Albert, Eddie (22 April 1906–26 May 2005), actor and environmental activist, was born Edward Albert Heimberger in Rock Island, Illinois, the son of Frank Daniel Heimberger, a realtor, and Julia Jones. At the age of one his family moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he attended parochial school before graduating from Central High School in 1924. He then entered the University of Minnesota where he majored in business and worked his way up to manager at the local theater. Young Eddie left school without graduating and worked a series of odd jobs before joining a singing trio that appeared on the local radio station. Tired of hearing his name mangled as “hamburger” he changed it to Eddie Albert, and after successfully auditioning at NBC he moved to New York with partner Grace Bradt to star in ...
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Albert, Eddie (1906-2005), actor and environmental activist
Edward L. Lach, Jr.
Article
Amory, Cleveland (02 September 1917–14 October 1998), writer and animal rights advocate
Ann T. Keene
Amory, Cleveland (02 September 1917–14 October 1998), writer and animal rights advocate, was born in Nahant, Massachusetts, the son of Robert Amory, a textile manufacturer, and his wife, Leonore Cobb Amory. Both parents were descendants of long-established upper-class families in Boston, where Cleveland grew up in a privileged household. He was educated at private schools, including Milton Academy, and enrolled at Harvard in 1935. After graduating four years later, he worked briefly as a reporter for the ...
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Amory, Cleveland (02 September 1917–14 October 1998)
In
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Baker, Josephine (1906-1975), dancer, singer, and civil rights activist
Patrick O’Connor
Baker, Josephine (03 June 1906–12 April 1975), dancer, singer, and civil rights activist, was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Eddie Carson, a musician, and Carrie Macdonald. Her parents parted when Josephine was still an infant, and her mother married Arthur Martin, which has led to some confusion about her maiden name. Very little is known about her childhood, except that she was a witness to the East St. Louis riot in 1917. This event was often a feature of her talks in the 1950s and 1960s about racism and the fight for equality, which fostered the oft-repeated assertion that the family was resident in East St. Louis. Before the age of eighteen Josephine had been married twice, first to Willie Wells and then to William Baker, to whom she was married in Camden, New Jersey, in September 1921....
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Baker, Josephine (1906-1975)
Maker: Carl Van Vechten
In
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Caras, Roger (1928-2001), animal rights activist, Hollywood executive, and naturalist
Richard Harmond
Caras, Roger (24 May 1928–18 February 2001), animal rights activist, Hollywood executive, and naturalist, was born in Methuen, a rural Massachusetts town around thirty miles north of Boston, the son of Jacob Caras, an insurance salesman, and Bessie Caras, an accountant. His affection for animals developed at an early age. At home he was exposed to dogs, cats, and canaries, and in the woods surrounding his house were raccoons, deer, opossums, and skunks. "Methuen was a wonderful place in which to learn and to explore," he recalled in his autobiography, ...
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Davis, Ossie (18 December 1917–4 February 2005)
Rowland Scherman
In
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
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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....
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Day, Doris (3 Apr. 1922–13 May 2019), singer, actress, and animal rights activist
Bruce J. Evensen
Day, Doris (3 Apr. 1922–13 May 2019), singer, actress, and animal rights activist was born Doris Mary Anne von Kappelhoff to Alma Sophia (Welz) von Kappelhoff, a stage mother, and Joseph von Kappelhoff, a music teacher and remote father, in Cincinnati.
In 1935...
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Dee, Ruby (27 Oct. 1922–11 June 2014), actor, author, and civil rights activist
Andrea Egan Weever
Dee, Ruby (27 Oct. 1922–11 June 2014), actor, author, and civil rights activist, was born Ruby Anne Wallace in Cleveland, Ohio, to Edward Nathaniel Wallace, who held various positions with the Pennsylvania Railroad, and Gladys Hightower. When the unstable Gladys left the family, her father married Emma Amelia Benson, a former teacher....
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Fleming, Rhonda (10 August 1923–14 October 2020), actress and philanthropist
Bruce J. Evensen
Fleming, Rhonda (10 August 1923–14 October 2020), actress and philanthropist, was born Marilyn Cheverton Louis in Los Angeles and raised in Hollywood, the second of two daughters of Effie Olivia Graham Louis, an actress and former Manhattan model, and Harold Cheverton Louis, an insurance broker....
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Furness, Betty (1916-1994), actress, product spokesperson, and consumer advocate
Donna L. Halper
Furness, Betty (03 January 1916–02 April 1994), actress, product spokesperson, and consumer advocate, was born Elizabeth Mary (Betty) Furness in New York City to George Choate Furness, an executive with the Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation, and Florence Sturtevant, who later became an interior decorator. Betty was educated at New York City’s elite Brearley School and then attended the Bennett School for Girls in Millbrook, New York, where one of her classmates predicted she would become an actress. That prophecy made sense because Betty had long shown an interest in performing. Her introduction to the media came at age seven, when she accompanied her father to the studio to watch him produce informational radio talks about the care and use of batteries. She got her first job at age fourteen, modeling for the John Robert Powers Modeling Agency during summer vacation. Several years later she caught the eye of a well-known photographer named Hal Phyfe, who was taking graduation pictures at the Bennett School. He too was impressed by how personable and photogenic she was, and he made sure her photos got to the right people....
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Green, Ely (11 September 1893–27 April 1968), author, Black activist, and clairvoyant
Arthur Ben Chitty
Green, Ely (11 September 1893–27 April 1968), author, Black activist, and clairvoyant, was born near Sewanee, Tennessee, the son of a college student, Edward H. Wicks, later a Texas attorney, and Lena Green, a fourteen-year-old kitchen servant and daughter of a privy cleaner who had been enslaved. In Green’s own words, he “was a half-white bastard.” His mother died when he was eight. He was reared by Mattie Davis, a sympathetic neighbor who worked as a domestic. He did not finish the second grade but was largely self-taught. His phenomenal vocabulary came about because, so he said, “I studied from every man who would talk to me.”...
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Johnson, Osa (1894-1953), author, lecturer, and film producer
Dennis Wepman
Johnson, Osa (14 March 1894–07 January 1953), author, lecturer, and film producer, was born Osa Helen Leighty in Chanute, Kansas, the daughter of William Sherman Leighty, a railroad engineer, and Ruby Isabel Holman. In 1910 she left high school to marry Martin Johnson, whom she had met eleven years earlier when he visited Chanute as an eighteen-year-old itinerant photographer. In the meantime he had visited Europe alone and traveled with ...
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La Follette, Fola (1882-1970), actress and feminist
Kate Wittenstein
La Follette, Fola (10 September 1882–17 February 1970), actress and feminist, was born in Madison, Wisconsin, the daughter of Robert Marion La Follette, a progressive politician, and Belle Case La Follette, a lawyer and suffragist. Though named Flora at birth, she used her childhood nickname throughout her life. A history major at the University of Wisconsin (1900–1904), La Follette studied under historian of the American West ...
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Lewisohn, Irene (1892-1944), theater patron and practitioner and philanthropist
Anne Fletcher
Lewisohn, Irene (05 September 1892–04 April 1944), theater patron and practitioner and philanthropist, was born in New York City, the daughter of Rosalie Jacobs and Leonard Lewisohn, a German-Jewish immigrant who made his fortune in the mining and processing of copper and other minerals. The deaths of Lewisohn’s parents before she was ten years old left her older sister Alice and her with considerable wealth—and the social burden of such wealth. The daughter of a philanthropist, Lewisohn was impressed by the Henry Street Settlement, one of her father’s causes. After attending the Finch School in New York, she studied dance independently and eventually found her calling in the unique combination of social service and the arts....
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McCann, Alfred Watterson (1879-1931), journalist, radio commentator, and crusader for pure food
Edward E. Adams
McCann, Alfred Watterson (09 January 1879–19 January 1931), journalist, radio commentator, and crusader for pure food, was born in Pittsburgh, the son of Michael McCann, a printer and engraver, and Maria (maiden name unknown). He attended the University of Chicago and was graduated in 1899 from Pittsburgh’s Duquesne University, where he accepted a faculty position teaching English and mathematics after graduation. In 1905 he married Mary Carmody of Pittsburgh; they had five children....
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Newman, Paul (26 January 1925–26 September 2008)
Bernard Gotfryd
In
Paul Newman at United Nations, NY, 23 May 1978, by Bernard Gotfryd
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
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Newman, Paul (26 January 1925–26 September 2008), iconic Oscar-winning actor and philanthropist
Bruce J. Evensen
Newman, Paul (26 January 1925–26 September 2008), iconic Oscar-winning actor and philanthropist, was born Paul Leonard Newman in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, the second son of Teresa Garth Fetzko Newman, a Slovak Roman Catholic, and Arthur Sigmund Newman, a German Jew, who owned a sporting goods and electronics store....
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Reeve, Christopher (25 Sept. 1952–10 Oct. 2004), actor and spinal cord injury activist
Bruce J. Evensen
Reeve, Christopher (25 Sept. 1952–10 Oct. 2004), actor and spinal cord injury activist, was born Christopher D’Olier Reeve, the oldest of two sons born in New York City to Barbara Pitney (Lamb) Reeve, a journalist, and Franklin d’Olier Reeve, a poet and Russian scholar....
