Famous People of Kentucky

Prior to the Vice Presidency, Barkley served in the U. S. Senate from Kentucky for over twenty years, and was Majority Leader of that body from 1937 to 1947.

Barkley was born Willie Alben Barkley in a log cabin near Lowes, Graves County, Kentucky. His parents, John Wilson Barkley and Electra Eliza (Smith) Barkley, were deeply religious tenant farmers. He graduated from Marvin College in 1897, where he excelled in speech and debate. He worked his way through college with a full-time janitorial job. Barkley later attended Emory College, in Atlanta, Georgia. He was a member of Delta Tau Delta Social Fraternity, graduated in 1900, and then attended the University of Virginia School of Law . It was during this time that he legally changed his name from "Willie Alben" to "Alben William." • Alben W. Barkley Books

After a confrontation in Alexandria one afternoon, Wright fired a shot at Bowie. The uninjured Bowie was enraged and tried to kill Wright with his bare hands. Wright's friends intervened and stopped the attack, after which Bowie resolved to carry his hunting knife at all times. The knife he carried had a huge blade that was 9.25 inches (23.5 cm) long and 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) wide. A Bowie knife

The following year, on September 19, 1827, Bowie and Wright attended a duel on a sandbar outside of Natchez, Mississippi. Bowie supported duelist Samuel Levi Wells III, while Wright supported Wells's opponent, Dr. Thomas Harris Maddox. • James Bowie Books

Brandeis settled in Boston where he became a recognized lawyer through his work on social causes that would benefit society. He helped develop the "right to privacy" concept by writing a Harvard Law Review article of that title, and was thereby credited by legal scholar Roscoe Pound as having accomplished "nothing less than adding a chapter to our law". Years later, a book he published, entitled Other People's Money, suggested ways of curbing the power of large banks and money trusts, which partly explains why he later fought against powerful corporations, monopolies, public corruption, and mass consumerism, all of which he felt were detrimental to American values and culture. He also became active in the Zionist movement, seeing it as a solution to the "Jewish problem" of antisemitism in Europe and Russia, while at the same time being a way to "revive the Jewish spirit." • Louis D. Brandeis Books

Born in Louisville, Kentucky, he graduated from Harvard College in 1923. He worked for the New York Evening Post from 1929 to 1941. He served as a lieutenant in the United States Navy during World War II, beginning in 1942. His book, To All Hands, documents his activities aboard the USS Ancon (AGC-4) during Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily. Upon his return, his "Seeing Things" column appeared in The Saturday Review starting in 1944 until his death in New York City.

Brown resigned from the Pulitzer Prize drama jury in 1963 when the advisory board refused his recommendation of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. • John Mason Brown Books

Clark was born in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky to John Hampton Clark and Aletha Beauchamp. Through his mother he was the first cousin twice removed of the famous lawyer turned murderer Jereboam O. Beauchamp. He graduated from Bethany College (Bethany, West Virginia) and Cincinnati Law School and moved to Missouri in 1875, and opened a law practice the following year. He eventually settled in Bowling Green, Missouri, the county seat of Pike County, from where he was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1892. After a surprise loss in 1894 to William M. Treloar, he regained the seat in 1896, and remained in the House until shortly before his death. • Champ Clark Books

He is also related to another singer, Debby Boone, who married José and Rosemary's son, Gabriel Ferrer. From an early age, Clooney would hang around his father's sets, often participating in shows, where he proved to be a crowd favorite.• George Clooney Books • George Clooney Movies

Clooney's career languished in the 1960s, partly due to problems related to depression and drug addiction, but revived in 1974, when her White Christmas co-star Bing Crosby asked her to appear with him at a show marking his 50th anniversary in show business. From the late 1970s until her death in 2002, she recorded a series of albums for the Concord Jazz record label with small ensembles which were warmly received by audiences and critics alike. • Rosemary Clooney Books • Rosemary Clooney Discography

Cobb was the second of four children born to Kentucky natives in Paducah, Kentucky. His grandfather Reuben Saunders, M.D., is credited with discovering in 1873 that hypodermic use of morphine-atropine halted cholera. Cobb was raised in Paducah, where the events and people of his childhood became the basis for much of his later works.

Cobb was educated in public and private elementary schools and then entered William A. Cade's Academy intending to pursue a law career. When he was 16, his grandfather died and his father became an alcoholic. Forced to quit school and find work, he began his writing career. • Irvin S. Cobb Books

Brenda Gail Webb was born in Paintsville, Kentucky, the youngest of 8 children. Her family moved to Wabash, Indiana when she was four. Inspired by her sister Loretta Lynn's performance she decided to learn guitar and sing in her brothers' folk band. While she was still in high school, Webb began to tour part time with Loretta Lynn. After graduating Wabash High School, Webb signed on with Decca Records, her sister's record label. However, since there was already a star named "Brenda Lee" with Decca Records, Decca asked Webb to change her first name. It was her older sister Loretta Lynn who suggested the name 'Crystal' for her singing career (after noticing a sign for the Krystal restaurant chain). So Webb took the stage name 'Crystal Gayle'  • Crystal Gayle Discography • Crystal Gayle Books

Hines and his wife, Florence, began assembling a list for friends of several hundred good restaurants around the country. The list became so popular, that he began selling a paperback book entitled Adventures in Good Eating (1935), which highlighted restaurants and their featured dishes that Hines had personally enjoyed in cities and towns across America.• Duncan Hines Books

Casey Jones was born March 14, 1863, in southeast Missouri to country school teacher Frank Jones and his wife Anne, though his exact place of birth is unknown, the first of five children. In 1876, his family moved to the small community of Cayce, Kentucky. As a boy, he developed a growing obsession with trains from spending time around the Cayce depot. In 1878, at the age of 15, he went to work for the Mobile and Ohio Railroad as a telegrapher in nearby Columbus. Jones grew to be 6’4 1/2" tall with dark hair, gray eyes, and a slim build. His size and strength made him a natural for the often brutal work of railroad life. In 1884 he moved to Jackson, Tennessee, still in the employ of the M&O, to take a job as a flagman, where he stayed at a boarding house for railroad men run by the mother of his future wife, who worked there as well. • Casey Jones Books

A faithful Christian, Littrell has stated that he believes it is the duty of Christians to be open about their faith, saying, "I think as Christians we need to join hands and mount up together and lift God up and talk about our faith publicly and talk about all of the things God has done for us in our life to touch other people." Littrell, who has been a Born Again Christian since age 8 has said that he attributes his success in life to God, and that his faith has always been "the utmost important thing" in his life • Brian Littrell Books • Brian Littrell Discography

Nation was a large woman, almost 6 feet (180 cm) tall and weighing 175 pounds (80 kg) and of a somewhat stern countenance. She described herself as "a bulldog running along at the feet of Jesus, barking at what He doesn't like," and claimed a divine ordination to promote temperance by smashing up bars.

The spelling of her first name is ambiguous and both Carrie and Carry are considered correct. Official records say Carrie, which Nation used most of her life, but Carry was used by her father in the family Bible. Upon beginning her campaign against liquor in the early 20th century, she adopted the name Carry A. Nation mainly for its value as a slogan, and had it registered as a trademark in the state of Kansas. Carry Amelia Nation Books

After moving to New York, she accepted her first job as understudy in the Broadway production of The Voice of the Turtle. Next she appeared in Another Part of the Forest (1946), winning a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Play.

In 1949, Neal made her film debut in John Loves Mary. Her appearance the same year in The Fountainhead coincided with her on-going affair with her married co-star, Gary Cooper. Later she co-starred with Michael Rennie in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).

In 1963, Neal won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Hud, co-starring Paul Newman. When the film was initially released it was predicted she would be a nominee in the supporting actress category but she began collecting awards and they were always for Best Leading Actress. She not only received the Academy Award but also picked up awards from the New York Film Critics and the National Board of Review. She also received a BAFTA award from the British Academy. Two years later, in 1965, she was reunited with John Wayne in Otto Preminger's In Harm's Way winning her second BAFTA Award. • Patricia NeaL Books • Patricia Neal Movies

Rutledge was born in Cloverport, Kentucky (more specifically, at nearby Tar Springs) to Wiley Blount Rutledge, Sr., a Southern Baptist minister, and Mary Lou Wigginton Rutledge (d. 1903). Another son died in infancy, and then his sister Margaret was born in 1897. His family moved about while he was young, but he attended college at Maryville College and then the University of Wisconsin–Madison, graduating from there in 1914. Rutledge taught high school in Indiana while attending the Indiana University law school part-time. He later moved to Colorado, and received a degree from the University of Colorado School of Law in Boulder. While matriculating at Colorado, Rutledge joined the Pi Chapter of Alpha Sigma Phi Fraternity.

Rutledge worked in private practice in Boulder for a few years before deciding to instead pursue an academic career. He taught at a number of law schools before being named Dean of the University of Iowa College of Law in 1935. From this position, Rutledge was a vocal supporter of Franklin Roosevelt's plan to pack the Supreme Court. Rutledge also served as Dean of Washington University School of Law from 1930-1935, where the Wiley Rutledge Moot Court competition is named in his honor. Wiley B. Rutledge Books

Until December 11, 2009, Sawyer was a long-time co-anchor of ABC News's morning news program, Good Morning America (GMA).

In 2001 she was named one of the thirty most-powerful women in America by the Ladies' Home Journal. In 2007 she ranked 62nd on "Forbes Magazine's List of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women".

Born Lila Diane Sawyer in Glasgow, Kentucky, Sawyer is the daughter of Jean W. (née Dunagan), an elementary school teacher, and Erbon Powers "Tom" Sawyer, a judge. Soon after her birth, her family moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where her father rose to local prominence as a Republican politician and community leader; he was Kentucky's Jefferson County Judge/Executive when he was killed in a car accident on Louisville's Interstate 64 in 1969. E. P. "Tom" Sawyer State Park, located in the Frey's Hill area of Louisville, is named in his honor. • Diane Sawyer Books

Tate was born near Winchester, Kentucky to John Orley Tate, a businessman, and Eleanor Parke Custis Varnell. In 1916 and 1917 Tate studied the violin at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music.

He began attending Vanderbilt University in 1918, where he met fellow poet Robert Penn Warren. Warren and Tate were invited to join a group of young Southern poets under the leadership of John Crowe Ransom; the group were known as the Fugitive Poets and later as the Southern Agrarians. Tate contributed to the group's magazine The Fugitive and to the agrarian manifesto I'll Take My Stand published in 1930. Tate also joined Ransom to teach at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. • Allen Tate Books

Hunter Stockton Thompson was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the first of three sons to Jack Robert Thompson (1893 - July 3, 1952), an insurance adjuster and a World War I veteran, and Virginia Davidson Ray (1908-1998), a reference librarian. His parents met after being introduced by a mutual friend from Jack's fraternity in 1934, and married in 1935.

The Thompson family resided in the Cherokee Triangle neighborhood of the Highlands in Louisville. Jack Thompson died of myasthenia gravis, a neuromuscular disease, on July 3, 1952, when Hunter was 14 years old, leaving three sons — Hunter, Davison, and James (February 2, 1949 – March 25, 1993) — to be brought up by their mother. Contemporaries indicated that after Jack's death, Virginia became a "heavy drinker." • Hunter Thompson Books

Varney was born the fourth child and only son of Louise Varney (née Howard) (January 14, 1913 - August 22, 1994) and James Albert Varney, Sr. (January 1, 1910 - January 11, 1985), in Lexington, Kentucky, where he grew up. He began his interest in theater as a teenager, winning state titles in drama competitions while a student at Lafayette High School (which he graduated from with the class of 1968) in Lexington. He attended Murray State University at the age of 15, where he portrayed Ebenezer Scrooge in a local theater production, and by 17, he was performing professionally in nightclubs and coffee houses. Jim studied Shakespeare at the Barter Theatre located in Virginia and performed in an Opryland folk show its first year of operation in the 1970's. He listed a former teacher, Thelma Beeler, as being one of the main contributing factors in his becoming an actor. • Jim Varney Books • Jim Varney Films

Fred Vinson was born in the newly built, eight-room, red brick house in front of the Lawrence County jail, Louisa, Kentucky, where his father served as the Lawrence County Jailer. As a child he would help his father in the jail and even made friends with prisoners who would remember his kindness when he later ran for public office. Vinson worked odd jobs while in school. He graduated from Kentucky Normal School in 1908 and enrolled at Centre College, where he graduated at the top of his class. While at Centre, he was a member of the Kentucky Alpha Delta chapter of Phi Delta Theta fraternity. He became a lawyer in Louisa, a small town of 2,500 residents. He first ran for, and was elected to, office as the City Attorney of Louisa.

He joined the Army during World War I. Following the war, he was elected as the Commonwealth's Attorney for the Thirty-Second Judicial District of Kentucky. • Frederick M. Vinson Books