Bruce Willis

EARLY LIFE 

He was born Walter Bruce Willis on March 19, 1955, in the town of Idar-Oberstein, West Germany.

Willis at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival

Bruce's father, David Willis, was an American soldier. His mother, Marlene, was German.

After being discharged from the military in 1957, Bruce's father took his family back to Carneys Point Township, New Jersey. His mom worked in a bank and his dad was a welder, master mechanic, and factory worker.

He had severe stuttering problems as a child. Bruce discovered the stutter disappeared while performing in a school play through the memorization of lines. While studying acting in college it was the combination of acting and speech therapy which helped him overcome his condition.

CAREER 

After graduating from high school in 1973, Willis was briefly employed as a security guard and a private investigator.

He studied drama for a couple of years at Montclair State University before dropping out and moving to New York City, where he worked as a bartender at the art bar Kamikaze on West 19th Street.

His first movie role was an extra in 1980's The First Deadly Sin. In the scene below, Willis is the second person to enter the diner. The tall one with the hat.

Willis' breakthrough came in 1985 when he auditioned for the role of David Addison Jr. the co-lead in the television comedy drama series Moonlighting. Competing against 3,000 other actors, he won the part.

Willis is also a musician; he released his debut album, The Return of Bruno on Motown, in 1987.

The record included a cover version of The Staples Singers' "Respect Yourself", which was a #5 hit in the US. Willis was the first white male solo act to hit the Top 5 with a record on the Motown label, and only the second white male solo act - after R. Dean Taylor's "Indiana Wants Me" - to be so successful for the Motown Corporation.

Willis became one of Hollywood's biggest stars as a result of his role as Lt. John McClane in the Die Hard franchise (1988–2013). When Die Hard was first made, Willis was mostly known for TV. and his $5 million fee for the first film was seen as a huge risk. The movie ended up taking at least $140 million.

He was offered the role as Sam Wheat for Ghost (1990) but turned it down because he didn't think the film would work with the main character being dead most of the movie.

The Honda Civic that Butch (Bruce Willis) drove in Pulp Fiction was the same Honda Civic that Pam Grier later drove in Jackie Brown.

He was forced to sign a three picture deal with Disney after pulling out of The Broadway Brawler, a romantic comedy about a hockey player. The three movies Willis made were Armageddon, The Sixth Sense, and The Kid. The movies combined to gross an estimated $1.3 billion worldwide.

Bruce Willis was the first actor to ever "act" in a video game, when in 1998, he participated in the PlayStation game Apocalypse, No one before had ever done voice work along with having their movements digitally added to the game.

He only agreed to guest star on Friends after losing a bet with his The Whole Nine Yards co-star Mathew Perry. Willis played the father of Ross Geller's much-younger girlfriend on a three episode arc and won an Emmy in 2000 for his performance. He donated his acting fee to five charities.

Willis made his Broadway debut in the stage adaptation of Misery in 2015.

Willis' daughter Rumer announced on March 30, 2022 that he was retiring from acting after being diagnosed with aphasia.

PERSONAL LIFE 

He proposed to actress Demi Moore at Pink's Hot Dog Stand in Hollywood. They married on November 21, 1987.

Willis and Moore announced their separation on June 24, 1998 and they filed for divorce 28 months later.

Demi Moore in 2010. By David Shankbone

Willis married model Emma Heming in Turks and Caicos on March 21, 2009. The ceremony was not legally binding, so the couple wed again in a civil ceremony in Beverly Hills, six days later.

He has five daughters, three by his first marriage - Rumer, Tallulah and Scout, plus two  by his second marriage - Mabel and Evelyn.

He is a co-founder of the theme restaurant chain Planet Hollywood, along with fellow actors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone.

While filming Die Hard, Willis got too close to a firing gun, which caused two-thirds partial hearing loss in his left ear.

Bruce Willis once bought 12,000 girl-scout cookies for military service members in the Middle East.

In 2003, Willis visited Iraq as part of the USO tour, singing to the troops with his group, The Accelerators.

Willis in Tikrit, Iraq, during his 2003 USO tour

He personally offered $1 million to any civilian who captured Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

The 42nd Golden Raspberry Awards, recognizing the “worst” in film for 2021, introduced a one-time category titled “Worst Performance by Bruce Willis in a 2021 Movie.” In an unusual move, all eight of Willis’s film performances released that year were simultaneously nominated, effectively creating a category devoted entirely to a single actor. The “award” ultimately went to his role in the science fiction film Cosmic Sin.

Within days of the winners being announced, Willis’s family made public that he had been diagnosed with aphasia, a language disorder that affects communication, and that he would be retiring from acting. In light of this revelation, the organizers of the Golden Raspberry Awards rescinded the Bruce Willis category and its associated “worst performance” dishonor, stating that it was inappropriate to satirize an actor’s work when a medical condition might have impaired his performances.

On March 30,  2022 Bruce Willis’ family announced that he would step away from acting after being diagnosed with aphasia. Just under a year later, his family said his “condition has progressed” to frontotemporal dementia.

Robin Williams

EARLY LIFE 

Robin Williams was born in Chicago, Illinois on July 21, 1951.

His father Robert Williams worked for Ford Motor Company. His mother Laura McLaurin (née Smith) was a former model from New Orleans, Louisiana.

Photo of Robin Williams, as printed on the March 12, 1979, cover of Time magazine, 

Robin Williams was one of just 20 students accepted into Julliard School in New York City in 1973. While his comedic genius was immediately obvious, he wasn't taken seriously until his portrayal of a wheelchair-bound old man in the Tennessee Williams play The Night of the Iguana during a third-year acting class.

He dropped out during his junior year in 1976 at the recommendation of his professor because his professor told Williams, "there was nothing more Juilliard could teach him."

Christopher Reeve was Williams' roommate and best friend at Juilliard. William Hurt and Mandy Patinkin were also classmates.

When Williams was first starting out, he performed as a mime outside New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art to make money. A photographer took pictures of a street mime in Central Park in 1974, and 35 years later discovered it was Robin Williams before he was famous.

CAREER 

After his family moved to Marin County, California, Williams began his career doing stand-up comedy shows in the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid-1970s. His first performance took place at the Holy City Zoo, a comedy club in San Francisco, where he worked his way up from tending bar to getting on stage.

Redd Foxx gave Pat Morita $3,500 to help with the down payment on his first home when Morita was a struggling comic, with the condition that he pay it forward instead of repaying Foxx. This happened after they became friends while working on Sanford and Son. Years later, Morita, having found success, saw a young Robin Williams perform in San Francisco, where Williams jokingly mentioned his financial struggles. After the show, Morita gave him $3,500—the same amount Foxx had given him—and told Williams to pay it forward, which Williams reportedly did.

Williams became famous for his role as Mork in the television series Mork & Mindy (1978–1982). 

Mork first appears in the Happy Days season five episode "My Favorite Orkan", which aired in February 1978 and is a take on the 1960s sitcom My Favorite Martian. The costume Robin Williams used as Mork on Happy Days was originally used in the Star Trek episode "The Savage Curtain."

Three cameras were standard in multi cam television filming prior to the 1970s; then Garry Marshall needed a fourth camera to solely follow Robin Williams during Mork & Mindy filming, since Williams was so unpredictable with his physical comedy.

Williams went on to a successful career in both stand-up comedy and movie acting.

Williams appeared in the music video for "Don't Worry, Be Happy" by Bobby McFerrin. He also had a cameo in "You Make Me Feel..." by Cobra Starship,

Williams said his favorite celebrity to impersonate was Jack Nicholson.

Williams December 2011 By Eva Rinaldi 

To cope while filming Schindlers' List, Steven Spielberg would call Robin Williams for 15 minutes every day to hear him do stand up over the phone.

When Robin Williams appeared on Inside the Actors Studio in 2001, an audience member developed a hernia from laughing too hard, and had to be taken away in an ambulance.

MOVIES 

Most of the radio broadcasts that Robin Williams delivered in the 1989 movie Good Morning Vietnam were improvised by him.

Robin Williams provided 14 hours of improvised lines for his first animated voice work in 1991's Ferngully: The Last Rainforest. Originally given an 8-minute part, after impressing the director, Williams' screen time was tripled.

In 1992, in Disney's Aladdin, Williams ad-libbed so many of his lines as the Genie that the film reportedly could not be nominated for the best screenplay Oscar.

Robin Williams only made $75,000 for voicing the Genie in Aladdin. After grossing over $200 million, Disney sent him a Picasso painting.

The hit movie 1993 Mrs. Doubtfire was originally written as a movie spin off for the TV show Home Improvement. It's star Tim Allen turned down the role of two characters and the idea was scrapped, re-written and handed over to Robin Williams.

During the filming of Mrs. Doubtfire, Robin Williams improvised so much that there were PG, PG-13, R, and NC-17 edits of the film.

It took four-and-a-half hours to apply Robin Williams' makeup for the role of Mrs. Doubtfire.

Williams received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as psychologist Sean Maguire in 1997's Good Will Hunting.

PERSONAL LIFE 

He was married three times. Williams wed Valerie Velardi in 1978. They divorced ten years later. In 1989, Williams married film producer Marsha Garces. She divorced him in 2008. Williams married graphic designer Susan Schneider in 2011. Their marriage lasted until Williams' death in 2014.

His daughter Zelda Rae Williams (b July 31, 1989) became an actress. Williams also had two sons named Zachary and Cody.

Williams was an enthusiast of video games. His daughter Zelda was named after the title character from The Legend of Zelda, a family favorite video game series.

Zelda Williams 2011. By PopCultureGeek.com -

Robin Williams' favorite television shows were Doctor Who and Star Trek.

Williams was an alcoholic and was also addicted to cocaine.  One month before his death, Williams went to rehab for his alcoholism. At the time he was suffering from severe depression.

DEATH 

On August 11, 2014, Robin Williams committed suicide at his home in Paradise Cay, California. He was 63-years-old.

The day after Robin Williams' suicide, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline fielded the greatest number of calls in its history.

Suicides nationwide increased by 10 percent after Robin Williams’ death; researchers found a convincing parallel between the increase and sensationalized coverage/headlines of his passing that violated CDC guidelines, focusing on the method of death.

Robin Williams had been asked to appear for the final night of Monty Python Live a month before he committed suicide. He declined citing 'severe depression'. The DVD of the night was dedicated to Williams upon release.

Robin Williams' ashes were scattered over San Francisco Bay.

Robin Williams' will prevents Disney from using his name, taped performances or voice recordings being used for 25 years after his death.

After Robin Williams' passing, Disney wanted to make a new Aladdin movie featuring Williams' unused Genie outtakes from the previous films. However, this was forbidden by the clause in Williams' will forbidding using his voice recordings, until 2039, after which they will be able to create Aladdin 2 using the film legend's real voice.

Three months after Robin Williams' death, they discovered that he had a rare brain disease called Lewy body dementia that was one of the worst cases ever seen.

On December 16, 2014, it was revealed that, as a result of his death, Williams was the fastest growing search term on Google in 2014.

John Wayne

John Wayne was the archetypal Western star. His films included Stagecoach (1939), The Searchers (1956) and True Grit (1969).

Pixiebay

He was born Marion Morrison on May 26, 1907 at 224 South Second Street in Winterset, Iowa.

Marion moved as a child to Glendale, California. A football star at Glendale High School, he attended the University of Southern California on a scholarship but dropped out after two years as a result of a bodysurfing accident, He tore ligaments in his shoulder while riding the surf near Balboa Pier.

After finding work locally as a movie studio laborer, Wayne befriended director John Ford, then a rising talent.

His first acting jobs were bit parts in which he was credited as Duke Morrison. "Duke" was a nickname derived from the name of a beloved childhood pet, a huge Airedale Terrier.

Wayne's college buddy, director Raoul Walsh, saw him moving studio furniture while working as a prop boy and cast him in his first starring role in The Big Trail (1930).

It was during this time that Marion Morrison became "John Wayne," when Raoul Walsh didn't think Marion was a good name for an actor playing a tough western hero.

Only leading roles in B movies followed during the 1930s, most of them also Westerns. Wayne's career was rejuvenated when John Ford's Stagecoach was released on March 2, 1939. Wayne's role as The Ringo Kid made him an instant mainstream star. Stagecoach was actually his 80th feature film. 

John Wayne wore a toupee beginning in about 1948. Wayne felt more confident wearing his toupee and never denied it. He often joked saying "It's not phony, it's real hair. Of course, it's not mine, but it's real."

Joseph Stalin ordered the KGB to kill John Wayne because he considered his anti-communist rhetoric a threat to the Soviet Union. He allegedly sent more than one hit squad to do the job.

When Nikita Khrushchev visited the United States he made two requests: to visit Disneyland and meet John Wayne.

Pixiebay

On May 31, 1956, Buddy Holly went to the movies. He saw the John Wayne film The Searchers, where Wayne repeatedly says, "That'll be the day."

On April 7, 1970 John Wayne, a movie veteran of around 150 films, won his first and only Academy Award for his role as a cantankerous one-eyed marshal in True Grit.

Studio Directors knew to film John Wayne's scenes before noon, because by the afternoon he was a 'real mean drunk'.

John Wayne did a commercial for Australian shoe company Grosby's when he was in Australia for an award show. He only took a small fee as he was impressed that the small ad agency representing them had actually asked him.

America, Why I Love Her, A LP of poetry read by John Wayne reached #66 on the US albums chart. Released on March 1, 1973, the record consists of patriotic poems written by actor John Mitchum, the brother of Robert Mitchum.

John Wayne had an 18-inch neck.

He smoked six packs of cigarettes a day.

Wayne had lung cancer in the 1960s. He had his left lung removed in 1964 and was declared cancer free five years later. Wayne has been credited with coining the term "The Big C" as a euphemism for cancer.

He made his last public appearance at the Academy Awards ceremony on April 9, 1979.

John Wayne played the leading role in 142 of his 153 movies. 83 of his lead roles were in Westerns.

Wayne's 142 movies, in a career spanning 50 years, grossed a half-billion dollars or more.

John Wayne died at age 72 on June 11, 1979 from stomach cancer. The cancer was likely caused by radiation poisoning. 91 other cast and crew also developed cancers after shooting The Conqueror downwind from recent US government nuclear weapons tests in 1956. By the end of 1980, 46 members of the film’s cast and crew had died from some form of the disease.

Despite the suggestion that Wayne's lung cancer in the 1960s also was a  result of nuclear contamination, the actor himself believed it was a result of his six-pack-a-day cigarette habit.

The house in Winterset, Iowa, where Wayne was born in 1907 is below. The John Wayne Birthplace Museum is located near the downtown area at 216 South 2nd Street.

Here is a list of songs inspired by John Wayne. 

Rudolph Valentino

The archetypical romantic lead of the silent movie era was born Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Piero Filiberto Guglielmi in Castellaneta, Italy on May 6, 1895.

After moving to New York, Valentino worked as a gardener, a busboy, and as a taxi driver.

Rudolph Valentino's movie career started with his appearance as an uncredited extra in My Official Wife (1914), although this is now a lost film.

He featured in several films in a minor role until 1921. Valentino got his major break when he appeared in the role of Julio in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and he went on to play leading roles in fourteen films as a romantic figure.

The films in which Valentino played a romantic role within the action genre were the more successful at the box office including The Sheik (1921) and his final two works The Eagle (1925) and The Son of the Sheik (1926).

Valentino's fans were eager to hear him sing. On May 14, 1923, Valentino made two vocal recordings for Brunswick Records, "Kashmiri Song" and "El Relicario." Valentino's voice was not classically trained, but it was clear and expressive. He had a natural talent for singing, and his voice was well-suited to the romantic ballads that he performed. The recordings were not a commercial success, but they did provide fans with a rare glimpse into Valentino's singing voice.

Rudolph Valentino impulsively married actress, Jean Acker on November 6, 1919. A closet lesbian, she locked him out of her bedroom on their wedding night. The union was never consummated and the pair divorced two years later.

Valentino enjoyed gardening, riding, hunting for small game, collecting mussels along the sea shore and walking in the desert near Palm Springs.

Valentino did not live long enough to see movies with sound replace silent movies. He died suddenly of peritonitis on August 23, 1926, at the age of 31. The subsequent extensive media coverage turned his funeral into a national event when an estimated 100,000 people lined the streets of Manhattan to pay their respects.

Sylvester Stallone

EARLY LIFE 

Sylvester Stallone was born on July 6, 1946 in New York City.

He is the son of Frank Stallone, Sr, a hairdresser, and Jackie Stallone (born as Jacqueline Labofish), a dancer.

Jackie Stallone is now a psychic who specializes in rumpology, or the reading of buttocks.

The lower left side of Sylvester Stallone's face has been paralyzed from birth resulting in his slurred speech.

Stallone's facial paralysis was the result of a doctor misusing tongs during his birth, severing the nerves in the newborn's lower left cheek.

Sylvester Stallone in 2012 By Georges Biard

When Sylvester Stallone was 15 years old, his classmates voted for him to be "most likely to die in an electric chair."

MOVIE CAREER

Sylvester Stallone's screen debut in Woody Allen's 1971 comedy Bananas lasted 76 seconds. He played a thug who intimidates Allen on a subway train.

Stallone was inspired to write the screenplay for Rocky after seeing 36-year-old Chuck Wepner take Muhammad Ali over 15 rounds in 1975.

Sylvester Stallone wrote the script for Rocky by hand in three and a half days. It was shot in 28 days, which Stallone compared to “the gestation time of a waterbug.”

Rocky, starring Stallone as the underdog prizefighter Rocky Balboa, debuted on November 21, 1976 in New York City. It was a huge box-office hit and received 10 Academy Awards.

Just before Sylvester Stallone sold the script for Rocky, he was homeless and sold his dog, Butkus for $40 to get food. A week later, he bought his dog back for $15,000.

During the filming of Rocky IV, Dolph Lundgren hit Sylvester Stallone so hard that his heart banged against his ribs, sending him to hospital for nine days. Stallone's blood pressure spiked to 260, and he was told his injuries were like what would happen in a car accident.

The movie Predator was inspired from a joke that was going around Hollywood that after Rocky IV, Stallone would have to fight aliens as he had run out of all earthly opponents.

Stallone in 1983 By photo by Alan Light.

Stallone had another major success in 1982 when he played a Vietnam veteran named John Rambo in the action adventure movie First Blood.

John Rambo was named after a type of apple cultivated by a 17th-century Swedish settler named Peter Gunnarson Rambo.

Instead of making a film about Iraq or Darfur, Stallone made Rambo IV in 2008 about "lesser-known" Myanmar military atrocities.

In the first Rambo movie First Blood, John Rambo kills one person. In fact, the only death in the whole movie is an accident. In comparison, Rambo kills 76 in First Blood II, 132 in Rambo III, and 236 in Rambo IV.

After reading the script for Stop! Or My Mother Will Shoot, Arnold Schwarzenegger thought it was terrible. He leaked false rumors that he wanted the lead role in the film to the press in order to get Sylvester Stallone, with whom he had a heated rivalry at the time, to try to steal the role. It worked and Stallone starred in the critical and commercial flop, just to keep it from Arnie.

Will Smith

Willard Smith was born on September 25, 1968 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Caroline (Bright), a school board administrator, and Willard Carroll Smith, Sr. a refrigeration engineer.

Will Smith at the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con International. By Gage Skidmore

Prior to his role as Will Smith in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Will Smith enjoyed a successful career as a rapper under the pseudonym, "The Fresh Prince" as part of a duo with his friend Jeffrey "DJ Jazzy Jeff" Townes. Together, the duo had several platinum-selling albums and singles in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The pair met in 1985 when Townes, who was performing at a party a few doors down from Smith's home, needed a hype man, as his normal guy hadn't shown up. Smith, who was only 17 years old at this point, happily filled in. Their first single was "Girls Ain't Nothing Back Trouble."

Smith was admitted to a pre-engineering summer program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology but did not attend college as DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince were starting to gain fame.

During a speech made by Will Smith, at the MTV Music Awards, he stated that he didn’t need to swear to sell his records. He explained he doesn't curse is his raps because when he was 12, his grandma found his profanity-laced notebook and got mad with him inspiring him to be a "clean" rapper.

He became an actor when he starred on the television show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as Will Smith, a teenager from Philadelphia sent to live with his rich relatives in Southern California.

Will Smith was about to declare bankruptcy until he was picked to star in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. He had to pay the IRS 70% of his salary over the first three seasons. 

Jazzy Jeff played the popular recurring character Jazz in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, whose trademark was to be physically kicked out of the house.

Will Smith would memorize the entire script then mumble other peoples' lines while they were being said during Season 1 of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

He has appeared in many movies including Independence Day, Men in Black, Wild Wild West, Ali, The Pursuit of Happyness, I Am Legend, and Suicide Squad.

His 1997 track "Men in Black" from the film of the sane name led the UK singles chart in the summer of 1997.

Will Smith turned down the role of Neo in The Matrix. Instead, he took the lead role in Wild Wild West.

In 1999 Smith topped the US singles chart with "Wild Wild West," the theme song of the film off the same name. Despite its pop success, the song was criticized for both sampling Stevie Wonder's song "I Wish" and for its incongruity with the western it serves as the theme song. The track won the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst "Original" Song of 1999.

Smith became the first Hip-Hop artist to be nominated for an Academy Award when got chosen for playing the title role in the movie Ali.

Will Smith is the only actor to have eight consecutive films gross over $100 million in the domestic box office and eleven consecutive films gross over $150 million internationally.

Smith at the Emmy Awards in 1993. By photo by Alan Light,

Will Smith trained so hard for I, Robot that he could bench 385 lb – or about 175kg.

He met wife actress Jada Pinkett when she auditioned for the role of his girlfriend on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. (The role went to Nia Long.)

They married in 1997. Will Smith proposed to Jada while they were laying in bed. He rolled over and said "Wassup? You wanna marry me?"

They have had two children Jaden and Willow. At the age of 11, Jaden Smith starred in The Karate Kid taking the role made famous by Ralph Macchio in the original classic 1984 movie.

2009, in Oslo: Smith with wife Jada and children Jaden and Willow. By Harrywad

Willow Smith made her acting debut at the age of 6, starring alongside her father in 2007's I Am Legend. Her film credits also include voice-over work for the animated feature Madagascar 2.

Willow had a worldwide hit aged nine with "Whip My Hair."

In 2018, Jada Pinkett Smith was diagnosed with alopecia and later shaved her hair off due to the condition. During the 94th Academy Awards on March 27, 2022, Smith walked onstage and slapped presenter Chris Rock after the comedian joked about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith's shaved head with a reference to the movie G.I. Jane.

Will Smith can solve a Rubik's Cube puzzle in less than a minute. He also speaks fluent Spanish and is a keen fencer.

Will Smith took took part in the 2022 expedition in the Ecuadorian Amazon which helped discover the northern green anaconda.

Frank Sinatra

EARLY LIFE

Francis Albert Sinatra was born on December 12, 1915, in an upstairs tenement at 415 Monroe Street in Hoboken, New Jersey.

He was the only child of Italian immigrants. His father Antonino Martino "Marty" Sinatra was a firefighter and  his mother Natalina "Dolly" Garaventa, a Democratic ward boss.

Sinatra in 1957's Pal Joey

At Francis's birth, the doctor thought he was a stillborn. Blue and not breathing, the doctor laid him on the counter while he attended to Sinatra’s mother. It was only when his grandmother picked up the newborn, ran him under cold water and slapped his back that Sinatra started breathing.

He weighed 13 pounds and 7oz when he was born in 1915 — almost double the average of a newborn. Francis was so big he suffered scars to his ear and the side of his face from the forceps used to help deliver him.

Francis' mom also served as the neighborhood's midwife/abortionist. She ran her illegal abortion business from her home.

Though well-loved, Francis was a terror in school. He attended David E. Rue Jr. High School from 1928, and A. J. Demarest High School (since renamed as Hoboken High School) in 1931. He was expelled from the latter 47 days later for "general rowdiness". Sinatra's school principal wrote that he "showed no real talent for anything."

At the age of 17 Francis decided to become a singer after seeing Bing Crosby perform, a decision which got him thrown out of home. However, his mother soon relented, helping him to get local gigs with a group called the 3 Flashes, later renamed the Hoboken Four.

Sinatra (far right) with the Hoboken Four on Major Bowes' Amateur Hour in 1935

Frank Sinatra and The Hoboken Four, performed in blackface in a short film aired at Radio City Music Hall.

CAREER 

After gaining his job as a singing waiter at a nearby resort, Frank Sinatra boasted that he would "become so big that no one could ever touch him".

When Frank Sinatra was just starting out as a singer, he carried his own P.A. system to the dives in which he typically performed.

Frank Sinatra got his big break when bandleader Harry James' wife heard him sing as a waiter and recommended him to her husband.

Frank Sinatra made his first commercial recording on July 13, 1939 — "From The Bottom Of My Heart" and "Melancholy Mood" with Harry James and his Orchestra for the Brunswick label. No more than 8,000 copies of the record were sold.

It was only when bandleader Tommy Dorsey bought out Sinatra's contract with James that he became the most popular big-band vocalist in the land, but the singer became upset that his allowance from Dorsey didn't match his fame, so he lit out for a solo stint on Columbia.

Sinatra copied Trombone player Tommy Dorsey's breathing style to hold notes for longer. He also took up jogging to improve his lung capacity.

In 1942 Sinatra became the first band singer to go solo after breaking his contract with Tommy Dorsey. This move led to other singers to try to establish themselves as individual performers rather than being tied to a particular bandleader.

When Sinatra made his solo nightclub debut at New York's Riobamba the following year, he sang two songs "with trembling lips" and brought the house down.

When Frank Sinatra opened at New York's Paramount Theatre on December 30, 1942, he was dubbed "The Sultan of Swoon," as teen girls screamed and cried.

Frank Sinatra’s publicist auditioned and paid girls $5 to scream at his early performances to get the crowd excited.

Frank Sinatra became the idol of "bobbysoxer" teenage fans everywhere, culminating in the "Columbus Day Riot" of 1944, when 35,000 teenage girls mobbed the New York Paramount to see him sing.

At first, Sinatra was mostly known as a crooner, a singer of love songs and his professional career had stalled by the early 1950s. He turned to Las Vegas, where he became one of its best known residency performers.

Sinatra in November 1950

Sinatra's career was reborn when he released several critically lauded albums featuring jazz and swing numbers, as well as love songs. They included In the Wee Small Hours (1955), Songs for Swingin' Lovers! (1956), Come Fly with Me (1958), Only the Lonely (1958) and Nice 'n' Easy (1960).

Frank Sinatra recorded concept records years before rock groups had the same idea. For a decade, he had pushed to make a cohesive LP at a time when no one in the record business was thinking beyond singles. Finally, his break-up with Ava Gardner provided the perfect catalyst. The 16 ballads he recorded for In The Wee Small Hours, a brooding cycle of torch songs, was arguably pop music’s first concept album.

He continued to release themed LPs. In 1965's September of My Years, a newly-50 Sinatra wrestles poignantly with mortality. Five years later, he released Watertown, a song cycle about a down and out divorcee in upstate New York, pondering his broken life in the Big Apple.

Frank Sinatra hated Rock and Roll, calling it, "the most brutal, ugly, desperate, vicious form of expression it has been my misfortune to hear." He later formed a great friendship with Elvis Presley after the two performed a jazzy duet on one of Sinatra's shows.

Sinatra was also an actor. He was in movies such as The Manchurian Candidate, High Society, From Here to Eternity, and The Man With The Golden Arm. He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in From Here To Eternity.

Sinatra and Grace Kelly on the set of High Society (1956)

Frank Sinatra ad-libbed the "Dooby dooby doo" closing scat part of "Strangers In the Night" as he disliked the lyrics. Iwao Takamoto, the animator who created the cartoon dog Scooby-Doo, said that he got the inspiration to name his character from Sinatra’s ad-lib.

Sinatra despised "Strangers In The Night", calling it "a piece of s----." Even though it was his biggest hit of the decade, the singer never included this number in any of his late 1960s specials.

Sinatra is the "father" half of the only father-daughter duet to ever hit #1, "Something Stupid" (which he sang with Nancy) topped the charts in 1967 in both the US and UK.

"My Way" originated as French song called "Comme D'habitude" (translation: "As Usual") by Claude Francois.  Paul Anka discovered this song while visiting France, and re-wrote the lyrics as "My Way." Upon returning to the US, he gave it to Frank Sinatra, and it became one of his signature songs.

Frank Sinatra briefly retired in 1971, but returned to the entertainment industry less than two years later, with his comeback album Ol' Blue Eyes is Back.

During a 1974 tour of Australia, Frank Sinatra insulted the media, especially female media. The stagehands union refused to work his show until he apologized. Sinatra threatened to cancel his shows. The transport union refused to prepare his airplane for departure.

In 1985 "New York, New York" became the official anthem of the Big Apple. The announcement was made by then New York mayor, Ed Koch.

Frank Sinatra was an avid supporter of civil rights. He was a generous financial supporter of Martin Luther King Jr, and was recruited by him to join the civil rights marches in the south. He would go on to receive a lifetime award from the NAACP.

In 1985, Ronald Reagan presented Sinatra with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, remarking, "His love of country, his generosity for those less fortunate ... make him one of our most remarkable and distinguished Americans."

Sinatra is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan

175,000 people assembled at the Maracaña Stadium in Rio de Janeiro to listen to Frank Sinatra perform on January 26, 1980. At the time, this set a Guinness World Record for the largest paying audience for a solo performer.

PRIVATE LIFE 

Sinatra was married 4 times. He was married to Nancy Barbato from 1939 to 1951, to Ava Gardner from 1951 to 1957, to Mia Farrow from 1966 to 1968, and to Barbara Marx from 1976 until his death.

Arranger Nelson Riddle commented on Frank Sinatra's tempestuous marriage to Ava Gardner "Ava taught him how to sing a torch song... she taught him the hard way."

When the 50-year-old Frank Sinatra married the 20-year-old actress Mia Farrow in New York in 1966, it caused a predictable media event. Their marriage lasted just two years.

Sinatra's son, Frank Sinatra, Jr., was kidnapped in 1963, but was eventually released unharmed. During his son's kidnapping, Frank Sinatra Sr spoke with the kidnappers via payphone often. Worried that he wouldn't have enough change for the call he started to carry 10 dimes wherever he went. He continued to do this for the rest of his life, and was even buried with 10 dimes in his pocket.

Sinatra was also part of the Rat Pack, a group of entertainers (musicians and actors), in the 1950s and 1960s. Other members included Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford. The name was informal, and the group was not an official organization of any sort, but a group of friends, who also referred to themselves as The Summit.

Frank Sinatra often visited the barber shop in the basement of the Hollywood Plaza Hotel to play gin rummy with the barber.

Sinatra in 1957

Sinatra owned an orange Lamborghini Miura in the 60s and famously said : "you buy a Ferrari when you want to be somebody. You buy a Lamborghini when you are somebody."

Kris Kristofferson got the idea for "Help Me Make It Though The Night" after reading an Esquire interview with Frank Sinatra. When asked what he believed in, Frank replied, "Booze, broads, or a bible... whatever helps me make it through the night."

LAST YEARS AND DEATH

Frank Sinatra played his final full concert at the Fukuoka dome baseball stadium in Japan on December 20, 1994. He forgot his lyrics several times and repeatedly introduced his conductor and son, Frank Jr.

The last song Sinatra ever performed live was "The Best Is Yet to Come." On February 25, 1995, Frank sang this number for a group of 1200 people on the last night of a golf tournament named for him.

Frank Sinatra died at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles on May 14, 1998 at 10.50pm aged 82, after suffering a heart attack. His wife Barbara was at his side.

Sinatra had been seriously ill for some time and had lived as a recluse in his final years.

The lights on the Las Vegas Strip were dimmed - and the roulette wheels stopped spinning for a minute - to mark the passing of Ol' Blue Eyes.

The words "The best is yet to come" are written on his tombstone.

Source Mental Floss

O. J. Simpson

EARLY LIFE 

Orenthal James "O. J." Simpson was born July 9, 1947 in San Francisco, California.

Simpson in 1990

OJ Simpson's father was a well known drag queen in the San Francisco area, who died of aids in 1986.

FOOTBALL CAREER 

O. J. Simpson originally attained stardom as a running back at the collegiate and professional levels.

He played professionally in the NFL for 11 seasons, primarily with the Buffalo Bills from 1969 to 1977, but also for the San Francisco 49ers from 1978 to 1979.

In 1973 O. J. Simpson became the first player in NFL history to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a single season.

In 1975, People magazine described Simpson as "the first black athlete to become a bona fide lovable media superstar".

Simpson holds the record for the single season yards-per-game average, which stands at 143.1.

Simpson was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1983 and the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985.

Simpson acquired the nickname "Juice" as a play on "O.J.", a common abbreviation for "orange juice".

ACTING CAREER 

After retiring from football, Simpson began new careers in acting and football broadcasting.

Simpson in 1990 visiting American troops during lead-up to the first Gulf War

Simpson played T.D. Parker in the television series 1st & Ten: The Championship from 1986 to 1991.

O.J. Simpson was at one stage going to be the Terminator, but was cut because the director couldn't imagine him as a ruthless killer.

In 1995 he won the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor for his role in Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult.

MARRIAGE  

Simpson met Nicole Brown in 1977, while she was working as a waitress at the nightclub, The Daisy. Although still married to his first wife, Marguerite, Simpson began dating Brown. Simpson and Marguerite divorced in March 1979.

Simpson and Brown were married on February 2, 1985 and they had two children, Sydney and Justin.

Simpson, Nicole and Austen Feb 1986 at Honolulu Hawaii. Photo by Alan Light,

Simpson pleaded no contest to spousal abuse in 1989 and Brown filed for divorce on February 25, 1992, citing irreconcilable differences as the reason. The pair attempted to reconcile the following year.

LEGAL HISTORY

In 1993 on Seinfeld, Elaine wanted her boyfriend to change his name from a serial killer’s (Joel Rifkin) to something normal. Reading a football almanac, she suggests O.J.

Nicole Brown Simpson and her waiter friend Ron Goldman were found stabbed to death on June 12, 1994 outside Nicole's condominium in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles.

Simpson was a person of interest in their murders and on June 17 he became the object of a low-speed pursuit in a white Ford Bronco SUV; TV stations interrupted coverage of the 1994 NBA Finals to broadcast the incident live.

Domino's sold as many pizzas during OJ Simpson's car chase as it did on Superbowl Sunday that year.

He was tried for the murder of his wife and Ronald Goldman in 1994. The criminal court in Los Angeles, California found that Simpson was not guilty of those murders the following year.

When the prosecution had Simpson try on the leather glove whose wearer had committed the murder,  he struggled to pull the evidence comfortably over his hand. That led defense lawyer Johnnie Cochran to utter the iconic line, "If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit" — a turning point for the defense in the lengthy trial.

It is now believed that the reason OJ Simpson's gloves did not fit during his trial was because he stopped taking his arthritis medication two weeks before hand causing his hands to swell.

During OJ Simpson's verdict announcement trading on the New York Stock Exchange dropped 41% and that so much work stopped across the world to watch, an estimated $480 million was lost in productivity.

Russian President Boris Yeltsin's first words to President Bill Clinton upon meeting in 1995 were, "Do you think O.J. did it?"

In 1997, Simpson was found liable for their wrongful deaths in a civil trial brought by the two victims' families, but to date he has paid little of the $33.5 million judgment.

A man bought and melted down O.J. Simpson's Player of the Year trophy to make pins for people who donated to battered women's shelters.

Simpson gained further notoriety in late 2006 when he wrote a book titled If I Did It. The book, in which Simpson allegedly puts forth a "hypothetical" description of murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, was withdrawn by the publisher just before its release.

The book was later released by the Goldman family and renamed If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer, with the word "If" greatly reduced in size to make the title appear to read I Did It: Confessions of the Killer.

In September 2007, Simpson was arrested in Las Vegas and charged with the felonies of armed robbery and kidnapping. 

The Jury on the OJ Simpson trial were sequestered for 265 days. Additionally, it involved involved extreme isolation and constant supervision.

He was convicted on all counts and sentenced to 33 years imprisonment, with a minimum of nine years without parole.

Simpson served his sentence at the Lovelock Correctional Center in Lovelock, Nevada before being released from prison on October 1, 2017.

Simpson paid less than 1% of the $33.5 million civil judgment against him for the wrongful death of Ron Goldman.

Simpson died of prostate cancer on April 10, 2024, aged 76.