Famous People of Indiana

Ade was born in Kentland, Indiana, one of seven children raised by John and Adaline (Bush) Ade. While attending Purdue University, he became a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. He also met and started a lifelong friendship with fellow cartoonist and Sigma Chi brother John T. McCutcheon and worked as a reporter for the Lafayette Call. He graduated in 1887.

In 1890 Ade joined the Chicago Morning News, which later became the Chicago Record, where McCutcheon was working. He wrote the column, Stories of the Streets and of the Town. In the column, which McCutcheon illustrated, George Ade illustrated Chicago-life. It featured characters like Artie, an office boy; Doc Horne, a gentlemanly liar; and Pink Marsh, a black shoeshine boy. Ade's well-known "fables in slang" also made their first appearance in this popular column.

Ade's literary reputation rests upon his achievements as a great humorist of American character during an important era in American history • George Ade Books

In a long and successful career on stage, screen, radio, and television, Academy Award-winning actress Anne Baxter was best known for her roles in the film classics The Razor's Edge (1946) and All about Eve (1950). This bio-bibliography describes her life and career in a biography and chronology, and details her achievements in the different production media, providing full credits, synopses, and review sources for the films and plays. An extensive bibliography notes focused and passing treatment of Baxter in a wide variety of books and periodicals. • Anne Baxter Books • Anne Baxter Movies

The heart and soul of a champion: his life, his career, his game. To understand basketball, you have to understand Larry Bird. Arguably the greatest all-around player the game has ever known, he led the Boston Celtics from the basement to three world championships, collecting three NBA Most Valuable Player awards along the way. Yet, despite these massive accomplishments, Bird has rarely talked to the press, and much about the man has remained a mystery. Now in Drive, the long-silent superstar sets the record straight, revealed a side of himself-and of basketball-you've never see before. Inside, you'll learn Bird's most private feelings about: The momentous decision to transfer from Bobby Knight's Indiana University to Indiana State. The heartbreak of his father's suicide and his own failed marriage. The single-minded discipline that tumed a small-town hero into a national superstar. The Boston Garden and the legendary Celtic charm. The Isiah Thomas controversy and the fierce Celtic-Laker rivalry. The great players of the NBA: including Magic Johnson, Dominique Wilkins, and Michael Jordan, and much more. here is the book that puts a basketball legend-and his game-on the line. And scores! • Larry Bird Books

Alec Wilder, in his study of the American popular song, concluded that Hoagy Carmichael was the "most talented, inventive, sophisticated and jazz-oriented" of the hundreds of writers composing pop songs in the first half of the 20th century

Born in Bloomington, Indiana, Carmichael was the only son of Howard Clyde Carmichael and Lida Robison. He was named Hoagland after a circus troupe "The Hoaglands" who stayed at the Carmichael house during his mother's pregnancy. Howard was a horse-drawn taxi driver and electrician, and Lida a versatile pianist who played accompaniment at silent movies and for parties. The family moved frequently, as Howard sought better employment for his growing family. At six, Carmichael started to sing and play the piano, absorbing easily his mother's keyboard skills. By high school, the piano was the focus of his after-school life, and for inspiration he would listen to ragtime pianists Hank Wells and Hube Hanna • Hoagy Carmichael Books • Hoagy Carmichael Discography

In the early part of his political career, Debs was a member of the Democratic Party of the United States. It was during this time that he was elected as a member of the Indiana General Assembly, marking the beginning of his career as a politician. After working with several smaller unions, including the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, Debs was instrumental in the founding of the American Railway Union, the nation's first industrial union. As a member of the ARU, Debs was involved and later imprisoned for his part in the famed Pullman Strike, when workers struck the Pullman Palace Car Company over a pay cut. The effects of the strike resulted in President Grover Cleveland calling members of the United States Army into Chicago, Illinois, which led to Debs' arrest and imprisonment. • Eugene V. Debs Books

Dreiser was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, to Sarah and John Paul Dreiser, a strict Catholic family. John Paul Dreiser was a German immigrant and Sarah was from the Mennonite farming community near Dayton, Ohio; she was disowned for marrying John and converting to Roman Catholicism. Theodore was the twelfth of thirteen children (the ninth of the ten surviving). The popular songwriter Paul Dresser (1859–1906) was his older brother.

His first novel, Sister Carrie (1900), tells the story of a woman who flees her country life for the city (Chicago) and falls into a wayward life. It sold poorly, but it later acquired a considerable reputation. (It was made into a 1952 film by William Wyler, which starred Laurence Olivier and Jennifer Jones.) • Theodore Dreiser Books

Grissom was born in Mitchell, Indiana. As a child he attended the local Church of Christ and became a lifelong member. He was a member of Boy Scout Troop 46. Grissom graduated from Mitchell High School in 1944. He married Betty Moore Grissom on July 6, 1945. They would have two children, Scott and Mark. Grissom was a master Mason and member of Mitchell Lodge 228.

In 1961, Grissom was pilot of Mercury-Redstone 4, popularly known as Liberty Bell 7, the second American (suborbital) spaceflight. After splashdown explosive bolts blew the hatch off unexpectedly and water flooded into the tiny capsule. Grissom exited through the open hatch and into the ocean but nearly drowned as water filled his flightsuit while a helicopter tried to lift and recover the spacecraft. The capsule became too heavy with water and sank. Grissom strongly asserted he had done nothing to blow the hatch and NASA officials eventually concluded that he was correct. Initiating the explosive egress system required hitting a metal trigger with the side of a closed fist. • Virgil Grissom Books

A. B. Guthrie, Jr. was born in Bedford, Indiana, and moved with his parents to Montana when he was six months old. His father was a graduate of Indiana University, his mother from an Earlham College at Richmond, Indiana. "My father came West to become the first principal of the first high school in the Montana territory," he said.

Nine Guthrie children were born, but most of them died as infants. A.B. was a sickly child and the Guthries moved their children to Ontario, California, for their health. Two months later their 13-year-old daughter died from a tick bite and the Guthries moved back to Montana. There, some months later, their youngest son also died. Only three of the nine children survived to adulthood.

A constant reader, Guthrie tried to write while in high school, "fiction pretty much, some essays, but I majored in journalism. My father had been a newspaper man for four years in this little town in Kentucky, and I guess he thought it was the way to become a writer," a point his son disputed because the crafts are so different. • Alfred Bertram Guthrie Books

Harris was born in Linton, Indiana, but actually grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, and identified himself as a Southerner (his hallmark song was "That's What I Like About the South"). His upbringing accounted for both his trace of a Southern accent and, in later years, the self-deprecating Southern jokes of his radio character. The son of two circus performers, Harris' first work as a drummer came when his father, as tent bandleader, hired him to play with the circus band. Harris began his music career as a drummer in San Francisco, forming an orchestra with Carol Lofner in the latter 1920s and starting a long engagement at the St. Francis Hotel. The partnership ended by 1932, and Harris led and sang with his own band, now based in Los Angeles. Phil Harris also played drums in Henry Halstead Big Band Orchestra in the mid 1920s. • Phil Harris Books • Phil Harris Movies

Hay was born in Salem, Indiana, of Scottish ancestry, the third son of Dr. Charles Hay and Helen Leonard from Middleboro, Massachusetts, who had come to Salem to live with her sister. He was raised in Warsaw, Illinois, and educated first at the private school of the Reverend Stephen Childs, an Episcopal clergyman. In 1851 John went to an academy at Pittsfield in Pike County, where he met an older student, John G. Nicolay, with whom he would later work as private secretary to Abraham Lincoln. In 1852 John Hay went to the college at Springfield, and in 1855 was sent to Brown University, where he joined Theta Delta Chi. At Brown, he developed an interest in poetry, and Hay became a part of Providence's literary circle which included Sarah Helen Whitman and Nora Perry. When he graduated, he was named Class Poet. He left Brown in 1858 before receiving his diploma and went home to Warsaw to study law with his uncle, Milton Hay • John Milton Hay Books

Hoffa served as the General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters from 1958–1971, despite being incarcerated during the latter four years of his tenure. Hoffa, who had been convicted of jury tampering and attempted bribery in 1964, was imprisoned in 1967 after exhausting the appeal process. However, he did not officially resign the Teamsters' presidency until 1971. This was part of a pardon agreement with U.S. president Richard Nixon, in order to facilitate Hoffa's release from prison. Hoffa was last seen in 1975 outside a suburban Detroit restaurant called the Machus Red Fox.

Hoffa was born in Brazil, Indiana, on February 14, 1913. His paternal ancestors were "Pennsylvania Dutch" and Irish-American. Hoffa's father, John Cleveland Hoffa, a coal driller, died of lung disease in 1920. After his father's death, the family moved to Detroit, where Hoffa was raised and lived for most of the rest of his life.

The Hoffa family later had a summer property in Lake Orion, Michigan, a northern Detroit suburb. • James R. Hoffa Books

Charles Frederick Gebhart was born on the outskirts of Vincennes, Indiana on December 12, 1891. (Some sources erroneously indicate December 4, 1889, but Jones's marriage license and his military records confirm the 1891 date.In 1907, Jones joined the US Army at age sixteen, after his mother signed a release form authorizing his enlistment. He was initially assigned to Troop G, 6th Cavalry Regiment. He served in combat and was wounded in the Philippine islands during the Moro Rebellion, deploying there in October 1907, returning to the U.S. in December 1909. He was discharged honorably that same year, at Fort McDowell, California. • Buck Jones Books • Buck Jones Movies

Letterman lived near the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and enjoyed collecting model cars, including racers In 2000 he told an interviewer for Esquire that, while growing up, he admired his father's ability to tell jokes and be the life of the party. Harry Joseph Letterman survived a heart attack at age 36, when David was a young boy. The fear of losing his father was constantly with Letterman as he grew up. Harry Joseph Letterman died of a second heart attack at age 57.• David Letterman Books • David Letterman Films

His company was successful and he soon became wealthy after making numerous advances in medicinal drug manufacturing. Two of the early advances he pioneered were creating gelatin capsules to hold medicine and fruit flavoring for liquid medicines. Eli Lilly & Company was one of the first pharmaceutical firms of its kind; it staffed a dedicated research department and put in place numerous quality-assurance measures. • Eli Lilly Books

Lombard was born Jane Alice Peters in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Her parents were Frederick C. Peters (1875-1935) and Elizabeth Knight (1877-1942). Her paternal grandfather, John Claus Peters, was the son of German immigrants, Claus Peters and Caroline Catherine Eberlin. Lombard was the youngest of three children, having two older brothers. She spent her early childhood in a sprawling, two-story house at 704 Rockhill Street in Fort Wayne, near the St. Mary's River. Her father had been injured during his early life and was left with constant headaches which caused him to burst out in paroxysms of anger which disturbed the family. Her parents divorced and her mother took the three children to Los Angeles in 1914, where Lombard attended Virgil Jr. High School and then Fairfax High School. She was elected "May Queen" in 1924. She quit school to pursue acting full-time, but graduated from Fairfax in 1927. Lombard was a second generation Bahá'í who formally enrolled in 1938. • Carole Lombard Books  • Carole Lombard Movies

Long was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana at 7:00 A.M. on Tuesday, August 23, 1949. The daughter of Evandine, a school teacher, and Leland Long, who worked in the rubber industry before becoming a teacher. She was active on her high school speech team, and in 1967 she won the National Forensic League National Championship in Original Oratory. She delivered a speech on the need for sex education in high school entitled "Sex Perversion Weed." After graduating from South Side High School in Fort Wayne, she studied drama at Northwestern University, but left before graduating to pursue a career in acting and modelling. Her first break as an actress occurred when she began doing commercials in the Chicago area for a furniture company called Homemakers. • Shelley Long Books • Shelley Long Movies