USA Famous People of Montana

Montana (MT) 

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Dorothy Baker (1907 - 1968) Author; born in Missoula. Dorothy Baker (April 21, 1907 – June 17, 1968) was an American novelist. She was born Dorothy Dodds in Missoula, Montana and raised in California. She attended Whittier College, then transferred to the University of California, Los Angeles, from which she graduated in 1929. This is where she met her future husband, the poet Howard Baker whom she married in 1930.

She wrote her first novel, Young Man with a Horn, in 1938, it was based on the life of notable jazz cornet player, Bix Beiderbecke. The novel was a success and she won a Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship. In 1950, it was made into a movie of the same name with Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall, and Doris Day. Baker received a Guggenheim Fellowship for the same book in 1942. • Dorothy Baker Books

Dirk Benedict (1945 - ) Actor; born in Helena Benedict was born in rural Montana (hence: COWBOY) and grew up on what might be referred to as an all-meat diet, a diet he later blamed for his arthritis, acne, receding hairline and ultimately, for his prostatic cancer, and CONFESSIONS is largely an examination of his lifelong journey to really grasp the meaning of the phrase, "You are what you eat." The book is subtitled "A True Story of Discovery, Acting, Health, Recovery and Life" and on every part but the "Acting" this is true. Readers hoping for the inside story on his up-and-down career in front of the camera will be disappointed, for with the exception of some anecdotes about getting cast as Starbuck on GALACTICA and a hilarious recollection of his guest appearance on CHARLIE'S ANGELS he has almost nothing to say about Hollywood (except, of course, for its pill-popping, soul-destroying culture). This lends credence to his oft-repeated mantra that he really doesn't give a damn about acting, fame or money, which is kind of refreshing from a guy whose looks certainly should have made him as superficial as a nightly news segment. • Dirk Benedict Books • Dirk Benedict Films
  W. A. Tony Boyle labor union official, Bald Butte - William Anthony "Tony" Boyle (December 1, 1904 - May 31, 1985) was president of the United Mine Workers of America union from 1963 to 1972. Boyle joined the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) soon after going to work in the mines. He was appointed president of District 27 (which covers Montana) and served in that capacity until 1948. During World War II, Boyle served on several government wartime production boards, and on the Montana State Unemployment Compensation Commission.In early March 1971,

In September 1973, Boyle was tried on first degree murder charges in the deaths of Jock Yablonski and his family. He was convicted in April 1974 and sentenced to three consecutive terms of life in prison.

On January 28, 1977, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania overturned Boyle's conviction and ordered that he be given a new trial.

Boyle was tried a second time for the Yablonski slayings and found guilty in February 1978. Boyle filed a third appeal to overturn his conviction in July 1979, but the motion was denied. Boyle served his murder sentence at the state correctional institution in Dallas, Pennsylvania. He had a stroke in 1983 and died at a hospital in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on May 31, 1985, aged 80.

The Yablonski murders were portrayed in a 1986 HBO television movie, Act of Vengeance . Charles Bronson portrayed Yablonski and Wilford Brimley played Boyle. • W. A. Tony Boyle Books

Dana Carvey comedian, Missoula (born June 2, 1955) is an American actor and comedian, best known for his work on Saturday Night Live and in the Wayne's World movies. In 1986, Carvey became a household name when he joined the cast of NBC's Saturday Night Live. He, along with newcomers Phil Hartman, Kevin Nealon, Jan Hooks, and Victoria Jackson, helped to reverse the show's declining popularity and made SNL "must-see" TV once again. His breakout character was The Church Lady, the uptight, smug, and pious host of "Church Chat." Carvey said he based the character on women he knew from his church while growing up, who would keep track of the attendance of other church-goers. He became so associated with the character that later cast members like Chris Farley referred to Carvey simply as "The Lady." Carvey's other original characters included Garth Algar (from "Wayne's World"), Hans (from "Hans and Franz"), and The Grumpy Old Man (from Weekend Update appearances). • Dana Carvey Books • Dana Carvey Films
Gary Cooper (1901 - 1961) Became a famous actor in the 1930s; born in Helena.Actor Gary Cooper was a dichotomy. He was born and educated in England, yet he was the quintessential screen cowboy, the square-jawed honest symbol of the American West. He usually played laconic, "aw shucks, ma'am" characters, yet he was a sophisticated world traveler and man about town. He was politically conservative and a man's man (Hemingway's best friend), yet he loved women and his love life was tempestuous. This well-researched biography chronicles Cooper's life from his childhood growing up on a ranch in Montana to his stardom during Hollywood's golden age. Meyers (Bogart: A Life in Hollywood, LJ 12/96) had the cooperation of Cooper's daughter as well as his friends, and what emerges is a balanced portrait of the man and his films. • Gary Cooper Books • Gary Cooper Movies
Marcus Daly -Founded the city of Anaconda. (December 5, 1841 – November 12, 1900) was an Irish-born American businessman known as one of the three "Copper Kings" of Butte, Montana, United States.

Daly's legacy was a mixed one for Anaconda. From 1885 to 1980, the smelter was one of the town's largest employers and provided well-paid jobs for generations. When the smelter closed in 1980, during a labor strike, 25% of the town's workforce was put out of work and the town has not recovered. The smelter itself was torn down as part of environmental cleanup efforts in the 1990s, although the smokestack is still visible above the town.

A statue of Daly stands at the main entrance to Montana Tech of the University of Montana (formerly the Montana School of Mines) at the west end of Park Street in Butte. • Marcus Daly Books

Alfred Bertram Guthrie (1901 - 1981) Pulitzer Prize-winning author; lived in Choteau.From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Gerald Bartell A childhood spent on the eastern edge of the Rockies in Choteau, Mont., kindled novelist A.B. Guthrie's lifelong interest in the pioneers who had settled there 70 years before his family arrived by stagecoach in 1901. Work as a reporter at the Lexington, Ky., Leader taught him to write tight prose. Mentors from Harvard's Nieman Fellowship program and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference helped him transform notes on color-coded 3x5 cards crammed in shoeboxes into "The Big Sky," the first installment in a six-novel saga of the West that begins in the 1830s and ends at the outbreak of World War I. Critical praise and a Pulitzer for "The Way West" (1949), the second in the series, confirmed Guthrie's success in moving fiction about the West from what he called "gun and gallop" pulps toward realistic tales of trappers and settlers who destroyed the land they loved. In this caring yet objective account of the novelist's life, Jackson J. Benson uncovers the passions and demons in Guthrie's life away from the desk, lending the biography meaning for general readers as well as writers. He published novels and articles well into his 70s and became a vocal conservationist. He died in 1991 at the age of 90. • Alfred Bertram Guthrie Books
Will James (1892 - 1942) Artist/Writer; lived in Billings. In 1920 he sold his first writing, Bucking Horse Riders, in 1922. The sale of several short stories and books followed, enabling him and his wife to buy a small ranch in Washoe Valley, Nevada, where he wrote his most famous book, Smoky The Cow Horse . It was published in 1926 and won the Newbery Medal for children's literature in 1927. Several film adaptations were made of the book, with James narrating the 1933 film. His fictionalized autobiography, Lone Cowboy , was written in 1930 and was a bestselling Book-of-the-Month Club selection. He wrote his last book, The American Cowboy , in 1942. In all, he wrote and illustrated 23 books. His later years were spent on his ranch at Pryor Creek, Montana and at his Billings, Montana home on Smoky Lane. Will witnessed movies made from his books and his fame grew. He died in 1942. • Will James Books
Evel Knievel (1938 - ) Daredevil motorcyclist; born in Butte.  He's in the Guinness Book of Records for the most broken bones in a single year. He claimed to have slept with more than 2,000 women. He battled alcoholism and gambling addictions, was jailed for attacking a colleague with a baseball bat, and blew an estimated $60 million fortune. And he became a superstar for repeatedly staring death in the face with his headline-grabbing stunts on his flying motorbike. Evel Knievel was the last great gladiator, an extraordinary thrill-seeker with an even more extraordinary life that endeared him to millions. • Evel Knievel Books
Jerry Kramer -Football player; (born January 23, 1936, in Jordan, Montana) is a former professional football player, author and sports commentator, best remembered for his 11-year NFL career with the Green Bay Packers as an offensive lineman. As a 6'3", 250 lb. right guard, #64 was an integral part of the famous "Packer Sweep", a signature play in which both guards rapidly pull out from their normal positions and lead-block for the running back going around the end. Kramer was an All-Pro five times, and a member of the NFL's 50th anniversary team in 1969, but surprisingly, even after appearing on the list of finalists ten times since becoming eligible, has not been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In NFL Network's Top 10 list of players not in the hall of fame, he was rated #1. • Jerry Kramer Books
Chet Huntley (1911 - 1974) TV newscaster; born in Cardwell.This biography of NBC newsman Chet Huntley, who, along with David Brinkley, anchored NBC’s "Huntley-Brinkley Report," covers his youth on a farm in Montana, his education and his graduation from the University of Washington, his development as a radio personality and news reporter for stations in Seattle, Spokane, Portland, and his work for CBS, ABC and NBC radio and television in Los Angeles from 1939 to 1955. It also details his move to New York and his work on the "Huntley-Brinkley Report" from 1956 to 1970, his retirement from the news business, his supervision of the development of the Big Sky Ski resort in Montana, and his death from cancer in 1974 at the age of 62. • Chet Huntley Books
David Lynch (1946 - ) Filmmaker; born in Missoula. Considering the filmmaker's entire career, McGowan examines Lynch's play with fantasy and traces the political, cultural, and existential impact of his unique style. Each chapter discusses the idea of impossibility in one of Lynch's films, including the critically acclaimed Blue Velvet and The Elephant Man; the densely plotted Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive; the cult favorite Eraserhead; and the commercially unsuccessful Dune. McGowan engages with theorists from the "golden age" of film studies (Christian Metz, Laura Mulvey, and Jean-Louis Baudry) and with the thought of Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, and Hegel. By using Lynch's weirdness as a point of departure, McGowan adds a new dimension to the field of auteur studies and reveals Lynch to be the source of a new and radical conception of fantasy. • David Lynch Books • David Lynch Films
Myrna Loy - (1905 - 1993) Legendary actress; born in Radersburg.For most of Loy's long Hollywood career she was known as "the perfect wife." On the basis of this memoir, it would seem that she was also pretty nearly "the perfect human being" as well. The narrative emphasizes her political activism working for the United Nations and for several Democratic presidential candidates, but Loy also recalls her early days in Montana, social and working life in Hollywood, and her later stage work. Interspersed throughout are remembrances by friends and co-workers, none of whom have anything but praise for Loy. Some readers may find themselves wishing the authors had been less tasteful and genteel. John Smothers, Monmouth Cty . Lib., Manalapan, N.J. • Myrna Loy Books • Myrna Loy Movies
Dave McNally -The only baseball pitcher to hit a grand slam home run in a World Series; born in Billings. (October 31, 1942–December 1, 2002) was a Major League Baseball left-handed starting pitcher from 1962 until 1975. He was signed by the Baltimore Orioles and played with them every year but his last one with the Montreal Expos. McNally is also part of World Series history for his (and his pitching mates') performance in the 1966 World Series, which the Orioles swept over the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers. In the fourth game, he and Don Drysdale matched four-hitters; one of Baltimore's hits was Frank Robinson's fourth-inning home run for a 1-0 Oriole victory. McNally's shutout capped a World Series in which Baltimore pitchers set a Fall Classic record by pitching 33 2/3 consecutive shutout innings, beginning with Moe Drabowsky's 6 2/3 scoreless innings in relief of McNally in Game One, followed by shutouts from Jim Palmer and Wally Bunker. Ironically, the trio had pitched one shutout total during the regular season—that by McNally on August 6 against the Washington Senators. • Dave McNally Books
George Montgomery (1916 - 2000) Actor; born in Brady. (August 29, 1916 - December 12, 2000) was an American painter, sculptor, furniture craftsman, and stuntman who is best known as an actor in western style film and television. Born George Montgomery Letz to Ukrainian immigrant parents in Brady, Montana, he was the youngest of fifteen children. He was raised on a large ranch where as a part of daily life he learned to ride horses and work cattle. Letz studied at the University of Montana but because he was more interested in a career in film, he left after a year to go to Hollywood. At Republic Pictures, his cowboy skills got him stunt work and a small acting part in a 1935 film, The Singing Vagabond. • George Montgomery Books • George Montgomery Movies
Jeannette Rankin (1880 - 1973) A Montana Republican, became the first woman to serve in Congress in 1917; born in Missoula*Starred Review* By any measure, Jeannette Rankin was a woman ahead of her time. She was Montana's representative in Congress before women in other states even had the right to vote. Woelfle does a terrific job introducing Rankin, beginning an attention-grabbing story in which an elderly Rankin, a lifelong pacifist, leads an antiwar protest during the 1970s. Woelfle then moves back in time, restarting the story with an anecdote about young Jeannette sewing up an injured horse on her father's ranch. Readers' interest level will stay high throughout as Rankin finds satisfaction in working as a social worker and then discovers her calling as a crusader for women's rights. Even during her two short tenures in Congress, Rankin never abandoned her core beliefs; she voted against both World War I and II declarations of war (in the case of the latter, standing alone). • Jeannette Rankin Books
Martha Raye actress, Butte  Clownish comedienne/performer Martha Raye (1916-1994) was best known for a string of movie roles before World War II, an eponymous television show in the 1950s and long patriotic service entertaining American troops, from WWII through Vietnam. This biography, based mainly on secondary sources (not footnoted) provides a saucy sketch of Raye's roller-coaster life. Born "Margy Reed" to traveling vaudevillians, she became "Martha Raye" as a teen singer and quickly rose to Hollywood roles. Her large and elastic mouth helped her physicalize gags and, much later in her career, inspired the book's title phrase, via a 1980 commercial for denture cleansers. Though Pitrone (The Dodges: The Auto Family Fortune and Misfortune) does explain that Raye's singing, dancing and comedic talent made her a singular clown, the book never quite makes Raye's stage presence felt • Martha Raye Books • Martha Raye Films
Charles Marion Russell (1864-1926) Charles Marion Russell was many things: consummate Westerner, historian, advocate of the Northern Plains Indians, cowboy, outdoorsman, writer, philosopher, environmentalist and conservationist, and not least, artist.  Moved to the Judith Basin of Montana in 1880.Charlie Russell, whose art combined documentation and romance, played a large part in establishing cowboy culture. Son of one of the leading families in St. Louis, he had dime-novel fantasies about the West. In 1880, aged 16, Russell left home for Montana Territory to be a cowboy. For the next 15 years, he led a devil-may-care existence as a wrangler, drinking heavily, womanizing, pleading for credit. Journalist Taliaferro brings the artist and the frontier to life in this sparkling biography. By 1887, Russell had gained local recognition for his art but was reluctant to push his career. All changed when he married a fiery young woman half his age in 1896. Wife Nancy became his promoter and business agent, arranging exhibitions and sales nationwide. By all accounts, Russell was a charmer; much of his success as a painter, says the author, must be attributed to his appealing personality. He died in 1926. This is an important book for Western buffs. • Charles Marion Russell Books
Michael Smuin (October 13, 1938 – April 23, 2007) choreographer Born in Missoula, Montana, Smuin was a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre and the San Francisco Ballet, for which he served as co-artistic director from 1973 through 1985. He also choreographed for the Dance Theatre of Harlem, Washington Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and Milwaukee Ballet, among others. Smuin's Broadway credits included Little Me (1962) as a dancer, Anything Goes (1987) as a choreographer, and Sophisticated Ladies (1981) and Shogun: The Musical (1990) as choreographer and director. He also choreographed the 1995 West End production of Mack and Mabel.

Smuin's film credits included The Fantasticks, A Walk in the Clouds, The Joy Luck Club, The Cotton Club, and Rumble Fish. • Michael Smuin Books

Lester C. Thurow economist, educator, Livingston (born 1938) is a former dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management and author of numerous bestsellers on economic topics. Thurow is a longtime advocate of a political and economic system of the Japanese and European type, in which governmental involvement in the direction of the economy is far more extensive than is presently the case in the United States – a model that has come to be known as "Third Way" philosophy. He has achieved some notoriety for books he wrote in the 1980s suggesting that the Soviet Union, due to their command economy, posed a significant economic threat to the United States. In 1989, two years before the USSR imploded, he wrote, "Can economic command significantly... accelerate the growth process? The remarkable performance of the Soviet Union suggests that it can... Today the Soviet Union is a country whose economic achievements bear comparison with those of the United States." • Lester C. Thurow Books
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