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J T Walsh
J T Walsh (1943 - 1998)
J T Walsh He is best remembered for his role of Sergeant Major Dickerson in “Good Morning, Vietnam” (1987) and for his role of Big Bob in “Pleasantville” (1998). Born John Patrick Walsh in San Francisco, California, he attended a Jesuit boarding school in Ireland. After returning from studying at Clongowes Wood College in Ireland, […]
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J. Christopher Stevens
J. Christopher Stevens (1960 - 2012)
Stevens was born on April 18, 1960 in Grass Valley, California, the eldest of three siblings born to Jan S. Stevens, a California Assistant Attorney General, and his wife Mary J. Stevens née Floris. from a West Coast of the United States family of French, Swedish and Chinook ancestry. Stevens was raised in Northern California […]
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J. D. Cannon
J. D. Cannon (1922 - 2005)
Cannon served in the United States Army during World War II. Cannon first appeared on television as Master Sgt. Sherman in the original CBS sitcom, The Phil Silvers Show, also known as You’ll Never Get Rich. He played a recurring character – a lawman named Harry Briscoe working for the Bannerman Detective Agency – in the […]
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J. D. Salinger
J. D. Salinger (1919 - 2010)
Jerome David “J. D.” Salinger was an American writer who won acclaim early in life. He led a very private life for more than a half-century. He published his final original work in 1965 and gave his last interview in 1980. Salinger was raised in Manhattan and began writing short stories while in secondary school. […]
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J. R. D. Tata
J. R. D. Tata (1904 - 1993)
J. R. D. Tata was born on 29 July 1904 in Paris, France, the second child of Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata and his French wife, Suzanne “Sooni” Brière. His father was a first cousin of Jamsetji Tata, a pioneer industrialist in India. He had one elder sister Sylla, a younger sister Rodabeh and two younger brothers […]
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Jack Padjan
Jack Padjan (1887 - 1960)
Jack Padjan (1887 – 1960), also known as Jack Duane, was an American stunt performer and actor. Padjan was born in Silver Bow, Montana. He began acting in Hollywood Westerns in the 1920s, starting with minor roles in films such as The Ten Commandments and The Covered Wagon. In 1924, he played the role of […]
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Jack Adams
Jack Adams (1895 - 1968)
Born in Fort William, Ontario, Adams began his career with the Fort William Maple Leafs in 1914 of the NMHL, and played for the Calumet Miners a year later. In 1916, he joined the intermediate Peterborough 247th Battalion of the Ontario Hockey Association and the next season moved up to the senior Sarnia Sailors. His […]
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Jack Albertson
Jack Albertson (1907 - 1981)
Albertson was born in Malden, Massachusetts, the son of Russian-born Jewish immigrants Flora (née Craft) and Leopold Albertson. His sister was actress Mabel Albertson. Albertson’s mother, a stock actress, supported the family by working in a shoe factory. Albertson dropped out of high school and traveled to New York City in an attempt to make […]
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Jack Anglin
Jack Anglin (1916 - 1963)
Jack Anglin The youngest of 10 children, Anglin learned to play guitar as a child and at an early age was singing in a trio with his brothers, Jim and Van (aka Red). Jack wrote songs, and the three began to appear at local venues and radio as the Anglin Brothers. He relocated to Nashville […]
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Jack Bailey
Jack Bailey (1907 - 1980)
A former vaudeville musician and World’s Fair barker, Bailey is best remembered as the host of Queen for a Day, a daytime game show which first aired on the Mutual Radio Network in 1945 and later moved to television, where it ran locally in the Los Angeles area from 1948 through 1955, on the NBC […]
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Jack Benny
Jack Benny (1894 - 1974)
Jack Benny Actor, Producer, Comedian. He is best remembered for his comically inept violin playing (he was actually a very good violin player), his carefully constructed image as a penny-pincher, and for never being older than 39. His most famous joke was as a man confronted by a robber who demands “Your money or your […]
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Jack Carter
Jack Carter (1922 - 2015)
Jack Carter Carter was born in New York City, New York, in 1922 to a Jewish family. Carter served in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II. He hosted an early television variety program called Cavalcade of Stars on the DuMont Network. He was lured to NBC to host his own program […]
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Jack Cassidy
Jack Cassidy (1927 - 1976)
He was born in Richmond Hill, New York, the son of Charlotte (née Koehler) and William Cassidy. His father, who was engineer at the Long Island Rail Road, was of Irish descent and his mother was of German ancestry. Cassidy achieved his greatest success as a musical performer on Broadway, appearing in Alive and Kicking, […]
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Jack Clement
Jack Clement (1931 - 2013)
Raised and educated in Memphis, Clement was performing at an early age, playing guitar and Dobro; before embarking on his music career he served in the Marines. In 1953, he made his first record for the Sheraton label in Boston, Massachusetts but did not immediately pursue a full-time career in music, instead choosing to study […]
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Jack Colvin
Jack Colvin (1934 - 2005)
Colvin was born in Lyndon, Kansas, twenty-seven miles south of Topeka. He began his stage career as a child performer. At the age of seventeen Colvin became a private student of Michael Chekhov. Although he appeared in hundreds of films and television shows, he always returned to the theatre. His stage roles include Marchbanks in […]
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Jack Dempsey
Jack Dempsey (1895 - 1983)
Jack Dempsey Heavyweight Champion of the World from 1919 to 1926. The legendary Dempsey was born in Manassa, Colorado, one of 11 children. At 16 he left home and traveled on freight trains and fought to earn money. Then Dempsey met manager Jack ‘Doc’ Kearns and started knocking out legitimate contenders like Fireman Jim Flynn, […]
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Jack Diamond
Jack Diamond (1897 - 1931)
Jack Diamond Gangster bootlegger. Born Jack Moran on July, 1897, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to an Irish immigrant family. After his mother, Sara’s death, Diamond moved with his father and brother to Brooklyn, New York. Growing up impoverished, Diamond turned to street gangs and became involved in theft and violent crime as a teen. He later […]
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Jack Dodson
Jack Dodson (1931 - 1994)
Jack Dodson (May 16, 1931 – September 16, 1994) (born John S. Dodson in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) was an American television actor best remembered for the milquetoast character Howard Sprague in The Andy Griffith Show and its spin-off Mayberry R.F.D. From 1959 until his death in 1994, Dodson was married to television art director Mary Dodson. […]
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Jack Dragna
Jack Dragna (1891 - 1956)
Organized Crime Figure. Made member of the Chicago Cosa Nostra. The most successful, but least known of any Los Angeles crime boss. He was not a publicity seeker like Bugsy Siegel and Mickey Cohen, which allowed him to die of natural causes and not to pass away in jail. He lived in Los Angeles most […]
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Jack Elam
Jack Elam (1920 - 2003)
Elam was born in Miami in Gila County in south central Arizona, to Millard Elam and Alice Amelia Kirby. His mother died in 1922 when Jack was two years old. By 1930, he was living with his father, older sister Mildred, and their stepmother, Flossie Varney Elam. He grew up picking cotton and lost the sight […]
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Jack Germond
Jack Germond (1928 - 2013)
Germond was born in Boston, Massachusetts, an only child, and raised in a middle-class household in Boston and Trenton, New Jersey. When he was 13, his family moved to Mississippi, and then to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where Germond finished high school. After attending Louisiana State University for one semester, he served in the U.S. Army […]
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Jack Gilford
Jack Gilford (1907 - 1990)
Jack Gilford was born Jacob Aaron Gellman on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. His parents were Romanian-born Jewish immigrants Sophie “Susksa” (née Jackness), who owned a restaurant, and Aaron Gellman, a furrier. Gilford was the second of three sons, with an older brother Murray (“Moisha”) and a younger […]
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Jack Greene
Jack Greene (1930 - 2013)
Jack Greene Jack Henry Greene was born on January 7, 1930, in Maryville, Tennessee. He learned to play guitar at age ten, and Greene’s first involvement with the music industry came when he was still a teenager, working as a disc jockey at radio station WGAP in Maryville. By the age of 18, Jack Greene was a regular on the Tennessee Barn Dance show on WNOX,Knoxville, Tennessee. […]
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Jack Guzik
Jack Guzik (1886 - 1956)
Gangster.
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Jack Gwillim
Jack Gwillim (1909 - 2001)
Born in Canterbury, Kent, England, he served in the Royal Navy for over twenty years, attaining the rank of Commander. During his time in the Navy, he became a champion boxer and rugby player, and when he was discharged he was one of the youngest men ever to obtain the rank of Commander in the […]
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Jack Haley
Jack Haley (1897 - 1979)
Jack Haley Full name: John Joseph Haley, was the actor who played the part of the Tin Woodman and Hickory in MGM‘s 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz. An established song-and-dance man, Haley was loaned to the MGM studio by his contract-holder, 20th Century Fox, on 4 November 1938. Haley replaced Buddy Ebsen, the actor who […]
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Jack Ingram
Jack Ingram (1902 - 1969)
Actor. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, and died in Canoga Park, California. He often appeared in westerns in more than 200 films. Among others “Valley of Terror” (1937), “Ghost Valley Raiders” (1940), “Nevada City” (1941), “Man from Cheyenne” (1942), “The Bandit Queen” (1950) and “Lost in Alaska” (1952).
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Jack Johnson
Jack Johnson (1878 - 1946)
Jack Johnson Boxer. First African-American to hold the heavyweight boxing championship in the world. Until his fight with Burns, discrimination limited Johnson’s opportunities and purses. When he became champion, a hue and cry for a “Great White Hope” produced numerous opponents. At the height of his career Johnson was excoriated by the press for having […]
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Jack Kelly
Jack Kelly (1927 - 1992)
Born John Augustus Kelly, Jr. in Astoria, Queens, New York, one of four children, to Ann Mary “Nan” (née Walsh) and John Augustus Kelly, Sr. “Jackie,” as he was called as a child, came from a prominent theatrical family. His mother, Nan Kelly, had been a popular stage actress and John Robert Powers model. Kelly’s […]
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Jack King
Jack King (1931 - 2015)
Jack King grew up in Boston, the son of a local sportswriter, and attended Boston College. Prior to joining NASA, King worked for the Associated Press. He opened the AP’s Cape Canaveral bureau in 1958, when he was 27 years old. Jack King joined NASA in 1960, and served as the Kennedy Space Center’s Chief […]