Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Lauren Bacall

Lauren Bacall (born Betty Joan Perske; September 16, 1924) is an American film and stage actress and model, known for her husky voice and sultry looks.

She is perhaps best known for being a film noir leading lady in such films as The Big Sleep (1946) and Dark Passage (1947), as well as a comedienne, as seen in 1953's How to Marry a Millionaire and 1957's Designing Woman. Bacall also enjoyed Tony-winning success in the Broadway musicals Applause in 1970 and Woman of the Year in 1981. Her performance in the movie The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996) earned her a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination.

In 1999, Bacall was ranked as one of the 25 actresses on the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars list by the American Film Institute. In 2009, she was selected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to receive an Academy Honorary Award at the inaugural Governors Awards.

Early life

Born in New York City, Bacall was the only child of Natalie Weinstein-Bacal, a secretary who later legally changed her surname to Bacall, and William Perske, who worked in sales. Her parents were Jewish immigrants, their families having come from Poland, Romania and Germany. She is a cousin of Shimon Peres, current President and former Prime Minister of Israel.[ Her parents divorced when she was five, and she took her mother's last name, Bacall. Bacall no longer saw her father and formed a close bond with her mother, whom she took with her to California when she became a movie star.

Tina Louise

Tina Louise (born February 11, 1934) is the stage name of Tina Blacker, an American actor, singer and author. She is best known for her role as "movie star" Ginger Grant on the TV sitcom Gilligan's Island. She is Jewish.

Early life

Louise was born Tina Blacker in New York City. She was raised by her mother, Betty Horn, who at the time was a beautiful fashion model. The name "Louise" was added during her senior year in high school when she mentioned to her drama teacher that she was the only girl in the class without a middle name. He immediately picked the name "Louise" and it stuck. She attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. At the age of 17, Louise began studying acting, singing and dancing. During her early acting years, she was offered modeling jobs and appeared on the cover of several pinup magazines such as Adam, Sir! and Modern Man. Her later pictorials for Playboy (May 1958, April 1959) were arranged by Columbia Pictures studio in an effort to further promote the young actress. Her acting debut came in 1952 in the Bette Davis musical revue Two's Company, followed by roles in other Broadway productions, such as John Murray Anderson's Almanac, The Fifth Season, and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?. She also appeared in such early live TV dramas as Studio One, Producers' Showcase, and Appointment with Adventure.

In 1957, she and Julie Newmar appeared on Broadway in the hit musical Li'l Abner. Her album It's Time for Tina was also released that year, with songs such as "Embraceable You" and "I'm in the Mood for Love."
[edit] Hollywood & Gilligan's Island

Louise made her Hollywood film debut in 1958 in God's Little Acre. She became an in-demand leading lady for major stars like Robert Taylor, Richard Widmark and Robert Ryan, often playing somber roles quite unlike the glamorous pinup photographs and Playboy pictorials she had become famous for in the late 1950s. Further roles followed, on Broadway and in Italian cinema and Hollywood. Among her more notable Italian film credits was the historical epic Garibaldi (1960), directed by Roberto Rossellini, that concerned Garibaldi's efforts to unify the Italian states in 1860.

When Louise returned to the United States, she began studying with Lee Strasberg and eventually became a member of the Actors Studio. She appeared in the 1964 Beach party film For Those Who Think Young, with Bob Denver, prior to the development of Gilligan's Island.

In 1964, she left the Broadway musical Fade Out - Fade In to portray movie star Ginger Grant on the TV sitcom Gilligan's Island, after the part was turned down by Jayne Mansfield. However, she was unhappy with the role and worried that it would typecast her. The role did make Louise a pop icon of the era, and in 2005 an episode of TV Land Top Ten ranked her as second only to Heather Locklear as the greatest of television's all-time sex symbols.

After the series ended in 1967, Louise continued to work in film and made numerous guest appearances in various television series. She appeared in the Matt Helm spy spoof The Wrecking Crew (1969) with Dean Martin. Louise played a doomed suburban housewife in the original The Stepford Wives (1975), and both the film and her performance were well received.

She attempted to shed her comedic image by essaying grittier roles, including a guest appearance as a pathetic heroin addict in a 1974 Kojak episode, as well as a co-starring role as an evil Southern prison guard in the 1976 ABC TV Movie Nightmare in Badham County. Her other TV movies of the period included Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby (1976), SST: Death Flight (1977), and Friendships Secrets and Lies (1979).

The question "Ginger or Mary Ann?" is regarded to be a classic pop-psychological question when given to American men of a certain age as an insight into their characters, or at least their desires as regarding certain female stereotypes.

Sherwood Charles Schwartz

Sherwood Charles Schwartz (born November 14, 1916) is an American television producer. He worked on radio shows in the 1940s, and created the television series Gilligan's Island on CBS and The Brady Bunch on ABC. On March 7, 2008, Schwartz, still active in his 90s, was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Life and career

Schwartz's entertainment career came "by accident". He relocated from New York to southern California to pursue a master of science degree in biology. In need of employment, he began writing jokes for Bob Hope's radio program, for which Schwartz's brother, Al Schwartz, worked. Schwartz recalled that Hope "liked my jokes, used them on his show and got big laughs. Then he asked me to join his writing staff. I was faced with a major decision — writing comedy or starving to death while I cured those diseases. I made a quick career change."

He went on to write for Ozzie Nelson's The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and other radio shows.

He was a writer on the Armed Forces Radio Network before he got his big break in television.

TV appearances

During the late 1990s and the 2000s, he has made many appearances on TV talking about his series, on shows such as the CBS Evening News, 20/20, TV Land's Top Ten and A&E's Biography. He also took part in a "Creators" marathon on Nick at Nite in the late 1990s.[3] He was also a guest at the 2004 TV Land Awards.

In 1988 Schwartz appeared on The Late Show with Ross Shafer for a Gilligan's Island reunion, along with all seven castaways from Gilligan's Island. This was the last time they were all together on television; castaways Jim Backus, Natalie Schafer, Bob Denver, and Alan Hale, Jr. have since died.

Personal life

Schwartz was born in Passaic, New Jersey. He is Jewish.

In his 1988 book Inside Gilligan's Island, he mentions he did not get along well with Red Skelton. In his early years as head writer it was in his contract that Schwartz would not have to meet face-to-face with Skelton. He named his daughter "Hope" after Bob Hope, whom he had good relations with. He is the father of Lloyd J. Schwartz, creator of The Munsters Today.

The Ames Brothers

The Ames Brothers were a singing quartet from Malden, Massachusetts, who were particularly famous in the 1950s for their traditional pop music hits.

The Ames Brothers got their beginning in Malden, where all four were born. The act consisted of brothers Joe (3 May 1921 – 22 December 2007), Gene (born 13 February 1923 – 4 April 1997), Vic (20 May 1925 – 23 January 1978) and Ed (born 9 July 1927).

Born into a non-professional but musically talented family, the boys were brought up on classical and operatic music. Their parents, David and Sarah Urick, were Russian Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine who read Shakespeare and semi-classics to their nine children from the time they were old enough to listen.

The brothers formed a quartet with a cousin named Lennie, and had been touring United States Army and Navy bases entertaining the troops and were offered a job at The Fox and Hounds nightclub, one of the fanciest clubs in Boston. This one week engagement turned into several months when the word got around of their appearance. At the time, they were going by the name of the Amory Brothers, a name taken from Vic's middle name and they were becoming quite popular in the area. It was at this time that Joe decided to rejoin the group. He said they were just having too much fun together for him to miss out. Taking their act to New York they got a job with bandleader Art Mooney. One day while at Leeds Publishing Company in search of a song called "Should I" that their mother had asked them to sing, Milt Gabler of Decca Records heard them singing it and had them cut a few sides for Decca Records just before the AFM recording ban which James Petrillo imposed in January, 1948.

A year later when the ban was lifted, the Ames Brothers were the first artists to record for Coral Records. The name Amory was shortened to Ames. They were swept into national top billing with their first hit record, "Rag Mop," in January, 1950. Doing radio shows for free at times just for the experience, they later became regulars on such shows as Arthur Godfrey and His Friends. One of the first acts to appear on the original The Ed Sullivan Show when it was known as Toast of the Town, they made their debut with him when the show was telecast live from Wanamaker's Department Store.

Soon, they were the top paid group in nightclubs and supper clubs everywhere and their popularity on television was nationwide. In 1956 they starred in their own show, The Ames Brothers Show, which was seen on Friday nights. It was the first syndicated television show to be shown in foreign countries.

Over their fifteen year career, their prolific work notched up 50 U.S. chart entries, 21 of them on the Coral label before signing with RCA Victor. The group disbanded in the 1960s but Ed Ames went on with a successful singing and acting career, including playing Daniel Boone's sidekick, Mingo, on the popular Daniel Boone television series (1964-1970).

Also see:
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Morey Amsterdam

Morey Amsterdam (December 14, 1908 – October 27, 1996) was an American television actor and comedian. He played the role of Buddy Sorrell on The Dick Van Dyke Show in the early 1960s.

Early life

Amsterdam was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Austrian immigrants Max and Jennie (Finder) Amsterdam. He began working in vaudeville in 1922 as the straight man for his brother's jokes. He was also a cellist, a skill which he used throughout his career. By 1924, he was working in a speakeasy operated by Al Capone. After being caught in the middle of a gunfight, Amsterdam moved to California and worked writing jokes. His enormous repertoire and ability to come up with a joke on any subject earned him the nickname The Human Joke Machine. He sometimes performed with a mock machine on his chest, hanging by a strap. He turned a hand crank and paper rolled out; he would then read the machine's joke, although actually the paper was blank.

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Irving A. Aaronson

Irving A. Aaronson (February 7, 1895 – March 10, 1963) was a Jewish American jazz pianist and big band leader.

Musician life

Born in New York, USA, Irving Aaronson learned piano from Alfred Sendry at the David Mannes School for music. His piano performances by the age of 11 could be heard in silent movie theaters (called nickelodeons).

During the 1920s and the 30s, he directed two big bands and recorded with different record companies. The first group that was formed under his name was the Versatile Sextette in the early 1920s, later renamed or renewed under the name of the Crusaders Dance Band. In 1925, it was with this band that his first ever compositions were recorded with an underground record company.

The band having success signed with the Victor label company where prior to their second music publication the band name was changed to Irving Aaronson and his Commanders. In 1926, they thus made their second album release, the first with the Victor recording company. During the period of time that they were signed under the label Victor (from 1926 to 1929), the band had success creating the well known song Let's Misbehave, in 1927, and by Irene Bordoni's side, they appeared in Cole Porter's Broadway musical Paris, in 1928.

Through the years, the band saw a number of good musicians such as Phil Saxe, Joe Gillespie and later to be known as band leaders were Artie Shaw, Gene Krupa and Tony Pastor.

In 1935, he was the lead performer in the radio program Irving Aaronson Orchestra on NBC.

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John F. Stossel

John F. Stossel (born March 6, 1947) is a consumer reporter, investigative journalist, author, libertarian columnist, and former co-anchor for the ABC News show 20/20. Stossel began his journalism career as a researcher for KGW-TV and later became a consumer reporter at WCBS-TV in New York City before joining ABC News as consumer editor and reporter on Good Morning America. Stossel went on to be an ABC News correspondent, joining the weekly news magazine program 20/20. In his decades as a reporter, Stossel has received numerous honors and awards. Stossel has also written two books entitled Give Me a Break and Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity.

Stossel practices advocacy journalism where he often challenges "conventional wisdom". His reports, a blend of commentary and reporting, reflect a libertarian political philosophy and his views on economics are largely supportive of the free market. ABC is reported to believe "his reporting goes against the grain of the established media and offers the network something fresh and different...[but] makes him a target of the groups he offends." Stossel has won nineteen Emmy awards.[5] John Stossel is doctor honoris causa from Universidad Francisco Marroquín.

It was announced in September 2009 that Stossel will be leaving ABC News and joining Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network.

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Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Paula Julie Abdul

Paula Julie Abdul (pronounced /ˈæbduːl/; born June 19, 1962) is an American pop singer, record producer, dancer, choreographer, actress and television personality.

In the 1980s, Abdul rose from cheerleader for the Los Angeles Lakers to highly sought-after choreographer at the height of the music video era before scoring a string of Pop-R&B hits in the late-1980s and early-1990s. Her six number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 tie her for fifth among the female solo performers who have reached #1 there. She won a Grammy for "Best Music Video - Short Form" for "Opposites Attract" and twice won the "Prime time Emmy Award for Outstanding Choreography." Abdul has sold approximately 30 million albums worldwide since her singing debut in 1988.

After her initial period of success, she suffered a series of setbacks in her professional and personal life, until she found renewed fame and success in the 2000s as a judge on the television series, American Idol, for eight years, before departing from the show. Abdul has since been working on a new album, and hopes to have the album released by the end of 2009.

Jewish Actress

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Natalie Schafer

Natalie Schafer (November 5, 1900 (1900-11-05) – April 10, 1991) was an American actress.

Early life and career

Born to a Jewish family in Red Bank, New Jersey, Schafer began her career as an actress on Broadway before moving to Los Angeles in 1941 to work in films. She played several supporting roles during the 1940s (such as the wife of a German officer in the 1942 film Reunion in France) and 1950s, and also appeared most notably in The Snake Pit (1948) and Anastasia (1956) while returning to New York City to live and work between film roles.

Schafer appeared on Broadway in 17 plays between 1928 and 1959, almost always playing supporting roles. Most of her Broadway appearances were in short-run plays, with the exceptions of Lady in the Dark (1941–42), The Doughgirls (1942–44), and Romanoff and Juliet (1957–58). She also appeared in stock and regional productions of plays.

Schafer is best known for the television series Gilligan's Island (1964–67), playing the role of the millionaire's wife, "Lovey Howell." She reprised her role in the made-for-TV, Gilligan's Island, movies that were made after the show's demise, along with the animated spinoff, Gilligan's Planet, in 1982. Originally written as a humorless grande dame, Schafer worked with the writers to create a character not unlike the scatterbrain roles played in 1930s films by Mary Boland and Billie Burke. Schafer specifically suggested that the writers read the George S. Kaufman-Marc Connelly play Dulcy for its dizzy title character.

She continued acting until her late-80s and was a guest star on many TV series, including I Love Lucy in the 1950s. In the 1970s, Schafer joined the cast of the CBS soap opera Search for Tomorrow. Her most notable film appearance in later life was in The Day of the Locust (1975).

Jewish Actress

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Thursday, December 3, 2009

Flavius Josephus

JOSEPHUS, FLAVIUS: By : Richard Gottheil Samuel Krauss

ARTICLE HEADINGS:


General and historian; born in 37 or 38; died after 100. He boasts of belonging to the Hasmonean race on his mother's side ("Vita," § 1). His great-grandfather was Simon "the Stammerer." As a boy Josephus was distinguished for his good memory and his ease in learning. He passed through the schools of the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes in turn, and then spent three years in the desert with a certain Banus. When nineteen years old he attached himself finally to the party of the Pharisees (ib. § 2). In his twenty-sixth year he had occasion to journey to Rome in the interests of certain priests who had been sent thither in chains by the procurator Felix. Here he obtained the favor of the empress Poppæa.

Continued --> Appointed Governor of Galilee.


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Thursday, June 26, 2008

Jack Weston (born Jack Weinstein in Cleveland, Ohio, August 21, 1924 – May 3, 1996) was an American film, stage, and television actor.

Weston usually played comic roles, in films such as Cactus Flower and Please Don't Eat the Daisies, but also occasionally essayed heavier parts, such as the scheming crook and stalker who, along with Alan Arkin and Richard Crenna, attempts to terrorize and rob a blind Audrey Hepburn in the 1967 film Wait Until Dark.
Hedy Lamarr (November 9, 1913 – January 19, 2000) was an Austrian-born American actress. Though known primarily for her great beauty and her successful film career, she also co-invented an early form of spread spectrum encoding, a key to modern wireless communication.
Joe Lieberman Joseph Isadore "Joe" Lieberman (born February 24, 1942) is a United States Senator from Connecticut. Lieberman was first elected to the United States Senate in 1988, and was elected to his fourth term on November 7, 2006. In the 2000 U.S. presidential election, Lieberman was the Democratic candidate for Vice President, running with presidential nominee Al Gore, becoming the first Jewish candidate on a major American political party presidential ticket. Lieberman ran for re-election to the U.S. Senate while he was also Gore's running-mate, and he was re-elected by the voters of Connecticut. He attempted to become the Democratic nominee in the 2004 Presidential election, but was unsuccessful.
Harvey Herschel Korman (February 15, 1927 – May 29, 2008) was an American comedic actor who performed in television and movie productions beginning in 1960. His big break was being a featured performer on The Danny Kaye Show, but he was probably best remembered for his performances on the sketch comedy series The Carol Burnett Show and in the comedy films of Mel Brooks, most notably as Hedley Lamarr in Blazing Saddles.

Nachman of Breslov

Nachman of Breslov, (Hebrew: נחמן מברסלב) also known as Reb Nachman of Bratslav, Nachman from Uman, or simply as Rebbe Nachman (in local Yiddish: Reb Nokhmen Broslever) (April 4, 1772 – October 16, 1810 [18 Tishrei]) was the founder of the Breslov Hasidic dynasty.