Ives was born in 1909 near Hunt City, an unincorporated town in Jasper County, Illinois, the son of Levi "Frank" Ives (1880–1947) and Cordelia "Dellie" White (1882–1954). He had six siblings: Audry, Artie, Clarence, Argola, Lillburn, and Norma.[citation needed] His father was at first a farmer and then a contractor for the country and others. One day Ives was singing in the garden with his mother, and his uncle overheard them. He invited his nephew to sing at the old soldiers reunion in Hunt City. The boy performed a rendition of the folk ballad "Barbara Allen" and impressed both his uncle and the audience. • Burl Ives Books • Burl Ives Movies • Burl Ives Discography

His wartime experiences inspired some of his most famous works. He witnessed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which led to his first published novel, From Here to Eternity. The Thin Red Line reflected his combat experiences on Guadalcanal. His last novel, Whistle, was based on his hospital stay in Memphis, Tennessee, recovering from surgery on an ankle he had reinjured on the island.see "[James Jones on Guadalcanal]" by RJ Blaskiewicz, War Literature and the Arts 

His second published novel, Some Came Running, had its roots in his first attempted novel, which he called They Shall Inherit the Laughter, a thinly disguised autobiographical novel of his experiences in Robinson immediately after World War II. After several rejections for the work being too shrill and lacking perspective, Jones abandoned They Shall Inherit the Laughter and went to work writing From Here to Eternity, which won the National Book Award in 1952 and has been named one of the 100 best novels of the 20th century by the Modern Library. Conversely Some Came Running - albeit made into a critically acclaimed film starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Shirley MacLaine that was nominated for several Oscars - was savaged by the critics, who were especially harsh upon Jones' frequently misspelled words and punctuation errors throughout numerous passages of the book. • James Jones Books

In 1968, Jones and his songwriting partner Bob Russell became the first African-Americans to be nominated for an Academy Award in the "Best Original Song" category. That same year, he became the first African-American to be nominated twice within the same year when he was nominated for "Best Original Score" for his work on the music of the 1967 film In Cold Blood. In 1971 Jones would receive the honor of becoming the first African American to be named musical director/conductor of the Academy Awards ceremony. Jones was also the first (and so far, the only) African-American to be nominated as a producer in the category of Best Picture (in 1986, for The Color Purple). He was also the first African-American to win the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, in 1995. He is tied with sound designer Willie D. Burton as the most Oscar-nominated African American, each of them having seven nominations. At the 2008 BET Awards, Quincy Jones was presented with the Humanitarian Award. He was played by Larenz Tate in the 2004 biopic about Ray Charles, Ray. • Quincy Jones Books • Quincy Jones Discography

After writing criticism for Commonweal he became a theater critic for the New York Herald Tribune in 1951. When that paper ended, he then began writing theater reviews for the New York Times in 1966, writing for the next seventeen years. Kerr won a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1978. He married Jean Kerr (née Collins) on August 9, 1943. She was also a writer. Together, they wrote the musical Goldilocks (1958), which won two Tony Awards. They also collaborated on Touch and Go (1949) and King of Hearts (1954).

He was portrayed pseudonymously by David Niven in the 1960 film Please Don't Eat the Daisies based on Jean Kerr's best-selling collection of humorous essays. In 1990, the former Ritz Theater on West 48th Street in the Theatre District, New York was renamed the Walter Kerr Theatre in his honor • Walter Kerr Books

Thomas traces the president from his hardscrabble beginnings and early political career, through his years as an Illinois lawyer and his presidency during the Civil War. Although Lincoln is appropriately placed against the backdrop of the dramatic times in which he lived, the author's true focus is on Lincoln the man and his intricate personality. While Thomas pays tribute to Lincoln's many virtues and accomplishments, he is careful not to dramatize a persona already larger than life in the American imagination. Instead he presents a candid and balanced representation that provides compelling insight into Lincoln's true character and the elements that forged him into an extraordinary leader.• Abraham Lincoln Books

MacLeish was born in Glencoe, Illinois. His father, Andrew MacLeish, worked as a dry-goods merchant. His mother, Martha Hillard, was a college professor. He grew up on an estate bordering Lake Michigan. He attended the Hotchkiss School from 1907 to 1911 before moving on to Yale University, where he majored in English, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and selected for the Skull and Bones society. He then enrolled in the Harvard Law School. In 1916, he married. His studies were interrupted by World War I, in which he served first as an ambulance driver and later as a captain of artillery. He graduated from the law school in 1919. He taught law for a semester for the government department at Harvard, then worked briefly as an editor for The New Republic. He next spent three years practicing law. • Archibald MacLeish Books

Mamet's recent books include The Old Religion (1997), a novel about the lynching of Leo Frank; Five Cities of Refuge: Weekly Reflections on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy (2004), a Torah commentary, with Rabbi Lawrence Kushner; The Wicked Son (2006), a study of Jewish self-hatred and anti-Semitism; and Bambi vs. Godzilla, a commentary on the movie business. His newest play Race, starring James Spader, David Alan Grier, Kerry Washington, and Richard Thomas, opened on Broadway December 6, 2009 to tepid reviews

Mamet was born in Chicago, the son of Lenore June (née Silver), a teacher, and Bernard Morris Mamet, an attorney. One of his first jobs was as a busboy at Chicago's The Second City. He was educated at the progressive Francis W. Parker School and at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. • David Mamet Books

She has played memorable roles on wildly popular television shows such as Seinfeld, The West Wing, and The L Word, danced a show-stopping cha-cha-cha on Dancing with the Stars, and now, with uncompromising honesty and humor, Marlee shares the story of her life -- an enduring tale that is an unforgettable lesson in following your dreams. • Marlee Matlin Books • Marlee Matlin Movies

As a youth, Mazor's family moved to California, where he attended Oakland High School from which he graduated in 1959. He enrolled in San Francisco State University (SFSU), majoring in math and studying helicopter design and construction as a hobby. Mazor met his future wife Maurine at SFSU and they wed in 1962. Around the same time, he became interested in computers and learned to program SFSU’s IBM 1620 computer, taking a position as a professor’s assistant and teaching other students to use the technology. Meanwhile, he continued to study computer architecture in technical manuals outside of school.

In 1964, he became a programmer with Fairchild Semiconductor, followed by a position as computer designer in the Digital Research Department, where he co-patented “Symbol,” a high-level language computer. • Stanley Mazor Books

Millikan went to high school in Maquoketa, Iowa. Millikan received a Bachelor's degree in the classics from Oberlin College in 1891 and his doctorate in physics from Columbia University in 1895 – he was the first to earn a Ph.D. from that department. • Robert A. Millikan Books

His voice is a high dramatic baritone, combining good legato with an incisive rhythmic style; furthermore, he has a commanding and handsome stage presence. By 1965 had made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera. His international debuts followed soon thereafter, and Milnes became one of the world's prominent Verdi baritones of the 1970s and 80s. He has been a prolific recording artist, often in partnership with Plácido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti

Milnes was born in Downers Grove, Illinois to a dairy farmer and his wife. As a child, he exhibited strong and varied musical talents. In addition to singing, he also played piano, violin, viola, double bass, clarinet, and tuba. Although his interests did not always lean towards opera, he spent many hours singing to his father's cows, and once was found on a tractor practicing an operatic laugh.  • Sherrill Milnes Books • Sherrill Milnes Discography

But to golf aficionados, Murray is the clown in godawful "Hee-Haw-aiian" golf garb who plays shamelessly to the crowds at charity tee-offs from Pebble Beach to the Greater Milwaukee Open. And there is only one Bill Murray role, the gopher-snuffing, turf-smoking greenskeeper Carl Spackler in Caddyshack, whose fantasy of golf heroism gives this book its title. "This crowd has gone deadly silent," Spackler mutters with club in hand and no crowd in sight, "a Cinderella story outta nowhere--former greenskeeper and now about to become the Masters champion!"

Cinderella Story is really two books. The first is a string of outrageously digressive anecdotes about Murray's club-wielding adventures with Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer ("Incandescent ... he and Patton were born to lead armies"), Mike Ditka, John Denver, Chi Chi Rodriguez ("He had more fun playing golf than any person I'd ever seen."), Clint Eastwood, and Michael Jordan ("Relax," Murray tells himself, "his nickname is 'air,' not 'sand.'"). The prose style is mock-hepcat, insanely allusive, and very smart, like his screen persona. • Bill Murray Books • Bill Murray Movies

Neihardt was born in Sharpsburg, Illinois; his family moved to Wayne, Nebraska when he was 10. A graduate of Nebraska Normal College in Wayne at the age of 16, he taught in rural schools near Hoskins. Neihardt had been writing poetry since the age of 12; he published his first book, The Divine Enchantment, at the age of 19. The book is based on Hindu mysticism, certainly an ambitious project for a young writer, but a forerunner of many of his perspectives and much of his later work. • John G. Neihardt Books

Newhart also appeared in film roles such as Major Major in Catch-22, and Papa Elf in Elf. He provided the voice of Bernard in the Walt Disney animated films The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under. One of his most recent roles is the library head Judson in The Librarian franchise.

Newhart was born in Oak Park, Illinois and raised on the west side of Chicago. His parents were Julia Pauline (née Burns), a housewife of Irish descent, and George David Newhart, a part-owner of a plumbing and heating-supply business, who was Irish and German. Newhart has three sisters, Virginia, Mary Joan (a nun, who taught at a Chicago high school), and Pauline.

He was educated at Roman Catholic schools in the area, including St. Catherine of Sienna grammar school in Oak Park, and attended St. Ignatius College Prep, where he graduated in 1947. He then enrolled at Loyola University of Chicago where he graduated in 1952 with a bachelor's degree in business management. • Bob Newhart Books  • Bob Newhart Films 

Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004.  •  Barack Obama Books

His body of work includes the concert movies and recordings Richard Pryor: Live and Smokin' (1971), That Nigger's Crazy (1974), ...Is It Something I Said? (1975), Bicentennial Nigger (1976), Richard Pryor: Live in Concert (1979), Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip (1982), and Richard Pryor: Here and Now (1983). He also starred in numerous films as an actor, usually in comedies such as Silver Streak, but occasionally in dramatic roles, such as Paul Schrader's film Blue Collar. He collaborated on many projects with actor Gene Wilder. He won an Emmy Award in 1973, and five Grammy Awards in 1974, 1975, 1976, 1981, and 1982. In 1974, he also won two American Academy of Humor awards and the Writers Guild of America Award. • Richard Pryor Books • Richard Pryor Films