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Richard Jeni (1957 - 2007)

Richard Jeni was raised in an Italian-American Roman Catholic family in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. He graduated with honors from Hunter College, earning a bachelor’s degree in comparative politics. After graduating, Jeni went on to do public relations work, but was let go from five different firms in two years before doing an open-mic night in Brooklyn […]

George Cole (1925 - 2015)

George Cole was born in Tooting, London. He was given up for adoption at ten days old and adopted by George and Florence Cole, Tooting council employee and cleaner respectively. He attended secondary school in nearby Morden. He left school at 14 to be a butcher’s boy, and had an ambition to join the Merchant […]

Natalie Cole (1950 - 2015)

Natalie Cole Natalie Cole, the award-winning singer and daughter of jazz legend Nat King Cole, has died. Cole, whose hits included This Will Be and Unforgettable, died aged 65 on Thursday night, according to her publicist Maureen O’Connor. Her family said she died at Cedars-Sinai medical centre in Los Angeles due to complications from ongoing […]

Carroll Cole (1938 - 1985)

Carroll Cole was born in Sioux City, Iowa, the second son of LaVerne and Vesta Cole. His younger sister was born in 1939 and soon afterwards, his family moved to California, where LaVerne found work in a shipyard. Not long after that, LaVern went to fight in World War II. While his father was away, […]

Kim Hunter (1922 - 2002)

Hunter was born Janet Cole in Detroit, Michigan, the daughter of Grace Lind, who was trained as a concert pianist, and Donald Cole, a refrigeration engineer. She attended Miami Beach High School. Hunter’s first film role was in the 1943 film noir, The Seventh Victim. In 1947, she performed in the original Broadway production of A […]

Jerry Coleman (1924 - 2014)

Born in San Jose, California, Coleman graduated from Lowell High School, then spent his entire playing career with the New York Yankees. He played six years in the Yankees’ minor league system before reaching the big club in 1949. Coleman hit .275 in his first year and led all second basemen in fielding percentage. He […]

Nancy Coleman (1912 - 2000)

Nancy Coleman (December 30, 1912 – January 18, 2000) was an American film, television and radio actress. After working on radio and appearing on the Broadway stage, Nancy Coleman was brought to Hollywood to work for Warner Bros. studios. She attended the University of Washington where she was a member of the Alpha Lambda chapter […]

Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873 - 1954)

Colette was born to retired military officer Jules-Joseph Colette and his wife Adèle Eugénie Sidonie “Sido” Colette (nėe Landoy) in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye, Yonne, in the Burgundy Region of France. She studied piano as a child and received her primary school diploma with high marks in mathematics and dictation. In 1893, at age 20, she married Henry […]

Peter Coll (1970 - 1931)

Gangster. He was a foot soldier in his brother, Vincent ‘Mad Dog’ Coll’s army.

Vincent Coll (1908 - 1932)

Organized Crime Figure. An Irish-born gangster in New York City, he regaled in the media attention for his violent activities, preferring short-term, violent solutions to his problems with gang rivalry. His attacks on the major New York City gangs left him with the nickname “Mad Dog,” for daring to take on the other mobsters. In […]

Minnie Pearl (1912 - 1996)

Sarah Colley was born in Centerville, in Hickman County, Tennessee, about 50 miles (80 km) southwest of Nashville. She was the youngest of the five daughters of a prosperous lumberman in Centerville. She graduated from Ward-Belmont College (now Belmont University), at the time Nashville’s most prestigious school for young ladies, where her major was theater studies and dance was a particular interest. After graduation […]

Ann Miller (1923 - 2004)

Johnnie Lucille Collier was born in Chireno, Texas to Clara Emma (née Birdwell) and John Alfred Collier, a criminal lawyer who represented the Barrow Gang, Machine Gun Kelly, and Baby Face Nelson, among others.  Her maternal grandmother was Cherokee. Miller’s father insisted on the name Johnnie because he had wanted a boy, but she was […]

Patricia Collinge (1892 - 1974)

Eileen Cecilia Collinge was born in Dublin, Ireland to F. Channon Collinge and Emmie (née Russell) Collinge. Patricia Collinge was educated first by a visiting governess and then at a girls’ school. She took dancing and piano lessons none of which interested her. She finally settled on being an actress. She made her first stage […]

Jackie Collins (1937 - 2015)

Collins was born in 1937 in Hampstead, London, the younger daughter of Elsa (née Bessant) Collins (died 1962) and Joseph William Collins (died 1988), a theatrical agent whose clients later included Shirley Bassey, the Beatles and Tom Jones.  Collins’ South African-born father was Jewish and her British mother was Anglican. A middle child, Collins had […]

Lewis Collins (1946 - 2013)

The son of Bill Collins, a shipwright and amateur musician who played the piano in local clubs with the Savoy Swingers band, Lewis was born in Bidston, Birkenhead on the Wirral Peninsula (then part of Cheshire). Aged two, he won the Most Beautiful Baby in Liverpool contest. He was educated at Bidston Primary and Grange […]

Peter Collinson (1936 - 1980)

Peter Collinson was born in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire in 1936. His parents, an actress and a musician, separated when he was two years old; he was raised by his grandparents. From ages eight to 14 he attended the Actor’s Orphanage in Chertsey, Surrey where he had the chance to write and act in many plays. Noël […]

Ronald Colman (1891 - 1958)

He was born in Richmond, Surrey, England, as Ronald Charles Colman, the second son and fourth child of Charles Colman and his wife Marjory Read Fraser. His siblings included Eric, Edith and Marjorie. He was educated at boarding school in Littlehampton, where he discovered that he enjoyed acting, despite his shyness. He intended to study […]

Booth Colman (1923 - 2014)

Booth Colman (March 8, 1923 – December 15, 2014) was an American film, television and stage actor. In his later years he played older authority figures such as doctors and lawyers. Colman appeared in films since 1952, when he appeared uncredited in The Big Sky directed by Howard Hawks. Booth Colman was born in Portland, Oregon. […]

Joe Colombo (1923 - 1978)

Organized Crime Figure. He was the head of the Colombo crime family (named after him) from 1963 until he was shot in the head and critically wounded at a rally for the Italian American Civil Rights League (which he started) at Columbus Circle in New York City, New York on June 28, 1971. His shooting […]

Jim Colosimo (1877 - 1920)

Organized Crime Figure. Colosimo was ten years old when he left Italy with his family destined for Chicago. As a teenager he began supplementing his income with thievery, including pickpocketing, and by the time he was 18 he began engaging prostitutes to work for him. Early in his career he took up the Italian practice […]

Charles Colson (1931 - 2012)

Charles “Chuck” Wendell Colson (October 16, 1931 – April 21, 2012) was an Evangelical Christian leader who founded Prison Fellowship and BreakPoint. Prior to his conversion to Christianity, he served as Special Counsel to President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1973.  Once known as President Nixon’s “hatchet man,” Colson gained notoriety at the height of […]

John Coltrane (1926 - 1967)

John Coltrane John William Coltrane, also known as “Trane” (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967), was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and was later at the forefront of free jazz. He organized […]

Christopher Columbus (1970 - 1506)

Christopher Columbus (born between 31 October 1450 and 30 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a Genoese explorer, navigator, and colonizer, born in the Republic of Genoa (today part of Italy). Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean. Those voyages, and his efforts to […]

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 […]

Barbara Billingsley (1915 - 2010)

Barbara Billingsley Barbara Billingsley, who wore a classy pearl necklace and dispensed pearls of wisdom as America’s quintessential mom on “Leave it to Beaver,” has died at age 94, a family spokeswoman said Saturday. The actress passed away at 2 a.m. (5 a.m. ET) Saturday at her home in Santa Monica, California, after a long […]

Ray Combs (1956 - 1996)

Ray Combs Ray Combs, the 40-year-old former host of TV’s “The New Family Feud” game show, committed suicide, dying Sunday at Glendale Adventist Hospital a day after he had been admitted for an unrelated head injury, authorities said. Neither hospital officials nor Glendale police, who are investigating along with the county coroner’s office, would say […]

Luigi Comencini (1916 - 2007)

Luigi Comencini (Italian pronunciation: [luˈiːdʒi komenˈtʃiːni]; 8 June 1916 – 6 April 2007) was an Italian film director. Together with Dino Risi, Ettore Scola and Mario Monicelli, Luigi Comencini was considered among the masters of the commedia all’italiana genre. His first successful movie was L’imperatore di Capri, featuring Totò. Comencini’s 1953 Pane, amore e fantasia, […]

Dorothy Comingore (1913 - 1971)

Born Margaret Louise Comingore in Los Angeles, California, Dorothy Comingore was discovered by Charles Chaplin when she was acting in a small playhouse in Carmel. Comingore played bit parts in Hollywood movies until Orson Welles cast her as Susan Alexander Kane|Susan Alexander, the second wife of press tycoon Charles Foster Kane, in his debut feature film […]

Barry Commoner (1917 - 2012)

Commoner was born in Brooklyn, New York, on May 28, 1917, the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia. He received his bachelor’s degree in zoology from Columbia University in 1937 and his master’s and doctoral degrees from Harvard University in 1938 and 1941, respectively.  After serving as a lieutenant in the United States Navy during […]

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 […]