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Benny McCrary (1946 - 2001)

Benny McCrary Entertainer. Born in Hendersonville, North Carolina, he along with his brother Billy, were identical twins. At 743 and 723 pounds and having 84 inch waists, the brothers were discovered by Life Magazine. They entered show business as carnival performers and appeared in Las Vegas, Nevada, where they were in a act playing the […]

Berenice Abbott (1898 - 1991)

Abbott was born in Springfield, Ohio and brought up there by her divorced mother. She attended the Ohio State University, but left in early 1918.  In 1918 she moved with friends from OSU to New York’s Greenwich Village, where she was ‘adopted’ by the anarchist Hippolyte Havel. She shared an apartment on Greenwich Avenue with […]

Bernard Bresslaw (1934 - 1993)

Bernard Bresslaw was born the youngest of three boys into a Jewish family in Stepney, London, on 25 February 1934. He attended the Coopers’ Company’s School in Tredegar Square, Bow, London E3. His father was a tailor’s cutter and he became interested in acting after visits to the Hackney Empire. London County Council awarded him […]

Bernard Miles (1907 - 1991)

Bernard Miles, Baron Miles of Blackfriars, CBE (27 September 1907 – 14 June 1991) was an English character actor, writer and director. He opened the Mermaid Theatre in London in 1959, the first new theatre opened in the City of London since the 17th century. Miles was born in Uxbridge, Middlesex and attended Bishopshalt School in […]

Bernice Gera (1931 - 1992)

Bernice Shiner Gera (June 15, 1931 – September 23, 1992) was the first female umpire in professional baseball.  Born in Ernest, Pennsylvania, Gera loved baseball as a child, but never considered a career in baseball until she was already in her mid thirties, married, and working as a secretary. According to a Time Magazine article, […]

Bernie Mac (1957 - 2008)

Bernie Mac Mac was born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough in Chicago, Illinois on October 5, 1957. He was raised on the city’s South Side by his single mother, Mary, who died of cancer when he was 16 years old in his sophomore year of high school.  He put on shows for neighborhood kids on the South […]

Berry Kroeger (1912 - 1991)

Berry Kroeger (October 16, 1912 – January 4, 1991) was an American film, television, and stage actor. Born in San Antonio, Texas, Kroeger got his acting start on radio as an announcer on Suspense and as an actor, playing for a time The Falcon in the radio series Kroeger was a regular as Sam Williams on […]

Bert Convy (1933 - 1991)

Convy was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Monica (née Whalen) and Bernard Fleming Convy. Convy’s family moved to Los Angeles when he was seven years old. He later attended North Hollywood High School where he was an all-around athlete. He was signed by the Philadelphia Phillies when he was just 17, playing […]

Bert Freed (1919 - 1994)

Born and raised in The Bronx, New York, Freed began acting while attending Penn State University, and made his Broadway debut in 1942. Following World War II Army service in the European Theatre, he appeared in the Broadway musical The Day Before Spring in 1945 and dozens of television shows between 1947 and 1985. His […]

Bert Lance (1931 - 2013)

Lance was born in Gainesville, Georgia. His father, Thomas Jackson Lance, had served as president of Young Harris College in northeast Georgia, and in 1941 the family relocated to Calhoun, in Gordon County, when Lance’s father became superintendent of that city’s schools. Lance graduated from the University of Georgia in 1951. While a student at […]

Bert Sugar (1937 - 2012)

Born in Washington, D.C., Sugar graduated from the University of Maryland. He earned a JD and MBA from the University of Michigan in 1961. After passing the bar exam, he worked in the advertising business in New York City for ten years. During his time in the advertising business, he worked at several different agencies, […]

Bert Sugar (1937 - 2012)

Bert Sugar Bert Sugar, boxing’s human encyclopedia, a prolific writer and editor and a flamboyant and ubiquitous presence in the world of the ring, died on Sunday in Mount Kisco, N.Y. He was 75. He had lung cancer and died of cardiac arrest at Northern Westchester Hospital, his daughter, Jennifer Frawley, said. The author or […]

Bert Wood Abbey (1869 - 1962)

Abbey first began playing baseball as a freshman in college when he recruited fellow students to form the Vermont Catamounts (UVM) team. At UVM, he made the baseball and training program progress fast with his presence as player, coach and captain. He graduated in 1891 from UVM and the year after, Abbey’s team at the […]

Beryl Reid (1919 - 1996)

Born in Hereford, England in 1919, Reid was the daughter of Scottish parents, and grew up in Manchester, where she attended Withington and Levenshulme High Schools. Leaving school at 16, she made her debut in 1936 as a music hall performer at the Floral Hall, Bridlington. Before and during World War II, she took part in […]

Bess Truman (1885 - 1982)

Bess Truman was born Elizabeth Virginia Wallace on February 13, 1885, to David Willock Wallace (1860–1903) and his wife, the former Margaret Elizabeth Gates (1862–1952), in Independence, Missouri, and was known as Bessie during her childhood. She was the eldest of four; three brothers: Frank Gates Wallace, (4 March 1887 – 12 August 1960), George […]

Bessie Smith (1894 - 1937)

Bessie Smith Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s. She is often regarded as one of the greatest singers of her era and, along with Louis Armstrong, a major influence on other jazz vocalists. On September 26, 1937, Smith was critically injured in a car accident while traveling along […]

Betsy Blair (1923 - 2009)

Actress. She won a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award, and received an Oscar nomination, for the 1955 film “Marty”. Born Elizabeth Winifred Boger, she was raised in northern New Jersey and had decided on a show business career by age eight. At 12, she was a professional model; graduating from high […]

Betsy Palmer (1926 - 2015)

Palmer was born Patricia Betsy Hrunek in East Chicago, Indiana, the daughter of Marie (née Love), who launched the Chicago Business College, and Rudolph Vincent Hrunek, an industrial chemist who was an immigrant from Czechoslovakia. She graduated from DePaul University, where she studied theater. Palmer married Dr. Vincent J. Merendino on May 8, 1954; the […]

Betsy von Furstenberg (1931 - 2015)

Betsy von Furstenberg was born Elizabeth Caroline Maria Agatha Felicitas Therese, Freiin von Fürstenberg-Herdringen in Arnsberg. Her parents were Franz-Egon, Graf (Count) von Fürstenberg-Herdringen (1896–1975) and his first wife, Elizabeth Foster Johnson (1899–1961), a native of Memphis, Tennessee. Her stepmothers were Gloria Rubio, Clara Ghyczy, and Joan Siegel. She has two half siblings from her father’s […]

Bette Davis (1908 - 1989)

Ruth Elizabeth Davis, known from early childhood as “Betty,” was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, at 55 Cedar Street, the daughter of Ruth Augusta “Ruthie” (née Favor), born in Tyngsboro, Massachusetts, and Harlow Morrell Davis, a law student born in Augusta, Maine. Her sister, Barbara Harriet “Bobby”, was born October 25, 1909 at 55 Ward Street […]

Bette Davis (1908 - 1989)

Bette Davis At age ten her parents divorced and she was raised by her mother after a move to New York City. She began her career on Broadway. Bette Davis appeared in over 100 films receiving two Oscars, 10 nominations and three Emmy awards. A few of her major motion pictures: “Dangerous (Oscar winner) Jezebel […]

Bettie Page (1923 - 2008)

Bettie Page Page was born in Nashville, Tennessee, the second of six children to Walter Roy Page and Edna Mae Pirtle. At a young age, Page had to face the responsibilities of caring for her younger siblings. Her parents divorced when she was 10 years old. (In the 1930 Census, a few weeks before Bettie’s […]

Betty Compson (1897 - 1974)

Compson began in silents with her first film in November 1915. She made 41 films in 1916 alone, although all of them were shorts for Al Christie with the exception of one feature Almost a Widow. She continued this pace of making numerous short films well into the middle of 1918 when after a long […]

Betty Driver (1920 - 2011)

At the age of 8, Betty Driver began performing professionally, forced by her mother to appear with Terence Byron Repertory Theatre Company.[4] She was singing for the BBC by the age of 10 and began touring across the UK in her first revue at the age of 12. While performing in London at the age […]

Betty Field (1913 - 1973)

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, to George and Katharine (née Lynch) Field, Betty Field began her acting career on the London stage in Howard Lindsay’s farce, She Loves Me Not. Following its run she returned to the United States and appeared in several stage successes, before making her film debut in 1939. Her role as Mae, […]

Betty Ford (1918 - 2011)

She was born Elizabeth Ann Bloomer in 1918 in Chicago, Illinois, the third child and only daughter of Hortense (née Neahr; July 11, 1884 – November 20, 1948) and William Stephenson Bloomer, Sr. (July 19, 1874 – July 18, 1934), who was a traveling salesman for Royal Rubber Co. She was called Betty as a child. Hortense and William married on Nov […]

Betty Grable (1916 - 1973)

Betty Grable During her lifetime, she would become one of the most prolific singing actresses of her time, starring in over one hundred films, including ‘Pin Up Girl’ and ‘How To Marry A Millionaire’. In 1929, the Grable family went on holiday to California, and Lilian, Betty’s Mother, decided that she and her daughter should […]

Betty Hutton (1921 - 2007)

Betty Hutton Ms. Hutton, a brassy, energetic performer with a voice that could sound like a fire alarm, had the lead role in the 1950 film version of Irving Berlin’s “Annie Get Your Gun” and a starring role in Cecil B. DeMille’s 1952 spectacular, “The Greatest Show on Earth.” She was known for her renditions […]

Betty Lou Beets (1937 - 2000)

Born Betty Lou Dunevant to Margaret Louise Smithwick (April 20, 1917 – June 16, 1993) and James Garland Dunevant (September 15, 1912 – February 14, 2003), Beets was hearing-impaired since her childhood and claimed she was sexually abused by her father. According to her supporters, all of her marriages were also plagued with sexual abuse […]

Betty Ross Clarke (1892 - 1970)

Betty Ross Clarke was born May Clarke on May 1, 1892, in Langdon, North Dakota, the daughter of Charles Willard Clarke and Cora Ross. Her maternal grandfather was Leonard F. Ross, a brigadier general in the American Civil War, and her maternal great-grandfather was Ossian M. Ross, a prominent pioneer settler in Illinois who founded […]