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1-26 of 26
- Actress
- Soundtrack
A true sunny delight, actress Jean Byron will be fondly remembered for her three-season-long role as vivacious "Natalie Lane", the grounding mom of "identical cousin" Patty Duke on The Patty Duke Show (1963), the one who was always around to help teenage Patty regroup when "a hot dog made her lose control". Jean was born with the unlikely marquee name of Imogene Burkhart in Paducah, Kentucky, in 1925. Musically inclined, she was a teen singer on radio before even graduating from high school. Her family subsequently moved to California which only spurred on Jean's interest in show business. Apprenticing on the local stage and continuing to work on radio, she earned her first contract with Columbia Pictures and chose the more adaptable name of Jean Byron for billing purposes.
Her movie career began uneventfully in 1952, co-starring with Johnny Weissmuller, in Voodoo Tiger (1952), one of a series of "Jungle Jim" adventure programmers. Uninspired roles, opposite a radioactive creature in The Magnetic Monster (1953) and as a handmaiden to Rhonda Fleming's "Cleopatra" in Serpent of the Nile (1953), had her wisely leaning towards TV as a more viable medium. Not only did she appear on the top TV shows of the day, but seemed to have an affinity for westerns, finding a steady stream of work on such programs as Yancy Derringer (1958), Fury (1955), My Friend Flicka (1955), Cheyenne (1955) and Laramie (1959) to her credit. The wholesome-looking blonde with the lovely, peaches-and-cream complexion also became a mild household fixture as an on-camera spokeswoman for such products as Revlon and Lux soap. At one time, she was known as "The Lux Girl". She earned a couple of recurring roles on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959) comedy before solidifying her status on The Patty Duke Show (1963) from 1963 to 1966.
Following the series' demise, Jean was seen less and less, glimpsed here and there on late 60s and 70s TV. She also appeared on the dinner theater circuit and in musical stage shows, portraying "Mama Rose" in one production of "Gypsy". Retiring in the 1980s, she moved with her aged mother to Mobile, Alabama in the late 1980s to be closer to extended family. Her final appearance was a happy occasion with a nostalgic TV-movie reunion show that brought her back in touch with former cast members Patty Duke and TV husband William Schallert, among others, in 1999. The reunion took 33 years in the making, one for the TV record books. At one time, she was briefly married to handsome actor Michael Ansara, she had no children and never remarried. Jean died at age 80 after developing an infection following surgery for a hip replacement. She was buried in Mobile Memorial Gardens.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
David A. Prior was born on 5 October 1955 in Newark, New Jersey, USA. He was a writer and director, known for Raw Justice (1994), Night Trap (1993) and Lost at War (2007). He died on 16 August 2015 in Mobile, Alabama, USA.- Additional Crew
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Phil Gordon was born on 5 May 1916 in Meridian, Mississippi, USA. He was an actor, known for The Jackie Gleason Show (1966), -30- (1959) and 77 Sunset Strip (1958). He died on 15 June 2010 in Mobile, Alabama, USA.- William Moody went to Mobile's Catholic School, and later graduated from the McGill Institute. After enlisting in the U.S. Air Force and completing basic training, he received his honorable discharge and went straight into a Funeral Director service job.
Moody was a regular at Gulf Coast Wrestling events in Mobile, Alabama while growing up. He got to know many of the wrestlers, as well as the front office personnel and later became a ringside photographer.
Though known through most of his career as a manager, Moody started out as a wrestler. In June 1974, he made his wrestling debut, wrestling as "Mr. X" (under a mask) in Greenville, AL. He continued to wrestle later known as "The Embalmer".
In April 1977, he began his managerial career as Percy Pringle III. Moody married and he and his wife Dianna, welcomed their son Michael in 1979. He left the wrestling business and went back to school and earned his Funeral Director/Embalmer's Certification from San Antonio College.
In 1984, Moody returned to wrestling again as Percy Pringle and worked for Fritz von Erich's World Class Wrestling Association. During this time he managed the likes of Rick Rude, Blackjack Mulligan, The Great Kabuki, Lex Luger and even Steve Austin.
On December 22, 1990, he joined the World Wrestling Federation and would be known as "Paul Bearer". His charge this time was the Undertaker. Moody worked for the company for ten years, most of the time managing the Undertaker, but also managing Kane and Mankind (Mick Foley). He also worked as a road agent for the time he was not on television.
In 2001, William's wife Dianna was striken with breast cancer and he cut his time with the WWE back to care for her. He left the company in late 2002 when his contract came up. After this, he made several appearances with NWA Total Nonstop Action again as Percy Pringle.
When the Undertaker returned to his old "deadman" gimmick at Wrestlemania 20, Moody returned with him as Paul Bearer once again. However after a few months, the storyline involving Paul Bearer had ran its course and he has left the WWE again, at least as far as television is concerned.
Moody and his wife also have another son, Daniel. - Music Artist
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Don Williams was born on 27 May 1939 in Floydada, Texas, USA. He was a music artist and actor, known for Smokey and the Bandit II (1980), W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings (1975) and The Wendell Baker Story (2005). He was married to Joy Bucher. He died on 8 September 2017 in Mobile, Alabama, USA.- Mason Curry was born on 28 June 1908 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He was an actor, known for Man Against Crime (1949), Everglades! (1961) and The Streets of San Francisco (1972). He died on 1 April 1980 in Mobile, Alabama, USA.
- William Skipper was born on 28 February 1922 in Mobile, Alabama, USA. He was an actor, known for Musical Comedy Time (1950), Up in Central Park (1948) and The Colgate Comedy Hour (1950). He died on 15 October 1987 in Mobile, Alabama, USA.
- Soundtrack
Charlie Foxx died on 18 September 1998 in Mobile, Alabama, USA.- Virginia Dawson was born on 19 January 1952 in Mobile, Alabama, USA. She died on 27 February 2015 in Mobile, Alabama, USA.
- Sidney Phillips was born on 2 September 1924 in Mobile, Alabama, USA. He died on 26 September 2015 in Mobile, Alabama, USA.
- Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
For the 2001 release of the book "Milking the Moon", which is actually an "oral autobiography" of many hours of tape recorded conversations that Eugene Walter had with novelist Katherine Clark, the publishers are promoting Eugene as "the most well-known man you've never heard of."
After three years in Alaska as an Army cryptographer during World War II, he made is way to New York's Greenwich Village for a few years. Then to Paris for the 1950s, and to Rome for the 1960s. Along the way he met many famous and not so famous people such as Robert Penn Warren, William Faulkner, Judy Garland, Alice B. Toklas and Joan Crawford. His friendships with Federico Fellini, Michaelangelo Antonioni, and Franco Zeffirelli got him most of his starring roles.
With George Plimpton, Walter helped found the Paris Review and later the Transatlantic Review. He won several literary awards, including a Rockefeller-Sewanee Fellowship, an O. Henry citation, and the Prix Guilloux. Monkey Poems (1953), The Byzantine Riddle (1980), and American Cooking: Southern Style (Time-Life, 1971) are among his best-known books.
The University of Alabama Press recently reprinted his out of print book "The Untidy Pilgrim".- Dwain Luce was born on 25 April 1916 in Mobile, Alabama, USA. He died on 19 December 2007 in Mobile, Alabama, USA.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Lil Greenwood was born in 1924 in Prichard, Alabama, USA. She was an actress, known for Good Times (1974), My Father's House (1975) and Jazz Party (1958). She died on 19 July 2011 in Mobile, Alabama, USA.- Actress
Zena Savine was born on 6 February 1900 in Warsaw, Poland, Russian Empire [now Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland]. She was an actress. She died on 1 January 1989 in Mobile, Alabama, USA.- Katherine Foster was born on 11 March 1961 in Pascagoula, Mississippi, USA. She died on 21 February 1980 in Mobile, Alabama, USA.
- Wayne Frazier was born on 5 March 1939 in Evergreen, Alabama, USA. He died on 11 March 2012 in Mobile, Alabama, USA.
- Minnie Armour was born on 21 November 1942 in State Line, Mississippi, USA. She died on 30 November 2013 in Mobile, Alabama, USA.
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Thomas Flood was born on 12 July 1907 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an assistant director, known for Escape by Night (1937), Criminals of the Air (1937) and Personality Kid (1946). He died on 14 September 1953 in Mobile, Alabama, USA.- Composer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
JOHN "JABO" STARKS is perhaps best known in his role as drummer of The James Brown Band for many years.He was one of the key figures in the creation of Funk music, and had played on many of James Brown's hit records in the 1960's and 1970's . Prior to playing for Brown, he was the drummer for legendary Blues man Bobby "Blue" Bland.- Maurice Bell was born on 17 February 1925 in Golden, Mississippi, USA. He died on 4 December 2009 in Mobile, Alabama, USA.
- Harry Galbreath was born on 1 January 1965 in Clarksville, Tennessee, USA. He died on 27 July 2010 in Mobile, Alabama, USA.
- Red Rollings was born on 31 March 1904 in Mobile, Alabama, USA. He was an actor, known for Fast Company (1929). He died on 31 December 1964 in Mobile, Alabama, USA.
- Augusta J. Evans-Wilson was born on 8 May 1835 in Columbus, Georgia, USA. Augusta J. was a writer, known for Infelice (1915) and St. Elmo (1923). Augusta J. died on 9 May 1909 in Mobile, Alabama, USA.
- Augusta Jane Evans Wilson grew up in Alabama, from whence her family had moved from Georgia due to her father's economic woes. Wilson was one of the last major authors of the domestic novel, a genre focusing on the personal growth of a female character, usually including a major plot. An erudite woman, Wilson adhered to the genre's basic outlines, but veered from it by incorporating explicit religious, philosophical, and political themes into most of her novels.
According to family lore, Wilson secretly wrote a novel at age 15, which she presented to her father as a Christmas present in 1850. She made her debut as a professional author at age 20 when this novel, the first of nine, was published as _Inez_ in 1855. However, Wilson later adopted a tolerant stance toward all Christian denominations. She also corresponded with a Jewish woman, This story of love, betrayal, and redemption set during the Texan war for independence in the 1830s, marked by heavy helpings of anti-Catholicism in its portrayal of a sinister, stereotypical Jesuit priest, sold poorly. However, Wilson's next work, Beulah (1859), the story of an orphaned young woman's disaffection from religion and then conversion back to Christianity, was a bestseller, especially among young women. In Beulah, Wilson also laid out her vision of women as the guardians of Christian morality, as the title heroine devotes herself to the conversion of her newly wed husband, a long-standing atheist.
By the time of the outbreak of the Civil War, Wilson had achieved, for a lady, an unusual status, respected for her erudition and political commitment by a great number of prominent Southern men, including Confederate General P.G.T. Beuregard, with whom she corresponded. Unlike the classic Southern lady, Wilson placed her ideological principles above her personal life, breaking off her engagement to a Northern journalist because of his pro-Union views.
Wilson leaped into the arena of literary agitprop with her third novel,Macaria, or Altars of Sacrifice (1863), which was dedicated to the Confederate soldiers and overtly championed the cause of Southern independence. Macaria was not only a bestseller in the Confederacy, but it was so effective as propaganda among Union soldiers that it was banned in the North. The novel inverted a central premise of the domestic novel - the heroine's marriage to her true love - by having the central character forgo marrying the man whom she loved in favor of celibate dedication to the new Southern nation, which, unlike the despotic North, was truly devoted to republican liberty. However, it was after the Civil War that Evans achieved her greatest success with St. Elmo (1866), a more conventional domestic novel once again concerning a moody, Heathcliff-like man who improves his character and accepts Christianity (in this case, even becoming a monster) because of the love of a virtuous woman. St. Elmo was a runaway bestseller and became a fixture of popular culture.
After her marriage to 60-year-old widower Lorenzo Madison Wilson in 1868, Wilson's literary output slowed, and none of her later novels achieved the popularity of St. Elmo. Her first two novels after her marriage were Vashti (1869) and Infelice (1875), which were both strikingly apolitical and concerned women living under assumed identities who had been wronged by and were now estranged from their husbands. She followed up these efforts with At the Mercy of Tiberius (1887) and A Speckled Bird (1902). In her final years, she wrote a brief work that she originally intended to be a short story, but a publisher wanted another book from her, so the story was published as a short novel, Devota (1907). This was her last publication before her death at age 74 on May 9, 1909. Wilson's novels remained popular until ca. 1950. William Perry Fidler wrote a biography of the author, which was published in 1951. However, due to her didactic approach to writing, her classical actions, and her reactionary views on race, women's roles, the Confederacy, and Reconstruction, her popularity plummeted after the mid-20th century. Wilson quickly lapsed into obscurity.
However, recently, scholarly interest in Wilson has grown. In 1992, Louisiana State University Press published editions of Beulah and Macaria, with prefaces by, respectively, noted Southern/women's historians Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Drew Gilpin Faust. Wilson is also mentioned in a number of 1990s historical and literary-critical scholarly works. Anne Sophie Riepma published a biography/literary analysis, Fire and Fiction, in 2000. In 2002, Rebecca Grant Sexton compiled and edited Wilson's letters in A Southern Woman of Letters: The Correspondence of Augusta Jane Evans Wilson. - Joe Sewell was born on 9 October 1898 in Titus, Alabama, USA. He died on 6 March 1990 in Mobile, Alabama, USA.
- Additional Crew
Loren Gamble was born on 19 August 2002 in Mobile, Alabama, USA. Loren is known for Begin Again (2022). Loren died on 31 March 2023 in Mobile, Alabama, USA.