Famous People of Colorado

Acclaimed writer Dan Baum captures it all, from Adolph's Prohibition-provoked suicide to the banishment of an heir-apparent for marrying without permission. Baum vividly depicts the genius, eccentricity, and tragic weaknesses of the remarkable Coors family. • Adolph Coors Books

Born in Merino, Colorado, Edwards began his career as a radio announcer while still at Oakland High School in California, landing a part time job at KROW-AM. After graduating in 1931, he worked his way through college at the University of California, Berkeley, earning a B.A. in English in 1935.While there, he worked at every job from janitor to producer at Oakland's KTAB. Failing to get a job as a high school teacher, he worked at KFRC and then hitchhiked across the country to New York, where, he said, "I ate ten-cent meals and slept on park benches," .

After some part time announcing jobs, he got his big break in 1938 with a fulltime job for the Columbia Broadcasting System on WABC (now WCBS-AM), where he worked with two other young announcers who would become broadcasting fixtures - Mel Allen and Andre Baruch. • Ralph Edwards Books

Gr 4-6This biography begins with Elways birth in 1960 and ends with the 1998 season when the quarterback won his first Super Bowl ring with the Denver Broncos. Christopher packs this lively account with play-by-play action. Though filled with factual information, the text reads like a story. Unfortunately, the book lacks an index, bibliography, source notes, or suggestions for further reading. Dan Hirshbergs John Elway (Chelsea, 1997), which has an index and a short suggested-reading list, covers the same material but is dated. Also, because Denver won the 1999 Super Bowl, there are sure to be more biographies in the making. However, Christophers book is an entertaining read for sports fans. Black-and-white action shots of the athlete appear in a middle section.Barb Lawler, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, PA • John Elway Books

The Douglas Fairbanks Museum has assembled an engaging collection of the writings of Douglas Fairbanks with In His Own Words. These selected stories make for a fascinating read; especially considering that most of them have not been seen since their initial publication nearly a century ago.

Starting with his first short story in 1912, this new book features autobiographical accounts, interviews, and rare personal correspondence, as well as the original story treatments for his classic films The Three Musketeers, Robin Hood, The Thief of Bagdad, and The Black Pirate. In His Own Words reveals Fairbanks to be a writer of great sincerity, versatility, humor and appeal. • Douglas Fairbanks Books • Douglas Fairbanks Movies

World-renowned violin soloist. Eugene Fodor ( is an American violinist. Fodor's first ten years of study were with Harold Wippler. He then studied at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City, Indiana University and the University of Southern California, where his teachers included Ivan Galamian, Josef Gingold and Jascha Heifetz, respectively. Fodor made his solo debut with the Denver Symphony at the age of ten, playing Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 and began touring as a soloist while still a young teenager. Fodor won numerous national contests before the age of seventeen, including First Prize in both the Merriweather Post Competition in Washington, D.C. and the Young Musicians Foundation Competition in Los Angeles, California. • Eugene Fodor Books

Subsequently, Fowler worked for the New York Daily Mirror, and then became newspaper syndication manager for King Features. His later work included over a dozen screenplays, mostly written in the 1930s, and a number of books including biographies and memoirs.

During his years in Hollywood, Fowler became close to such celebrities as John Barrymore and W.C. Fields. Fields, whose animus toward children is legendary, claimed that Gene Fowler's sons were the only children he could stand.

In 1916, Fowler married Agnes Hubbard who bore three children, the eldest of whom was Gene Fowler Jr. (1917-1998), a prominent Hollywood film editor (whose work included It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and Hang 'Em High) and a sometime director (1959's I Was a Teenage Werewolf as well as numerous television programs).. • Gene Fowler Books

A native of Greeley, Colorado, Gipson moved with his family to Caldwell, Idaho as a boy. After dropping out of high school, he worked at various odd jobs (such as mining and driving stage coaches), as well as at the family business, Caxton Press, which published Idaho Odd Fellow, the Gem State Rural and Livestock Farmer.

Gipson graduated from the University of Idaho in 1903. He was then selected to be one of the first Rhodes Scholars. Receiving his B.A. from Oxford University in 1907 • Lawrence H. Gipson Books

Her husband, Elliot Handler and his business partner, Harold "Matt" Matson, formed a small company to manufacture picture frames, calling it "Mattel" by combining part of their names ("Matt" and "Elliot"). Later, they began using scraps from the manufacturing process to make dollhouse furniture. The furniture was more profitable than the picture frames and it was decided to concentrate on toy manufacturing. The company's first big-seller was the "Uka-a-doodle", a toy ukulele. • Ruth Handler Books

Erick Hawkins was born in Trinidad, Colorado on April 23 1909. He majored in Greek civilization at Harvard University, graduating in 1930. But a performance by the German dancers Harald Kreutzberg and Yvonne Georgi so impressed him that he went to Austria to study dance with the former. Later, he studied at the School of American Ballet. Soon he was dancing with George Balanchine's American Ballet. In 1937, he choreographed his first dance, Show Piece, which was performed by Ballet Caravan.

The next year, Hawkins was the first man to dance with the company of the famous modern dancer and choreographer Martha Graham. The following year, he officially joined her troupe, dancing male lead in a number of her works, including Appalachian Spring in 1944. The two were married in 1948. He left her troupe in 1951 to found his own, and they divorced in 1954.

Not long afterwards, he met and began collaborating with the experimental composer Lucia Dlugoszewski. They remained together for the rest of his life • Erick Hawkins Books

Born in Denver, Colorado to Alfred E. (b.1845) and Hersa A. (1846-1879; née Coberly) Lea, his father served with the 3rd Colorado Cavalry during the Civil War. His mother died before his third birthday, 13 August 1879. Alfred is listed in the Jackson County, Missouri 1850 census, Washington Township, with the entire family being born in Tenessee.

His grandfather, Dr. Pleasant John Graves Lea (b.1808; also grandfather of Thomas Calloway Lea, Jr., Homer's first cousin, a prominent attorney and mayor of El Paso, Texas), is the namesake for Lee's Summit, Missouri, although the name became spelled with an "e" instead of "a" because a stone culvert next to the Missouri Pacific Railroad station was set this way • Homer Lea Books

Libby was born in Grand Valley, Colorado. He received his B.S. in 1931 and Ph.D. in 1933 in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, where he then became a lecturer and later assistant professor. Libby spent the 1930s building sensitive geiger counters to measure weak natural and artificial radioactivity. In 1941 he joined Berkeley's chapter of Alpha Chi Sigma.

Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, he spent most of 1941 at Princeton University. After the start of World War II, he worked on the Manhattan Project at Columbia University with Nobel laureate chemist Harold Urey. Libby was responsible for the gaseous diffusion separation and enrichment of the Uranium-235 which was used in the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.  Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, discovered radio-carbon dating • Willard Libby Books

Ouray was a Native American leader of the Uncompahgre band of the Ute tribe of modern-day Utah and Colorado. Ouray was born in what is now New Mexico. According to oral history passed down by Ute elders, he was born on the gloriously clear night of November 13, 1833, when a magnificent display of the Leonid meteor showers streaked across the black winter night. The elders had believed it was a sign; a message from above of good things to happen. Some accounts however state that he was born as early as 1820. The son of Guera Murah, a Jicarilla Apache adopted into the Ute. His mother was a Tabeguache Ute. He learned Spanish, English, and later both the Apache and Ute languages, which he found helpful in negotiating treaties. • Ouray Books

Florence Sabin was born in Central City, Colorado, on November 9, 1871. She graduated from Smith College in 1893, attended the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and was the first woman to graduate from that institution. In 1902 she began to teach anatomy at Johns Hopkins. Appointed professor of histology in 1917, she was the first woman to become a full professor at a medical college. In 1924 Sabin was elected the first woman president of the American Association of Anatomists and the first lifetime woman member of the National Academy of Sciences. • Florence R. Sabin Books

White was born in Fort Collins, Colorado. He was raised in the nearby town of Wellington, Colorado, where he obtained his high school diploma in 1930. He made a point of returning to Wellington on an annual basis for his high school reunions up until 1999 when his physical health worsened significantly. He died in Denver at the age of 84 from complications of pneumonia.

After graduating at the top of his Wellington high school class, White attended the University of Colorado at Boulder on a scholarship. He joined the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity[3] and served as student body president his senior year. Graduating in 1938, he won a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford and, after having deferred it for a year to play football, he went on to attend Hertford College, Oxford. • Byron Raymond White Books

Leader of the most popular dance bands in the United States during the 1920s, Whiteman's recordings were immensely successful, and he was dubbed the "King of Jazz." In 1924, Whiteman commissioned and debuted George Gershwin's jazz-influenced "Rhapsody In Blue." Whiteman recorded many jazz and pop standards during his career, including "Wang Wang Blues", "Mississippi Mud", "Rhapsody in Blue", "Wonderful One", "Hot Lips", "Mississippi Suite", and "Grand Canyon Suite". His popularity faded in the swing music era of the 1930s, and by the 1940s Whiteman was semi-retired from music. • Paul Whiteman Books