavor Flav, is an American musician and television personality who rose to prominence as a member of the hip-hop group Public Enemy. He is also known for popularizing the role of the hype man and for yelling "Yeah boy!" and "Flavor Flav!" during performances.

After falling out of the public eye for a number of years, he reappeared as the star of several VH1 reality series, including The Surreal Life, Strange Love, and Flavor of Love.

[marcus]

Frank Ifield

Francis Edward Ifield (born 30 November 1937) is an Australian-English easy listening and country music singer. He achieved considerable success in the early 1960s, especially in the UK Singles Chart, where he had four Number 1 hits between 1962 and 1963.

[buzzy]

Tom Jones



Sir Thomas John Woodward, OBE (born 7 June 1940), known by his stage name Tom Jones, is a Welsh singer. He became one of the most popular vocalists to emerge from the British Invasion. Since the mid-1960s, Jones has sung nearly every form of popular music – pop, rock, R&B, show tunes, country, dance, soul and gospel – and sold over 100 million records.

[elvis]

Tré Cool

Frank Edwin Wright III (born on December 9, 1972), better known as Tré Cool, is an American drummer, best known as the drummer for Green Day. He replaced the group's former drummer John Kiffmeyer in 1990. Cool has also played in The Lookouts, Samiam and the Green Day side-projects