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Sarah Caldwell
opera director, conductor,
Maryville
Caldwell graduated from Hendrix College in 1944 and attended the University of Arkansas as well as the New England Conservatory of Music. She won a scholarship as a viola player at Berkshire Music Center in 1946. In 1947, she staged Vaughan Williams' Riders to the Sea. For eleven (11) years she served as the chief assistant to Boris Goldovsky.
Caldwell moved to Boston, Massachusetts in 1952 and became head of the Boston University opera workshop. In 1957 she started the Boston Opera Group, which became the Opera Company of Boston, where she staged a large mix of operas, establishing a reputation for producing difficult works under pressure. She was also known for putting together interesting variations of standard operas. Highlights in Boston that she conducted and/or stage directed included La voyage de la lune, Otello (with Tito Gobbi as Iago), Sarah Caldwell Books
Sarah Caldwell Discography |
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Martha Jane Canary
(Calamity Jane)
frontierswoman, Princeton
Forget Doris Day singing on the stagecoach. Forget Robin Weigert's gritty portrayal on HBO's Deadwood. The real Calamity Jane was someone the likes of whom you've never encountered. That is, until now.
This book is a definitive biography of Martha Canary, the woman popularly known as Calamity Jane. Written by one of today's foremost authorities on this notorious character, it is a meticulously researched account of how an alcoholic prostitute was transformed into a Wild West heroine.
Always on the move across the northern plains, Martha was more camp follower than the scout of legend. A mother of two, she often found employment as waitress, laundress, or dance hall girl and was more likely to be wearing a dress than buckskin. But she was hard to ignore when she'd had a few drinks, and she exploited the aura of fame that dime novels created around her, even selling her autobiography and photos to tourists.
Calamity Jane Books
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Dale Carnegie
teacher of public speaking,
Maryville
(originally Carnagey until 1922 and possibly somewhat later) (November 24, 1888 – November 1, 1955) was an American writer and lecturer and the developer of famous courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking and interpersonal skills. Born in poverty on a farm in Missouri, he was the author of How to Win Friends & Influence People
, first published in 1936, a massive bestseller that remains popular today. He also wrote a biography of Abraham Lincoln, titled Lincoln the Unknown
, as well as several other books.
Carnegie was an early proponent of what is now called responsibility assumption, although this only appears minutely in his written work.[citation needed] One of the core ideas in his books is that it is possible to change other people's behavior by changing one's reaction to them.
All Dale Carnegie Books
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George Washington Carver
(January 1864– January 5, 1943) educator,
agricultural chemist,
Diamond GroveThis book is well written. Unlike many of the biographies on the bookshelves of the national chains these days, this biography was not written to sell so much as to inform and enlighten. The author gives us a very close glimpse of Carver, from his youth through his college years and professional life. The reader feels as though he has met this man at one time or another because the author has presented Mr Carver's progression and accomplishments through life in a very human light. There are constant reminders of the motives behind Carver's decisions and actions which stem from his personal Christian belief that he is on mission to fulfill a purpose and find meaning in his life and career by serving others. I believe that this biography is very informative and does great service to a great man by accurately presenting the facts of his life and his deepest feelings and thoughts. This book was written at a time before the onslaught of cheap biographies which are now published to entice the reader with "national enquirer" style gossip and political correctness, the sole purpose being to ring the cash register. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about Georre W. Carver on a deeper level. George Washington Carver Books |
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Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
(1835 - 1910) Author made
famous with Tom Sawyer and
The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn; born in
Florida, MO
In 1867, after successfully marketing accounts of his Mideast travels to several newspapers, Mark Twain wrote to his mother, "Am pretty well known now. Intend to be better known." But he could hardly have anticipated the meteoric rise that would rapidly make him America's most prominent citizen. Next January, Twain will be subjected to that conclusive proof of American significance, the Ken Burns documentary. The inevitable cross-merchandising will include this illustrated biography, which, happily, stands on its own merits as a fascinating account of Twain's extraordinary career. All Burns productions center on a good story, and this is a plain, very human tale: rags, riches, and the rest. The authors (Ward and Duncan are frequent collaborators with Burns) thoroughly examine Twain's disastrous business sense, his horrid temper, his unlikely courtship of the heiress Olivia Langdon, his climb out of bankruptcy at the age of 60, the loss of three of his four children, his global celebrity. Even amid tragedy, Twain could make a stone laugh, but it was his rare frankness in confronting racism, and the publication of the controversial
Huckleberry Finn
, that would secure his fame beyond national borders and his own time. All Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) Books
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Walter Cronkite
TV newscaster, Saint Joseph
Written with wry, self-deprecating humor, Cronkite's memoir gives us the veteran TV newscaster at his most relaxed and ingratiating as he recounts dozens of his scoops: for example, tracking down and interviewing Takeo Yoshikawa, the Japanese spy who was strategic to the attack on Pearl Harbor, and Daniel Ellsberg when he was in hiding after stealing the Pentagon's secret Vietnam War plans (the Pentagon Papers). Tough-minded, Missouri-born Cronkite, who apprenticed on Houston papers, has been eyewitness to, or participant in, many of the century's momentous events. As United Press war correspondent, he covered D-Day, the Allied air war and the Nuremberg trial. He joined CBS as a Korean War correspondent, and as CBS Evening News anchor for almost two decades (he retired in 1981, pushed out, he says, by a new management more interested in infotainment than substance), he reported on the civil rights movement, NASA's first moon walk, the John Kennedy assassination, freedom struggles in South Africa. Walter Cronkite Books |
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Robert Cummings
actor, Joplin
Charles Clarence
Robert Orville Cummings (June 9,
1910 – December 2, 1990), known
professionally as Bob Cummings,
was an American motion picture
and television actor. Cummings
performed mainly in comedies,
but was effective in his few
dramas, especially two Alfred
Hitchcock films, Saboteur (1942)
and Dial M for Murder (1954).
Bob Cummings was born in Joplin, Missouri, a son of Dr. Charles Clarence
Cummings and his wife Ruth Annabelle Kraft. His father was a surgeon, who was
part of the original medical staff of St. John's Hospital in Joplin. He was the
founder of the Jasper County Tuberculosis Hospital in Webb City, Missouri.
Cummings' mother was an ordained minister of the Science of Mind.While attending
Joplin High School, Cummings was taught to fly by his godfather, Orville Wright.
During high school Cummings would give Joplin residents rides in his plane for
$5 per person Robert Cummings Books
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Jane Darwell
actress, Palmyra (October 15, 1879 – August 13, 1967) was an American theater and film actress. With appearances in over 100 major motion pictures, Darwell is perhaps best-remembered for her portrayal of Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, for which she received the Academy Award for best supporting actress.
She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as "Ma Joad" in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), a role she was given at the insistence of the film's star, Henry Fonda. A contract player with 20th Century Fox, Darwell was memorably cast in The Ox-Bow Incident, and occasionally starred in "B" movies and played featured parts in scores of major films.
Darwell had noted appearances on the stage as well; in 1944, she was popular in
the stage comedy Suds in Your Eye, in which she played an Irishwoman who had
inherited a junkyard. Jane Darwell Movies
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Charles Stark Draper
inventor, Windsor
Charles Stark Draper (October 2, 1901 – July 25, 1987) was an American scientist and engineer, often referred to as "the father of inertial navigation." He was the founder and director of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, later renamed the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, which under his direction designed and built the Apollo Guidance Computer for NASA, which made the Apollo moon landings possible.
He started teaching while at MIT, first as an assistant, then quickly became a full professor in aeronautical engineering in 1939. It was here that he founded the Instrumentation Laboratory in the 1930s, later spun off as The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc. In 1961, Draper and the Instrumentation Lab were awarded the first contract given out for the Apollo program to send humans to the moon, which had just been announced by President John F. Kennedy. This led to the creation of the Apollo Guidance Computer, a one-cubic-foot computer that controlled the navigation and guidance of the Lunar Excursion Module to the surface of the moon during six successful landings.
Charles Stark Draper Books
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Jeanne Eagels
actress, Kansas City
Jeanne Eagels (June 26, 1890 – October 3, 1929) was an American actress on Broadway and in several motion pictures. She was a former Ziegfeld Follies Girl who went on to greater fame on Broadway and in the emerging medium of sound films.
She was posthumously considered for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her 1929 role in The Letter after dying suddenly that year at the age of 39. That nomination was the first ever posthumous Oscar consideration for any actor, male or female. However, according to the Academy's data base, Eagels
was among several actresses
"under consideration" by a board
of judges, and was not actually
formally nominated. Jeanne Eagels Books
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T.S. Eliot (1888 -
1965) Nobel Prize winning
author of The Wasteland;
born in St. Louis. Remaining in awe of Eliot's literary greatness, Gordon (A Private Life of Henry James) has rewritten her slim but influential Eliot's Early Years (1977) and her somewhat overlapping Eliot's New Life (1988) into a new biography that concedes the man's serious flaws. Yet Gordon finds "no adequate explanation" for the fact that a writer "of his sensibilities" was an anti-Semite, revelations of which caused a stir in the mid-'90s, and a misogynist (excepting toward his worshipful second wife, who cosseted him in his last, failing years). Although Eliot set himself up as a lofty moral and spiritual authority, Gordon reluctantly acknowledges that he is an "idol... made in part from certain waste products of his century." Gordon sees Eliot struggling constantly with his "two almost antithetical selves," and as "a loner in the American tradition of cranky loners." T.S. Eliot Books
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James Fergason
inventor, Wakenda
James L. Fergason (born Wakenda, Missouri, January 12, 1934, died December 9, 2008) was an inventor of an improved Liquid Crystal Display, or LCD, it has been alleged that his design was stolen from a patent submitted around the same time, however a court case has proved otherwise.
Fergason graduated Carrollton High School in Carrollton, Missouri. After obtaining a Bachelor's Degree in physics from the University of Missouri in 1956 and a brief time in the Army, stationed in Texas, Fergason began his work on the practical uses of liquid crystals at the Westinghouse Research Laboratories in Pennsylvania, earning his first patent (U.S. Patent 3,114,836) in 1963.
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Eugene Field
author, poet, Saint Louis
Field was born in St. Louis, Missouri. After the death of his mother in 1856, he was raised by a cousin, Mary Field French, in Amherst, Massachusetts.[1]
Field's father, attorney Martin Field, was famous for his representation of Dred Scott, the slave who sued for his freedom. Field filed the complaint in this famous case (Dred Scott vs. John Sandford [sic], referred to as the lawsuit that started the Civil War) on behalf of Scott in the federal court in St. Louis, Missouri. Eugene Field Books
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Redd Foxx actor,
comedian, Saint Louis
From his early days playing piano in the church and living with his grandparents to his stardom on television and in movies, Eric Bishop has been a delight to watch. As Jamie Foxx, he has entertained audiences with his humor as well as dazzled them with his ability to take on dramatic roles. His career has been impressive, from his hilarious Ugly Wanda skits on In Living Color, through major dramatic movie roles, and on to singer and musician. Find out how it all began for this star in the little town of Terrell, Texas, and an eager second-grade class. Jamie Foxx’s journey is one straight to stardom with no end in sight! Redd Foxx Books
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James W. Fulbright
senator, Sumner
(April 9, 1905 – February 9, 1995) was a United States Senator representing Arkansas from 1945 to 1975.
Fulbright was a Southern Democrat and a staunch multilateralist, supported the creation of the United Nations and opposed the House Un-American Activities Committee. He is remembered for his efforts to establish an international exchange program, which thereafter bore his name, the Fulbright Fellowships. Fulbright was the longest serving chairman in the history of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
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John Goodman
actor, Affton
(born June 20, 1952) is an American actor. He is best known for his role on the television series Roseanne, as well as his film work with the Coen brothers.
Goodman was born in Affton, Missouri, the son of Virginia, a store clerk and waitress who worked at Jack and Phil's Bar-B-Que, and Leslie Goodman, a postal worker who died from a heart attack in 1954. He has a sister, Elisabeth, and two brothers, Jon and Rick, with his extended family living in both St. Louis, MO as well as Miami, FL.
No Books John Goodman Movies |
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Betty Grable
actress, Saint Louis (December 18, 1916 July 2, 1973) was an American dancer, singer, and actress.
Twenty-two years after her death, Betty Grable still has a fan club. McGee was himself a die-hard Grable aficionado when he interviewed her for a Glasgow newspaper. The interview was followed by additional conversations with Grable and those who knew her best. The results are a detailed, career-oriented biography of the superstar who at one time received 12,000 fan letters per week. McGee shows us a humorous, hardworking, easygoing woman whose mother taught her to dance and who appeared in her first film at age 14. Hers was an active, scandal-free life--Hollywood, Broadway, nightclubs, television, two husbands, two daughters, and scores of famous friends, including her supposed replacement, Marilyn Monroe. McGee has lovingly captured the woman who admitted that her family meant more to her than her fabulous career; a woman who believed that her face, not her famous legs, held her fortune. Betty Grable Books
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Dick Gregory
comic, activist, Saint Louis (born Richard Claxton Gregory on October 12, 1932 in St. Louis, Missouri)
is an American comedian, social activist, social critic, writer, and entrepreneur.
Gregory is an influential American comic who has used his performance skills to convey to both white and black audiences his political message on civil rights. His social satire changed the way white Americans perceived African American comedians since he first performed in public.
Influenced to stand up for civil rights by his early surroundings of poverty and violence, Gregory was one of the first comedians to successfully perform for both black and white audiences Dick Gregory's autobiography is a book you will finish in one night because you won't put it down! You will also find yourself re-reading most of it for the remainder of your life. But "Nigger" is just the start of something much bigger. Gregory became arguably the greatest man who has ever lived. Tune into his website ... in conjunction with ordering and reading some of his books available from Barnes & Noble.com. Mr. Gregory made a lot of mistakes during his childhood and as a young adult, but he found something inside himself that helped to change the world. Junior high school is a perfect time to begin reading this book. "Nigger" is funny and provocative. Gregory uses humor to get his message across in a one of a kind way. It should be required reading for ALL junior high and high schools. Dick Gregory Books
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