Sally Kellerman

 

Sally Clare Kellerman (June 2, 1937 – February 24, 2022) was an American actress and singer whose acting career spanned 60 years. Her role as Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan in Robert Altman's film M*A*S*H (1970) earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. After M*A*S*H, she appeared in a number of the director's projects, namely the films Brewster McCloud (1970), Welcome to L.A. (1976) (produced by Altman, directed by his protégé, Alan Rudolph), The Player (1992), and Prêt-à-Porter (1994), and the short-lived anthology TV series Gun (1997). In addition to her work with Altman, Kellerman appeared in films such as Last of the Red Hot Lovers (1972), Back to School (1986), plus many television series such as The Twilight Zone (1963), The Outer Limits (1965), Star Trek (1966), Bonanza (1966, 1970), The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman (2006), 90210 (2008), Chemistry (2011), and Maron (2013). She also voiced Miss Finch in Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird (1985), which went on to become one of her most significant voice roles.^[1]

At age 18, Kellerman signed a recording contract with Verve Records, but her first album (Roll with the Feelin' on the Decca label) was not recorded until 1972. A second album Sally was released in 2009.^[2] Kellerman also contributed songs to the soundtracks for Brewster McCloud (1970), Lost Horizon (1973), Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins (1975), and Boris and Natasha: The Movie (1992).

Kellerman did commercial voiceover work for Hidden Valley Ranch salad dressing, Mercedes-Benz, and Revlon.^[3] Kellerman's animation work included The Mouse and His Child (1977), Happily Ever After (1990), Dinosaurs (1992), Unsupervised (2012), and The High Fructose Adventures of Annoying Orange (2013). In 2013, she released her memoir Read My Lips: Stories of a Hollywood Life, describing her trials and tribulations in the entertainment business. 

Kellerman^[4] was born in Long Beach, California, on June 2, 1937^[5] to Edith Baine (née Vaughn), a piano teacher from Portland, Arkansas,^[6]: 15 and John Helm "Jack" Kellerman, a Shell Oil executive from St. Louis, Missouri.^{[6]: 16 [4]} She had an older sister, Diana Dean Kellerman. Her younger sister, Victoria Vaughn Kellerman, died in infancy.^[6]: 18 Edith was a Christian Scientist and raised her daughters in this faith.^{[6]: 17–21}

When Kellerman was in fifth grade, the family moved from Long Beach to the San Fernando Valley.^[6]: 29 She spent her early life in then-rural Granada Hills in a largely unpopulated area surrounded by orange and eucalyptus groves.^[7] During her sophomore year of high school, the Kellermans moved from San Fernando to Park La Brea, Los Angeles, where she attended Hollywood High School. She grew to stand 5'10.5" (179.07 cms). Due to her shyness, she made few friends and received poor grades (except choir and physical education) but appeared in a school production of Meet Me in St. Louis.^[6]: 4–5

With the help of a high-school friend, Kellerman submitted a recording demo to Verve Records founder and head Norman Granz. After signing a contract with Verve, however, she was daunted by the task of becoming a recording artist and walked away.^[8][6]: 14

Kellerman attended Los Angeles City College,^[9] and also enrolled in Jeff Corey's acting class.^[6]: 8 Within a year, she appeared in a production of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger staged by Corey and featuring classmates Shirley Knight, Jack Nicholson, Dean Stockwell, and Robert Blake.^[10] Towards the end of the 1950s, Kellerman joined the newly opened Actors Studio West^[11][12] and debuted before the camera in the film, Reform School Girl (1957).^[13] To pay her tuition, Kellerman worked as a waitress at Chez Paulette.

 In 1961, Kellerman underwent a botched home abortion, and went to a hospital for the first time (due to her Christian Science upbringing).^[52] The relationship that had caused her terminated pregnancy was with bit actor William Duffy. Wikipedia

 

 

Cassius Marcellus Clay--"The Lion of White Hall"

 Cassius Marcellus Clay (October 19, 1810 – July 22, 1903), nicknamed the "Lion of White Hall", was a Kentucky planter, politician and emancipationist who worked for the abolition of slavery. A founding member of the Republican Party in Kentucky, he was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln as the U.S. minister to Russia. Clay is credited with gaining Russian support for the Union during the American Civil War. 

Cassius Marcellus Clay was born to Sally Lewis and Green Clay, one of the wealthiest planters and enslavers in Kentucky, who became a prominent politician. He was one of six children who survived to adulthood, of seven born.

Clay was a member of a large and influential Clay political family. His older brother Brutus J. Clay became a politician at the state and federal levels. They were cousins of both Kentucky politician Henry Clay and Alabama governor Clement Comer Clay. Cassius' sister Elizabeth Lewis Clay (1798–1887) married John Speed Smith, who also became a state and US politician Their son, Green Clay Smith, became a state politician and was elected to Congress.

The younger Clay attended Transylvania University and then graduated from Yale College in 1832. While at Yale, he heard abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison speak, and his lecture inspired Clay to join the anti-slavery movement. Garrison's arguments were to him "as water is to a thirsty wayfarer." Clay was politically incrementalist, supporting gradual legal change rather than calling for immediate abolition the way Garrison and his supporters did. He thought this more likely to bring success. 

Cassius Clay was an early Southern planter who became a prominent anti-slavery crusader. Clay worked toward emancipation, both as a Kentucky state representative and as an early member of the Republican Party.

Clay was elected to three terms in the Kentucky House of Representatives, but he lost support among Kentuckian voters as he promoted abolition. His anti-slavery activism earned him violent enemies. During a political debate in 1843, he survived an assassination attempt by Sam Brown, a hired gun. The scabbard of Clay's Bowie knife was tipped with silver and, in jerking the Bowie knife out in retaliation pulled this scabbard up so that it was just over his heart. Brown's bullet struck the scabbard and embedded itself in the silver. Despite having been shot in the chest, Clay tackled Brown, and with his Bowie knife removed Brown's nose and one eye and possibly an ear before he threw Brown over an embankment.

In 1845, Clay began publishing an anti-slavery newspaper, True American, in Lexington, Kentucky. Within a month, he received death threats, had to arm himself, and regularly barricaded the armored doors of his newspaper office for protection, besides setting up two four-pounder cannons inside. Shortly afterward, a mob of about 60 men broke into his office and seized his printing equipment. To protect his venture, Clay set up a publication center in Cincinnati, Ohio, a center of abolitionists in the free state but continued to reside in Kentucky.

Clay served in the Mexican–American War as a captain with the 1st Kentucky Cavalry from 1846 to 1847. He had opposed the annexation of Texas and the expansion of slavery into the Southwest, but had volunteered because of Mexico’s attempt to seize the state, which it still claimed. While making a speech for abolition in 1849, Clay was attacked by the six Turner brothers, who beat, stabbed, and tried to shoot him. In the ensuing fight, Clay fought off all six and, using his Bowie knife, killed Cyrus Turner.

In 1853, Clay granted 10 acres of his expansive lands to John G. Fee, an abolitionist who founded the town of Berea. In 1855 Fee founded Berea College, open to all races. Clay's connections to the northern antislavery movement remained strong. He was a founder of the Republican Party in Kentucky and became a friend of Abraham Lincoln, whom he supported for the presidency in 1860. Clay was briefly a candidate for the vice presidency at the 1860 Republican National Convention, but lost the nomination to Hannibal Hamlin. 

President Lincoln appointed Clay to the post of Minister to the Russian court at St. Petersburg on March 28, 1861. The Civil War started before he departed and, as there were no Federal troops in Washington at the time, Clay organized a group of 300 volunteers to protect the White House and US Naval Yard from a possible Confederate attack. These men became known as Cassius M. Clay's Washington Guards. President Lincoln gave Clay a presentation Colt revolver in recognition. When Federal troops arrived, Clay and his family embarked for Russia. As Minister to Russia, Clay witnessed the Tsar's emancipation edict.

During the Civil War, Russia came to the aid of the Union, threatening war against Britain and France if they officially recognized the Confederacy. Cassius Clay, as minister to Russia during that time, was instrumental in securing Russia's aid. Emperor Alexander II of Russia gave sealed orders to the commanders of both his Atlantic and Pacific fleets, and sent them to the East and West coasts of America. They were instructed that the sealed orders were to be opened only if Britain and France entered the war on the side of the Confederacy.

The action of Alexander II was confirmed in 1904 by Wharton Barker of Pennsylvania, who in 1878 was the financial agent in the United States of the Russian government.

Recalled to the United States in 1862 to accept a commission from Lincoln as a major general with the Union Army, Clay publicly refused to accept it unless Lincoln would agree to emancipate slaves under Confederate control. Lincoln sent Clay to Kentucky to assess the mood for emancipation there and in the other border states. Following Clay's return to Washington, DC, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in late 1862, to take effect in January 1863.

Clay resigned his commission in March 1863 and returned to Russia, where he served until 1869.  He was influential in the negotiations for the purchase of Alaska.

Later, Clay founded the Cuban Charitable Aid Society to help the Cuban independence movement of José Martí. He also spoke in favor of nationalizing the railroads and later against the power being accrued by industrialists. Clay left the Republican Party in 1869. He also disapproved of the Republican Radicals' reconstruction policy after Lincoln's assassination.

In 1872, Clay was one of the organizers of the Liberal Republican revolt. He was instrumental in securing the nomination of Horace Greeley for the presidency. In the political campaigns of 1876 and 1880, Clay supported the Democratic Party candidates. He rejoined the Republican party in the campaign of 1884.

Clay had a reputation as a rebel and a fighter. Due to threats on his life, he had become accustomed to carrying two pistols and a knife for protection. He installed a cannon to protect his home and office. At the 1890 Kentucky Constitutional Convention, Clay was elected by the members as the Convention's President. Cassius Clay died at his home on July 22, 1903 of "general exhaustion." Survivors included his daughters, Laura Clay and Mary Barr Clay, who were both women's rights activists.

 His family home, White Hall, is maintained by the Commonwealth of Kentucky as White Hall State Historic Shrine.  Wikipedia

Sir Henry Williams, alias Cromwell

 

Sir Henry Williams (1537^[2] – 6 January 1604),^[3] also known as Sir Henry Cromwell, was a knight of the shire (MP) for Huntingdonshire during the reign of Elizabeth I. He was the grandfather of the Protector, Oliver Cromwell.

Sir Henry Williams, alias Cromwell, was of Welsh descent, the eldest son and heir of Sir Richard Williams (c. 1510–1544) and Frances (c. 1520–c. 1543), daughter of Thomas Murfyn.^[2] His grandfather, Morgan ap William, was the son of a man named William, and also used the name Williams, but his father abandoned the Welsh patronymic system completely and adopted the name of Cromwell, in honour of an uncle Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex. The family then consistently used and wrote its name as "Williams, alias Cromwell", well into the 17th century.^[A] He was educated at Queens' College, Cambridge. 

He was highly esteemed by Queen Elizabeth I, who knighted him in 1564.^[3] He was an important enough man, with a large enough house, for the Queen to do him the honour of sleeping at his seat, Hinchingbrooke House, on 18 August 1564, on her return from visiting the University of Cambridge.^[5]

Williams, alias Cromwell, was in the House of Commons in 1563, as one of the knights of the shire for Huntingdonshire,^[6] and was four times appointed Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, by Elizabeth, viz. in the 7, 13, 22, and 34 years of her reign;^[7] and in the 20th, she nominated him a commissioner with others, to inquire concerning the draining of The Fens through Cloughs Cross and so to the sea.^[8]

He made Huntingdonshire the entire place of his country residence, living at Ramsey Abbey in the summer, and Hinchingbrooke in the winter; he repaired, if not built, the manor-house at Ramsey, and made it one of his seats. Mark Noble comments that he had heard that the house of Ramsey was only the lodge of that magnificent pile, and converted by Sir Henry into a dwelling-house.^[9] Sir Henry also built Hinchingbrooke House adjoining to the nunnery at Hinchingbrooke,^[10] and upon the bow windows there he put the arms of his family, with those of several others to whom he was allied.^[11]

Mark Noble stated that Sir William was called, from his liberality, the "golden knight"; and reported that in Ramsey it was said, that whenever Sir Henry came from Hinchingbrooke to that place, he threw considerable sums of money to the poor townsmen.^[12] This excellent character is given of him, "he was a worthy gentleman, both in court and country, and universally esteemed";^[13] and which his merit justly deserved. By the record of inquisitio post mortem, taken at Ramsey, 2 June, following his death, it appears that he died possessed of these manors in Huntingdonshire, Saltry, Saltry-Moynes, Saltry-Judith, Sawtry-Monastery, all valued at £60 per annum; Warboys and Whistow, with their rectories, and the New-red-deer Park, valued together at £40 per annum; Hinchingbrooke, valued at £10 per annum; Broughton or Broweton, with the rectory, valued at £20 per annum; Berry and Hepmangrove, and the rectory of Berry, valued at £20 per annum; the forests of Waybridge, and Sapley, valued at £6 13s 4d; the farm or grange of Higney, and the messuage called the George, with the land belonging to it, valued at £10 per annum; and the manor of Ramsey, with the farm of Biggin, valued at £100 per annum. all of which were held of king by military service. except the forests of Waybridge and Sapley, together with the farm, or grange of Higney, the tenures of which were unknown. 

Samuel Gorton--Champion of Civil Rights

 

Samuel Gorton (1593–1677) was an early settler and civic leader of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and President of the towns of Providence and Warwick. He had strong religious beliefs which differed from Puritan theology and was very outspoken, and he became the leader of a small sect of converts known as Gortonians, Gortonists or Gortonites. As a result, he was frequently in trouble with the civil and church authorities in the New England colonies.

Gorton was baptized in 1593 in Manchester, Lancashire, England and received an education in languages and English law from tutors. In 1637, he emigrated from England, settling first in Plymouth Colony, where he was soon ousted for his religious opinions and his demeanor towards the magistrates and ministers. He settled next in Portsmouth where he met with a similar fate, being whipped for his insubordination towards the magistrates. He next went to Providence Plantation where he once again encountered adverse circumstances, until he and a group of others purchased land from the Narragansett people. They settled south of the Pawtuxet River in an area which they called Shawomet.

Gorton refused to answer a summons following the complaints of two Indian sachems about being unfairly treated in a land transaction. He and several of his followers were forcefully taken away to Massachusetts, where he was tried for his beliefs and writings rather than for the alleged land transaction. He was sentenced to prison in Charlestown, though all but three of the presiding magistrates voted to give him the death sentence.

After being released, Gorton and two of his associates sailed to England where they obtained an official order of protection for his colony from the Earl of Warwick. During his stay in England, he was also very active in the Puritan underground, preaching in churches and conventicles known for their extreme religious positions. Once back in New England, he changed the name of Shawomet to Warwick in gratitude to his patron in England. He became part of the very civil authority which he had previously rejected, serving as an assistant, commissioner, deputy, and president of the two towns of Providence and Warwick.

He wrote a number of books, two of them while in England and several others following his return. He was a man of great learning and great intellectual breadth, and he believed passionately in God, the King, and the individual man, and he was harshly critical of the magistrates and ministers who filled positions that he considered meaningless. His beliefs and demeanor brought him admiration from his followers but condemnation from those in positions of authority, and he was reviled for more than a century after his death. In more recent times, some historians and writers have looked upon him more favorably, and some now consider him to be one of the great colonial leaders of Rhode Island.   

Gorton left a comfortable life in England to enjoy liberty of conscience in the English colonies of North America.^[9] According to Rhode Island historian Thomas Bicknell, he was a man of intense individualism who recognized three pillars of power: "God, the Supreme One; the King, his vicegerent; and himself, the individual man. Between these he recognized no other source of authority. The freedom of the individual was only limited by the express will of God or the King."^[35] He and his followers held that "by union with Christ, believers partook of the perfection of God, that Christ is both human and divine, and that Heaven and Hell exist only in the mind."^[35]

Gorton's house built after King Philip's War

The following are some of the activities for which he and his followers were imprisoned, whipped, put to hard labor, and banished, and had their cattle, food, and property confiscated:

• teaching that heaven and hell were states existing in the hearts of men and women, rather than a material place where people reside in an afterlife
• teaching that the baptism of infants would not save a baby's soul, since babies had no capacity to understand or accept the concepts of Christianity (a position also held by Baptists)
• teaching that the ministers and magistrates should not be the sole or ultimate authorities of how biblical interpretations were enforced with criminal laws
• teaching that God is a unity rather than a trinity
• objecting to the mandatory paying of tithes to a state church, and mandatory attendance, since salvation came through individual faith freely chosen, and not from conformity to denominational creeds and ritual^[36]

In his day, Gorton was largely reviled by those who were not his followers, and his insolence towards colonial leaders made him the butt of most early writers of Rhode Island's colonial history.^[37] Nathaniel Morton was the keeper of the Plymouth records for years, and he published a "libellous and scandalous" book about Gorton while he was still alive.^[38] On 30 June 1669, Gorton wrote a lengthy letter of denial, refuting virtually every point made by Morton.^[39] More than a century later, however, Rhode Island Secretary of State Samuel Eddy wrote, "In the case of Gorton... no one of the first settlers has received more unmerited reproach, nor any one suffered so much injustice. His opinions on religious subjects were probably somewhat singular, though certainly not more so than in any at this day. But that was his business; his opinions were his own and he had a right to them."^[37] Later, Rhode Island historian and Lieutenant Governor Samuel G. Arnold wrote of Gorton: 

He was one of the most remarkable men that ever lived. His career furnishes an apt illustration of the radicalism in action, which may spring from ultra-conservatism in theory. The turbulence of his earlier history was the result of a disregard for existing law, because it was not based upon what he held to be the only legitimate source of power—the assent of the supreme authority in England. He denied the right of a people to self-government, and contended for his views with the vigor of an unrivalled intellect and the strength of an ungoverned passion. But when this point was conceded, by the securing of a Patent, no man was more submissive to delegated law. His astuteness of mind and his Biblical learning made him a formidable opponent of the Puritan hierarchy, while his ardent love of liberty, when it was once guaranteed, caused him to embrace with fervor the principles that gave origin to Rhode Island.^[40]

— Lieutenant Governor Samuel G. Arnold

Gorton was described as being gentle and sympathetic in private intercourse, and generous and sympathetic in nature. He gave to others the same liberty of thought and expression that he claimed for himself.^[41] One of his biographers wrote that, after Roger Williams, no man was more instrumental in establishing the foundation of equal civil rights and liberty in Rhode Island.^[42] Puritan scholar Philip Gura sees him as "not a dangerous and immoral troublemaker but rather a man who, more than any other New Englander, was in step with the religious politics of his times and whose history illuminates the complexity of the relationship of American to English Puritanism." Wikipedia

Michael Coe--Eminent Mayanist

 

Michael Douglas Coe (May 14, 1929 – September 25, 2019)^[1] was an American archaeologist, anthropologist, epigrapher, and author. He is known for his research on pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, particularly the Maya, and was among the foremost Mayanists^[2] of the late twentieth century. He specialised in comparative studies of ancient tropical forest civilizations, such as those of Central America and Southeast Asia. He held the chair of Charles J. MacCurdy Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus, Yale University, and was curator emeritus of the Anthropology collection in the Peabody Museum of Natural History, where he had been curator from 1968 to 1994.^[3]

Coe authored a number of popular works for the non-specialist audience, several of which were best-selling and much reprinted, such as The Maya (1966) and Breaking the Maya Code (1992). With Rex Koontz, he co-authored the book Mexico: From the Olmecs to the Aztecs published in 1962. 

Coe was the son of designer Clover Simonton and banker William Rogers Coe. He attended Fay School^[4] in Southborough, Massachusetts, and St. Paul’s School, Concord, New Hampshire. Graduated from Harvard College in 1950, he then received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the Harvard Graduate School of Arts & Sciences in 1959. Shortly after commencing his graduate studies program there, in 1955 he married Sophie Dobzhansky, the daughter of the noted evolutionary biologist and Russian émigré Theodosius Dobzhansky. She was then an undergraduate anthropology student at Radcliffe College.^[5] Sophie translated the work of Russian mayanist Yuri Knorozov, The Writing of the Maya Indians (1967).^[6] Knorozov based his studies on De Landa's phonetic alphabet and is credited with originally breaking the Maya code.

Coe's brother, William Robertson Coe II, was also a prominent Mayanist, associated with the University of Pennsylvania. The two brothers had a falling-out in the 1960s and rarely spoke of each other afterward.^[7]

During the Korean War, Coe worked as a CIA case officer and as a part of a front organization, Western Enterprises (西方公司), in Taiwan, as part of efforts to counter the influence of the Mao regime in China.

Coe's graduate advisor was Gordon Willey. In his Harvard dissertation at La Victoria, Guatemala, he established the first secure chronology of ceramics for southern Mesoamerica.^[9] With Richard Diehl at San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, he used new magnetometry techniques to locate and salvage most of the Olmec colossal heads now known, such that he is now considered one of the discoverers of the Olmec.^[10]

Coe and his students have contributed greatly to the decipherment of Maya writing. He championed Yuri Knorosov and the phonetic approach to decipherment, against the public rebukes of J. E. S. Thompson.^[11] At Yale University he taught the Mayanists Peter Mathews, Karl Taube, and Stephen D. Houston, the latter of whom collaborated with David Stuart.

He sometimes collaborated with his Yale colleague, anthropological linguist Floyd Lounsbury. Coe also advised the authors of The Blood of Kings, a work about Classic Maya rulership, Mary Ellen Miller, at Yale, and Linda Schele, at the University of Texas at Austin. Coe's Breaking the Maya Code (1992), which describes these breakthroughs, was nominated for a National Book Award.

Coe was the first to date El Baúl Stela 1 correctly (Coe 1957; cf. Parsons 1986:61); this sculpture from the Southern Maya Area (SMA) is one of three known with Cycle 7 Long-count dated monuments, predating all Lowland Long-count dated sculptures. With Kent V. Flannery, he was the first to observe that the greatest southern area site, Kaminaljuyu, probably profited greatly from its proximity to and exploitation of the enormous El Chayal obsidian fields. Coe discovered the Primary Standard Sequence, a sequence of hieroglyphs appearing around the rim of many Classic Maya ceramic vessels. Coe organized an exhibit of some of those ceramics at the Grolier Club in New York, where he also publicized, for the first time, a newly-discovered Maya codex — the first found in the Americas — and only the fourth known to exist.^[12] Some of Coe's other insights were given in casual comments to his students or in short reports, including that the Popol Vuh was but a fragment of a great lost pan-Maya mythology, and that Classic Maya rulers were shamanic figures as well as administrators.

Aside from his work on the Maya, his short paper published during the height of processual archaeology, entitled "The Churches on the Green",^[13] which imagined how that approach would fail to discern the origins and purpose of three churches on the New Haven Green if they were studied five thousand years later. His book on the Angkor civilization of ancient Cambodia, Angkor and the Khmer Civilization (2003, 2nd ed. 2018), was described by David P. Chandler as "the most thoroughgoing, accessible, and persuasive synthesis of precolonial Cambodian history, society and culture" that he had ever read.  Wikipedia

 

Fred Waring--"The Man Who Taught America How to Sing"

 

Fredrick Malcolm Waring Sr. (June 9, 1900 – July 29, 1984) was an American musician, bandleader, and radio and television personality, sometimes referred to as "America's Singing Master" and "The Man Who Taught America How to Sing". He was also a promoter, financial backer and eponym of the Waring Blendor, the first modern electric blender on the market.

From 1923 until late 1932, "Waring's Pennsylvanians" were among Victor Records' best-selling bands. In late 1932, Waring abruptly quit recording, although his band continued to perform on radio. In 1933, "You Gotta Be a Football Hero" was performed on radio to great acclaim. His 1930 recording of "Love for Sale" by Cole Porter is one of the only period versions of this popular song.

The Fred Waring Show was heard on radio in various forms from 1933 to 1957.

Adding a men's singing group to his ensemble, he recruited Robert Shaw, recently out of the Pomona College glee club, to train his singers. Shaw later founded the Robert Shaw Chorale and directed the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Pembroke Davenport (1911–1985) was Waring's pianist and arranger.

During World War II, Waring and his ensemble appeared at war bond rallies and entertained the troops at training camps. He composed and performed dozens of patriotic songs, his most famous being "My America". In 1943, he acquired the Buckwood Inn in Shawnee on Delaware, Pennsylvania, and renamed the resort the Shawnee Inn. To promote the inn, he centered his musical activities at the inn itself. He created, rehearsed, and broadcast his radio programs from the stage of Shawnee's Worthington Hall throughout the 1950s.

Waring in the studio with Sinatra, 1964

During the 1940s and early 1950s, Waring and His Pennsylvanians produced a string of hits, selling millions of records. A few of his many choral hits include "Sleep", "Battle Hymn of the Republic", "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "Button Up Your Overcoat", "White Christmas", "Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor", and "Dancing in the Dark". In 1964 he recorded two albums with Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby, America, I Hear You Singing and 12 Songs of Christmas, for Sinatra's Reprise label.

The song, "Breezin' Along with the Breeze" was used as a signature tune by Fred Waring. 

In 1947, Waring organized the Fred Waring Choral Workshop at his Pennsylvania headquarters in the old Castle Inn in Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania, which was also the home of Shawnee Press, the music publisher which he founded. At these sessions, musicians learned to sing with precision, sensitivity, and enthusiasm. When these vocalists returned home and shared what they had learned with fellow musicians, Waring's approach to choral singing spread throughout the nation. The first Fred Waring Music Workshop in the western United States was held in June 1968 as part of the University of Nevada's Summer Session curriculum in Reno, Nevada. Waring taught and supervised these summer workshop for 37 years until he died.

Waring expanded into television with The Fred Waring Show, which ran on CBS Television from June 20, 1948, to May 30, 1954, and received several awards for Best Musical Program. (The show was 60 minutes long until January 1952, and 30 minutes thereafter.) In the 1960s and 1970s, popular musical tastes turned from choral music, but Waring changed with the times, introducing his Young Pennsylvanians, a group of fresh-faced, long-haired, bell-bottomed performers who sang old favorites and choral arrangements of contemporary songs. In this way he continued as a popular touring attraction, logging some 40,000 miles a year.

In the 1930s, inventor Frederick Jacob Osius went to Waring for financial backing for an electric blender he had patented. The Osius patent (#2,109,501) was filed March 13, 1937, and awarded March 1, 1938.

After an initial $25,000 investment, the Waring-owned Miracle Mixer was introduced to the public at the National Restaurant Show in Chicago retailing for $29.75. In 1938, Fred Waring renamed his Miracle Mixer Corporation as the Waring Corporation, and the mixer's name was changed to the Waring Blendor (the "o" in blendor giving it a slight distinction from "blender").

The Waring Blendor became an important tool in hospitals for the implementation of specific diets, as well as a vital scientific research device. Jonas Salk used it while developing his polio vaccine. In 1954, the millionth Waring Blendor was sold.

Waring is now a division of the Conair Corporation. 

 

 

 

Ethan Peck

 

Ethan Gregory Peck (born March 2, 1986) is an American actor. He is the grandson of actor Gregory Peck and Greta Kukkonen, Peck's first wife. In 2019, he played a young Spock in Star Trek: Discovery, a role he has reprised for the television series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. 

Peck had many television appearances as a young actor, including a younger Michael Kelso (played by Ashton Kutcher) in That '70s Show. In his first film role at age 9, he co-starred in Marshall Law as Jimmy Smits' son. He appeared in the 1999 movie Passport to Paris starring Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen, and was Mary-Kate's first on-screen kiss.

Peck co-starred with Adam Rothenberg and Mariah Carey in the 2008 film Tennessee, followed by a co-starring role opposite Peter Coyote and Bebe Neuwirth in the film Adopt a Sailor. He won the award for "Best Actor" at the 2009 Sonoma International Film Festival for his portrayal of "Sailor".^[1]

From 2009 to 2010, he starred on the television series 10 Things I Hate About You on ABC Family.^[2]

In 2012, Peck played Prince Maxon for the pilot adaptation of the popular book The Selection, but was later replaced by newcomer Michael Malarkey. Neither the first nor second pilot was picked up to go to series.^[3]

In 2015, Peck became a spokesperson for fashion brand Salvatore Ferragamo and appeared in a number of print editorials representing the Italian brand.^[4][5][6] He was also featured in Coming Home to Hollywood, a short film about the brand's 100th anniversary.^[7][8]

In 2016, Peck starred in The Curse of Sleeping Beauty and Tell Me How I Die.

In 2017, Peck was cast in a comedy, The Honor List, alongside Meghan Rienks, Sasha Pieterse, Arden Cho and Karrueche Tran. The movie was released in 2018.^[9]

Peck portrayed Spock in the second season of Star Trek: Discovery.^[10] In May 2020 it was announced that Peck would reprise his role as Spock in a spin-off, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. 

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Peck is the son of Stephen Peck—a former actor, documentary filmmaker, and Vietnam veteran who is president and CEO of U.S. Veterans Initiative—and abstract artist Francine Matarazzo.^{[12][13][14][15]} He is the grandson of actor Gregory Peck and his Finnish wife, Greta Kukkonen. Peck attended private schools Campbell Hall and Harvard-Westlake in Studio City. He excelled in athletics and learned to play classical cello.^[16]

He has a half-sister from his mother's second marriage, Marisa Matarazzo, who is a novelist and creative writing professor at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles.^[17]

After high school, Peck attended the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, where he participated in the Experimental Theater Wing for three years before leaving to pursue his acting career. Wikipedia

 

Johnny Mercer--Four Best Song Oscars

 

 

John Herndon Mercer (November 18, 1909 – June 25, 1976) was an American lyricist, songwriter, and singer, as well as a record label executive who co-founded Capitol Records with music industry businessmen Buddy DeSylva and Glenn E. Wallichs.^[1]

He is best known as a Tin Pan Alley lyricist, but he also composed music, and was a popular singer who recorded his own songs as well as songs written by others from the mid-1930s through the mid-1950s. Mercer's songs were among the most successful hits of the time, including "Moon River", "Days of Wine and Roses", "Autumn Leaves", and "Hooray for Hollywood". He wrote the lyrics to more than 1,500 songs, including compositions for movies and Broadway shows. He received nineteen Oscar nominations, and won four Best Original Song Oscars. 

 

Rev. William Henry Steele Demarest, 11th President of Rutgers

 

William Henry Steele Demarest (May 12, 1863 – June 23, 1956) was an American Dutch Reformed minister and the eleventh President of Rutgers College (now Rutgers University) serving from 1906 to 1924.

Born May 12, 1863 in Hudson, New York.^[1]

Having been educated at the Rutgers Grammar School (now the Rutgers Preparatory School), Demarest graduated with high honors from Rutgers College with a baccalaureate degree in 1883. From 1883 to 1886, Demarest taught at the Rutgers Preparatory School. In 1888 he graduated from the New Brunswick Theological Seminary, and that same year was ordained to the ministry of the Dutch Reformed Church, where he served until 1901 at which time he returned to the Seminary, and was appointed Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Church Government to replace retiring professor Samuel Merrill Woodbridge (1819–1905). In 1905, Demarest was named as acting President of the College, and was elected by the Trustees to succeed Austin Scott as President in early 1906. During his tenure, the New Jersey College for Women (now Douglass College) was established in 1918, through private donors and increased appropriation from the State of New Jersey, new facilities were constructed for instruction in Engineering, Chemistry, Entomology, and Ceramics and dormitories were built to accommodate the increased enrollment. Following his resignation as President in 1924, Demarest served for ten years as president of the New Brunswick Theological Seminary and remained active in the affairs of the University. In 1924, he published History of Rutgers College.^[1]

He died on June 23, 1956 in New Brunswick, New Jersey.  Wikipedia

Demarest Hall on the Rutgers College Avenue Campus in New Brunswick was named for Reverend Demarest.