Ossie Davis speaking at the Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C., 1963, by Rowland Scherman
U.S. Information Agency. Press and Publications Service. ca. 1953–ca. 1978
Image
Davis, Ossie (18 December 1917–4 February 2005)
Rowland Scherman
In
Article
Davis, Ossie (18 December 1917–4 February 2005), actor, playwright, author, director, civil rights activist, and humanitarian
Margena A. Christian
Davis, Ossie (18 December 1917–4 February 2005), actor, playwright, author, director, civil rights activist, and humanitarian, was born Raiford Chatman Davis in Cogdell, Georgia. He was the oldest of five siblings. His father, Kince Charles Davis, was a self-taught railway and construction engineer. His mother, Laura Cooper, was a homemaker. She called him “RC” for short, but others misconstrued her pronunciation as “Ossie.” His family was impoverished, and although both parents were illiterate, they stressed the importance of education through oral tradition with storytelling....
Article
Ford, Paul Leicester (1865-1902), historian and novelist
Charles W. Carey , Jr.
Ford, Paul Leicester (23 March 1865–08 May 1902), historian and novelist, was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Gordon Lester Ford, a businessman and political figure, and Emily Ellsworth Fowler, a poet. As a baby Ford suffered a tragic fall that left him with a severely deformed spine, the pain from which would plague him all his life. Moreover, the nature of the injury dictated that Ford wear a special harness as a child. As a result he received very little formal schooling; instead, he was tutored at home and allowed the free run of his father’s private library of more than 50,000 volumes, including perhaps the largest private collection of Americana in the world. At age eleven he acquired a small printing press, with which he began publishing compilations of historical material gleaned from his father’s library....
Article
Micheaux, Oscar (1884-1951), novelist and motion picture producer
Charlene B. Regester
Micheaux, Oscar (02 January 1884–25 March 1951), novelist and motion picture producer, was born near Cairo, Illinois, the son of Calvin Swan Micheaux and Belle Willingham, farmers. This information derives in part from Oscar Micheaux’s death certificate and in part from his semiautobiographical work of fiction, ...
Article
Renoir, Jean (1894-1979), film director, novelist, and playwright
Leo Braudy
Renoir, Jean (15 September 1894–12 February 1979), film director, novelist, and playwright, was born in Paris, France, the son of Pierre Auguste Renoir, an impressionist painter, and Aline Charigot. Raised in Paris and Provence, Renoir graduated college in 1913 and became a cavalry officer. With the outbreak of World War I, he went to the front as a second lieutenant, was wounded, and later served as an aerial reconnaissance pilot. Shortly after his father’s death, in 1920 he married Andrée Heuschling, one of Pierre Auguste’s models who soon after, as Catherine Hessling, became the star of Jean’s earliest films. Renoir and Hessling had one child before they separated in the early 1930s....
Article
Spillane, Mickey (9 Mar. 1918–17 July 2006), crime novelist and actor
Dennis Wepman
Spillane, Mickey (9 Mar. 1918–17 July 2006), crime novelist and actor, was born Frank Morrison Spillane in Brooklyn, New York, the only child of John Joseph Spillane, a bartender, and Catherine Anne Morrison. Nicknamed “Mickey” by his Irish American father, he was brought up in what he remembered as “a very tough neighborhood” in Elizabeth, New Jersey. An avid reader—he later claimed to have read all of Melville and Dumas by the time he was eleven—he also started writing stories of his own. He published in the ...
Article
Wilder, Gene (11 June 1933–29 Aug. 2016), actor, writer, director, and novelist
Bruce J. Evensen
Wilder, Gene (11 June 1933–29 Aug. 2016), actor, writer, director, and novelist, was born Jerome “Jerry” Silberman in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Velvel (William) Silberman, a Jewish salesman who emigrated from Russia, and Jeanne (Baer) Silberman, from a Polish Jewish family in Chicago.
Jerry became a comedian when he was eight, hoping to make his mother laugh as she recovered from her first heart attack. “If my mother hadn’t laughed, I probably wouldn’t be a comic actor” (...
