FOUND A GRAVE

Oba Chandler (1946 - 2011)

Oba Chandler (October 11, 1946 – November 15, 2011) was an American man convicted and executed for the June 1989 triple murders of Joan Rogers and her two daughters, whose bodies were found floating in Tampa Bay, Florida, with their hands and feet bound. Concrete blocks had been tied to their necks and duct tape […]

Olan Soule (1909 - 1994)

Born in La Harpe, Illinois to Elbert and Ann Williams Soule (descendants of three Mayflower passengers), Olan left Illinois at the age of seven and arrived in Des Moines, Iowa, where he lived until he was seventeen. He then launched his theatrical career by joining Jack Brooks’ tent show in Sabula, Jackson County, in eastern […]

Olive Borden (1906 - 1947)

Actress of the silent and early sound era. Contrary to urban legend, her original name was not Sybil Tinkle. She began her career as one of Mack Sennett’s bathing beauties in 1922 and in 1925 was named one of the thirteen WAMPAS Baby Stars of the year. Her fame and popularity continued to increase after […]

Olive Deering (1918 - 1986)

Olive Deering (born Olive Corn; October 11, 1918 – March 22, 1986) was an American actress of film, television, and the stage, active from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s. She was a life member of The Actors Studio, as was her elder brother, Alfred Ryder. Olive Deering was the daughter of Zelda “Sadie” (née Baruchin; […]

Oliver Ellsworth (1745 - 1807)

Ellsworth was born in Windsor, Connecticut, to Capt. David and Jemima (née Leavitt) Ellsworth. He entered Yale in 1762, but transferred to the College of New Jersey (later Princeton) at the end of his second year. He continued to study theology and, while attending, helped found the American Whig–Cliosophic Society along with Aaron Burr and […]

Oliver Hardy (1892 - 1957)

Oliver Hardy Although his parents were never in show business, as a young boy Oliver Hardy was a gifted singer and, by age eight, was performing with minstrel shows. In 1910 he ran a movie theatre, which he preferred to studying law. In 1913 he became a comedy actor with the Lubin Company in Florida […]

Oliver Sacks (1933 - 2015)

Oliver Wolf Sacks, CBE, FRCP (9 July 1933 – 30 August 2015) was a British neurologist, naturalist and author who spent his professional life in the United States. Oliver Sacks felt that the brain was the “most incredible thing in the universe” and therefore important to study. He became widely known for writing best-selling case […]

Omar Sharif (1932 - 2015)

Omar Sharif, whose surname means “noble” or “nobleman” in Arabic, was born on 10 April 1932, as Michel Demitri Chalhoub in Alexandria, Egypt, to a Melkite Greek Catholic family of Lebanese descent. His father, Joseph Chalhoub, a precious woods merchant originally from Zahle, moved to Egypt in the early 20th century, particularly Alexandria, where Omar […]

Omar Suleiman (1936 - 2012)

Suleiman was born in Qena in Upper Egypt. In 1954 at the age of 18, he moved to Cairo to enroll in Egypt’s prestigious Military Academy. He received additional military training in the Soviet Union at Moscow’s Frunze Military Academy. He participated in both the Six-Day and October wars. In the mid-1980s, Suleiman earned additional […]

Oral Roberts (1918 - 2009)

Roberts was born in Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, the fifth and youngest child of the Reverend Ellis Melvin Roberts and Claudius Priscilla Roberts (née Irwin) (d. 1974). According to an interview on Larry King Live, Irwin was of Cherokee descent. Roberts was a card-carrying member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.  Roberts began life in poverty […]

Orry-Kelly (1898 - 1964)

Orry-Kelly was born in Kiama, New South Wales, Australia, and was known as Jack Kelly. His father William Kelly was born on the Isle of Man and was a gentleman tailor in Kiama. Orry was a name of an ancient King of the Isle of Man. Orry-Kelly was sent to Sydney at age 17 to […]

Oscar de la Renta (1932 - 2014)

Oscar de la Renta Born on July 22, 1932, Oscar de la Renta was raised alongside six sisters in a middle-class household in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. At the age of 18, he left the Caribbean island to study painting at the Academy of San Fernando in Madrid. While in Spain, he dreamed of becoming […]

Oscar Hijuelos (1951 - 2013)

Hijuelos was born in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, to Cuban immigrant parents, Pascual and Magdalena (Torrens) Hijuelos, both from Holguín, Cuba. His father worked as a hotel cook. As a young child, he suffered from acute nephritis after a vacation trip to Cuba with his mother and brother José, and was in St. Luke’s Convalescent Hospital, […]

Oscar Sullivan (1919 - 2012)

Oscar Sullivan Lonzo and Oscar were an American country music duo founded in 1945 originally consisting of Lloyd George (1924-1991) as “Lonzo” and Rollin “Oscar” Sullivan (1919-2012), best known for being the first to perform the 1948 song “I’m My Own Grandpa“. George departed in 1950, and Lonzo was later portrayed by Johnny Sullivan (1917-1967) […]

Oscar Taveras (1992 - 2014)

Oscar Taveras Oscar Francisco Taveras (June 19, 1992 – October 26, 2014) was a Dominican-Canadian professional baseball outfielder who played one season for the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball (MLB). The Cardinals signed him at age 16 in 2008 as an undrafted free agent and he made his MLB debut in 2014. Over […]

Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)

Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London’s most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. Today he is remembered for his epigrams, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, his plays, as […]

Oskar Homolka (1898 - 1978)

After serving in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I, Oscar Homolka attended the Imperial Academy of Music and the Performing Arts in Vienna and began his career on the Austrian stage. Success there led to work in the much more prestigious German theatrical community in Munich where in 1924 he played Mortimer in the […]

Ossie Clark (1942 - 1996)

Born in Warrington, Cheshire, England in 1942, Raymond Clark’s parents, Anne and Samuel Clark, moved to Oswaldtwistle during the war, hence his nickname, “Ossie”. Ossie’s mother, Anne Grace Clark, was in labour with Ossie for seven days during an air raid in World War II. Anne had been expecting a girl and so had no […]

Ossie Davis (1917 - 2005)

Davis was born Raiford Chatman Davis in Cogdell, Clinch County, Georgia, a son of Kince Charles Davis, a railway construction engineer, and his wife Laura (née Cooper; July 9, 1898 – June 6, 2004). The name Ossie came from a county clerk who misheard his mother’s pronunciation of his initials “R.C.” when he was born. […]

Otis Blackwell (1931 - 2002)

Otis Blackwell Songwriter. He is best known for writing such classics Rock and Roll songs as “Return To Sender”, “All Shook Up”, and “Great Balls of Fire”. He is credited with writing songs that have sold over 185 million copies. Tracks for Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis were most popular, but he also wrote for […]

Otis Clay (1942 - 2016)

Otis Clay Hall of fame rhythm and blues artist Otis Clay, who scored a string of hits with Memphis-based Hi Records in the early 1970s, died Friday. He was 73. The Mississippi-born Clay — whose gruff, tenor-tinged voice on blues songs such as “Trying to Live My Life Without You” varied from his haunting but […]

Otis Redding (1941 - 1967)

Otis Redding One of the most popular and critically acclaimed soul vocalist, songwriter and musician representatives of the R&B style known as Southern soul. He is generally regarded as the single most influential male soul artist of the 1960s. He was one of the first artists to broaden his appeal to white audiences with a […]

Ottavio Missoni (1921 - 2013)

Ottavio Missoni was born in Dubrovnik, on the Dalmatian coast. His mother, Teresa de Vidovich, was Countess of Capocesto and Rogoznica, and his father, Vittorio Missoni, was a Friulian sea captain who had moved to Dalmatia whilst it was under Austrian rule. He was educated in Zara, Trieste, and Milan.  Aged 16, Missoni joined the […]

Ottavio Missoni (1921 - 2013)

Ottavio Missoni was born in Dubrovnik, on the Dalmatian coast. His mother, Teresa de Vidovich, was Countess of Capocesto and Rogoznica, and his father, Vittorio Missoni, was a Friulian sea captain who had moved to Dalmatia whilst it was under Austrian rule. He was educated in Zara, Trieste, and Milan.  Aged 16, Missoni joined the […]

Otto Blathy (1860 - 1939)

He attended schools in Tata and Vienna where he obtained diploma of machinery in 1882. Between 1881-1883 he worked at the machinery workshop of the Hungarian Railways (MAV). Attracted by the successes of Károly Zipernowsky, he joined his team on 1 July 1883. He admitted he has learnt nothing about electrotechnics in university, so he […]

Otto Kruger (1885 - 1974)

Otto Kruger was of German descent. He was the grandnephew of South African pioneer and president Paul Kruger. Otto was musically trained, but switched careers and became an actor. He studied briefly at Columbia University. Making his Broadway debut at the age of fifteen, Kruger quickly became a matinee idol. Though he started to get noticed in […]

Ove Andersson (1938 - 2008)

Andersson was born in Uppsala and grew up on a remote farm. His father bought a 98cc motorbike, and Andersson said this was where he first fell in love with speed and machinery. He went on to begin studying engineering in Uppsala, and also began marshalling ice races. He dropped his engineering course and began […]

Owen Bradley (1915 - 1998)

Owen Bradley A native of Westmoreland, Tennessee, Bradley learned piano at an early age, and began playing in local nightclubs and roadhouses when he was a teenager. At 20, he got a job at WSM-AM radio, where he worked as an arranger and musician. In 1942, he became the station’s musical director, and was also the leader of a sought-after dance band, […]

Owen Madden (1891 - 1965)

Organized Crime Figure. Nicknamed “Owney”. Born in Liverpool, England, he came to the United States with his family in 1903 and took over New York’s “Gophers” gang when he was only 18 years old. He founded the famous Cotton Club. Madden moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1935 and married local girl Agnes Demby after […]

Ozzie Brooks (1931 - 1996)

Mr. Brooks was born and raised in Toledo, Ohio and entered the U.S. Air Force in 1949. After his marriage, Ozzie was stationed at Air bases in New York, Germany, England and, finally, Otis Air Force Base in Bourne, Massachusetts. He retired from the Air Force in 1969. He then served as a civilian employee […]