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Johnny Leartice Robinson
Johnny Leartice Robinson (1952 - 2004)
Johnny Leartice Robinson (25 July 1952 – 4 February 2004) was executed by the State of Florida for the 1985 murder of Beverly St. George. Robinson had faced several criminal charges before being arrested for murder; he was convicted of several previous rapes and was on parole for a rape conviction in Maryland at the […]
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Johnny Mack Brown
Johnny Mack Brown (1904 - 1974)
Born and raised in Dothan, Alabama, Johnny Mack Brown was a star of the high school football team, earning a football scholarship to the University of Alabama. His little brother Tolbert “Red” Brown played with “Mack” in 1925. His good looks and powerful physique saw him portrayed on Wheaties cereal boxes and in 1927, brought an […]
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Johnny Otis
Johnny Otis (1921 - 2012)
Johnny Otis Otis was born to Greek immigrants Alexander J. Veliotes, a Mare Island longshoreman and grocery store owner, and his wife, the former Irene Kiskakes, a painter. He had a younger sister, Dorothy, and a younger brother, Nicholas A. Veliotes, former U.S. Ambassador to both Jordan (1978–1981) and Egypt (1984–1986)). He grew up in […]
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Johnny Paycheck
Johnny Paycheck (1938 - 2003)
Johnny Paycheck Johnny PayCheck, the hard-living Nashville guitar slinger who urged the working class to “Take This Job and Shove It,” has died. Although he had been sober for years, decades of boozing and drugging had taken its toll on the honky-tonker. He had been in declining health for the past several years, spending recent […]
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Johnny Russell
Johnny Russell (1940 - 2001)
Johnny Russell Russell penned the country standard “Act Naturally,” which Buck Owens recorded in 1963 and took to No. 1. Two years later, the Beatles cut the song with Ringo Starr on vocals. Artists such as Burl Ives, George Strait, Bobby Vinton, Patti Page, George Jones, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, and Del Reeves also recorded […]
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Johnny Tapia
Johnny Tapia (1967 - 2012)
Johnny Tapia Johnny Tapia endured a tragic early life. His father had reportedly been murdered while his mother was pregnant with him. When he was eight years old, his mother, Virginia, was kidnapped, raped, hanged, repeatedly stabbed, and left for dead by her assailant. Tapia was awakened by her screams and saw her chained to […]
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Johnny Thomas Allen
Johnny Thomas Allen (1905 - 1959)
John Thomas Allen (September 30, 1904 – March 29, 1959) was an American pitcher in Major League Baseball for the New York Yankees, Cleveland Indians, St. Louis Browns, Brooklyn Dodgers, and New York Giants. Born in Lenoir, North Carolina, Allen reached the Yankees in an unusual way. While working as a bellhop in a hotel, […]
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Johnny Torrio
Johnny Torrio (1882 - 1957)
Johnny Torrio Born in a village near Naples, Torrio was brought to New York City by his widowed mother when he was two. He became a brothel-saloonkeeper and leader of the James Street Boys, allying them with the Five Points Gang (1904–08). He then rose to become a rackets boss (i.e., engaged in activities involving […]
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Johnny Valentine
Johnny Valentine (1928 - 2001)
Johnny Valentine Wisniski was originally from Maple Valley, Washington. He was a devout Christian for many years. He was married to a woman named Sharon, who plans to write a book titled A Never Ending Love Story of a Wrestler and His Wife about their life together. He also had a son, Greg Valentine, who […]
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Johnny Weaver
Johnny Weaver (1935 - 2008)
Johnny Weaver Funerals are never fun to attend. But there was something uplifting about what took place at Johnny Weaver’s funeral. That was due largely to the honest and moving words delivered by two who eulogized him, and the grace of a grieving daughter still wounded by the sudden and unexpected loss of her father. […]
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Johnny Winter
Johnny Winter (1944 - 2014)
Johnny Winter American Musician and Producer. Winter released nearly 20 albums and earned seven Grammy nominations in his career as an iconic blues musician. When he was ten years old, he and his younger brother Edgar, who were both born with albinism, appeared on a local children’s show, playing ukulele and singing Everly Brothers songs. […]
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Joi Lansing
Joi Lansing (1928 - 1972)
Joi Lansing was born Joy Brown in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1928 to Jack Glenn Brown, a shoe salesman, and Virginia Grace (née Shupe) Brown, a housewife. She would later be known as Joyce Wassmansdorff, which was the surname of her stepfather. The family moved to Los Angeles in 1940. She began modeling in […]
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Jon Hager
Jon Hager (1941 - 2009)
Jon Hager Sam Lovullo, who produced “Hee-Haw” and was a friend of Hager’s, said Hager was found dead in his apartment Friday morning. He was found in bed and apparently died in his sleep.Lovullo said Hager had been in poor health and was depressed since his identical twin brother, Jim Hager, died in May 2008.The […]
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Jonathan Brandis
Jonathan Brandis (1976 - 2003)
Brandis was born in Danbury, Connecticut. He was the only child of Mary, a teacher and personal manager, and Gregory Brandis, a food distributor and firefighter. He began his career as a child model at the age of 4, and began acting in television commercials. At the age of six, Brandis won the role of […]
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Jonathan Crombie
Jonathan Crombie (1966 - 2015)
Jonathan Crombie was born in Toronto on October 12, 1966. His father, David Crombie, was the mayor of Toronto from 1972 to 1978 and a Canadian federal Cabinet Minister in the 1980s. Crombie attended Lawrence Park Collegiate Institute, where he was spotted by casting agent Diane Polley performing in a production of The Wizard of […]
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Jonathan Frid
Jonathan Frid (1924 - 2012)
Jonathan Frid Jonathan Frid, a Shakespearean actor who found unexpected — and by his own account unwanted — celebrity as the vampire Barnabas Collins on the sanguinary soap opera “Dark Shadows,” died last Saturday, April 14, in Hamilton, Ontario. He was 87. He died from complications of a fall, said Kathryn Leigh Scott, who played […]
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Jonathan Hardy
Jonathan Hardy (1940 - 2012)
Jonathan Hardy (20 September 1940 – 30 July 2012) was a New Zealand-born Australian actor, writer and director. Jonathan Hardy trained as an actor in Britain, and worked for the Royal National Theatre among other British theatre companies. He returned to his home of New Zealand in a touring production of The Comedy of Errors […]
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Jonathan Harris
Jonathan Harris (1914 - 2002)
Jonathan Harris Jonathan Harris, a versatile character actor perhaps best known for his role as the villainous Dr. Smith in the science-fiction fantasy series ”Lost in Space” on CBS television, died on Sunday in Los Angeles. He was 87 and lived in the Encino section of Los Angeles. He had been hospitalized for a back […]
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Jonathan Hole
Jonathan Hole (1904 - 1998)
His career began in vaudeville in the 1920s. Hole was also a radio performer active in his native Iowa as well as New York City, Detroit, Chicago, and Los Angeles, California. While working as an announcer on WBBN in Chicago, his last name was temporarily changed to Cole by the station. In 1942 in Chicago, […]
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Jöns Jacob Berzelius
Jöns Jacob Berzelius (1779 - 1848)
Born at Väversunda in Östergötland in Sweden, Berzelius lost both his parents at an early age. Relatives in Linköping took care of him, and there he attended the school today known as Katedralskolan. He then enrolled at Uppsala University where he learned the profession of medical doctor from 1796 to 1801; Anders Gustaf Ekeberg, the […]
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Jordan Christopher
Jordan Christopher (1940 - 1996)
Born in Youngstown, Ohio, to Macedonian immigrants Eli and Dorothy Zankoff, he moved at an early age to Akron, where his father ran a downtown bar. Christopher became interested in singing with the rise of rock & roll, spending much of his time at the music clubs in Akron’s black section. He formed a doo-wop group […]
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Josef Škvorecký
Josef Škvorecký (1924 - 2012)
Born the son of a bank clerk in Náchod, Czechoslovakia, Škvorecký graduated in 1943 from the Reálné gymnasium in his native Náchod. For two years during the Second World War he was a slave labourer in a German aircraft factory. After the war, he began to study at the Faculty of Medicine of Charles University […]
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Joseph Aiuppa
Joseph Aiuppa (1907 - 1997)
Organized Crime Figure. He was a long time power in the Chicago, Illinois Mafia syndicate known as “The Outfit”. He began his criminal career as a muscleman and hired gun for Al Capone in 1935; by 1970 he had risen high in the Chicago mob. Though he controlled the mob’s operations in Cicero and the […]
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Joseph Albert Walker
Joseph Albert Walker (1970 - 1966)
Born in Washington, Pennsylvania, Walker graduated from Trinity High School in 1938. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in physics from Washington and Jefferson College in 1942, before entering the United States Army Air Forces. He was married and had four children. During World War II, Walker flew the Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter and […]
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Joseph Amberg
Joseph Amberg (1892 - 1935)
Organized Crime Figure. He along with his brothers Louis “Pretty” and Hyman Amberg were the most feared gangsters in the Jewish neighborhoods of Brooklyn, New York City, New York during the 1920s and 1930s On September 30,1935, Joseph Amberg and Morris Kessler (one of his henchmen) were lined-up against the wall of an auto repair […]
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Joseph Armone
Joseph Armone (1917 - 1992)
Joseph Armone Armone followed his brother into the Mangano family. By the time Albert “Mad Hatter” Anastasia took over the family, he had become one of the family’s major earners. In 1957, underboss Joseph Biondo allegedly picked Armone and two other family mobsters to kill Anastasia. However, before the attack could take place, Armone was […]
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Joseph Barbara
Joseph Barbara (1905 - 1959)
Joseph Barbara Organized Crime Figure. Immigrated to the United States in 1921 at age 16. He was soon working as a hitman for the Buffalo crime family in their Northern Pennsylvania territory. During the 1930s, Joseph was arrested for several murders, including the 1933 murder of rival bootlegger Sam Wichner. Wichner had gone to Barbara’s […]
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Joseph Barondess
Joseph Barondess (1863 - 1928)
Joseph Barondess (July 3, 1867–June 19, 1928) was a labor leader and political figure in New York City’s Lower East Side Jewish community in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Known as the “King of the Cloakmakers”, whose union he led, he carried himself like an actor, a career he had tried but […]
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Joseph Bonanno
Joseph Bonanno (1905 - 2002)
Crime Figure. He immigrated to the United States in his 20s and began to work as a muscleman for the large New York gangs of era, most under Joseph (Joe the Boss) Masseria, and Salvatore Maranzano. When both were murdered in 1931, Bonanno was appointed as boss of the Brooklyn-based Bonnano Family, which he exerted […]
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Joseph Carter Abbott
Joseph Carter Abbott (1825 - 1881)
Abbott was born in Concord, New Hampshire, and graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1846, having studied there and under private auspices. He studied law at Concord, and was admitted to the bar in 1852. From 1852 to 1857, Abbott was the owner and editor of the Daily American newspaper, in Manchester, New […]