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Born on November 21, 1944 in Chicago, Illinois, Harold Allen Ramis got his start in comedy as Playboy magazine's joke editor and reviewer. In 1969, he joined Chicago's Second City's Improvisational Theatre Troupe before moving to New York to help write and perform in "The National Lampoon Show" with other Second City graduates including John Belushi, Gilda Radner and Bill Murray. By 1976, he was head writer and a regular performer on the top Canadian comedy series SCTV (1976). His Hollywood debut came when he collaborated on the script for National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) which was produced by Ivan Reitman. After that, he worked as writer with Ivan as producer on Meatballs (1979), Stripes (1981), Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989) and acted in the latter three. Harold Ramis died on February 24, 2014 at age 69 from complications of autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis.- Actor
- Stunts
- Additional Crew
Christopher Crosby Farley was born on February 15, 1964, in Madison, Wisconsin, to Mary Anne (Crosby) and Thomas Farley, who owned an oil company. Among his siblings are actors Kevin P. Farley and John Farley. He was of Irish heritage. Farley studied theatre and communications on Marquette University. After finishing university he was in the cast of the Second City Theatre, where he was discovered by the producer of the great comedy show Saturday Night Live (1975), Lorne Michaels. Farley worked on Saturday Night Live (1975) for five years during which he appeared in movies like Wayne's World (1992), Coneheads (1993), Billy Madison (1995) and finally Tommy Boy (1995), with his comic partner and SNL cast member David Spade. The duo later made one more movie called Black Sheep (1996). From that time on, Farley was one of the big comedy stars, and his fame was growing and growing.
After some more time, he made another "lone" movie, Beverly Hills Ninja (1997), which featured former SNL member Chris Rock. Farley was made even more famous, but with his growing fame, his problems grew bigger as well; he didn't want to be the "fat guy who falls down" any longer. Farley had several other problems, too, with alcohol and drug dependency. On December 18th, 1997, he died from a heroin (opiate) and cocaine overdose in his apartment in Chicago, where his body was found by his brother John the next day. Farley's weight of 296 pounds was a contributing factor in his death, but according to his autopsy the alcohol, marijuana and Prozac that was also found in his body, were not. Less than two months prior to his death, he had appeared alongside Chevy Chase on what would be Farley's only SNL show as host. Not unlike his idol John Belushi, he was credited for one more appearance after having left SNL and died at age 33. His death cause was also the same. In the year after Farley's departing, the movie Almost Heroes (1998), where he plays the leading role alongside Matthew Perry was released. He also makes cameo appearances in Dirty Work (1998)- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
John Mahoney was an award-winning American actor. He was born in Blackpool, Lancashire, England, the seventh of eight children of Margaret and Reg, a baker. His family was evacuated to the sea-side resort to avoid the Nazi bombing of their native Manchester. The Mancunian Mahoneys eventually returned to Manchester during the war. Visiting the States to see his older sister, a "war bride" who had married an American, the young Mahoney decided to emigrate and was sponsored by his sister. John eventually won his citizenship by serving in the U.S. Army.
Long interested in acting, Mahoney didn't make the transition to his craft until he was almost forty years old. Mahoney took acting classes at the St. Nicholas Theater and finally built up the courage to quit his day job and pursue acting full time. John Malkovich, one of the founders of the Second City's distinguished Steppenwolf Theatre, encouraged Mahoney to join Steppenwolf, and in 1986, Mahoney won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance in John Guare's The House of Blue Leaves (1987).
Mahoney made his feature film debut in 1980, but he was best known for playing the role of the father of the eponymous character Frasier (1993) from 1993 until 2004. He later concentrated on stage work back in Chicago, and appeared on Broadway in 2007 in a revival of Prelude to a Kiss (1992).
John died on February 4, 2018, in Chicago, Illinois.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Bernard Jeffrey McCollough was born in 1957 in Chicago, the son of Mary McCullough and Jeffery Harrison. He grew up in the city, in a rougher neighborhood than most others, with a large family living under one roof. This situation provided him with a great insight into his comedy, as his family, and the situations surrounding them would be what dominated his comedy. Mac worked in the Regal Theater, and performed in Chicago parks in his younger days. He became a professional comedian in 1977, at the age of 19. He refused to change his image for television and films, and therefore was not very well known for most of the eighties. In 1992 he made his film debut with a small part with Mo' Money (1992). This started a plethora of small parts in a string of movies, mostly comedies, including Who's the Man? (1993), House Party 3 (1994) and The Walking Dead (1995). 1995 proved to be a turning point in his career. He did an HBO Special called Midnight Mac (1995), and took a part as Pastor Clever in the Chris Tucker comedy Friday (1995). Bernie Mac developed a cult following due to the film. In 1996. he starred in the memorable Spike Lee movie Get on the Bus (1996), and was very funny in Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood (1996). About this time he had a recurring role in the TV series Moesha (1996). Bernie Mac's star was slowly rising from this point. His next couple of movie parts were more substantial, including How to Be a Player (1997) and The Players Club (1998). In 1999 Bernie Mac got his most high profile part up to that point in the film Life (1999) starring Eddie Murphy.
The new century started a new era for the brash Chicago comedian. He was a featured comedian in The Original Kings of Comedy (2000). This performance made him more of a household name, and led to many more major parts. In 2001 he played Martin Lawrence's uncle in What's the Worst That Could Happen? (2001) and later that year, was in the star studded remake of Ocean's Eleven (2001). However his biggest success was The Bernie Mac Show (2001), which debuted in 2001 to instant acclaim. However, soon after the series ended, Mac's health took a turn for the worse. He developed sarcoidosis, an autoimmune disease which causes inflammation in the lungs. On August 9, 2008, after weeks of unsuccessful treatments, Bernie Mac died at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. He was 50.
Bernie Mac was a comedian who refused to change his image for Hollywood and said that his life in Chicago was who he was, and there was nothing that could change that. He was a mature comedian who was very intelligent and engaging in his television, film and stand-up appearances.- Kevin Alexander Clark was born on December 3, 1988 in Highland Park, Illinois. He played the drums since he was three years old but didn't take private lessons until the fifth grade. He was so skilled in his performances that each one demanded a standing ovation from the audience. Kevin was an active member of the Highland Park High School's concert band and also part of its jazz bands. Not only did he have his drumming career mixed together with his acting career, he formed his own garage band where he played the drums - and a little guitar and bass when needed. Kevin composed several original pieces on computer and on guitar. He was introduced to acting at the age of thirteen, playing one of the rocking kids, Freddy Jones, in Paramount Pictures' School of Rock (2003) with Jack Black and Joan Cusack. The film had a number-one opening weekend, October 3, 2003, in the United States, and ended up grossing $81 million domestically. While Kevin never appeared in another film again, he continued drumming in Chicago-era bands, most recently Jess Bess and the Intentions.
Kevin died at age 32 on May 26, 2021 in Chicago, after being struck by a motorist while biking in the city's Avondale neighborhood. - Writer
- Actor
- Producer
Roger Joseph Ebert was the all-time best-known, most successful movie critic in cinema history, when one thinks of his establishing a rapport with both serious cineastes and the movie-going public and reaching more movie fans via television and print than any other critic. He became the first and only movie critic to win a Pulitzer Prize (it would be 28 years before another film critic, Stephen Hunter, would win journalism's top tchotchke). His opinions likely were relied on by more movie-goers than any other critic in cinema history, making Roger Ebert the gold standard for film criticism.
Ebert was born in Urbana, Illinois, to Annabel (Stumm), a bookkeeper, and Walter Harry Ebert, an electrician. He was married to Chaz Ebert. Roger Ebert died on April 4, 2013, in Chicago, Illinois.- Actor
- Writer
Best remembered for his raunchy humor, Robin Harris became famous in supporting roles in movies such as Do The Right Thing as Sweet Dick Willie and House Party. He has left a legacy that fans and actors will truly miss due to his career which was cut by a massive heart attack at the age of 36. Spike Lee dedicated Mo'Better Blues to Harris after his untimely death.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Chances are you've seen his imposing character face scores of times but couldn't place the name. Colorado-born actor Walter Sande was one of those stern, heavyset character actors in Hollywood everyone recognized but no one could identify.
Born in Denver on July 9, 1906, Sande showed an early passion for music as a youth and by his college years managed to start his own band. This led to a job as musical director for 20th Century-Fox's theater chain, which in turn led to acting in films beginning in 1937. Usually providing atmospheric bits with no billing, he made an initial impression in serial cliffhangers as a third-string heavy with the popular The Green Hornet Strikes Again! (1940) and Sky Raiders (1941). His first top featured role, however, would come with The Iron Claw (1941) as Jack "Flash" Strong, a photographer who--uncharacteristically for Walter--served as a comic sidekick to the serial's hero. Best of all would be his role in another serial as Red Pennington, the amusing sidekick to Don Winslow of the Navy (1942). he repeated his role again in Don Winslow of the Coast Guard (1943), the successful sequel. The role of Pennington sparked a long and steady supporting career in movies, usually a step or two behind Hollywood's elite on camera, which included Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not (1944) (prominently featured as the fisherman who tries to cheat Bogie), Gary Cooper in Along Came Jones (1945), Alan Ladd in The Blue Dahlia (1946), Charlton Heston in Dark City (1950) and Spencer Tracy in Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), among hundreds of others. He also lent an an authoritative presence to classic sci-fi films such as Red Planet Mars (1952), The War of the Worlds (1953) and Invaders from Mars (1953), and also had a recurring featured part in the 1940s "Boston Blackie" film series playing Detective Matthews alongside Chester Morris' former thief-turned-crime hero.
A prolific supporting player during the "golden age" of TV, Sande worked on nearly every popular western and crime show that aired throughout the 1950s and 1960s. He had a regular series role on The Adventures of Tugboat Annie (1957) as Capt. Horatio Bullwinkle, Annie's tugboat rival, and a recurring one as Inger Stevens' Swedish father, Lars "Papa" Holstrum, on The Farmer's Daughter (1963).
Walter Sande died of a heart attack in 1971 at age 65.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Alan Marshal was born on 29 January 1909 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He was an actor, known for House on Haunted Hill (1959), The Garden of Allah (1936) and Lydia (1941). He was married to Mary Grace Borel. He died on 13 July 1961 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Director
Del Close was born and raised in Manhattan, Kansas, and attended Kansas State University, after touring with a sideshow act for a period of time in his teenage years. In 1957, at the age of 23, he became a member of the St. Louis branch of "The Compass Players", the direct precursor of "The Second City", which opened in December, 1959. Most of the St. Louis cast went to Chicago, but Close chose New York and a budding career as a hip, young stand-up comic in competition with Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Bob Newhart, etc. That same year, he also appeared in the off-Broadway musical, "The Nervous Set", of which an original cast album exists. Close came to Chicago in 1960 and, more or less, made it his home for the rest of his life, always gravitating back there after a few months or even years elsewhere. Perhaps he understood instinctively the advice Paul Sills gave Stuart Gordon some years later: "Come to Chicago", they Close directed and performed at "The Second City", until he was fired (major substance abuse problems) in 1965.
He spent the next five years in San Francisco eating acid and touring with the "Merry Pranksters" on their famous psychedelic bus, creating light images for Grateful Dead, and working with The Committee, a North Beach equivalent of "Second City", which Close helped organize. It was at "The Committee" that he first began seriously to develop his ideas and techniques of long-form improvisation, although "Second City" had experimented with long-form as early as 1962. Close returned to Chicago in 1970 and set up a free, open-to-all workshop at the Kingston Mines Company Store, the café attached to the Kingston Mines Theatre Company on Lincoln Avenue (where the parking garage of Children's Memorial Medical Center now stands). He drilled his students -- everyone from acid-dropping love children to a vice-president of the Foote, Cone and Belding advertising agency -- in the basic principals of improv and theatre games, and in the specifics of "The Harold", a long-form improv technique developed by Close. At a time when most improvisation mainly focused on creating single scenes, Del devised "The Harold" as something not unlike a sonata form. Several themes would be established, a community of characters would be introduced, and then the resulting scenes would play off each other in comedic counterpoint -- characters from one environment moving to another and phrases and images recurring, each time accruing new meaning. Going to this from conventional sketches was like going from arithmetic to calculus. (Why was it called "The Harold"? When he introduced it, one of his students said, "Del, you've invented something, you get to name it". Del said, "Well, the Beatles called their haircut "Arthur", so I'll call this Harold". He later regretted the flipness. "Probably my most significant contribution and it's got that stupid name").
The weekly public performances at Kingston Mines sometimes had as many as 20 performers participating. After a few months, Close hand-picked a dozen of his best, and moved operations down the block to the Body Politic for twice-weekly workshops and Sunday night performances. He named the company "The Chicago Extension Improv Company", as an extension of his San Francisco work. The best-known players to emerge from the troupe were "Broadway" Betty Thomas, Dan Ziskie, Brian Hickey and Jonathan Abarbanel.
Before leaving Chicago, again, in 1972 to perform for Paul Sills in a Story Theatre production at the Mark Taper Forum in LA, Close and "The Chicago Extension" had begun to explore scenario improvs based on dreams. The techniques the "Extension" developed after Close left became Dream Theatre, which continued at the Body Politic over the next five years, although with different personnel. Close returned to Chicago in 1973 as resident director at "The Second City", a position he kept until 1982. It was during this decade that he taught and directed a long list of TV and film comedy greats, including John Belushi, Bill Murray, John Candy, Don DePollo, George Wendt, Audrie Neenan, Eugenie Ross-Leming, David Rasche, Shelley Long, Ann Ryerson, etc.
Upon leaving the troupe, Close pursued legitimate acting opportunities with a number of theatres, including Wisdom Bridge, Remains, Goodman and Steppenwolf. He won his Joseph Jefferson Award in 1985 in a radical "Hamlet", directed by Robert Falls at Wisdom Bridge. Close also did TV and film work, appearing in The Untouchables (1987) and Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), among others. It was during this period that Close finally beat his long heroin addiction (although he continued to smoke cigarettes and marijuana), in part truly shocked by the excesses and death of John Belushi, and, in part, because, as he told Jonathan Abarbanel, "I've decided I want to live".
Close was enjoying his new theatrical vistas, as well as a successful professional partnership with Charna Halpern and ImprovOlympic, which allowed him to concentrate on further development of "The Harold", and on team improv. Close was 64 when he died of complications due to emphysema the evening of March 4, 1999, just five days shy of his birthday. He left no survivors, although he claimed to have fathered an illegitimate child by a woman in Minneapolis sometime in the late 1950s. Close requested in his will that his skull be given to the Goodman Theatre so that he could play Yorick in the company's next "Hamlet". However, Halpern, his executor, was unable to persuade doctors to remove Close's skull, and it was cremated along with the rest of his body.
Close was one of three titans of improvisational theatre who put it on the map, refined it, and turned it into the fixture of comedic and acting technique which it has become. The first was Viola Spolin, who started the work in the 1930s with her development of theatre games -- originally for children -- as exercises in imagination. She didn't utilize them for public performance. It was her son, Paul Sills, who was able to take theatre games and use them as the basis for development of satirical revue comedy. Sills and a group of brilliant cohorts, including Mike Nichols, Elaine May, Shelley Berman, Sheldon Patinkin and others made this work the focus of various company experiments in the mid-1950s, including the Compass Players in Chicago and St. Louis. In 1959, The Second City opened, co-founded by Sills, Howard Alk and Bernard Sahlins. Close arrived on the scene a year later. Within three years, both Sills and Alk had left the troupe to pursue other ventures. Alk continued to work in the improv field, but died young. Sills has retained improv and theatre games within his artistic repertory -- it is part of the basis of his Story Theatre -- but has not devoted his career to it. Close, then, became the third titan of improvisation after Spolin and Sills, and the only one to devote his artistic life and best theoretical thinking to it. He fully understood pain and suffering as a basis for comedy, as well as the nature and limitations of the comedic form. The Harold, the scenario, long-form improv -- call it what you will -- is his personal legacy to the field; while his own boundless, sometimes manic drive as a charismatic teacher and director have done more to establish improvisational theatre around the world than anything or anyone else. The explosion of improv troupes and teams and classes (the Museum of Contemporary Art offers an improv class, for example), and the inclusion of theatre games and improv exercises in standard acting curricula, are the result of the work of Spolin and Sills and Close. With specific regard to long-form improv and Close's own contribution, that legacy will grow even greater through the next generation, as his students and acolytes inherit the world of comedy.- Actor
- Additional Crew
John Santucci was born on 8 November 1940. He was an actor, known for Thief (1981), Crime Story (1986) and Miami Vice (1984). He died on 22 February 2004 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.- A naval officer's son, Goldring spent much of his childhood on the road, travelling to wherever his father happened to be based. After finishing prep school in Maryland, he attended Trinity University in San Antonio for a year before doing military service with the Army Signals Corps in Vietnam. Upon his demobilisation, Goldring returned to Maryland and for a short time worked a construction job. In 1968, he moved to Chicago to join the Cole Marionettes theatrical troupe as a puppeteer, touring the Midwest. Two years later, he was back in the 'windy city' to study at the Goodman School of Drama, graduating in 1973. Aware that he needed to improve his finesse as an actor, he busied himself for the next three years performing on radio and appearing on the stage in productions like Under Milkwood, Dandelion Wine and Lunching.
The red-haired, craggy-faced, husky-voiced actor made his screen debut in 1976 and was quickly typecast to playing a host of detectives, motorcycle cops and army officers. He later commented: "For some reason, people see me as an authority figure. I fit well into uniforms." In that capacity, he featured in the TV series Angel Street (1992), NYPD Blue (1993), Turks (1999) and Boss (2011) (a recurring role as an ex cop-turned-barkeep), as well as Vice Versa (1988), Excessive Force (1993) and The Fugitive (1993) on the big screen. Nothing if not versatile, Goldring also played one of the Joker's minions (Grumpy) in The Dark Knight (2008), a Starfleet officer and a Cardassian Legate in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993) and the Alpha Hirogen Karr in the World War II holodeck simulation of Star Trek: Voyager (1995)'s double episode The Killing Game. Peers often described Goldring as a consummate professional who would gladly take on any challenging role.
The actor died from kidney failure in Chicago on December 2 2022 at the age of 76. - Donal Donnelly was an English actor best known in the cinema for roles in The Knack... and How to Get It (1965) and The Godfather Part III (1990) and on stage for his work in the plays of Brian Friel. He was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, on the 6th of July 1931, but raised in Dublin, Ireland. In Dublin, he went to a Christian Brothers School where he acted in school plays with classmates Jack MacGowran and Milo O'Shea. Subsequently, he toured Ireland with Anew McMaster's repertory company.
On-stage, he established professional reputation in 1964 playing Gar Private in the Friel's Philadelphia, Here I Come! (1974) at Dublin's Gate Theatre. He was nominated for a Tony Award when the show transferred to Broadway in 1966, where it was a hit, racking up 326 performances. Two years later, he replaced Albert Finney in the 1968 Broadway production of A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1972). From 1969 through 1995, he appeared in an additional nine Broadway productions, including Sleuth (1972) and The Elephant Man (1980), and Friel's "The Mundy Scheme", Dancing at Lughnasa (1998), and "Translations".
In 1965, he co-starred with Michael Crawford and Rita Tushingham in Richard Lester's movie adaption of Ann Jellicoe's hit play "The Knack". It was a hit. He played the scheming Archbishop Gilday out to fleece Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) in "The Godfather Part III" and gave a critically acclaimed performance in John Huston's adaption of James Joyce's short story The Dead (1987). He also appeared on British television, most memorably in Z Cars (1962) and the 1970s situation-comedy Yes, Honestly (1976).
Donal Donnelly died from cancer on the 4th of January 2010 in Chicago. He was 78 years old. He and his wife Patsy had two children. - Actress
- Director
Barbara Trentham was born on 27 August 1944 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress and director, known for Rollerball (1975), Sky Riders (1976) and The Possession of Joel Delaney (1972). She was married to George Covington and John Cleese. She died on 2 August 2013 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.- Davis Roberts was born on 7 March 1917 in Mobile, Alabama, USA. He was an actor, known for Westworld (1973), Star Trek (1966) and What's Happening!! (1976). He died on 18 July 1993 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
- Music Artist
- Music Department
- Actor
Juice WRLD was born on 2 December 1998 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was a music artist and actor, known for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), Eminem Feat. Juice WRLD: Godzilla (2020) and Juice Wrld: Lucid Dreams (2018). He died on 8 December 2019 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.- Nathan Davis was born on 22 May 1917 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for Holes (2003), Poltergeist III (1988) and Chain Reaction (1996). He was married to Metta Davis. He died on 15 October 2008 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Director
Legendary for his preening, prancing, delightfully playful villain Captain Hook on the award-winning stage (as well as TV) opposite America's musical treasure Mary Martin, beloved musical star Cyril Ritchard had a vast career that would last six decades, but "Peter Pan" would become his prime legacy. Born in Australia just before the turn of the century, he was educated at St. Aloysius College and Sydney University wherein he slyly sidestepped a parental-guided career in medicine for entertainment, participating in numerous college productions that quickly got him "hooked." He began professionally in the chorus line of The Royal Comic Opera Company and quickly progressed to juvenile leads. A subsequent pairing with the already-established theatre actress Madge Elliott in 1918 proved successful, and the musical twosome eventually married in 1935. Together they would go on to become known as "The Musical Lunts" by their acting peers performing in scores of plays and revues together. Ritchard specialized in playing slick, dandified villains in musical comedy and developed a potent reputation of being a man of many talents. Not only directing and staging Broadway's finest, he became a renown performer of various operas and led many productions as such. Shortly before his wife's death of bone cancer in 1955, Ritchard ventured into TV infamy by repeating his Tony and Donaldson award-winning portrayal of Hook in Peter Pan (1955). He continued to earn acclaim and/or honors with such classic stage productions as "Visit to a Small Planet" (Tony-nominated), "The Pleasure of His Company" (Drama League award, Tony-nominated), "The Roar of the Greasepaint...the Smell of the Crowd" (Tony-nominated), "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Sugar," the musical version of the classic Billy Wilder film Some Like It Hot (1959) in which Ritchard played the Joe E. Brown role. Lesser regarded when it comes to film, he performed in the early Hitchcock classic Blackmail (1929) and made his last movie with the musical Half a Sixpence (1967) with Tommy Steele. While performing as the Narrator in a stage production of "Side by Side by Sondheim" in November 1977, Ritchard suffered a heart attack and died one month later. A one-of-a-kind talent, his nefarious, narcissistic humor was a career trademark that culminated in the role of a lifetime -- one that will certainly be enjoyed by children young and old for eons to come.- Mike Nussbaum was born on 29 December 1923 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Men in Black (1997), Fatal Attraction (1987) and House of Games (1987). He was married to Julie Brudlos and Annette Tobey Brenner. He died on 23 December 2023 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
- Kathleen Burke was born on 5 September 1913 in Hammond, Indiana, USA. She was an actress, known for The Last Outpost (1935), Good Dame (1934) and The Lion Man (1936). She was married to Jose Fernandez, Glen Nelson Rardin and Forrest Lloyd Smith. She died on 9 April 1980 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Laurel Cronin was born on 10 October 1939 in Forest Park, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Beethoven (1992), A League of Their Own (1992) and Hook (1991). She died on 26 October 1992 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.- Actor
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Richard Kim Milford was an actor-singer-songwriter-composer-dancer who first appeared in SummerStock Theatre in Chicago at age 10. At age 17 he was in the original staging of Hair (he played Woof and Claude). In 1970 he was awarded the Faith and Freedom Award by the Religious Heritage of America for his portrayal of the Prodigal Son in ABC Directories series "Round Trip". He later performed in the first concert tour of Jesus Christ Superstar playing Jesus and Judas, and in the first production of The Rocky Horror Show as Rocky (Roxy Cast in LA, and in NYC on Broadway). He was also in the plays Henry Sweet Henry, 1776, Your Own Thing, Rockabye Hamlet, More Than You Deserve, and Sunset. Later Kim was the lead singer for the Jeff Beck Group (Aug-Sept '72) and then worked on television (TV movies: Song of the Succubus [with Brooke Adams] and Rock-A-Die-Baby (aka Night of the Full Moon), both in 1975 on ABC's Wild World of Entertainment, and on Mannix (Portrait in Blues). Kim was also in the feature films Laserblast, Bloodbrothers, Corvette Summer, Escape, Nightmare at Noon, and Wired to Kill. Kim had 2 singles, "Muddy River Water" (Decca) and "Help is on the Way, Rozea." He is also on the Sunset soundtrack, Roxy Cast album of Rocky Horror Show, and wrote and performed a song "Justice" produced by Robert Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil on the 'Ciao! Manhattan' (Edie Sedgewick) movie; in addition, he's on some bootlegs of the Aug-Sept '72 Jeff Beck concerts. He performed with the made-for-TV group Moon in the two TV movies above. Richard Kim Milford died in Chicago on June 16, 1988 of heart failure, after having undergone heart surgery several weeks earlier. He was 37 years old.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Chelsea Brown was born in Chicago, Illinois, USA as Lois Brown. She passed away from pneumonia March 28, 2017 in Chicago, Illinois.
She was an actress, comedienne, singer and dancer perhaps best known for being the first African-American series regular in the iconic, ground-breaking American TV series Laugh-In. With her big, beautiful smile, she was often the sensible foil to the wackier talents of Ruth Buzzi, Arte Johnson, Jo Anne Worley and Goldie Hawn.
Among her many other film and TV credits are The Return of Captain Invincible (1983) and Dial Hot Line (1970). She was married to actor Vic Rooney until his death .
After Laugh-In she moved to Australia where she lived for many decades and enjoyed a long and successful career in film, TV and the stage. She recorded albums and had a very popular cabaret act in which she toured the world.
Her late husband, Vic Rooney played her husband on the Aussie soap E Street (1989). After her husband's death, she moved back to her hometown of Chicago, Illinois where she had a large, extended family and many friends.- Maurice Tillet, better known by his Professional wrestling name, "The French Angel". Maurice was born in St. Petersburg, Russia on October 23, 1903 of French parents. His father was an engineer involved in the construction of the Trans-Siberian railroad and his mother was a teacher of languages. By age 8 Maurice had lost his father. Sometime afterwards Maurice's mother moved him to Moscow Russia, where she taught at a St. Philip Neri Catholic School where Maurice attended classes.
With the Russian Revolution underway in 1917, his mother decided to move to Rheims, France. She found employment teaching languages at a local girl's college. Probably due to his mother's influence, Maurice learned to speak many languages. Maurice was a devout Catholic and attended church every Sunday. Once in 1947 he was even given an audience with the Pope.
By age 17, Maurice's head, chest, hands, and feet started to expand. By age 19, he was diagnosed with acromegaly. Acromegaly is a disease caused by a tumor on the pituitary gland that then causes bones to thicken to abnormal proportions. It took an angelic young man and turned him into what the public perceived as a monster.
Maurice received his secondary education at St. Stanislaus, a Catholic school in Paris. Once complete he went onto his post-secondary education at Toulouse University of Law.
He was always the athlete, enjoying rugby in particular. Once in 1926 he was named to an all-France rugby team. After a game in London, he received the distinction of shaking the hand of King George V., a distinction he would often mention.
Maurice completed his law degree however chose not to practice.
In the French Navy, Maurice worked as an engineer aboard many battleships eventually achieved the rank of Chief Petty Officer serving a total of 5 years. He eventually got bored with Navy life and rejoined the civilian population.
It was in this time-frame he tried his hand at a number of occupations, and acted in the French cinema. When in the course of WWII he heard the French Navy sunk his ship to avoid capture by the Nazi's, he wept.
Maurice was discovered in Paris, France in 1936 by Lithuanian light-heavyweight champion amateur wrestler Karl Pojello. Karl knew Maurice's interesting look could make him a professional wrestling sensation. At that time Maurice was working for a local Paris studio as an actor and as a doorman. 1939 saw Maurice wrestle in England as, "The Angel", a nickname given to him by his mother. Other names given to him were not as kindly including "Ugliest Man in the World". The bear hug became his signature move.
By late 1939, Maurice had a proven track record and was ready to invade professional wrestling in the United States. Maurice made his American debut on January 24, 1940 at Boston Garden against Luigi Bacigaiupi. Maurice walked down the aisle, entered the ring, leaned over the ropes, and roared at the crowd.
At his American debut were Harvard scientists anticipating the sight of Maurice. They asked him if he would submit to be measured for science and Maurice agreed. They were curious about Maurice as acromegalics often did not live past their 30th year. Acromegalics would often get weak, where-as Maurice was still very strong, and healthy at his current 37 years of age. Maurice was 5 foot 8.5 inches in height, 276 pounds, 47 inch chest. Maurice had a head almost twice that of normal for a man of his size, and hands that could shuffle three decks of cards. He was declared to be the closest living specimen to that of Neanderthal man known to exist.
The crowds flocked to see this monster of a man who was a throwback to prehistoric times. Maurice proved incredibly strong and staged events where he would pull a bus or street car. He wrestled and won against all the greatest wrestlers of his day. His persona was fierce, and although he was sold as a heel, he was kind, gentle, educated, and well-mannered.
On May 13, 1940 Maurice defeated Steve Casey by disqualification for the American Wrestling Association World Title in Boston, and beat him clean again two weeks later. Maurice reinvigorated professional wrestling as crowds dramatically increased to witness his body and his ability. He remained unbeaten for nineteen months but on May 13, 1942, Maurice lost the AWA title back to Steve Casey.
Although no longer billed as unbeatable, "The Angel" remained a very popular draw. Maurice held the AWA World Title (Boston) from May 13, 1940 to May 13, 1942 and the Montreal World Title March 30, 1942 to June 25, 1942. He was also the AWA champion from August 1, 1944 until August 15, 1944.
Maurice reported to the U.S. Army in 1942 to serve in the war effort but was told that he would be a curiosity and distraction and was denied service. In February of 1947, Maurice took his oath of citizenship to the United States.
Wrestling promoter Jack Pfefer recognized the genius in the wrestling nickname "Angel" and started importing other "Angels" with physical abnormalities. This influx forced Maurice to change his nickname "Angel to "The French Angel." With the "theft" of his very personal nickname it likely explains why Maurice's first face-to-face meeting with Pfefer ended with him slapping Jack across the face.
Maurice's appearance drew significant attention when he was in public. This is likely why he chose to live a very private life and was particular about his friends.
Karl, his wife Olga, and Maurice went in together on a mansion at 726 W. Garfield Blvd in Chicago. The three of them were living at that location together in 1954. In 1954, Karl had lung cancer and Maurice had recently recovered from bought of pneumonia. Maurice was also suffering from an enlarged heart caused by his acromegaly.
Karl died on September 4, 1954. When informed of Karl's passing, Maurice became ill and was taken to county hospital where he passed away thirteen hours after his friend. They were buried side by side in the Pojello family plot in the Lithuanian National Cemetery in Justice, Illinois.
Maurice is widely believed to have been the inspiration for the cartoon character "Shrek", although DreamWorks has never confirmed precisely from where Shrek's inspiration arose. The film was originally written and animated to fit actor Chris Farley. When Farley died, a whole new film was written. In a rush to create a new film, it is presumed Dreamworks found in Maurice the perfect representation of an older, wiser, grumpier ogre, yet possessing a noble character of a hero. The physical characteristics, as well personality traits of Maurice, and his wrestling persona "The French Angel", appear to be evident throughout the film.
Maurice was found in the 1935 French Film Princesse Tam Tam, starring Josephine Baker. - Actress
- Soundtrack
Before the tragic legacies of songbird icons Édith Piaf, Billie Holiday and Judy Garland took hold, there was the one...the original...lady who sang the blues and started the whole "bawl" rolling. Like her successors, Helen Morgan lived the sad songs she sang...and more.
She started her life fittingly enough on August 2, 1900 in very humble surroundings. Her father was an Illinois dirt farmer and school master. She moved to Chicago while young and worked a number of menial blue-collar jobs -- manicurist, cracker-packager, counter clerk. But her passion was music and, at the age of 18, decided to leave and pursue her dream as a cabaret singer. Within a few years, she was working under the Broadway lights with the George White Scandals. In between. she studied music at the Metropolitan Opera and performed in vaudeville shows.
Helen was the antithesis of the freewheeling "Jazz Age" baby as her deep, dusky voice seemed born to weave tales of sadness and lament rather than focusing on fun and frolic. The Chicago mobsters and underground bootleggers bawled like burly babies and really took to Helen's "torch song" renditions while glamorously propped on a piano with trademark scarf in hand (originally used to disguise nerves). Prohibition-era gangsters even bankrolled her clubs which became very popular...and frequently raided.
Helen conquered Broadway in the late 1920s with her quintessential role as the tragic mulatto, "Julie", in the landmark smash musical, "Show Boat", in 1927. Introducing the standards "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" and "Bill", Helen earned more success with the musical "Sweet Adeline" in 1929 in which she introduced another favorite "Why Was I Born?". Her fragile mind and heart, however, couldn't handle the problems that started surfacing in the 1930s.
A broken marriage, emotional instability and a deep passion for the demon drink quickly did her in. She couldn't hold jobs and her health worsened by the year. After spiraling badly for a half-decade, she tried sobering up and made a huge splash in 1936 with the screen version of Show Boat (1936) starring Irene Dunne, Allan Jones and Paul Robeson. She also began to redeem herself in clubs again but it was ultimately too late. Years of abuse did its damage and she died of liver cirrhosis in 1941 at age 41. In 1957, a glossy, somewhat fictitious movie was made chronicling her life and troubled times. The Helen Morgan Story (1957), starred a game Ann Blyth as the sultry, ill-fated songstress, with Gogi Grant a spectacular choice for dubbing in the vocals to all of Helen's best known standards.
Yes, before there was a Garland, there was Morgan, and although Garland seems to have her beat these days as THE musical icon of despair, Helen was the original tear-stained blueprint.- Dermot Harris was born on 1 November 1938 in Limerick, Ireland. Dermot was a producer, known for Echoes of a Summer (1976). Dermot was married to Cassandra Harris. Dermot died on 12 November 1986 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
- Director
- Producer
- Editorial Department
Rod Daniel was born on 4 August 1942 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. He was a director and producer, known for WKRP in Cincinnati (1978), Teen Wolf (1985) and K-9 (1989). He was married to Martha (Marti) C. Mueller. He died on 16 April 2016 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.- Soundtrack
Mildred J. Hill was born on 27 June 1859 in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. Mildred J. died on 5 June 1916 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.- Lois Hardwick was a child actress of the 1920s. She was chosen as the fourth actress to play "Alice" in the "Alice Comedies" film short series by Walt Disney. The previous three were Virginia Davis, Margie Gay, and Dawn O'Day (later changed her stage name to "Anne Shirley").
Hardwick starred in 10 "Alice Comedies" films in 1927, but 6 of them are considered lost films. Her debut in the series was "Alice's Circus Daze" (1927)., where she played a circus acrobat. Her final appearance in the series was "Alice in the Big League" (1927), where she played the umpire in a baseball game. The Alice series ended after that, since producer Walt Disney was in financial trouble.
Hardwick was next cast to play the character "Mary Jane" in the "Buster Brown" film series (1925-1929). The series was an adaptation of a popular comic strip and Hardwick's "Mary Jane" was the young protagonist's love interest. After the series ended in 1929, Hardwick retired from acting.
In 1959, Hardwick married fellow actor Donald Sutherland. In 1966, the marriage ended in divorce. They had no known children. She died two years later. - Music Department
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Andrew Davis was born on 2 February 1944 in Ashridge, Hertfordshire, England, UK. He was a composer, known for Only You (1994), The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000) and The Year of Living Dangerously (1982). He was married to Gianna Rolandi. He died on 20 April 2024 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.- Howard Witt was born on 13 March 1932 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for Simon & Simon (1981), The Magical World of Disney (1954) and Remington Steele (1982). He died on 21 June 2017 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
- Carl Byrd was born on 10 August 1935 in Jackson, Mississippi, USA. He was an actor, known for Star Trek (1966), Mission: Impossible (1966) and Telefon (1977). He died on 7 February 2001 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
- Joseph Wayne Miller was born on 18 December 1981 in Park Ridge, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for Heavyweights (1995) and Folks! (1992). He died on 9 January 2018 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Fetching secondary actress June Travis was signed by Warner Bros. in 1934 and made her film debut the following year, but would last only three years before leaving Hollywood forever and focusing on marriage. Born June Dorothea Grabiner on August 7, 1914, she was the daughter of Harry Grabiner who was team secretary and/or vice-president of both the Cleveland Indians and (later) Chicago White Sox. Harry would go on to be remembered for his famous diaries of his experiences.
The Chicago-born, green-eyed brunette beauty attended Parkside Grammar School and the Starrett School for Girls while growing up. Spotted by a talent agent while watching a White Sox spring training session, she moved to Los Angeles upon graduation where she studied drama at the University of California. It was not long before her sunny looks and eye-catching figure were noticed by talent scouts.
At age 20 she signed a Warner Bros. contract and paid her dues throughout 1935 apprenticing in decorative extra parts (hat check girl, cigarette girl, party guest, gun moll). She earned her first co-starring role the following year opposite Barton MacLane in the crime programmer Jailbreak (1936). Other actresses of her ilk would appear from time to time in smaller roles in "A" pictures for added exposure, but such would not be the case for June. Such Hollywood escorts around town included Howard Hughes and Ronald Reagan.
Gridlocked in the "B" category for the duration of her career, some of her modest highlights would include the Perry Mason whodunnit The Case of the Black Cat (1936) in which she essayed the role of secretary Della Street alongside Ricardo Cortez's noted crimesolver; Ceiling Zero (1936), a lesser Howard Hawks film about war pilots starring Pat O'Brien and James Cagney; two slapstick movies as the love interest to comedian Joe E. Brown -- Earthworm Tractors (1936) and The Gladiator (1938); the mystery Love Is on the Air (1937) opposite Ronald Reagan, who was making his feature film bow here; two comic features capitalizing on radio personality Joe Penner -- Go Chase Yourself (1938) and Mr. Doodle Kicks Off (1938); and a comic strip film version of Little Orphan Annie (1938) Although June was top-billed in Circus Girl (1937) and Over the Goal (1937), the films came and went with little impression made. All in all, she was usually called upon to divert the proceedings and blandly back up the rugged "B" tough guys at Warners -- a roster which then included Paul Kelly, Dick Purcell, Dick Foran and Wayne Morris. After co-starring in Federal Man-Hunt (1938), she handed Hollywood her walking papers at age 24.
By 1939 she had returned to Chicago and never looked back. In January of 1940 June married Chicago businessman Fred Friedlob and the couple eventually had two daughters, Cathy and June Jr., and settled in the Lincoln Park area. June Sr. filmed only twice more, playing a featured role in the Bette Davis vehicle The Star (1952), and, for reasons completely unknown, agreed to play a role in the bogus horror opus Monster a Go-Go (1965). The middle-aged June became a vibrant member of the social and theater community there. In 1968, she helped inaugurate the Joseph Jefferson Awards to honor Chicago's best in theater. She also appeared in summer stock on the East Coast, and played everything from Goneril opposite Morris Carnovsky in "King Lear" at Chicago's Goodman Theatre to an expectant middle-aged mother alongside Forrest Tucker in "Never Too Late." Other plays included "A View from the Bridge", "Life With Father" (also with Tucker); "The Pleasure of His Company" with Douglas Fairbanks Jr.; "The Philadelphia Story" with Jackie O's sister Lee Radziwill and "I Found April" starring Jeanne Crain.
Long retired, June's husband died in May 1979 after nearly 40 years of marriage. She, who has two children, Kathy and June (Jr.), never remarried but was the companion of Erwin Gruen, a master metalworker in later years. He died in 2006. June herself passed away on April 14, 2008, in a Chicago hospital of complications from a stroke she suffered weeks earlier. She was 93.- Cynthia Plaster Caster was born on 24 May 1947 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Dice (2016), Plaster Caster (2001) and The Story of Rock 'n' Roll Comics (2005). She died on 21 April 2022 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
- Alfred Lunt was an American actor, particularly known for his professional partnership with his wife Lynn Fontanne (1887-1983). Lunt was one of Broadway's leading male stars.
Lunt was born in 1892 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His father Alfred D. Lunt was active in the lumber business, while his mother Harriet Washburn Briggs was a housewife. Lunt's ancestry in both Maine and Massachusetts dated back to the colonial era. He was a distant descendant of Henry Lunt, an early settler of Newbury, Massachusetts. Lunt's paternal grandmother was Scottish American. Lunt's maternal ancestors lived in New England since colonial times, and including a number of Mayflower arrivals.
Alfred D. Lunt died in 1893. The widowed Harriet married a Finnish-American physician, Dr. Karl Sederholm. The Sederholms eventually settled in Genesee Depot, Wisconsin, a small unincorporated community in Waukesha County, Wisconsin. Lunt was raised in Genesse Depot, along with three younger half-siblings, He attended Carroll College in nearby Waukesha, Wisconsin.
Lunt fist gained publicity in 1919, for his starring role in the comedy play "Clarence" by Booth Tarkington (1869-1946). He distinguished himself in a variety of theatrical roles, including in Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew" and Chekhov's "The Seagull ". On May 26, 1926, Lunt married actress Lynn Fontane. The two became the preeminent Broadway acting couple. Their successes included a play written specifically for them, the menage a trois-themed "Design for Living" (1932) by Noël Coward.
Lunt started acting in films in the 1920s. His film debut was the silent drama "Backbone" (1923) for Goldwyn Pictures. Subsequent films included the South Sea romance "The Ragged Edge" (1923), the romantic comedy "Second Youth" (1924), the circus-themed comedy "Sally of the Sawdust" (1925), and the comedy film "Lovers in Quarantine" (1925).
Lunt's most successful film effort was the comedy film "The Guardsman" (1931). In the film, A jealous husband creates a second identity in order to woo his wife, and she plays along. Lunt played the role of the husband, and Lynn Fontane the role of the wife. It was a critical success, but not particularly successful at the box office. Lunt was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for this role, but the Award was instead won (in a tie) by Wallace Beery and Fredric March.
Lunt returned to being mostly a theatrical actor. He had a cameo in the World War II film "Stage Door Canteen" (1943), and appeared as himself in the documentary film "Show Business at War" (1943). During the 1940s, Lunt and and Fontane starred in several radio dramas. In the 1950s and the 1960s, they appeared frequently on television.
Lunt officially retired from the stage in 1958, at the age of 66. His last film appearance was the television film "The Magnificent Yankee" (1965), where he played the United States Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841-1935).
Lunt spend his last years in retirement at his summer home "Ten Chimneys" in in Genesse Depot. He died in August 1977, about a week before his 85th birthday. The cause of death was cancer. Fontane remained in "Ten Chimneys" until her own death in 1983. Ten Chimneys was afterwards converted into a house museum, and a resource center for theater. - Odee Perry was born on 13 May 1991. He was an actor, known for Chief Keef feat. Lil Reese: In This Bitch Remix (2011). He died on 11 August 2011 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Mahalia Jackson was born on 26 October 1911 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. She was an actress, known for Mississippi Burning (1988), Glory Road (2006) and An American Crime (2007). She was married to Minters Sigmund Galloway and Isaac Lanes Grey Hockenhull. She died on 27 January 1972 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.- David Cram was born on 22 August 1957 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He died on 28 April 2001 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Joseph F. Kosala was born on 22 August 1946. He was an actor, known for The Fugitive (1993), Primal Fear (1996) and Under Siege (1992). He died on 22 March 2015 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.- Carl Wright was born on 2 February 1932 in Orlando, Florida, USA. He was an actor, known for Big Momma's House (2000), Barbershop (2002) and Soul Food (1997). He was married to Shirley Wright. He died on 19 May 2007 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
- Peller was born in Russia in 1902, one of eight or nine children of Wolf Swerdlove (Swerdlov/Sverdlov; died 1949) and Yudis (aka "Julia") Tilkin (or Tilken; died 1952). The family emigrated to the United States when she was a child, settling in Chicago. In 1925, Clara Swerdlove married a local jeweler, William Peller. The couple had two children (a son, Leslie, and a daughter, Marlene) before divorcing some eight years later. Clara worked as a manicurist for thirty-five years at a local Chicago beauty salon. She moved to a North Shore apartment to be closer to her daughter after she retired. Peller was hired as a temporary manicurist for a television commercial set in a Chicago barbershop. The agency which produced the commercial was so impressed by her uniquely harsh foghorn voice and gruff, no-nonsense manner they signed her as an actress. Peller became a surprise celebrity in her early 1980s with her delightfully cantankerous appearances in a series of extremely funny TV commercials for the fast food chain Wendy's in which she loudly grumbled the memorable catchphrase, "WHERE'S THE BEEF ?", upon seeing an oversized hamburger bun with a centered greatly reduced in size hamburger. Peller capitalized on her newfound fame by making guest appearances as herself on a 1984 episode of "Saturday Night Live" and the pay-per-view cable TV WrestleMania 2 (1986). Peller briefly popped up in the "Remote Control Man" episode of Amazing Stories (1985) and had small roles in the films Moving Violations (1985) and The Stuff (1985). She echoed her legendary refrain on a .45 single called "Where's the Beef?", written and recorded by Coyote McCloud. In addition, there were such spin-off memorabilia items as coffee mugs, beach towels, t-shirts, a board game, and even a Clara Peller doll. However, Peller was fired by Wendy's for appearing in a TV commercial for Prego Pasta Plus spaghetti sauce, in which she held a large jar and joyfully exclaims, "I found it! I really found it!" Peller died at age 85 on 11 August 1987 in her native Chicago from congestive heart failure and coronary atherosclerosis.
- Big, bald, and burly 6'1" professional wrestler and actor Tiger Joe Marsh was born Joseph Samuel Marusich to parents of Yugoslavian descent on August 25, 1911 in Chicago, Illinois. Marsh was born in a South Chicago neighborhood and eventually moved to the area around 24th Street and Wentworth Avenue. He attended St. Jerome's Grammar School and worked as an errand boy at a shoe store. Joe first became involved in wrestling in the late 1920's through a gym located on 31st Street between Princeton and Wentworth Avenues. A regular villain in early televised wrestling matches (he would enter the ring wearing a tiger suit), Marsh participated in fights in such venues as White City and the Rainbow Garden. After quitting wrestling in 1954 and in the wake of military service that was partly done at Florida's Gainesville Naval Station, Joe went on to act in a handful of movies and TV shows in which he was frequently cast as menacing thugs. Moreover, Marsh also acted in stage productions of various plays that include "Guys and Dolls" and "The Teahouse of the August Moon," in which he acted alongside Burgess Meredith. Joe spent his latter years living in the Bridgeport area on the South Side of Chicago. Marsh died at age 77 of heart failure at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, Illinois on May 9, 1989. He was survived by his brother Anthony.
- One of the most famous bank robbers in history, he was born John Herbert Dillinger on June 22, 1903, to a grocery store owner named John Wilson Dillinger and his wife Mollie (the family also included an older sister, Audrey). By all accounts the Dillingers were a normal "all-American" family, but the normality was broken when John was three and his mother passed away (her death has been ascribed to a variety of causes, but the best guess is that she died of pneumonia). With his mother gone and his sister getting married and moving out a few years later, John was left alone with his father, who was caring but not very affectionate. In that kind of environment young John, a naturally rambunctious boy, began to rebel and get into all sorts of mischief, including shoplifting, vandalism and even stealing coal from train cars and selling it to neighbors. In order to curb his son's wild behavior, as well as to fulfill his own need for companionship, John Sr. married Elizabeth Fields and moved the family back to her hometown of Mooresville, IN, but the change of scenery did little to deter John's behavior. He was still in and out of trouble, and by the time he was 16 he had dropped out of high school and taken a job at a machine shop. Even as a young adult, though, John was irresponsible and in 1921 he was caught by a policeman in Indianpolis trying to steal a car. He managed to elude the officer in a foot pursuit, fled home and joined the Navy. He was assigned to the U.S.S. Utah (a ship that would later be sunk by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor). Unable to stay out of trouble even in the Navy, he soon deserted and returned home, and not long afterwards in 1924 he married Beryl Hovius and took another job. He was a neglectful and sometimes abusive husband and an absentee worker, and hooked up with an ex-con named Ed Singleton. They hatched a plan to mug an elderly grocer named Frank Morgan, who was known to carry his weekly cash and receipts with him to the bank after his store closed on Saturday night. The plan was for John to rob the old man at gunpoint on the street and hop into a getaway car driven by Singleton, which was parked at a nearby curb. However, when John confronted Morgan, the old man fought back, knocking the gun out of John's hand and causing it to fire. Thinking he had accidentally shot the old man (which he hadn't), John fled to the pre-arranged getaway spot, only to find that Singleton wasn't there. He fled on foot but was caught two days later. The incident aroused public indignation, and after a trial and conviction, the judge gave John 10 years for assault with a deadly weapon (he had tried pistol-whipping the old man) and 20 years for attempted robbery, despite the fact that this was John's first crime and he had pleaded guilty and confessed freely to the crime. Embittered, Dillinger vowed revenge.
He was sent to Indiana's Pendleton Reformatory, where he hooked up with experienced thieves Harry Pierpont and Homer Van Meter. There John learned a little bit about crime. In 1929 Beryl divorced him and he was denied parole. He was later transferred to the reformatory at Michigan City, where he was reunited with the recently transferred Pierpont and Van Meter and introduced to Charles Makley, Russell Clark and John "Red" Hamilton, all professional robbers. While John learned the art of bank robbery, the cons groomed him to help plan their escape from prison. In May of 1933 he used the fact that his stepmother Lizzy was dying as a reason to ask for parole, which was granted. He hung around his family farm enough to help his father for a while and to make a positive impression on the townsfolk before embarking on his life of crime. He hooked up with a group of petty thieves who were associated with his jailhouse buddy Pierpoint and pulled off a string of grocery-store heists before robbing his first bank in Daleville, IN, in July of 1933 (his take was $3,500). He then embarked on a series of bank robberies in Indiana and Ohio, using the proceeds to buy guns and bribe key guards at the Michigan City prison in order to help his friends Pierpoine and Van Meter escape. The escape went off without a hitch in September of 1933. Pierpoint and Van Meter got away scot-free, but Dillinger was captured by police in an Ohio boarding house and taken to Lima to be held in the local jail. Learning of Dillinger's capture, Pierpont and the others (minus Van Meter, who struck out on his own after the escape) broke John out, killing an elderly deputy sheriff in the process. Reunited, the full-strength gang was one of the most efficient and professional of the era due to their careful planning and execution of robberies, their tactic of avoiding confrontations with police and their calm and respectful manner towards their victims, which earned the gang the moniker "The Gentleman Bandits" and turned handsome and dashing ringleader Dillinger into a household name.
From the fall of 1933 and into the winter, the gang robbed banks in Indiana, Ohio, Illinois and Wisconsin, using Chicago as a base of operations. While living there, John fell for a party girl named Evelyn "Billie" Frechette, who would become his lifelong companion. In December of 1933 the gang decided to take a break from the "heat" caused by law enforcement and went on vacation in Miami. In January of 1934 they decided to temporarily split up, with Pierpont, Clark and Makley heading for Tucson, AZ, and Dillinger and "Red" Hamilton heading back to Chicago. It was there that John committed his one and only murder. During the robbery of the East Chicago (Indiana) bank, an alarm went off, and the arrival of police forced Dillinger and Hamilton to take hostages to escape. As they were leaving the bank, a patrolman named Patrick O'Malley fired at the exposed Dillinger, only to have his bullets bounce of the bandit's bulletproof vest. In a fit of anger, Dillinger--carrying a Thompson submachine gun--shot and killed O'Malley. The resulting gun battle with other officers resulted in Hamilton being wounded before the pair managed to escape. Once Red was tucked away in a safe house where he could get medical aid, Dillinger reunited with the others in Tucson. Unbeknownst to Dillinger, however, Tucson police had taken notice of Pierpont, Makley and Clark, whose fancy clothes, flashy girlfriends and heavy suitcases (which carried their guns and robbery proceeds) aroused their suspicion. When police discovered their true identities they quickly arrested the gang, and when Dillinger arrived in Tucson he was arrested, too. Extradited back to Indiana to stand trial for the murder of Officer O'Malley, Dillinger was found guilty at a lengthy trial (in which his defense was that he wasn't in Chicago at the time), sentenced to death and returned to Michigan City Prison, where he was placed on Death Row. However, in transit to Michigan City he was held overnight at a jail in Crown Point, IN, where he pulled off one of the great jailbreaks of all time by carving a "pistol" out of a bar of soap and coloring it black with shoe polish, fooling his jailers into thinking it was a real gun (adding insult to injury, he escaped in the town sheriff's personal car). Although the fake gun story may be apocryphal, it was a fact that the most notorious criminal in America was on the loose again.
Reuniting with Van Meter and Hamilton, and joining forces with the infamous Baby Face Nelson (born Lester Gillis) and his gang, the new "Super Gang"--as the press had dubbed them--robbed banks in Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa. This time, though, they were dealing with more than local police. Since their robbery spree had crossed state lines--a federal offense--they were now subject to pursuit by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Despite the fact that every lawman in the country was looking for him and that his picture was on every magazine and newspaper, John defied the logic of "laying low" by making a surprise visit to his father and relatives during a Sunday gathering at the family farm while FBI agents had the place under surveillance (he even posed for a now-famous photo in which he laughed and held a tommy gun in one hand and a wooden gun in the other). Eventually settling in St. Paul, MN, the gang laid low between heists until the FBI found them in early April of 1934. Dillinger, his girlfriend Billie and Van Meter had to shoot their way out of an apartment building to escape FBI agents, who had shown up acting on a tip. Two days later gang member Eddie Green was shot and killed by the FBI. Not long after that the agents struck again, this time nabbing Billie at a bar where John was supposed to meet an underworld contact, not knowing the contact was setting him up for capture by the FBI. Dillinger knew that they finally had to "lay law" and arranged with an underworld contact of Baby Face Nelson to stay at a resort lodge in Wisconsin called Little Bohemia, which was owned by a former Chicago saloonkeeper. The man, despite initial reservations about having the gang stay at his facility, raised no objections. However, his wife wasn't as accommodating. She managed to slip a letter out of town to the FBI agent in charge of the Chicago office, Melvin Purvis. On April 22, 1934, Purvis and a squad of agents and local cops descended on the lodge. When the lodge owner's dogs began barking, the startled officers, believing they'd been discovered, rushed the house at the same moment three locals were driving away after having eaten at the restaurant. Believing them to be fleeing gang members, Purvis ordered agents to fire at their oncoming car. One man was killed and his two friends were wounded. Meanwhile, Dillinger, Nelson and the others escaped. Before getting out of the area Nelson, cornered by agents at a nearby lodge, shot his way out of the trap, killing one FBI agent and a local police officer.
A statewide alert was issued for the gang, and not long afterwards Dillinger, Van Meter and gang member Red Hamilton ran a roadblock in Minneapolis. Dillinger and Van Meter escaped without injury, but Hamilton was shot and killed. A few weeks later gang member Tommy Carroll died in a shootout with police in Iowa. For the next several weeks the gang laid low and avoided each other, with only Dillinger and Van Meter running together. Eventually the two outlaws were so afraid of being spotted that they went to an underworld doctor in Chicago to have plastic surgery performed to change their face. The doctor botched the operation--an associate commented that they looked like they had been mauled by rabid dogs--the two were convinced that they would no longer be easily recognized. Out of desperation what was left of the original gang--Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and Van Meter, along with Nelson's associates Johnny Chase and "Fatso" Negri, robbed a bank in South Bend, IN, on June 30, 1934. It would be the last heist for any of them. They had hoped the haul would be enough to finance an escape to Canada or Mexico, but it was only enough to keep them in hiding or on the run from ever-closing lawmen--the FBI had just declared Dillinger "America's First Public Enemy #1". While the others hit the road, John settled in Chicago, living under the alias of "Jimmy Lawrence, a clerk for the Chicago Board of Trade" in a boarding house owned by bordello madam Anna Sage, an illegal immigrant from Romania. Dilliner even began dating one of Anna's girls, Polly Hamilton. However, if he thought he was safe and secure, he was wrong. Sage, whose real name was Ana Cumpanas, was facing deportation by the INS for her numerous prostitution arrests. Desperate to stay in America, she called the FBI and made a deal: She'd set up Dillinger to be arrested and the FBI would intercede on her behalf with Immigrfation and Naturalization Service (INS) officials. Purvis agreed to the terms. On the evening of July 22, 1934, Anna called Purvis and told him that she, Polly Hamilton and Dillinger would be going to see a movie at the nearby Biograph Theater (Manhattan Melodrama (1934), with William Powell and Clark Gable). Purvis assembled a squad and headed to the theater. On that sweltering summer night, Purvis and his assistant, Sam Cowley, positioned agents around the theater with Purvis stationed by the door to alert the other agents by lighting a cigar upon seeing Sage (they didn't know what Dillinger looked like after his surgery). When the movie let out, Purvis spotted Anna, whose orange dress looked red under the lights of the awning--thus giving birth to the "Woman In Red" --and lit his cigar. Two nearby FBI agents muscled their way through the crowd of exiting patrons. Just as they were coming up behind Dillinger, he spotted them and made a run for it. Seeing him desperately groping for a gun in his pants pocket, the two agents opened fire. Mortally wounded, Dillinger stumbled forward and fell face down in the mouth of a nearby alley while Polly Hamilton, who may not have known who "Jimmy" really was, screamed hysterically. Only 31 years old, the infamous John Dillinger was dead.
Even in death, however, Dillinger still managed to captivate the nation. When the news hit the radio waves, friends called friends saying, "Did you hear what happened?". Newspapers carrying the story were instantly sold out. His corpse was taken to The Alexian Brothers Hospital in Chicago, who put it on display for several days so people could come in and look at the slain outlaw like he was an art exhibit. Finally his body was returned to his father, who buried his notorious son in the local cemetery in Mooresville, Indiana. Before the dirt was shoveled onto John's coffin, cement was poured in to prevent treasure seekers from robbing Dillinger's grave.
John Dillinger continues to fascinate the public, with his good looks, cocky attitude, daring robberies and fantastic escapes. He has been immortalized in folk songs, books, television and movies. He has gone down in history as one of the most famous criminals who has ever lived. - James Andelin voiceover artist and actor, Andelin landed one of his first radio roles at about age 12 for a show called Skippy, the part led to a long career in Chicago radio, including voiceover parts in Little Orphan Annie and Jack Armstrong. He died of congestive heart failure and emphysema in Chicago, Illinois on December 27, 2006.
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Michael C. McCarthy was born on 15 February 1959 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for Big News TV (2010), Saturday Night Live (1975) and The Drew Carey Show (1995). He died on 8 April 2020 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.- Lia D. Mortensen was born on 15 June 1965 in Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), Shameless (2011) and Crisis (2014). She was married to Si Osborne. She died on 7 June 2023 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
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