FOUND A GRAVE

Jim Fixx (1932 - 1984)

Born in New York City, Fixx was a graduate of Trinity School in New York and Oberlin College in Ohio. His father, Calvin Fixx, was an editor at Time who worked with Whittaker Chambers.  Fixx was a member of the high-IQ club, Mensa, and published three collections of puzzles: Games for the Super-Intelligent, More Games […]

Jim Foglesong (1922 - 2013)

Foglesong was born in Lundale, West Virginia. As a teenager, he sang on a local radio show and in quartets and trios into his young adult years. He began his career in the music industry at Columbia Records’ label in 1951, transferring 78 RPM records into LP formats. Over the next 20 years, he worked for RCA-Victor until moving to Nashville in 1970 to head the A&R division at Dot […]

Jim Fregosi (1942 - 2014)

A right-handed batter, Fregosi is one of many notable alumni of Junípero Serra High School of San Mateo, California, and was signed by the Boston Red Sox in 1960. The same year he was selected by the Angels in the 1960 MLB Expansion Draft, and made his debut in September 1961. After hitting .291 as […]

Jim Hager (1941 - 2008)

Jim Hager Musician, Entertainer. He, along with his twin brother Jon Hager, is best remembered as a regular cast performer on the television series “Hee Haw” that ran from 1969 until 1986, in which they were known for their rapid delivery of cornball one-liners. Born in Chicago, Illinois, he and his brother were adopted by […]

Jim Hall (1930 - 2013)

Born in Buffalo, New York, before moving to Cleveland, Ohio, Hall was from a musical family, his mother played the piano, his grandfather violin, and his uncle guitar. He began playing the guitar at age ten when his mother gave him an instrument as a Christmas present. As a teenager in Cleveland, he performed professionally, […]

Jim Henson (1936 - 1990)

Henson was born in Greenville, Mississippi, the younger of two boys. His parents were Betty Marcella (née Brown) and Paul Ransom Henson, an agronomist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He was raised as a Christian Scientist and spent his early childhood in Leland, Mississippi, before moving with his family to Hyattsville, Maryland, near Washington, D.C., in the late 1940s. He later remembered […]

Jim Jeffries (1875 - 1953)

Jim Jeffries James J. Jeffries was the heavyweight champion of the world from 1899 to 1905 but he is best known to history for coming out of retirement to take on Jack Johnson, the first African American heavyweight champion in history, in what was called “The Fight of the Century”. That fight ensured Jeffries’ place […]

Jim Lange (1932 - 2014)

Lange began his radio broadcasting career in the Twin Cities after winning an audition as a teenager. He graduated from St. Thomas Academy high school, going on to the University of Minnesota on a scholarship from the Evans Scholars Foundation. After graduating from the University of Minnesota and serving in the Marines, Lange moved to […]

Jim Morrison (1943 - 1971)

Jim Morrison Born on December 8, 1943, in Melbourne, Florida, Jim Morrison was an American rock singer and songwriter. He studied film at UCLA, where he met the members of what would become the Doors. Known for his drinking and drug use and outrageous stage behavior, in 1971 Morrison left the Doors to write poetry […]

Jim O Toole (1937 - 1970)

Jim O Toole  Jim O’Toole was born on January 10, 1937 on the South Side of Chicago.  He was one of five children and his father, a Chicago police officer, taught him boxing.  But Jim O’Toole  preferred baseball, which he learned on neighborhood sandlots growing up.  He had a tryout with his hometown Chicago White Sox […]

Jim Reeves (1923 - 1964)

Reeves was born in Galloway, Texas, a small rural community near Carthage. Winning an athletic scholarship to the University of Texas, he enrolled to study speech and drama, but quit after only six weeks to work in the shipyards in Houston. Soon he resumed baseball, playing in the semi-professional leagues before contracting with the St. Louis Cardinals “farm” team during 1944 […]

Jimi Hendrix (1942 - 1970)

James Marshall “Jimi” Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970) was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music, and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century. […]

Jimmy Dean (1928 - 2010)

Dean was born in Plainview, Texas, in 1928 the son of George Otto Dean, and his second wife Ruth (née Taylor) Dean. He attributed his interest in music to the Seth Ward Baptist Church. He dropped out of high school and became a professional entertainer after a stint in the Air Force in the late […]

Jimmy Ellis (1940 - 2014)

He was born one of ten children. Father Walter was a Pastor and Jimmy grew up a devout christian. As a teenager Ellis worked in a cement finishing factory. He also had an interest in music and became a good singer in the local Church choir, years later wife Mary would join him. He continued […]

Jimmy Hoffa (1913 - 1975)

Teamsters Leader. His death and burial have been in dispute for years.

Jimmy Hoffa (1913 - 1982)

Hoffa was born in Brazil, Indiana, to Indiana natives John and Viola (née Riddle) Hoffa. His ancestors were Pennsylvania Dutch. His father died in 1920 when Hoffa was seven years old, and the family moved to Detroit in 1924, where Hoffa was raised and lived the rest of his life. Hoffa left school at age […]

Jimmy Jewel (1909 - 1995)

The son of a comedian and actor who also used the stage name Jimmy Jewel, the youngster made his stage debut in Robinson Crusoe in Barnsley, at the age of four, performed with his father from the age of 10 and subsequently became stage manager for the family show.  When young Jimmy started his own […]

Jimmy MacDonald (1906 - 1991)

He was born in the family home at 268 West Street Crewe, Cheshire on May 19, 1906. His parents were Richard William MacDonald and Minnie Hall. The family emigrated to America when MacDonald was six months old. They travelled via the SS Haverford from Liverpool, England, arriving in Pennsylvania 15 days later.  As a young […]

Jimmy Martin (1927 - 2005)

Jimmy Martin Beginning in 1949 Martin was lead vocalist for Bill Monroe‘s “Bluegrass Boys,”. Martin’s high voice mixed with Monroe’s tenor came to be known as the “high lonesome” sound. His influence radically changed Monroe’s music from the fast-paced but smooth style of the “original” 1945 band with Flatt and Scruggs. Martin challenged Monroe to […]

Jimmy Wakely (1914 - 1982)

Jimmy Wakely Singer. Born James Clarence Wakely in Mineola, Arkansas, he was a country music entertainer and one of the last vocalists to make it in movies as a singing cowboy. In 1937, he formed The Bell Boys, a country Western singing group which toured and evolved into the Jimmy Wakely Trio and was featured […]

Jimmy Wilde (1892 - 1969)

Jimmy Wilde Born William James Wilde, Jimmy Wilde worked in the coal mines as a boy and started boxing at the age of sixteen in fairground booths where crowds were amazed by his toughness and ability to knock down much bigger opponents. Indeed throughout his career his opponents were usually larger and heavier than him. […]

Jo Ann Robinson (1912 - 1992)

Born near Culloden, Georgia, she was the youngest of twelve children. She attended Fort Valley State College and then became a public school teacher in Macon, where she was married to Wilbur Robinson for a short time. Five years later, she went to Atlanta, where she earned an M.A. in English at Atlanta University. After […]

Joan Blondell (1906 - 1979)

Joan Blondell Actress. In a fifty year career, Joan Blondell juggled a duel career while acting, dancing and singing in some 80 films, she had a very successful stage career with many appearance on Broadway. Her early acting demeanor was brassy, wisecracking and happy go lucky, but after leaving Warner Brothers, becoming an independent actress, […]

Joan Caulfield (1922 - 1991)

Born Beatrice Joan Caulfield while her family resided in East Orange, New Jersey, she moved to West Orange during childhood but continued attending Miss Beard’s School in Orange, New Jersey. During her teenage years, the family moved to New York City where Joan eventually attended Columbia University. Caulfield was the niece of Genevieve Caulfield, who received […]

Joan Crawford (1904 - 1977)

Crawford was born Lucille Fay LeSueur in San Antonio, Texas, the third child of Thomas E. LeSueur (January 21, 1868 – January 1, 1938), a laundry laborer of English and French Huguenot ancestry and Anna Bell Johnson (November 29, 1884 – August 15, 1958), Texas-born, of Swedish and Irish descent. Her elder siblings were Daisy […]

Joan Davis (1907 - 1961)

Joan Davis’ first film was a short subject for Educational Pictures called Way Up Thar (1935), featuring a then-unknown Roy Rogers. Educational’s distribution company, Twentieth Century-Fox, signed Davis for feature films. Tall and lanky, with a comically flat speaking voice, she became known as one of the few female physical clowns of her time. Perhaps […]

Joan Diener (1930 - 2006)

Joan Diener (February 24, 1930 – May 13, 2006) was an American theatre actress and singer with a three-and-a-half-octave range. Born in Columbus, Ohio, Joan Diener majored in psychology at Sarah Lawrence College and moonlighted as an actress while still a student. She made her Broadway debut in the 1948 revue Small Wonder, choreographed by Gower […]

Joan Fontaine (1917 - 2013)

Joan de Havilland was born in Tokyo, Japan, to English parents. Her father, Walter Augustus de Havilland (August 31, 1872 – May 23, 1968), was educated at the University of Cambridge and served as an English professor at the Imperial University in Tokyo before becoming a patent attorney with a practice in Japan. Her mother, […]

Joan Geraldine Bennett (1910 - 1990)

Actress. The youngest of the three acting daughters of prominent stage and screen star Richard Bennett, she was the last of the sisters to enter films seriously, but she had the longest and, in retrospect, the most meaningful career of any of her family. Joan, like Constance and Barbara, was a gorgeous woman, slender and […]

Joan Hackett (1934 - 1983)

Joan Hackett Joan Hackett was never one of your conventional leading ladies. Directors sometimes found her difficult to work with. Yet, this strong-minded perfectionist had an unquenchable individuality that came through in her performances and she never hesitated being unglamorous whenever the role demanded. Born of an Italian mother and an Irish-American father in East […]